Hey, female (and male) Avengers fans: If you enjoy being offended...

[kelly_warrior_princess]

fact is the portrayal of women in comics is rife with the male gaze

No its not. The male gaze is a technique with the arsenal of any creator: but how exactly does that negatively affect us, when its literally the same technique used against men in womens magazines & many movies directed at women (because there was totally a good reason for the twilight movie poster to have a shirtless buff teenage boy on it). No offense, but there is no such thing as the "male gaze." There is such a thing as the "sexual gaze" which is used specifically because people would prefer to be titilated, then not (an thats in no way restricted to men). Its a technique used just as often in the media in general with men as with women.

There is no reason why such a technique shouldn't be used in comics. As a literary technique (yes it shows up in novels as well), there is nothing wrong with it. In fact i'd say it used less often in comics then almost any other narrative medium.

and the creative talent pool is under represented with women (Remember when DC had all of one female writer on a book, they've double it to the grand total of 2!).

And? Women are also under represented in the not so lucrative field of trash collection & unsuprisingly we never hear us complain about that. The fact is that the amount of female writers or artists at DC has nothing to do with sexism, or even gender at all: DC hires talent, not vaginas & penises. This is exactly the kind of female self entitlement i've railed against in other threads: We do not deserve a free passs bassed on our genital configuration. People are hired due to natural talent, skill, past success in a particular sub-set & popularity of a particular style. Look at the list of women who were invited to write for the Nu DCU (a total of 6 as i understand) & almost all of them turned it down, due to having other projects on the go.

Never mistake absense for exclusion. Right now the house i'm living in has no men, no people of ethnic minorities, & no one with a major physical disability, but that not to say that the real estate company is excluding them, or that the real estate company needs to go out & seek them: Absense is NOT exclusion. Unfortuantely you've fallen foul of a concept called "equality of outcome" which is not equality at all. Business cannot function under equality of outcome & as such functions under equality of oppurtunity (which is equality, unlike its outcome based partner).

In fact, if DC were to have an open writing space for example & they went out & only sought out female writers, that would be sexism. Openly sexism in fact, as it would literally be a choice made specifically by gender (the dictionary definition of sexism).

Now, we all have our own standards but its harsh to say our gender are 'playing victims'.

An yet you did it twice in this very message. Its very simple to see when we play the victim: If at any time we talk as if we are an object, being acted upon by a agent, rather then our own agent, we are playing the victim.

although the lack of female-led comics

What lack? There are plenty of female lead comics. Also lots of team books with women in major roles.

the number of sexualized poses and unrealistic portrayals of females ("below-average" looking characters who have the proportions of supermodels?)

As it does with men too: See up page to the sexy shirtless Thor image.

What did that DC guy say about female readers not being a viable market again?

We aren't a viable market; theres no question involved, we make up less then a single market share. Thats not sexism: thats like saying men are not a viable market for make up, fashion magazines, romantic comedies, romance novels, or any number of other products. Thats not sexism, its just straight up fact. It doesn't mean that we can't purchase or enjoy a product, it just means that if we took away the male part of the market not only could we not sustain the industry, it wouldn't last more then about 15 minutes before the whole lot collapsed.

There's nothing wrong with that statement (especially given that its 100% true & demonstrable); its just where peoples interests are, as we are not all the same person.

I don't go to cons that often and don't follow this stuff but there are some things that I've noticed that could be better.

Better doesn't mean we are being hard done by in any way.

You are painting YOUR OPINION that female readers don't have it tough as more valid than someone else's, based solely on the fact that you are female.

Not at all. I'm painting my opinion as being coldly logical, devoid of gendered self entitlement, or subjective conjecture in the form of emotionalised appeals to white knights. Feel free to debunk, refute or question any statement or part of any statement i've made. All the statements i've made are backed up by well founded facts & can take any scrutiny to which you wish to apply.

You have never asked why the person thinks so or what situations he has witnessed which may have formed this opinion.

Actually i did. Its in the same message as the reposted Thor abs. Um, that could probably explain why you didn't notice it... With the sexy distracting abs & all.

It's offensive to women and comic book fans in general.

Really? Because i fall into both of those groups & i wasn't offended. It was social satire that unfortunately fell foul of Poes Law. Stupid yes, offensive no.

[Wren]

EDIT: ignore please :(

[Van Custo]

Why do they keep calling Thor a demigod? He's not half human Lol.

[Wren]

What lack? There are plenty of female lead comics. Also lots of team books with women in major roles.

At marvel? Which ones?

As it does with men too: See up page to the sexy shirtless Thor image.

