Scintilly Tag - Tumblr Posts
This reblog ↓
It's so fascinating because you can clearly tell that Chuck loved some of his characters but that he still subjected them to his own biases the most. Like a parent who loves their kid back cracks down harder on their beliefs specifically because it is their child in some sense of the parent trying to show their love of the child.
Stephanie Brown deserves so much better and to have a really good writer, but it do clearly shows that the one comic person who wrote for her was the one who doomed her.
Some of Chuck's writing of her falls exactly into the 16 year old girl mentality (trust me I was one). Some points where she is being written as irrational and moody fit perfectly well into a teenage girl who is going through stressful situations and trying to keep everything going right at the same time. But it wasn't written with that intent but so clearly works.
I hate Chuck for the damage that he has done and the legacy he created for those to follow, and for his hatred. But there are moments where he somehow writes complex characterization that can lead to brilliance within characters.
Why is Chuck good at unintentionally writing Queer characters?
Back to Stephanie. She's the troubled girl next door with a chip off her shoulder and the skill to bite back. But she is also a teenager making so many stupid teenage decisions and a teenager being put through situations no one should ever have to go through (plain out or in the way she did.)
Anyway have to agree with OP.
On another note though I wish that DC would actually write her with complexities and give her characterization back but remove it from the lense of misogyny and move it to something more positive.
the thing i tend to rotate in my mind when i think of how dixon wrote steph is that. you can tell chuck doesn't respect women and is clearly a misogynist. but you can also tell that despite that, chuck really, really loves steph and that she's also very much his precious baby character in the way that tim is.
like, if tim is his ideal of how a nice young man should act and behave, it's clear that steph is very much his ideal of how a girl should be, especially as a love interest for a nice young man. a good boy deserves a girl who is spunky & fun and all that.
like. setting aside his standard brand of misogyny where steph is often condescended to or shown to be the one who messes up or makes dumb unrealistic decisions because ~women, amirite?~
there's just a thread of. idk. you can tell how much he actually likes steph despite writing sexist things for her. like she's curated in an extremely positive way that contrasts to ariana (who is the boring, safe love interest) that shows how much more interesting and compatible with tim she is, because girls who have a bit of an edge are more exciting. she's maybe on the lower end of middle class, so she's poor enough to be plucky (&& because it fits a rich boy poor girl trope very nicely--see also, the candy girl dynamic in kdramas--steph is poorer with the hardship of having a criminal father, but despite that she's going to keep trying and her perseverance and frankness despite being an underdog is appealing to the rich boy she meets and they initially clash at first but she gets "rewarded" for overcoming all that in the end. with the man.), but not too poor of course (she takes gymnastics, she lives in the suburbs, she can clearly afford a phone in her room/personal line and computer in the 90s that was very common with regular, relatable middle class girls in the 90s. see: clarissa explains it all). she's smart! she's creative enough to make her own costume from scratch! but at the same time, she gets into trouble that tim has to get her out of because a perfect girlfriend to chuck is one who is extremely competent but ultimately still needs the help of a man. the annoying pregnancy storyline is a hallmark of chuck's misogyny, but at the same time in it he ensures that steph is the Good Girl who, despite her mistakes, valiantly chooses to keep the baby to give her up for adoption despite everyone like her mom and tim telling her she's making a mistake. which is basically chuck's version of venerating her by having her do what he thinks an ideal girl should do in that situation. he did that story because he hates women and gave it to steph because he loves her. she even gets to kick the dude who got her pregnant in the balls! she gets mad and unreasonable about tim at points partially because chuck thinks women are unreasonable and partially because he genuinely thinks a good love interest/female character has those traits. all the complaints about sexist writing with her are valid, because chuck is a sexist, but at the same time it's just clear to me that he wrote her that way because of how much he loves her character.
it's just fascinating to me i'm just fascinated.