Manpain
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| See also: | Woobie, Batman, emoporn, wangst | |
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Manpain is a term used by fans, particularly slash fans, encompassing a set of narrative devices that span literature, film and television. When a main character in a story (always male, generally white) is written with a particular kind of psychologically painful history that causes him to behave in specific ways, he is often said to have manpain.[1]
mimesere is anecdotally credited with either being the originator or a very early adopter of the term, which she memorably describes from the character's point of view as being, "I'm a dude, this is my pain, this is the REASON FOR ALL MY DOUCHITUDE, BEHOLD MY EPICNESS AND DESPAIR," adding, "sometimes it leads to sitting in the dark, brooding."[2]
Characteristics
Some of the characteristics of manpain are generally held by fans to be:
- It's marked by excess. The tragedies of the character's history are extreme: his reaction to them is melodramatic: his pain is tacitly or explicitly acknowledged by the story and/or other characters to be worse than anyone else's.
- "It's not enough for your sister to be abducted; she has to have been taken in your place while you were paralyzed, unable to stop it. You can't just have a soul that allows you to feel remorse for the evil you did; you have to be cursed to lose that soul again if you feel a moment's happiness." -ladyvyola[4]
- It is self-centered and inner-directed; events, especially traumatic events, in the narrative are typically viewed through the lens of how they emotionally impact the bearer of the manpain, who is often a figure of isolation.
- "[Manpain is] Donna Noble losing all of Time and Space and yet we all get to focus on the Doctor standing tragically in the rain..." -teenygozer[6]
- The character's painful history is frequently (although not universally) created by exploiting the death/suffering/loss of a woman, or children, or both. These women and children are often not characterized as having any importance in the narrative other than as plot devices to create manpain.
- "I loved the guy, I loved the show for about half its run, but it became clear to me that they did bad things (abduction, cancer, more abduction) to Scully to show Mulder's manpain..." -thisficklemob[7]
- The manpain serves a dual function. It is an easy way for a creator to shorthand a male character as vulnerable, and therefore sympathetic. It is also used to excuse a range of behaviors that often include actions that would otherwise be read as unsympathetically selfish, anti-social or violent.
- "One of the things that has been teased out in this whole discussion is the assumption that there is a substantive difference [between] 1) real pain in real life, 2) pain in fiction that is treated seriously and deserves (and generally gets) the same from its audience, and 3) pain in fiction that is used exploitively as a quick and easy tool to further characterization and earn sympathy from the audience—and correct me if I'm wrong, but in these cases I would say it is often assumed to be a largely female audience, who are generally understood to be suckers for that sort of thing." -walkingshadow[9]
- "Jack Harkness[...]is always doing horrible things to other people (torture, mind-wipes), then moping about how tragic it is that he "has" to do these terrible things, instead of feeling sorry for the other people whose suffering he's just caused." -rusty_halo[10]
Fan Response
Fans' response to, and tolerance for, these kinds of characters varies widely from character to character and fan to fan. The quality of the writing in the source material makes a difference to fan response. If the source is a tv show or film, the skill of the actor can have a big impact on the fannish perception of his pain. Characters with manpain often inspire the full ranges of fannish devotion and derision. Slash fans, who are a majority female audience, can have fairly sensitive antennae to what they perceive as cynical exploitation by canon creators, and their assumptions about female audience response to male characters' suffering.
All that said, it is undeniable that many of the characters who are most widely regarded as having manpain are also widely adopted by fan creators, particularly in writing slash fanfiction. blacksquirrel notes about this phenomenon: "It's hard to truly encapsulate the ironic edge of manpain which is both the emo angst that makes our hearts go pitter pat, and the vaguely absurd fixation of characters who really need to get over themselves and realize that they are still alive, still the heroes of their own stories, and still better off that most other people in the world."[11]
References
- ↑ 16-22 November 2009. See smallbeer's Livejournal entry untitled for an extensive discussion about manpain. Unless otherwise noted, comments referenced below come from this entry. Accessed 23 November 2009.
- ↑ [1] from a comment by mimesere.
- ↑ 16 November 2009. walkingshadow Dreamwidth entry with my rumdiddlyumdiddlyumdiddly, i'm so deep. Accessed 18 November 2009.
- ↑ [2]from a comment by ladyvyola. The fandoms referenced are The X-files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series).
- ↑ [3] from comment by musesfool. The fandom referenced is Battlestar Galactica (2003).
- ↑ [4] from a comment by teenygozer. The fandom referenced is Doctor Who (Tenth Doctor).
- ↑ [5]from a comment by thisficklemob. The fandom referenced is The X-Files. Scully is exceptional in that she was a signifcant part of The X-Files' narrative, but she was also clearly supposed to mirror Mulder's (mostly unknown and uncharacterized) sister in the present-day evocation of Mulder's past trauma and loss.
- ↑ [6]from a comment by mswyrr.
- ↑ [7]from a comment by walkingshadow.
- ↑ [8]from a comment by rusty_halo. The fandom referenced is Torchwood.
- ↑ [9] from a comment by blacksquirrel.
