Designated Sidekick

Over in Take Back the Knight,
Alex (Friday, June 16, 2006, 04:43 PM)
"Women are objectified in comics? Um, have you taken a look at the male superheros? Spandex, huge package, bulging muscles, square jaw… Yeah."

Yes, yes I have taken a look at that. I agree, the portrayal of men in comics is a contributor to the increased rate of male body image issues.

Yeah. Let's do the cross check
Spandex. Both.
Huge Package. Large cameltoe… um… Check I guess, if you count the whole power wedgie thing that Image had going back in the day.
Bulging Muscles. Large Breasts. Check
Square Jaw. What is the female version of that?

So, lest we actually get the wrong impression here, yes, I agree, the visual portayal of women and men is unrealistic.

Now, let's go for some finer details of the problem. It's not just the pictures that cause the problem, and yes, someone's going to drag the old "Well, we give YOU BEEFCAKE WITH TOPLESS MEN" and I sit there going "That's great. Let's ruin it for both of us instead of fixing it for one".

So here's the plan - if we can convince the comic artists of the industry to tone down the overt sexualisation of female characters, and stop feeling that they need to make soft core porn to sell comics then we can also say "Look, while you're at it, why does Superman have a crotch that can only be described with metaphors like "man of steel"?" "What gives with the skintight batcrotch? I mean, surely the boys would have groin protection on somewhere since even Batman isn't always going to be able to block the low blow all the time. So that makes sense, so long as it looks like a cup, not a sex organ of doom.

Second up, let's see the visual portrait of the fighting women start showing them in something that looks like armour. Credit to the Batseries for the fact that Stephanie Brown's Robin costume contained padding and armour. Discredit for the kilt, which baffled me somewhat - what does a light skirt add to the utility of the outfit? Why do Zatanna and Black Canary wear swimsuits and fishnet stockings? More importantly, what smart bad guy hasn't considered defending themselves with the cup of hot coffee to the fishnet clad legs of Black Canary?

Point out the guy who goes out fighting crime wearing a speedo and a jaunty hat? Seriously, it was bad enough with RobinI and RobinII in the short pants, but RobinIII and RobinIV ended that nightmare. So if Tim Drake can stand up to Batman and say "Long pants or I leave", Black Canary can buy a pair of pants.

"Not that you're wrong, but let's be honest; sex is intriguing for men and women."

Um. I missed your point here. What? I don't get your comment. Perhaps you'd like to explain in a little more depth here

In good news of the day, GirlsReadComics made it to metafilter. Go team.

In better news of the day, two of the responses (one by the poster, one by another person) actually got the point of Girl-Wonder.org.

SteveFlamingo writes a wickedly clear summary of the aim of the GW movement. "I think some of you might be missing the point of the site. They are dedicated to studying"the portrayal of women in comics". Just because boys might make up the majority of comic book readers doesn't mean that the portrayal of women in those books doesn't have an effect on the male construction of what a woman should be."

That's it in a well crafted set of sentences. Just because comics are for boys doesn't mean that the portrayal of women isn't important. In later episodes of Designated Sidekick, I'll also be dealing with the issue of how men are portrayed, and why constantly growing up with the expectation that we're the hero, and we can't rely on anyone but other men, is limiting life for men.

In less directly clear from what they wrote news:
"Great. Another hatin' on comics thread. Can we pin another medium down and kick the shit out of it next time?" says ArtW. Why exactly ArtW feels that a site like GW is about the hatred of comics is beyond me. Arthur, if you're up to explaining why Girl-Wonder is about the comic book hating, I'd love to hear it.

Just on the subject of that, I'd like to point out that the organisational goals of G-W are pretty clear

"Our goals are to foster an attentive, empowered audience community and to encourage respect and high-quality character depiction within the industry."

We want good character depiction. It starts by accepting that women are more than tits in spandex, and it moves through to accepting that these characters, like the male, female, alien and everyone else in between deserve high-quality depiction. It's about not letting somebody pick up a title and go "Well, Lois Lane was journalist, so let's make her a hooker" or "Leslie Brown, who ordered Batman to risk his life to get medical supplies so she could save the life of a serial killer, will let a costume vigilante die to prove a point". Or "Let's make Tim Drake forget he was ever part of the Robin and Spoiler combiation".

Good characters, attentive audiences, empowered community. Things that make an industry strong, financial and vibrant. Things that you'd think you'd want in a comic book industry if you liked comics.

First, I want to set the proper tone for my blog. I shall commence with one of those ice breaking jokes.

Q. What do you get if you cross a sidekick with a crowbar?
A. A lot of knife wounds to the shoulder

Now, down to business. A few days ago, Girl-Wonder launched the Girls Read Comics blog. That, for me, as a male comics reader, was a good start for the project Girl Wonder. It was fiery, it was topical, and it was Karen speaking her mind.

