“Comics-Only Love Interests”, Pt. 2: More Sexism in Winx Club
In my post comparing Nex to Aisha’s comics-only love interests, Jordan and Silvan, I said that sexist comments used to be more common in Winx Club. So even though the fandom associates sexism with Riven (and now Nex), it’s actually a universal problem.
I found another example: a conversation between the Specialists at Redfountain in “At the Last Moment” (Winx season 3, episode 19):
TIMMY: You don’t understand a thing about girls, do you, Riven?
RIVEN: Look who’s talking! Tecna had to wait forever before you told her you liked her!
TIMMY: Yeah, you’re right, but girls are pretty strange. I mean, who can really figure them out, huh?
BRANDON: It’s easy, Tim. Whatever they are, we’re not.
SKY: Thank goodness!
Yikes! Should we write off Timmy, Brandon, and Sky as sexist jerks, too? It’s only fair since the Winx fandom did it to Nex after just one comment. Heck, this is the second sexist comment I’ve found from Sky recently, so he definitely has “a penchant for misogynist language”!
Here’s my point again. Nex’s remark in “Back in the Middle Ages” (Winx season 7, episode 8) was sexist, but it wasn’t meant to reveal he’s a misogynist. Instead, comments like that are par for the course in Winx Club. Should they be? Of course not.
But the Winx fandom didn’t label the other guys “sexist” after they made these comments. So why is Nex, the newest character, getting the most flak when this has been going on since long before he debuted? If anyone has a “penchant for misogynist language”, it’s not him. It’s Rainbow.
Anyway, here’s the full scene, which includes a brief conflict between Helia and Riven.
yeah really i question the point of the specialists since serve no purpose for the plot much
They’re the love interests, obviously. But originally, they were also meant to be the characters the male Winx fans could see themselves in. Sure, some of the male fans would rather imagine themselves as fairies, but those who don’t could be a Specialist. On the official website, some of the posts used to address the fans as “fairies and heroes/Specialists”, obviously referring to male fans as the latter.
Now recalling past; never actualy liked Sky for his quotes… and role as the prince charming who can cheat without consequences.
… what is fun considering Brandon was written as someone girls shall fall in love with, Nex case wasn’t meant to be misogynist, in my point of view those lines of Nex was soposed to reflect average elementary school comentaries about girls that 6-8 year old boys sometimes have when they haven’t come to actually talk with girls .. I say so because it was quite common in my old school to be adressed as not qualificated sinse it was a only boys catholic school that came to accept girls for a change in some country laws regarding education a year before it was my time to enter elementary school and it was odd and frustrating having to deal with it everyday, the fact is not all boys were as reasonable as Nex, so, it doesn’t make it better for character devepolment but it is an example for young girls dealing with that s**t.
Me I ask.. in those old unadinoi closing times, there was an article of point of views where it had an explanation of no one being wrong or right and all being just points of views? If it’s not to much to ask for, what was the name of that theory?
For the record, season 6 Nex devepolment was deeper than the 8 seasons main specialist non-existent work on character.. we don’t even get to know them!!
While I don’t support Diaspro/Sky, I agree that Sky cheated on her. They’d been engaged since they were children, so she grew up expecting to marry him one day. The least he could have done was formerly break up with her before running off with Bloom.
That said, I don’t like how she’s handled the situation, either. She tried to force Sky to choose her or else she’d kill Bloom right in front of him. And before that, she tried to control his feelings using a love potion she got from an evil sorcerer. It makes me wonder if Diaspro really loves him or is just overly committed to her duty.
As for Brandon vs. Nex, it’s another double standard. Nex has been loyal to Aisha the whole time, yet the fandom thinks he’s a womanizer. Brandon is canonically known as a Casanova and still flirted with other girls while dating Stella, but does the fandom see him as a womanizer? Nope. ?
The fandom is biased against Nex. They always treat him worse than other characters they accuse of (or who are actually guilty of) the same behavior. And if you try to defend him, they don’t listen. They want reasons to keep hating him, so they ignore or downplay anything positive about him.
I see what you mean about how young boys view girls, and it’s a good point considering Winx Club’s target audience. The Winx also make similar comments about guys. In fact, in the scene after this one, Aisha calls guys “big babies”.
