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Happy Friday the Thirteenth! :-D
And Happy Birthday to my Dad. :-D
***
In other news, I am up <*gasp*> before 8am due to having the blankets stolen one too many times. I am, therefore, rather grumpy. Perhaps hot chocolate will help.
Also: Must take out the paper recycling. :-)
***
<*deals with recycling*>
***
So, I was reading some post the other night about the portrayal of super-hero women vs the portrayal of super-hero men, and OMG!HUGE breasts on an otherwise stick-like heroine being Really Offensive and stuff like that.
And the unavoidable comment on said post which went "Oh, get over it. Do you think the really-muscular portrayals of male super-heroes is any more realistic? Come on!" Etc.
So I have a couple of thoughts. (Hey, the hot chocolate is working! :-)
1) Disclaimer: I don't read a whole hell of a lot of comics, and the ones I do read, with the exception of Elf Quest (which apparently goes in for wasp-waists on everyone but does have a Thing for showing off the breasts, even when it's somewhat impractical/unlikely for a given character to do so), they tend to be random "Watch me laugh at my own subculture" comics like Johnny or Gloom Cookie or what-have-you, or they're Sandman.
So this is more or less a response to how/why people (women?) react the way they/we so-often do about super heroines with porn-queen-sized breasts.
Which brings me to:
2) In This Society (I use that phrase so much, but it's so helpful) girls grow up into women with the implicite understanding (dirrected at them by everything from their parents to their toys to the cartoons they watch to the ads they see on bilboards, to job-interview coaches, etc. etc. etc.) that their value as people is dirrectly related to whether or not *other* people (male people) find them aesthetically pleasing.
Boys, to my knowledge, do not grow up getting taught that their value as people depends entirely on whether or not specifically female people find them aesthetically pleasing[1].
So:
3) It's really irritating/annoying/enraging to see the same damn thing being repeated (and unsubtly so) in the stuff we read for fun.
See.
1) Comic-Book-Land (the vertigo-verse, or the marvel-verse, or whichever 'verse you want to occupy for the moment) is a fantasy land. People can fly. They can control the weather (oh, wait, people can do that here, too). They are unbelievably strong. Women can fly, control the weather, are unbelievably strong.
And yet these powerful women, who are (at least sometimes and, I hope, often) presented as well-thought-out, intelligent characters, are none the less - first and foremost - a set of big tits in a low-cut spandex top, meant to titilate (male) readers into taking that comic off the shelf and buying it.
Even though she's a smart, articulate, thoughtful (in theory), character who carries the fate of the world in her strong, capable arms. First and foremost, she's a set of Booooobiiiiies.
You follow me?
Anyway. Coming up to the guys now:
Yes, I know. Male super-heroes are *also* drawn really unrealistically.
The differences:
In the drawing of male heroes, it is their physical strength that is focused-upon/exadurated, not the body-parts that are specifically linked with sex in our culture.
- Interesting point one: Our culture tends not to want to be reminded that breasts make food. (It's so... bodily... Or maybe it's because it reminds us that breasts are there for something other than getting sexual attention. I dunno.).
Dressing a male super hero in a skimpy thong (at least while he's out doing his hero-ing job) is, as I understand it, seen as being in rather poor taste by at least the major comic publishing houses (isn't there a rule about not giving your comic heroes 'sackage'? Or something?).
Dressing a female super hero in a skimpy thong (while she's out doing her hero-ing job) is much, much less of a problem, to put things very mildly (Witchblade? Vampirella? Pick someone).
- Interesting point two: In our society/culture: more clothing = more power. Dressing a male in next-to-nothing involves loudly declairing that he has little to no power. Dressing a female in next-to-nothing is officially Fine, however, because (A) our soicety believes that females aren't supposed to have real power anyway, and (B) [this is a big one] what power they do have is based on their sexual desireablity.
- Question: RE: More clothing = More power: How many non-white male super heroes show skin? Is it more skin than the white male super heroes are generally showing? Is there a pattern here? Research and discuss.
Coming back to the physical strength thing:
Female super heroes can be strong enough to punch through walls, for example. But. Unlike the guys, it isn't for example, her arms and shoulders (that can hold up a collapsing bridge during Rush Hour, thus saving hundreds, even thousands of lives) that are getting focused on. It's her long, shaply, not-all-that-obviously-muscular, and probably very-unclad legs. Or the contents of her costume's push-up bra. Or her long, brushable hair. Or whatever.
