Oh those women! Those heartless women!
OK, who here thinks this is a tedious and untrue stereotype? I do.
Apparently, there's a whole comic dedicated to this idea: The Nice Guy. This overlong strip is the best example of what the concept is. Jeff is a nice guy. That means pretending to be a friend to women you like, in the hopes that one day they will want to date you. Also, being a friend means lying when your friend asks for genuine advice about a relationship. It means never saying what you're truly thinking. Women are stupid and should be coddled.
I was offended as a woman, my boyfriend was offended as a man. Yet this comic apparently is out as a book - WHY? Who reads this stuff? The art is mediocre, but not stellar in any way; the backgrounds and colors are dull, the characters look angular and bulky, and basically it contains all the basic flaws of webcomics. The women have huge boobs and small waists (sigh) with white teeth shining out as they flirt shamelessly with men they don't intend to sleep with. The men are animals who only care about sex and sports.
I'll leave you with this xkcd strip about how DUMB this stereotype really is.
I think the right name for this kind of comic is The Fake Guy. Pretending to be someone's friend when all you want is sex? Is NOT nice.
EDIT: Loyal (sometimes only) reader Robyn found another review of the comic. It's much longer and more detailed and AWESOME, and I encourage people to read it. Unless you actually like The Nice Guy, in which case you may be terribly disillusioned.
I'll quote the same bit as Robyn did in the comments. I hadn't even noticed that strip and its horrendous message:
I'll quote the same bit as Robyn did in the comments. I hadn't even noticed that strip and its horrendous message:
Yeah, Mike and Tim, it’s fucking hilarious that your goddamn Mary Sue perfect hero wants a “counterpoint” to not committing date rape. ‘Cause it’s just such a crushing burden going around all day not raping women that even Jeff, the nicest guy in the universe, so nice he has twoangels, needs a break now and then. In his own words, he deserves a counterpoint, as if there’s some kind of rate of exchange whereby you’re allowed to treat someone else’s body as your property once for every five times you let someone cut in line in front of you. In case the fucked-upness hasn’t quite hit home yet, I’ll reiterate: This is a comic about how Jeff is so nice that, faced with a drunk woman, he considers raping her, and is annoyed that he can’t properly justify it. In a comic series where Jeff is meant to represent a man who respects women. And it’s a comedy.
I found this which was a good take on it:
ReplyDeletehttp://crimitism.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/do-you-have-that-female-friend-that-youre-hopelessly-in-love-with-that-unloads-all-her-problems-on-you-only-to-end-up-back-in-the-sack-with-that-loser-ex-that-cheated-on-her-with-her-own-sister-le/
This was my favorite part:
"Yeah, Mike and Tim, it’s fucking hilarious that your goddamn Mary Sue perfect hero wants a “counterpoint” to not committing date rape. ‘Cause it’s just such a crushing burden going around all day not raping women that even Jeff, the nicest guy in the universe, so nice he has two angels, needs a break now and then. In his own words, he deserves a counterpoint, as if there’s some kind of rate of exchange whereby you’re allowed to treat someone else’s body as your property once for every five times you let someone cut in line in front of you. In case the fucked-upness hasn’t quite hit home yet, I’ll reiterate: This is a comic about how Jeff is so nice that, faced with a drunk woman, he considers raping her, and is annoyed that he can’t properly justify it. In a comic series where Jeff is meant to represent a man who respects women. And it’s a comedy."