#tropes — Public Fediverse posts

Same as yesterday. What I read is what I write. #books #tropes #writer #readers #zapwhampow

wow, i was totally blown away by this excellent video analysing the myth of heroic masculine purpose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKdT_d-_vYs

this is feminist praxis for real. it's a man talking to fellow men about the ways that they are shaped by culture, and looking at whether these stories actually serve them.

the video didn't get into it, but if you take a purely materialist analysis ("who benefits and who pays from x idea being in someone's head"), then the myth of masculine purpose benefits the army, the corporation, the state, the powerful.

the army very much benefits if a man "commits himself to a purpose and pushes himself beyond his limits in pursuit of that purpose." that's a dream soldier, is what that is. that's making a person into a literal tool.

anyway, i can go on and on about this, especially since this isn't a heroic fantasy that i grew up with. when i was little, i'd see these kinds of superhero stories and like, i knew that i would probably never be super strong or tough or could fight people physically, so the stories were sort of irrelevent to me. although i do know women who find superhero stories resonant, i just didn't see what it had to do with me. i'm not a fighter, i'm a lover! 😆​

there was a certain moment when i realized that for many little boys, they probably imagine *themselves* in the shoes of the superhero or whatever. then when i saw elon wearing an iron man suit, i realized that this fantasy still very much lives within many, many men. it gave me a shudder. so i'm glad that there's high quality media being put out that helps men understand this fantasy.

while i never idolized a superhero, there were action characters from pop culture that i idolized & looked up to. probably the most notable one for me was sarah conner from terminator 2, specifically. man, i thought she was cool. she was small, but she had used her time in captivity to become strong in her own way. the way they showed her escaping prison, it was something that i could imagine myself doing, not like the stuff that superheroes do. she's also so haunted and is wound a little tight...because some messed up stuff has happened to her! so yea, i identified with all that lol. even as a kid.

#culture #media #CulturalAnthropology #stories #narrative #tropes #masculinity #feminism #CulturalAnalysis #CulturalStudies #MediaStudies #VisualCulture

Okay, I've just learned that the "Older Woman / Younger Man" trope is now called "reverse age gap". WTF? Super sexist.
Can we NOT with the "reverse" terms, please? Especially when we already have a descriptor?

Anyway, I have written this trope, in case you were interested:
https://reginakammer.com/books/the-invitation/

#OlderWomanYoungerMan
#Romance
#Romancelandia
#Tropes
#RomanceWriting
#RomanceReaders
#RomanceTropes