Power Crime
I have a question for the writers of comic books and the writers of Heroes
You remember that the characters are fictional, right? Made up? Works of fantasy? That they don’t exist as real people? That they pose no threat to you, your manhood/womenhood, your credibility or pride or anything else?
Or are you so far lost into the fantasy worlds where they’re the powerful one and you’re not, that you have to resort to power crimes of having the character raped, mutilated, tortured or killed just to reassert yourself and your control? Do you have to play malevolent god just to feel comfortable with your own life?
Or more bluntly, what the fuck is your problem people? Can we stop victim of powercrime storylines as the default motive for women crimefighters? Can we stop saying by proxy it’s okay to violently degrade another person because they’ll turn into vigilantes sworn to do good to others?
Seeing yet another rape storyline in a super hero context is enough. If you’re writing this shit because you think I want to see it because I’m male, then I’m telling you.
No.
Stop.
Fucking respect those words for once. They mean what they say.
No more rape storylines because you’re too talentless to write anything else. No more default character origins of overcame rape to become supervigilante. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it being in the medium that’s allegedly for my gender, and the medium that I grew up with as kid.
I hope these damn stories only keep recurring because you’re talentless hacks who trace stories as frequently as you trace art. That you’re producing the same “rape as motive” storylines because you lack the metaphoric and actual balls to be creative and move away from the damn cliche.
Because frankly, the alternative means you shouldn’t be trusted as custodians of storylines you claimed are intended for children and young adults.
You either need creativity or deep therapy. Either way, right now, you need to just stop.
While your overall point is well taken - death and mutilation as a substitute for actual character development and storytelling re often a sign of bad or lazy writing, just like interpreting "action" to mean "fight scenes" is lazy - I see far more fans than creators obsessing over characters to the point of revering them more than real people. This preoccupation with "don't you dare do this and that to a character I like" tends to undercut the point of wanting to read better stories. If fans cared about real people - say, the real people working on the comics they read - more than fictional characters, there would be a better way of putting these entreaties.
Comment by Elayne Riggs — October 15, 2006 @ 3:10 am
Except there's a difference between putting characters through hardship for a lasting point or development, and throwing a character under a bus for a cheap shock or else. Things like making a character cannon fodder (like Johns with the Titans-SBP fight) or Cassandra Cain's turn to evil are done not <i>for</i> their characters, but <i>at the expense of their character</i>. So it's not as limiting of "better stories" as you make it out to be - For people following that character, it's a slap to the face and a violation of what made them like and choose to follow that character.
In a medium/genre that is fairly character-oriented, you're made and supposed to care about a character and their lives. That's the strength of a sequential medium. So I don't think it's necessarily being "obsessed" to protest a lousy decision or direction of a character. (also, Hal Jordan. :P)
Comment by jlg — October 15, 2006 @ 5:47 am
First, as another guy I'd like to say, "AMEN, Brother!"
What gets me is that (as the comments to Fengi's post on the subject show) this is part of a disturbing trend in sexual violence against women on prime time television. While non-fantasy television is (sort of) outside the scope of this discussion, I wonder if between television and comics this is simply "sloppy writing" as Elayne says above, or if it's because of our own reactions to what's being done, supposedly in our names(!), in Bush's so-called "War on Terror".
We've learned up-close and personal that we're not only capable of repeated and organized atrocities - but that at least in the case of Faux Nuwz viewers, Republicans and Quisling Dems like Joe Lieberman, comfortable with that. So is it any surprise that many Americans' reaction to eroticized violence against women on prime time (or in "Teen-Plus" comics) is "Bring it on!"? What makes it especially hypocritical is that it occurs simultaneously with Bush's FCC's getting all medieval on "indecency" on television - as if Janet Jackson flashing a nipple on the Super Bowl signals the End of Western Civilization, but every strong female on prime time getting raped is just peachykeen, thank you!
Hmm - I didn't mean to hijack this thread with yet another of my "Bush Khrister Neocons are Minions of the AntiChrist!!!!" screeds, but every time I went back to express my thinking about this issue it came back to that. I won't apologize to those sufficiently deluded to still support the Bushiveks after their hypocrisies and treasons have been laid bare for all to see - but I will apologize to you for writing a response that maybe should have been a separate post on my own blog (once I set it up!) instead…. :)
Best,
Tim Liebe
Dreaded Spouse-Creature ofTamora Pierce - and co-writer of Marvel's upcoming White Tiger comic
Comment by Timothy Liebe — October 16, 2006 @ 1:13 am
i dont have anything poetical to say, other than preach it, brotherman. i wish i didnt love the rest of the show so much, so i could threaten to stop watching or something… but it really makes me sad that they latched onto the same old "whee rape cliche" bandwagon. you should send your post to nbc– never know, if enough people mention this to them they might wake up in the future….
Comment by robynjade — October 18, 2006 @ 2:57 pm