You do indeed.
@Amber, please don't change that ankle line. It is magnificent. Humour can come from anywhere--why can't it be derived from a made-up character?
I completely agree. I don't think anything should be off limits to humour. The important thing is always the target of the joke, not the incidental details of the people who populate it.
As it stands it all comes across as a bit anti-man.
I don't know. I just enjoyed the parody. And I don't think you have to look very far in mainstream fiction to find examples of what's being parodied (see the link at the end of
@Kirsten's article). I didn't find it anti-man, but rather anti-stereotyping (although of course my saying that proves nothing and carries the weight of only a single opinion).
--
I'm going to make a few observations, none of which are aimed at anyone above, although my thoughts have been informed by what's been said. Civilised, lively debate is always welcome, and I'm certainly not trying to take a shot. But I am going to voice an opinion that may not be universally shared.
During the
Black Lives Matter campaign last year, there was a backlash on social media, the gist of which was, 'Yes, black lives matter, but
all lives matter!' Which seems like reasonable logic on the face of it. But to make such a statement misses the implicit meaning of
Black Lives Matter, which is that black lives matter
as much as white lives. The playing field was never level to start with, so appealing to universal ideas of equality does nothing but devalue the original grievance.
Sexism is real. Glass ceilings are real. The objectification of women in fiction is real. Two thousand parodies on Twitter of perceived bias by some male authors is funny, and real.
And we're talking about it, aren't we? That's something that strikes me as positive.