My mom is unbelievably badass. She has a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry and rides a big damn motorcycle. She’s politically active and involved in ecology and sustainable design. But none of that can hold a candle to what she does for a living: she teaches middle school. She doesn’t do this because she lost a bet, or as penance for a life of crime. She does it voluntarily. She’s that hardcore.
When I go to visit my parents, I inevitably end up spending time in my mom’s classroom. Usually, I bring her lunch at some point, and we hang out and talk. She teaches at a fairly small Montessori school, which many of her pupils have attended since they were two. I went there for second through fifth grade (there was no middle school back then). Most of the teachers have known me since I was a little kid, and I’ve known a lot of the students since they were toddlers. Some are younger siblings of the kids I went to school with. Some, I used to babysit. And now, they’re all hulking teenagers with attitudes. They talk about sex. It’s a bit disconcerting.
So, when Mom asked me to come talk to her students about making comics, I was torn between elation and horror. I love talking about comics, and I love the idea of corrupting a younger generation, but I am fucking terrified of adolescents. In my mind, eleven-to-fourteen-year-olds are what you get when you cross the worst aspects of violent mobs and mass media. When I’m around middle-school students, I become an awkward twelve-year-old: the definition of uncool, the flat-chested, frizzy-haired kid who hides behind thick glasses and thicker books, who gets called ‘dyke’ and worse by her peers, who would flay her alive if they knew she still built spaceships out of chairs with her best friend. I start to stammer. I lose my carefully cultivated dry wit.
‘Okay,’ I said.
I spent a lot of time developing content for the presentation, but I spent even longer worrying about how I would come across. Middle school is a time when kids tend to embrace dictated roles—particularly in terms of gender—and actively reject anything that smells of otherness. Montessori kids are often more progressive than most, but they’re still adolescents, and they’re still intensely judgmental.
At the same time, I agonized over how much attention I should devote to social issues related to comics. Should I talk about Women in Refrigerators? Should I mention gender disparity? Should I try to make concessions to diversity at the risk of inaccurately presenting the pervasive homogeny I spend so much time railing against? Should I emphasize the female comics community, or would that further alienate the girls? My mom warned me that the collective attention span of her students was a little under forty-five minutes and asked me not to wear my ‘I am wearing little pants to hide my genitals’ CBLDF t-shirt. I began to worry about age-appropriate content and imagine angry letters from parents.
And then there was the presentation itself. I’ve taught classes and given lectures and workshops before: the critical difference is that they’ve all been to undergraduates, not middle-schoolers. Would they be interested? Did kids today even read comics at all? I panicked some more.
Finally, I showed up at her classroom armed with a box of books, thirty pages of official Dark Horse artboard, two sets of handouts, and my laptop. I had a PowerPoint presentation prepared that went through the definition of comics and the idea of comics as literature, a short history of the medium (especially in terms of social issues and censorship) and a step-by-step guide to the creation of a page. I figured that even if they hated it, they’d have a few cool souvenirs and maybe even learn something.
They were good during the presentation: participated when I asked questions and stayed pretty quiet otherwise. Afterwards, I split them into groups and set them free to make their own comics.
Mandy, the other teacher, pulled me aside. ‘That was incredible,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen them get so into a guest speaker!’ I spent the next few hours wandering through the classroom in a happy daze, answering questions and helping them make their comics (‘I don’t know if you can say ‘crap’ in your comic. You’ll have to ask your teacher.’). Seventh-graders thought I was cool! They thought comics were cool! And, most incredible, they thought the idea of comics as a medium for social commentary was awesome! They thought female superheroes and creators were awesome! They were incredibly excited when I taught them the word ‘metafiction’ and continued to try to slip it into conversations all afternoon!
These kids, these marvelous, strange creatures are growing into the next generation of fans. They’re reading good books—and they’re learning to look at comics and literature from new critical and creative angles. Yeah, they’re into silly teenager stuff, but they’re also into Maus and Hellboy and Little Lulu, and more important, they’re into their own ideas. They’re writing and drawing their own strips and finding their voices, and I suspect that they’ll be harder than most to silence.
And now, the moral of the story: these kids are coming of age at a tremendous turning point in the world of comics. They’re growing up in a world where comics are still deeply flawed, produced by an industry that’s overwhelmingly male-dominated and often hideously sexist if not outright misogynist. But at the same time, they’re growing up in a world that has Girl-Wonder, and Friends of Lulu, where the visible faces of comics—creators and fandom—are gradually growing to reflect more than one race and gender.
