It’s interesting, though, that you choose to condemn my opinion based on such superficialities. In the book you cited, the heroine comes from an advanced spacefaring culture that has developed an artificial form of telepathy known as direct neural interface. Very quickly people discovered how much fun it was to have sex while hooked up to direct neural interface – one gets to esperience not only one’s own orgasms but one’s partner’s orgasms as well. This makes simultaneous orgasms much easier to acheive, and a lot more fun, too.
In that society rape is unknown because having experienced the minds of their partners, almost all men find themselves unable to feel alienated enough to treat their partners badly during sex. There’s play rape, of course, where both partners make a game of it, but that’s mentally so different from the real thing that no one confuses the two.
The heroine is mentally unaffected by the rapes she is subject to, because she experiences the barbarians on the planet she’s on as limited creatures, mentally deformed as it were.
Now, the reason I wrote things that way is that I thought about rape and how it might manifest itself in an advanced society, or more likely, not manifest itself, and how a member of such a society might respond to it.
I wrote it because I’d thought about it, you see. People who write about things sometimes think about them first. Not always, to be sure, but it’s fairly common.
And that’s why your notion that my opinion can be discounted because I’ve written on the topic is another tell. If you write on any other topic, it’s assumed that you’ve studied/thought about it, so you’re an expert of sorts. But if you’ve written erotica, well, that must mean you know nothing about the topic and haven’t thought about it at all.
Consider please the following alternate explanation for Miller’s viewpoint:
Female superheroes are supposed to be, well, superheroes.
Superheroes, by their nature, are theoretically supposed to represent ideals to which we could (and, in some views, should) aspire. The best and brightest, if you will. People using the powers at their disposal to try and change the world for the better. Icons to be admired, examples to live up to.
Isn’t that essentially the core of the genre? The heart of the matter? That a superhero is essentially the ultimate good example?
The point of the argument that you’re (apparently willfully) missing is that the portrayal of female superheroes quite often isn’t anywhere near living up to being the ultimate good example. Quite often, female superheroes are either marginalized in some way (lost power, killed-without-any-later-resurrection-unlike-their-male-counterparts, helpless in degrading situations, diminished in some way, etc. - all documented in earlier posts by specific example cited) or presented as though their physical appearance - their sexuality - is the sum and total of their worth and value. Male superheroes suffer this treatment vastly less (if at all).
I haven’t seen anyone in this thread holding forth that female superheroes shouldn’t be sexy. What people are arguing is that “dressed like a hooker, posed like a porn star” is not the only possible way for a woman to be sexy. To be brutally honest, a lot of people don’t find that a sexy look a’tall - I think you’re imparting your personal preferences onto people everywhere, rather than making a reasoned examination. In a lot of people’s opinion, the decision on the part of the American comic book industry to overwhelmingly favor that single, minor facet of female sexuality is the part that’s sexist.
It’s the combination of those two things (the overwhelming niche-view of female sexuality that’s portrayed and the fact that female superhero portrayals tend not to model traits many people are comfortable with designating as the highest possible ideal for use as a role model) that makes a lot of people cry “sexism”. How can you call a female character a superhero with a straight face when (in many cases) their most-notable characteristic is that they’re eyecandy in a teeny-tiny costume? How is that an ideal to which one should live up? Why do you consider being mostly notable for your huge tits and tiny costume a good ideal for a girl to live up to? Many people don’t. Hence their distaste of this flavor of comic.
Before you argue (again) that the Spandex Queens are not all about cheesecake, please consider this: When one is listing off Superman’s attributes, where does one generally start? I’m going to guess the first answer out of your mouth isn’t “his chiselled abs”. When you’re listing Spiderman’s qualities, does the phrase “Man, that Spidey has a fine ass” ever enter the conversation? When discussing Batman’s finer qualities, does anyone ever say “And man, Bruce Wayne is a hottie!”? No? How come a female superheroes physical attributes come up in the top three damn near every time, then, if the treatment of male and female superheroes is equal?
I’m sure there’s a market for that flavor of comics - there must be for it to have survived for this long. I’m not in the business of telling other people what they should like. Not my business, frankly. However, I am pointing out that this flavor of comic alienates a substantial portion of the potential market share. Could be one reason readership of that flavor of comic hasn’t been the growth area other flavors have been. I’m also of the opinion that people who run around claiming that the portrayal of female superheroes isn’t sexist are either really, really naive or willfully blinding themselves. If the cheesecake is all you’re after in a female superhero, okey dokey then - just don’t claim that female superheroes noted primarily for their cheesecake can’t possibly be sexist.
