Women, Adversity, and Comics : How Far is Too Far?

[Deep_Sleeper]

Straight girls' fantasies of gay men, basically.

Really? Hmm...

[RolandJP]

Objectification is one thing. I'm more annoyed at how women heroes dont get to do much. And really has there been a high level woman badguy?

[marvell2100]

not really, seeing how rape and sexual assault or the threat of rape and sexual assault is something so consistent in many forms of entertainment (books, comics, tv, movies, and video games) it's refreshing not to see or read it. that consistency also makes recommending something chalk full of it a hard sell

Yeah, I'd rather not read a comic, novel or watch a movie that involves rape or sexual assault. I know it happens in reality but it's very sickening and I'd prefer not to have it in the mediums that I watch. I know in some venues it;s unavoidable but I just choose not to view or read it.

Objectifying women less in comics has certainly gotten better in recent years but there's still alot of work to be done. We've come along way from the damsel in distrss and have seen the rise of pretty powerful women characters both physically and mentally. However, you rarely see female super-geniuses or women who have great political power or impact in comics, something that was brought up in another thread.

[StoneGold]

Don't do to a woman what you wouldn't do to a man.

So, she's never getting a period?


See, this doesn't really work. Society is not genderless. Hell, just hooking up a female lead character with a male has HUGE implications that don't exist when a male character hooks up with a female. For that matter, if you have a male character sexually assaulted, or even the suggestion of it, it becomes an entirely different story than if it is a female.

[StoneGold]

Yeah, I'd rather not read a comic, novel or watch a movie that involves rape or sexual assault. I know it happens in reality but it's very sickening and I'd prefer not to have it in the mediums that I watch. I know in some venues it;s unavoidable but I just choose not to view or read it.

So, never reading Greek mythology then? Arthurian legend?


Don't kid yourself, there's some great literature/movies/what have you that includes rape. It's more about what's done with it.

[marvell2100]

So, never reading Greek mythology then? Arthurian legend?


Don't kid yourself, there's some great literature/movies/what have you that includes rape. It's more about what's done with it.

I've read plenty. I cut my teeth on Greek mythology. Not denying that there are movies out there that are pretty good either. Just saying that I try to avoid those when at all possible. Can it be avoided at all? Probably not, but rape for the sake of rape or shock value is not my cup of tea.

[7thangel]

So, never reading Greek mythology then? Arthurian legend?


Don't kid yourself, there's some great literature/movies/what have you that includes rape. It's more about what's done with it.

there's is plenty of great, good or entertaining stuff that 'we' don't bother with because of things like subject matter, genre, etc.

[marvell2100]

there's is plenty of great, good or entertaining stuff that 'we' don't bother with because of things like subject matter, genre, etc.

Pretty much this.

[StoneGold]

The song Baby it's Cold Outside. That thing is rapey like crazy.

[dupont2005]

if you have a male character sexually assaulted, or even the suggestion of it, it becomes an entirely different story than if it is a female.

I don't see why...

[Johnny P. Sartre]

Just stopping in before this starts to blow up to mention that superhero comics are not all comics, and depictions of women tend to improve immensely the farther you get away from tights and capes.

ding ding ding ding ding

[Johnny P. Sartre]

I don't see why...

Machismo and the like come into play. While the helpless feeling, blaming the victim and so also get played into a story; a man getting raped destroys the traditional look of what a man is, should be and what their role is in society.

In other words, a man should be strong, resilient, and in control of everything, and rape puts that whole view upside down and then annihilates it.

[StoneGold]

Machismo and the like come into play. While the helpless feeling, blaming the victim and so also get played into a story; a man getting raped destroys the traditional look of what a man is, should be and what their role is in society.

In other words, a man should be strong, resilient, and in control of everything, and rape puts that whole view upside down and then annihilates it.

Basically. Hell, even man on man. Look at Skyfall, when spoilers:

Silver is feeling up Bond.

end of spoilers That scene would have played out HUGE different had it been a female character.

[GarageGlamorous]

Objectification is one thing. I'm more annoyed at how women heroes dont get to do much. And really has there been a high level woman badguy?

I was thinking of this a few weeks ago. Not necessarily that there are very few (if any) female "big bads" in comics, but that 90% of female villains at any level seem to eventually go through a "bad girl gone good", or at least morally ambiguous, character alteration. I know that plenty of male villains have also "gone good", but it's just the sheer amount of female villains that seem to inevitably abandon their villainy, even if only for a year or so (in the case of Poison Ivy) that raises a red flag. I can't even think of one regularly utilized female villain that's stayed just as evil as say, The Joker or Darkseid*, for their entire career.

*:I'm not big on the whole Superman mythos, so I don't know if he's ever reformed for a period of time. In any case, I've only ever seen him act in general wonton comic book villainy.

[StoneGold]

I was thinking of this a few weeks ago. Not necessarily that there are very few (if any) female "big bads" in comics, but that 90% of female villains at any level seem to eventually go through a "bad girl gone good", or at least morally ambiguous, character alteration. I know that plenty of male villains have also "gone good", but it's just the sheer amount of female villains that seem to inevitably abandon their villainy, even if only for a year or so (in the case of Poison Ivy) that raises a red flag. I can't even think of one regularly utilized female villain that's stayed just as evil as say, The Joker or Darkseid*, for their entire career.

*:I'm not big on the whole Superman mythos, so I don't know if he's ever reformed for a period of time. In any case, I've only ever seen him act in general wonton comic book villainy.

I can think of a few attempts at doing it without having them go all gooshy, but they're rare, and tend not to catch on. Cheetah, Morgan la Fey (thinking specifically of the version Busiek used to relaunch Avengers), Nebula, that chick Englehart had leading the Kree who was really a Skrull who's name escapes me, Red Skull (the daughter version)... does Ms. Sinister count? Lady Bullseye?