[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Oh, come on. Power Girl is about as powerful as Superman, Witchblade has the Magic Glove Thingie going and that whole mystical succession, Vampirella is a vampire and a vampire hunter – their schtick is actually their main thing, the hottitude is just extra added fun.
[/QUOTE]
Power Girl may be close to Superman’s strength, but her schtick is her enormous breasts. Has a group of women ever asked Clark Kent to show off his ass? No, but a crowd does ask Karen to show them her tits. Has anyone ever asked Batman to look sexy to distract an opponent? No, but they expect Power Girl to do it. Then there’s the fact that they refer to her as Power Girl instead of Power Woman. Even Invisible Girl got an update on her name. Do other members of the Justice League make comments about how sexy Batman or Superman look in their costumes? Nah, but they have fun discussing Power Girl’s outfit.
EC, for whatever reason you don’t feel like adressing many of the reasons why some people find comics to be sexist. It isn’t just the outfits it’s a whole lot of other things. Instead, you choose to focus on only one aspect of women in comics.
Well, I like me some hot comic-book chicks, and the Mary-Jane statuette cracked me up for being so incorrect… actually, I’m fondest of Supergirl’s red hot-pants costume circa 1981. When the artwork gets too stylized (and anatomically impossible) is when it starts to lose its appeal, and not because it inspires any sense of outrage on somebody’s else behalf. If some women don’t like the books, don’t buy 'em. If they want to complain, let 'em. If they or the comic-book artists want to be taken seriously… good luck.
I’ve figured out why these portrayals of comic book characters bother me. These women are supposed to be heroes. They’re supposed to be brave and strong and save people and battle for what’s right and good. Part of me loves the idea of having a superhero that I can identify with not just because they’re smart, courageous, and capable, but also because they’re a woman. But the women on that Heroes for Hire cover don’t look like they could save anybody. The images that **Evil Captor ** linked to may look sexy to him, but they don’t look like heroes to me.
It’s no skin off my nose if fans like these characters. But from the outside looking in, if most women in comic books are portrayed that way, then I don’t want to come in. And if most female characters do look like this, then fans shouldn’t wonder why most adults don’t read superhero comics.
Here’s a good example on how the genders are *not *equally sexualized in comic art. The top image is what was originally drawn, and shown to fans and shop owners in preview images. The bottom image is what the final cover actually looked like.
Say what you will about Alex Ross (the artist in question), but he tends to do a pretty good job drawing what people in these kinda of outfits would really look like. Realistically, that means we’d be able to tell the religion of our male heroes. But editorial will have none of that.
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
This should be framed and hung in a museum of Fatuous Rationalizations
[/quote]
Oh, stop with the flattery! LOLs are fine, but saying my posts are museum quality works of art is just too much!
Yah, I get it, it’s wrong to be a straight male. Good luck with that.
Nah, I’ve got some adult comics and hentai that fit your description, but mainstream comics don’t and neither do all adult comics, for that matter. That straw woman won’t hunt!
Fantasizing about being able to fly and shoot rays from your eyes and communicate telepathically with fish is acceptable, but the fantasizing that women who can do these things might also do so in sexy costumes that miraculously don’t fall off is totally beyond the pale. Uh, riiiiiiight.
If most comics readers found male superheroes sexually attractive, they’d be presented in sexy ways, too. Comic readers for the most part don’t find male superheroes sexually attractive, so they aren’t presented in sexy ways. It’s as simple as that. It’s not sexism, it’s SEXUALITY. Most readers are male and straight, so the male superheroes get a pass on the sexy.
Seriously, do you see anything wrong with that? I mean, I can tell you do, but I just don’t know how you arrive at such a position.
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
I would also add that when Batman et al are drawn unrealistically, they aren’t walking around in a thong and a smile. The Batsuit does not have a hole to reveal Batman’s well-crafted abs. Superman does not stand around in the T&A pose to show off his manly chest and toned buttocks at the same time. Captain America does not have a massive bulge in his patriotic pants (okay, he has, but those pictures were pretty evenly mocked).
Why aren’t they? I mean, surely, female and gay/bi comics readers would enjoy a bit of equivalent cheesecake now and again.
[/QUOTE]
Because the vast majority of readers would be majorly turned off by such stuff.
What’s so hard to understand? Why should comisc cater to the tastes of people who might not actually buy them when they have a proven audience? Granted, they’ve shrunk to a niche, but the way you get out of a niche doesn’t involve destroying your existing customer base, it involves expanding your titles to attract new market segments. I’d be completely OK with that.
