Why "Mary Sue" is Not Literary Criticism

So, we have a character.

She is considered the greatest spy in the department.  Has whatever gadget she needs to get out of the death trap of the day.  Causes millions of dollars worth of collateral damage but never has to pay any of it back or worry about losing her job as a result.  Manages to bed every attractive member of the opposite sex she comes across, and even gets a few of them to defect after falling in love with her.  Can handle any firearm with instant expertise, and can operate any vehicle she happens to find herself in well enough to avoid getting her butt shot off.  Oh yes, and she's still considered the world's greatest secret agent despite not being able to go five minutes without being identified (and subsequently setting off a chase and explosions).  Has fiercely loyal companions no matter how much of an egotist she is.  Has a trail of men willing to die for her despite knowing they're little more than a notch in her headboard.

Sound like the worst Mary Sue ever written?  Who the hell could sell a story that bad?  Who the hell could read something that bad without going all MST3K on it?

...Guess what, guys?

I just described James Bond.  Only, you know, if he was female.

This is why "Mary Sue" is at best a useless critical catchphrase, and at worst a symptom of the misogyny inherent in our culture.

There is no denying that there are badly-written wish fulfillment characters out there, and one trip through the first two pages of Fanfiction.net in virtually any category will turn up pleny of them.  But here's the thing: if you are legit criticizing the writing, a badly-written wish fulfillment character being female and fan-created should not make the writing so much worse so as to deserve its own gendered insult.  Especially when we have just as many cheesy wish fulfillment characters in published fiction who are lauded and loved while doing everything the Mary Sue is demonized for.  They just happen to be male.

When you throw around the term Mary Sue as a pejorative, what you're effectively saying is that women's wish fulfillment is inferior solely because it comes from women.  Especially when male characters who are obviously the same kind of wish fulfillment power fantasy -- Superman, Conan the Barbarian, James T. Kirk, Tommy Vercetti, Simon Templar, and yes, James Bond, just to name a few -- are given not just a free pass, but national and/or worldwide acclaim for being such flawless badasses.

This begs the question of why the vast majority of bad original fanfiction characters are female, while the vast majority of just-as-bad published characters happen to be male.  And there's a very simple answer, there.

The fiction market, from books to video games, is driven primarily by men.  Most writers in the industry are male, and they cater to male audiences.  They are men writing stuff for other men.  And not even all men at that.  They write for a specific subset of men: straight, white, insecure, and with disposable income.

And thus, they either ignore the interests of women and girls wholesale, or superficially pay lipservice to them.  So as women, we go on and do what we do best: tell them 'screw you' and we write the stuff we want to see.  That's really what fanfiction is.  It's women filling in the blanks of published media for other women.

This is why men have no need for fanfiction at best, and find it silly, stupid, weird, and even threatening at worst.  Because women exercising agency and doing things entirely for ourselves and making our wants public without caring what men think has always been the subject of ridicule.  But that's another rant entirely.

So with most fanfic writers being girls, it's only natural that most characters created by those fanfic writers are also going to be girls.  Girls who get to do all the cool shit they see boys do in media.  Girls who get to be flawless badasses and steal the show the way the boys do.  Girls, like the boys they watch, whom everyone wants to do or be, and the only people who hate them are just jealous.

And they're doing it for free.

So if you want to keep feeding the patriarchal system and dismissing women's wish fulfillment fantasies as Mary Sue drivel?  Fine.  Just remember that your fantasies are just as shallow, just as stupid, just as ridiculous, and just as badly written.

But unlike Mary Sue? You're paying money for them.