r/TopCharacterTropes • u/KalzK • Sep 06 '26

miscellaneous Tropes that became problematic

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The Persistent Suitor: A guy who is after the girl and just wont take no for an answer. Nowadays we just call stalking and harassment, but it used to be romantic. Example: The Notebook (2004), Noah asks Allie out while she's on a date with another man. She refuses, but he threatens to let go and fall unless she agrees to go out with him.

Comedic Woman On Man Violence: Mostly seen in anime, recently it has decreased a lot but years back every show had a woman hitting a guy and showed it as funny. Example: Toradora!, where the quintessential tsundere, Taiga, beats up the MC regularly.

Kid Bags Adult Baddie: I remember a few of these, sometimes it was to show how cool and awesome a kid was because an adult woman fell for him, now it's just seen as problematic shit. Example: Blank Check, the woman likes the kid and kisses him telling him to look for her in 10 years.

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361

u/Difficult-Pin3913 Sep 06 '26

Mind reading will never recover from what Jean Grey did to Bobby.

69

u/highcaliberwit Sep 06 '26

Whoa what?!?

199

u/SR-Barlowe Sep 06 '26

109

u/General-Internal-588 Sep 06 '26

My brother in christ was paid to draw 4 panels for this page and not one more

23

u/c05m05i5 Sep 06 '26

I hate this every time I see it for that reason

56

u/kblaney Sep 06 '26

2

u/Wiplazh Sep 10 '26

Is Jean just running around making people gay?

2

u/kblaney Sep 10 '26

No, she's just reading their thoughts and realizing it about them before they realize it about themselves.

1

u/Wiplazh Sep 10 '26

They made it look like maybe she put the gay thoughts in there, and I wouldn't even be surprised, those damn muties always up to no good

46

u/ZapMaster117 Sep 06 '26

Wait is that real? That's something l'd expect to come from some crappy Tumblr profile

26

u/laurel_laureate Sep 06 '26

I am bored.

So, agreeing with your comment, I made these.

17

u/EfectiveDisaster2137 Sep 06 '26

Where do you think Marvel recruits people from?

11

u/UwasaWaya Sep 06 '26

How is this a real page? I read it, thought for a crazy second it was supposed to be read backwards like a manga, and realized it's awkward no matter what.

The longer I look at it the weirder this is.

2

u/tf2mann_ Sep 06 '26

Was she even reading his mind in that scene? It's been a while since I even saw this panel Brought up but i think she just interacted with some future/parrarel Bobby who was openly gay. Also she didn't reveal it out of nowhere, Bobby became a jerk and harraser trying to act like macho man cuz he was insecure about not being able to find love and doubts around his sexuality so this moment was more like an intervention. Though it was still messed up to just drop it out of nowhere on him.

3

u/thePsuedoanon Sep 07 '26

In that specific scene, no. But she did learn this by reading his mind. Then she and Bobby went and had a talk with adult Bobby and adult Bobby was like "It's bad enough we're a mutant, why did you have to tell me we're gay?" And then before adult Bobby gets time to process anything the intervention inspired by an intervention gets interrupted to go hold an intervention for Beast (about war crimes not about being gay)

1

u/Seltnytt Sep 06 '26

I actually do not understand. Context?

4

u/thePsuedoanon Sep 07 '26

Bobby was making comments about Magick's bust. Jean pulls him aside and says "Hey, stop saying that shit. I'd understand it coming from Scott or Warren, but...". She's trying to imply that he should stop making crude remarks about women's body, and how not being straight it's not like he's even into them, he's just being crass to impress his friends. Bobby had not yet really realized that he didn't find women attractive.

217

u/24Abhinav10 Sep 06 '26

The scene is basically Jean Grey outing Bobby as gay by reading his mind, which is already problematic. You don't out someone without their consent.

But then the scene is also structured like Jean turned Bobby gay by altering his mind, which is even more problematic.

69

u/blazesbe Sep 06 '26

with absolutely no context just the above panel, it also works as just a joke, like Jean wants Bobby to like her but he's oblivious

9

u/Zealousideal_Pea_319 Sep 06 '26

Out publicly or in a convo? The second one I think would be beneficial

1

u/thePsuedoanon Sep 07 '26

Private convo, she pulled him away from the rest of the group. She didn't even set off to out him to himself, she just wanted him to stop saying crass things about women's bodies

0

u/Zealousideal_Pea_319 Sep 07 '26

Oh, then I dont understand what is the problem. I find only people with internalised homophobia to be offended by such suggestion. Such hints kind be helpful for the person to reflect, subtle or not. Especially since she is quite an useful and veritable source, even though it is of course mixed with her own interpretation on the given mental material

5

u/thePsuedoanon Sep 07 '26

Part of it is that she's just really casual about reading minds, which is a huge violation of privacy? It'd be like if a friend pulled you aside and said "Hey, so I've been sneaking into your bedroom to read your diary, and you should really rethink your relationship with gender". Like, yeah they might be right, but that's not the problem.

There is also a big serving of homophobia though. And just fear of change. A lot of people upset that a character they've known since 1963, probably for many their entire lives, suddenly coming out as gay with no hints leading up to it in 2015. That's enough to upset fans. Add in the fact that the person doing the revelation can canonically change minds, and a bunch of people came up with the (unsupported by text) interpretation that Jean mind-controlled Bobby into being gay

2

u/Zealousideal_Pea_319 Sep 07 '26

Here is what I may call a "Sookie Stackhouse" effect, where the debacles of mindreading are better encompassed in book series. The important questions is: does Jean have to make intentional effort to read someone? Or is it automatic? To what extent can she błock it?

Probably it is automatic and I wouldn't call it privacy issue then. And there are some things that must be said or better be said rather than not, important things: if I saw someone, I dont know, with psychosis thought patterns, I would say it openly if early or suggest getting medicines. If I pick on gay thoughts, that he might not be able to classify himself due to anything really, then, even though he might be upset, i consider this my obligation to give him some hint, to possibly make his life easier or not ruin it. Inb4 - yes, if, usually women, hetero/"hetero", says something about other women in a way that strikes me from my experience wlw as romantic/sexual, I will share due to my moral values and opinions that it sounds like it was NOT something a hetero would normally say. I believe it might be saving lives

There is a layer of discrimination against women, too, sonI think pointing out that possible misogyny is part of some Alpha hetero camouflage is something she gets right to tell

If he was dating women he was bisexual probably anyways

2

u/thePsuedoanon Sep 07 '26

He is explictly not attracted to women, according to Jean. That is again the thing that initiates this talk, is that she doesn't understand why a boy who does not find women sexually attractive would sexualize women

-6

u/Razzilith Sep 06 '26

to be fair, being gay in the context of marvel is pretty much a nothingburger lol people SURELY wouldn't be thinking about that very much when you have world ending threats and shit blowing up your city every week... never even made sense to me why they keep writing in our small human problems in those worlds where the entire sense of reality shifts for the human population.

like you're telling me people are still super hung up on being regularly racist post-thanos snap, battle of new york, god fighting in london, etc etc??? come on dude... any ONE of those things would have fully broken peoples minds IRL.

16

u/ForsakenOne-Z Sep 06 '26

No, it wouldn't. Our world proves that people are too trapped in their own little bubbles to see what lies beyond.