Miraculous Ladybug Is Kind Of Sexist 

Let's not forget that Thomas constantly pushed Cat Noir/Adrien out of the story for the sake of propping up Marinette, as if he doesn't know how to write a strong female character without making the male lead "weaker".

Putting down male characters to elevate female characters isn't social justice. That sounds like social vengeance

I’d like to add the constant sidelining or downplaying of Chat Noir. A good feminist story doesn’t have to reduce men just for the woman to appear powerful. It’s actually super reductionist, implying that she wouldn’t be as relatively strong if the men around her were smarter or stronger. It’s a problem a LOT of “girl power” stories fall into and I’m honestly ready for it to go extinct. Write actually strong female characters instead of being lazy

They kinda threw away Marinette's other personality traits in favor of her relationship with Adrien. Like what happened to her being really into fashion and design? Why does she always revert to this clumsy, stuttering idiot when there was more to her character. Give us more reasons to like her, this is why a lot of people prefer Adrien over Mari as a main character, because theres more depth to his character. I blame Thomas for the female character's main focus being romance or related to romance. He refuses to take any criticism constructive or not.

Both the misogyny and the misandry in the show are s t r o n g, the show's hands are truly rated E for Everyone.

It's also that male antagonists like Gabriel and Andre end up being treated as more sympathetic than Chloe. I don't even like Chloe, but somehow Astruc's bad writing forces me to defend her.

Miraculous is a show that manages to be sexist on both sides. It's like taking the male hero out to save the princess trope, gender-swaping it, and calling that girlpower. In reality, all of Marinette's passions in life mean nothing in comparison to a boy she likes and Adrien becomes nothing more than a trophy.

I like felix because HES THE ONLY ONE THAT HAS A BRAIN.

It's funny how if something is misandrist, it will usually loop around and end up being misogynist too. If a writer is willing to sacrifice character for a sexist message on one side, then that bigotry is likely to bleed into other parts of the story. Miraculous Ladybug genuinely seems to treat women as superior to men, so it holds girls to a higher unfair standard and isn't as forgiving when they make mistakes. Makes me grateful for shows like Winx Club and Sailor Moon that do girl power right.

As a woman, I couldn’t agree with you more. It isn’t equality if one sex is propped up while simultaneously putting down another. That’s not feminism, and that’s not equality. That’s misangury, hatred of men, can’t remember how to spell it.

Slightly off topic but it is so obvious to me that the writers realized they totally messed up by making marinette a creepy stalker so they tried to backpedal and justify it by writing the Kim prank backstory in Derision. They were like “there! Now it’s totally fine that marinette is a stalker because of that one little thing that happened in her past that totally doesn’t correlate to becoming obsessive over your crush!”

A thing to bring up is that while yes Adrian (as Chat) didn't stop asking Ladybug out he did eventually learn it was wrong, with one of the episodes (I don't remember which) he goes around destroying the signs that label him and Ladybug as a couple as he realises that she doesn't want to date him. Then during season 5 when Chat and Mari go on a date he calls the thing off at the end because he doesn't want to abuse the fact he has power over her with his secret identity, can you imagine season 1 Chat doing that? He wouldn't have cared. So this means that Adrian learns his toxic behaviour is wrong and stops but with Mari the show treats as funny and romantic with it being brought up by her friends constantly. Her backstory doesn't make it better, she should have been told by everyone that it was wrong (like how she told Chat) and learned. plus why didn't she stalk Luka if she refuses to date people unless she knows everything about them?

Oh my goodness, thank you for saying this. The misogyny in this show is so insidious, but if you read into it enough, you can see it. So we’re expected to forgive Andre when he spoiled Chloe beyond reason, and enabled all of her bad behaviour, and is therefore responsible for the monster she became? No! Especially when, in the end, when Chloe goes too far even for him, he abandons her instead of taking responsibility for her actions, y’know, like a parent should. I think the other problem this show has is that Astruc is desperate for people to like Adrienette, and only Adrienette, and therefore, all of Adrien’s other potential love interests are made out to be monsters to make Marinette look better by comparison (With the exception of Kagami, but that’s only because she is later paired with Felix, and therefore not a threat to Adrienette anymore). It’s sickening to me that a teenage girl who was spoiled by one parent, and neglected by the other is made out to be a monster, meanwhile the parent responsible for enabling her gets a redemption. It’s also sickening to me that Lila was made out to be a monster too, as she started out as a sympathetic villain. Was it wrong for her to lie to Adrien? Yes, but was it right for Marinette to humiliate her in front of him? No. Lila could have been sympathetic, but nope, because she likes Adrien, she is a threat, and therefore an irredeemable monster. You don’t ship Adrienette? Screw you, Marinette is perfect, and the only girl for Adrien. Everyone else can get bent in Asstruc’s eyes

Wether this show was sexist or not won't change the fact that it's a shitty show , and I will never forgive them for what they did to Adrien and Chloé

Another reason why the movie did A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER than the actual show!

