If you don't mind my asking, how exactly are you defining "manly"?
It’s a good question and there are two answers or two issues that on reflection I think I was responding to. One is manly as having characteristics that our society values, things like agency, power, strength, self-determination and that are associated with masculinity. This is not to say that in reality, as opposed to people’s perception of it, men exclusively have such qualities and woman don’t. I’m also as guilty of you are of favouring characters with these qualities, the Starbucks over the Taras but uncertain how much of that comes from having worked in a male-dominated fields all my life and taken on their values at the expense of being able to value other women.
More relevant to Dr Horrible though, however, is the simpler definition of “manly” as being a man and the way that relates to people finding it difficult to perceive 'manly' qualities in a woman or womanly ones in a man. The way a man is called assertive and a woman a bitch for the same behaviour. Or in this case how quick people are to spot Penny’s lack agency and overlook how both Horrible and Hammer are equally at the mercy of events. I didn’t see much to Penny at first either but on re-watching she gains depth while Hammer remains a buffoon. She smartly turns the fish head conversation back to the matter in hand, the song she has in Act II suggests her current hopeful philosophy isn’t so much innocence as a more rational mature response to the pain of living than Horrible’s and while Hammer assumes she’s fallen for him her own expressed opinion is only that he’s not as cheesy as he looks, plus hot and possibly sweet.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-07-24 06:40 pm (UTC)It’s a good question and there are two answers or two issues that on reflection I think I was responding to. One is manly as having characteristics that our society values, things like agency, power, strength, self-determination and that are associated with masculinity. This is not to say that in reality, as opposed to people’s perception of it, men exclusively have such qualities and woman don’t. I’m also as guilty of you are of favouring characters with these qualities, the Starbucks over the Taras but uncertain how much of that comes from having worked in a male-dominated fields all my life and taken on their values at the expense of being able to value other women.
More relevant to Dr Horrible though, however, is the simpler definition of “manly” as being a man and the way that relates to people finding it difficult to perceive 'manly' qualities in a woman or womanly ones in a man. The way a man is called assertive and a woman a bitch for the same behaviour. Or in this case how quick people are to spot Penny’s lack agency and overlook how both Horrible and Hammer are equally at the mercy of events. I didn’t see much to Penny at first either but on re-watching she gains depth while Hammer remains a buffoon. She smartly turns the fish head conversation back to the matter in hand, the song she has in Act II suggests her current hopeful philosophy isn’t so much innocence as a more rational mature response to the pain of living than Horrible’s and while Hammer assumes she’s fallen for him her own expressed opinion is only that he’s not as cheesy as he looks, plus hot and possibly sweet.