Demonweasel wrote: Mnemosis wrote:I REALLY hate to poke the sleeping bear, but:
Then by all means, lets.
Mnemosis wrote:
Because they were supporting characters/loved ones to the male leads, and there needed to be a dramatic punch to the gut of the male lead, and so the supporting cast member/loved one was killed off. It's simple statistics and logic. Does it suck? Sure, I guess. But it's not misogyny. It's story telling, working with what exists.
A death that moves a character along on his path can be fine, but there is a qualitative difference in the violence that's done against a character. In most cases, the violence is done to a woman and she's depicted as being helpless & hopeless without the presence of the heroic character. Often times, like with TKJ, the violence takes on sexual and degrading undertones. That's what the issue is. It's not "No woman shall ever be harmed" or "No character's death should effect/provoke the main character's actions," but it's a matter of how that woman is depicted reacting or adapting to that violence. The majority of portrayals show them crying, weak and ineffectual. Male supporting characters are usually depicted as "going down fighting" or some other kind of face-saving activity.
Mnemosis wrote:
I'm not even listing Barbara, because her being shot as a loved one of a leading character was the same as Jason Todd being killed as the loved one of a leading character. Neither saved the day. Both were unceremoniously put down by the Joker as a means for a writer to effect change within the life of the leading character - Batman. Whether you like TKJ or not is totally a matter of personal opinion. I've never read it, personally. Didn't care to. But the point is, this is why supporting characters exist - to create drama within the lives of the leads. The lion's share of supporting characters are women, because the lion's share of established leads are men.
So yes, you're absolutely right when you say something like "This sort of thing happens to female characters more often than male characters" but you're not considering why.
It's statistics. Not misogyny.
Yes, statistically there are more female support characters than males, and we all know why. Just because something is statistically true doesn't make it fair, just or "right." Just because 46% of all prison inmates are black isn't doesn't mean that there's not a deep inequity going on here that should be addressed. I'd like to think that the lack of strong female and minority leads in comics is something that's seen as a problem that should be addressed. If it is, the shrugging shoulders and going "Stats!" doesn't help anything, and makes it sound like this is an irreparable problem. This is fiction, and fiction is created by writers and readers (by their effect on the marketplace). The first step to correcting a problem is saying "Hey, this is a problem." That's what this whole discussion is about and it seems like a majority of the responses just boil down to "This is not a problem." Hiding behind stats and the difference between main and support characters isn't particularly fair. It's being deliberately obtuse because it seems like on some level something we like is being threatened. It's not. If it's no big deal if it happens to a male character, then why *not* have it happen to a male character? If there were more strong female characters and less things happened to paint the ones we do have as dumb, clumsy, ineffectual without a man, prone to sexual violence or just used as "the love interest," then I think people would be happier. As it stands, that's not the case, and the imbalance in statistics is significant and not something that should just be dismissed as the cost of doing business.
Mnemosis wrote:
Remember, before the Green Goblin ever snapped Gwen Stacy's neck, Uncle Ben ate a bullet just so Peter could learn a lesson about responsibility. He wasn't being a hero. He was just serving his purpose as stage dressing. To imply that female supporting characters should be above that, simply because there's been more of them over the years, is asking for special treatment in the name of equality, which has always confounded me to no end.
Uncle Ben was a half-formed allegory character used to teach Peter a lesson. Yes, his death puts Peter on the path to heroism, but that is entirely his job. He is stage dressing, you're right.
Gwen was an established character that had been around for years. Out of nowhere, she's plucked up off panel, killed why laying there defenseless. She does nothing for herself and her years of development and interaction just ends with a "Yeah, she's dead," and it exists and happens to only make Peter miserable and create problems for him. It's an established character being balled up and thrown in the trash without so much of a "by your leave." It's a situation that happens a lot of the time to female characters when they are killed off. There's a qualitative story-telling difference there, especially given how long a supporting character exists. If a villain walked into Wayne Manor and put a bullet in Alfred's head, no matter how great a story you'd tell about that drama and conflict that happened after the fact it'd still be considered a giant waste of a character. If there was a big event that Alfred played a major part in and he died defusing a bomb that could've leveled Gotham, while it would still be a loss of a great character, he would've died heroically and with dignity. In almost all cases, female supporting characters are not given the second option. Male supporting characters are often not dealt with in the first option. Recognizing that and saying "Hey, that's something that we should correct" isn't asking for "special treatment:" it's asking to correct a gross inequality, and if that means not killing off a character in a callous, excessively violent or degrading way that shouldn't be seen as such a chore.
