I bought a car today. (Bear with me, this leads to a point.)
The coworker who drove me to the dealership to pick up the car couldn’t help himself. He had to annoy me while he was doing a nice thing for me.
“So, I bet in a couple weeks we’ll see a scrunchy around the gearshift.”
“What?”
“A scrunchy, or a hair tie left around the gearshift. That’s what all women do.”
I sometimes think he’s just making this stuff up for the hell of it. Never in my life have I been in a woman’s car and seen a scrunchy left around the gearshift. hat’s not to say it never happens, but in my experience as a woman with friends who are women who have driven me from point A to point B I have never noticed a scrunchy placed around the gearshift. I was unaware it was a stereotype. Not only that, in spite of the fact that I have long hair I almost never tie it up. When I do, it’s before I leave the house for work and it’s secured by four hundred hairpins and 2 liters of hairspray. There would be no reason for me to need a hairtie handy when in the car. But of course, my coworker was insistent.
And it’s really not him who’s pissing me off here. One guy is no problem. It’s the kazillion people on this planet who make the same sorts of idiotic assumptions about women based on something they heard or read, or something their mother or wife did that they graft onto every woman in the world. And yes, I complained about this last week but it’s still happening.
Yes, Minx, DC’s line of realistic fiction comics for young girls that held interest to only a small sliver of young girls that had no reason to access the direct market that it was sold on in the first place, predictably failed and its going to be chalked up as an argument against marketing comics to women.
Because heaven forbid they–as Katherine Keller suggests–actually produce the sort of YA fiction that appeals to tween girls–fantasy.
Heaven forbid they realize that they are DC Fucking Comics and that they already have franchises like Wonder Woman and Supergirl that have built-in appeal to young girls, and actually make moves to market those franchises in the way of animated television shows or an alternate out-of-continuity line of comics that are low on the T’n'A but high on the fun fantastic adventure!
Heaven forbid they consider that their assumptions about young girls who read manga may be wrong, that maybe they should actually crack a fucking manga and see what sort of story is told rather than just pump out the after-school-special shit they think girls like to read and assume everyone with girl parts and the ability to read English will flock to it.
And heaven forbid they look at this failure and compare it to the relative successes of series like Courtney Crumrin and think of what they could do to capture that audience rather than write off an entire age demographic and gender as out of reach.
But we all know they won’t do that. We all know what’s going to happen. Just as sure as my coworker will assume the lack of a scrunchy on my car’s gearshift is due to his mentioning it rather than my personal hair habits, there are people who will assume the failure of Minx is due to a disinterest in comics that results from the pairing of two X chromosomes rather than poor marketing or a poor product.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Testing 1 2 3
September 26th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Maybe he didn’t really believe it, but was just saying it to get a rise out of you.
Stereotypes exist for a reason—ignorant people keep repeating them as if they are the truth.
September 27th, 2008 at 10:35 am
About the only car I could imagine that would have a scrunchie around the shifter, is one that belongs to a sixteen year old girl. Maybe. I wonder if HE has his high school tassel hanging from his mirror?
Sheesh.
Too bad about Minx. I didn’t read the line, but it was nice to know that it was there, I suppose. But battling tightly held misconceptions is about the most difficult thing there is.
September 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Wonderful column, Lisa. Minx is sort of the Sarah Palin of the comics industry. Seems to me it was proposed to appeal to “lady parts” rather than to fill an actual need, when there are plenty of opportunities to buy into the Hillary Clinton version of comics instead (i.e., stories marketed as ones that girls want to read and aspire to, as speaking to them instead of talking at them).
September 27th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
I’ll be honest. As a guy, I didn’t even know what Minx WAS until it was canceled.
September 27th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Dude, you seriously need to chill. I agree with you that DC can and should be doing more to use its recognizable properties to appeal to young adults and young women in particular, but what part of Minx being a financial failure leads you to believe that DC is writing off young women altogether?
In reading the article you link, it sounds like the problem with Minx was that the distributor couldn’t get it in bookstores, which is the key to penetrating the young adult market. Minx brought in popular young adult novelists to work on their books. It’s not like it was Geoff Johns trying to rewrite Kingdom Come to appeal to young women.
Minx was a good thought and I hope DC and Marvel keep trying to penetrate those markets, in no small part because it’s key to their long term survival. I think you’d be surprised how many people out there don’t think that Minx folding is just another way to keep girls out of clubhouse, and I think you’d be even more surprised how many of those people work for DC.