This is literally everything I feel all the time, like COME ON, for someone who likes to preach about how “feminist” this show is and calls people “sexist” for wanting more screen time for Adrien, Astruc does not do a good job at actually writing a feminist narrative Edit: I’m still so upset about Chloe’s failed redemption because, despite what Astruc tries to claim, she did have a good redemption arc going but they just ruined for literally no reason

I think the Chloe part is especially concerning given the fact that she's a teenager on top of being a victim. Astruc basically said that a what 14 year old girl? was irredeemable even though she's in the most important years of her development of self and social identity. Everyone has the potential to change at least to SOME extent but ESPECIALLY teenagers, especially teenage girls too who tend to be put through greater social difficulties during their teen years. Her being 'fundamentally bad' is an awful message to children because nobody is completely fundamentally bad.

is incredible how the movie fix MOST of this problens.... Gabe being a truly simpatetic villain, Marinette not being a creeper and adrien being the same cinnamon roll as always... how they made that

I'll explain the mess here. Every character in this show except for Marinette is a stand in for a real person Thomas knows. They are either Thomas himself, a rival of Thomas', an ex or someone who rejected him. This is why so many characters are one note meanies or get the shaft in some way. Marinette isn't a real person stand in, she is his ideal both in terms of the ideal woman and in terms of his own power fantasy of always being the best. He can't seperate himself from the ahow because it's all one big Mary Sue fanfic.

I can’t even lie Thomas Astruc is really weird and actually insane for portraying Marinette only being able to do well by excluding Chat Noir. The involvement of Adrien toward the finale was also really fueled by the fanbase that Ladybug/Marinette isn’t competent for reasons that wdn’t be brought up if it were Adrien(he is uninvolved, but Marinette was blamed for things like being nervous arnd him and for rejecting Chat Noir). But we just want Adrien to be.. involved? For them to have an equal partake in unfolding the story too.

Not just the writers, the fandom too. During the season 3-4 hiatus most people were fine with Luka dating Marinette but hated Kagami because she was getting in the way of Adrienette.

For a "empowering girl power" cartoon Astruc surly does love to antagonize teenage girls that are not Marinette or her yes-men. Fact that we got two "unredeemable" teenage girls but main male villain gets redeemed despite years of abusing his son and year of brainwashing and murdering civilians (kids included) that main character thankfully can reverse is absurdly misogynistic. Not to even mention show creating weird suggestion that women are only worth something when they get a partner. Notice how only single girls Marinette knows are the unredeemable Satan reincarnated who are desperate to get with Adrien who's treated as this weird prize to win while all of her good friends are either in relationships, having a crush or are totally irrelevant on verge of being (i miss my aro icon Alix).

Here's my take on it. I think they should have made them both the main characters, like seasom one is about Marinette, and season 2 be about Adrian, and so on so on. They could have made this a great show until Tomas ruined it.

If you think about it, this show already shows how Ladybug doesn’t actually need Cat Noir or his powers, because she can just break the akumatized object herself and capture the akuma. Cat Noir is literally just only there to carry on the plot.

I mean, I do agree Audrey deserves no redemption. She's a child abuser, literally one of the worst things a human being can do. But then Gabriel should have been treated that same way, dammit! And Andre isn't an innocent angel in his family's situation. He gave Chloe money and privilege and called that as good as raising her, not to mention, as the other adult/parent in that situation, by not stopping Audrey from emotionally abusing Chloe he's an enabler. They should absolutely be faced with some kind of accountability. Another thing that bugs me is that sending Chloe to live with her abusive mother is treated as come upance. That kid is going to get so traumatized and she will not deserve it.

Im between if its sexist or just wants to make everything about Marinette because shes the MC, due to some key points: -Marinette stalker behavior towards Adrien and if the roles were reversed, would Adrien be seen as the bad guy for this. Or if any other character did this, they would be seen as bad, but because its Marinette, its seen as romantic. - The reveals with Alya, Luka and apparently now Kagami, with Marinette now being able to share the burden of being LB with other people, and yet Adrien hasnt shared his identity with anyone. Heck, Luka knows and he never talks to him about it or sends anyone to help him. - Marinette gets a power-up and a new form for her Miraculous, and yet Adrien doesnt. -Both Adrien and Marinette have issues and problems, but it seems the show only likes to highlight Marinette's.

