(Continuing from my previous post)
Okay, now that I’ve sorted those 24 samples into eight
categories, I’m going to zoom in a bit, and focus on just the “Mabel is bad”
comments, of which I had gathered 12. I’ll be recategorizing just those and
analyzing them here. They’ll be sorted into “clearly sexist” for comments that
focus on her gender, “sexist undertones” for comments that don’t mention gender
but mention traits associated with girls her age, and “debatably sexist” for
comments that focus purely on her actions or the way the writers used her without
bringing up anything that could be put into the previous two categories.
Clearly Sexist (2/12)
6 months ago
Nowadays we expect our female characters to be strong we
forget to make them responsible, likable, and competent.”
1 month ago
I never questioned mable because she really does act like a
preteen girl in her situation. She believes shes a good person but she isnt
thats true. A selfish child, but what more do you really expect from your
average middle school girl? Something ive learned is that not every personality
trait has a reason. Some people are just, not good”
Sexist Undertones (6/12)
4 months ago
Mabel: Gets Dipper to break up with Gideon for her
Also Mabel: Forces Dipper to confess his feelings to Wendy”
“Neon Lights
7 months ago
While watching the series, Mabel was always a little on the
edge for me, but what settled it was The Sock Opera.
1. After promising to help Dipper find a way to log into the
computer (knowing full well how important finding the author of the journals is
for Dipper) she makes him drop everything and help her impress some boy she
never met.
2. On the night of the show, Dipper comes to her in a panic,
explaining that he was possessed by a demon and needs her help and what does
she do? She completely brushes him off as “overreacting” and basically would
rather win over some boy she barely knows instead of saving Dipper’s life. His
soul could’ve been lost forever and she didn’t bat an eye. Let’s not forget the
part where Dipper was begging her to save his soul but Mabel had to interrupt
to comment on how funny he looked as a puppet. Not like he was pleading for his
life or anything.”
3 months ago
Mabel is the villain of this story,
She has everything most villains have
Greed
Selfishness
Doing insane things because it's what she THINKS is best
Thinking she is doing good when she's putting everyone in
danger
Making others do her own wishes even if it's painfully
obvious they don't want to do it
etc. etc. etc.
“Allison Bilbey
3 months ago (edited)
I really agree with this, like a lot. As the show continued
I felt like Dipper learned and progressed but Mabel stayed the exact same and
always got her way. Probably doesn’t help much either since Dipper is probably
my favorite character in the show, next to Wendy. What’s even more fascinating
is that even Pacifica becomes more like able than Mabel at some point which I
don’t think many saw coming. I didn’t anyways. Mabel is in summary very toxic, selfish, and manipulative. I really wish
that Dipper had been able to stay in gravity falls so that he could have gotten
what he wanted, like I really would have liked that ending way more”
1 month ago
I feel Mabel would be ALOT more tolerable if she suffered
CONSEQUENCES for alot of her selfish actions. It's okay to have a flawed
protagonist who makes bad decisions, selfish decisions - but it's NOT okay if
one of your main characters CONSISTENTLY faces NO consequences for those
actions and decisions. There's a reason why the Eds in Ed, Edd and Eddy almost
never WIN, because at the end of the day their main goal is to SCAM the other
kids out of their Money for Jawbreakers”
“Galactic tea spiller
1 month ago
This show was legendary. It made history and a majority of
people can agree how well executed it all was, however, I do highly agree with
all your points. Yes Dipper and Mable are siblings meaning it makes sense for
them to tease each other and fight every once in a while, however some of
Mable's actions, like giving the rift and just her forceful behavior of
everything SHE wants was insanely extravagant, and I haven't ever read the
comic (I REALLY WANT TO THO) but yeah that apology doesn't sound like an actual
apology for so much awful behavior. It sounds like what a character might say
after a fight over the course of a one time filler episode”
Debatably Sexist (3/12)
10 months ago
Dipper: being supportive to Mabel and sacrificing himself
for Mabel
Mabel: you not supportive enough so I made dippy fresh”
4 weeks ago
“Oh but Mabel is just a kid!!¡¡!”
SO 👏 IS 👏
DIPPER 👏!!! AND PACIFICA! And Candy and Gretchen who
still manage to behave better than her.”
3 weeks ago
You wanna hear a joke?
Mabel's character development.”
1 month ago (edited)
Bill’s offer to her for the rift really makes it seem like
the writers knew exactly what they were doing, Bill literally said in the
puppet episode that dipper sacrifices everything for her and she never does
anything for him. Bill knows how selfish Mabel is and exactly what kind of
selfish deal she would want to accept and offers it to her for the rift. Which
makes me wonder why they didn’t do anything more redeeming for Mabel. Cause
she’s a very well written character, they just didn’t give her a complete arc
for whatever reason”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although this sample is limited to
comments I snatched on a whim, it’s still definitely worth noting that half of
them had sexist undertones. And, even just casually grabbing some of the comments,
there were two that, when I really read them, felt clearly sexist in that they
blatantly blamed her flaws (at least partially) on her gender. And, while there
are some debatably sexist ones that’s not the same as “not sexist.” In fact, I’m
going to start there—let’s look at the “debatably sexist” comments, and how they
could still be sexist.
