If male readers feel uncomfortable with the lack of characterization and stereotyping of male characters, and subsequently realize that female readers can feel similarly uncomfortable with all media that fails the Bechdel test (a significant amount), then they can conclude that it’s disturbing to think of a world where a gender is reduced to those kinds of stereotypes.
Of course, it’s possible to miss one of those elements of the chain—not feeling uncomfortable in the first place, for example.
But then, it’s also possible for them to recognize that some people feel uncomfortable while experiencing specific media and feeling enough empathy to relate to them, even if they don’t feel uncomfortable themselves.
I agree with Eliezer, though. I’m a man, and I don’t find the lack of fully realized male characters in MLP particularly disturbing (*). I think it would be unreasonable to demand every work of fiction to forgo the use of stock characters. MLP is a show about female ponies and their female pony overlords (“overladies” ?), and that’s already about 7 characters right there, so it’s reasonable that the rest would end up as stock archetypes. There’s only so much attention to go around.
(*) Though I only watched the first season plus the s02 pilot, so I could be missing something.
If male readers feel uncomfortable with the lack of characterization and stereotyping of male characters, and subsequently realize that female readers can feel similarly uncomfortable with all media that fails the Bechdel test (a significant amount), then they can conclude that it’s disturbing to think of a world where a gender is reduced to those kinds of stereotypes.
Of course, it’s possible to miss one of those elements of the chain—not feeling uncomfortable in the first place, for example.
But then, it’s also possible for them to recognize that some people feel uncomfortable while experiencing specific media and feeling enough empathy to relate to them, even if they don’t feel uncomfortable themselves.
I agree with Eliezer, though. I’m a man, and I don’t find the lack of fully realized male characters in MLP particularly disturbing (*). I think it would be unreasonable to demand every work of fiction to forgo the use of stock characters. MLP is a show about female ponies and their female pony overlords (“overladies” ?), and that’s already about 7 characters right there, so it’s reasonable that the rest would end up as stock archetypes. There’s only so much attention to go around.
(*) Though I only watched the first season plus the s02 pilot, so I could be missing something.