Are you saying that comics haven’t expanded their intended appeal in the past 20 years? I imagine that’s true for superhero comics, but apart from them I don’t think comics have ever been as diverse as they are now.
[QUOTE=Amok]
You linked to that site in EC’s earlier thread.
And I have to say, I really hate that site. How about this, I concede that all their arguments are right, and mainstream super hero comics (Marvel, DC, Image, whoever else) are sexist. OK, frankly, so what? Their assumption seems to be that sexism is bad not only in practice in the real world, but in fiction. I don’t agree. And, to be clear, I’m not just talking about a particular character having a sexist viewpoint (which most people probably wouldn’t have a problem with, depending on how the character was depicted), I’m saying there’s nothing wrong with art that expresses a fundamentally sexist (or classist, or racist, or whatever) viewpoint. Art has no moral obligation to society, IMO.
[/QUOTE]
I think it’s a mistake to concede that guys enjoying hotties being hawt in a fantasy medium like comics is sexism. That’s pretty much saying that people have a right to dictate what your sexual tastes should be. That’s not letting the other team move the goalposts, it’s letting them HAVE the goalposts.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
Still, I wouldn’t say that that’s the most sexist thing about superhero comics. What I find more troubling is the lack of standalone female characters. Most female superheroes are just female versions of already-established male superheroes. Batgirl is just a female Batman, Supergirl is just a female Superman. What’s worse, while the male heroes are usually “Man”, the females are often “Girl”, even as grown women. Yes, Wonder Woman is an exception here (no male equivalent, and she’s “Woman”), but she’s really the only one, among major characters, and she has a set of gender issues all her own.
[/QUOTE]
Fathom? Black Canary? Power Girl? Witchblade? Elektra (I think she’s standalone nowadays, she had her own movie and all, crappy as it was) Red Sonja? Lara Croft? many others? Granted, most standalone female superheroes seem to come from Dark Horse, Image, Top Cow, etc., and consequently not have the sales of the DC and Marvel regulars, but I don’t know that it’s sexism that prevents their success, though it might be.
[QUOTE=Miller]
You haven’t seemed to pick up on this yet, but people aren’t complaining that there aren’t enough ugly women in comics. “Hot” is fine. But women can be hot without dressing like strippers, or being posed like they’re doing an FHM photo shoot.
[/QUOTE]
No one is complaining that there aren’t enough ugly women in comics, but they’re definitely complaining that they don’t like the wasp-waisted, large breasted women in comics, and wish for a more “realistic” image of women in comics. Tell you the truth, my taste in women does not run to female body builders, I like curvy women, but the body builders are OK.
As for the dressing like strippes or posed like they’re doing an FHM photo shoot, nothign wrong with that so long as it does’t constitute all that they do, and contrary to what some posters would have us believe, such images are generally just part of what you see in a superhero comic. It’s a FANTASY.
[QUOTE=Jodi]
I’m afraid my reaction is worse than that; not just “Gosh I wouldn’t read that!” but “Who would read such crap?” It’s a cover that IMO insults the intelligence not only of women (most of whom won’t read it) but also of the men who apparently would. Heaving women, breasts on display, hands tied over their heads, while slithering tentacles creep up their bodies? C’mon. It’s not even subtextual, it’s obvious. Next cover: Train repeatedly penetrating tunnel – but only with a half-clothed female engineer riding it, of course.
I don’t mind sexuality in art, but I do prefer not to be whacked on the head with it.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but you are not a guy. Guys like different things than women do. Nothing wrong with that.
How does sexiness (even over-the-top, exaggerated sexiness) equal sexism?
Why is it demeaning to emphasize the features that men consider physically attractive, even if the characters are otherwise doing important, superhero-type things?
I think it’s a lot more sexist to draw a normally proportioned woman happily barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen than an uber-sexy woman fighting crime and kicking ass.
[QUOTE=cmkeller]
Evil Captor:
Interesting argument. Were comic book sales higher or lower now, or in the 60’s when artists like Swan, Infantino and Kane were drawing women much more realistically-proportioned and clothed than today’s artists? And were fewer males buying the comics then?
[/QUOTE]
As I understand it, comic books sales were much higher back in the 60s, but it didn’t have that much to do with how the character were drawn, it had to do with the fact that comics were still sold at newstands in drugs stores, grocery stores, convenience stores, etc. Sales were declining however and there were always major problems for publishers with the newstand model – comics tended to get shopworn frequently because of course, a lot of the buyers were kids.
I’m not sure you can make a direct link between comic sales and drawing styles because of the difference in sales models then and now.