And that’s pretty damn cool.
‘I’m sure you know there’s lots to learn
But that’s not your fault, that’s just your turn.’
-Dar Williams, ‘Teenagers, Kick Our Butts’
March 12th, 2007
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: Rachel Edidin
Author: admin
Review: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Comic Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Comic Author: Adapted from the novels by Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer adapted by Matt Josdal and illustrated by Brian Shearer; Huck Finn adapted by Roland Mann and illustrated by Naresh Kumar.
Format: Graphic Novel
Reviewed by: Jessica
Both Mark Twain’s classic paean to American boyhood and his most celebrated portrait of the antebellum South get the graphic novel treatment.
I think most of us know the stories, but here you go: Tom Sawyer is a happy-go-lucky kid who is always thinking of ways to con people, get out of work, and go on adventures. Some of those adventures turn dangerous, though, especially when he and his friend Huck Finn witness a murder, or when he and the object of his boyish affections, Becky Thatcher, find themselves trapped in a cave. Tom has the wits and the luck to always come out on top, though, and never a smidge wiser for it.
Following his adventures with Tom, Huck flees his abusive father and finds himself drifting downriver on a raft with runaway slave Jim. They share various misadventures, including falling into the middle of a deadly feud, and into the hands of a pair of nasty conmen, but events reach their peak when Tom Sawyer rears his puckish head again.
Impressions and Opinions:
It’s been years since I read either of these in the original prose, but I do remember enjoying both of them, for very different reasons. From what I recall, the graphic novelizations are very faithful to the original plots. The problem with that is that the strength of a Mark Twain novel is never in the plot, but in the wit of the prose. With so much of that pared down, the best part of the books is gone, and even the jokes that remain fall flat. The famous fence white-washing scene is still there, but you don’t get a real sense of Tom’s cleverness because it’s so awkwardly conveyed. Huck’s personality barely comes through at all (more on that later). The writing really suffered from the transition to graphic novel for both of these books.
And the art…oh, the art. No punches pulled: the art in Tom Sawyer is terrible. Everyone is a face-melting horror, there’s no anatomy to speak of, and Becky Thatcher appears to be wearing a Buddhist monk’s robe over harem pants. The art in Huck Finn isn’t very good either, but after Tom Sawyer it’s a relief, even if all of the characters look alike.
All told, if I were reading these without having read either of the original novels, I would be very confused as to why they were considered such classics.
Have you used this comic in your classroom, or in any sort of educational capacity?
I haven’t used them in the classroom, but the Campfire line is certainly designed for young, modern readers, so theoretically they could be used in place of the original novels for remedial reading students. Tom Sawyer is not very good, but aside from quality there’s no reason it couldn’t be used this way. Huck Finn is notable because it doesn’t use the thick dialect and phonetic spelling that the original novel does. On the one hand, this makes reading it a lot easier, as the dialect is a struggle for almost any reader. On the other hand, it removes a lot of Huck’s personality, as mentioned above; the reader no longer gets a sense of him as a character. Whether that is a fair tradeoff depends on the teacher and the student.
Both books have a couple of pages in the back with additional information. Huck Finn’s are about the history of slavery and give a decent context for the book, while Tom Sawyer’s are inexplicably about famous islands. Both books could probably use stronger historical and societal context, actually.
Is there anything else you feel that teachers should know about this comic?
There’s slight violence and a couple of dead bodies, but no worse than the novels.
Webcomics and the living author
[Trigger Warning: The following contains discussions of rape “humour”]
This week I’m going to talk a little bit about one of the things that make webcomics a fascinating medium; unlike traditional media, webcomics have a living author. I don’t mean that every book ever written is only produced on the death of the writer, of course. I’m referring to a theory of literary criticism set forward by a French literary critic called Roland Barthes in 1967. Barthes argued that when we read a work, we should not consider the author’s background or philosophy; that their intent in creating the work, whatever that intent was, is not the defining factor or indeed a factor we should consider at all when we analyse the work.
