Feminism and Comics

Before I get into the topic itself let me tell you a few things about me.  I am, in fact, female.  I never thought I’d have to prove this.  My mother tried to raise me in a way where I was not allowed to play with anything she deemed to be “for boys”.  I had to play with dolls, take dance lessons, etc.  Despite this I’ve never felt excluded from anything be it video games, comics, or any other “boy” hobby until new-wave “feminism” came along and started trying to force my exclusion for not being “the right kind of female”.  I feel excluded by women, and the “white knight” men that cater to them and no one else.  

I also want to make clear that my articles on Geeks With Wives never reflect the views and opinions of the entire staff.  They are mine and mine alone.  I mean, have you seen me bicker with them?  Huge thank you to Geeks With Wives for giving me a place to say this stuff.

 

As many of you may know, today (Thurs, Mar. 5th 2015) Gail Simone (Red Sonja, Birds of Prey etc) got tons of well deserved attention on Twitter for showing us what the arguments about females in comics would look like if genders were reversed. It was a lot like The Hawkeye Initiative, only covering more than just the physical representation of women. Being a follower, once I realized what was going on I got a kick out of most of the tweets, and those added by some of her other followers. It was her commentary in-between that made me want to speak up.

See, unless I’m mistaken, if she were still swapping genders to make a point she’d be saying “male” here, not “female”.  So I replied that I (and plenty of female friends) do feel that way these days. Insanity ensued as she and her followers claimed I and my friends were “sockpuppets” and not real living, breathing females with such an opinion. While we cleared up the debacle with a truce of sorts, she assured me that she’s just being silly and didn’t mean any harm. I’m still getting Tweets from angry feminists and comic writers alike about my opinions on females in comics right now. I’d like to point out that for all the whining they’re doing on Twitter, majority are not being proactive in actually solving their perceived “problem”.  At least I’M doing something with my Poison Ivy petition. More on that soon, but first let me explain my opinion on the modern state of comic books.

 

First of all, let’s get real for a second. If you are complaining about a lack of diversity or over sexualization of women in comics you’re obviously not counting indie comics as comics.  Most people I see whining are only referencing the “big 2” – Marvel and DC, but they still want to claim that “all comics” have the problem.  Hey, I agree, those publishers DID lack diversity and were in fact very racist and sexist, back when that was the social norm.  Now, according to all the tweets I constantly see, there’s only like “two” female characters.  Dunno if they’re implying that’s one character per publisher or they both have two but either way even for an obvious exaggeration that’s insane!

Huh. 9,000 sure is a lot more than two.

Well golly, so is 4,000!  Though dang DC step up your game!

Note that I did these searches specifically avoiding mere fleeting love interests (DC Database made that easier) and only including characters that do something worthwhile.  Also note that these pages were each a different character name (or different version with same character name).  So already I’ve debunked the “not any” females complaint yet feminist have decided fairly recently that it’s just not enough, resulting in Marvel now swapping genders of many major male characters to appease them.  This is where I catch the most flak, right here.  “You’re not a REAL fan of so-and-so if you don’t like the swap.” “You have some conspiracy about pandering and quotas!” “You just hate feminism so you’ll hate anything that is borne of it.” Blah, blah, blah.  First off, grow up.  Second, what are you going to do, kick me out of your comics clubhouse of supposed inclusivity?  Third, I’m pro-equality, I don’t hate feminism I hate so-called “feminists” crying about a comic book or video game while ignoring the actual plight of women.  Human trafficking, child brides, female babies being killed because they’re seen as more of a burden than males! I never see any of these things mentioned on these pseudo-feminists feeds.  All they do is whine and moan about how much cleavage fictional characters are showing.  I really hope they never go to an art museum, they’d faint.

So, why do I see these recent gender-swaps and the announcement of the A-Force comic as pandering?  Well, for one, if you weren’t simply pandering you wouldn’t use The View to announce your comic books.  I don’t think those women know or care what comics are.  With “new Thor” specifically, you wouldn’t tell the world “for the FIRST TIME EVER a female is worthy” knowing full well you just erased a massive history of females wielding Mjölnir.  “But they were named ‘she-Thor’ etc etc and that’s sexist etc etc”.  See my “grow up” note above.  If it’s not pandering, why didn’t this start happening so loudly until now?  Feminists have existed for a long time.  Jason Aaron is a wonderful writer.  He’s the reason I gave Thor comics a second chance after deciding they were too, well… goofy.  Another reason I feel this is pandering is because, let’s face it… female Thor is a terribly written character.  She’s a dull, flat character with no personality.  She does not read like a character inspired by passion but a tool inspired by a paycheck.

