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-isms in the Media

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  • Seriously, SRS is not a healthy place for me. I understand why it exists; those people want to have a real discussion about social justice stuff without their subreddits being taken over by MRAs like what happened to the feminist and 2XC one. But it does not sync up well with my life experiences. I have way too much baggage about this sort of stuff. Over the last few weeks I've been getting increasingly confrontational, angry, and irrational. I'm really sorry about that.
  • edited February 2012
    Seriously, SRS is not a healthy place for me. I understand why it exists; those people want to have a real discussion about social justice stuff without their subreddits being taken over by MRAs like what happened to the feminist and 2XC one. But it does not sync up well with my life experiences. I have way too much baggage about this sort of stuff. Over the last few weeks I've been getting increasingly confrontational, angry, and irrational. I'm really sorry about that.
    It's cool man, I've been there(the situation of which you speak, not so much SRS), I understand, and I most certainly don't hold it against you. You're still all good by my ledger.

    Post edited by Churba on
  • Hmmm, having just read this entire thread, but not the conversation that spawned it, I'm not entirely sure who is making what argument. But I find it very interesting!

    Personally I like seeing disabled people in media, but hate to see the disability being used as a defining characteristic, in the same way I don't like seeing race as the defining characteristic. I thought the character name Derpy Hooves was fan-attributed (never seeing an episode with that character in it), so wasn't too bothered about it. Derp, to me, is a response to an act of stupidity, not to someone who is seen as stupid due to mental health problems.

    Is stupidity now the defining characteristic of Derpy Hooves? Is that stupidity due to ignorance or the symptoms of a disability? If it's to do with ignorance, it would be great to see some character development, and Derpy becomes less ignorant over time.

    BUT, with the name Derpy Hooves, I'm guessing that it is no longer about solving a problem through education, or care. Now, I'm guessing the humor revolves around nothing more than Derpy being stupid, and us laughing at the stupidity. If that is the case, I'm disappointed, but not personally offended. I can see why some people would be offended, of course.
  • edited February 2012
    Seriously, SRS is not a healthy place for me. I understand why it exists; those people want to have a real discussion about social justice stuff without their subreddits being taken over by MRAs like what happened to the feminist and 2XC one.
    In all honesty after looking at SRS for a bit the other day I'm 90% sure the entire thing is just flame baiting. Given that I don't see why any one would subject themselves to that except for the lulz.
    Post edited by Shiam on
  • Seriously, SRS is not a healthy place for me. I understand why it exists; those people want to have a real discussion about social justice stuff without their subreddits being taken over by MRAs like what happened to the feminist and 2XC one.
    In all honesty after looking at SRS for a bit the other day I'm 90% sure the entire thing is just flame baiting. Given that I don't see why any one would subject themselves to that except for the lulz.
    From what I've observed, it's equal parts circlejerk, seriousness, and trolling.
  • edited February 2012
    BUT, with the name Derpy Hooves, I'm guessing that it is no longer about solving a problem through education, or care. Now, I'm guessing the humor revolves around nothing more than Derpy being stupid, and us laughing at the stupidity. If that is the case, I'm disappointed, but not personally offended. I can see why some people would be offended, of course.
    ...And having never read the original conversation (it was in the MLP thread), you've re-identified the source of the issue.

    I'm going to try to avoid using "offensiveness" as an issue in why I think Derpy was bad, because I think the other connotations of offensiveness are confusing the argument. Moreover, there are times when being offensive can be funny, or make an extremely good point. My argument is (and was from the beginning; I just presented it poorly) that Derpy's portrayal perpetuates negative stereotypes about and behavior towards disabled people, and because of that should have been changed.

    The problem with Derpy Hooves' portrayal was that she was a one-note character - and that one note had significant overtones of developmental disability.

    Now, there are other times where there are some pretty serious issues that are played for laughs in MLP: Twilight's OCD is the most convenient example for this argument, but Zecora's speech also comes to mind. The difference between these and Derpy is that Twilight and Zecora are fairly deep characters: the OCD and rhyming couplets are interesting character quirks surrounded by an interesting unique personality. Derpy, on the other hand, IS the quirk.

    Now, Zecora's rhyming couplets also perpetuate a certain stereotype about, well, Equestrian-African-equivalents, and so are also somewhat bad, but the stereotype isn't as negative as Derpy's, which is why I'm proportionally less upset.