This idea’s referred to as ‘Death of the Author’ because regardless of whether or not the author is alive, the analysis of their work says you shouldn’t communicate them; in essence you analyse the work assuming the author died unknown. In a lot of ways, it just makes sense. The first time we read a book, we’re probably not at all familiar with the author’s life and philosophies. We let the book speak for itself. Afterwards, we might find out that the author had a completely different intent to what we read; maybe the author intended a book to speak about the dangers of a totalitarian state, and instead it’s being held up as an example of why such a state would benefit us all. Death of the Author philosophy states that this intent is practically meaningless; it’s just one interpretation of the book among thousands, and it relies on words and ideas that didn’t make it clearly onto the page.
A modern example of this would be with the Harry Potter series of books. After the series had finished, JK Rowling stated in an interview that she had always conceived of Dumbledore as gay. Good for her, but it certainly didn’t make it into her text. It’s perfectly possible to read Dumbledore as straight, gay or other in the books; his personal life is explained, but we never read about his romantic entanglements. In a lot of ways, the best reading from the text alone would be to read Dumbledore as intensely asexual; his life is his work. So who’s right here? Does JK’s pronouncement after the fact change how you should perceive Dumbledore? Does she have any lasting authority over the works she’s authored? Death of the author says no, she doesn’t.
Webcomics, however, are different. I’d argue that they are so different, in fact, that they can be considered to have a living author. Underneath most webcomics, or immediately accessible from the same page as the strip, there’s a blog; a little author’s byline for every strip. The author can be communicated with, instantaneously, between strips. They’re very much alive. Imagine if Harry Potter was a webcomic; JK would be aware from communication with her readers that Dumbledore was not being perceived as gay. Maybe there would be arguments on the forums. She’d have to decide whether she wanted to make the character gay or whether she wanted to leave them ambiguous; altering the strips and scripts to make it clear one way or another. If it was unclear, and later JK said ‘Dumbledore was always gay’, we’d see it as a bit of a cop-out; she’d had every chance to include a positive gay character, deliberately left it ambiguous, and then claimed it after the fact.
There are a couple of examples of this in action, one pleasing and one thoroughly disappointing. The first is from Homestuck (a personal favourite). Two characters share a kiss in the tired old trope of fighting a bit and then smooching each other. The author, however, left a note in the blog and on the forums; he knows that representation of ‘romance’ is problematic, even damaging. He wasn’t suggesting that these two characters were working in a healthy or even an understandable way. All would be made clear; please bear with me.
This is a great example of how an author can be truly alive. Sometimes, in books in particular but even in a single issue of a comic, we worry that the author doesn’t get how horrible an act one of the characters has performed is. We read on, hoping for a deeper examination of that character’s evil, or for some justice, but too often we don’t get it. Even when we do, it’s an uncomfortable read. A living author can dispel these doubts straight away.
The second example is from Penny Arcade, which I won’t link to from here any more. Recently they made a strip involving an extremely crude rape joke, and there were a lot of complaints. Here, as living authors, they had an opportunity to apologise as soon as possible. They could make it clear they understood how badly rape jokes can hurt victims/survivors of rape, that they understood that making these jokes sets up a culture where rape is funny, not devastating, that they were sorry and it wouldn’t happen again. Instead, they followed it up with a strip where they mocked people who’d complained by deliberately misunderstanding their complaints. A week or so later, the artist had a joke ‘Trigger warning’ above their blog post, warning that discussion of dice rolling was ahead, and making fun of the useful, functional and altogether compassionate point of using trigger warnings in the first place. This was followed up by the author announcing a t-shirt that capitalised on the publicity of the rape joke that was made in the first place.
So the creators of Penny Arcade, through the unique nature of the living author in webcomics, have made it abundantly clear that they think rape is funny, that those who complain about rape jokes are humourless, misunderstanding prigs, that it’s acceptable to mock people who might really need trigger warnings, that they will profit from rape culture. I certainly won’t be reading their work any more.
In this way, the living author can be a blessing- it lets us get off the boat fast enough to keep afloat, instead of reading a disturbing work all the way to the conclusion and realising that the author never found it disturbing at all.
Alexander ‘Nines’ Patterson
Collaboration
Today we’re going to have a look at collaboration in webcomics- specifically, why it’s so uncommon compared to traditional comics and what differences this can make to the stories told.
Webcomics are often made and owned by a single person. This is an enormous departure from the world of comics- even creator-owned comics almost always have at least a writer and an artist, and any comic from the two big houses will have a writer, an artist, a colourist and an editor all contributing to the story told. Most traditional comics are therefore collaborative storytelling; the very best have a syzygy of talent, with all the parts coming together to tell a great story. There’s an element of society to it; all working together towads the best outcome.
