(Quick note regarding the use of “fat” and “ugly” in this post: There’s nothing wrong with being “fat,” nor is being fat “ugly,” nor is there anything wrong with being “ugly,” for that matter.1 But within this cartoon, “fat” and “ugly” are clearly meant pejoratively, and that’s what I’m responding to.)
The above cartoon, by Justin Hubbell, comes from The Good Men Project.
My friend Ozy, discussing the “neckbeard” stereotype (which, appallingly, is frequently used by some online feminists) said:
Neckbeards are basically as misogynistic as anyone else; it is dangerous to pretend that high-status and popular and pretty people cannot be misogynists; yr ableism and fatphobia and lookism are showing.
This cartoon has the same flaw.
Plus, the gag is poorly thought out: the characters says a woman is a “fat ugly whore,” while in real life he himself is fat and ugly. Get it? Get it? He’s a hypocrite! Hoo hoo ha ha!
But wait: if hypocrisy is why it’s wrong to call woman “fat ugly whores,” that implies such misogynistic asshattery is acceptable when it comes from the thin and handsome. Although he probably intended to draw an anti-misogyny cartoon, Hubbell actually drew an anti-unattractive2 misogynists cartoon.
- And yes, I noticed and winced at the “last acceptable form of discrimination” subheadline at that link. Sigh. [↩]
- For conventional ideas of what “attractive” means. [↩]
Agreed, Amp, and it was good to see your comment about this at TGMP.
It’s the same principal involved when some progressives were trashing Ann Coulter for being a closeted transgender person: you’re hurting transgender people much more than you’re hurting Ann Coulter.*
The same principal applies when people try to take misogynists down a peg by saying they have small penises, live in their parents’ basements, and/or can’t get laid. It implies that the thousands of perfectly decent men who have one or more of those qualities somehow embody the apex of villainy or scumbaggery.
Somewhat tangentially, Amp, I wonder if you caught this CBC article about the
near-impossibility of sustained weight loss.
* FTR, I think Ann Coulter is vile.
Agreed, Ballgame. I’ve never been impressed by the “Mann Coulter” references or comments about her adam’s apple; I simply refer to her as The Coultergeist, and if any evil spirits are offended, too bad.
Yeah, I was just thinking about the term “neckbeard” this weekend. It just doesn’t make sense to me to call out other people based on a physical trait just because we disagree with them and feel the need to insult them.
It reminded me of the phrase “mouth-breathers” I used to hear when I was younger. As someone who has nasal obstruction, I’m often forced to breath through my mouth. But when I’d mention that, folks would say, “No, no… I don’t mean YOU.”
Let’s agree that it IS OK to call out people for their terrible behavior. But never OK to use their bodies to do so.
ok so I’ll admit this is only tangentially related, but I just saw this video made by a guy absolutely owning his not-standardly-beautiful compellingness. The irony is wonderful, given the song’s message that all you need to do in order to be thin and rich and famous is work hard (and ofc, the converse, that anyone not so endowed is just slovenly) . . . Thought you’all might like it.
Uh, potential triggers: mild profanity, scantily-clad dancers, and whips.
The Good Men project is terrible.
I’ll defend the use of “neckbeard” as a pejorative term as it is a deliberate and poor choice in presentation. Unless you’re Amish or Mennonite or Hutterite I suppose. Other than those 3 subcultures it is a choice.
I am pissed that the fedora has been ruined by the men’s rights nitwits though. How can I impersonate a film noir detective now?
If your fedora is a dark color, and the rest of your outfit matches it, then you might be OK. It’s the light-colored or straw fedoras, especially when paired with casual clothes, that make me think “asshole.”
I see your point, Brian, but I would still push back against the use of the term. We don’t say “hairy-legged feminists” round these parts, for example, since your cosmetic grooming routine (as opposed to things like cleanliness) should be your own business.
Harlequin, we’ll have to agree to disagree there. Leaving a body part neglected and ungroomed has at least a logic behind it. It’s like people letting their unibrow flag fly free I suppose, I don’t have to understand it or even care. I won’t even care if they decide to do a comb-over when their kneecaps go bald.
But choosing idiotic facial hair design is closer to saying “No, screw flossing, that spinach looks GOOD in my teeth. I’m going out like this.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I am willing to cut slack to “accept me as I am.” Or even “accept me as I am looking like I rolled out of bed after a week in the woods.” I cut no slack for “accept me even though I go out of my way to look goofy.” That’s too close to rewarding people who think looking different is a replacement for being an interesting person. I’ve never met someone with deliberately ridiculous self presentation that was a good conversationalist. Unless the presentation was their day job of course.
Also, Brian, I suspect you’re defining “neckbeard” more narrowly than many actual users of the term do. You seem to be defining it to mean people who have made an effort to cultivate a neckbeard, such as this fellow. But in practice, people usually use neckbeard to indicate people who nerdy and/or fat and unshaven, like this man, or who just allow their beards to grow where they will, like this man (scroll down to the third photo or just textsearch “neckbeard” to see the photo I mean).
I think making fun of people who have the guts to purposely cultivate an odd appearance is silly, but we all do it at one point or another. But that’s really not what “neckbeards” are. The people I most often see being made fun of for being “neckbeards” aren’t purposely cultivating an unusual appearance, and frankly many of them aren’t very unusual looking.
I may be a bit narrow, I grant you. But you bring up a good point to consider.
