Are Gary-stu more tolerable than Mary-sue?

[Anonymous]

Is it just me or are extremely powerful and intelligent male characters just because they are more tolerable than female characters in the same way?

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

The thing to me in action films is that Hollywood usually casts men who are actually quite athletic and physically look the part (and typically having a bizarre charisma of their own), like Arnie or Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal or Bruce Lee.

So I think that makes them much more tolerable than when they cast a very uncharismatic 115lbs 5'2 skinny girl for such parts.

Yet if we look at Asian cinema, they cast women in ass-kicking roles who actually look the part. Like Michiko Nishiwaki who is an actual stuntwoman and martial artist:

Or Moon Lee who started off as an elite dancer and does all of her own stunts. For this scene, they glued a hat to her head since it was injured doing the most dangerous stunt jumping off an exploding tower.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ni70jf_1SSI

So at least for action Gary Stus and Mary Sues, I think if Hollywood started casting women for action roles the same way they did men, as in favoring very charismatic women who have the physical prowess, stuntwork, and/or skilled choreography to really look the part, I think they'd be much more tolerable.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Imagine if they cast Justin Bieber to play a Gary Stu action hero, for example. He'd probably be intolerable too. The problem is the casting to me.

[Asker]

Nah... they would still find reasons to complain. You gave the example of Justin Bieber, which makes sense since if Justin Bieber played an action role they would probably say that they are trying to feminize men. The problem is that the opposite would also happen, if you cast a muscular actress to play an action heroine they would most likely say that they were trying to masculinize women and take away men's leadership space.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Take Michelle Yeoh as an example familiar even to those not so familiar with Asian cinema. I have never seen Michelle Yeoh accused of being intolerable or even called a Mary Sue even though she has some films where she just beats men up left and right without hardly breaking a sweat and is pretty much good at everything she tries. But she's a stuntwoman who can really do her own stunts.
https://youtu.be/05YG6U0BIOw
So at least for action films, I think if Hollywood just cast female action stars the same way they cast male action stars (or the way Asia casts female action stars), there would be far fewer complaints.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I see! I could see some people complaining no matter what given how much greater sexism there is in the West. Yet I really think there would be less if they did this. Even Western people I know who love Asian cinema and complain so much about Captain Marvel and Rey in Star Wars and so forth don't seem to mind women kicking butt in Asian cinema.

[Asker]

It's a Western problem apparently. In anime it's super common to see female characters defeating men who are much more muscular than them and Asians don't seem to mind.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Anime is a great example I failed to think about! I think one thing that helps is that in many parts of Asia, women actually participated in the military as well having a lot of historical legends about female soldiers. There is the famous Hua Mulan in China, for example, and less shrouded in legend, women like Shen Yunying of the Ming Dynasty.

Here in Japan, we had onna-musha like Tomoe Gozen in the 12th century as a horse archer of superb skill and one who commanded samurai in the Genpei War among others. The notion that women can hold their own in battle and even command soldiers while joining them in the thick of battle is hardly alien to our history.

So I think that helps a bit because it's not considered a big deal that women can fight (not as physically strong as men, but they can fight). I think it helps such films become more accepted but also the films don't seem like they have to prove a point that women can kick butt. Hollywood always seems to be trying to rub it in whereas with Asian media, there isn't this feeling like they need to prove anything.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

We had like this, for example:
upload.wikimedia.org/.../...%2C_16th_Century_2.jpg

... with women actually fighting alongside samurai. It was less common than men fighting in the front lines but we had some in our history along with some truly heroic ones who fought to the very last breath in a hopeless situation while wounded.

With Hollywood, besides the casting, there often seems to be this sense like they are trying to deliver a political message like they have to prove that women can fight, whereas in Asia, I don't think they need to have this heavy-handed message because we already accept that women can fight.

[ShadezMcgee]

No, they are received the same way. There is no way to get behind them because they have everything handed to them and written as perfect with no struggles. It makes a boring character.