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theographos · 7 months

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Learning time

I have given up on Thomas Astruc's (or asstruc for the intimates) cause a long time ago. He is the living proof that when in a position of power, your ego and feelings of entitlement are your number one biggest ennemy.

So I am writing this post not to try to prove a point to him (I mean, I have twitter, i am french, I could do that directly without any problems) but as a reminder for all of our writers, writers-to be, people who wish to work in chara design, you name it.

This post is about lgbtq+ representation and women representation and may contain spoilers about Miraculous Ladybug, but also can be understood by people who don't watch the show.

A strong female lead ?

For those who aren't familiar with Miraculous, Marinette Dupain-Cheng is the female lead of the show. She is a superhero called Ladybug who works alongside Chat Noir and they form a duo who fights against Hawkmoth, a super villain who has the power to create super villains based on their negative emotions.

But here, the problem isn't that Ladybug is the head of the duo and the one who comes up with all the plans, the problem is that the so called "equality" between the duo doesn't exists.

A strong female lead cannot be considered as such when the men in the show are at best disposable. Of course it depends on the tone of what you're writing : if you intend to make all the men less competent as some kind of satire of how the women were treated in old movies then go for it ! (just be careful to make the satire visible and understandable for th majority of your audience). But it becomes a problem when you pride yourself in having a duo based on equality.

As a quick summary, Ladybug is the only superhero who can purify the supervillains from Hawkmoth's influence, she was the first one to meet the Guardian of the Miracle Box (a box full of jewelries that makes you a super-hero) then became the guardian of a that said box, one of the main sources of information about the heroes for the citizens is on a blog called "Ladyblog", she is the one who gets to choose who gets the super-hero jewelry and who has to give them back to her, at the end of season 5 she is the one who fights Hawkmoth alone, and overall she is the main character of the show, so most of the episodes revolves around her.

Her duo on the other hand, is showned to do way more mistakes than Ladybug, he wasn't even aware of the Guardian's existence until he became mad at Ladybug for repeatedly leaving to some place in secret and not wanting him to know, he had to be mad to have been hidden the existence of the Guardian to convince Ladybug to tell the guardian to go meet Chat Noir, he kinds of is a comic relief character, so he is often in situations where he can be laughed at (Ladybug does too, but it only happens when she is Marinette, but since Ladybug's character is left untouched, it kind of gives the vibe of the mighty hero and the clown that follows her) and it has been showed multiple of times that if Ladybug isn't here, no matter Chat Noir's efforts the city is doomed.

And believe it or not, it's not just a case of main character syndrome, most of the female characters in the show are considered as a real deal compared to male characters.

Alya Cesaire and Marinette's bestfriend.She has been showned to make mistakes, but is also brave, intelligent, at the head of the Ladyblog who also happens to be even more popular then the news on TV. A single girl in middle school is showed to be a more efficient and appreciated source of information than literal journalists. She also becomes the first know to know the real identity of Ladybug, and is actively helping Ladybug in her hero duties unbeknownst to anyone, even Chat Noir.

Nino Lahiff is Chat Noir's bestfriend (when he is a civilian), he is showned as sort of a laid back character with a problem for authority and some insecurities. He is overall fine, but he is still a comic relief character, so really he isn't showed in the same light as Alya for example. He did rejected Hawkmoth's influence from him once, but it was in a really rushed way in an episode where he draws conclusion before having a proper talk with the person, so it's half a victory really.

Chloe Bourgeois is the mean girl egocentric daddy's girl stereotype. At some point the writers tried to write a beginning of redemption arc for her, where you understand that her behavior mainly comes from childhood trauma and a dysfunctinal family, but it has been given up since Thomas Astruc explicitly said that trying to find redeeming qualities in Chloe, a 14 year old girl abandonned by her mother and with a father that compensates with giving her everything she wants, is like defending a r*pist. No, i'm not making this up. Since then she often is an ally of Hawkmoth. Yes a grown man allies himself with a 14 year old girl.

Jagged Stone, a man who abandonned his children and their mother early on in their life, has been given the chance to write his wrong towards his children, without any emotional consequence from them. It means that the day the children learned he was their father, he said "well now i'm ready to be a father" and now they all hangout. One of the two children was mad at the fact that their hid their father's identity from them, but nothing about how he abandonned them without any kind of child support. Even when he became one of the world biggest's rockstars.