Webcomics, on the other hand, are more the work of lone pioneers. One person often does the writing, the art, the colouring (if it’s there) and they have final say over what can happen to the characters. It creates a very different space for storytelling, but it does put a mountain of work on the shoulders of the person telling the story; often there’s as many pages in a month as you’d find in any traditional comic, but all that work has been created by a workforce of one, and usually as a hobby.
The plus side of collaboration is usually consistency. Even if there’s a slightly weak link in the chain, the work as a whole can still be marvellous. When only one person works, they need to be an accomplished artist, writer and plotter, and if they want colour they have to be able to add that too. That said, When someone works on their own they can make works that would never normally be created, and I’d like to highlight a couple of these today.
Dar: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary isn’t entirely what it says on the tin (and it is Not Safe For Work). It’s a six-year diary that’s finished now, yes, but I think you’d be hard pressed to describe it as super girly. It’s about the artist’s own life and expeiences as a young, queer, depressed woman, and it gets better and better as it goes along. The artsist’s won awards and it’s safe to say this would not have been picked up as a traditional comic- the art and writing need to come from the same place because it’s so personal. It also includes probably the highest quotient of fart jokes of any comic I’ve recommended.
Hark! A Vagrant is Kate Beaton’s marvellous take on historical and literary events, characters and creators, and you have almost certainly heard of it. The art is endearing and incredibly expressive, and I can’t think that with a traditional collaborative team it would have worked in the same way- the things Kate finds funny are slightly unique.
Both comics are excellent, created entirely by women and well worth a read. Check them out today!
Alexander ‘Nines’ Patterson
A Happier Note
Dear Jen Van Meter,
Thank you for doing more with one post to raise the level of discourse in the comics community than the whole blogosphere could manage in years, and for owning your work and responding to criticism thoughtfully and respectfully, and for putting a lot of thought into the stories you write even while recognizing that intention doesn’t always translate to end product.
You make me proud to be part of the comics industry.
Love,
Rachel
P.S. You can discuss this column here.
December 10th, 2009
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: Rachel Edidin
An Open Letter to Fred Van Lente
Dear Mr. Van Lente,
Coercing someone into having sex with you by pretending to be someone else is rape—ethically and legally.
Coercing someone into making out with you by pretending to be someone else is also sexual assault—again, ethically and legally—although it’s not technically rape.
Neither is funny.
Sincerely,
Rachel Edidin
P.S. You can discuss this column here.
September 26th, 2009
Categories: Creators, Marvel, rant, sexual violence in comics . Author: Rachel Edidin
Meet the New Boss
The interwebs have been all a-flutter of late with the news that Disney is buying Marvel Entertainment. Everyone’s got their panties (and the tights beneath) bunched up with worry, wondering if Spidey’s gonna sprout mouse ears or Wolverine will still be allowed to say ‘Fuck’ in MAX titles.
Yawn
Actually, I wasn’t going to write about this at all. But then, I woke up yesterday with a link to the NYT article in my inbox, accompanied by the following note:
Hi, Rachel. What do you make of this? (Note the gender slant that the article describes.)
And far be it from me to leave my public hanging (Hi, Dad!). So, here’s what I think.
- Not much is going to change at Marvel Comics. You’ll see more ads for Disney properties. There might be a cross-over event at some point, and people will laugh and play along, and it’ll be sucky or mediocre or surprisingly awesome, and things will basically stay status quo, but probably with slightly better benefit packages.
- Disney will begin to use Marvel properties to develop their lines for boys, especially tween boys. Disney’s been struggling with this elusive boy demographic for a long time (much as Marvel has been known to struggle with the ‘lady-creature’ demographic), and Marvel comes with a set of iconic but versatile characters with strong brand identification who resonate with exactly the group Disney’s trying to wrap its grubby mouse-fingers around.
- This is where the gender thing comes in, because Disney is specifically looking to develop Marvel properties as boys’ entertainment. To an extent, this is exactly what Marvel has been doing with them, although Marvel’s target demographic is arguably even narrower. On one hand, I’m peeved that Disney’s approach seems to mostly involve reinforcing the fallacy that superheroes are for boys (girls, of course, get princesses and Hannah Montana.). On the other hand, I’m still glad to see the demographic for Marvel superheroes wideningand, if nothing else, I know Disney’s too calculating and ruthless not to see opportunities to market across gender lines.
