The spectacular Sonia Harris addresses sexual objectification in superhero comics:
When I recommend comic books, or explain that the earliest, strongest female role models I had were female superheroes, feminist friends often tell me that comic books objectify women and ask why I’m not uncomfortable with this. This shocks me, how can they be missing the half-dressed, overly muscular, totally unshakable men in these comic books? Surely no woman thinks that men are realistically portrayed in super hero comic books, at least no more than women super heroes are? I frequently explain to feminist friends that comic books have objectified men for longer than they have objectified women. While the early super hero comic books might have given men more action-oriented roles, those men were always physically perfect and wearing something skin tight. Who’s the sex object in Action Comics #1 (1936)? Is it fully-dressed Lois Lane or that big guy in the tight clothes?
Go read the whole thing.
September 8th, 2011 at 10:41 am
How many women will actually be turned on by the muscle men in comic books?
The reason objectification of women in comic books has been a problem is that it’s a combination of physical sexiness and inferiority to men. A thinking response to the content is required to perceive that.
If a woman sees a superhero and the visual depiction of him goes straight to the reptilian elements in her brain and turns her on — so what? It’s not an intelligent response and not worth caring about.
SRS
September 8th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
To the writer: Correction. Action Comics #1 came out in 1938, not 1936.