That's a movie, for one, different market. Mind you in IM2 Widow was over-sexualized, imo to the point where it undercut her being an effective fighter. She did a lot of posing and REALLY crappy fighting (and I'm bad at choreographed fights, so if I notice, that's bad), compared to the men. In comics from what I've noticed women's poses are generally more sexualized than men's and their roles are generally, though not always, smaller.

We aren't a viable market; theres no question involved, we make up less then a single market share. Thats not sexism: thats like saying men are not a viable market for make up, fashion magazines, romantic comedies, romance novels, or any number of other products. Thats not sexism, its just straight up fact. It doesn't mean that we can't purchase or enjoy a product, it just means that if we took away the male part of the market not only could we not sustain the industry, it wouldn't last more then about 15 minutes before the whole lot collapsed.

There's nothing wrong with that statement (especially given that its 100% true & demonstrable); its just where peoples interests are, as we are not all the same person.

The statement was that they were not going to target females, despite a decreasing readership. Children are also a very small percent of current comic-reading public but they're still targeted, thought they're not the main market, and they have comics out specifically targeting children. There are fashion magazines for men, and fashion shows, and articles. They are not the main market, but they are a targeted market. Same with romantic comedies, there are plenty of gender neutral comedies with a large romance element which are targeted as gender-neutral and have a male following. They're not always CALLED romantic comedies, which is a bit weird. Like Hangover-- it's Bridesmaids, but from the men's perspective. Romance novels and Makeup is right, but that's sociological, men are not expected to wear makeup in our society, same with dresses, and men being interested in romance is still discouraged, sexist as that is.

Women can be expected to read comics, it's gender-neutral (by today's standards) as far as themes go, so it's surprising they are actively being not targeted, as the readership decreases.

Not at all. I'm painting my opinion as being coldly logical, devoid of gendered self entitlement, or subjective conjecture in the form of emotionalised appeals to white knights. Feel free to debunk, refute or question any statement or part of any statement i've made. All the statements i've made are backed up by well founded facts & can take any scrutiny to which you wish to apply.

Where did you see "emotionalised appeals to white knights" in this thread? I'm not doubting you, just asking what particularly sparked that?

Until challenged, you didn't actually put down any reasoning about why you think women DON'T have it tough, or refute anyone else's who did point out specific things in the article that bothered them (aside from RDMacQ's, whose post didn't contain anything about the article itself, it was a joke, so not sure what happened there). You basically said "it's not offensive, just stupid" a couple of times and then the whole "no women are not victims and don't have it tough"... without any particular logical reasoning, which is why I assumed your reasoning was primarily that you as a woman would know better than a male poster.
If I missed some post, sorry about that, please point it out? It's not a short thread anymore.

But so far to me it looked like you just posted your own opinion with nothing more or less logical than anyone else's. Like the quote below:

Really? Because i fall into both of those groups & i wasn't offended. It was social satire that unfortunately fell foul of Poes Law. Stupid yes, offensive no.

You not being offended is not a logical refute to someone else being offended, nor to it being offensive in general (which I assume to mean, "a majority finds it offensive"). It is no more or less emotional than the original statement. It's just an opinion.

[Wren]

Why do they keep calling Thor a demigod? He's not half human Lol.

You assume people can differentiate Thor and Hercules... they both have amazing bods, but Hercules is such a total bear. How could anyone miss that glorious body hair???

[motherofpearl1]

Why do they keep calling Thor a demigod? He's not half human Lol.

What made me laugh was the expression on Loki's face whne Erik called him 'brother of Thor'. I honestly thought he was going to kill him for that. Then again in Stark tower when Tony referred to 'his brother' again.........
Serious sibling rivalry issues.

[kelly_warrior_princess]

At marvel? Which ones?

moving the goal posts & being intellectually dishonest: It takes in excess of 6 months to get a new project off the ground, the last of the female lead titles were cancelled along with all of marvels other under performing titles less then 6 months ago. Whats more you don't get to decide which company is and isn't included. Thats like me saying men are being hard done by, because there are no men centred magazines & then when you point out that there are & i say "at cleo? which ones." Intellectual dishonesty & moving the goal posts: don't do that because i will call you on it & i won't be gentle about it.

That's a movie, for one, different market.

The fact that its a different medium doesn't make one iota of difference: Its marketed to the same demographic & the same audience. Hence there is no practicle difference there. But if you want to go comics, i can give you a long list of barely clad, shirtless buff men in comics, some who are shirtless as part of there costume, such as Hercules. Or the 52 page that used to exist, that was just pictures of Booster golds butt.

Mind you in IM2 Widow was over-sexualized, imo to the point where it undercut her being an effective fighter.

Bullshit. Widow is sexy, she has a body which possess positive sexual qualities. thats not the same as sexualised.