Also: Continuing to talk about the guys again:
Even if someone *did* start dressing their male hero is next-to-nothing[2] is not going to do men of this culture much, if any harm at all. Why? Because dressing a woman in next to nothing, and putting the focus first and formost on her sexual desireability, totally reflect culturally prevalent attitudes about What Women Are Really For.
If you dress a guy in next to nothing and focus first and formost on his sexual desireablity, readers will giggle and titter and smirk, becasue "well that's not how this is supposed to work". They may be put off by the comic all together.
They may also - if I may take a stab in the dark here - wodner if the character is In The Closet about his (undisclosed or implied het) sexuality.
Why?
Because The Gaze (the assumed watcher) in our culture is almost exclusively presumed to be that of a (het, white) male.
Because anyone whose sexual-desirability/sexuality is being focused upon is, therefore, being focused upon by a presumed watcher who is (het-white)-male.
If the male character, therefore, is dressing in a way that draws attention to his sexual desirability -- he must be trying to get attention from the Gazer/Watcher who is (het-white)-male.
If the character is trying to get sexualized attention from males, he must clearly be gay. Right???
<*holy dripping with sarcasm, Lady Arachnia*>
See.
Drawing a male character who is muscular and in a costume that, while showing off his impressive physique, actually does cover most, if not all, of his body, and drawing a female character who is large-breasted, small-waisted, wearing barely enough fabric to construct a wash-cloth, and possibly an expression that often straying inappropriately into 'quasi-post-coital-bliss'... Both of these reflect and reinforce our culture's Official Standpoints on men and women.
Men = Strong, Powerful Individuals.
Women = Existing to Take Care of Men's Needs (whether that's through providing sex, food, or laundry services, on demand...).
By doing so, the artist is effectively saying:
"Despite the fact that I'm portraying a fantasy world where male and female Supers are (A) equal in strength, (B) equal in intelligence and (C) extremely counter-cultural (for example), I, in my position of (usually) male privilege, don't have to give a fuck about the fact that I'm still reinforcing the culturo-sexual norms of the non-fantasy-world that I claim to be criticizing."
See what I mean?
Does it do anything useful to explain why we get so mightily pissed off about this crap?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Okay. :-)
And I now leave you with a link to a related picture. by Hyel. :-D
And a link to CounterPunch, which talks about the same sort of stuff. :-D
Yay! :-D
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
[1] To pick a really easy target: There's an Axe deoderant (or body-spray or what-ever) commercial involving one guy and three gals playing strip poker. The guy in question says "I got nothing" and the gals respond by saying "don't worry about it" and removing their clothing.
What's being implied, none-too-subtly, here is that "If a woman finds a man attractive, she will want to remove her clothing so that he can look at more of her".
I mean, really. Wouldn't a more realistic reaction on the part of three amourous ladies be anticipatory grins at the thought of seeing their favourite Hunk o' Manliness take *his* clothes off?
But, no. In this culture both males and females are taught that "man=watcher, woman=watched" and that, if a woman wants to be valued, she will (allow herself to) be watched a *lot*, she won't complain if the gaze dirrected at her is making her uncomfortable due to the fact that it's gazing at her only as a body (or a body-part -- nice ass, great legs, hot tits) because the alternative is to either (A) make herself completely invisible and completely value-less (worthless?), or (B) to "invite" attacks against her for having the gaul to demand to be seen (seen!) as more than just the sum of her body parts.
Wow, that footnote got long. :-)
[2] Example: There's a series of wedding gown ads that feature well-muscles, conventionally attractive and very definitely naked men litterally as props. They're seriously being reduced to the status of 'plinth' or 'urn' in these print ads.
Why this ad gets attention: Well, duh: "OMFG!111! Teh Naked!!! Hahahahaha!"
why this ad is way, way, *way* less harmful to guys than, say, your average Skyy Vodka ad is to gals: It is not reflecting and, thus, reinforcing culturally-prevalent ideas about What Men Are For or Why/How Men Are Valued in any way what so ever. At all. Do you understand? I bloody hope so.