“Scootaloopuff”
puts Dipper on a pedestal. He’s not constantly supportive of Mabel. He doesn’t
really share her interests and has put her needs over his own on various occasions.
For example, what was the one thing she asked him to do at Stan’s party? Not raise
the dead. What does he do? Raise the dead and jeopardize everyone’s lives. Or
the time he got everyone into a haunted convenience store to impress a girl. Or
the time he threw away that was keeping a Halloween-themed horror from eating
them to impress a girl. Or the time he was, like Ford and Mabel, tricked by
Bill. Or the time he took everyone to the bunker with him and almost hit Wendy
with an axe. Or the time… I’m gonna stop myself there. Dipper is more mature
than Mabel is because he’s supposed to be the straight-man to her goofyness,
but to insinuate that Dipper has done no wrong and Mabel is trash begs the
question “why would you think that?” I don’t know, maybe because Mabel is also a
spazzy 12-year-old girl who likes stereotypically girly things and that’s
something that annoys people?
“Abby Beatson” has the comment that’s
probably the most arguably not-sexist of this whole bunch, since she A. says
that Dipper is more mature, which is fair and doesn’t put him on a pedestal,
and B., she lists other female characters who she also believes to be more
mature than Mabel. However, these characters also have significantly less screen
time than Mabel—you know that a character didn’t actually make an impact on you
if you can’t even get their name right (“Gretchen” should say “Grenda.”) And,
aside from perhaps Pacifica, I’ve seen nothing in the series to truly imply
that they’re more mature. They are, however, slightly less stereotypically
girly since Grenda is buff and Candy is a nerd, though they do also share Mabel’s
interest. The only episode that could maybe make the case that they’re
more mature is “Boyz Crazy,” in which Mabel, Candy, and Grenda take in some boy
band members who are actually helpless lab experiments. Candy and Grenda want
to let them go, but at some point, Mabel decides that she doesn’t want them to
leave, and everyone gets into a fight. However, I feel that Mabel’s clinging to
them might be partially because, as I mentioned briefly in my previous post,
she’s clinging to the idea that her carefree romantic summer fantasy could
still happen after being stalked and almost forced into marriage. Stress makes
people weirder, and while that doesn’t excuse poor behavior, it does explain
it. And she did, shortly after the fight, take charge and make everything
right. As for Pacifica, she’s only more mature after her character develops and
is shown to be a victim of abuse who, in season two, strives to become a better
person than her parents are. Those events in season two are what caused her to
mature, and, even during the apocalypse, she’s still hesitant to touch homeless
man or wear clothes from Mabel, so is she really much more mature? Also, Mabel
is the one who first sees the good in her and helps her start to realize that
her family is bad. This could be a disdain for Mabel based on her fitting certain
stereotypes about preteen girls, or it could just be that this user didn’t
think over things much.
“Emperor
Of Mankind Official’s” comment is kind of too vague to thoroughly analyze. It
could be said that it’s more of a critique of the writers than of Mabel, so I’m
going to void it for now.
“Gryotharian”
was mostly critiquing the writers, but doesn’t seem to understand that Bill, in
asking Dipper what Mabel has done for him lately, was trying to manipulate him.
If he’d shown them fighting gnomes together, or Mabel saving Dipper from
Gideon, or Mabel going along with Dipper’s insane egotistical time loop in Time
Traveler’s Pig (yes, she eventually made him stop, but Dipper rewriting time so
that a boy wouldn’t ask his crush out is kind of insane and doesn’t respect
said crush’s feelings) then he wouldn’t have taken Bill’s hand and allowed him
into his mind. Mabel’s not just selfish, and she proves that at the end of this
episode when she lets her sock puppet rock opera be ruined because she’s trying
to force Bill Cipher out of Dipper. So, maybe this was just a critique of the
writers, maybe this user just wants an excuse to dislike Mabel.
Moving
onto the comments with sexist undertones (the big boi of these three), “Hannah
Nelson-Cole” is also guilty of putting Dipper on a pedestal but does so in a
slightly different way. Also, elephant in the room—that username sounds female.
But even if the user is actually a girl, women still deal with internalized
sexism and channel this towards others. Though I’m nonbinary, I’m still AFAB,
and still dealt with this until realizing that it was there, which was in more
recent years. In addition to the “Dipper isn’t perfect either” point from
above, Dipper offered to help Mabel tell Gideon to get away, which she
appreciated because she was creeped out by Gideon and being near him made her really
uncomfortable. She didn’t “get Dipper” to do anything for her because he was a
good brother and offered. You can’t really compare it to Mabel trying to get Dipper
to be honest about his feelings with Wendy. Dipper tends to overthink and
bottle his feelings, and Mabel knows that. She’s not in the wrong there. So,
again, what’s left once the shabby reasoning for disliking Mabel is peeled
away? Yeah.
