In the past week we’ve seen a cross-blog debate explode about the nature of a scene with Tigra in New Avengers #35 and some discussion about a spread of three female Justice Leaguers in Justice League of America #14. I was unwilling to comment directly on either because I’ve only seen online scans, but I just can’t ignore these things. I was reading a debate on an email list where one my co-bloggers (it was Tom) pointed out there is a trend of heroes getting in trouble recently and brought up that Kyle Rayner was recently stripped completely nude in the current Green Lantern storyline as an example. Well, a Green Lantern mention can usually get me to speak up, and a quick look at the Sinestro Corps confirmed that a very important factor was in play (two, actually, but I only have time for the one today), a factor that influences the reaction no matter where the story was going or what the artist and the writer intended. A factor that the artists, editors, and writers in superhero comics should keep in mind when crafting their stories, because it interferes severely with the communication between the creator and the reader.
Take a look at this scene with Kyle in Sinestro Corps (Click on any of the images to enlarge):
Notice that despite drawing him in the nude, the artist wasn’t doing his best to show off all of the “good parts” when Kyle lost his clothes. Its in the way it was angled. There was a panel that showed he was vulnerable and beaten, but there was a distant shot that just had him looking very vague. There was no heavy emphasis on “soft taboo” body parts such as the butt, and the forbidden crotch is obscured without drawing attention to the unseen area. If that had been a female character in the same situation, would the artist drawing her have been nearly so subdued?
They aren’t even that subdued when the characters are fully clothed. Benes seems to have gone out of his way to make WW’s top as small as possible and her breasts as large as possible. Luthor’s motivations aside, this was unnecessary.
One of the commenters (on one of the many, many posts about this) asked if everyone would be up in arms about Tigra if it had been a male character. Well, no, because most artists aren’t going to show a male character’s clothing slip suggestively off when he gets brutalized, even if he does get stripped completely naked. Bendis wrote a whole scene where Daredevil was tied to a chair and beat up. I don’t remember seeing any shots where his pants slipped down to show his buttcrack. Its rare to see a male character in peril with particular detail paid to the rounding of his posterior. But almost every single time you see a female character in any level of peril you can count on a few well-shaded and detailed shots of her bust.
This is the artist’s fault, but not in the way most people are thinking. Artists (that’s pencillers, inkers, and colorists) are trained (not only directly, but by what they’ve read before, what the editors encourage and what many fans encourage) to maximize the sexuality of all female characters in all situations. As a general rule in superhero art female = sexy, no matter WHAT the scene calls for. Even instructed not to be exploitive, the artist still automatically showed cleavage shots (part of this is the writer’s fault, because there there is no reason that blouse couldn’t remain closed if a male character’s pants can remain up; but the artist can minimize this sort of thing even with an open blouse if he thinks of it) while she’s getting the shit beat out of her. He probably even thought he was being restrained, but they are just so used to drawing everything as sexualized as possible with a female character that they can’t seem to break the habit. Neither the writer nor the artist necessarily takes into account that habit of paying attention to busts, butts, cleavage, curves, open mouths, sultry eyes, and other highly sexualized traits when rendering a female superhero. This is something that just gets added without a thought to it (its how they always draw her), even in a scene of grim-gritty street crime. This is a problem with storytelling on its own, but its worse at the moment because of the writers. Currently, writers are trying to amp up the violence as much as possible in a misguided quest for maturity. So the artists draw what’s requested, drawing men as they usually draw them and women as they usually draw them. The result is a stomach-turning combination when there’s a violent scene with a woman as the victim.
I am not trying to excuse the artist and writer here. I’m not trying to condemn them either. I’m just saying that creators need to pay better attention to this, because the audience is getting some severely muddled messages. You can have sexualized characters, and you can have realistic violence, but when you mix the two together you are asking for trouble. The combination is really, really creepy. Right now, because the going trend is to exaggerate both sex and violence and go for that realistic feeling, a lot of people are pinging about it.