Lila Rossi has been hinted by the writers as a villain "who will make Hawkmoth looks like a baby". It's safe to say that she has a huge lying problem because she managed at the age of 14 to convince people she was a famous actress, that songs were written about her but also who managed to lie to three different women and make them believe they were her mothers. Yes, Lila Rossi has three at least three different identities with three different mothers. Oh also she has yet to show any kind of redeeming qualities, so really she can't be described as anything else other than an evil liar. She is also an active ally to Hawkmoth. And she isn't forced to, she just saw a man actively hurting numerous of people every week and thought being her ally was a great idea.

Hawkmoth, even if is unarguably evil, is showed as a grayer light than Chloe or Lila, even though he is a grown ass man with a child. He is desperate for having lost his wife, and is ready to do anything it'll take to have her back. He has made the entire city of Paris suffer à this point and has been showed to be capable of ending the world if he ever won. Though you will have scenes where you can feel how much he is in pain, and in some scenes you see him having quality time with his son. It's not much, but it's a lot more than with Chloe or Lila.

Overall, a lot of main female characters in the show are showed to be able to out-perform literal adults. And while I'm a big fan of characters that goes against the rules and authority, here it's just "girl boss" being taken a bit too far.

Because meanwhile, three of the main male characters in the show are either given a sort of redemption/portrayed as gray compared to children that are yet to be fully aware of the consequence of their actions, or not taken seriously enough. It has been a while since I saw Chat Noir being a hero by himself, without following Ladybug's plan. So again, having the female leading isn't the problem, the problem is that the writers are doing it while dragging the male characters in the dirt or giving them less consequence for their actions compared to female characters.

Marinette is really close to a Mary Sue, and it doesn't make her strong in any way.

If you're writing a strong female character, take a few steps back and try to simplify your plot. Now, is your female character strong because of her, or because you're doing some favoritism/the other male characters are showed to be incompetent ?

A good female representation isn't someone who achieves anything and has every power in the world.

You take your character, you give them strength and weaknesses, you give them good sides and bad sides. Now, take that character and put them in a situation where their weaknesses are showing, for example a loner forced to work with a team, a healer having to fight someone, a 14 year old girl who tends to be a control freak having to fight a grown man who also is a control freak but with a larger scale of control than her. (the last one is a simplified version of miraculous lmao)

And depending on how they make it out of this situation, depending of how they deal with it or why they are in this situation in the first place, this is what will make those characters strong.

Gays in cartoons, is a hint canon ?

Yllogique Have you ever met : the fans on the internet ? *the picture they share*

Thomas Astruc "Stop with the hypocrisy/bad faith. You saw the episodes, you're well aware of what has been hinted or not. It's not a coincidence that Juleka is considered as canon.

Les_Intervalles Their LGBTQ+ identity is not canon because it isn't explicitly showed through a dialogue or an action. For the New York Special, we do not count it since it is not, to our knowledge, reliant on the french production and airing because it is only available on Disney.

Thomas Astruc If there is no action or dialogue, how do you explain that people noticed it ? And for the NY special, you're simply wrong. It has been produced and aired just like the others.

Les_Intervalles There's a difference between a ship made by the audience and a canon relationship. For the special NY, we didn't find any sources confirming a french production, only a source from Disney.

Thomas Astruc Stop with the hypocrisy. You're very aware that the audience would not make those ships if we didn't gave them the elements to do so.

This is a very touchy subject to be honest. Because on one hand having a gay character in your cartoon makes the big boss afraid, and more often than not the show doesn't gets approved or it gets canceled (The Howl House for example).

But on the other hand people have used the excuse of "hinting a character's sexuality" to pass them as gay, just to earn the approval of the LGBTQ+ community. (J.K Rowling for example with her character Dumbledore. It's a whole other subject that is way too long to talk about here, but tumblr is full of people who will talk about it way more than I do.)

So let's recap : If you're too forward, your show gets canceled (even more if your audience rate isn't particulary high), if you're not forward enough then the audience can call you out for trying to queerbait them.

