Cootie-Free Zone, No Girls Allowed
Need a good laugh? Check out this article by a Josh Tyler entitled We Don't Need More Female Superheroes. A bunch of you have probably seen it already because its been doing the blog rounds, but I thought I'd post it here for the handful of you who haven't, because it's hilarious.

To summarize: only boys like action movies, only girls like romance movies. Boys like superheroes, girls like Julia Roberts. There are some girls who do like superheroes, but it's because it was forced upon them by a society that makes girl interests seem inferior to boy interests, thus these girls only like superheroes because they want to be more like boys. Isn't our society so sexist for doing that? Also: there really should be more female superhero movies, but only if they're made just for guys.

Okay, so by "hilarious" I meant "aggravating." I'd almost think it was satire, poking fun at those guys here and there online who've expressed similar opinions...except he mentions right away that he's written it as a direct response to two previous articles from women who'd like there to be more female superhero movies.

But what really is hilarious is the comments section, how he keeps continually moving the goalpost anytime someone tries to argue that he's wrong. He’s only talking about general movie audiences, female comic fans don’t count. Buffy doesn’t count because it wasn't hugely successful (how many shows starring male action heroes can you name that lasted as long as seven seasons?), and because she's not really a superhero anyways (because she doesn't wear a costume?). Similarly, Sarah Connor and Kim Possible don't count because he was talking about superheroes, not action heroes (nevermind that he was saying that only boys fantasize being action heroes).

Sure, women went to Spider-Man and The Dark Knight, but did you notice only one in five people were women at the midnight showing? Wait, you mean it ended up being more 50/50 on days after the midnight showing? Er, well...I don't think TDK was really a superhero movie anyways, just a great movie. And women only went to Spider-man because it had romance. So there.

But he wasn't saying it's unnatural for women to like superheroes, he was merely observing that there are more guys seem to like superheroes than girls. You'd almost think he hadn't read his own article.

He'd also like to point out that he wasn't actually claiming to know how all women think...just most.

Also hilarious: the problem with Super Ex-Girlfriend is that it was a superhero movie trying to appeal to women, not the offensive premise (and I don't even mean sexist so much as but offensively dumb). And his claim that Sex In The City was a good movie.

I was so tempted to add my own response, but it requires you to register...which seems like too much of a hassle when he's just going to find new creative ways to move the goalpost. "Sure Buffy lasted seven seasons, but did its ratings do as well as 24?" "If Chewbacca lives on Endor, girls do not want action heroes."

He's so adamant that this gender interest divide does and should exist, it's like he's deathly afraid of...what exactly, I'm not sure. That the world as he though he understood it was wrong? That guys and girls aren't as different as he thought, breaking down the whole idea of a woman's mind being a mysterious thing?

Clearly he's never heard of the word "socialization." Y'know what I bet would really blow his mind? Someone informing him that pink wasn't always associated with girls and blue with boys...and that it was in fact entirely the reverse until as early as around the 1950s!

"Pink was for boys? And blue was for girls...? What...what if one day superheroes end up being only for girls...? *sobs in fear*"

It's going to be okay, Josh. It's going to be okay.