Heh. You must be getting pretty desperate, if this sort of wild flailing is any indication. I mean, I think it’s pretty clear that I wasn’t implying that superheroines routinely have sex for money. In this thread, I’ve used the phrase, “dressed like whores and posed like porn stars” about a half-dozen times. Typing it out was getting tedious, so I shortened it in that one post to, “act and dress like whores,” figuring everyone here would be smart enough to understand what I was saying. And I was right. What I hadn’t anticipated was that you’d be so desperate to score a rhetorical point that you’d deliberatly mis-represent what I said to make it sound like I was accusing Wonder Woman of being an actual, practicing prostitute. Luckily, I also expect everyone reading this thread to be smart enough to recognize your distortion for what it is, so I doubt you’ll get much traction from it.
Oooh, EC’s reading me for subtext! Given your inability to understand the plain text of what I’ve been saying in this thread, going for the subtext is likely to be a bit beyond your grasp.
Mad? At this point, I’m simply amused. I’m not worried that the “casual reader” will see what I’ve posted and think I’m somehow anti-sex. For one thing, assuming the casual reader in this instance is representative of mainstream views on sexuality and sexual expression, they’re already going to be far more anti-sex than myself. Me, a prude? Buddy, you’re not ever going to meet someone more open-minded than me when it comes to sex. I just don’t talk about it constantly.
You, on the other hand, strike me as pretty narrow-minded. Not in the conventional sense, obviously. But you’ve got just the one idea of what constitutes “sexy,” and seem unable to recognize that what pushes your buttons doesn’t push everyone’s buttons. And when anyone doesn’t get excited by the same stuff that excites you, you assume it means they’re repressed. Now, despite the conclusions you reached in your adorable attempt to find out what I “really” think, I have absolutely no problem with strippers or prostitutes, and have patronized people in both professions. But I’m smart enough to realize that how I interact with strippers and prostitutes is only valid for the very narrow context of our business arrangement, and is not an acceptable template for my interactions with other people, or with those same people outside the context of their profession. I don’t have a problem with sex workers. I don’t have a problem with women who like to dress like sex workers. I do have a problem with people who act like all women everywhere are sex workers, and treat them accordingly. That is my objection to the way women are portrayed in comic books: not that they’re sexy, but that they’re all sexy in exactly the same way, and in a way that turns them into commodities first, and people second.
Aangelica, you’ve brought up some good points, my apologies for not responding to your post sooner.
I had always understood superheros to be more expressions of wish fulfillment than role models. To me, a role model is an image of a person or type of person imposed on younger/poorer/less educated by older/richer/more educated folks, while a wish fulfillment character is an expression of a person or group of person’s fantasies.
Thus we have the current insistence that athletes be good role models for young people. Now, I think it’s safe to say that a young man’s wish fulfillment fantasy of being an athlete would include great success on the field, and getting laid six ways from Sunday off the field, with plenty of wild partying, perhaps involving contests in which animals fight to the death, binge drinking, consumption of other drugs and beating up punks of various stripes (all of whom deserve it, of course). This is what a lot of athletes do, to judge by various news reports, and it’s always pointed out by some pious moralist that they are being poor role models.
Now, I think if superheroes were role models they would wear much less revealing clothing. Loose, comfortable clothing suited to their works. No capes, no spandex bodysuits, more like jeans, workboots and T-shirts, for both male and female, the females wearing those sports bras that keep 'em tucked in and safe. Nothing to get the kiddies all worked up about the S-E-X stuff. And of course various kinds of armor, as appropriate.
What’s more, if superheroes were role models, I would expect a whole lot less fighting and a whole lot more negotiating things in a civillized manner. Instead of trying to fight Galactus, there’d be more, “OK, Galactus, we can’t get on board with your eating our entire world, howzabout we just let you nibble on Antarctica. Nobody much lives there and it’s cold and crunchy.”
And supervillains would be different, too, in a role-model inspired venue. A lot more sincere repenting would be involved.
