Sexism in 8-bit Theater?
 

I have noticed a great deal of sexism in 8-bit Theater, a misandrony that runs to the core. When I bring this to light, I am not trying to support my own gender, or bring down women, but rather to make shed light on a trend that is robbing us of interesting, central, female characters.

All of the male characters have deep running character flaws, be it the kleptomania, immorality of Thief, the stupidity (or at least naivety) of Fighter, the arrogance and numbers obsessed inflexibility of red mage, or the sheer evil that is BM.

The Dark Warriors also have tremendous character flaws, and are also entirely male. Then there's King Steve, a fine example of the male character at it's best. Sarda, who is capricious and incompetent, even with ultimate power. Even the one time characters, like the old men who ramble endlessly, if flawed, are male. When you look at all this, you'd assume that 8-bit was composed entirely of highly flawed characters.

You, the astute reader, have no doubt noticed by now that I've only mentioned male characters. Let us examine for a moment the female character's of 8-bit theater. We have Evil Princess Sara, who might be evil, but is also exceedingly cunning, skilled with a sword, and far more competent than any other character in the comic. Does she have a flaw? Maybe, if "Competent Evil Genius" can be considered a flaw.

Now, you're probably saying to yourself "but 650nm, what about White Mage?" Well, let's look at White Mage for a minute. She's attractive, capable of beating Black Mage to death with a giant hammer and healing him back to full health, and created the universe. Her only failures have been her inability to save Black Belt from death, which wasn't really anything she could prevent, and the fact that she believes what Thief tells her *most* of the time, which is true of almost everyone. Her only possible flaws could be that she is bound by the White Mage's Oath to not kill Black Mage, and maybe that she's too trusting.

Even looking at the minor characters, Lich's wife only had the flaw of being far too nice to the light warriors, and being too nice isn't much of a flaw. Even the witch, who has some flaws, is still competent, and more importantly, was only present in a very small number of comics. Kary is the closest to a flawed female character, but she was extremely powerful, and her rage was more due to being associated with fire than with being female.

Now, I can see some reason to do this. The female characters give a sense of perspective on the idiocy of the male characters. The Dark Warriors holding up a sign that says "Doin' Fine" wouldn't have been nearly as funny without Sara to *not* be fooled by it. I think that there are many opportunities being missed by not having a female character as flawed as the ones we already know and love. Furthermore, any competent character can be at best, a foil to the incompetent ones. The result is that a female character, following the existing pattern, can never be as important as the incompetent character she supports.

The way I see it, Brian did this because he loves women. He loves women alot.

No, seriously, though, I think your just looking into things to deeply. It's a humor comic. And besides, you need some competent people to make the incompetent look even more incompetent. It's just how things work. The fact that it's only female character's is probably a coincidence. And, also, I think sexism is to strong a word for this.

I'm highly suspicous of anyone who has such a low post count claiming to have just discovered or found something.

That said, maybe it's because Brian just writes like that. There are very few authors who will balance characters so well that if you took the names and gender away, you would be unable to tell who is what gender. So it really isn't that big a deal.

And, like Neyo said, "It's a humor comic."

The Wandering God

Low post count? Yes, but I've been a reader for about two years now, and a forum lurker for the past month or so.

I just reread the series this week, and I noticed this general trend. I admit claiming sexism seems dramatic, and I doubt that it was intentional, but I know no one is going to read a thread titled "A trend toward male characters to be portrayed in a more negative light than female ones in 8-bit Theater."

I should also clarify that I am certainly not offended by this, I am simply a) pointing out this does exist, and b) suggesting that introducing flawed female characters into a greater focus might be advantageous to the comic as a whole.

*edited for formatting

Meh, it's mostly because if you make a flawed woman or minority character, women get upset. I mean, look at Scott Adams. He has trouble with that stuff all the time.

Let's not start judging people by their post counts, okay? Especially since that was a prime example of a good and interesting first post.

I think it's probably half what ElfLad said and half a jab at gender stereotypes in RPGs.

I can't help but agree with Meister, as I haven't been able to help but agree with Meister since post one, to this one. We've all read 8BT, and we all have opinions. In this forum, noobs aren't the people that are new to the forum, they're the people that are new to the comic. Why do I have a higher post count? Because I joined the forum before him. But he's been paying attention a full year more than me. Watch what you judge.

Going back onto topic, I also can't help but agree with Brian. I find myself using the exact same comedy a lot. Where the females are mentally stable and the males are barely mentally stable. Although, lately, I've been doing the reverse. :sweatdrop

But I also can't help but agree with 650nm, because a barely mentally stable female character would really brighten the comic up. Though we've already gone really far into the comic.. If it were to happen, I would hate it if Brian King Steve'd it. Maybe Thief or Fighter.. they seem borderline. lol.

Jared Todd~
( ¬ ¬.. that's to everyone that leaves their name on the bottom for no reason. Except SWB, you're awesome. < <''' )

My First Post! Yee!
 

I've been a lurker for a few months now, and planned to be one for a couple more but for some reason this topic moved me to sign up and reply.

Now I *hate* all this post-ninties misandry crap. I hate films and TV shows where the joke is "He's stupid because he's a man!" I hate them to the point where I don't even own a TV anymore, there's only so much of the same dumb offensive humour one can take, BUT I love 8-bit. I do. I find it to be one of the funniest things I've ever read. Why?

Because personally I find the humor to be on a different level than most of the crap churned out today. Thief steals things, kleptomaina is allways good for a laugh but what makes it really funny is he's a Prince; he was born into a position where he has more wealth than anyone would ever have but he'll still make sure he'll rob you of every last dime. The joke isn't, "He's flawed because he's a he." it's that no one in his positon would have to steal. Same with BM; it's not, "He's flawed and evil because he's male." it's that he's an embodiment of evil and he's a good guy.

This seems like I'm going on a bit now so I'll just finish with saying that, yeah 650nm, I know what you mean but I really don't think that's the kind of thing is here.

Oh, and down with the BBC.

As a female and a bit of a feminist I would like to say that I have never been in the least bit offended by the lack of female characters. All the female characters are smart enough to take a look at the main characters and say "I'm washing my hands of this!"

I do think it would be an excellent twist if Raven was a girl, though.

But is there really a male character whose flaws are directly associated with him being male? The closest I can think of is Black Mage for his behaviour towards women, especially White Mage, but his flaws are just as much defined by his association to evil.