I think Rainbow is going for “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” commentaries, but they don’t go over well in today’s social climate. And for Nex, especially as a new character who the fandom already disliked, it was bad timing.
I still have my posts from Una di Noi, but I don’t remember which one you’re talking about. I’m sorry.
I remembered another example from 7×09, “The Fairy Cat”. Orlando accidentally drives his wagon away without the Winx. When he comes back, Stella screams something like, “Aren’t men in these times supposed to be knights in shining armor?!” Then later, when they’re on the wagon, she says, “Centuries pass, but boys remain the same.”
If you can think of any other examples, it’ll be helpful for my next video (which I am working on right now btw).
Yep. It’s worth noting that that episode was the part of the same arc as “Back in the Middle Ages”, where Nex made his comment. I think Rainbow did that on purpose: a sexist remark about girls, followed by a sexist remark about guys.
And yet i find it funny that even Mike and Oritel have said similar things before and no one thinks anything of it, but then again it might have been more clear that they were just under stress and in Oritel’s case wanting to teach Sky a lesson. (One that Sky should pay more attention to. The lesson is, if you break my baby girl’s heart, whatever i do to you will be 10 times worse than whatever you imagine Stella would do…and you don’t want to know what Mike would do.)
It’s a combination of two things. One, the Winx fandom probably doesn’t remember Mike and Oritel saying things like that. Two, everything is worse when Nex does it. The other characters can get away with anything, but when Nex does the same things, he deserves to die. No, literally. A couple fans said they wish Rainbow would kill him off for this one comment. A little harsh, maybe? ?
Wow. It sure is strange how that works. Also even if Aisha and Nabu had been more popular than Bloom and Sky…I don’t think they would have done that to get rid of him. If anything they really need to think more critically about “Aisha is the tide” and what that means for the respective stories of each Winx and Specialists. If anything Way of Sirenix pretty much describes what type of stories should be told about each couple. Bloom, Stella and Aisha are just easier to write for than some of the others since fire can translate to adventure, tide to life and light to being a guide (pun intended). This must be why the other three are harder to write about. Aura, Flower and Voice. Musa’s the easiest out of that group, but somehow whenever Musa uses hers to stand up for herself she gets placed on the backburner even over her boy friend (that space needs to be retained wherever Riven’s concerned, he is not a suitable boyfriend for any girl except Darcy. Hopefully there’s a discussion about friends or couple in season 9 or the comics concerning whether or not Musa was just being nice to Riven in front of her father when she really wants to silence Riven.) or called a bit of a not so g-rated word for rejecting Riven when she’s just setting boundaries.
Flora? Maybe they don’t want corny plots? I mean they’re so corny that even when they barely disagree (do she and Helia ever really fight?), it’s literally Snow White and Prince Florian (semi-official name) with those two, Helia even brought cornflowers as a gift. What’s next creamed corn?
Tecna?- maybe they’re burnt out on the robot needs to learn emotions plot? Surely they could think of other stories besides the gadget girl who is socially awkward? How about something where she helps someone else with another problem that isn’t tech related.
I still don’t get why they keep Nabu taxing Nex…and even wanting a k.o.? That’s way worse, also i find it funny that now it’s supposedly npc to have killed Nabu…forgetting that his popularity was around Tecna’s popularity at the time and now it’s Flora levels.
People are reinterpreting Nabu’s character and his death based on their current feelings about it. We do this all the time for more important matters, like our own lives. Our memories often lie to us.
For example, some people claim that Rainbow killed off Nabu because he and Aisha were more popular than Bloom and Sky. But if my memory serves me, Rainbow did a favorite couple poll on the official website during season four. Bloom and Sky won, and Aisha and Nabu were either fourth place or fifth place. (I could be wrong about the placement, but I know they didn’t win.)
This makes sense, of course, because Nabu was a new character. He had barely been in the show and didn’t appear in what was then the only movie until the final scene. So we hadn’t seen much of him and Aisha together, anyway, so how would they have dethroned Bloom and Sky, a far more developed couple, that quickly?
But these fans are drawing that conclusion based on Aisha and Nabu’s popularity now, which skyrocketed after his death.