This is something creators have to keep in mind. Its not just a matter of social messages. This is the story itself, the message between the writer and the audience getting screwed up by sexist conventions.
At least, I hope the message is getting screwed up. If the intent really is to mix sex and violence in that manner we have another entirely different set of communication problems.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:10 am
It’s a generalization that DC Comics works with full scripts [detailed descriptions similar to a TV or moview script] while Marvel works “Marvel”-style which is more loose and many of the details up to the audience.
So if the writer wrote,”The JLA members are all tied up spread-eagle and standing with WW in front, BC and Vixen behind her. Batman is hanging from the ceiling, straight-jacketed and chain ala Houdini. RA, HG and GL are tied up sitting with their eyes forced opened ala Clockwork Orange,” both writer and artist would be to blame.
If the writer wrote, “The JLA are tied up and incapacitated in various manners,” then I think the blame lies squarely on the artist.
Either way, the editor deserves some criticism.
Considering how dark and violent that comic books have begun, I think there is a double standard because there has been so little sexual brutalization of the male character like in Casino Royale or Shawshank Redemption. The only incident I can think of is Apollo from the Authority getting raped by the Captain America clone during the Millar-Quietly run.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:26 am
And, I hasten to note, that was brutalisation of a homosexual character in a manner almost laserlike in its “shame him for his The Gay” focus.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:38 am
Bendis posted the script excerpt of the Tigra scene, and there’s no mention of “and then her top pops open.” The only description he gives for Tigra’s dress is that she is a “very handsome business woman,” it looks like this falls on Lenil Yu’s shoulders.
While I disagree that the scene was intentionally sexualized, I do think that the “ante-upping” trend is beginning to get too extreme. Guys that guys used to be dudes with ray guns are now mass murderers, and in most cases nowadays, you don’t get a scene where the now-psychotic ray gun villain gets led away in cuffs to be tried for quadruple homicide and spends the rest of his life in Supermax.
Is the Hood ever going to have anything resembling comeuppance? Are any of these villains that are becoming so vicious in the name of gritty realism ever going to be shut down by the superheroes, or is there going to be a continued trend of villains wholesale murdering and heroes bemoaning it and never actually catching them and putting them in jail or making them face some kind of justice for their crimes?
October 26th, 2007 at 9:53 am
The violence factor hit me during Infinite Crisis where the story started with Alexander and Kal-L bemoaning the “darkening” of the heroes in an almost metatext way about the trend of the entire industry, then only to turn around and have Superboy Prime punching off heads and Black Adam putting his fist through someone’s head with brains and eyeballs flying. It became what it started out decrying. That’s also pretty much the point where I stopped buying DC with just a few exceptions.
I know that Bendis defended his scene here by saying the point was for the gritty realism to be so unexpected and jarring. A cold hard reality of violence. You now, for me that’s the exact thing I read comics not expecting or WANTING to see. I happen to like high-minded conceptualizing and abstract analogies.
I just wish the writers of today would quite aping what Alan Moore did back in the 80s and thinking they are doing something original.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am
A couple of things about the Kyle scene:
When I brought it up over e-mail, I did not have the issue in front of me and probably hadn’t looked at it since shortly after it came out, months ago. However, my continuing impression of the scene — which may be just as important, I don’t know — was that Kyle was broken and humiliated, with his nakedness being part of his humiliation. I don’t remember that as being a “sexualized” scene, so I agree that it’s not quite comparable to the JLA scene.
Also, by mentioning Kyle, I wasn’t trying to minimize anything by saying “it happens to guys.” (That might not have been clear in the original e-mail, but that’s probably my fault.) The other “heroes in trouble” scenes I mentioned were Superman being torn apart by Red K in Brave and the Bold, and the JLA put in those ubiquitous escape-proof tubes by the Titans of Tomorrow in Teen Titans, neither of which had sexual components. My point was, there are ways to disable/torture the JLAers without showing off T&A. (The “Tower Of Babel” torments also come to mind.)
