Objectification of Women in Comics

[jenskot]

You know what's really awesome? Being completely ignored in a thread where everyone is yelling against sexism.

Sorry BAW, we want to see how women who read comics feel about sexism in comics. Your answers here are completely irrelevant as a woman who reads comics.

Ayla was ignored as well. And Devildoggie and I offered a few perspectives from gay men who read comics as well after that topic was brought up. Part of the problem is that threads like this move way too fast. There should probably be a 5 minute break time per post or something. And it is easy to miss posts while replying to several posts at the same time. And not everyone knows who is male, female, straight or gay by their board names. But it does make me sad that females and gays who didn't have a major problem with some of the art discussed in this thread and didn't want male characters to have gigantic penises were pretty much passed by. I don't think it is always intentional but I see this happen in a lot of threads on many sites I visit. Part of the problem is when we try to win rather than share/listen. If we want to win, then it is best to not acknowledge certain posts. Or we spend so much time defending ourselves that posts that aren't attacks don't get as much attention.

[jzn]

If you divorce the pictures from the stories and take them out of context, it's gonna seem more sexist than if you're actually reading it. That's one of the techniques that Seduction of the Innocent used in its persuasion, and one reason it was such an effective screed.

To go back a few pages, I want to remark on a couple of the images james posted.

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This image, at first glance, seemed like one of the stupidest, most obnoxious, most poorly-crafted pictures I've ever seen. Then I looked a bit closer and was shocked to realize that it is actually a painting by my very favorite comic artist of all time. Bill Seinkowicz has a reputation for highly sexualized images, and when he does it, it's completely intentional. My first reaction to this image was actually exactly like my first reaction to his work on the New Mutants in the 80's. I thought it was shit at first, and then i felt like an idiot.

Flojin's first thought when looking at the picture is "she doesn't really look like a cat burglar". To the casual glance, it seems like, for no good reason, they are presenting this burglar as a highly sexual temptress. But, in this case, it is for a good reason. The character is named The Black Widow, and the picture is meant to show her as that. She will invite you to have sex with her, and then she will kill you. Thus, she is pointing both her vagina and a gun at you, simultaneously.
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This image, is a great example of how something can seem incomprehensibly sexist when taken out of context. On first glance, i was like "holy shit, they are having Power Girl sexually assault a submissive Supergirl! What the fuck??"

But, again, closer inspection revealed a lot of story to this image, and it's clever. Power Girl (Kara Zor-L)has always portrayed for decades as a pushy, no apologies ballbuster. Supergirl (Kara Zor-El) is traditionally more sweet nice. A strong woman, but conservative and naive, in the same way Superman is.

As you may have guessed by their real names, these two women are (arguably) the same person, from different dimensions. The picture depicts Supergirl being confronted by the truth of that, as Power Girl reveals that, under her costume, Supergirl is wearing a Power Girl outfit.

So this picture is about Power Girl threatening Supergirl's identity, and it conveys the emotional impact of that threat by contexualizing it as a threat to her sexual identity. But yeah, Power Girl's tits are too big.
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You might not give a shit about the context or meaning of these images, since their first impression come across as base chauvanism. But it seems to me that dismissing them for their immediate aesthetic impression is classic bad behavior when it comes to looking at art.

It's the equivalent of saying "Look at it! It's a picture of our savior, in URINE, and it's called "Piss Christ"! You call that art??"

[jzn]

also, to re-iterate what jenskot just said, we're all a bunch of pigs

[jzn]

also, this:

[James]

Jzn, thanks for providing the context for those particular images, and I'm willing to at least provisionally agree that there, the artists are arguably commenting on the sexual objectification of women. (Whether it's successful or not, or whether the commentary side of it is just an excuse to indulge in that imagery, I guess is a separate question I'd rather not get into because it would go nowhere fast.) But I don't think that's generally the case.

What the hell happened to Seinkowicz? I love him too, but damn that is an ugly, ugly drawing, even when correcting for Seinko-vision.

[James]

But it does make me sad that females and gays who didn't have a major problem with some of the art discussed in this thread and didn't want male characters to have gigantic penises were pretty much passed by. I don't think it is always intentional but I see this happen in a lot of threads on many sites I visit.

Yeah, that's not good, and to the extent I contributed to that I feel sad. I think part of the thing is that in a discussion (or argument, or whatever) with a zillion people in it, unless you're addressing someone directly it's very hard to get 'noticed.'

Entering a long thread mid-way through, without directly addressing someone, can work if it's exactly up-to-the-minute with where the conversation's gone, or raises a completely novel argument. But if it's very similar to a point raised several pages back, it's tempting to not engage.

And that really sucks because it means that past a certain point in a monster thread, it's very damn hard to get a word in. It's a problem in this thread (and I'm sorry for contributing to it), and pretty much all over the Internet too.

PS. What is the record for monster threads in NerdNYC? This is one of the longest I've seen!

[J Cunningham]

I realize i coming to this post way late but here goes:

Are women objectified in comics? Probably. When was at my height of comic book consumption, it also coincided with the time of my life when a- i had no clue how to approach the opposite sex and b- had no access to pornography (those pre internet and all its free porn days) so for me and millions of my fellow X-men readers, i"m pretty sure we didnt mind Jim Lee rendering Jean Grey with double D breasts in a skin tight outfit. Boobs are cool. Anatomical correctness was not much of an issue for me. Then again look at the way R. Crumb draws women, with thier legs that could crush a steel dumpster and nipple the size of beer bottles. Thats his ideal of the female form. Is it right or wrong? I dunno. i just read em.