- Yeah, I have some Disney issues. I grew up in South Florida. It’s pretty much inevitable. I mean, they have this whole charter town called ‘Celebration,’ and at orchestra competitions, their whole orchestra would be outfitted in matching ballgowns and tuxedoes. Bizarre.
- Also, I’m interested in seeing how this is going to affect the villains in animated Marvel films. When I did research last year on gender transgressive villains in comics, I found comparatively few in the Marvel ranks who fit the Disney drag queen mold described by Meredith Li-Vollmer and Mark E. LaPointe in their 2003 study ‘Gender Transgression and Villainy in Animated Film.’ It’ll be interesting how much of the visual design of the children’s and teen programming and products will be informed by Marvel versus Disney sensibilities.
- Going back a bit: for all its faults, Disney is fantastic at marketing to and developing products for the ladies. Sure, Disney’s the evil empire, but it’s gotten there by being very, very good at what it does. And, honestly, I doubt they can fuck it up much worse than Marvel has been. Spider-Man lip gloss, my ass.
- If any of the drones of Disney’s amorphous hive-mind happens to be reading this: A Power Pack Saturday morning cartoon would rock really hard.
- Of course Wolverine will still get to say ‘fuck’ in MAX titles. If no one could use naughty words in a property produced by a Disney-owned company, the porn industry would have to put a lot more time and energy into developing colorful metaphors.
Lip Service
Feeling drab and dowdy? Tearing your hair out in search of a stylin’ new look for SDCC? Worry no more, true believers, because, as it turns out, Marvel wants to help you look stylish!
For the gents, they have an assortment of superhero costumesmost with built-in muscles. And for the gals…well, there’s…
Wait for it…
Lip gloss.
How, exactly, is lip gloss supposed to be analogous to superhero costumes? Is it perhaps super lip gloss, with the power to imbue its wearers with the reflexes and proportional strength of a tube of lip gloss? Let’s turn to Dogulas Miller, marketing coordinator for Lotta Luv (the cosmetics company with whom Marvel teamed to produce not only lip gloss but an entire line of Marvel make-up), for some enlightening commentary:
‘With a branded line of make-up from Marvel, girls will be able to feel as if they are going from ordinary to extraordinary just like the super hero characters in the stories, ’ he explained. ‘There is also such a nostalgic undertone that either young or older girls are drawn towards because of the long history and brand behind the name Marvel.’
(Miller went on to defend his expertise in matters of the feminine mind, informing readers that his mother ‘totally used to be a girl,’ and that once, while intoxicated, he had accidentally watched the opening credits of an episode of Sex In the City.)
So, the guys get to power up with stuff like invulnerability, strength, deadly frisbee skills, flight, manipulation of fire, and being an undead spirit of vengeance whose head is a flaming skull. And the girls get lip gloss, associate with the power to have…shiny lips. (There’s a whole side discussion here on the habit of defining normal human virtues like beauty and confidence as the girly equivalent of superpowers, but that’s a column for another day.)
‘But wait!’ you may argue. ‘They’re focusing on the lip gloss because it’s a new product! Surely their products aren’t that wildly gender-dimorphous!’
That’s very open-minded of you. In fact, I had the same initial reaction, which I attempted to validate via one of the article’s myriad links back to the Official Marvel Shop, stocked (the article claimed) with ‘numerous costumes (for kids and adults).’
