Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: DARLING in the FRANXX
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Mojave
 Posts: 178 |
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And I love your insinuation that boys aren't allowed to be naturally aroused when a girl they find attractive is exposed in front of them. Notice, the boys don't act on that arousal. They don't start groping the girls or making sexual movements. They simply get distracted by girls they find attractive becoming exposed in front of them. Even if you personally think they should have looked away, Goro did that, and Ichigo still got mad at him. So yes, the boys didn't really do anything wrong here, and the girls' reaction was not appropriate. |
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seltzermx
Posts: 51 |
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How dare you sir! Were you not informed? It is now forbidden for any male to even look in the direction of a female! The thought police have been mobilized to your domicile. |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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@Mojave Except that the boys had been oggling the girls even before the incident in the cockpit -there was a whoe scene about it on the beach in which the boys' conversation implies they've done it before-. Plus, they're in the middle of battle, the last thing they should be doing is staring at their partners and being gross and vocal about their arousal. And when Hiro tells 002 that her crotch is going to be exposed, the other boys try to tell him to keep quiet, like they just want to keep oggling without getting caught. So the boys have been for a long time getting some manner of sexual gratification from the girls, the girls finally found out and put a stop to it because it makes them uncomfortable, but they're the ones in the wrong? 'Fraid not.
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Gurren Rodan
 Posts: 264 |
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Honestly, I think the biggest issue was just how contrived the source of the conflict was. No, it's not "okay" for the boys to stare like that, but the incident was so unexpected that the boys were completely taken off-guard.
Seriously, why was the goo able to seep inside the FranXX, why did it appear to drip only on the girls, and why were the girls' outfits the only things to react to the goo???? That setup is what hurt my suspension of disbelief. Ultimately, I still think the episode turned out alright. Yeah, Hiro's speech sounded a bit stereotypical, but the intent behind it was very good; and the guys did apologize, so it's not like the girls had to do all the making up. 02 was a delight to watch, and she and Hiro are clearly becoming a pillar of strength for the whole team, as I see it. It does seem a bit odd how much social awareness the kids do or don't have at times, though. I concede that point.
Don't guys tend to be more visually/physically oriented than girls anyway, though?
Not to sound like an awful person, but I'm very curious if this thread is supposed to lead towards something very dramatic and possibly ugly. An event like that might prove valuable for the story... |
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Mojave
Posts: 178 |
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This is just wrong on so many levels. Boys are allowed to be aroused by attractive girls (and girls are allowed to be aroused by attractive boys, and gay guys are allowed to be aroused by attractive men, and so on), full stop. They can't act on it without permission of course, but they didn't do that here. As far as the other incidents, in the episode the only incident the girls are aware of is the clothes-dissolving one. Where, once again, the boys simply got distracted by their partners being exposed, and did nothing to act on that. You seem to be so concerned by the idea of men being aroused by women being exposed that you refuse to treat men as human here. Of course it's fine for the girls to be embarrassed by it, what isn't fine is taking that embarrassment out on the boys. Once again, Goro and Ichigo are a prime example of this. Goro looked away when Ichigo started becoming exposed, Ichigo still gets mad at him, punishes him (including refusing him access to his own bath), Goro thinks up the loophole with the dining room, he extends an olive branch to Ichigo to let everyone use the dining room and get along, she refuses. Ichigo is absolutely the one in the wrong here, and Goro is the one in the right. She's being cruel to him when he did nothing wrong, simply because of her own embarrassment. Let me use an example with the sexes flipped to help illustrate why the boys did nothing wrong here. When I was in high school, there was a PE class one day where one of the guys accidentally had his shorts pulled down from behind while participating in the class activity. He was considered to be quite attractive by most of the girls in the class. Many of the girls audibly "oohed" and "awwed" when this happen, with more then one comment of "Nice butt" or "So glad I got to see that." A couple girls looked away, most didn't and kept looking at his exposed butt for the several seconds it took him to get his shorts pulled up, in your words "getting some manner of sexual gratification" from him. Were my female classmates guilty of some egregious offense here? No, of course not. And remember, by vocalizing their arousal much more clearly than the boys in Darlifra, what they did is worse than what the boys in the show did. So unless you think that my female classmates should have gotten written up for sexual harassment or had some other punitive action taken against them by the boy in question, you can't claim that the boys in Darlifra were wrong and the girls were right. |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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That's part of the problem, though. The show's conceit is that these kids know nothing about sex, but the boys are already "naturally" aroused by girls whereas the girls show no sign of sexual awareness. So instead of a commentary on puberty and sexual awakening, the whole show just boils down to "hurr durr boys like looking at girls' butts and that's fine".