I think the wish fulfillment fantasy line goes like this, “Hey, what if I had all kinds of super powers, I could shoot death rays out my eyes and I was huge and muscular and ran around in a spandex bodysuit so all the babes could see how awesomely ripped my bod was, and of course I would be hung like a horse and that would show too (not shown where forbidden by law, which is everywhere for most of comics history) and I would go around beating the living shit out of bad guys who do bad guys, and I would protect innocent people and everyone wold love me and think I was cool, especially hot babes who’d fuck me senseless all the time (not shown where forbidden by law, which is everywhere for most of comics history) and I’d have cool friends who did the same and we’d get together and beat the hell out of bad guys and then PAR-TAY with all the hot babes who are crazy about us because we are so cool.”
Seems to fit the scenario.
Actually, I don’t disagree with this point at all. That list of superheroines who’ve been marginalized in various ways was pretty convincing. But as has been noted, it would mean more if there were some sort of comparison chart showing whether or not superheroes had been subjected to similar treatment. I strongly suspect a lot of them have been killed, beaten up and lost loved ones, but I don’t recall a lot of male superheroes who were permanently injured or raped. I can understand the lack of rape but it is suspicious that female superheroes get permanently injured more often than male superheroes, if my knowledge in that respect is complete.
I’m not the one who creates the comics and I’m a tiny, tiny part of the market for comics. So I’m not responsible for the look of superheroines, I’m not imposing anything on anyone. Maybe you’re the one who’s impressing her vision of sexy on everyone else. You may argue that comics fans have different sexual tastes than other guys, but frankly, I’d need a lot of evidence otherwise. This is where it gets to the point I think: guys have their own taste in women, not amenable to the tastes of women who think they know what guys SHOULD like. Look at porn sometimes. There’s a huge variance in what’s presented, but the norm is a lot closer to comic book superheroines than otherwise. That’s because guys LIKE that look and no amount of calling guys sexist will change that.
That’s because comics are purchased by 90 percent young males. That’s whose tastes rule in comicsland. Guys like to look at well-built women in tiny costumes. There is nothing wrong with that. It is wrong for comics to have allowed themselves to shrink down to such a tiny demographic, and become a niche market. They be MUCH smarter if they would appeal to all ages and sexes, just as manga do in Japan. The way to do that would be to create some new titles to appeal to women, girls, older men, etc. I don’t know why comics publishers don’t or won’t do that, but it’s kinda obvious that the existence of comics as an industry is in jeopardy if they don’t, eventually.
But it would be foolsih for comics to dump the young male demographic that does buy their product … the ONLY demographic that does … for demographics that might or might not buy their product. And if hot superbabes sell better than nonhot superbabes, well, that’s what will rule in comics … and judging by the expansion of hot superbabes in comics, I’d say that’s the case.
Straight guys don’t care about Superman abs, Spidey’s fine ass, or Bruce Wayne’s hottitude, that’s why. They DO care about Power Girl’s breasts, Witchblades’ fine ass, and Emma Frost’s hottitude, that’s why. The treatment isn’t equal because of that whole 90 percent demographic I keep harping on.
And for the life of me, I can’t see what’s wrong with guys liking to see sexy women in their fantasy entertainments, which comics clearly are.
I’ve already covered this. We’re in agreement here. Comics need to appeal to other demographics.
I’ll put it in the form of a list:
90 percent of comics purchased are by young staight guys.
Young straight guys like to look at pics of hot, sexy women.
Therefore, most females who appear regularly in comics will be hot, sexy women, as publishers compete for readers in this demographic.
That’s not sexism, that’s sexuality. There’s nothing wrong with guys liking to look at hot, sexy women. It’s natural.
If publishers want to appeal to other demographics, they need to produce comics that appeal to women, gays, older males, etc. Those will be different comics without so much in the way of cheescake-y superheroines, if it includes them at all. That would be fine.
It would also be all right with me if comics changed an existing comic or three to appeal to a broader demographic.
Hell, I don’t really care if they make all comics appealing to women, gays and older males.
I just think it would be dumb to do so, unless you were damn sure that you would get enough readers from the new demographic to make up for any losses from your old demographic.
I think DC and Marvel should definitely launch some experiements along these lines, preferably by launching new titles and giving them strong marketing support. I’m not opposed to what you and others want, I just think comics publishers should go about it intelligently.