If the gross majority of black characters were depicted as criminals or gays as prancing queens or latinos as illegal immigrants or asians as glasses-wearing math nerds with glasses in the same way that female characters are treated as violence prone props to propel a superior male character along on his journey, wouldn't you want steps taken to change that? Is asking for that change such a challenge that should be argued so vehemently?
Mnemosis wrote:
Next month, we can introduce Tony Stark's long lost brother, whom he can bond with, so that the next time we need to hurt Iron Man, we can attack a male instead of a female.
Male or female, it's bad storytelling and makes for a crappy character. The character your describing in this situation is more often than not labeled "girlfriend." And yeah, that's part of the problem.
Mnemosis wrote:
And I honestly believe that, if the tables were turned and the majority of long established leads in comic books were females, their male supporting cast members would be the ones in constant peril.
And that would still be wrong, especially if you switch around the amount of historical unchecked abuse and subjugation that women have been victim to over the course of human history. Another big part of the problem is that the continued use of these roles (and mainly *only* these roles) for women in fiction only reinforces & and echoes that kind of historical oppression, and sets it up as an acceptable status quo. That's what a big part of the issue is: identifying that this is something that goes on and that it's wrong. This whole thread is full of "This isn't a problem that's happening" or "This is happening but it's not a problem." That's a pretty sad state of affairs, IMO.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:I understand some fans outrage against what happened to Barbara, but lets be honest, It's not the worst violence in even a Bat-book.
I'd be interested to see what you have that's more than being gun-shot out of nowhere, stripped naked and photographed, especially to a character that'd been around for more than 40 years.
I gave you one. The public spectacle of killing a child to me is worse than an adult female being shot and photographed naked.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:
Jason Todd was a teenager. DC put up a public vote on whether to kill off a teenage boy, and then did so in the most violent and mocking way possible. Jason Todd had no redemption, and still hasn't to this day. He's been shown to have been broken by the experience, where as Barbara has grown, adapted, and dare I say been a stronger character since her tragedy. I'm not excusing the initial violence, so much as saying that the handling of her since then has been superior than what Jason Todd has gotten.
Barbara Gordon has the most heroic moment in The Killing Joke IMHO, as she is in the hospital, just having been crippled by the Joker, and her concern is for her father and not herself. She doesn't come close to breaking, as her father does, and she doesn't sit there yucking it up with someone who has caused so much violence and death in his life like Bruce does.
There's hardly any heroism in a women showing concern for another character, especially when it implys that the other character is more important and reinforces a "maternal/support" role that's generally considered a "good trait" in a female character.[/quote]
How does it show that Jim is more important than Barbara? It's a woman showing concern for her father. One of the established traits of heroes is being selfless, and she shows that trait in that scene. Concern for somebody else over yourself isn't a bad thing.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:
DC doesn't even have the worst treatment of female characters in comics, where I'll say that Marvel does. Two of the worst cases of violence against women come from someone who I've liked for a long time: Kevin Smith. What he does to Karen Page and more recently the Black Cat, IMHO is inexcusable. I also didn't see female fans doing crazy over Angel's origin in New X-Men. I really have a problem with people calling out DC on their treatment of women in comics when they don't really discuss either of these two instances. Marvel's female characters are treated far worse than DC's, and to me it's sad that the DC stuff gets more attention because those characters are more popular.
Yeah, those are a lot of instances of female characters getting degraded and basically being used for target practice. It's not a Marvel vs DC contest, it's about comics on the whole. Witrh all of the examples out there, why is it that we're still arguing over whether there's a problem or not (which, let's face it, most of these arguments are). We're talking about DC because the topic was TKJ.[/quote]
The issue is that most fans have a problem with DC's treatment of females, and don't usually mention the problems with other publishers. It lends to the perception that it's only a DC issue.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:Ok I listened to the Princess cast and here's some more thoughts.