“Neon
Lights” admits that he’s never really liked Mabel but doesn’t specify why. Mabel
did kind of screw up in Sock Opera, but when Dipper asked for help, she did
help. She asked him to take over her sock puppet rock opera for a little while,
and thought that his little puppet face (Dipper’s disembodied soul was possessing
a sock puppet) was funny-looking, but it’s not like she said “Oh come on, this
isn’t serious, it can wait until after the show.” No, she immediately went to
confront the demon who had possessed him and get the journal back. Yes, she
wanted to take a couple days off from helping Dipper unravel the mysteries of
the Journal to impress a boy she liked, but that doesn’t seem so bad. From her
viewpoint, the mysteries will still be there in a couple days, and they have a
lot of time to work through them, so why not attempt to at least partially
have the summer she wanted, and still help Dipper, just a little bit later? She
couldn’t have known that the author of the Journal’s laptop would self-destruct
after too many failed password attempts, or that Dipper would attempt so many
passwords. I think that this one just wanted a justified-sounding reason to
dislike her, when the truth is, he just doesn’t like that she’s a boy-crazy
hormonal preteen girl who wants to impress a weird boy who likes puppets.
“Crystal
Joy” calls her out for negative traits that are associated with preteen girls,
while refusing to acknowledge the good ones. She’s greedy, she’s self-centered,
she tries too hard to get what she wants. Wow, let me guess, does she also go
wild with her dad’s credit card and alienate nerds and wear pink on Wednesdays?
This description sounds more like pre-redemption Pacifica. Mabel has a powerful
sheer force of will, and yes, she does get her mind set on her goals. But
ultimately, she also tries to help her family and friends, right her wrongs,
and it’s clear that she’s got a lot of love to give. Also: she is a literal
child. What 12-year old isn’t a little bit selfish? And before you say it, yes—Dipper
is too. See the list where I had to cut myself off earlier.
“Allison
Bilbey” starts off by saying that Dipper progressed, but Mabel didn’t. Dipper’s
progression is just clearer because he’s more serious and has a lot of anxiety
to overcome. It’s harder to develop a character who has to stay consistently
silly. But I think that Mabel did mature, mostly in that she learned to stand
up for herself more, but that’s neither here nor there. Also, they say that
Mabel is “very toxic, selfish, and manipulative,” which is similar to the
previous post, so I’m going to just redirect this to there.
“Greatsaiyakirby”
says that it’s fine for Mabel to make selfish decisions, but the problem is
that she doesn’t suffer consequences for them. I think that this one leans more
heavily towards critiquing the writers, so I won’t get too deep into it.
However, it could be argued that Mabel does learn from her mistakes, but those
mistakes aren’t necessarily revisited, so we don’t get to see super-obvious
development. She does, if nothing else, always try to right her wrongs once she
understands that she’s made a mistake, so that can peel away the outer layers
of this argument too, and possibly reveal a core of mild sexism, but maybe not.
Maybe they just dislike the way the writers handled her development. At this
point, I’m starting to really wish that the show had given Mabel more obvious
development just so that I wouldn’t have to sift through all this.
“Galactic
tea spiller” says that Mabel is “extravagantly” forceful and, perhaps the part
of this argument I’m most sick of after years of it, that Mabel is to blame for
the almost-apocalypse from the three-part series finale. Also, they don’t think
her apology for being hard to be put up with was good enough, even though they
haven’t read the graphic novel which that happened in. I’ve already covered the
“forceful” thing in past paragraphs, so I won’t make you sit through that
again, but let’s get one thing straight. Mabel is no more to blame for Weirdmageddon
than Ford was. He’s the one who started this whole thing with Bill Cipher. Bill
disguised himself as someone who she met not long after coming to Gravity Falls,
who she had later become friends with, and casually offered help while she was
in the middle of an emotional breakdown. Bill didn’t even use a disguise for Dipper,
and Dipper still fell for it, by the way. And the “her apology wasn’t good
enough” point also makes me mad, because seriously? Everyone is just ready to
accept Gideon’s apology, a murderous stalker’s apology, even though they
established that he was still weirdly attached to Mabel and still sends his
thugs after anyone who messes with him? But Mabel is the one who’s not
good enough? It’s definitely kind of sexist for everyone to be patting Gideon
on the back while trashing Mabel, who was, at the very least, not directly and
intentionally evil.
Now,
for the easy arguments. The obvious ones. The belles of the problematic ball. “Nathan
Higgins” says that maybe if they hadn’t been so determined to write a strong
female character, she would have been a better, more likable person. This is…
this is obviously bad. If you can’t see why that’s bad, you could probably
stand to work on yourself a little. Yikes. Yes, weak women are so good and
responsible and care for the children and don’t stay out after 7:00.
“Shy Fly” essentially says that she’s a bad person because
she’s a preteen girl, and that almost all preteen girls are terrible so that’s
just how it is. Again: YIKES. Do I really need to unpack that any further? No?
Good, let’s just throw away the entire suitcase.
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