Can we come up with a pejorative term based on BEHAVIOR or BELIEF I and other crypto-fascist CIS-gender-biased Eurocentric cultural imperialist running dogs can use for those marginally less enlightened, without seeming politically incorrect and accused of “look-ism?”
Seriously, it’s hard to show my disgust for some people anymore. Throw a white male middle class oppressor a bone here. I got called out last year for calling a neo-Nazi a skinhead scum by someone offended I was stereotyping bald people. True story.
I got called out last year for calling a neo-Nazi a skinhead scum by someone offended I was stereotyping bald people. True story.
Okay, that’s kinda funny.
But my understanding of “neckbeard” is similar to those of the other people here. When I first heard it, I was told that it referred to people who didn’t bother to shave their necks yet whose beard was too short/scraggly to cover up the neck bit. (Therefore, I was told, it didn’t apply to my father’s beard, but often did apply to young men.)
What I find funny on certain websites is that they will go to great pains to outdo one another in showing their sensitivity. They provide detailed triggering warnings for any possible thing that anyone could be sensitive to, they only use politically correct words and they otherwise go overboard in showing they they are truly good, kind people.
Until someone says something that goes against their ideology. That person is then targeted with vile abuse and smears. Anything and everything they can try to do to hurt that person on-line.
I experienced that way back when the first news reports came out about the Duke “rape” case years ago. I didn’t go with the flow (and most rational people today agree that was correct), but I was clearly a rapist defending the right of entitled, privileged white boys to go around raping anyone they wanted. No holds barred as to the abuse.
@Brian: You may think it fair to use the term “skinhead” to refer to racists, but there are plenty of skinheads who acknowledge and celebrate the multiracial roots of skinhead culture and actively fight racism, while still identifying as skinheads.
yeah I know a few those guys (SKARPs) and not once has any of them given me shit for using “skinhead” to refer to the neo-nazi movement. They hate the fuck out of them and understand exactly what I am talking about and don’t actually care to parse words about it.
yrs–
–Ben
I’m sure the neo-Nazi skinheads find the “anti-racist skins” adorable. It’s like someone dressing up in Klan robes but trying to say they’re just “dressed like scary ghosts, what’s the big deal?”
How you choose to self present is a uniform, so others can rapidly identify you. Pretending otherwise is idiotic. If you wear a uniform, you are CHOOSING to identify with a cultural stereotype. If you don’t want to be stereotyped, don’t look like one.
Don’t dress like a skinhead Nazi and try to pretend you aren’t. Don’t dress like a Mormon missionary and get pissed if someone asks you about the angel Moroni. And DEFINITELY don’t walk down the street in a Nun’s costume and get pissy about people assuming you’re Catholic. (I won’t make that mistake again…)
He responded to all these accusations later on.
I love how he draws 1 fat guy and everyone jumps on him like he just clubbed a baby seal. But if he drew a fat girl none of y’all would have anything 2 say.
Here’s the response to him I posted in the comments at GMP:
As far as I know, I was the first or second reader to criticize the anti-fat imagery in your cartoon here on GMP. I’ve also criticized sexism against women in comics many times, such as here and here and here and here and here, to name a few. And in my own comics, I make a point of showing a wide variety of positive female characters, none of whom are drawn as pin-ups in ridiculous costumes.
To me, your response comic seems like a refusal to engage with good-faith criticism in a good-faith manner. Even if you were right and your critics are hypocrites, that’s not a logical defense of your cartoon; it’s just an ad hom attack on your critics. Just because your critics have flaws doesn’t make the flaws in your comics magically disappear.
I’m not sure where the fedora meme comes from, but I’m pretty sure it’s not from MRAs themselves wearing actual fedoras.
The CLOSEST I could understand is some PUAs like Mystery wearing a fuzzy hat that someone thought was a fedora. PUAs are not MRAs though.
Some MRAs are so tired of hearing about it they’re thinking of reclaiming it in a positive fashion.
Was the hat that The Mask wears in the movie with Jim Carrey, a fedora?
@Dave, Amp:
There’s also this post–not about a comic, but still.
I’ve seen criticisms/assertions online of the “You wouldn’t say this if the genders were reversed!” variety many times (usually used to argue that women rather than men are getting preferential treatment–sometimes talking about factors like race or sexuality rather than gender) and they rarely have any merit. Maybe because if they did, the ones saying that would be able to point to a counterexample where the writer actually was inconsistent, instead of asserting that that’s what the writer would do.
Is that supposed to be a response? It seems to miss the entire point.
When you portray someone as unusually pretty/sexy/attractive, that can still cause problems–call it Problem Set A. Most obviously it can be objectifying, among other things, or it might make people feel bad that they don’t meet the standard, or whatever. Or, perhaps all of your heroes only wear g-strings. Or whatever.
When you portray someone as unusually ugly/unsexy/unattractive, that can also cause problems–call it Problem Set B. But those are different problems. It’s not objectifying, though it may be insulting. Perhaps all of your villains are ugly and fat. Or whatever.
The point is that Problem Set A and Problem Set B are not the same problem. Nor are they weighted equivalently, since they have very different effects.
What the artist did in the “response” is to treat them as equivalent.
There is this trope
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeautyEqualsGoodness
probably relating to gin-and-whiskey’s point in #21.
Resurrecting a dead thread which I hate to do BUT just noticed a toon that used the same sort of character CORRECTLY. So remembering this discussion I had to share.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2310#comic