So if they don't know about it, that makes it alright? Not to mention that the girls almost immediately conclude (correctly) that, if the boys were leering at them in the cockpit, they most likely did so too at the beach -Goro included-, which fuels their anger.
Yes they were. Just like cat-calling is wrong, making such inappropriate comments -aggravated by the situation of the guy getting his pants forcibly pulled down by another guy- should have incurred a punitive actions. Flipping the sexes changes nothing, it's sexual harrassment. It's not "wrong" to be physically/sexually attracted by another person or by nudity or whatever. But purposefully oggling that person -especially in a vulnerable and humiliating situation- is wrong and the girls were right to be upset about it. |
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Mojave
Posts: 178 |
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I'm glad that you are in fact being consistent. However, understand that most people disagree with you on what you wrote right here. Peeping on someone where they have an expectation of privacy is wrong. Simply not looking away if they become exposed in a shared space, however, is not, as far as most people are concerned. Now, personally, I do look away in those types of situations, but that's due to my own religious sensibilities, not because it would otherwise be morally or socially wrong. In the example I gave, most people wouldn't consider my female classmates to be guilty of sexual harassment or anything warranting punishment. They were possibly a bit insensitive, but that's it. They didn't deserve punitive actions, and neither did the boys in darlifra. Also, I think that the girls in the show are showing some signs of sexual attraction already. We know that Ichigo already has fairly strong romantic attraction to Hiro, but there are also several times so far where we see her tentatively reaching out to touch him. That's a form of sexual attraction. Additionally, Ikuno, who is almost certainly lesbian, has very much stared at Ichigo in a similar manner that the boys' stared at the beach. Even Miku, the quintessential tsundere, tells Zorome that he probably won't be able to keep his eyes completely off of her when he promises to try harder, because of how cute she is, showing that she already has an awareness of sexual attraction. Sure, those things aren't as overt as the boys' watching their partners' clothes dissolve in front of them, but they are signs of the girls very much experiencing or being familiar with sexual attraction. I agree with you that it would be nice if they made it just as blatant for the girls as they do with the guys, but I don't think there's any nefarious or problematic message sent by not doing so. |
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Ashen Phoenix
 Posts: 2919 |
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I have to respectfully disagree, Mojave. An example I can think of is if a group of people were in a public pool and one person's swimsuit came off. Basic consideration and decency towards one another says the exposed person shouldn't be ogled, regardless of the setting being a shared public space, because the exposed person had no say in the matter. Likewise, the female characters in DARLING had no say in whether they were ogled by their male partners. If the girls were aware of the boys' wanting to view them sexually and gave consent, that would be an entirely different discussion. So I believe, regardless of gender or setting, if someone is exposed and has no agency in the matter, the person(s) who ogled and objectified them is 100% in the wrong and should be reprimanded. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11452 |
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Who knows? Mojave's story suggests not. As does the rabid consumption of BL by fujoshi. Even with women being "permitted" to more openly express interest in sex and looking at naked bodies of their choice, attempts to study sexual differences in this area are still burdened with thousands of years of old baggage that are not so easily thrown off. So while it may be true to a degree in our society, it might well not be true in a group that was raised with no sex ed or sexual role models to tell them female desire was slutty and only boys naturally get off on looking. |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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Yes it is. Watching a person who is being exposed in a situation in which they most certainly do not want to be is wrong. It's not hard to look in any other direction. And purposefully staring -like the boys did- is even worse. The other person is in a vulnerable state, you know you shouldn't be looking at them and the other person doesn't want you to look at them, if you choose to do it, that's definitely wrong. In this situation, the girls weren't even in a position in which they could cover themselves. They were in the midst of a battle situation and the guys still leered at them. It was wrong.
Ah yes, touching someone = sexual attraction. Also obvious romantic feelings = looking at people's butts and breasts and having nosebleeds and getting evidently aroused.
Uh, yes, it's reinforcing the stereotype that "girls don't care about sex because they're more emotional |
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Mojave
Posts: 178 |
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I understand what you're getting at here, but I think you're failing to grasp the difference between not doing the nicest thing and actually doing something wrong. Sure, the nicest thing would have been for the boys to look away, and Goro in fact did and still got punished. However, that doesn't mean that the boys did anything wrong. Helping the old person cross the street so they can get across faster is the nicest thing to do, but that doesn't mean that a person who fails to do so is wrong and needs to be punished or reprimanded. Kicking the old person as they crossed the street would be wrong. The same sort of thing holds true for the situation with the dissolving clothes. The nicest thing to do would have been to look away, but not looking away doesn't mean they did anything wrong. If they started groping their partner because of being aroused, that would have been wrong.