1. Superhero comics are frequently, blazingly, horrifyingly sexist.
To which I add, that cuts both ways. Sexist and stereotypical portrayal of men and women occurs. This is going to be a recurring battletheme overhere at Designated Sidekick. <*>”. More on that later.

2. Yes, super comics are sexist, and no, women should not have to stop reading them. That’s like saying that because teenage girls spend more on a product…say clothes, the only clothes that should be made are for girls. Hmm. I don’t know if there’s that many young men who’d be happy to see their jeans and t-shirts replaced with short skirts and boobtubes using the same logic about comic book sales (Gotta go where the money is fellas). Same logic, different product line. If you’re not happy about that argument, wait until I suggest what we can do with the logic presented in the “Well Comics Are For Boys” debate.

3. Girls read comics. And they’re pissed
Rightly so.

Now, if my blog goes the way Karen’s did, the trolls are lining up for a landing like they’re storming the beachhead at Normandy. Not that these chaps would have stormed a beachhead, they would have cheered heartily at the works “our boys over there are doing”.

In Karen’s blog, I noticed a couple of things in the comments.
1. Apparently, misogyny doesn’t exist in comics or comics fandom. That’s why there was no hatred of women present in the responses to Karen’s post. No male expressed hostility towards a female. Well, I sure feel better about that.

2. Apparently my colleagues here at girl wonder are men hating feminazis (not entirely sure how that happened as a non hate thing, but hey, it’s the internet). Well colour me surprised, but it seems to me that I have a blog here, and I’m…a guy. Wow. I guess I must be one of those um…what’s the word for “not a total jerk to women”? Oh yeah, “pussy whipped faggot”. What, that’s three words. Oh well, close enough.

3. On the subject of my sexuality, since, well, hey now, I’m a guy who’s siding with feminists and girls and stuff…I think we know where the first lines of attack will come. So let’s deal with the “Blogger is clearly disagreeing with my world view, so blogger must be gay or ghey or gh3y” scenario.

3.a. Yes, I’m gay. That’s why I have an issue with the fact that Stephanie Brown, Robin IV was killed off and totally ignored. That’s why I find it outright weird that Tim Drake (RobinIII) is hell bent on reviving his dead male ‘best friend’, but has shown virtually no mention of his dead long term girlfriend. I’m gay because the heterosexual pairing of Tim and Steph means nothing to the storywriters, DC editors, but the mere thought of Tim giving Kon the kiss of life? Whoop! Someone at DC just got a stiffy, and there’s that weird smell coming from Frank Miller’s office again. Me? I don’t get it. Tim mourns Kon and forgets Stephanie existed. But hey, what would I know about Tim/Steph, I’m apparently gay.

3.b. Yes I’m gay. I’m gay because because if I want to see titties, I have google, and I use it to find pictures of naked women. If I want porn, I have a credit card and the internet. I don’t need or want Frank Miller to make Batman:PornStars so I can see semiclad women. Meanwhile, whilst Google is ace for finding porn, it’s pretty lame for finding well written comics about DC superheroes.

See, I want stories in superhero comics that are about superheroes, I don’t want soft corn sketched porn. Logically, because I don’t get aroused by the hand sketched and inked pictures of women in underwear, I must be gay. That’s possible, I guess. I mean, that whole preference for the real thing ahead of some guy’s handdrawn version of it, that might indicate something. What I think it indicates is that if given a choice of Frank Miller’s sex fantasy about fictional women or me getting laid by a real life woman - my girlfriend will never have to worry about me choosing my sketches of Vicki Vale ahead of her.

3.c. I disagree with you, so therefore I’m gay. I learnt that from playing Counterstrike online.

3.d. That whole part where I have a blog at Girl-Wonder.org, and I’m part of the team that’s trying to have the role Stephanie Brown played as RobinIV recognised in the mainstream continuity - well obviously I’m a manhating lesbian feminazi.

Apparently though, on that last point about being a manhating lesbian feminazi, there’s hope for me. See, according to some of the comments I’ve seen, apparently if I just had a good proper dicking, I’d be fine. Which confuses me a lot. I’m not sure I follow how this logic works - if I have sex with a man, I’d understand that there was no misogyny in comics or comics fandom.

If I agree with Karen, and I do, and the solution for Karen’s problems was mansex, are you suggesting that what helped you could help me?

Is that all that’s needed? Does having sex with men help me like misogynistic comics? Is that how it worked for you guys? Tell me, dear male readers, how did sex with men help you with your love of sexist comics? Come out, come out and tell us how you learned to love the pencil sketched titties through mansex. Inquiring minds want to know.