Basement X

DC has gotten a lot of negative press during the last week regarding the depiction of some of its female characters in some of their titles.

Specifically, Starfire in Red Hood and the Outlaws and Catwoman in her own title. In Red Hood and the Outlaws, most of Starfire's scenes involved her posing and thrusting her breasts in various money shots while she talked whatisface into having sex, all the while ticking off the names of other characters she had slept with like they were notches on a bedpost.

Catwoman's opening sequence in her own title featured various shots of her unclothed or partially clothed naughty bits without showing her face for the first page or so and the issue ended with her and Batman having sex.

These two titles drew a ton of heated criticism from sites & bloggers around the net. One of which was Laura Hudson who wrote a very well written article about the objectification of female characters in comics.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/2 ... erheroine/

where Laura provides ample examples of the sexism prevelant in comics.

Recently newsarama & CBR took up the discussion by posting various articles and asking creators how they felt about the issue.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/hey-tha ... 10928.html

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/the-q-a ... 10928.html

My own personal feelings, which I've stated quite often, is that comics do tend to objectify females in comics in proportions that are ridiculously cartoonish. The flip side to this is that people make the argument that men are objectified also. Every super hero is built like an olympic level athlete with rippling muscles. However, it's really not a fair comparison. When a man is objectified the things that get exxagerated are his muscles, his strength, his courage and- by extension- his ability to protect; basically all the abilities you can respect. With women it's typically the reverse. A woman's strength, muscles, courage, intellect don't get exxagerated, just her bust size and ironically what doesn't get exxagerated are her clothes which tend to get skimpier and skimpier

Given all this, I don't think most writer's are objectifying women on purpose. As many others have said, a lot of writer's are going by their own narrow focus of what they consider "sexy" which sometimes is the exact opposite. The Catwoman controversry was drawn by Guillem March & written by Judd Winnick; A guy who constantly champions social causes such as homosexuality & AIDS. One would might then assume that a guy as socially conscious as Winnick would know better or be able to see it coming down the pipeline and stop it but he didn't.

And that right here is why the comics industry needs to diversify; to attract more women. Not because of some quota they need to fill, but because a woman's perspective, obviously differs from a man and they see and interpret things differently. Their experiences offer a different or fresh take on an old idea thats been rehashed ad nauseum by thousands of men who have come before. And logically, different/better ideas lead to better comics which in turns leads to more sales.

Also from a practical standpoint comics have not always been reader friendly towards women and in an industry that is rapidly shrinking, continuing to ignore an entire gender will be detrimental in the long run.

Anyone else feel similarly or differently?

While I haven't read the Catwoman issue, I find her having sex with Batman nothing to be appaled by. In fact, finally! is what I'd say.

Other than that, I probably agree with that novel in the post above.

They had a long relationship in Hush, why should it matter now? Is it because they're not taking off the masks or is it really the fact that Catwoman is quasi-raping him (forcing him against his will but he eventually gives in).

Now, the whole schtick with Starfire just pisses me off. They take a strong female character and basically take a shit on her. In fact, my retailer tried to sell me the issue over again thinking I had requested it and I made a crack that if he wants I'll take the issue from him and burn it like it deserves, lol. I never make cracks about destroying comics, but this issue almost makes me want to.

Let me clarify that I don't have a problem with Catwoman having sex with Batman nor am I saying that all female characters must now cover up burqa style. It's the lead up to the sex scene that I'm referring to (although again Laura Hudson in her article does make a good point that the sex scene with Catwoman & Batman is done from a strictly male POV).

There will always be cheesecake & beefcake in comics but it can be portrayed in a tasteful & classy manner and those should be the norm, not the other way around.

Wait until Voodoo, lol. The main character is a stripper in the first issue and it's basically all cheesecake.

I liked the Catwoman issue.

Sure, it was sexual, but anyone who thought it was crass or tasteless has a stick up their ass. There were two scenes in it that could be taken as hyper-sexual, but both were part of they story, and didn't really seem out of place, especially for a comic book.

The red underwear was a little much, but fit with the unsuspecting firebombing of the apartment. It's not that different than the ridiculously exaggerated muscles on the men.


However, from the images I have seen of Starfire, whoever approved that shit should be fired.

Any woman walking into a new store to try some comics and seeing that would have every justification to walk right back out.



The worst offenders are the smaller press publishers printing the pin-up variants for all their comics.

IE:
http://www.recalledcomics.com/GrimmFair ... aughty.php