Im so sick of seeing most female characters stories surround a male crush. Yes, having crushes of boys is totally normal but you know what isn't? Making it your whole personality trait and throwing away any aspiration or goal you had before in favour of getting with a guy. Also this is slightly off topic but i feel like this trope can be very alienating to any girl who isn't straight.

I’ve always had a hard time shipping Marinette and Adrien because of how they act around the other person. Like Marinette is a stalker and Cat noir is just pushing too hard and being creepy as well. That’s not really healthy so I never really wanted it to happen but I guess it’s kinda cute now when they’re actually together but I would’ve preferred if Marinette had a bit more arc and personality and that their romance was build up in a good and healthy way.

This is why I've always thought the hyperfixation on love and romance wasn't a good theme for a kids cartoon. When in the wrong hands, it becomes horribly regressive.

I would like to add that Ladybug does indeed keep leading Chat Noir on, especially during the first three seasons, as she's constantly calling cute nicknames, scratching his chin, giving him kisses, etc. It makes sense Chat Noir would think she's playing hard to get whenever she rejects him. But of course, as everything that Astruc puts his hands on regarding this show, it goes for way too long, oversteps its boundaries and is repeated for the sake of status quo rather than for narrative reasons, which in turn makes everyone involved seem worse than they're intended to be.

I always hated how the girls were always pit against each other. I expected much better from a more modern show.

In early seasons the writers created Marinette as a tropey character without a lot of depth, and Adrien as a well-rounded character with fascinating and personal conflicts with the main antagonist. Instead of developing Marinette with a similar amount of depth, Astruc tried to make the show more female-centric by shoving Adrien as far into the background as possible. Instead of putting in the work to avoid misogynistic tropes and make Marinette as complex as Adrien, Astruc basically sabotaged his deuteragonist and the ending of his own show. He didn't have to do that... Marinette was getting more focus with the Guardian storyline anyway... 😔

thank you for this, people are very quick to point out the inequality in screentime with marinette and adrien when the topic of the show's sexism comes up but nobody talks about how awfully this show treats its female characters. the deadbeat fathers of the show all get their redemption while some little ass 14 year old girls are treated like satan incarnate, it's wild

The last four episodes really was my last straw. The fact that Andre the mayor-who was mentioned by Chloe twice to be corrupt and sabotages his opponents to get what he wants, and other than when she needs him to give her power, Andre isn’t that present in Chloe’s life-and Gabe as Hawkmoth-who gave her superpowers to fuel off of that hatred and power molded my mostly her father which caused her to be more intensely terrible in the later seasons-aka two shameless abusive ADULTS get to be redeemed, but Chloe, the child in all of this and the product of both of their evil, is seen as irredeemable is such a slap in the face.

Thomas really thought that "subverting" the damsel in distress by making Marinette the knight to save Adrien WHILE HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY AGENCY OR KNOWLEDGE was a great way to do female empowerment, what a clown Guy even tried to do the whole "Don't tell Harry" from Spider-Man

That is such a good point, comparing the treatment of female villains vs male villains. They completely turned a blind eye to Andre’s role in making Chloe who she is, we don’t ever see Felix even apologize for his inappropriate behavior towards Marinette nor his almost killing people, he’s just given instant redemption. Gabriel, who is so steeped in crime at this point, got a redemption because he does one good deed at the last minute. That’s like a crime boss on death row being freed and getting a statue because he does one good thing at the end. It’s bogus. Meanwhile all the female villains are 100% irredeemable. Yeah that really is a Yikes ! 😅

Girlpower completely ruined adriens character He should have been in the final but he is written out of the story of his own family just so that marinette shines WTF

This isn’t a feminist story, though. I hear everyone talking about how strong of a female lead Marinette is. She isn’t strong. If anything, she’s very weak as a lead. Marinette is an obsessive stalker. She constantly uses her powers for selfish gain, all while never learning her lesson and growing from it. Sure, we’re told she learns her lesson at the end of each episode, but we just repeat the same things over and over again. Marinette’s obsession with Adrien led to catastrophe in the Season 3 Finale, she said she would get better, and then the exact same thing happened in the Season 4 Finale. Marinette then KEPT pining over Adrien. Rather than let Marinette realize that her unhealthy obsession was unhealthy and that she didn’t deserve Adrien as she was, the show instead had Adrien randomly throw Ladybug aside and fall in love with his stalker within a few episodes of her not doing anything different. It’s pretty ridiculous. Marinette is romance-obsessed and never learns from her mistakes. I’d hardly call her a strong female lead at all. Heck, she more fits the archetype of Chat Noir, overall.