(Queerbait is a term used when a show, a business or something else tries to be appealing for the LGBTQ+ community purely for marketing reasons and without any desire to make a valid representation.)

It's a very hard subject really, even for RIOT GAMES, the one who created League of Legends, a game so popular that they have been able to organize world cups for it for years now, the writers struggle to add gay characters and cannot go further than mere "hints." So for that matter I don't have an answer for you today.

But... I do have some thoughts about how Thomas Astruc justified his hinted gay couples. To him just the fact that people ship them is a big enough proof for their existence.

*insert laugh*

I don't need to write thousands of words as to why this is such a bad argument. If you've been a tiktok, you're aware that there is a ship between Sukuna and Cinderella, and even though it has been created for troll purposes, there's is content for it, it's still a ship. If you've been long enough in the LGBTQ+ community, or even in the Harry Potter fandom or the My Hero Academia fandom, you're aware that gay ships are either misinterpreted friendship/bromance or people who just took two person they found hot and made them kiss.

I am not a pro-shiper, but I am still aware of the fact that content doesn't equal ship. People are shipping everyone with everyone, they don't need anyone's help on that. And while sometimes it's very wrong, like incest or p3do ships, shipping is most often than not empty of canon facts.

If your only argument to say that you have gay people in your show is to say "well people ships them" is not a really great argument. It's like someone apoligizing to you while trying to find excuses and to shift the blame on you.

If one day you arrive in this situation, doing what he's doing isn't of any help. Because at the end of the day, he is still responsible for not being more forward with gay characters. He's not forced to scream on every rooftops that they're gays, of course, but getting visibly pissed at people not seeing his gay characters is misplaced.

If you hint a character's sexuality, it stays a hint. Some people can understand it while other cannot. The fandom will never fully understand everything that you put in your show, because it's still art, and art is subjective.

If your gay representation is based on hints it is normal that people do not notice it. A hint is not canon, because not everyone is going to guess it as hint. People see hints everywhere, even more so on the internet.

So if one day you found yourself in the position of having a hinted LGBTQ+ character that some people doesn't consider as canon, insisted of saying "you're just hypicritical, you're the problem." I recommand you to explain why you decided to leave it as a hint. Explains the differents hints, explain why you have not been more forward about it in the show because it's your show, it's your responsability to say what is canon and what isn't. The fans can say stuff like "it's canon in my heart", you can see fans shipping two characters and loving it so much that you decided to alter the story to make them together (At first Harry Potter was supposed to end up with Hermione Granger, but after seeing the ship between Ron and Hermione, J.K Rowling changed her mind).

But at the end of the day you're responsible of the canon and you're responsible of what you're writing.

And as a side and final note, I wish to reassure the one reading this post and telling themselves "but I have no reasons to have hinted this character's sexuality !". Here is a list of reasons as to why you could have hinted a character's sexuality :

It's a side character. The plot isn't about them, but I still wished to plan out bits of their identity and personality since they appear in some episodes/chapters to make them feel more human and not just plot devices.

It's a background character. Representation comes in many forms ! I decided to draw/add a lot of LGBTQ+ representation in the background of my stories because I wanted to add more diversity while establishing this scene in public. They aren't anything to be proud of since they aren't actively playing a role in my story, but they're still worth of being acknowledged.

This character is just at the beginning of their journey ! More about their identity will be discovered as we go, it's normal to not know everything about them right at the beginning. Stay tuned to see more of their stories !

The character isn't aware of this part of them yet. They will be at some point but it'll take time. They still see themselves as a cishet, but it's because of hetero normalization.

The main plot isn't about romance. Adding a romance sub plot to my story will disrupt the pacing and what I have planned for the future/i don't really enjoy having romance in my shows. I'm still thinking of ways to make their identity more striking to the audience without having them scream it everywhere. If you have any ideas let me know !

It's a corporate issue. The corporation I work for didn't not allowed me the freely show their identity, so I had to tone it down a little. But really for us the writers, they're LGBTQ+

After three hours of intense writing and badfully researching through Thomas Astruc's tweets, here is my post. I have yet to edit it properly yet, so feel free to correct me on some mispellings or problems in my translation of the tweets.

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