    The problem with Derpy is primarily that she is a character whose defining characteristic is her "Derpiness" and who is presented entirely as a mechanism for humor, in a joke that was basically unnecessary (seriously, there could have been a much-more-hilarious accident that was not the result of her ineptitude). The scene is implying that it is okay for the audience to laugh at Derpy because of the problems created by her implied disability. This qualifies as able-ism is because this implication "others" Derpy because of her disabled status.

    There is a secondary problem, that Derpy is both the only character with an implied developmental disability and the only character with a lazy eye, making an implicit association between the two.

    Churba, you pointed out that parents should be educating the children about these shows, rather than children learning from television. The unfortunate case is that children DO learn from media, and there's not really any way to stop them from doing so, or to counteract the way that media teaches and reinforces social concepts. Even more unfortunately, we can't trust parents to do shit.

    The short version of my argument: Derpy is a problem because she teaches children that it's okay to laugh at people because of developmental disabilities, and because she associates for children (who may have never seen a lazy eye before) that a lazy eye is associated with more serious disabilities.

    I hope that clarifies my position. Why do you think that the portrayal of Derpy should not have been changed?
    Post edited by Linkigi(Link-ee-jee) on
  • edited February 2012
    Churba, you pointed out that parents should be educating the children about these shows, rather than children learning from television. The unfortunate case is that children DO learn from media, and there's not really any way to stop them from doing so, or to counteract the way that media teaches and reinforces social concepts. Even more unfortunately, we can't trust parents to do shit.
    Sorry, I might not have put it well, but I think you've mistaken me - I'm not saying children don't learn from media. I'm not saying they shouldn't. What I am saying that it's a parent's job to teach them the things that surround and give context to the things they learn from the media, or anywhere else, at that age.

    For example, Sure, a kid might learn to say "Fuck" from watching Pulp Fiction, but it's the parent's job to teach the child that it's not acceptable in society to go around shouting it at people. It's their job to teach them when it is and is not acceptable to use or do the things they see in the media, because not everything they see will be acceptable, as you already know. Sure, that's a pretty big job, but for a parent, that's part and parcel of it.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Having read all of this I have a couple things I want to add.

    Personally I think changing anything to be politically correct for children is ridiculous. We are not helping kids by doing this, the only people we are serving with it are the people who want the change. All political correctness does is hide issues that are present or expose the people it is trying to protect to the things they are supposedly trying to protect them from. In the case of Derpy, yeah kids are cruel but that is something their parents should deal with and teachers should not allow at school, although most school do a shit job of it. In the case of the earlier argument about the pokemon Jinx I will call bullshit on that one. Yeah, maybe some people were offended by the original features but I can guarantee the people they are trying to help by changing it had no idea what the hell black face was and by changing it they may have actually exposed some kids to it. By trying to change offensive material to protect the children we are teaching them that if something is offensive it should not be said at all and that is a shit message to teach.

    As far as whether or not offensive material should be an issue, in my opinion, it depends on intent. I will use South Park as an example here for 2 reason. The first being that while they do have blatantly offensive material in their show it is always done for amusement. They never do something offensive if it is not for a humorous reason. Yeah it offends people, I acknownledge that, I just do not give a shit about it offending people. It is not that I do not acknowledge about their reasoning, I just do not care that they are offended. The second reason I use them as an example is sort of unrelated to this Derpy argument but still something I personally feel strong about, they offend everyone. At no point do they shy away from offending anyone for any reason, even to the point where 1 of their episodes was heavily edited. To me the point for something like South Park where it crosses the line between humor and truly being offensive is when they offend everyone else but 1 group. At that point it is no longer all in good fun if you think everyone outside a certain group is okay to make fun of.

    Well that is enough of my angry rant for now. I am pretty sure I missed a point I wanted to make somewhere though so I will be back, probably more calm and with better points.
  • My feelings are that, ideally, parents shouldn't have to actively work to contradict stereotypes and bad impressions that their children receive from the media. I'm not saying that that the media shouldn't portray bad behaviors or people with varying types of personal problems. I'm also not saying that it's unacceptable to use, say, a developmentally disabled character as a joke. I'm saying that the media should, at the very least, strive to make sure those characters are shown as complex, interesting characters, to teach children to see those around them as complex, interesting people. In other words, media should consistently hold itself to the standard of "not judging a book by its cover." From my perspective, Studio B failed at that by making Derpy a flat, disabled character in an unnecessary joke.
  • edited February 2012
    Okay, before we go any further, Question - From where does the automatic assumption that she's disabled or being portrayed that way come from, other than a special ed teacher who noticed children making fun of her students?

