In what way is violence against women any different from violence against any other class or individual?
This, of course, means a female character can never be depicted as being in peril, ever, lest it be interpreted as an implicit threat against all women everywhere.
Also, have people never read a comic book? Probably half of all comics show the hero getting beat up or killed in ways that never actually happen in the book. TV Tropes even havea page about it.
Yes, this. Thank you. Adding “Weaponized Woman” to my vocabulary.
It’s not really the same with the Amazons, though, because they’re not broken. They’re more like wild horses. They need to *be *broken. Which I guess is what makes them so exhilarating, too. I just had a sudden rush of understanding that, so my brain suddenly did a 180 on it. They scare the crap out of men? They intrude on male areas? Hang on, that’s a good thing. So I’m not entirely sure what I was on about. I’ll wear a Wonder Woman T-shirt, it’s fine.
But, yes: It’s also the same sort of thing, in a way. It just so very easily turns into an excuse to dress a big-breasted woman up in a weaponized stripper outfit, and then get a bunch of boys around to drool all over her. And then she always seems to end up in this pose. Or this pose.
Too late for edit: And, yes, I know that’s Rogue in one of those pictures. I just needed the pose.
Actually, putting Rogue in that pose, of all people, really ticks me off. What did you do to her there, Magneto? Some kind of mind control? And who did the mind control on Magneto do get *him *in that picture? Could we just knock it off already with all that? This is why we can’t have nice things.
Bare shoulders?! Not in my church, hussy!
You and I have very different concepts of “stripper outfit”.
Maybe I go to the wrong strip clubs. That would explain a few things.
I get where the complaints are coming from. I know who Mystique is, though I haven’t seen this movie, and I think I missed the last one, too.
But it does feel like they probably had options for what to show, so what do they show? Yes, an individual billboard can be justified with things from the movie or with comic book covers, etc. But my reaction to it is not the isolated exposure to one billboard. People upthread are talking about the context of the superhero genre and the context of the movie. Okay. I’m talking about the context of my life and what feels like a constant barrage of women shown helpless and needing rescue. Strong women getting what feels like a comeuppance in many cases. Hundreds of images, hundreds of references, day after day, for 46 years. And maybe each individual one has a perfectly plausible explanation in isolation. Each one is justifiable. Each one is just one more grain of endless sand that no one has to feel bad about because it’s not like the intent of that one image is to be harmful. It’s got reasons behind it. And if my eyebrows get raised, don’t I understand that it’s got reasons? And if I sigh, don’t I understand that it’s just a billboard, just a book, just a movie, just a commercial, just a comment, just a look, just a speech, just a little thing. It’s minor.
But after 46 years, I’m just kind of tired of it.
It’s different in that in the case of the female characters, we don’t really get much insight into them as a person. Case in point, it took like 4 MCU films for us to learn anything about Black Widow beyond that she was a former assassin who is platonic friends with Hawkeye. And the one thing we learned was that she was in some sort of Le Femme Nikita-esq spy program where she was sterilized and turned into a she-weapon.
On the opposite side, you have Major Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell (soon to also be played by Scarlet Johansson) who is literally a female-shaped weapon, but seems to spend an inordinate amount of time philosophizing and contemplating her own existence.
But a major factor IMHO is that comics and action films have traditionally been targeted towards a male audience. So the male characters like Wolverine or Deadpool tend to be idolized male figures (wise-cracking badasses) while female characters are mostly ass-kicking sex symbols.
"I don’t think I can hit a girl. They’re soft. "
-Scott Pilgrim
As opposed to the realistic body and modest clothing of someone like say Wolverine?
Because he’s a bad guy, dear.
Regards,
Shodan
On the other hand (or the other other hand, I’ve think I’ve gone through a few hands at this point), is it fair to demand that an action character (or any character) has a complex personality, a varied emotional range, and spends their time philosophizing? It’s a pretty tall order, when you think about it. I don’t think it’s something we demand of male characters. If those are the standards, I think many male action heroes are out of a job. And it’s not just action characters, as such. What about this guy? Do we get much insight into him as a person? And how could more insight possibly improve that character?
What about The Bride? Isn’t she a “Weaponized Woman”, of sorts? And she’s in a fairly basic revenge story. But I don’'t have any problems with her at all. She’s a great character, in a couple of awesome and very smart movies.
Maybe it really just comes down to: Tell a good story, with compelling characters. Kind of a bland conclusion, though.
Very true. This is a superhero character in a fight. That the poster shows that character in peril is to be expected. Seconds later perhaps, the tables will turn and the other character will be in peril. That’s how fantasy fights work
To say oh, this is a woman being abused is absurd. It’s not a woman. It’s a trained superhero engaging in combat
I believe a lot of this will depend on how you approach it. The “character-weapon” thing is as tropey as a trope can get, where throughout many works of fiction, she’s yet another to represent it. I don’t have any numbers to back the idea, but I think it’s less directed at women, specifically, and more of a safe go-to -or at worst, lazy- form of storytelling, based on decades of reading both western and eastern material. As we can see with Black Widow’s definite boost in popularity, I think it’s clear why the concept exists, regardless of how some people perceive it…and for that very reason, it will continue.
As to developing her background, I agree, she has more room to grow. I think at least one hurdle, was her rather obscure source material. Prior to the films, I’d say it was a relatively few number of people who even knew the character, compared to someone like Storm, who is arguably more interesting, much more powerful, had a presence in animated form for years and had a big actor play her on film. Nonetheless, most of the characters who’ve received their own solo movies, transitioned from comics where they were also popular…so much so, that any movies which did fail, earned a reboot. Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, etc. all had a lot of success as individual books, where the transition to the big screen wasn’t very risky.
Black Widow most certainly has a backstory any fan can learn, but they’d have to turn towards the books, especially if they’re interested in the character beyond the film universe. The thing is, IMO, she’s actually not that unique, but people like watching her (or Johansson) kick ass, so there’s the appeal. In terms of building her film presence, I can see why they placed her alongside the others, similar to the way they’ve now done with Black Panther (another character who wasn’t wildly popular, but has now been received well), though at this point, I think a specific Black Widow movie would not only work, but is overdue.
I’d agree, many comics and films have been directed towards a traditional male audience. Sex sells and so fanservice exists, but it’s gotten much better, and I’d go as far to say that it’s no longer traditional male. Nowadays, more women are reading and even cosplaying, you have many many characters (male and female) who have more depth, characters who have moved beyond propaganda (Captain America!), and if one genuinely cares enough to explore the material, beyond the slower-moving mainstream, there’s something for everyone.
Beyond that, I think film is still afraid to take (as many) risks, and so they play it safe…and not just in character selection or portrayal. They cast notable actors for popular character roles, then tailor the script to give them more screen-time. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine took over X-Men for a while (you’d almost forget Cyclops was the leader), Downey Jr. took over Avengers, and now Lawrence has taken point with Mystique in X-Men. At the end of the day, they’re really just following the money, and if that path is being determined by the social tides, then that’s where they’ll go.