Dolphins might be sapient but if recent observations are right, lots of them seem to be what humans would call psychopaths. Scientists found evidence that dolphins engage in what we would call gang rape and murder for fun.

Elephants are giving us an example of evolution in actions. The number and percentage of elephants born without tusks are increasing because of poaching. Being a tusk-less elephant is now a desirable trait that gets selected for.

Thats one of the most adorable things I ever saw in my life.

I think a study revealed that not only is the Japanese birth rate low but that many Japanese aren't even interested in recreational sex.

Spice and Wolf shows the advantages and disadvantages of an analytical protagonist in visual media. Lawrence is basically useless in a fist fight. He has to solve every problem using his brains and sometimes the solution is long to get to. The good part of this is that plots can get really complex. The bad part is that the story often flows very slowly and can be frustrating for viewers who want a more face paced show.

Seinfeld?

I think one reason why we see more aggressive women and fewer gentle men in media, besides what you mentioned above, is that gentle protagonists have the same problems are cerebral protagonists in that its kind of hard to portray both in visual media. In the recent Sherlock Holmes movies, the ones with Robert Downey, Jr., they had to turn Holmes from a more cerebral hero into an action hero because it worked better on screen. Showing Holmes intellect at work, his ability to scan and deduce things, required special effects. Watching an entire movie like that would be annoying. Holmes the action hero works a bit better in visual media.

In Japan, for better or worse, they know that teeange boys are going to play porn games and don't mind exposing them to sex for good or ill. In America, they know that teenage boys are going to play porn games, and don't want to to deal with the parents complaining so they keep the sex as low as possible.

The might makes right criticism would make sense if a lot of fantasy media takes place in a might makes right world. The problem is that most of it doesn't. Its not unusual for the villains in fantasy to possess more outright power than the heroes and believe in might makes right. A lot of fantasy media also takes place in a world at least at medieval levels of development. The Medieval period was a bit more brutal than our own but more civilized than might makes right.

See Irving Berlin, great and witty song-writer but horrible singer if you listen to a recording of him singing his own songs. Rock music, particular the Beatles but the trend started before them, really changed what a lot of people expceted in pop music. Artistis became expected to write and perform their own material, the material was expected to be true to their experience. In short, they had to be authentic. Before rock, nobody expected authenticity in pop music. Whether Frank Sinatra experienced what he sung about was irrelevant to enjoying him. In many other countries, this expectation of authenticity doesn't exist.

Isn't this called Rune Soldier Louis in English? Louis is a boisterous, hard-drinking womanzier prone to solving things by beating them up and thinking with his genitals. This doesn't seem like much of an inverted gender sterostype to me. An inverted wizard sterostype yes but not a gender one.

I find that outside of the Anglosphere, people tend to be more forgiving of manufactured pop music, think Back Street Boys. I never heard any Russian pop but J-Pop, K-Pop, and C-Pop are similar in their apparent manufactured pop music. Before rock, Americans used to be more forgiving of manufactured pop to. Elijah Wald covers this a lot. Its why we used to refer to certain pop songs as being standard, meaning that everybody from Frank Sinatra to Billie Holiday to the band you hired for your wedding, was expected to know them. Rock music changed this. Songs became closer identified with a particular artist, artists were expected to write their own material for the most part (before the Beatles the concept of the cover song would make no sense to people), and have their own voice.

Coincidentally, widespread knowledge of how to dance while touching somebody else, collapsed during the transition period between traditional pop and rock music. The decline began very swiftly after the end of WWII and was complete by the hippie era.

Mulan was from an aristocratic family, so she was at least nobility. Pocohantas was the cultural equivalent of a Princess, the daughter of somethnig close to a King.

In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup never takes on or want to the traditional violence, rowdy elements of warrior culture. He starts out and remains, a gentle nerd. Its more of a nerd rising to the top in jock culture story.

I can't think of any current story aimed at young male children where the main character is a boy who is or wants to be a knight. The closest example is Disney's attempt to make the Black Cauldron into a movie and thats from the 1980s.

Most boys fantasies are of them being wizards or superheroes or nerdy boys who get the girl or similar things.

Your welcome Burt.

Yuu never actual struck me as particularly androgynous, especially compared to thep protagonist from Persona 3, who is shorter and more slight. In contrast, Yuu from Persona 4 is much taller and has more obvious musculature. Part of this is that Japanese beauty standards lean towards the androgynous for men. I'm pretty sure that most Japansee would see Yuu as only being a man.