Here is a list of the costumes I found:
Black-Suited Spider-Man Muscle Chest Adult Costume
Captain America Muscle Chest Adult Costume Set
Captain America Muscle Chest Kids Costume Set
Fantastic Four: Dr. Doom Adult Mask
Fantastic Four: Mr. Fantastic Muscle Chest Adult Costume
Fantastic Four: Mr. Fantastic Muscle Chest Kids Costume
The Human Torch Muscle Chest Kids Costume
Fantastic Four: The Thing Muscle Chest Kids Costume
Ghost Rider Adult Costume
Ghost Rider Child Costume
Hulk Inflatable Adult Costume
Iron Man Adult Helmet
Iron Man Deluxe Muscle Chest Adult Costume
Iron Man Light-Up Muscle Chest Child Costume Set
Iron Man Movie Quality Child Costume Set
Iron Man Quality Muscle Chest Kids Costume
Punisher Muscle Chest Adult Costume
Spider-Girl Sassy Deluxe Adult Costume
Fiber Optic Spider-Man Kids Costume
Spider-Man Glow-in-the-Dark Kids Costume
Spider-Man Muscle Chest Adult Costume
Spider-Man Muscle Chest Kids Costume
The Incredible Hulk Adult Latex Full Mask
The Incredible Hulk Deluxe Adult Mask
Hulk Deluxe Muscle Chest Kids Costume Set
The Incredible Hulk Muscle Chest Kids Costume
X-Men: Beast Muscle Chest Kids Costume
X-Men: Wolverine Deluxe Muscle Chest Adult Costume
Noticing a pattern here?
Of the 28 costumes in the Marvel Shop, 27 are of male characters. The 28th, the ‘Spider-Girl Sassy Deluxe Adult Costume,’ is a sparkly little minidress that resembles Spider-Girl’s actual costume only in fabric pattern.
It doesn’t take a mind-reader (even one with the proportional strength of a tube of lip gloss) to figure out what’s going on here: between the lip gloss and the Divas, the writing on the wall is pretty clearday-glo, even. In its decision to market directly to female readers, Marvel, like Wizard, seems to have adopted the philosophy that the population is divided into two groups: people, and women. In a few months, when they realize that girls are not rushing to buy Spider-Man lip gloss and Incredible Hulk tampons, expect Marvel to poutily insist that this is proof that women are not interested in comics.
The irony, of course, is that Marvel is a company whose comics, historically, have been extraordinarily girl-friendly. Ensemble casts, full of strong female characters, dominated the line for decades. Series like Runaways, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, and even Spider-Girl (despite its rocky history), drew the kinds of crowds of teen girls that Minx could only dream of. I cut my geek teeth on New Mutants and Excalibur, and they, in turn, defined my criteria for girl-friendly superhero comics. While the distinguished competition was stuck in ’50s gender sensibilities, Marvel books were passing the Bechdel Test with flying colors. Even the heroines clearly designed to titillate the straight male gaze (I’m thinking Emma Frost and the Goblin Queen) had personalities and dimensions beyond their skimpy costumes.
Marvel, I think it’s time you and I had a chat.
For the last couple years, you’ve been trying your little heart out to work your sticky fingers into the pockets of that elusive female demographic. Out of respect for what you used to represent to me, and in hopes that you’ll come to mean that again, I’m going to tell you how. No strings attached: this is a gift, from me to you.
-Don’t start a new line of products. Make small tweakslike, say, making a decent X-Men or Avengers t-shirt that’s available in girls’ sizesto customize your existing products for women. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, or even paint it pink; you just need to take it in a little at the waist and shoulders.
-Can the make-up. Girls don’t want Spider-Man lip gloss. No one wants Spider-Man lip gloss, because it’s a fucking stupid product.
-By the same token, you don’t need to push contrived Sex In the City knock-offs to attract female readers. You’ve been producing really solid, character drama-focused books with fantastic female characters for years. If you want to widen your female audience, broaden the marketing, not the product. Bringing back the classic New Mutants is a great start, though.
-Make products featuring female charactersthe real characters, not pinkified, defanged ‘saving the world can be glamorous!’ versions of the characters (with the possible exception of Millie the Model, who could probably pull it off).
-Especially Storm.
-Talk to some actual girls and women. Ask them what they buy, what they look for in comics and licensed products, what comics they do and don’t read, and why or why not. Listen to their answers.
-Lockheed plushies.
-Seriously, though. Can the make-up.
-Discuss this column here.