The gear shift guy is a dick, but that has nothing to do with Minx. Indignation is fine and often appropriate, but not at the expense of thoughtfulness.
September 27th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
@Elayne Riggs
Well, Sarah Palin can at least draw the interest of millions of young women. Minx wasn’t able to pull that off despite heavy promotion. (To be fair, comic’s most recognized heroine, Wonder Woman, is also weak in that area.)
Then again, Alaskan hockey mom turned mayor turned governor turned VP candidate is a more interesting story than what most fiction offers.
September 28th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Fred:
Palin isn’t drawing the interest of YOUNG women. She’s drawing the interest of evangelicals, who know if McCain wins, she’ll be POTUS within a year (the man IS 72, and has had four bouts of cancer, after all). A Palin presidency will mean evangelicals have one of their own in power (Bush was never a “real” evangelical… he made himself one to win votes, not hearts and minds). Not only will they have one of their own, but also one of their own who is very very moldable. She already opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest. She already charges rape kits to rape victims (as mayor). She already belongs to a church who teaches it’s parishioners Alaska will be a sanctuary in the times of the apocalypse. She already was looking for ways to ban certain books as mayor. She’s half-way there as governor. As President, she’d turn the US into a Christian version of Saudi Arabia. And that’s why evangelicals support her overwhelmingly, despite the fact that they hate McCain (who, to be fair, hates the evangelicals right back).
Young girls for Palin? Only if they wear Little House on the Prairie dresses and marry at the age of 13.
And on a less serious note: my 33 year old wife used to drive with a scrunchy on the gear shift. We consolidated down to one car (thanks to high gas prices), and I de-scrunchified it.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:09 am
“As President, she’d turn the US into a Christian version of Saudi Arabia. And that’s why evangelicals support her overwhelmingly, despite the fact that they hate McCain (who, to be fair, hates the evangelicals right back).”
Nice to see you’re trying to be fair, rolando.
That’s some astounding bigotry on display there, by the way.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Minx brought in popular young adult novelists to work on their books.
They had Tamora Pierce, Bruce Coville, Garth Nix, Diane Duane? Nope? None of them? Not a single author I see being snapped up by YA readers, being read by my young avid reader acquaintances, male & female?
They didn’t want to do magic and adventure, but to do “realistic” modern problem novels, and they expected this to be competitive in a medium that is overwhelmingly full of FSF and high adventure, especially when it comes to bestsellers? Even YA “problem novels” are full of zany and surreal elements these days (yetis! ancient curses! Greek gods and godesses!) - a far cry from when I skipped over them to hunt out the Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Andre Norton, Rosemary Sutcliff and Jane Yolen books about dragons, magic, ancient history, shapeshifters, magical horses and swashbuckling young people both male and female as a YA reader myself.
The YA and childrens’ sections are full of book dumps of successful series about vampires, pirates, talking cats trying to save the universe, young mutant heroines on the run from sinister government agencies, you name it. It doesn’t sound like the decisionmakers at DC spent *any* time in the kids/teen area at B&N or Borders in the last ten years. (Or in the regular comics/prose SF section, given all the manga, indy graphic novels, and regular ones that are being read and bought by young readers both M & F there.)
Another bunch of Michael Idovs, claiming that it’s just *impossible* to sell coffee and buns in today’s economy to the Philistines who want *flavored* coffee, *iced* coffee, and so on…
September 29th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Mark:
I calls them as I sees them, good buddy. Nice throw in of the “bigotry” angle, BTW. Just because I happen to disagree with a religious stance, I’m a bigot? That’s nice. Save the word “bigot” for those who truly deserve it.
For the record, I was raised Pentacostal, so I know EXACTLY what Sarah Palin has been taught, because it was church doctrine. For those not in the know, Pentacostals are affectionately referred to as “Holy Rollers.” I’m not affiliated with any organized religion today, but I am a religious person (some would say “spiritual” or “nondenominational” or “agnostic”; take your pick). I’m not trying to throw all people of faith under the bus, just those that preach/teach/believe what Palin has been taught/believes. If you do some research, you’ll find that her husband was a member of a separatist group and her pastor believes Alaska will be a sanctuary for believers after the Apocalypse. Palin has shown, through her very public record, that she is in step with A SPECIFIC GROUP of conservative Christianity so conservative, it would shred the Constitution in favor of Biblical law. Or, as I said earlier, a Christian version of Saudi Arabia.