I find it funny how they see adults more redeemable than middle schoolers, it should be the other way around tbh

It wouldve been better if they let her move on to Luka realizing she can be with someone who shes comfortable with rather than obsessed

I actually have a question with the whole story of this show. If the Ladybug and Cat miraculous, when combined, can give the holder a wish that can rewrite the universe, why would Master Fu even give out the cat miraculous? I mean, Yin Yang and all that, I guess, but it really isn’t needed. The Ladybug miraculous is used to stop akumas, but the cat isn’t. So why wouldn’t he hide the cat away to prevent Hawk Moth from ever getting it? He could have given Adrien any other Miraculous. It just feels so stupid to me.

Thomas Astruc literally joked about killing off Chloe in an airplane crash, COME TF ON...

Something that I haven't seen people mention... Emilie Agreste story is also pretty sexist? She is a combination of woman in the fridge/dead by childbirth (metaphorically) trope. I remember when everyone thought that the show was going to subvert those tropes and Emilie's backstory was going to show she was more than a plot device, either because she was a past superhero, a supervillain worse than Gabriel... or something else you know? But nope, she was there to birth Adrien, leave some plot-convenient videos and woobify Gabe 💀

They did Adrien/Cat Noir so dirty, Ladybug and Cat Noir are clearly not equals.

I remember a RU-vidr who made a video about this, like how Marinette scolded and even hit Adrien when they switched Miraculous becauae she thoughr he wasn't taking his job seriously enough. She was a girl, and she herself found it pretty sexist (plus other aspects of the show).

It's actually pretty sad that she is Mary Sue but also at the same time, she is so... shallow? I mean she is good in everything (gaming, fashion, baking, etc.) but all of that skills are there because it's making her closer to Adrien (she played games with him, baked cookies for him, she's into fashion and he's a model). It doesn't feel like she's into things, she just has skills. She mostly talks with her friends about him like there is no topic that teenage girls could be talking about. I would love to see her being a person outside of Adrien. There is nothing wrong with writing a girl that is in love. But she's not in love, she's a creep and these types of behaviours are shown as appropriate since Adrien and Marinette end up together. And every girl that is a threat to her love with Adrien is basically a monster so she's "not that bad".

Miraculous Ladybug's male villains are the epitome of "He was having a bad day you should be nice :(" and he was a mass murderer

I'd also like to point out that the dynamic of maribug (marinette and ladybug) and adrichat (adrien and chat noir) is written to be basically a reverse sexist trope with the whole hopeless everyman (now everywoman) protagonist who pursues and is rewarded by a perfect woman (now man). Despite his evident flaws Adrien and Chat Noir aren't properly explored and they exist rather as a one-dimensional prize for Maribug. Instead of prince charming and the beautiful, perfect, somewhat orientally fetishised and treated princess, they just switched the genders and went "haha yeah feminism" which is really disempowering. As you said, Adrien is reduced to an object to be desired and fought over much like how pretty leading female characters have been historically treated. Not to mention the fact that Adrien is well a victim of abuse which is also often attributed to the 'princess' trope where men save their flawless but victim gender counterpart in a way that doesn't empower the victim but empowers the protagonist, the man, but well in this case the woman. Sorry that this is kind of hard to articulate since I'm trying to both explain the original trope and the gender reversal but hope people can see where I'm coming from because it really pissed me off with season 5 especially since Adrien wasn't allowed to fight or even hate his manipulator, and Marinette was empowered in fighting what should've been Adrien's fight.

Ok with the Ladybug rejecting Chat Noir part, the times where he does try moving on and he goes to someone else. Ladybug starts catching feelings, and you're stuck watching him slowly get pulled back in.

Miraculous was never a girl power show, it's a Marinette-power show. (I love Marinette, I just hate how the show tries to market it as girl power when it has all these issues)

This show constantly tries too hard to be sailor moon but their girl boss out done Marinette 🤣💀

It's honestly impressive how the show is able to be sexist towards both genders. On the one hand, you make the main character's only personality traits be that she's nice, she doesn't like the stereotypical mean girls, and she has an obsessive crush over a boy. On top of giving a redemption arc to Gabriel, of all people, whose akumitazations have probably cost the lives of hundreds, if not thousands. (Go back and watch the show. There is a surprising amount of terrorism in it.) But you can't give a redemption arc to a simple high-school mean girl with parent issues? Are you kidding me? On the other hand, you have one of the most complex and interesting characters in Adrien, and just choose to push him aside and make him look weak for the sake of girl power. The very idea of the show is imbalanced. Think about it: Cat Noir needs Ladybug. Ladybug doesn't need Cat Noir. Only Ladybug can de-akumatize someone and return everything back to normal. If they were truly going after equality, Cat Noir should be able to de-akumatize people, too. His story is so much more interesting than Ladybug's anyway. She has two loving parents who own a successful business and has a ton of friends at school. Meanwhile, Adrien has a dead mom and an absent father. He was stuck in his house for 14 years. He's rich, sure, but he's miserable since most people just see him as an object. It just feels like such a waste.