Nothing in the world says “look at us, we’re like, all progressive and stuff” like this comic.  This is pandering plain and simple.  So why is that a problem exactly?  Yes I think it’s wonderful that even more female characters are happening and that publishers are becoming more aware of how their audience has grown, even if they’re showing it in the most shameless ways possible.  What I have an issue with is, why are we changing existing male characters to appease these women when there are already plenty of existing female characters in dire need of their own books!?  Now I’ve been trying to get this to happen for Poison Ivy, but that’s for DC.  Marvel has plenty as well!  Clean them up, maybe make their costumes make more sense, and give them writer who love these characters!  We all know they’d be better written than these gender swapped or token minority characters that are being shoehorned in.  Yes I said token minority characters!  Characters of different races already exist and although I agree in mainstream comics we need to see that broadened but again instead of changing out an existing character use the ones you’ve left in the background! If you make new ones, stop making their race/religion/gender/sexual preference the only thing about that character or their personality.  It either comes off even more offensive than if they didn’t exist, or they read like a terrible PSA trying to pass as a comic character.  If your character is gay, that’s wonderful!  If you have to constantly remind us of this in every issue, that’s terrible!  You’ve reduced the person down to his/her sexual orientation in the name of  “progressiveness” (read: sales).  Do I think there’s some “quota”?  No. Does it feel like there is these days? Yes.  Do the people who attack me for these views love to reduce them all down to me just think there’s some mysterious quota?  Damn straight because it’s the only way they can feel like they “won” some non-existent war.

I am fully aware this industry is still a business first and foremost, as is the video game industry.  They’re never going to please everyone and of course the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  The thing I don’t understand is that these people seem to be oblivious to the fact that it’s a creative industry.  This goes for the fans as well as the creators – critique happens.  It’s supposed to happen.  It needs to happen if you’re going to keep up.  This “well, Chad over here likes my work the way it is so you must just be a terrible person” response coming from people is ridiculous.  My instructors in art and design alone would have a field day with this.  As a consumer, yes I am paying for your specific talents and your stories but just because I bought it doesn’t mean I liked it once I did.  When it comes to criticism, if your response is only that you met your sales quota you’re a hack.  If ten people over here are saying they love your stuff, find out exactly why, and if five other people elsewhere are saying they don’t, also find out exactly why!  Put these responses together and make something even better.  That’s how it works and it blows my mind that there’s industry professionals that can’t comprehend this.  “I made money so I’m amazing and always right” – the voice of someone in a creative industry for the wrong reasons.

Imagine with me, if you will, that you’re at a burger joint that’s been boasting an updated version of one of their popular burgers. This place only sells burgers nothing else but you ended up with a burnt one.  Sure it’s edible, but it taste like, well, burnt burger.  How would you feel if, upon bringing the issue up to the manager, they respond with “Well everyone else here likes their burger so you must just be scum.” “I sell tons of burgers so your complaint is invalid.” “No burger consumer has problems with burgers so you’re not an actual burger consumer or person for that matter.” Or if the cook pops out of the back hollering “Kid I’ve been flipping burgers for 30 years so you don’t know what you’re talking about!” “You must be part of some burger hate group!”  What if a bunch of the patrons mobbed you for bringing it up and tried to throw you out?

Kinda sounds like a shitty place to get burgers even if they are usually good, right?

Exactly.

I’m saving another response I see for it’s own paragraph here, but it’d boil down to those burger joint patrons saying “If you don’t like burnt burger just keep it to yourself!”  I don’t see it quite as often, probably because it takes an extra special kind of stupid to even say it, but it still happens at least once every time people jump on others for differing opinions.  Verbally it’s the equivalent of a group of people chatting comics, one of them disagreeing with the others, and another asking them why they even bothered to be in the conversation in the first place if they weren’t going to smile and nod accordingly.  Today (well yesterday now) while I was explaining my thoughts to Gail one of her followers literally said something to the effect of “why do you complain about it on the internet” only much more rude.  That’s right, in response to me responding to Gail’s complaints I was reprimanded for complaining.  On the internet.  As I said, special kind of stupid.

Golly jee whiz, if only there was a place where geeks the world over could communicate and share their opinions and ideas about the things they’re passionate about…

Oh wait!

Want to actually do something positive for female comic book characters? Sign and share this petition! https://www.change.org/p/dc-comics-give-poison-ivy-her-own-comic-series