#kagami deserves better
Maybe instead of saying “hurr durr Marinette is also catty and a liar and a thief and a stalker who disregards Adrien’s personal space”, ask yourself why SO MANY GIRLS IN THIS SHOW are pigeonholed into that stereotype
You’re not groundbreaking defending your fave by salting about other female characters who are “just as bad”
The show is led by men. Figure it out.
Especially when the male lead is arguably doing things that are worse and the only one being given a free pass for it all by the narrative. Including 1) LYING and letting his partner take the blame for an incident that was his fault; 2) trying to blackmail his kwami instead of listening to him; 3) refusing to work with his partner at least twice because she rejected him and still refusing to accept that she’s not interested; 4) listening to and believing in an akuma and sentimonster over his own partner at least twice; 5) using his knowledge of his partner’s identity to date her without her knowing; 6) threatening to abandon the city to drown. And yet we’re supposed to be seeing the female character who did none of these things or was at least called out for the things she did wrong as “worse” somehow because the narrative at least frames her poorly for it.
A lot of us have been saying from the start that the problem is the writing and this is a huge part of the reason why.
To add on to your annoyance, at least every major female character we’re introduced to have any semblance of a memorable personality/character stripped away to condense them into that common stereotype.
Marinette: She has an interesting character. She wants to be a fashion designer (That barely gets explored). She’s half chinese (Which is probably slapped onto her like a sticker to exotify her and in Kung Food she has to have a *white* guy explain her own damn heritage to her). She has a crush on Adrien (That can’t make her think straight, makes her obsessive, and clouds her moral judgement). She has several rivals for a boy who barely thinks of her as a “very good friend”.
Chloe: She had *some* depth in seasons one and two but that ultimately served no purpose as she’s reverted into some kind of murderous villain and hawkmoth’s pawn (Ket’s forget that she’s only a teenager). She is the classic white girl, blonde, and rich bully that amounts to nothing more than an obstacle for the stupid love square.
Kagami: A walking Japanese stereotype. She’s strict, stoic, businesslike and can’t even smile correctly. Also an obstacke for the love square. Her second apperance in Oni-Chan gave her two lines where she sulks over the fact that Lila kissed Adrien before being akumatized. She behave in a way that one would describe as a Yandere. Even if they dated in season four, the writers decided it was okay for Adrien to use her a Ladybug stand in, cheat on her emotionally, and half ass the relationship until Kagami broke things off. She is now delegated to cheering for the love square.
Lila: An Italian transfer student who didn’t even have a reason nor arc as to why she loves Adrien (It’s probably superficial). She’s supposed to be a master manipulator and liar (nevermind the fact that the universe has to bend over backwards and break already existing rules for her lies to work). Was only used total a grand of at least four episodes and all she amounted to was pointless and immature drama. She too like Chloe, became a spawn for Hawkmoth because Ladybug was mean ti her one time.
Case in point, tldr, the girls of MLB, at least the (supposed in Lila and Chloe’s case) important female characters are nothing but accessories for Adrien’s harem. It’s disgusting and sexist. To make matters worse, these girls are the most hated in the fandom and their crushes are portrayed as unreasonable and creepy, while Adricat’s is portrayed as romantic because he’s white, rich, and attractive. And a boy.
Go “girl power”!
My last ask got me thinking..
Isn’t it weird that the characters that are treated worst by the fandom, i.e, Marinette, Alya and Kagami, have two things in common, that is being girls and being POC? Like, I have noticed that people in this fandom are usually harder on POC characters than they are on white characters and also treat the girls way more badly than the boys.
I even pointed this out before, when the fandom wanted Luka and Adrien to be the guardian and the superhero duo while wanting Marinette to be erased. They didn’t even want Kagami to be the Cat miraculous holder which makes all the important members of the team male. Both Luka and Adrien are white boys while the characters they deliberately erased were girls of color.
In Rocketear, Nino, a black boy, acted possessive of his gf Alya just like Chat Noir, a white boy, has been acting for three seasons straight, but he still got more flack for doing so than Chat Noir ever got by the mainstream fandom. Many ML stans also support the writers’ idea of making Marinette, a girl of color. apologize to the police in the episode Qilin, which was supposed to tackle racism.
In the show too, girls are usually the ones making wacky decisions, screwing things up and facing the consequences while the boys get to be the perfect angels the writers think they are. And IF the boys do make a mistake at some point, they usually have to face lesser consequences. Their mistakes are often brushed off (Chat Noir’s jealousy in Copy cat) while the girls have to face long term consequences for making a similar sort of mistake (Marinette’s jealousy in Volpina).
The boys are given better friendships and are seen casually supporting each other, while the girls’ friendships often revolve around their crushes and boyfriends. The girls are shown to be fighting over one boy while the boys have no such rivalry. Girls are pitted against each other and hardly get any character development. Marinette still is obsessed over Adrien and Chloe is still a selfish bully while Adrien was able to get over his creepy flirting and Alec, a guy who tried to trash a teenager on tv for his dream job, gets a redemption in one episode.
And these are just a few examples of the discrimination that exists in Miraculous.
With all the racist and misogynistic things I have seen in the show, I feel confident enough to say that a group completely made up of White Men shouldn’t be writing a show about a POC Girl. It is a shame that Miraculous is known as a “Girl power show”.
