In response to someone's poem poking fun at how women are shown in the comics:
That's kinda funny, but isn't it also a lot like shooting fish in a barrel?
Anytime you have a split like this, it's bad even for the side which looks like it's "winning". Male superheroes, even Swamp Thing (most of the time), have to be buff too, although they don't have to be smart:
http://www.bushcomic.com/images/main/tex_cover_259x400.jpg
But god help them if they want to do a little knitting.*
Where it really gets bad is in advertising. Much more subtle. But capable of keeping most of us in line.
frivolity:
BTW, ever wonder how Superman stays so buff when there's nothing to work out with that would challenge his strength? Steroids! You heard it here first.
Seems to me that the comics people are missing some entertaining possibilities if they'd allow a bit of gender bending:
How about a female landscaper, 50ish, with very powerful sarcasm, elbows, knees, and maybe a supercharged leafblower. She slouches around in old jeans and a faded t-shirt, muttering that she really must use her powers only for good, however tempted she might be when working. Reluctantly allows herself to be called in in a crisis, but, when doing something like foiling bank robbers, might be careless about the cash and inadvertently blow it into the river. Or the stock exchange. On tough cases she calls in her sidekick, a guy who is also a landscaper but who talks the villians to death, when he isn't digging his neighbors out of the snow or picking litter off his street. Villains attacking our hero at home get lost in all the plantings and knicknacks and starve to death. When attacking her sidekick they burst into his house but immediately fly out the other side, because the place is very neat and there's nothing in the way, plus the floor's freshly waxed. They run across a physicist and, with a time machine of course, attempt to go back and sabotage a television so as to grow brains in the boy who will later be in charge of the construction project which burst our water main. (based on neighbors of mine, tho I don't know if they like or even know each other)
I want more ugly, wimpy looking heroes and good looking villians. You shouldn't be able to tell just by looking.
*(Ok, I'll give some credit to Hellboy (movie) and his weakness for kittens, and his swishy, fishy friend who helps save the world. However, I take exception to his physiology and to the theology. I'd take exception to his disposition if it wasn't adequately explained by his upbringing. Besides, if I was that big and dumb and afraid of antidepressants, I'd act that way too. And the MI girlfriend, who has powers, ought to be breaking out of the hospital and saving him. Often.)
That's kinda funny, but isn't it also a lot like shooting fish in a barrel?
Anytime you have a split like this, it's bad even for the side which looks like it's "winning". Male superheroes, even Swamp Thing (most of the time), have to be buff too, although they don't have to be smart:
http://www.bushcomic.com/images/main/tex_cover_259x400.jpg
But god help them if they want to do a little knitting.*
Where it really gets bad is in advertising. Much more subtle. But capable of keeping most of us in line.
frivolity:
BTW, ever wonder how Superman stays so buff when there's nothing to work out with that would challenge his strength? Steroids! You heard it here first.
Seems to me that the comics people are missing some entertaining possibilities if they'd allow a bit of gender bending:
How about a female landscaper, 50ish, with very powerful sarcasm, elbows, knees, and maybe a supercharged leafblower. She slouches around in old jeans and a faded t-shirt, muttering that she really must use her powers only for good, however tempted she might be when working. Reluctantly allows herself to be called in in a crisis, but, when doing something like foiling bank robbers, might be careless about the cash and inadvertently blow it into the river. Or the stock exchange. On tough cases she calls in her sidekick, a guy who is also a landscaper but who talks the villians to death, when he isn't digging his neighbors out of the snow or picking litter off his street. Villains attacking our hero at home get lost in all the plantings and knicknacks and starve to death. When attacking her sidekick they burst into his house but immediately fly out the other side, because the place is very neat and there's nothing in the way, plus the floor's freshly waxed. They run across a physicist and, with a time machine of course, attempt to go back and sabotage a television so as to grow brains in the boy who will later be in charge of the construction project which burst our water main. (based on neighbors of mine, tho I don't know if they like or even know each other)
I want more ugly, wimpy looking heroes and good looking villians. You shouldn't be able to tell just by looking.
*(Ok, I'll give some credit to Hellboy (movie) and his weakness for kittens, and his swishy, fishy friend who helps save the world. However, I take exception to his physiology and to the theology. I'd take exception to his disposition if it wasn't adequately explained by his upbringing. Besides, if I was that big and dumb and afraid of antidepressants, I'd act that way too. And the MI girlfriend, who has powers, ought to be breaking out of the hospital and saving him. Often.)
posted by LR at 8:45 AM
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