I agree with you but I think you should have added how it’s kind of sexist towards men. What I mean is, the show has a way of only making female characters smarter, more powerful, or giving them more screen time at the expense of male characters such as Chat Noir. It also paints one of the alleged main characters in a bad light because he appears useless, stupid, and spineless. The show also paints Gabe as dumb and stupid at times just so Ladybug can win. The fact that it’s always Ladybug that makes the solution to beat the villain and not Chat Noir proves that the show wants us to see ladybug as better and more competent. When it comes to Felix I actually don’t have any complaints about him that fit into this category. But my main point is: Shows shoulder have to put down or dumb down or just completely banish him off screen to make a female character look stronger or smarter.

Also how the show just IGNORES how Nino started accusing his girl of cheating over a MOVIE and justifies it is just.. awful

I hate so much how they scrapped Chloe's redemption arc. For ONCE they had managed to right some good fucking character development, and then they threw it all away and introduced Zoe as the replacement "good" Chloe. Zoe is a pointless character. If they'd stuck with Chloe's redemption arc, Chloe would have fulfilled the same role in the story, but been a much more sassy and interesting character. They didn't need Zoe. Hell, even Zoe's introduction was lazy. Some random half-sister coming out of the woodwork? Come on, guys. I'd tell you to do better, but clearly you aren't capable of it.

Man, this video sums up my entire feelings about all this BS Chloe's dad is the reason for her being the way she is, but HE gets redeemed?!

We should not exclude Marinette's condescending behavior towards CN. She does tell him that she doesn't like him in that way, which is understandable, and CN needs to respect that. In other episodes, she kisses him and tells him he is his only partner. When she started developing feelings for CN, he ignores her, and she is the one that gets upset. You cannot expect CN to stop flirting with you when you give him a bunch of different signals. Those are just my thoughts.

I honestly one of the reasons why i love felix is that he defeated ladybug Like ladybug just wins every single time by plot armor and making gabe and chat noir look stupid So felix defeating her was really satisfying

I completely agree with you, especially with the villain women break down, they REALLY fall into the 'evil step-mother syndrome' which has historically been shown to be extremely harmful to children.

“Is Miraculous kind of sexist to anybody else?” What a brave and never before asked question to say (yes, of course, it is misogynist and misandrist at the same time and has been for a while).

Remember how Astruc said that the reason he removed Adrian from the season 5 finale is so Marinette could have her hashtag girlboss moment and he shows this by...... having her lose to the main villain at the very end and fail her objective of not letting the villain get ahold of the two miraculous

Completely agree dude! Feminism doesn't mean bad writing and downplaying boys. They could have Kagami as the main and focus on Adrien too.

Agreed Edit Adrian should’ve been the main character and I will die on that hill

13:12 Actually, the writers ARE getting some sick gratification out of destroying Chloe's character. According to this reddit comment by CrystalPokedude (yes I know, reddit, but still), "Put simply, a writer dispute which has never been flat out admitted, but is clear if you actually look at the production process. S1 and 2 are both written together by Thomas and Zag (Jeremy Zag, owner of Zagtoon, the company funding Miraculous.) Zag is on record being very pro-Chloe and supporting her redemption arc, which is why her face is on so much of the marketing, he owns the company. Around the time S3 rolled around, Zag shifted his focus from the show to the Awakening movie which has sat in development limbo for 3 years. "Coincidentally," the second Zag left the project, Thomas went back on Chloe's characterization and turned her evil in a character 180 so quick it's still jarring 3 years removed. I think we can all put two and two together and see what this means. Thomas may not have intended the Chloe redemption arc, but Zag (again, the man funding the project) did. So, the redemption arc got made and Thomas just threw it out because he didn't want it. It was never a red herring, Thomas just likes making people think he's smarter than he really is and is refusing to admit he cut Zag's idea out because he didn't want to redeem Chloe. He thought his idea was better than Zag's, and given the fact we're still arguing about it 3 years later, he was clearly wrong." Also I think I heard from a RU-vid video some time ago that they threw it all away because "Chloe reminded one of the writers about his bully in school." It might of been in a RU-vid video by Cyrus the Great, but I don't really know. Miraculous Ladybug is arguably getting worse and worse. I couldn't watch it after the second season. Sorry, not sorry.

