An interesting debate has turned up in comics fandom of late, stemming from a certain event in 52 #21.
Does a particular character’s death by decapitation imply a larger, disturbing trend in the DCU? What does it mean?
Point:
Over at his livejournal, JLG posts this question in his entry, Creepy Trends:
Excerpt:
Trends are why Dorian Wright has every right to criticize Marvel and voice his concerns about Marvel’s portrayals of gay characters after his examples of Northstar and Freedom Ring, and why feminist comic readers keep a close watch on the comic industry and advocate better portrayals and treatment of female characters after the initial WiR list, Sue Dibny, Stephanie Brown, and Cassandra Cain.
“If something happens three times, it is a trend, by the way.”
Mongal, Pantha, and now Trajectory. So what is it with DC gruesomely decapitating women?
Counterpoint:
Our own Ragnell doesn’t like the implications of one of the arguments that emerge in the comments of JLG’s post, and she takes it to Written Word to examine more closely, in her entry, Castration:
Excerpt:
It’s one thing, of course, to find sexism by focusing on the reasoning why, or the reaction of the other characters to this death. However, to focus on the method of death itself, and how humiliating and degrading it is and connect that with castration when it is a death that occurs no where close to the sexual organs, and occurs on a battlefield rather than a traditional women’s setting, comes dangerously close to the attitude that one’s identity, personality and power lies in one’s sexual organs. It also, when all the shame connected with a death in this matter comes specifically from losing the battle and not one’s gender role, comes infuriatingly close to equating “loser” with “woman.”
In both cases, the discussion gets particularly interesting in the comments.
October 11th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
My biggest issue is that Trajectory was created for the series. That means, the writers specifically created a female character to be killed–and she’s probably not going to be the last.
The writers could have said to themselves “You know what? We’ve been raping and killing too many female characters lately, let’s make Trajectory a young male speedster.”
If they were creating a character specifically to be killed, they could have chosen either gender. I think it says something that they chose to make Trajectory a young woman.
By the way, has anybody seen what was done to Mary Marvel? The pattern of ghoulish treatement toward female characters has definitely increased. That’s why I read Manhunter.
Ray
October 11th, 2006 at 8:41 pm
I can see some validity to complaints about what has been done to female characters at DC lately, but some of the specific points here…
1. Trajectory: they needed to create a character to associate with Natasha enough that the reader would believe that her death would have a possibly profound effect on. If they made it a guy, it might have confused the relationship into appearing to be more than what the writers wanted to do.
2. Mary Marvel: honestly, I think they would have done the same if the character was Mark Marvel…Winick probably wanted some drastic way of taking the other Marvel out of the equation that accomplished two thing: (a) demonstrating how terribly out of whack the magic situation was and (b) clear the playing field for Freddy Freeman.
Sue Dibny: they needed to have a non-hero die in order to introduce the spectre of those closest to our heroes to suffer for being so close. Maybe if Zatanna or Black Canary had well-sewn-into-continuity spouses or significant others (who were civilians), it could have been a guy.
Stephanie Brown: again, still would have happened if it was Stephen Brown; they elevated her to Robin status just to have her die to introduce mortality issues into the Batman family setup
Cassandra Cain: Here, I think her gender was probably the biggest reason she was used: a woman to replace a woman in power with the League of Assassins. But, again, part of her being picked is because she hadn’t yet achieved the status of being an irreplacable member of the Batman family…just like Stephanie Brown.
I think the part of the problem is some of these female characters are created JUST to create a female character. Are these characters flippantly killed occassionally because they are female or because they were flippantly created or because they aren’t yet that marketable?
October 12th, 2006 at 10:51 am
hell, there’s a larger issue here to examine, too–not just the beheading of women by DC, but the beheading of ANYONE.
Infinite Crisis and 52 can be damned grisly books, like R-rated splatter movie grisly. Remember that dude getting torn in half by Black Adam early in the series?
I’d open the question up further and ask why we have to see ANY damned beheadings at all. i get that comics aren’t for kids by any stretch of the imagination anymore, but I’m a 30-year-old, and i’m put off by the squishy squirmy visuals in some of these otherwise very conventional superhero books.