Never metafilter I didn't like
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.
"Arthur, if you're up to explaining why Girl-Wonder is about the comic book hating, I'd love to hear it." Far be it for me to get all rhetorical when you've called for Arthur, but I see this mentality a lot when a woman expresses her opinion about entertainment. It's like Frank 'n' Furter snarling at Janet re: Rocky, "I didn't make him for you!" with the implication that we don't deserve stuff that includes us as an audience. You can also extend the same mentality to politics in general, where citizens who want to see the US be a better country are often greeted with epithets of "America-hater!" Uh no, we live here too. And it's not hatred to want to see things better, or to want to be included in our entertainment. It's love and desire. Those are good things.
Comment by Elayne Riggs — June 16, 2006 @ 10:57 pm
I'm with Elayne on this one. I find it a strange mentality because it's a very obedient mentality, and it often comes from people (in political discussions, particularly) who think they're being all rebellious and whatnot by rejecting PC-leftist-brainwashing, or whatever they're calling it these days. I say obedient because it's this idea that unless you accept absolutely every aspect of something (America, Australia, Superhero comics, etc), without question, then you hate it. Very strange.
Comment by Jen — June 16, 2006 @ 11:28 pm
Elayne
Have a 6 pack of rhetorical, and a large side of open slather.
I get the feeling that there's a post on "Why do you hate comics so much you'd rather just let them slide in bankruptcy than increase their commercial viability?" on the to do list.
It's a tragic day when saying "Yeah, it's not good, but we're in this to make it better" is seen as "YOU HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT", but what is life but a nice big stage of comedy and tragedy?
The notion that dissent from one view is hatred of everything that view might possible encompass is something that's overdue for a baseball bat massage in a nice well lit blog (Dark alleys have scary guys in bat suits).
Comment by Designated Sidekick — June 17, 2006 @ 6:54 pm
Jen
Yeah, I've notice it too - the "acquiescence is obedience, obedience is agreement, disagreement means war" mentality of "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists. Except if you're with us and you're with the terrorists. Or something. Don't mess with Texas".
The boiling down of debate into talking points, binaries and black/white arguments is a nuisance, but hey, it's also something where getting out the curvy knives and the baseball bats over here in comicdom gives us a nice warm up match for elsewhere.
Comment by Designated Sidekick — June 17, 2006 @ 6:58 pm
It's not just the acquiescence, it's the clubhouse mentality as well. Remember when the Batman movie came out, and suddenly lots of people were going into comic stores who hadn't previously, and what the fanboy reaction was? "They're not real Batman fans, they don't belong here!" I just read a blog by a guy who follows the New York Mets, and apparently sees hating Yankees fans as mandatory (sue me, I follow and like both teams), and wrote a post wherein he addressed New Yorkers who are interested in the Mets now that they're playing better (and the Yankees aren't), and I quote, "If you weren't here in the shitty time, don't show up now. Go back to Yankee Stadium frontrunner, with your Jeter shirts and Yankee caps. Fuck you. Be a fucking Yankee fan, ok. Don't come around now, after we've suffered with years and years of disappointment. If you weren't here for the struggle, don't come around for the glory. Fucking New York, filed with front running fans, fucking hate them all."
Now, this is a usually interesting guy, but I'm sorry, he goes on like this, he has serious issues. But he's indicative of that type of mindset as a whole.
Comment by Elayne Riggs — June 18, 2006 @ 8:15 am
Well, I actually stopped by to tell you it's Dr. Leslie Thompkins that suddenly took a dive in characterization, not (Steph) Brown, but the previous poster's analogies intrigued me. I got into comics after the Teen Titans, which makes me not a ture fan. Except that I fork over money for monthly comics, back issues and trades. And research the histories of 616 Marvel and Pre/Post-Crisis DC in order to understand the characters more thoroughly. How is that not indicative of a "fan"? Right, because I'm not a middle aged fanboy that has been collecting since the '40's. I really don't understand it- those readers will die in a decade or two. I will be around (spending money) for six or seven decades. Isn't my patronage worth anything?
Whatever. I'll switch to girly manga, or something. -_-
I really respect what you and the others at G-W are trying to do here, even if it is completely futile. You can't teach an old dog/industry new tricks.
Comment by Taz — June 20, 2006 @ 7:26 am
Taz:
Though you can't teach an old dog new tricks, you can teach a new generation of artists and writers how to do better. As a student of illustration who is a hopeful to work in the comic biz AND a feminist, I have high hopes and dreams for what can be done if people pay attention to what's going on here at GW.
Comment by Saikou — June 23, 2006 @ 11:48 am