Pop Quiz!
1) In the middle of a pre-wedding quarrel, my lover implies both that I have been sexually promiscuous and that this is bad. I:
a) Say ‘That was unacceptable. I’m leaving. When I come back we’re going to talk about your issues with my sex life.’
b) Tell them that they’re an asshole and retaliate with a list of their own previous lovers.
c) Say ‘Oh, fuck YOU, the wedding’s off!’
d) Hit them in the face.
2) When my spouse-to-be, who is a trained martial artist, hits me in the face during an argument, I:
a) Stare at them in the shock of betrayed trust.
b) Hit back.
c) Walk out and call the cops.
d) Kiss them passionately and start tearing off my clothes.
3) An appropriate pet name for my bride-to-be is:
a) ‘Darling.’
b) ‘Sweetheart.’
c) ‘Cutie-Tootie-Honey-Bear.’
d) ‘Bridezilla.’
4) If my lover is raped, this means they:
a) Have been raped.
b) Have been raped.
c) Have been raped.
d) Betrayed me!
If you answered D to all four questions, congratulations! You too are ready to join Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance in the wedding of the century!
I have no idea where to start with the multiple sexist horrors of the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special, so I’ll start with something good.
In the big fight scene Lois Lane attacks Black Spider with knuckledusters and mace, and it is awesome.
Also, the art of Amanda Conner and Paul Mounts is fantastic. Why, even the panel where Lady Shado is raping Ollie is beautiful! Ollie’s confused delirium is wonderfully rendered through his pained and sweaty face!
Of course, the panel is captioned ‘[Days filled] with betrayal.’
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It is vaguely possibly that writer Judd Winick is here referring to Shado betraying Ollie, not Ollie betraying Dinah. If so, it’s an extremely opaque description of a moment that shouldn’t be opaque at all. And I feel that I’ve said enough about why Shado (now canonically!) raping Ollie being characterized as a betrayal on his part is massively misandrist and misogynistic, so I’ll leave that there.
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Violence within a relationship! It’s so hot! As long as you’re a woman doing it to a man, or possibly another woman, of course.
You see, everything women do has to be sexy, or what’s the point? That’s why ‘You’re so cute when you’re mad,’ is a compliment to a woman, not an attempt to dismiss her rage. What’s really important isn’t what she’s furious about, but how attractive she looks while she’s angry!
Thus, a woman striking her fiancé is foreplay, and not, say, an act of abuse compounded by the fact that she has been trained to kill people with her bare hands.
Thirdly, while I shan’t spoil the ending, I will say that having a martial artist who has avoided killing people she hates under very trying circumstances suddenly become incompetent at the speed of plot is incredibly feeble writing.
Honestly, the pragmatic counter-argument has never held much weight with me. If someone tells me that something sexist sells, my response isn’t ‘Oh, that’s okay then!’ but ‘So what?’ DC’s job is to make money from their product mine is to criticize that product when it’s blatantly offensive.
But since that is their job, I cannot, for the life of me, work out their reasoning here.
If the idea is that canceling Green Arrow and making it Green Arrow/ Black Canary will bring Canary-fans to prop up Green Arrow‘s failing fanbase, then surely the Canary that shows up should be familiar to those fans? It’s not pandering to keep the strong, decent woman of Dinah’s showcase title, Birds of Prey. It’s good business sense.
I don’t know about anyone else, but this abusive, incompetent impostor has actually driven me away from a title I liked a lot. Sorry, Canary. Sorry, Arrow-clan. I’m done.