And Happy Birthday to my Dad. :-D
***
In other news, I am up <*gasp*> before 8am due to having the blankets stolen one too many times. I am, therefore, rather grumpy. Perhaps hot chocolate will help.
Also: Must take out the paper recycling. :-)
***
<*deals with recycling*>
***
So, I was reading some post the other night about the portrayal of super-hero women vs the portrayal of super-hero men, and OMG!HUGE breasts on an otherwise stick-like heroine being Really Offensive and stuff like that.
And the unavoidable comment on said post which went "Oh, get over it. Do you think the really-muscular portrayals of male super-heroes is any more realistic? Come on!" Etc.
So I have a couple of thoughts. (Hey, the hot chocolate is working! :-)
1) Disclaimer: I don't read a whole hell of a lot of comics, and the ones I do read, with the exception of Elf Quest (which apparently goes in for wasp-waists on everyone but does have a Thing for showing off the breasts, even when it's somewhat impractical/unlikely for a given character to do so), they tend to be random "Watch me laugh at my own subculture" comics like Johnny or Gloom Cookie or what-have-you, or they're Sandman.
So this is more or less a response to how/why people (women?) react the way they/we so-often do about super heroines with porn-queen-sized breasts.
Which brings me to:
2) In This Society (I use that phrase so much, but it's so helpful) girls grow up into women with the implicite understanding (dirrected at them by everything from their parents to their toys to the cartoons they watch to the ads they see on bilboards, to job-interview coaches, etc. etc. etc.) that their value as people is dirrectly related to whether or not *other* people (male people) find them aesthetically pleasing.
Boys, to my knowledge, do not grow up getting taught that their value as people depends entirely on whether or not specifically female people find them aesthetically pleasing[1].
So:
3) It's really irritating/annoying/enraging to see the same damn thing being repeated (and unsubtly so) in the stuff we read for fun.
See.
1) Comic-Book-Land (the vertigo-verse, or the marvel-verse, or whichever 'verse you want to occupy for the moment) is a fantasy land. People can fly. They can control the weather (oh, wait, people can do that here, too). They are unbelievably strong. Women can fly, control the weather, are unbelievably strong.
And yet these powerful women, who are (at least sometimes and, I hope, often) presented as well-thought-out, intelligent characters, are none the less - first and foremost - a set of big tits in a low-cut spandex top, meant to titilate (male) readers into taking that comic off the shelf and buying it.
Even though she's a smart, articulate, thoughtful (in theory), character who carries the fate of the world in her strong, capable arms. First and foremost, she's a set of Booooobiiiiies.
You follow me?
Anyway. Coming up to the guys now:
Yes, I know. Male super-heroes are *also* drawn really unrealistically.
The differences:
In the drawing of male heroes, it is their physical strength that is focused-upon/exadurated, not the body-parts that are specifically linked with sex in our culture.
- Interesting point one: Our culture tends not to want to be reminded that breasts make food. (It's so... bodily... Or maybe it's because it reminds us that breasts are there for something other than getting sexual attention. I dunno.).
Dressing a male super hero in a skimpy thong (at least while he's out doing his hero-ing job) is, as I understand it, seen as being in rather poor taste by at least the major comic publishing houses (isn't there a rule about not giving your comic heroes 'sackage'? Or something?).
Dressing a female super hero in a skimpy thong (while she's out doing her hero-ing job) is much, much less of a problem, to put things very mildly (Witchblade? Vampirella? Pick someone).
- Interesting point two: In our society/culture: more clothing = more power. Dressing a male in next-to-nothing involves loudly declairing that he has little to no power. Dressing a female in next-to-nothing is officially Fine, however, because (A) our soicety believes that females aren't supposed to have real power anyway, and (B) [this is a big one] what power they do have is based on their sexual desireablity.
- Question: RE: More clothing = More power: How many non-white male super heroes show skin? Is it more skin than the white male super heroes are generally showing? Is there a pattern here? Research and discuss.
Coming back to the physical strength thing:
Female super heroes can be strong enough to punch through walls, for example. But. Unlike the guys, it isn't for example, her arms and shoulders (that can hold up a collapsing bridge during Rush Hour, thus saving hundreds, even thousands of lives) that are getting focused on. It's her long, shaply, not-all-that-obviously-muscular, and probably very-unclad legs. Or the contents of her costume's push-up bra. Or her long, brushable hair. Or whatever.