To me, the JLA #14 scene does play into the “women in trouble” cliche, intentionally or not, because even though Red Tornado is dismembered, Geo-Force is beaten up, and Batman is completely immobilized, they’re not the focus of the two-page spread.
Now I’m reminded of that scene in the “Injustice For All” episode of the animated series where Batman’s tied up and “seduces” the cat-woman in order to escape. I’ll have to watch that again in light of all this.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I think you’re making these unfair sweeping generalizations that have almost no basis in fact.
October 26th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I think the problem is just that Ed Benes is trained to do nonstop T&A shots because he got his start doing pin-ups of superheroines. I don’t know how this at all applies to the rest of the industry.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
The thing with Ed Benes is even his sister draws in the same exact cringing way.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Jamal, I disagree. I think the facts support Lisa quite well.
Now, if you’re saying that they’re sweeping generalisations because you don’t think these things apply to all artists, or even to most artists, then I can see your point. There are definitely artists out there who don’t draw every female character as sexy in every panel.
But there is definitely a problem with some artists, and some very high profile artists. When Spoiler was killed in the Batman comics, her tortured body was often drawn in a very sexulized manner. I think what Lisa was talking about may have happened there, the artist may not have intentionally drawn her in sexy poses as she was bleeding and bruised, he may have done it out of habit. Whether it was intentional or not, it should have been avoided.
So while Lisa’s analysis may not apply to all artists in the industry, I think she puts forth some good arguments about what *some* artists are doing.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Jamal, I’m thinking either you need to read more comics or read the ones you already have more closely.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
ungh.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Actually, if you purposefully mix sex and violence, don’t you get Jim Balent’s Tarot series?
October 26th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I don’t have qtuite enough time to take on all the points at the moment but there was one that jumped out at me and it was this:
This is the artist’s fault, but not in the way most people are thinking. Artists (that’s pencillers, inkers, and colorists) are trained (not only directly, but by what they’ve read before, what the editors encourage and what many fans encourage) to maximize the sexuality of all female characters in all situations.
This frankly is crap. You can cite examples such as Benes of Lenlil Yu but if you think this is some norm encouraged by any editor you’re sadly mistaken. That Bene’s page, was an artistic choice. Ed Benes draws the way he draws because he chooses it and to marginalize any artist is wrong.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
One of the things that seems to be glossed over constantly is the issue of female characters in comics. There is a section of fandom that gets in an uproar whenever a female character is shown on the losing end of a dangerous situation. This is a creative medium where male and female characters are placed in hazardous situations constantly dressed in nothing more than a speedo and skin tight spandex. TO me there are no sacred cows,No pun intended. i don’t believe in the “Women in refrigerators, female heroes should never lose a fight or be killed mentality”. It does more damge than any percieved abuse of a female hero.For every female Tigra, we get achacter like Risk a male hero who had both his arms ripped off in the space of two years.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
Again, Jamal, I disagree on some of your points.
The idea behind Women in Refrigerators isn’t that it’s always wrong to have bad things happen to women. That’s why I don’t consider what happened to Tigra to be a WiR thing. The little flashes of cleavage aren’t a great thing, but they’re not that significant, either. I’d say her beating was roughly equivalent to what happened to Ted Kord as the Blue Beetle. So when you compare it to Risk, I think that’s fair.
But getting hurt, depowered, or dying in a fight isn’t what WiR refers to. It refers to how often female characters die as victims. Those times when, even if they were heroes in their own right, they don’t get a chance to fight back at all, they just get chopped up and stuffed into a fridge so that a male character has something to inspire him to fight harder. That definitely happens more often to female heroes than male.
In the last few years, I think people have become more aware of WiR and it happens less. But I think it’s overstating things to say that it doesn’t happen at all.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Tom — Sorry, I named you mainly because last time I said an argument without a name attached, I got a commenter after me claiming I’d made it up. Didn’t mean to put you on the spot.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Even if I’m not squicked, I’ve still thought a lot of scenes were less effective because of the sexual elements.