She did a lot of posing and REALLY crappy fighting (and I'm bad at choreographed fights, so if I notice, that's bad), compared to the men.

Now you are just talking bullshit. She was the only one who actually fought in the entire damn movie. Everyone else was just being a blaster. Iron man & the robot iron men were all blasters & raw force, where Black Widow was all measured deliberate movements. The fact that you didn't like it doesn't change these demonstrable facts.

In comics from what I've noticed women's poses are generally more sexualized than men's and their roles are generally, though not always, smaller.

No they aren't. I'm sorry its just not so. I've seen this rhetoric before, but as someone else said: "people constantly mistake being attractive for sexual poses: any pose a really sexually attractive person is in, is going to be sexual no matter what the pose is." An again how does that make us hard done by? Having sexy people looking sexy in no way makes us put upon. Sames as how sexy shirtless Thor doesn't make men "put upon" either.

In fact this theory you have falls on its arse when you look at the top selling magas comics selling to a female audience, which all have a lot more in the way of fan service then anything that appears in a super hero comic. Yet the female audience for those is huge.

The statement was that they were not going to target females, despite a decreasing readership.

No actually it wasn't. The statement is that we are not a viable market... an we aren't... At all... In any way shape or form. Trying to pander to us, is like the meat market trying to pander to vegatarians: Its a pointless endeavour as they make up a nearly no existant portion of the market. Oh and just FYI, comics aren't a decreasing market, they've actually been pretty stable, they are just moving away from Marvel & DC due to both companies creating nothing but crap over the last 2 years to differing degrees.

Women can be expected to read comics, it's gender-neutral (by today's standards) as far as themes go, so it's surprising they are actively being not targeted, as the readership decreases.

Sure it is, doesn't mean that we are all the same, or that we are all interested in the same genre. Its like saying romance novels need to target men because books can be expected to read books. Not everyone is interested in the same genres & its this lack of interest by women & men as a social group which determines the percentage of the readership.

But how exactly does that make us hard done by? Are men hard done by if they want to read a romance novel, because there aren't many men who read them? How so?

Where did you see "emotionalised appeals to white knights" in this thread?

Never said it was in this thread. I said i'm not using it.

Until challenged, you didn't actually put down any reasoning about why you think women DON'T have it tough

Burden of proof. Only one of us has it: heres a clue *whisper* its not me *whisper.*

Burden of proof is always on the side attempting to make a positive assertion. Until someone puts down the basis to back there positive assertion, they cannot be refuted (as they don't exist to be refuted), which is why i specifically asked for them & why i answered the charges on every single point in minutae.

[Wren]

moving the goal posts & being intellectually dishonest: It takes in excess of 6 months to get a new project off the ground, the last of the female lead titles were cancelled along with all of marvels other under performing titles less then 6 months ago. Whats more you don't get to decide which company is and isn't included. Thats like me saying men are being hard done by, because there are no men centred magazines & then when you point out that there are & i say "at cleo? which ones." Intellectual dishonesty & moving the goal posts: don't do that because i will call you on it & i won't be gentle about it.

You realize that you could demonstrate how it is over in DC (I just don't read much DC, and we're in the Marvel forums) instead of being a brat about it. Why don't you give me a list, in general?
Mind you there are some independent comics I know to be well-representing of women, but that's kind of a different beast imo. The whole editorially-controlled shared universe with multiple writers thing doesn't apply and I think that's important. Moreover independent comics often have different marketing strategies and different markets.

But the fact that currently (6 months ago they cancelled 2 female-led comics, that's not a huge improvement) at Marvel there aren't many at all is not insignificant, either.

The fact that its a different medium doesn't make one iota of difference: Its marketed to the same demographic & the same audience. Hence there is no practicle difference there. But if you want to go comics, i can give you a long list of barely clad, shirtless buff men in comics, some who are shirtless as part of there costume, such as Hercules. Or the 52 page that used to exist, that was just pictures of Booster golds butt.

Marvel movies are marketed for kids and families typically. They are of course ALSO marketed to comic-readers, but that's not the main market by any stretch. The films were streamlined to be understood by a general audience. Avengers comics are not marketed to kids as far as I've seen, and neither are 90% of all big 2 comics. So no they don't have the same audience or the same demographic.
Anyway, aside from Hercules and Namor what is the long list, and is there more or equal portions to barely clad women? Do men typically pose with their butts/breasts on display? I get that some do, but is it the norm? Women in comics are often drawn anatomically incorrect so they can display both at the same time.

Now you are just talking bullshit. She was the only one who actually fought in the entire damn movie. Everyone else was just being a blaster. Iron man & the robot iron men were all blasters & raw force, where Black Widow was all measured deliberate movements. The fact that you didn't like it doesn't change these demonstrable facts.