Yes, desiring to touch someone is a form of physical/sexual attraction. She could continue having her unrequited romantic feelings for Hiro just as well as she has the whole time, without ever touching him. Her desire to touch him is a physical/sexual desire. Sure, it's a fairly benign one. Still a sign of sexual attraction/desire though. Overall, though, I don't think we're going to come to an agreement on this. Ichigo's treatment of Goro even after he did the nicest thing and looked away, especially her refusal to come to a truce with him when he offered, makes it clear to me that the girls most certainly did not have a legitimate case here, and if the episode had taken the stance that you and James wanted it to, it would have been dehumanizing and unfairly treating the boys, especially Goro. That would have sent the terrible message that whenever a girl gets embarrassed, a guy should have to be punished to make her feel better. |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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So I guess you've never wanted to hug your mother/father/sister/brother/children/pets/friends in any capacity. Or share a high-five or receive a pat in the shoulder. It's funny that you say "wanting to touch is sexual" but according to you "not looking away when someone is exposed nude against their will" is not sexual harrassment. Hmmmmm.... And you continue to defend Goro even though he was one of the boys who participated in the oggling when they were at the beach. So he's obviously been looking at Ichigo in inappropriate ways and therefore deserved the anger he was subjected to. |
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Mojave
Posts: 178 |
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Wanting to touch someone you are attracted to is physical/sexual, yes. It's not sexual harassment, and neither was the boys looking at the girls. There's a huge difference between sexual harassment and natural physical/sexual attraction. And no, Goro didn't deserve the anger he was subjected to. First off, there was nothing actually wrong with what happened at the beach. I wrote last week that the show gave us clear indicators that this was not a case of boys engaging in the forbidden activity of ogling girls together, it was a case of them getting their first experience of seeing their partner in a different way from how they have been raised up to that point. Basically, it's like someone discovering that they feel sexual attraction when they go through puberty. It's natural and fine. Second, Ichigo doesn't even know that Goro looked at her in that way at the beach, which, once again, wasn't even wrong in the first place. The only thing she actually knows for sure is what happened in the cockpit, where Goro unequivocally did nothing wrong, even according to your own logic. So even though, as far as Ichigo knows, Goro has done nothing wrong even by her own logic, she still punishes him and refuses his attempts to make peace. Goro got treated unfairly here, plain and simple. It's a cut and dry case. I'm not gonna bother responding to anything else if you refuse to acknowledge that, because it shows that you're dehumanizing him as a character. |
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Chrono1000
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I enjoyed the sitcom elements of the episode and this show is giving us more character development for how the different characters think. The episode was also poking fun at the ecchi elements of the show and as Zero Two would say parasites are better off being a little pervy. That Kokoro has read the baby book she picked up will likely prove important since she now knows more about human reproduction than anyone else in their group. Also I am curious to see what Dr. Franxx is trying to do since he obviously has a goal in mind.
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CrowLia
Posts: 5510 Location: Mexico |
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Except their dialogue implies that this -leering at the girls' butts and breasts- is something they've done before/are accustomed to do it. The only discovery is their male complicitness in "appreciating the view", but their dialogues are clear indications that this isn't remotely their first time oggling the girls and being sexually aroused by them. Moreover, that this is something that is considered normal for guys to do (Goro's dialogue "I'm a man too, of course I appreciate the view")
And again, if she doesn't know, that makes it right? If someone leaks a nude photo of you on the internet and you never find out about it, does that make it okay? Also, she does know because the dialogue in this episode explicitly has the girls conclude that the guys have been oggling them since before, and they specifically mention "they were probably doing the same thing at the beach". So 1) She does know and 2) Even if she didn't, it's still wrong, given the framing of "oggling (unaware) girls as something males gather together to do ex professo". It's also telling that you're more concerned about Goro being "dehumanized" by me pointing out his wrongdoing -in being complicit in the guys' oggling at the beach-, than about the girls being exposed to the guys' oggling. So you're very worried about one guy getting treated "unfairly", but you have no sympathy for the girls who were put in a vulnerable and shameful position, only accentuated by the boys' leering. How unsurprising. |
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However, they might have him pull something on her to prove how he is more of a man than Hiro after the 02 ride...  |
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