Quote:
Originally Posted by Ditchy McAbandonpants
The most pronounced example of this that springs to mind is Lola Bunny from Space Jam. Surrounded by the crazy, idiosyncratic Looney Tunes gang , each of whom is a flawed, lovable loser in their own way, she swans through the film being smugly perfect and untouchable, with a teaspoon of "sass" and "sex appeal" (both of which are totally wasted on a young audience) apparently supposed to compensate for the fact that, in a cartoon comedy film, she does nothing funny at any point. Look at the basketball game; the rest of her Looney Tunes teammates get smashed about six ways from Sunday, often in very funny slapstick ways. Does Lola "take one for the team", even once? No - the one time she's in any danger, Bugs pushes her out of the way and takes the hit himself.
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I gotta talk about this, since this brings up another issue I've been bothered with. What you said about Frankie taking one for the team is true, I do feel the fact she gets bonked, bothered, and put through hell like the other characters is a good sign of, in a way, equality and like you said, flexibility.
The issue of Lola though bares more to a bigger problem I have noticed and that's females in media getting "special treatment". Alot of female toons don't have anything BAD happen to them, same with female characters in horror movies of more recently today. Think of the Jurassic Park movies for example.
All three films, know how many women died? NONE ZERO ZIP! How many males died? A hell lot more then you got fingers or toes (don't worry I'll swing this back into topic). Same thing has happened in Animaniacs, Ben 10, Rune Soldier, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, and even Duck Tales.
All have suffered huge faults where female characters are magically saved from the burden of being bashed, blown up, or taken down the same multiple amount of pegs males do. And now the tie in: Goo. Goo is hard for me to like sometimes because alot of her antics tend to ruin really good episodes.
She didn't have jack happen to her up until "Make believe it or not" and even then, the fact her ego more or less became the plot of that episode shows she still has some peg knocking to be done. I was very upset with that episode because basically, Goo showed herself to be some kind of super god.
That she can think of ANYTHING and she'd be right or she'd always win. Hell, look at her alien creations, half the imaginary friends people think up are very simplistic and basic. Goo's are complicated, detailed, and much more unique, this is still kind of "showing off" her imagination superiority.
Even if she did learn a lesson, I still think that episode was so completely off kilter as far as logic and character representations go. I'm not sexist to female toons, and I don't hate them or Goo for getting the better treatment in the occasional episode or series I watch. But it does ruin my enjoyment of them.
Frankie's treatment in "Cookie Dough" "Bloooo" and "The Big Cheese" are fine examples of how someone can have a rotten day and not turn into a character bashing episode. Character bashing of any kind is one of the worst things to find in a toon, that's why I disliked "Surprise" and "Imposter's".