Is miraculous ladybug sexist. Here's my answer. Yes. Thomas wants Marinette be the only male character to show girl power. And to make her look like a strong and powerful girl, he makes Adrien be the unimportant sidekick and push him to the side. First off. Having to make the main boy into a sidekick and more of a side character to make the main girl look more important is fucking stupid. This is terrible when we remember that they're suppose to be yin and yang. Their miraculous are suppose to be the most powerful ones. Yet it's the ladybug miraculous who seems like the most powerful one. Remember. It atleast four different powers. Lucky charm, purifie akumas, fixing damage and making magical charms. Plus probably more. While the cat can just destroy things. Just why. Then the thing with master Fu. He only reveal himself to Adrien because Marinette told him to. Not because he cares about teaching him things. Wow. Fu is fucking biased. I'm just tired that Thomas Asstruc wants people to see the show like "Wow this show has a strong female main character. So cool." But instead people is mad that to make Marinette be the strong female main character, they have to push Adrien into the background. And he gets mad that people don't want Marinette to be the only main character. When we just want her to share the main character spot with Adrien equally. Ecspecialy when we look at the season 5 final. Where Adrien isn't even part of the battle. Against his dad. The movie was more equal between them. There ladybug was equal to Chat Noir as he also was part of the final battle. Anyway. That's my thoughts.

Just write Female Characters how you write male Characters (Strong,flawed,fun personality,eternal monologue,learns a life lesson and that’s it) It’s not that hard 💀

I think one of the worst parts of this topic is in season 4 when Ladynoir was breaking down. In this arc, Ladybug is constantly being portrayed as a villain and Chat Noir as the victim for being sidelined. But the thing is Marinette just became the guardian and has to deal with all these kwamis with superpowers that she doesn't realise Chat Noir is feeling left out. He could've told her but instead was being irresponsible and not going to akuma fights and then giving up his miraculous with no explanation to Ladybug. And then afterwards, she got told off by Plagg for some reason and suffered from sleep deprivation the next day. So she got a consequence for something that isn't her fault but Adrien didn't get any consequence. He got to hang out with Ladybug again as Cat Walker. And then at the end of the season, she loses all the miraculouses while Adrien gets a massive reward to comfort Ladybug at the end of Strike Back. And let's not forget glaciator 2 in season 4 when he basically harassed Ladybug and got no consequence for that either. I mean he did get thrown in the trash and also agreed to stop obsessing over her, but then he just became obsessed again at the end of the episode! I said it was one of the worst because I think Felix's redemption arc was the worst. He literally sexually assualted Ladybug in his debut episode and then when came back he handed the main villain all of the miraculouses and then snapped the whole world out of existence. And then in Pretention he kidnaps Kagami and then tells her that he's been following her everywhere and then still gets to date her at the end of the episode and also is trusted by Ladybug and Chat Noir at the end of the episode and becomes part of their team at the end of the finale. To me it just made no sense because he didn't do ANYTHING to deserve that.

Yeah, Thomas Astruc is part of those kind of men who see themselves as feminist and call everyone who don't like their o so perfect female protagonist sexists, yet they don't understand feminism at all beyond "strong women should be worshiped and elevated above the plebe of men and women alike". Yet they fail so hard at making said female protagonist likeable and worthy of our praise and admiration that it tends to have the opposite effect, not mentioning in his case it's intermingled with extremely mysoginistic tropes.

If we’re really going to go the route of the show is sexist, I’d say it’s both misogynistic and misandrist at the same time depending on the roles in the story, which is insane. The story seems to have a bias towards female heroes and male villains, excusing or ignoring any bad things they’ve done. Although, I’d rather just say that the story is written terribly.

TBH, Chloe character felt so wasted… like i remember her time has Queen Bee and when she started to be “nicer” in season 2 with Zombisou. Even Marinette at the end said that if we are positive and let a good exemple, she’ll be better. I felt that she could have improved as a character and not only be a “stereotypical rich brat” and really be part of the good people. They worked together in sec 3 like it would have been great but for me what make for me realize she will never change is when we see the past of Marinnette being bullied. I felt that it was to drown her character arc just because Thomas Astruc hated her. I love Chloe because she had also a terrible past with her mom and in queen battle we see more development in that and Marinnette being nice. For me Chloe was a wasted character that had potential in having a good character development! We see others have better character arcs while being the worst…

MLB characters feel like they're taking early 2000's high school tropes for them. Adrien as the classics hot dude that every girl likes. Chloe the classics mean girl and etc.

chloe's story arc was so, so odd because for a while there, it really seemed like they /wanted/ to redeem chloe by having her help ladybug and learning humility through that. then for some reason they did a total 180 and she's like 5x worse than before? very sad

Imo she isn’t a good influence on kids, if you want to make a good female character for girls then do it right. Don’t make her a stalker for a boy she likes, don’t make her push down other characters, make her relatable for girls. Mari’s backstory is no excuse for trying to find everything about Adrien and stalk him. Yes what Kim did was bad but that doesn’t mean Mari needs to stalk someone she doesn’t know before falling in love with him, there are other ways she can find stuff out about him. She can ask him questions, ask other people questions that know him, since he’s a model she could research stuff about him.