Like Benes’ JLoA layout. One character is being beaten. Another has been disassembled. Batman is extra special trussed up. But my main impression when I look at that image is boobies.
Coincidentally, I’m watching “So I Married an Axe Murder” as I write this. They’re at the scene in the butcher shop where the main characters are flirting as they chop up meat, some of which still has eye-balls in the head as the axe hits it. The combination of slight gruesomeness and sexiness is intentionally hilarious. The sexiness of that Benes page is unintentionally hilarious in the same way to me.
Point being, the JLA scene is not a scene of terror to me. Everything about the setting and the dialog makes me think this is supposed to be a tense, dramatic scene, but a voice in my head is laughing at the boobies.
So in the end, it’s an ineffectual scene to me, and sexualisation is just the thing that I think makes it not work.
October 26th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Lisa — Hey, no problem. What are friends for?
October 26th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
Another great issue by Benes with some amazing art! I fail to see anything wrong with this.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Woops, forgot to put, I agree with you 100% Jamal. It seems like someone is complaining every time something happens to someone who’s not a straight, white male. Won’t someone stand up for the straight, white males? When will comic artists and writers realize the only things we’re allowed to see violence happen to is robots!
October 26th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
Or maybe I just get it: I don’t get it.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
“When will comic artists and writers realize the only things we’re allowed to see violence happen to is robots!”
Ryan I think you’re being incredibly unfair to nazis with that last statement. They can be beat up too!
I agree with Jamal in that the JLA scene was clearly an artistic choice by Benes, and a rather ugly one I might add, that the writer probably had little to do with it beyond telling him they were in bondage.
Same with Yu although I can see his interpretation and understand it as this was the picture that the Hood was painting for his audience and thus would be intentional on the character’s part. I still think the JLA scene is more egregious then the NA one for that reason. Sure Luthor would want to piss off his audience but I just don’t see it as much as with the NA scene. Partially it’s because the artwork was AWFUL in JLA.
As to the issue at hand I think this has more to do with the amoral nature of the comic’s culture and the sexual nature of most costumes than any bad intentions on by any specific person. What we need is a cultural change toward making heroes dress more like role models and less like strippers. Oh, and I AM a straight white man. Maybe some people need to learn to act like men themselves.
October 26th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Am I the only one that is amused that this post is right above a still shot for a series that its producers almost assuredly knows there will be a ratings increase from guys tuning in to see the female lead in a Wonder Woman costume?
(Yea that was a fairly bad run-on sentence…)
October 27th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Okay this is probably a crazy idea but does anyone think that it is possible that:
a) That while there are undoubtedly plenty of troublesome depictions of women/gays/people of color/religious people/the differently abled/political affiliations/government workers/people from various countries/sports fans/etc. in funnybooks (and across the media) that maybe not every depiction is offensive.
b) That generalizing all of them as offensive is kind of counterproductive.
c) That disagreeing with particular scenes as being “offensive” or “sexist crap” or “squicky(?)” or “a horrible new low” or what have you does not in turn mean you think that no problems have ever existed ever.
d) That not everyone disagreeing in these conversations (not to single out Mr. Igle, but for example) might not be a Straight White Male, looking out for the Hegemony of Mister Whitefolk?
This isn’t a manifesto but these are just some screwball idealistic things I thought of this morning.
October 27th, 2007 at 10:41 am
The thing that bothers me the most about comments people make like this, is that everyone assumes these are the actions of the artists without asking them any questions. I remember when the heroes for hire cover came out and people were calling the female artist a quisling and awful names without even trying to make attempts to speak her. There are some artist who will sex up the female form and actually say out loud, like Paul Galucy does, but I’ve heard Ethan Van Scier say the opposite.
I can see why Igle gets upset. It’s not fair to make generalizations about the industry without at least speaking to the people in the industry.
Also, Ryan Higgins, uhm what? Jamal Igle, the defender of straight white males everywhere? What are you smoking son?
October 27th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Pedro, it was a bit of a joke
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