Also: Continuing to talk about the guys again:
Even if someone *did* start dressing their male hero is next-to-nothing[2] is not going to do men of this culture much, if any harm at all. Why? Because dressing a woman in next to nothing, and putting the focus first and formost on her sexual desireability, totally reflect culturally prevalent attitudes about What Women Are Really For.
If you dress a guy in next to nothing and focus first and formost on his sexual desireablity, readers will giggle and titter and smirk, becasue "well that's not how this is supposed to work". They may be put off by the comic all together.
They may also - if I may take a stab in the dark here - wodner if the character is In The Closet about his (undisclosed or implied het) sexuality.
Why?
Because The Gaze (the assumed watcher) in our culture is almost exclusively presumed to be that of a (het, white) male.
Because anyone whose sexual-desirability/sexuality is being focused upon is, therefore, being focused upon by a presumed watcher who is (het-white)-male.
If the male character, therefore, is dressing in a way that draws attention to his sexual desirability -- he must be trying to get attention from the Gazer/Watcher who is (het-white)-male.
If the character is trying to get sexualized attention from males, he must clearly be gay. Right???
<*holy dripping with sarcasm, Lady Arachnia*>
See.
Drawing a male character who is muscular and in a costume that, while showing off his impressive physique, actually does cover most, if not all, of his body, and drawing a female character who is large-breasted, small-waisted, wearing barely enough fabric to construct a wash-cloth, and possibly an expression that often straying inappropriately into 'quasi-post-coital-bliss'... Both of these reflect and reinforce our culture's Official Standpoints on men and women.
Men = Strong, Powerful Individuals.
Women = Existing to Take Care of Men's Needs (whether that's through providing sex, food, or laundry services, on demand...).
By doing so, the artist is effectively saying:
"Despite the fact that I'm portraying a fantasy world where male and female Supers are (A) equal in strength, (B) equal in intelligence and (C) extremely counter-cultural (for example), I, in my position of (usually) male privilege, don't have to give a fuck about the fact that I'm still reinforcing the culturo-sexual norms of the non-fantasy-world that I claim to be criticizing."
See what I mean?
Does it do anything useful to explain why we get so mightily pissed off about this crap?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Okay. :-)
And I now leave you with a link to a related picture. by Hyel. :-D
And a link to CounterPunch, which talks about the same sort of stuff. :-D
Yay! :-D
- TTFN,
- Amazon. :-)
[1] To pick a really easy target: There's an Axe deoderant (or body-spray or what-ever) commercial involving one guy and three gals playing strip poker. The guy in question says "I got nothing" and the gals respond by saying "don't worry about it" and removing their clothing.
What's being implied, none-too-subtly, here is that "If a woman finds a man attractive, she will want to remove her clothing so that he can look at more of her".
I mean, really. Wouldn't a more realistic reaction on the part of three amourous ladies be anticipatory grins at the thought of seeing their favourite Hunk o' Manliness take *his* clothes off?
But, no. In this culture both males and females are taught that "man=watcher, woman=watched" and that, if a woman wants to be valued, she will (allow herself to) be watched a *lot*, she won't complain if the gaze dirrected at her is making her uncomfortable due to the fact that it's gazing at her only as a body (or a body-part -- nice ass, great legs, hot tits) because the alternative is to either (A) make herself completely invisible and completely value-less (worthless?), or (B) to "invite" attacks against her for having the gaul to demand to be seen (seen!) as more than just the sum of her body parts.
Wow, that footnote got long. :-)
[2] Example: There's a series of wedding gown ads that feature well-muscles, conventionally attractive and very definitely naked men litterally as props. They're seriously being reduced to the status of 'plinth' or 'urn' in these print ads.
Why this ad gets attention: Well, duh: "OMFG!111! Teh Naked!!! Hahahahaha!"
why this ad is way, way, *way* less harmful to guys than, say, your average Skyy Vodka ad is to gals: It is not reflecting and, thus, reinforcing culturally-prevalent ideas about What Men Are For or Why/How Men Are Valued in any way what so ever. At all. Do you understand? I bloody hope so.