I’ve only really enjoyed the show for what it could have been, rather than what it ended up being. I love the concept of this villain taking advantage of anyone going through a tough time by offering them fitting superpowers. It provides a lot of opportunity to explore emotional themes Time Breaker could have been about regret and consequences. Alix is the only one responsible for her misfortune. She can accept and learn from her mistakes, or she can travel back in time and undo them. Sabrina’s dad believes in the law and thinks nothing was above it, but one day learns that the law is not always that black and white. Roger Cop could have been his denial of the law being imperfect. Kim could have learned through Dark Cupid that being rejected does not make you incapable of love. But nah, all of these episodes were about Chloe being a dick so that each character had an excuse to throw a tantrum with some funny superpower. It’s so shallow

And the amount of hostility between the main girls of the cast is incredible, that's a really common trope and even tho marinette does have girl friends, it is pretty obvious how they constantly put girls against each other for the plot

The thing is that Marinette being a stalker technically doesn't really make sense. When Adrien first came to school, Marinette didn't even recognize him even though she had a magazine of him with her. Meaning that it was after the umbrella scene that she somehow managed to make Adrien's life schedule for the next 5-31 years. Which again doesn't make sense because the most you find out about child actors is: Birthday Height Weight Zodiac sign And their physical appearance as well as a brief mention of what movies or shows they've been in. I know because I had a crush on some of the guys when I was their age so like when I was 11 and they were 12. I imagine the same thing would apply to a model... so that means that Gabe just gave the information to the public not caring about how it could put Adrien's safety at risk OR Marinette is good at hacking to know what Adrien's schedule is. Although if memory serves and she DID have the schedule for the next 31 years of his life, I'm inclined to believe that most of the information is probably wrong simply because the events haven't happened yet.

There has always been this weird underlying theme in miraculous where the male characters are often portrayed as significantly weaker or ever downright powerless against the female characters, and play off any bad action the males as "not their fault" in order to beat you in over the head with the power gap. I don't know if this is somehow empowering to young females as I am not one, but I feel like this is just a bad message for everyone.

I honestly started hating Marinette in season 3 she was so bloody toxic in that season

I think the problem with Miraculous and why its sexist is the fact that its so romance focused. Honestly, romance ruined this show, and it is still ruining it

I dont think we’re supposed to view Gabriel’s “sacrifice” as a character redemption

I never thought of the show as sexist but just with piss poor writing, but once you point out the patterns it's hard to argue. I appreciate you shedding light on this topic.

This is just so true. Marinette giving up on Chloe was the worst show decision ever

Special mention to Luka and Juleka's mom as well. I don't like how they try to make her out to be unresonably upset at Jagged Stone, when the dude literally abandoned his children just because. Like hello???? Why are we pretending that this is okay? Jagged is a shitty dude all things considered and we're just pretending that he's not? Bruh.

All I'm going to say is I love this show but Thomas Austruc (I probably most definitely misspelled it please correct me) writing is awful especially the character development and is something I think holds this show back

so glad you brought up all these points about how the women are written and how they behave in comparison to the male characters. Everyone only ever brings up CAT Noir being put down as a point of sexism in the show

Allow me to demonstrate the sexism of this show with how the villains are framed: Gabriel/Hawkmoth the big bad, whose sole motivation is bringing his wife back while trying to control his son, and repeatedly attacking innocent people mostly teenagers, and nearly annihilates the world on several occasions. He is portrayed as sympathetic and complicated and is allowed to succeed in bringing his wife back, and is allowed to be seen as a good father even though he neglects his son at best and controls his son at worst. Felix starts off as an antagonist and has an entire episode where he uses a miraculous to imprison the entire world (including innocent people) while defending his grand plan to free the abused rich kids from their terrible parents. He traps and effectively kidnaps the entire world, and then gets redeemed, even though he intentionally did that of his own free will, with no akumatization mind-control excuse. Lila has no sympathetic motivation, she's just a lying sociopath that hates Marinette for seeing through her lies and humiliating her. Chloe's motivation she wants to be powerful, famous, and rich. Chloe had a sympathetic backstory in that her mother was neglectful, was a terrible bully with little moments showing that she could change for the better, only to turn back into the selfish brat she was in season 1, except now she becomes a tyrant taking control of Paris and becomes even more unhinged and awful. She's made into the butt of several dumb blonde jokes, to the point where she has to have the word 'generous' defined for her, and her ability to plan is reduced to that of a toddler, and she's retconned into this irredeemable monster with 'Derision'. She's defeated by forcing her to live with her terrible mother. Nathalie feels like a weird exception to my point. Nathalie harms herself for Gabriel using the broken peacock miraculous, but she's mostly framed as a henchwoman not a villain in her own right. She loses her ability to be a villain thanks to the miraculous only for Gabriel to become more powerful, and yet she's the one who creates the Optigami plan, which unlike the Risk/Strikeback plan didn't involve Marinette being forced to lose because the plot said so. She gets one moment to call out Gabriel for not fixing the miraculous, and claims that she's staying with the Agrestes to defend Adrien but she doesn't really do anything. The male antagonists have their own sympathetic motivations: Hawkmoth wants to save his wife, Felix wants to free sentimonsters, Lila wants to control people because evil, Chloe wants to be rich and powerful because selfish and evil, and Nathalie wants whatever Gabriel wants because servant, she claims it's for Adrien but again it's her wanting what Gabriel wants not her own version of the motivation, or just her own motivation in general. Notice how the male villains have sympathetic moments even after they've done horrible deeds and yet the female villains mostly don't.