Nothing much brother. Please email me your flight information.

Were the Hasmoneans really that reactionary compared to the Selucids? Selucid culture was more hedonistic than Jewish culture but it wasn't that much better on things like gender equality or equal rights as we understand them today. Both were very patriarchal. The Selucids were in some ways more unfriendly towards women than Jewish culture. Infanticide, especially of unwanted female children, was practiced by practically every culture but Jews and Persians at the time. Women arguably had more rights in marriage and property under Jewish law than Selucid Greek law and Jewish law was more human towards the poor, widows, and orphans. Its really a stretch to call the Hasmoneans reactionary. Prudes yes, reactionaries no. Its kind of like a more ancient version of the Round-heads and the Cavaliers in the English Civil War.

There is just something about princess culture that seems so anti-small-d democratic to me even without getting into the feminist issues. Even if the princess is an action princess she is stil a princess with everything about aristocracy that it applies. What is it about princesses that draws girls to them whether they be traditional or action? Its not like boys fantasize about being knights of daring do. Can we not find a more appropriate in a small-r republican friendly thing for girls to fantasize about. I have political issues with princess culture.

I think that the fact that Germany owed up to what they did more than the Japanese did has to do with a lot of geo-political realities more than moral courage. West Germany owed up to the deeds of the Nazis because they were dependent on the UK, France, and the United States for economic and security reasons. The Allies were in a position to make West Germany not forget what they did. The East Germans were different. The East German government whipped their hands of the Nazis and said it wasn't them. This was because their alliance with the USSR allowed this.

Japan was dependent on the United States for security. However, the victims of Japanese imperialism were economic basket cases. China and North Korea were in throughs of some of the inform ideological intense forms of Communism. South Korea was an economic and political mess till the 1980s. Same with Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. Japan wasn't dependnet on their victims in the same way that West Germany was dependent on the Allies. This allowed Japan not to owe up to what they did.

Kazzy, do you think that even action princesses like Mulan or Merida from Brave can overcome the inherent problematic issues with princess culture? Peggy Ornstein has made some rather convincing arguments that princess culture in general is inherently problematic because of all the cultrual baggage that comes with it like the ideas about aristocracy and that some people are better by virture of birth. An action princess is still a princess.

In a lot of fantasy aimed at boys, the hero starts of low and raises high. He might really be secretly royal but he still lived a formative part of his life as a peaseant or something similarly ordinary and has to work to achieve what he gets. With princess heroes, the hero starts high. Its inherently aristocratic.

Hi, I'm a long time reader and occassional poster under Anonymous. This my first comment under a pseudonym. As you can guess, I'm a lawyer in real life.

Sarkeesian is right about the problems with the damsel in distress trope. My issue is one that comes up with a lot of conflicting fantasies though, how do we determine what fantasies and daydreams are appropriate, who gets to indulge in them, and how should they be indulged. A lot of the male audience for damsels in distress tropes love believing that they are the hero thats going to save the girl and be rewarded with romance and/or sex. Its not necessarily a healthy fantasy for the reason Sarkeesian outlined and because real world romance doesn't work that way. DNL made a plausible argument that a lot of the dating or even interactions with women in general problems that nerd boys have can be traced back to the damsel in distress trope. It should also be noted that not a small number of women have fantasies about being rescued to but they tend to enjoy these fantasies through books, movies, and tv rather than video games. So the damsel in distress fantasy is troubling but common. Should people be educated not to indulge in this fantasy or should it be considered as harmless.

What I'm trying to get at in a rambling sort of way is that this a variety of the debate concering problematic entertainment and its impact on the real world. Whether its violent movies, pornography or rescue the princess fantasies, people have argued that certain forms of entertainment are inherently problematic. Are they? If they are, what can or should be done about it?

Thats true. The Tanakh doesn't shy away from the more unpleseant aspects of life.* The Tanakh ranges from very clear to rather vague in the meaning of its pasages. "Thou shall not commit adultery" is a pretty clear in its meaning. "You shall not cook a calf in its own mother's milk" is not. To understand the meaning you need to debate the pasages and make comparisons. Its what gave us the Talmud.

*The Tanakh is also more open to the joys of life. There is nothing in the New Testament that celebrates romantic love and sex like the Song of Songs. The Tanakh is much less puritanical than the New Testament and the Qu'Ran.

+1. I'm really pissed off at people who keep shitting on the Tanakh. At least to me, its endlessly more sensible than the New Testament and leads to more rigorous intellectual activity.