‘Females’ vs. ‘Heroes’
The following is an excerpt of Wizard Fan Awards categories and contestants, cut and pasted for your edutainment:
21) FAVORITE HERO:
Batman (DC) (Details)
Spider-Man (Marvel) (Details)
Captain America (Marvel) (Details)
Superman (DC) (Details)
Hellboy (Dark Horse) (Details)
22) FAVORITE VILLAIN:
Skrull Queen/Spider-Woman (Secret Invasion) (Details)
Dr. Hurt (Batman) (Details)
The Joker (Joker) (Details)
Brainiac (Action Comics) (Details)
Red Hulk (Red Hulk) (Details)
23) FAVORITE FEMALE:
Buffy Summers (Dark Horse) (Details)
Witchblade (Top Cow) (Details)
Emma Frost (Marvel) (Details)
Fallen Angel (IDW) (Details)
Wonder Woman (DC) (Details)
I think Wizard‘s choice of poll categories makes for an interesting lens through which to view a larger argument that’s taking place in the nets: whether, and to what extent, there can and should be ‘female superhero’ movies. I’ve been wading around the trenches Jezebel comment threads, and much (but not all) of the coverage I’ve seen has echoed what I see as a kind of problematic assumptionthe same one Wizard makes in their pollthat there is a fundamental difference between ‘superheroes’ and ‘female superheroes.’
There isn’t. Or, at least, there doesn’t have to be. Female superheroes’ gender doesn’t magically supersede their jobs. They don’t automatically have to have Shoe Shopping and Relationship Drama in every story, any more than every male superhero story requires a rousing football scrimmage. The problem isn’t with the charactersit’s with our own assumptions about the categories into which they’re allowed to fall. For example, Kill Bill, despite its female protagonist, overwhelmingly female supporting cast and villains, and substantial female fanbase, is categorized as an action movie, not a ‘girl’ movieand, despite its protagonist’s colorful costume and iconic code name, certainly not a ‘female superhero’ movie.
More significantly, though, Kill Bill doesn’t get categorized as a ‘female superhero’ movie because it doesn’t fit the stereotypes we’ve come to associate with such movies. It’s not a poorly-produced b-grade write-off. It didn’t fail miserably. It wasn’t a stereotypical ‘chick flick’ with a couple action scenes slapped on. And, incidentally, it starred a woman who had played an enthusiastic role in the creation of her character and story rather than brushing itand the genre it reflectedoff as kid stuff or a shitty dues role.
It’s absolutely true that ‘female superhero’ movies like Elektra and Catwoman don’t succeed. That’s not because they’re about female superheroes, though. It’s because they’re bad movies.
Here’s how you make a good ‘female superhero’ movie: Write a good, involved, interesting action story about an interesting, three-dimensional superhero. Then, lose the penis.
You can discuss this column here.
January 10th, 2009
Categories: characters, fandom, feminist stuff, general comics, invisible women, media, Superheroes . Author: Rachel Edidin
Memoirs of an Invisible Woman
Today, the president of Dark Horse walked past another female editor and my (adjoining) offices and stopped to call in that he’d just learned that we don’t exist, because someone else (I didn’t catch who) has been going on about how there are no women in comics. In retrospect, I should have asked if that meant we could have the rest of the day off, but it also makes a nice segue into one of my pet peeves.
A lot of the problem with how sexism in comics is addressed in media, and one of the reasons those reports are so easy for the comics industry to blow off, is that the reports of sexism in comics are almost always built around the essential fallacy that there are noor painfully fewwomen working in the comics industry.
This fallacy seems to stem from a couple main sources. First of all, when the general news media (and even a lot of more specialized media) reports on comics, it often does so with a conception of the industry that begins and ends with writers and artists on mainstream (read: superhero) titleswho are, in fact, overwhelmingly male (which is a problem, but not the same problem as which it’s often framed).
Second, the same media’s understanding and portray of comics seem to be based largely on the perpetuation of a stock of convenient sterotypes, with little attention to or examination of reality. Even generally comics-friendly articles are often full of astonishment that comics readers (and, to some extent, creators) aren’t all mouth-breathing recluses who subsist entirely on pizza and bondage fantasies in their parents’ basementsand, it should go without saying, all male.
Look, there are absolutely sexism (among other -isms) and misogyny in comics, and in the comics industry, and comics culture, and much of what passes for comics ‘journalism.’ The majority of the creators who get high profile, highly paid art and writing gigs are male. Sexual harassment is rampant at conventions and comics shops (and within the industry, although that’s something I’ve not experienced first-hand). These things are terrible, and they need to be called out and addressed, loudly and persistently.
But not by ignoring the many, many women who make their living and art in comics. Every time we are conveniently erased because some pop-cult page needs an appropriately sensational headline, or some hack journalist or blogger decides to lionize the lady he’s profiling by painting her as a lone Amazon in Man’s World, we fade that much further into the gutters.
This isn’t Man’s World. It’s oursall of ours.
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