One thing that bothers me in particular - a theme in the show is that Marinette isn’t truly herself as Ladybug, and that Adrian is only truly himself as Cat Noir. This would actually be a really smart concept, except the only difference b/t Marinette and Ladybug is that the “real” Marinette is super clumsy and awkward. But that’s pretty much _just around Adrian._ Her “defining trait” is centered entirely around the male love interest.

One thing I never liked about miraculous is that when ladybug "fixes" everything with her lucky charm she does not only repair (miraculous of creation) things that have been broken, but also destroys stuff that was not there before. I feel like that would be a great moment to show why both miraculous (cat and ladybug) are so important you cant rebuild without destroying something.

I am still so upset over Astruc's extreme rage when it comes to Chloe, he completely ruined her arc and made her nothing more than ANOTHER stepping stool to make Marinette look like the greatest person ever even though her personality has been becoming worse just as much due to the terrible writing decisions

It's cool how stories mirror the author. On the surface MLB presents as very pro-women/feminist. But when you go a bit deeper you see in actuality it's basically the opposite. I've also been enjoying a lot of the online discussions/analysis's of the Barbie movie.

I’m still pissed with the finale so I’m not really gonna get into todays topic.

geez, i don't get what Thomas is trying to do here, empower women, depower them or is just venting his own demons as a messed up guy cuz that's the vibes I am getting

Gotta love when the fans write even better than Thomas himself

I'd also say the writing of the show itself is sexist in nature. It's a trend I've noticed with a lot of hated female characters, people dislike them because when they mess up, the narrative doesn't punish and sometimes rewards them. There's ample depictions of this across mlb of Mari doing something wrong and she's never punished for it. That obviously makes a character unlikeable because who wants to see someone constantly get away with being a shitty person when they're Meant to be seen as the good and perfect protagonist. The reason why I think this affects female characters more than male characters is because showrunners and writers (especially men, coughcough Astruc) seem less willing to punish female characters? Perhaps it's rooted in sexism and women as being just too emotional so of course they made an irrational decision (I'm unsure). But either way, its a trend I've noticed in a lot of shows and I think it's pretty sexist in nature

Honestly, given how they’ve shown Chloe’s treatment of others I’m surprised that no one’s actually tried to kill her

Its so weird. Everything in the plot revolves around Adrien. But Marinette is the main character. Also I dont know why the show is touted as a feminist grand achievement. Its a magical girl series crossed with a western teen superhero show. So many shows have done this better. I never once saw this show as feminist.

Goku and Vegeta’s rivalry is better that Lila and Marionette. I heard France loved Manga and made a lot of stores dedicated to that. So why not stop at a store and buy a copy to learn! C’mon Astruc. Also why would a fashion diva…want to marry a mayor especially one that’s well renowned for her criticism? I’d expect her to go for royalty or President. No lower than a celebrity. Mayor?

Yes I used to love this show! But I’m so sick of Marronette downright STALKING Adrain! She makes the same mistakes over and over again, same with Chloe, any forward momentum towards positive change is immediately revoked. All your other points were great, but once Maronette flew to China under the guise of “getting to know her family” only to stalk Adrain, I couldn’t take it anymore

I like to say that "downplaying female characters to make the male characters look better is a bad writing choice, and the same applies the other way around"

not allowing Adrien to become the protagonist PURELY because of his gender IS SEXISM. Whether it's for or against, that's sexism. If it was for her backstory, personality- sure that's fine. But you're not allowing Adrien to become the main character or even an equal of marinette just because of his gender. And Thomas has the audacity to call US racist when bringing this up.