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”.
Thereal mistake is thinking that the majority, if not, allof Marinette’s mistakes and flaws HAVEto revolve around Adrien.
Both “Simon Says” and “Gamer 2.0″ bring up a conflict for Marinette that has nothing to do with Adrien - that fact that she takes on so many responsibilities and activities, and how overwhelmed she is. Does this get addressed or worked on? No. “Simon Says” drops the subplot in favor of the Agrestes, and “Gamer 2.0″ tells Marinette she needs to goof off and play games.
Her jealousy of Chloe being close to Adrien stems from their extended history together - that Chloe has bullied Marinette for years and Marinette has only recently started to stand up for herself. But is Marinette ever allowed to call Chloe out for what she did and receive any closure for the harassment she received?
No. She’s made to feel bad for being relieved that Chloe is leaving school. In fact, she’sthe one to help Chloe find closure regarding her mother, without so much as a thank you for her efforts, or an apology for anythingthat Chloe has made her go through.
And furthermore, Season 1 puts more emphasis on them fighting for Adrien’s affections rather than their own personal history together. Adrien isn’t needed here for this conflict to exist, he just exacerbates it.
Or how about her tendency to jump to conclusions/catastrophize? That mostly revolves around Adrien, but you can easily write an episode where Marinette catastrophizes over something else, like a project, homework, or superhero duties, things that she already stresses out over.
I shouldn’t need to write a mini-essay on why Astruc’s response here is dismissive and completely ignoring the point. Marinette canmake mistakes and canlearn lessons, but
A. they don’t all need to tie back to Adrien
B. tying it into her feelings for Adrien is tiresome and offensive to those in the audience that want Marinette to learn something about her culture
and C. ignores the fact that Marinette can learn lessons that aren’t inherently about “doing the right thing” or morals - she can learnabout her culture and heritage, is that not something worth learning? She can learnmore about her family history and where she came from. Is that not something worth sharing with an audience?
This is why I’m not watching the special or seasons 4 and 5.
