I agree with everything you've said so far. The fact that people think this show is feminist makes me think they didn't even watch the show. Seriously, it's listen in TV Tropes under "Feminist Fantasy", along with SAILOR MOON, which is actually feminist! Because a show that has nothing but suffering, punishes girls for wanting things for themselves, and has everything blow up in their faces when they try to be powerful or heroic is TOTALLY a feminist magnun opus! Yup! Totally!!! No hypocrisy there! I also agree with another commenter who says that the show claiming that all girls are emotional is cosmic level sexism. Just...Wow, how do you do that? The NERVE. It's like another post I read somewhere which said "Calling the show that said 'Only girls have enough PMS to be magical' feminist is like calling pizza 'diet food'." What I find ridiculous is that most of the people who say it's feminist is because "Madoka's mum is the breadwinner and there are almost no important boys in the story and the girls are all fleshed out individuals who aren't sexualized and in the end Madoka becomes a Goddess!!!" And I call bullshit! Those things are good,but they don't automatically make a show empowering. To be honest,I think you have to be really desperate to see the show as feminist bases on just that alone. How low is the bar for these people? I'd also like to point out how Sayaka's whole plot with Kyousuke is basically punishing her for daring to have a sexuality. I don't see how her wanting to be loved back was such a bad, selfish thing. It's a perfectly healthy desire for teenagers and people in general to have! In fact, speaking of which, I think somewhere in the show Kyubey said that magical girls become witches the same way girls become women, which is just...a load of bull. It's essentially saying that girls who mature are deemed "witches", and everything is done to prevent the girls from maturing, from Homura turning back time to Madoka becoming a Goddess and taking all the girls to Heaven before they become witches, aka women. This obsession with keeping girls naive and childlike is the topping on this sexist cake, not to mention the ending with Madoka becoming a Goddess still doesn't stop anything from being exactly the same, but without witching out. That's just sleazy. What else is sleazy is the fact that the show is aimed at adult men who want to see moe anime chicks angsty and crying all the time. Of course the girls are perennial victims and never given the proper means themselves, how else would the men watching be able to fetishise them and satisfy their own power fantasies? Hmm? Magical girls are empowering because they provide a positive role model to girls! Femininity is often associated with weakness, but magical girls are there to tell girls that they can be powerful and feminine, and are aimed at girls, largely for this reason. Of course, boys can watch them too, but to take those empowering aspects of the genre away and make the girls all damsels-in-distress instead for the sake of pleasing MEN is just...Wrong in so many ways. And that last sentence sums up the show preeetty nicely. I mean, Gen actually compared them to Al Qaeda at one point, it's on Anime News Network. Think about that...yeah, THINK about that. AND try to come back to me with more crap about how this show is empowering. In conclusion, Madoka Magica is a disgrace to the magical girl genre, it takes away the girl power aspects of the genre for the sake of appeasing men who want their cute woobies. It has no respect for its female characters, or the female gender, even going so far as to spit in the face of women everywhere by saying that Anne Frank, Cleopatra, and Joan of Arc and many other women were just manipulated by Incubators all along. Because women are simply too emotional and selfish to ever make a real difference in the world! Does that mean Gen considers them to be terrorists too? I am officially done with this show(sorry for any typos by the way, but I'm too pissed to go back and correct any of them.). Oh, and people are free to disagree with me! But please, try to be respectful and understand my point of view. And if you're just going to say, "Everything you said is dumb" without any actual rhetoric, then please, know that I can do without.
Finally! Some one
What I find ridiculous is that most of the people who say it's feminist is because "Madoka's mum is the breadwinner and there are almost no important boys in the story and the girls are all fleshed out individuals who aren't sexualized and in the end Madoka becomes a Goddess!!!" And I call bullshit! Those things are good,but they don't automatically make a show empowering. To be honest,I think you have to be really desperate to see the show as feminist bases on just that alone. How low is the bar for these people?
I'd also like to point out how Sayaka's whole plot with Kyousuke is basically punishing her for daring to have a sexuality. I don't see how her wanting to be loved back was such a bad, selfish thing. It's a perfectly healthy desire for teenagers and people in general to have!
In fact, speaking of which, I think somewhere in the show Kyubey said that magical girls become witches the same way girls become women, which is just...a load of bull. It's essentially saying that girls who mature are deemed "witches", and everything is done to prevent the girls from maturing, from Homura turning back time to Madoka becoming a Goddess and taking all the girls to Heaven before they become witches, aka women. This obsession with keeping girls naive and childlike is the topping on this sexist cake, not to mention the ending with Madoka becoming a Goddess still doesn't stop anything from being exactly the same, but without witching out. That's just sleazy.
What else is sleazy is the fact that the show is aimed at adult men who want to see moe anime chicks angsty and crying all the time. Of course the girls are perennial victims and never given the proper means themselves, how else would the men watching be able to fetishise them and satisfy their own power fantasies? Hmm? Magical girls are empowering because they provide a positive role model to girls! Femininity is often associated with weakness, but magical girls are there to tell girls that they can be powerful and feminine, and are aimed at girls, largely for this reason. Of course, boys can watch them too, but to take those empowering aspects of the genre away and make the girls all damsels-in-distress instead for the sake of pleasing MEN is just...Wrong in so many ways.
And that last sentence sums up the show preeetty nicely. I mean, Gen actually compared them to Al Qaeda at one point, it's on Anime News Network. Think about that...yeah, THINK about that. AND try to come back to me with more crap about how this show is empowering.
In conclusion, Madoka Magica is a disgrace to the magical girl genre, it takes away the girl power aspects of the genre for the sake of appeasing men who want their cute woobies. It has no respect for its female characters, or the female gender, even going so far as to spit in the face of women everywhere by saying that Anne Frank, Cleopatra, and Joan of Arc and many other women were just manipulated by Incubators all along. Because women are simply too emotional and selfish to ever make a real difference in the world! Does that mean Gen considers them to be terrorists too? I am officially done with this show(sorry for any typos by the way, but I'm too pissed to go back and correct any of them.).
Oh, and people are free to disagree with me! But please, try to be respectful and understand my point of view. And if you're just going to say, "Everything you said is dumb" without any actual rhetoric, then please, know that I can do without.