    While I'm not big on MLP, Derpy has always been portrayed as stupid and/or airheaded, along with being clumsy and having a lazy eye, from the fandom. I don't actually consider those, even in combination, to be any reason to assume a character is developmentally disabled, especially when those are the only traits the character has which are different to the regular cast.

    Nor do I think that at any point that she appears in the show - I looked up clips - is she shown to behave in a manner that would indicate she's developmentally disabled, just a bit stupid or slow, no more so than people I've seen who are certainly not developmentally disabled. Nobody in the show, as best I could tell, treats her that way. It certainly doesn't seem they intended to play it that way, either.

    So, where is the assumption coming from?

    Bear in mind, I'm coming into this as someone who generally pays a minimum of attention to the ponies, as an outsider, basically, rather than being caught up in the show or the fandom.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • canine224, there was a good reason that I specifically avoided the use of the word offensive in my entire wall of text. Whether or not Derpy's scene was offensive (which I won't comment on for now) was not the problem with the scene. The problem was that it had the implied message that laughing at the disabled was acceptable behavior.

    I am very intentionally not making the claim that offensiveness is something to be avoided. What is to be avoided is using stereotypes to produce negatively reinforced generalizations about entire groups based on a specific characteristic. What I complain about is how privileged groups use stereotypes to "other" less-privileged groups, because othering is what leads to significant social inequality.
  • edited February 2012
    I will make a statement about Derpy in that episode before I go more into defending them doing it, I did not like the Derpy they portrayed. It has less to do with being offended and just that I believe they portrayed the character incorrectly. Prior to that episode my opinion of Derpy was that she was just a really clumsy semi-intelligent character.

    Now while I did dislike their portrayal, and that would be a reason for me to complain, I have no problem with them portraying the character the way they did. Was it offensive, probably to some people. Do I care, not at all. I do not disagree completely with the fact that childrens entertainment should be a different standard than adult media but I still hold that it is the parents responsibility to teach their kids about this and the schools job to enforce rules that guarantees the people are treated equally. If the parents are having issues with how often they are having to talk to their children about different stereotypes then they are missing a step somewhere in how they are managing how their children enjoy different media.
    Post edited by canine224 on
  • So, where is the assumption coming from?
    My impression was from her voice-acting and actions. Her voice was similar enough to other stereotypical portrayals of "slow" characters (and, admittedly, one developmentally disabled kid from my school), to raise my suspicion. Combine that with her clumsiness and the way she didn't really seem to recognize the damage she was doing, and I formed a definite impression that she was being portrayed with a moderate learning disability.

    There's also the fact that she's named "Derpy," but that's something that would only be picked up by people who have had time to use the Internet a lot. At least for now, until it gets picked up by elementary schools. Then the name will also be problematic.
  • I'm also trying to avoid using "offensiveness" as an issue in why I think Derpy was bad, because I think the other connotations of offensiveness are confusing the argument.
    Nobody in the show, as best I could tell, treats her that way either. It certainly doesn't seem they intended to play it that way, either.

    So, where is the assumption coming from?
    For me, who has only ever watched three episodes, it came the moment (I read, a few hours ago) that the producers and writers of the show officially named the character Derpy. That crosses the line from a character having a lazy eye disability, and LOOKING derpy (as in, they have the look of someone doing something stupid) to BEING derpy by design. Accidentally having a character with funny eyes, and then running with it, is fine, in my book.

    I was trying to have a conversation with someone the other day with a lazy eye, and it's actually hilarious how disturbing I found it. It's baked into the core of human interaction that someone looking over your shoulder with one eye while looking at your face with the other just makes you feel weird.

    If the fans of the show associate that disability with stupidity and mental deficiencies, I don't care. The fans can do what they want.

    But wouldn't it have been cool if that character, as written by the script writers, turned out to be a fun loving party pony, who was totally normal in every way, except for one disability? Or it turned out she had a another talent, like being awesome at cryptography, and her name was something like "Turing"?

    Alas, no. The writers went with Derpy. The fans rejoiced, as it shows they had influenced the show. I think the better course would have been for the writers to acknowledge the fans, but not go with the obvious and lazy, and untrue, connection between funny looking eyes and stupidity. It would have been cool to call her Derpy, but have her talk with an educated English accent, and quote Shakespeare, and have the other characters say "Why are you called Derpy when you are so intelligent?" and she replies "Just because my eyes are funny, it doesn't mean I'm stupid."

