let's not mince words
The thing about Mary Sue culture is that it isn't the fact that these women are beautiful or intelligent or skilled or charismatic that fandom so hates; it's that those facts are celebrated, appreciated, taken and/or presented without a denigrating and derisive filter of sexism. You'll notice that if they're put down, abused or painfully self-conscious there's much less of a negative response to simple admirable qualities (unless they're accused of whining or sneered at for having a low self-esteem, but that's merely a part of the fandom practice of belittling and dismissing the suffering of female characters and even castigating said characters) as long as they're, you know, kept in their place. (Sometimes almost - or exactly - verbatim.)
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This entry was originally posted at http://bigbrasskey.dreamwidth.org/90348.h
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