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Tumblr ask: Kylo Ren and the MRA thing
caerrigor at Tumblr asked:
Have you ever seen people explain why they think Kylo Ren is a whiny entitled MRA dudebro? Because I feel like I've only seen them take it as read and go from there.
The closest things I’ve seen to reasons are
Reason 1) He tells Rey she needs him to teach her, even though she kicks his ass. Mansplaining!
What I haven’t seen acknowledged: by the time of the duel with Rey, he’d been stabbed in the shoulder. And had a bleeding wound in his side from a generally fatal weapon. And had inflicted enormous emotional trauma on himself by way of his totally fucked moral compass. And had just fought someone else. And was winning the fight when he made the offer and waited for her to think it over, rather than shoving her into the abyss of death under her feet.
It’s not that she didn’t legitimately beat him! But people act like she trounced peak Kylo Ren with a hand tied behind her back rather than winning a hard-fought duel under favourable conditions. (Same thing goes for the Mary Sue people >_>)
Also, the people insisting on “you need a teacher” = mansplaining have presumably never seen The Empire Strikes Back. This is the standard emotionally-compromised-Darksider party line. There is nothing gendered about it, or about anyone’s treatment of her. That’s a wonderful breath of fresh air–or would be if people didn’t seem incapable of even imagining a world where a young woman doesn’t grapple with misogyny at every turn.
Rey’s story is not Girl Fights Sexism. It’s a young woman getting a classic, pure, sparkly Hero’s Journey with all the bells and whistles, and nobody quite knows what to do with that.
Reason 2) As Leia’s son, he’s quasi-royalty and comes from a position of immense class privilege, and feels entitled to valuable items that actually belong to other people. Or to no one.
What I haven’t seen: any acknowledgment whatsoever that Leia’s status is inextricably bound up with the genocide of her people. Nor have I seen any distinction drawn between his class privilege as an Organa and his sense of identity as a Skywalker. His entitlement is never remotely linked to class. It’s concentrated on the legacy and possessions of his natural grandfather, a former slave from a poverty-stricken desert controlled by gangsters.
As we all know, believing you have a right to inherit the belongings of your dead grandparents is basically like burning money in front of homeless people.
Reason 3) He was supposed to be Darth Vader Mk 2, but isn’t an invincible (?), inscrutable badass expressing nothing (??) but icy displeasure.
Rather, he broadcasts his bewildered cultist angst instead of suppressing all emotion but rage as a Dark Lord ought. He’s coming apart at the seams and admits to it, which is impotently whiny, but also something to do with school shooters. And not, say, a struggle with his indoctrination. He never succeeds at anything except freezing a laser in midair, psychically holding people immobile, sensing a random stormtrooper’s emotional upheaval, telepathically extracting information, deflecting blaster bolts, knocking someone unconscious with a thought, holding his ground when shot by the bowcaster of death, and trashing an uninjured combatant in a duel. He even cries about having to murder his father, the wimp.
Also, he has a young, vulnerable, moderately unconventional face and lustrous helmet-defying hair. VADER WAS BALD AND SCARRED AND PREMATURELY AGED, OK.
It’s almost like being young, half-trained, and not actually Darth Vader were integral to his character or something.
...I could have answered this less snidely but I have no patience for any of this shit, so.
Have you ever seen people explain why they think Kylo Ren is a whiny entitled MRA dudebro? Because I feel like I've only seen them take it as read and go from there.
The closest things I’ve seen to reasons are
Reason 1) He tells Rey she needs him to teach her, even though she kicks his ass. Mansplaining!
What I haven’t seen acknowledged: by the time of the duel with Rey, he’d been stabbed in the shoulder. And had a bleeding wound in his side from a generally fatal weapon. And had inflicted enormous emotional trauma on himself by way of his totally fucked moral compass. And had just fought someone else. And was winning the fight when he made the offer and waited for her to think it over, rather than shoving her into the abyss of death under her feet.
It’s not that she didn’t legitimately beat him! But people act like she trounced peak Kylo Ren with a hand tied behind her back rather than winning a hard-fought duel under favourable conditions. (Same thing goes for the Mary Sue people >_>)
Also, the people insisting on “you need a teacher” = mansplaining have presumably never seen The Empire Strikes Back. This is the standard emotionally-compromised-Darksider party line. There is nothing gendered about it, or about anyone’s treatment of her. That’s a wonderful breath of fresh air–or would be if people didn’t seem incapable of even imagining a world where a young woman doesn’t grapple with misogyny at every turn.
Rey’s story is not Girl Fights Sexism. It’s a young woman getting a classic, pure, sparkly Hero’s Journey with all the bells and whistles, and nobody quite knows what to do with that.
Reason 2) As Leia’s son, he’s quasi-royalty and comes from a position of immense class privilege, and feels entitled to valuable items that actually belong to other people. Or to no one.
What I haven’t seen: any acknowledgment whatsoever that Leia’s status is inextricably bound up with the genocide of her people. Nor have I seen any distinction drawn between his class privilege as an Organa and his sense of identity as a Skywalker. His entitlement is never remotely linked to class. It’s concentrated on the legacy and possessions of his natural grandfather, a former slave from a poverty-stricken desert controlled by gangsters.
As we all know, believing you have a right to inherit the belongings of your dead grandparents is basically like burning money in front of homeless people.
Reason 3) He was supposed to be Darth Vader Mk 2, but isn’t an invincible (?), inscrutable badass expressing nothing (??) but icy displeasure.
Rather, he broadcasts his bewildered cultist angst instead of suppressing all emotion but rage as a Dark Lord ought. He’s coming apart at the seams and admits to it, which is impotently whiny, but also something to do with school shooters. And not, say, a struggle with his indoctrination. He never succeeds at anything except freezing a laser in midair, psychically holding people immobile, sensing a random stormtrooper’s emotional upheaval, telepathically extracting information, deflecting blaster bolts, knocking someone unconscious with a thought, holding his ground when shot by the bowcaster of death, and trashing an uninjured combatant in a duel. He even cries about having to murder his father, the wimp.
Also, he has a young, vulnerable, moderately unconventional face and lustrous helmet-defying hair. VADER WAS BALD AND SCARRED AND PREMATURELY AGED, OK.
It’s almost like being young, half-trained, and not actually Darth Vader were integral to his character or something.
...I could have answered this less snidely but I have no patience for any of this shit, so.
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