Not necessarily lacking flaws

Like I said before, it’s not that characters like Kitty Pryde lack flaws as much as writers and readers tend to be blind to the person she really is in comics at least until recently. Whether or not she’s a Mary Sue’s up to anybody’s guess but the big problem’s that even if superhero comics do require suspension of disbelief, Kitty Pryde wounds up being too ridiculous to be believable.

That’s if she’s supposed to be a normal girl, it wouldn’t make sense if she’s depicted as a massive hacker and ninja with a pet dragon. No wonder non-comics adaptations drop this. That and no real limitations to her phasing power (from what I’ve heard of).It’s not that there’s anything wrong with fantastical characters.

I think Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures has a good way of depicting superpowered characters with believable consequences and limitations for what they do. Hurt the character’s familiar, you also hurt the user itself. Josuke gets mad, his stand can’t fix things right because of it. Rohan Kishibe annoys Josuke enough to have him be beaten up.

Dio Brando’s capable of stopping time for only 9 seconds but puts it to good use when throwing knives and so on. (I might be cherry picking as there are some characters exempt from this.) But at least it feels more believable than amping characters’ existing powers up without any consequence or limitation at all.

Not that JJBA’s any better but that a good number of works (superhero or not) really don’t bother giving characters reasonable flaws and consequences. It’s not always a matter of how scientifically accurate it is but rather a matter of making believable or otherwise it doesn’t make sense at all.

Sort of makes weird sense

I could be cherry-picking when it comes to X-Men media in how and why they portray female characters but upon watching the video clip ‘What is the Goth Rebel Pixie Dream Girl’ it does help shed some light into the way they’re portrayed. Whilst not always, entirely or consistently the case it still explains a lot of things. Something that not too many make the connection even if it does show up.

Wearing black doesn’t make you Gothic but when the X-Men are almost always depicted as outsiders who do wear black from time to time (most of the time in the X-Men films) with Emma Frost and sometimes Mystique (and rarely Storm) being big outliers the connection between them and the Goth subculture feels subliminal enough to portray some as such. Strangely enough, Kitty seems exempt.

Even though of all the X-Women, she and a few others (including her friend Illyana) wear black the most or more often. That Kitty herself’s a tomboy (even if she wore pink at some point) sort of plays into the points the commentator’s making. Naturally her enemy Emma Frost wears white. The one X-Woman that’s got the short end of the stick the most is the pink-clad Psylocke whose racebending was recently undone.

Whilst not always the case as there are some heroic girly girls or blonds like Psylocke, Dazzler, Emma Frost and Mystique at times. But considering Mystique’s initial introduction as someone who wore a white dress, Psylocke a blatant girly girl and Dazzler being a pop star it’s not hard to see that they seem somewhat warier of them to a degree.

Not necessarily or overtly antagonistic but more in the sense of being too feminine for nerd men to appreciate (yet they themselves don’t want butch women for fear of being emasculated). It makes sense when you realise Kitty gets paraded as the Goth tomboy next door (that too’s imprecise as Rogue’s the one who’s made Goth even though Kitty wears black more often).

It also unconsciously makes sense that Jubilee receives a polarising response. Not necessarily any less sexualised or entirely hated (she’s got fans) but when the character they’re more attached to’s moody and dresses in black (almost a stereotypical Goth) that Jubilee’s unconsciously hated also because…she’s a Valley Girl.

Maybe not necessarily always the case and some X-Men fans aren’t into Goths at all but still makes sense given the context as to feel subliminal enough to make the connection between X-Men and Goth with Emma being an outlier when you think about it.

She’s got to be a punching bag

The more I remember the video clip ‘Goth Rebel Dream Girl*’, the more I realise the real reason why Emma and Kitty (or Jean) are portrayed the way they are in the X-Men comics. It’s not always or consistently exactly the case in-canon (which also extends to other adaptations) and wearing black doesn’t make you Gothic.

But considering that the traditional X-Men uniform’s often black and Kitty Pryde’s almost always seen in it (not that she wore any other colour, especially as a civilian but when it comes to superhero outfits, she tends to dress in black), it’s unsurprising that her nemesis Emma Frost’s often seen in white. (The same can be said of Mystique when bad.)

