Fools for Love: A Critical Analysis of TDWT

Meta
Title:	Fools for Love: A Critical Analysis of TDWT
Creator:	JoeMerl
Date(s):	26 March 2011
Medium:	DeviantArt Journal
Fandom:	Total Drama
Topic:	Total Drama: World Tour Analysis, specifically of how canon handled Female characters on the show
External Links:	Fools for Love: A Critical Analysis of TDWT, Archived version on DeviantArt
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Fools for Love: A Critical Analysis of TDWT is a meta essay about Total Drama: World Tour, aka TDWT, and how the season of Total Drama handled its Female characters and their canonical relationships with Male characters on the show.

The original journal post has 65 comments, some of which also discussed how Female characters were treated in media as a whole at the time.

Beginning

As readers may have noticed, I've not posted a new chapter of "Change of Plans" tonight; I hope to get it up in a few days, but I suck at scheduling so the new chapter isn't complete. ^^; But while writing it, something occurred to me: practically every female character in season three is a lovestruck, anti-feminist idiot.

I'm a bit reluctant to make this argument, not the least of which because I wouldn't consider myself a "feminist" ("masculist equalitarian" would probably work better), but I think it's worth noting how this particular form of character derailment has spread throughout the series, and how the female characters---all of whom were more or less awesome in season one---have been particularly affected.

This has actually been pointed out to me once or twice before, though I didn't realize how true it was until I started writing my story. If you actually stop and go through the characters, you realize that pretty much every girl's story arc was tied up in a love interest, usually with the result of her acting like an idiot and/or screwing herself because of them. Obviously, the guys have love interests---those same girls---but their whole stories aren't about them. To illustrate the difference, let us stop to examine the characters in question.

Comments

ProfessorRatiganFan Mar 26, 2011
You make some interesting points and I do agree that Gwen could have worked on her self control in regards to Jerk-Face (AKA Duncan). But strangely enough, despite what she did, I can't really hate her all that much, as she was pretty decent to Cody this season. (I'm a die-hard Cody fan.) And I won't even bother going into an analysis of Duncan's character on World Tour, because well, it's mostly opinion!

teneery Mar 27, 2011
Hey, cartoon guys are (almost) always better than female characters. I must admit, I'm sad about Bridgette, Courtney and Gwen, but happy about Lindsay with Tyler (that's preety much only one couple which stayed true for whole three seasons) and Izzy interacting with Noah more than with her boyfriend of Alejandro also gives extra points for Nizzy (hee hee! yes, I'm Nizzy shipper more than Ozzy =P)

Besides, is it just me, or only guys and girls without romance interests are complete underdogs and lest liked characters? Sometimes I have a feeling that some guys are going higher and higher in game only because of adding drama to the show, because let's face it - Heather was supposed to be out of the game in 8th episode, while she lasted till the end because of her fling with Alejandro. No fun :|

TheKoboldNecromancer Mar 27, 2011
And people wonder why I hated TDWT, Alejandro, and Duncan.

You sir, have wrote an essay over a Trope! And I agree so much, I must reflect on my own stories! :)
I salute thee. :salute:
I applaud thee. :clap:
I bow to thee. :worship:

1000GreenSun Mar 27, 2011
Wow, this is very nice! I never thought about it like that, Joe! I always relish your insightful thoughts (:

IronBloodAika Mar 27, 2011
One of the things I do have to give this season credit for, is how they handled Owen. Last season the guy couldn't do anything right, and yet everyone (But Courtney bless her) just loved him and never blamed him for all the screw-ups he made. In this season he actually contributed and did stuff. He's still an idiot, but he was useful.

Overall TDWT is better than TDA, but still below TDI. What it got right it did really well, when it was bad it was really bad.

soultaker78 Mar 27, 2011

I think it's amazing how Heather went from being 'the bitch you love to hate' in season 1 to someone worthy of admiration (arguably) in season 3. In that season, she was one of the few female characters who didn't lose their common sense over a guy and eventually turned the tables on him.

It pisses me off how Gwen has been derailed since TDI. There, she was strong, confident and a variety of positive and appealing traits. Then TDWT, these traits disappear so she can can go gaga over Duncan. Then she kisses him while's with someone else, adding common sense and integrity to the pile of discarded traits.

I'm behind with my own fanfic writing as well. I was supposed to put up the final chapter of my CodyxHeather story, 'Bridges to the heart', as well, but I'm going to have to put that off by a day or two. Speaking of which, I would really like for you to check that story out. In addition to the couple, there's a fair bit of Alejandro bashing which I'm sure you'll like.

RandomNumbers783465 Mar 29, 2011

I read somewhere that one of the writers said that the entire Total Drama series is a soap opera. I agree with the almost all the analysis, the girls could have been handed better without so many romantic plots; Bridgette went to something next to a Scrappy, but her reunion with Geoff saved her from this; about Sierra, one thing I think it's interesting is that her romantic plot is actually interesting because it's played for laughs in the beginning until the point where she finally stops being so stalker, then it gets better for the plot, and she resisted Alejandro and didn't yield to his charms (on the other hand, she let him manipulate her in a non-romantic way, being the witness of her "marriage").

Lindsay is another interesting case that I agree with you, because she stays relatively unscathed by the romantic plot tumor because she's not that important, I mean, Tyler/Lindsay is not a very important pairing, more of a beta couple.

I believe that it can be argued that the romantic plot tumor of the season, that plagued the girls, was a deliberate attempt of the writers. Reading fanfics, I believe some fandoms, especially in the western animation, have a problem that I call 'shipping fever', although I like well-written romance, but the writers may have captured the desire of the fans for more romance, but went too far away (to the point of "lovestruck idiots"). This paragraph is just a theory, do you think it's possible?

P.S.: Your English teached doesn't encourage you browse TVTropes, right?

DarkMasterofCupcakes Mar 8, 2014
You know, I did feel like, starting this season, the writing started to feel more misogynistic, but that was because it felt like the girls were being written the worst and getting hurt a lot more than the guys. I never noticed the sexist aspects of so many of them having a major "arc" relating to a boyfriend.