The shield agents also gave it a go, as did Happy, who btw actually hit their opponents without bending forward on one knee and looking at the camera or giving pauses so we can stare at his body. She was on her knees 3-4 times in that 2 minute fight sequence, none of which was necessary. A favourite mode of offense seems to be to get her legs around a guy's head, which she does a couple times, despite that being kind of hard to set up. After disabling each guard, she paused to do a pose. It wasn't as sexy as possible, but this is for a younger audience.

No they aren't. I'm sorry its just not so. I've seen this rhetoric before, but as someone else said: "people constantly mistake being attractive for sexual poses: any pose a really sexually attractive person is in, is going to be sexual no matter what the pose is." An again how does that make us hard done by? Having sexy people looking sexy in no way makes us put upon. Sames as how sexy shirtless Thor doesn't make men "put upon" either.

Thor is only shirtless in one or two shots in the whole movie. Emma Frost wears lingerie as her main mode of dress. When it's taken too far, like that kid in twilight who rips his shirt off at every opportunity, people notice and attribute it as being "for girls". Sure any pose will look good on an attractive person, but when the body is dressed and contorted to achieve max sex appeal it's noticeable.

In fact this theory you have falls on its arse when you look at the top selling magas comics selling to a female audience, which all have a lot more in the way of fan service then anything that appears in a super hero comic. Yet the female audience for those is huge.

There's such a thing as crossover appeal for a potential male market, which may offset the drop in the female market. Secondly the overwhelming market is in Japan, where social mores are different and women's expectations are different. And shoujo series are not the ones with the most fan-service, I'm not really sure that they have MORE fanservice than western comics. They may occasionally have women in bikinis or panty-shots, but they typically don't have unrealistically sexy women wearing lingerie as their main costume, unless there's some I don't know about. It's about moderation.

No actually it wasn't. The statement is that we are not a viable market... an we aren't... At all... In any way shape or form. Trying to pander to us, is like the meat market trying to pander to vegatarians: Its a pointless endeavour as they make up a nearly no existant portion of the market. Oh and just FYI, comics aren't a decreasing market, they've actually been pretty stable, they are just moving away from Marvel & DC due to both companies creating nothing but crap over the last 2 years to differing degrees.

The meat market cannot market to vegetarians because by definition, they do not eat meat. Do women by definition not read comics?
And the market has been falling for comics for a long longer than 2 years. Especially since the quote I gave was from DC, so for them, yes their readership has been decreasing. Let's be specific though, I'm talking about shared universe serialized comics, not independent. Those have different demographics (not consistent) and are marketed, packaged, created and sold differently, sometimes on an individual basis. It's not about Marvel and DC producing crap, that's just your opinion. There is also 1) individual issues cost more now, 2) competing, cheaper entertainment, 3) internet piracy 4) changes in marketing/distributions strategies, etc.

And here's the statement, FYI: "The target audience are men age 18 to 34", so no, they didn't say females are not a viable market. Unless I missed that? In 2008 I think women made up just about 10% of the market for DC. That's not huge but it is a market.

But how exactly does that make us hard done by? Are men hard done by if they want to read a romance novel, because there aren't many men who read them? How so?

There's a social stigma attributed to men who read/watch romance, unfortunately. The same cannot be said (anymore) for women who read/watch sci-fi.

Burden of proof is always on the side attempting to make a positive assertion. Until someone puts down the basis to back there positive assertion, they cannot be refuted (as they don't exist to be refuted), which is why i specifically asked for them & why i answered the charges on every single point in minutae.

There have been people in this thread who have put down their reasonings for why they think the article is offensive. You've yet to debunk them or show any reasoning of your own.

[aNamored]

Beware the wrath of geekettes. We don't like it when you assume women are vacuous and shallow. The female of the species, etc. etc.

It's not exactly offensive, it's more like, "Ha ha, girls wouldn't be interested in this for the story. Let's dress it up in cheesy fake slang and drop a lot of words like 'totes' and 'hunky' to make it comprehensible to women who get dragged along to see it with their nerd boyfriends."

As if we're going to say "So the world is ending and only these people can save it -- are they HOT?"

Nicely said, Chariset. And I got a good laugh out of your take on WWHulk.

This was a ridiculous piece, satirical or not.

When Fight Club came out, nearly every reviewer said "Oh this is a guy's movie...no women would understand. It's not a chick flick."

Cut to me and my then best friend laughing the loudest and hardest during that movie. The second time I saw it with my then boyfriend (who was an FX artist no less), he didn't get it.

I don't think any intelligent, and/or genre loving girl or woman thinks in terms of hot only.