    And this isn't a complaint about t being a children's show, it's a complaint about media in general.
  • edited February 2012
    It would have been cool to call her Derpy, but have her talk with an educated English accent, and quote Shakespeare, and have the other characters say "Why are you called Derpy when you are so intelligent?" and she replies "Just because my eyes are funny, it doesn't mean I'm stupid."
    I wanted this to happen so much. I was really sad when they went with the obvious characterization instead of this, and wasn't upset until Derpy had no more lines or qualities other than "The stupid pony who broke the town hall."

    I mean, they could have had the town hall get broken in a cool accident - Derpy trying to do something awesome with that lightning cloud and just barely messing up in a way that damaged the town hall. Instead, Derpy's just stupid and oblivious, bouncing around on that lightning cloud and not even noticing when she damages herself or the other ponies.
    Post edited by Linkigi(Link-ee-jee) on
  • edited February 2012
    Alas, no. The writers went with Derpy. The fans rejoiced, as it shows they had influenced the show. I think the better course would have been for the writers to acknowledge the fans, but not go with the obvious and lazy, and untrue, connection between funny looking eyes and stupidity. It would have been cool to call her Derpy, but have her talk with an educated English accent, and quote Shakespeare, and have the other characters say "Why are you called Derpy when you are so intelligent?" and she replies "Just because my eyes are funny, it doesn't mean I'm stupid."
    That'd be cool, great in fact. Or hell, they could even have an episode where it's found she acts dumb, because she got sick of the pressure of expectations from everyone as a smart youngster, I know a bunch of people like that, so it's not entirely unrealistic.

    Though I'd admittedly be disappointed if she was another of the usual "Stupid character with moments of intense brilliance" that we've seen a thousand times over. They made a mistake while pleasing the fans, I'll let them slide on that if they try to correct what they can, but lazy, uninspired writing? Big black mark.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • I've read and engaged in this argument a few times, so forgive me for not reading every single post in this thread or if my statement seems non-sequitur in any way.

    I just want to point out, that this woman was lambasted for making assumptions regarding the connection between Rainbow Dash's appearance/personality and MLP's message about lesbian characters. This was a message that the writers clearly did not intend to convey with Rainbow Dash, and the one person decrying them for it was ripped to shreds by defensive fans. Now some of those same fans are acting in a similar fashion toward Derpy, having drawn their own conclusions about a message that the writers, once again, did not intend to convey, and expressing their displeasure.

    I am very sensitive to gay issues and the portrayal of gay characters, or characters who could be interpreted as gay, in entertainment. That said, I do not agree with the statements of Kathleen Richter, I support all of the discredit she earned from her statements, and I do not need someone like her representing me as an LGBT person or LGBT views. I highly doubt anyone here would agree with her at all.

    Why is so much more gravity and credence supposed to be given to the views against Derpy? Is this really that different than the situation illustrated above? Yeah, people are angry because the show implied that we should all laugh at the dumb character. So should people be angry because of this:
    "I was immediately concerned that the only pony that looked slightly angry or tomboyish was the rainbow pony. Since there’s a false stereotype that all feminists are angry, tomboyish lesbians, it was disconcerting to think that a kid’s TV show would uphold this."
    Rainbow Dash -does- have frequently down-turned eyebrows, she is very much a tomboy, and she is covered in rainbows. But it's stupid and presumptuous to think that this is a clear-cut message about how we should regard homosexuals OR an insensitivity toward them, isn't it?

    And a quick disclaimer, labeling me as "privileged" or insensitive to the plight of others won't win any points. You don't know anything about me or my experiences with MR or fighting the views of the privileged in other cases. So let's leave that out of here.
  • edited March 2012

    @loltsundere
    I believe it all boils down to Derpy Hooves being a fan made character..that it was a self insert meant to represent all the adult fans of the show, and for the longest time existed as an element adult fans of the show could use as an avatar individually and creatively, perpetuating a multitude of "Derpys" that different people attached themselves to. Studio B putting her canon was saying to a fan: We acknowledge THIS personalization as the real one, and certain people get offended. "Thats not how i thought Derpy Hooves was like!", "Thats not how i want myself and my fandom portrayed!" "Thats not how MY derpy was like!"

    If derpy was there from the start as a main character, people would simply accept the character as it was, but no, this was a character meant to represent community, and in extrapolation, "you" as a fan. Hence the difference between Rainbow Dash, and hence why people get truly upset, even if the reason for being upset was selfish. There was a need to preserve a sense of "self" which derpy initially gave with her opaque characterization and non canonical role. Her canonization became an attack on personal values related to 'self' for some, and no way in hell were the vocal ones going to allow such an affront to pass by.
    Post edited by lifecircle on
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