On one hand, it seems neat that the stereotypes of colour white being good and colour black being bad’s reversed in here. On the other hand, it risks turning Emma and Mystique into massive punching bags especially whenever they’re often portrayed in contrast to the others. The biggest punching bag’s got to be Psylocke who for a long time got forcibly transferred to another person’s body until recently.

(Of all the X-Women, she’s arguably the girliest because she wears pink and the butterfly motif thing going on for her.)

The fact that Psylocke longed to be her real self again going so far to wear one of her former outfits and be willing to remake somebody else into her image’s enough to say she really wants it back. It’s been accomplished but in the context of the ‘Goth Rebel Dream Girl’ fetish many Western animation and cape comics fans have (maybe not necessarily all but still), it’s Psylocke who ends up as a whipping girl.

Meanwhile the more tomboyish Kitty Pryde gets pedestalised as the ideal girlfriend for X-Men fans, where it’s not hard to assume a girly girl like Psylocke gets the short end of the stick with Emma Frost being the punching bag. (If because she’s dangerously close to the Valley Girl stereotype in the same sense Kitty’s almost a Goth.)

Again not always the case but it makes you wonder how misogynistic X-Men writers could be. Not that X-writers necessarily hate blondes (Illyana seems beloved enough) and girly girls but it’s not hard that they get the short end of the stick in contrast to the rest.

*terribletimetraveler
3 weeks ago
This was truly a well put together video. I honestly felt like you really found something, the reason why these sexual harassments happen. A fine job mister.

Another one from the comment section

Even more comments taken from this clip:

dark power
dark power
3 weeks ago
I’d argue they exist because in media you deal in stereotypes, the feminine stereotype is fairly unnatractive for the most guys. Yes, guys like their women to be feminine (most of the time, everyone has different ideas of beauty I’m just trying to go off what I see is the average) but guys don’t want feminity and that’s it. How many girls do you see obsessing over He-Man or [Insert Generic Action Testosterone Man Here]. Just like how you don’t really see guys making waifus of Barbie or [Insert Generic Girly Girl Here].

The Goth-Gf stuff is just people saying “I want more to a girl then looks, I want someone who will be like a friend to me”. Who wouldn’t want that? Sadly in the western world most people are pressured societally to just get married to whatever normie is bearable and attractive enough, settling and just dealing with the things they don’t like so they won’t be alone.

Many many factors in this one. Regardless thats my psychoanalytic two cents, call me Freud or whatever. I’ll be snorting cocaine and thinking about incest in the back.

Eleanor Taylor
3 weeks ago
@Moose While I don’t agree with everything in the vid, I think the key difference here is these characters nearly always play into a male fantasy. Goth girls irl aren’t doing to impress boys or be “not like other girls”, but the male writers can only handle either adherence to or rejection of feminity. They want their love interests to reject traditional feminity because they see it as for stupid and boring women, rather than just a choice based off women’s interests. They might even subconsciously believe that all women in real life are like the portrayal of hot, dumb blondes* in the media – and therefore when creating their fantasy, she’s got to be “not like other girls”. But of course, the characters will still all be attractive because while rejecting pink frills is encouraged, some gender expectations remain entrenched. The problem isn’t the aesthetic of these characters, it’s the — reasons behind it.

*This explains the way Emma Frost’s portrayed in contrast to Kitty Pryde.

Something so weirdly intuitive

Even if Kitty Pryde and Donna Troy aren’t made into Goths the way Rogue and Raven got, they do come dangerously close to it in the context of their counterparts and/or enemies. If Kitty Pryde’s like the closet angry Goth with a dragon, then Emma Frost’s the girly girl dressed in white and talks in an annoying way. There are people arguing for the case of Loki being a nerd and Thor as a jock.

But there’s seldom any real argument for Kitty being the nerdy Goth and Emma being a shallow Valley Girl even when it’s much more blatant in a sense. (Just observe their fashion sense and why they’re so opposed to each other.) It’s basically or generally the difference between the nerdy outsider and the normie they don’t trust much (or at least never bother to understand her).