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Let’s see. Publishers market comics that are total turn-offs to women, but women should buy them in order to influence publishers. That doesn’t even rise to the level of a strawman argument.
[/quote]
If the less sexist comics saw a big increase in sales because women bought them, then presumably comic publishers would publish less sexist comics, because that’s what the marketplace demands. It’s actually good, clean logic.
They pande to all sorts of impulses … the basic one they seem to pander to is fantasies of protecting innocents from evildoers. Vile stuff, indeed.
No, I just won’t back the weaker arguments found on the bingo card. Why should I? They’re weak. As I explained in a previous post (but one written subsequent to your post) I think Amok is making an error in conceding that comics’ appeal to straight males is by nature sexist.
I won’t because it’s not. Amok offers a perfectly reasonable route for publishers to change comics if they so desire and if the marketplace responds positively, he even cites examples of comics that are less sexist that could lead the way. Anything BUT circular, but you don’t seem to be disposed to understand that.
Of course it could. If that is what the marketplace wants, it could happen. I don’t think that is very likely absent a change in the demographics of superhero comics readership, or censorship imposed form outside the field akin to the Comics Code, but it could happen. (I understand that you are not necessarily calling for censorship of comics here.)
Yes, and shockingly, many romances features rapes and/or quasi-rapes of the lead female which subsequently lead to full-blown romances with the guy who raped her. Imagine the horror if that happened in a comic! Perhaps you should get on romance novels’ case as well. It appears that women as well as men have fantasies which do not meet with your approval!
[QUOTE=I’m Ron Burgundy?]
Are you saying that comics haven’t expanded their intended appeal in the past 20 years? I imagine that’s true for superhero comics, but apart from them I don’t think comics have ever been as diverse as they are now.
[/QUOTE]
They’ve expanded their appeal, you’re right. I was talking about their position in the marketplace and in demographics. Superhero comics have definitely become a niche there.
[QUOTE=Miller]
Who’s telling you what you should want from comics? It seems most people are saying what they want to see in comics, and indicating that they’d be more than happy to pay the way for comic publishers, provided they start publishing stuff they want to read.
[/QUOTE]
Fair enough, but it IS an argument that’s tougher to deal with than an argument that boils down to, ‘No fat chicks’ which is simply comtemptible.
[QUOTE=Miller]
You know, if you’re going to make a seperate post for every argument on that cite, it’s going to get really tedious, really fast. No, wait, sorry, too late: it’s already tedious. How about engaging in the debate happening with posters from this board, instead? Especially seeing how it’s happening in the thread you started, and all.
[/QUOTE]
A good point. Perhaps another thread or a different venue would be more appropriate. There are some good arguments on the bingo card, just haven’t goten to them yet. Mayhaps Fiver and I can go over them in another thread after this one is finished.
I’ll stop for now, I had a lot of stuff to do today in the real world and did it, but I’ll get back to the rest of these posts later this weekend, hopefully tomorrow.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Yes, and shockingly, many romances features rapes and/or quasi-rapes of the lead female which subsequently lead to full-blown romances with the guy who raped her. Imagine the horror if that happened in a comic! Perhaps you should get on romance novels’ case as well. It appears that women as well as men have fantasies which do not meet with your approval!
[/QUOTE]
I just have time to reply to this.
It is simply and absolutely false, a stereotype about romance novels as bad as any stereotype of comics.
I won’t deny that these books have existed, but they are rare exceptions from the past and are absolutely condemned by the vast majority of today’s writers and readers. The romance genre evolved past such ugly notions of female sexuality.
Exactly what I’m saying that comic books should do.
[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
Because the vast majority of readers would be majorly turned off by such stuff.
[/quote]
Right! But here’s the problem. There being a double standard because of the audience concerned makes sense. Yes, guys like to look at hot women, let’s put some in the comic. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a double standard. Simply that sexism sells doesn’t make it ok.
Think of it like this. A few decades ago, the majority of comics readers had certain opinions on Germans and Japanese people. And so comics came out that caricatured those people; impressively racist stuff, considering they were written for kids. But hey, the comic companies were merely providing what the audience wanted - a chance to see Superman beat up those perfidious types! So really they were just catering to the tastes of the audience. What’s wrong with that?
I agree with the argument brought up a while back. Male characters are much more likely to have some noble or villainous but impressive trait associated with their character. If I ask 100 people to name things they associate with Batman, how many references to his body or his sexuality will I get? On the other hand, sexuality is pretty much pushed in your face with female characters. Now, you may like that (and hey, i’m not always averse), but there’s no denying it’s a clear double standard.