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'Mary Sue' Twitter Feed Sparks Debate Over Unlikable Female Leads
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‘Mary Sue’ Twitter Feed Sparks Debate Over Unlikable Female Leads

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The reason there are so many unlikable female leads is because Hollywood is into “Mary Sue” — so says one writer — whose hot take is denounced as outright misogyny.

A guy named Joshua Lisec — who has written a ton of books over the years — took to Twitter this week to lay out a very long argument he firmly believes in… namely that the literary archetype “Mary Sue” is alive and thriving in modern entertainment, despite the fact that people aren’t really into these fictions strong heroines kicking ass out of nowhere.

His words… not ours.

Essentially, it boils down to characters like Rey (daisy ridley‘Star Wars’), Galadriel (Morfydd Clark“Rings of Power”), Carol Danvers (Brie Larson“Captain Marvel”) and even Bo Peep (Annie Potts“Toy Story 4”) and others starting out in such a bad new storyline…despite a lack of training/background to explain how they got so strong.

Now, whether that definition of a typical Mary Sue actually applies to the characters mentioned above — and other female roles in action movies in general — is what’s up for debate here.

Lisec’s thread has gone viral, with a ton of backlash for what a lot of people claim is a convoluted and long way of saying…he just doesn’t like women and can’t stand the idea of ​​a female character being anything other than a damsel in distress.

There are others who poke holes in his theory…at one point in which he draws comparisons to classic male leads he thinks have been fleshed out properly (Luke Skywalker, etc.) Some offer examples of countless traditional male heroes who have emerged with unexplained powers… noting that Mary Sue is a dog whistle for attacking women.

As to why this convo is even happening…well, it seems some, like Lisec, think there’s, in fact, a Hollywood push lately for “strong women” to replace the roles of heroes who would otherwise go to men. The next ‘Indiana Jones’ movie seems to be falling into place Phoebe Waller Bridge‘s for exactly that (the “new Indy” post-Ford).

It’s not a super marginal feeling either… Emily Blunt denounced the “strong female leadtag – basically saying it was done to death, and she got over it.

The speech, as usual, rages.

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