The thing is, this is all part of a larger movement that has curbed how men feel inspired to pursue women, especially coupled with the militant feminist agitprop, and anti-marriage legal frameworks in the Anglosphere.
In a vacuum it's easy to laugh off this instance, or even chuckle at the 4Chan reactions, but it's actually indicative of a much broader and more sinister problem spawned from Cultivation Theory.
In this case, it's cultivating negative inferences toward childhood crushes or aspirational relationship goals has been a heavy-handed tactic from Hollywood for decades now.
Aspirational male heroes have been undermined or subverted (i.e., Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, etc.) while female characters have been corrupted or turned into a vehicle for anti-male propagation.
In this case, Gadget was known for being cute, friendly, inventive, productive, hard-working, and feminine, despite her tomboyish traits. She was an aspirational icon for what many young men should have sought out in a mate if they were looking for someone industrious and hardworking.
Subverting that concept is -- as this very thread title points out -- a demoralisation tactic on a subconscious level, and it's something that those in the 4chan thread consciously reacted to.
Because it's not about Gadget being buggered by a fly (bad as that may seem), but it's about the idea of what she represents being relegated to the whims of an insect. Someone smart, funny, cute, hardworking, and mechanically inclined, turned into a nesting egg for a fly.
Disney knew that people would then associate that imagery with their aspirational ideas of what Gadget represented in a mate. A deconstruction of that aspiration.
For the blokes at the age of thinking about finding someone in real life with Gadget's traits, it's going to be hard not to think about her being buggered by the fly. And in turn, creates the cognitive cyclical loop that there is no happy ending with attempting to find someone like that.
Keep in mind, even though it's a cartoon mouse, she's still anthropomorphic enough -- like Chip and Dale -- that she represents human qualities. So that's why in the thread the 4channers remarked why couldn't she have simply hooked up with Chip or Dale? As audiences would have vicariously seen that as a win for her and for the heroes. But dampening that outcome for Chip and Dale, also dampened that hope for the audience, and in turn, ruined the subconscious idealisations they had of Gadget.
TL;DR: Basically, more propaganda to ruin how people view relationships and the hopes of finding an ideal mate.
Great post, you explained that very well. Our minds ultimately operate on influences in -> influences out, whether on a subconscious or conscious level.
The thing is, this is all part of a larger movement that has curbed how men feel inspired to pursue women, especially coupled with the militant feminist agitprop, and anti-marriage legal frameworks in the Anglosphere.
In a vacuum it's easy to laugh off this instance, or even chuckle at the 4Chan reactions, but it's actually indicative of a much broader and more sinister problem spawned from Cultivation Theory.
(a non-exhaustive example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3963162/)
In this case, it's cultivating negative inferences toward childhood crushes or aspirational relationship goals has been a heavy-handed tactic from Hollywood for decades now.
Aspirational male heroes have been undermined or subverted (i.e., Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, etc.) while female characters have been corrupted or turned into a vehicle for anti-male propagation.
In this case, Gadget was known for being cute, friendly, inventive, productive, hard-working, and feminine, despite her tomboyish traits. She was an aspirational icon for what many young men should have sought out in a mate if they were looking for someone industrious and hardworking.
Subverting that concept is -- as this very thread title points out -- a demoralisation tactic on a subconscious level, and it's something that those in the 4chan thread consciously reacted to.
Because it's not about Gadget being buggered by a fly (bad as that may seem), but it's about the idea of what she represents being relegated to the whims of an insect. Someone smart, funny, cute, hardworking, and mechanically inclined, turned into a nesting egg for a fly.
Disney knew that people would then associate that imagery with their aspirational ideas of what Gadget represented in a mate. A deconstruction of that aspiration.
For the blokes at the age of thinking about finding someone in real life with Gadget's traits, it's going to be hard not to think about her being buggered by the fly. And in turn, creates the cognitive cyclical loop that there is no happy ending with attempting to find someone like that.
Keep in mind, even though it's a cartoon mouse, she's still anthropomorphic enough -- like Chip and Dale -- that she represents human qualities. So that's why in the thread the 4channers remarked why couldn't she have simply hooked up with Chip or Dale? As audiences would have vicariously seen that as a win for her and for the heroes. But dampening that outcome for Chip and Dale, also dampened that hope for the audience, and in turn, ruined the subconscious idealisations they had of Gadget.
TL;DR: Basically, more propaganda to ruin how people view relationships and the hopes of finding an ideal mate.
Great post, you explained that very well. Our minds ultimately operate on influences in -> influences out, whether on a subconscious or conscious level.