Designated Sidekick

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I was wrong about what I felt the GW crew had done. I reacted to the circumstances, fired off a post, and left it 36 hours to look back at it.

So, for the record, I can and do screw up, and I can and will admit that I screwed up.

If I'm gonna kick the stuffing out of other people with free reign and no fear/no favour, I'm going to get it wrong sometimes. The thing is, I'm prepared to say that I stuffed up when I stuff up.

Sorry team.

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There's been a little bit of "But there are bigger issues to tackle" which is true. Just like with an social change campaign, there are bigger issues and smaller issues. The art of social change is to find an issue that can be resolved.

I've seen a lot of reaction to GirlWonder that says that this project (RobinIV in a case) and the broader issue (portrayal of women in comics) is a waste of effort that could be focused onto "Real" issues.

Three issues caught my attention.

First, that there is a finite volume of effort and effort expended on RobinIV is effort that is taken from another cause.

1.Time is finite, yes, and opportunity cost means that the time spend here is time not spend elsewhere. But is the time spend here going to automatically be spent on your preferred crusade? No. The time I'm spending on Girl-Wonder is time I'm taking away from video gaming. In fact, getting involved here is an addition to the broader pool of effort, since rather than using my time for recreation, I'm using it here.

This also assumes that the people involved here can only have one cause. It's this idea that you can only have one cause, or one position, or one skill or one anything. You can believe in two causes and support two causes.

Second, that the portrayal of women in comics isn't important since it's a medium read by young men.

2. Okay, this one upsets me more than most. There's multiple layers here, so I'll be quick
2.1. Mediums for boys aren't important.
2.2. How boys are taught to perceive women through their mediums of choice isn't important
2.3. Those boys were asking for it anyway
2.4. Non consensual displays of eroticised women are fine to inflicit on young male readers because they were asking for it, and they probably enjoyed it anyway
2.5 The treatment of the male reader isn't that important.

Look, there's a lot of forthcoming posts about this, but let's go for the brief summary. How we portray women to men is important, and it's important to the men as well. If men are constantly told that they're not worthy of a complex story, but hey, here's some erotica instead, what's that saying to the men? It's telling me that I'm dumb, and instead of letting me have something with story, the publisher just wants to make me aroused.

It's contempt. Some males may simply be in this for the pictures and the erotica. Saying all males are, on the basis of a few, is to turn "male" into interchangable faceless shapes that consist of erections and wallets.

Third, the rampant assumption that it's sex that sells comics, when comics are declining in sales, and increased sexualised content is decreasing sales.

3. Frank Miller's All Star Batman is being cited as proof sex sells. Well, no. No. Frank Miller's reputation as Frank Miller "Dude, Frank Miller, the guy who gave us that killer Dark Knight Returns! And Dark Knight Returns II.,.apart from the lastissuewhichkindasucks…and Sin City, and…Dude, Frank Miller".

If sex sells, a lot of men want to sleep with Frank Miller.

Critical acclaim met the All Stars series, and now, most of the critical acclaim is at critical disbelief and critical "If the fourth issue doesn't improve, I'm off this train wreck".

There's something else about the Frank Miller comic that bothers me. Assume for a moment, I'm a teenage boy, massive Batman fan, queued for the opening night of Batman Beyond, bought the comics, love the series. I hear there's this brand new Batman series out, and it's all ages, and it's Frank Miller and it's new Batman.

So cool. More Batman. So I get my copy, Cover page is Batman and Robin, page 1 is Dick Grayson, page 2 is Dick Grayson, Page 3…*carcrash noises* WHAT THE HELL? There's a women in lingerie for five pages. Did anyone consent to this? Did the male reader who picked up a comic with Batman and Robin on the cover honestly expect to have the sketchpad lingerie catalogue?

There's a level of nonconsensual forcing of sexualised content onto the reader that's problematic here. Sure, if you get the next sets of covers, there's the playboy bunny of the month cover, and we're warned in advanced. This time? Nothing.

No chance to say no. No chance to walk back to the comic book store and say "Excuse me, but I think you sold me this by mistake. I was looking for Batman and Robin, and I get erotica. Uh, I'm not like that".

As guys, we get very little say in the amount of eroticised content that's now shoved at us because "Guys Dig Chicks" is the mantra at the expense of "Guys are not universal singular interchangable units".

Fourth, the recognition of RobinIV is important for male readers.

4. RobinIV was a Robin, is a Robin, and to be discarded so easily is to say "This was a mistake we made to let you see a female Robin". You were wrong for believing that a girl could be Robin, so all of you boys who actually thought it was cool to see a female Robin be Robin and kick ass and do all the robin things…here's some breasts instead.

A chance to actually showcase how being a female Robin would be different, difficult, but ultimately, contributing to the legacy left by Tim Drake, Jason Todd and Dick Grayson. RobinIV could have been a way to give guys a chance to see that a female character could be something cool, be someone cool, be someone who you respected and went "Damn, that was cool" when she did something cool, just like you did when Tim Drake did something cool.

Even in death, we get told that she was really a Robin, by none other than Batman. Now, two years later, it's like Batman went "Sure, dying chick, lie to her, that's done, where's a small boy to recruit?". No recognition, no case, no closure, no sense that we're allowed to recognise her as a legitimate character who did contribute to the legacy.

That gap in the Batcave says that any positive feeling any guy may have had towards Stephanie Brown as Robin were misguided, and wrong. That bothers me, that the male reader isn't given the opportunity to respect the character, to recognise and remember the lost RobinIV, the way were were given that opportunity with RobinII.

But that's okay, we're assumed not to care, because Vicki Vale's in her underwear over in AllStar Batman, and Powergirl's over here, and heyhey boys, you didn't honestly read this for the story and the continuity did you?