Never mind nerds who’re into manufactured pop music (the weird grey area when you think about it). Or the difference between Donna Troy and Wonder Woman even though it’s much less antagonistic. Both of them are outsiders and whilst both are sexualised, it’s Wonder Woman who’s generally portrayed in a manner that paradoxically doesn’t lend her to ‘waifuism’ the way you get with Donna.

A sort of Marian/Madonna figure if you will. Donna Troy (if you know Italian, it almost means ‘woman of troy’ and she’s even called Troia, which also means slut or female pig) seems worldlier. She’s dated men like Kyle Rayner and Terry Long. Not that Wonder Woman never dated other men either. She did have a fling for Superman before but it didn’t last long.

If between the black-clad Donna and Diana, though both of them do indulge in BDSM Donna seems preferable to be made into a waifu if because she’s the girl next door who enjoys dressing up as a stereotypical dominatrix (same for Kitty Pryde). Wonder Woman’s distinct from Emma Frost in that she’s never intended to be evil or at least dubious though she comes off as weirdly inaccessible out of purity.

Maybe not exactly or always the case though Kitty and Donna have been spotted wearing plunging necklines and cleavages at some point. But if the appeal that some Goth girls have seems to verge on nearly wearing BDSM costumes and especially black tights, the same can be said of Kitty and Donna thanks to the BDSM undertones in the stories they appear in.

Not necessarily unsexualised but they do come closer to the idealised Goth woman stereotype than Emma and Diana ever would.

Something about the darkness

Like I said, whilst Kitty Pryde and Donna Troy aren’t necessarily (and still aren’t) Gothic but in terms of perceived accessibility and relative paradoxical weirdness (as in not like most girls who wear pink and have crap taste in music) they do come close to the idealised Gothic girl in a way that most other superheroines who wear black yet aren’t Goths don’t. Again not always exactly the case.

But it does feel like it. It could be me knowing of somebody who’s into these two and also into Gothic women enough to make the connection seem telepathically intuitive. Kitty and Donna don’t wear black when wearing civilian clothing and it’s Rogue who’s depicted as a Goth in one cartoon but considering that Kitty herself tends to wear black costumes more often going hand in hand with phasing that she could easily pull the Goth thing off better.

(In the sense of a shadow lurking behind and stabbing you.)

Something that’s not commonly considered even if there’s a lot more evidence supporting this. (Makes sense that her enemy’s the very normie, always clad in neutral pale colours Emma Frost.) Maybe because Rogue’s considered the edgier of the two never mind that Kitty does come dangerously close to the idealised Goth girl thing many nerds have (even if they aren’t into Goths).

Again the context of Kitty being a Goth makes sense if/when Emma’s a massive normie who likes dressing in white a lot. Weirdly enough the same can be said of Donna Troy and Wonder Woman (even though it’s Raven who went Goth despite wearing pink* at some point in the Teen Titans comics). To be honest, I did have a Goth phase.

But over time, I realised my true favourite colours being blue, red, cream, white and beige as well as a preference for manufactured pop and dance music (as before). I guess from observing such characters posting their discussions (as found in various archives) and personal experience that’s the connection between Goth and nerddom’s profound, especially if somebody never outgrew Goth.

And a preference for underground, authentic music.

*It’s possible to look Gothic in other colours.

So there’s that

I think I remember reading somewhere many moons ago that most Goths are geeks (though not all geeks are Goths) contrary to popular perception…at first but also in line with perceived accessibility. In the sense of being appealingly quirky outsiders enough that Goth women are seen as essentially and practically reskins of the conventional Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Dressing in black doesn’t necessarily make you Gothic.

That’s even true for many fictional characters though in the case with Donna Troy and Kitty Pryde, they’re often perceived as the girls next door by their fans who happen to wear black a lot (not necessarily connected to the Gothic subculture, same for Black Canary though I think she makes a better claim sartorially speaking). Not necessarily or intentionally Gothic.

But it’s an amusing coincidence based on assumptions of being strange in a nonthreateningly nerdy way. It needn’t to be a Goth but it still fits the bill.

