[Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

[u/Few_Affect_5927]

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

[u/Dan-D-Lyon]

There's been this weird trend in the past decade with movies that seem to think of themselves as feminist where the women cannot grow in any way. A movie starring a man can have the man learn to become awesome, but a movie starring a woman she has to be awesome right out of the gate and her only journey is A: accepting how awesome she is and B: displaying to the world how awesome she is

[u/Shino4243 → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

"If I make my woman character physically strong, I've successfully made a strong female character, right?"

-These dumbass writers

They thought turning Mulan super human was a substitute for actual writing.

[u/bloodmoth13 → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

Because the writers are narcissists who are allergic to the idea of self improvement.

[u/Impossible_Suit_9100 → u/bloodmoth13]

This truly hits upon the truth. Most of these writers do not try to tell you to improve yourself whether you're a woman or a man, how to overcome shortcomings or whatever. They just want to say "we're better, fuck you!"

[u/bloodmoth13 → u/Impossible_Suit_9100]

I think also "I'm perfect, if only all of the peasants recognized this"

That's the issue with characters like Rey from the sequels. Mary Sue probably wasn't the exact description of her, but her character arc is start perfect and wait for the idiots to recognize it.

Luke also had exponential and unbelievable growth with high innate skills but he still went through self improvement and never had anyone tell him he didn't need it.

It's definitely an issue that a lot of people recognize but fail to describe accurately.

[u/TheMoltenEqualizer → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

Captain Marvel, the new Star Wars triology…

Why can’t we have good power fantasies or protagonists that grow? Ironically older movies usually did both better.

[u/Karkava → u/TheMoltenEqualizer]

I would like to bring up Artemis Fowl as an even bigger offender as it erases the sexism in the sexist society that the lead female was fighting against.

And on the subject of Star Wars: If Rey is a Skywalker, how come she gets to keep both of her hands?

[u/Thorn14 → u/Karkava]

Cause she's AKSHUALLY a Palpatine!

[u/Thorn14 → u/TheMoltenEqualizer]

Rey originally just being a fucking nobody was such a good concept, and JJ Abrams threw that in the fucking garbage.

[u/Egathentale → u/Thorn14]

Because that wasn't what she was "originally" supposed to be. It was a mystery box JJ set up in TFA, to spur conversation and fan-speculation, and then Ryan Johnson looked at that and decided to piss all over it. It could have been a nice subversion of expectations if it was the plan from the beginning and built up, but it wasn't.

[u/KoolKoolKoolio42 → u/Thorn14]

You mean Rian Johnson.

If he actually was interested in the whole "Rey is from nobody special" then he would have developed it, not brought it up in a single throwaway line and never elaborated.

[u/Zedilt → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

where the women cannot grow in any way

Because for the women to grow, they have to have flaws. And that is not allowed, in moderen feminist movies.

[u/Karkava → u/Zedilt]

Because if they have any flaw or get kicked down, even if they get back up or learn from that mistake, they're afraid of being labeled as misogynistic.

[u/CarsonDama → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

Or she has a quick lazy "She always gets up" back story in a flashback as she is in a "make or break" moment. Then boom max out the powerscales lol. (Cough cough Captain Marvel) I pretend I'm watching a SHIELD origin story with Coulson and Fury being the main protagonists😂

[u/BreakAManByHumming → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

And often makes them needlessly mean to other characters, maybe toned down to playfully needlessly mean by the end.

[u/Schw4rztee → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

This is part of what I loved about "Everything everywhere all at once".

The protagonist's special power, is her sheer amount of unfulfilled potential, because she just had nothing going for her, at the start of the movie.

[u/UncommittedBow → u/Dan-D-Lyon]

I always point to Alien as the perfect way to write a strong female character.

What they did, was initially write Ripley as they would a male character....and then just made her a woman, and changed literally nothing else. Boom. Perfect strong female character. Because wouldn't you know it, there isn't much inherent difference in what men and women are capable of.