Goth Rebel Dream Girl

Keep in mind some of the examples he puts out aren’t necessarily Gothic (one of them’s supposed to be truly punk rock) but it does prove his point in a way. If Kitty Pryde’s any indication, it needn’t to be Gothic black (and black isn’t always worn by Goths) but it does help explain things when it comes to fetishising women who either simply/mostly wear black at various points (Black Canary, Kitty Pryde, Catwoman, Donna Troy) or are actually Gothic (Raven and Felicity Smoak more recently).

It’s not that women who wear other colours aren’t sexualised (see also Emma Frost who evidently wears white a lot). I could be deliberately forgetting some characters and sometimes black gets conflated with blue in comics (and sometimes in actual languages). But it does explain a lot of things. Wearing black doesn’t and needn’t to make you Gothic but when it comes to certain cape comics being touted as girls next door who wear black fairly often (Kitty Pryde and Donna Troy) it does blur the line.

They themselves aren’t necessarily Gothic either but when they share traits with both Manic Pixie Dream Girls (Harley Quinn) and Goth Pixie Dream Girls (Felicity Smoak), that’s when the overlap’s considered. (Not that BC and Catwoman should be excluded in a way but that they’re more distanced from that cliche.

It’s got to do with either black being a slimming colour or that wearing black and being quirky/unusual in a nonthreatening way goes hand in hand in a way wearing white and being weird wouldn’t.

Alternative girls

I think I remember a video clip called ‘Goth Rebel Pixie Dream Girl‘ or something to that effect where it focuses on how and why Goth women tend to be objectified by animators to the point of causing trouble when it happens. As in they can’t let go of their idealisations to the point of being unable to treat their colleagues and even love interests as actual people. That’s the video clip’s point.

If I’m not mistaken, according to a thread it’s almost always Goth women as Crustpunk women get singled out for not bathing. Again, I suspect that the real appeal (as the clip points out) is that Goth women are kind of quirky outsiders without being so threateningly alien to nerdy animators. It could also be that I relate to it because I know of somebody who’s really into them.

Though I did have something of a Goth phase before and not all nerdy men are into Goths (see also Jabroniville whose own tastes are even more inaccessible when it comes to giantesses whilst anybody could wear black), it does explain some things. Something like turning Raven into one (previously she had no issues wearing pink a lot and barely seemed involved in the subculture, something a thread pointed out).

Or heck what’s been done to Felicity Smoak on Arrow. Now that’s character that never had a history of being a Goth (and Manic Pixie Dream Girl) the way Raven is at least in the 21st century. And that’s prior to Felly appearing on Arrow. I wouldn’t care if she cries more often but that the clip’s statements could be applied to her when you think about it.

Whilst not always exactly the case (wearing black doesn’t make you Goth) but it does explain a certain trend where characters treated as Manic Pixie Dream Geek Girls (even despite their contrary characterisation like Kitty Pryde having a fiery temper) dress in black every now and then. Not necessarily Gothic black but it does explain things.

According to a Nylon article, Goths are treated as the new Manic Pixie Dream Girl as to be a reskin or costume (in video game terms). Sort of makes sense now.

Like Donald Duck

I had a revelation over Kitty Pryde in that she’s essentially like Donald Duck. In fact she and Piotr Rasputin give a good idea of not only what Donald and Daisy Duck would be like as humans but also gender-swapped. The latter’s not necessarily any calmer but not when the former’s prone to even worse fits of rage to the point of being unable to get over grudges and be more willing to beat up people (Kitty Pryde especially).

Logically, Nightcrawler’s like Mickey Mouse. Considering that Donald Duck’s often considered to be an everyperson in European circles, the same can be said of Kitty Pryde to X-Men fans which only deepens the unintended similarities. Like I said, Kitty Pryde’s what Donald Duck would be like if he were a human woman.

If it sounds odd, I can vividly remember scenes of her whining, bickering and going violent fairly often at Kiotr.net. Some of the links are broken on Archive.org and I could be biased but it’s enough to assume that if Donald ever got a real human counterpart, it’s Kitty Pryde.