Jason Todd was hit from behind, beaten with a crowbar, with the Joker questioning his sexuality and psychologically breaking him down. There was nothing heroic about his death.
He was in costume, actively going out there to find and rescue his mother. If I'm not mistaken, he even manages to get a hit on the Joker and his henchmen before he gets beaten nearly to death. Then, after the Joker leaves, he unties his mother and carries her most of the way to safety (despite the fact the door was locked). That's almost about as heroic as you can get, and would be considered by some to be the epitome of pro-masculine tough-guy-ism. He's nearly critically injured and he overcomes it to try to carry a loved one to safety, disregarding his own health and well-being.
Barbara opened a door and got shot, in civilian clothes, with no way to defend herself. She didn't lift a finger in her own defense and is entirely degraded and powerless with no way to fight back. That she asks about her father's well-being doesn't do anything to mitigate that. There's a substantive qualitative difference in the levels of violence there and the characters reactions to it. That's kind of undenyable.[/quote]
There really isn't much defense to a gunshot through the gut. I would ask you also how one gunshot is more violent than half an issue of a child being beaten with a crowbar.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:
The treatment of minorities and women IS a problem in comics as well as all entertainment medium. My problem with most of the people that focus on the issue is their narrow focus on DC. It just seems like front running on an issue.
I don't even really know what that means, but if you do think that it is a problem, then why seemingly argue that what happened to Barbara Gordon was no big deal or something that shouldn't be looked at as "wow, that's wrong?" People focus on DC because unlike Marvel, DC has a crap-ton more female characters that readers actually care about and have long established histories. The Marvel side of things is littered with dead and abused girlfriends and wives and that's about it. One of the reasons why DC has so many female fans is the presence of stronger female characters, so when those characters get crippled, killed, depowered, degraded or what-have-you then more women are going to notice and be upset because that small little corner they have where there can be good rolemodels gets a little smaller. The same thing with minority characters.[/quote]
I never said that violence against women in comics isn't an issue. Your whole argument for what was so wrong with what happened to Barbara is how powerless she is. She was a superhero. The pile of dead girlfriends and wives in Marvel aren't. All I'm trying to say is if you're going to talk about violence against women, is to discuss the issue as a whole, and not one instance as a pet peeve because it may be the most popular instance.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:
Kerouac had a huge point that I think has gone uncommented on, and that the point of ancillary characters is to move the story of main characters on. Female or minority characters for the most part can't carry their own books, so they are relegated to this role. Violence against them is going to happen, because in proportion females and minorities are more supporting characters than headliners. This doesn't excuse the behavior, but explains the reason why it does happen. For every example of something horrible happening to a female or minority supporting cast member, there is a correlating one of a white male protestant one. It's unfortunately all about numbers.
Statistics does not make the situation right. If you can acknowledge that there's a problem, why just throw hands up at statistics and go "there's nothing that can be done about it." Furthermore, why have everybody jump up and down when someone points to ONE large instance of misogynist violence? If it's "just statistics" then this shouldn't be a surprised at all, and if you think it's a problem in general then why all the arguing about if *this instance* is misogyny?[/quote]
I never said nothing can be done about the issue. I was looking at it from a logical point of view. I never said the instance wasn't misogyny. What I did say is that I don't think it's the worst application of violence to a supporting character in a Bat-Book, and I stand by that.
Big Poppa Nick wrote:
Also the issue of costume ripping was brought up. You definitely have a point there. Again it goes to the fascination with the female form. There it's a problem with society as a larger picture. Comics need to sell. If a female character is in battle and her costume is ripped, the more compelling and marketable image is one of a rip near her breasts or genitalia. If a guy's costume is ripped, it's really hard to get one near the penis that would be titillating without getting censors all aggro about it.
I'm going to be really blunt here: This is fucking insane.
So, since the female form is marketable and can help a comic sell, why not just have them be naked all the time? Or at the very least filled with a 10000% more fan service? So all female characters that fight should end in various states of undress because it's marketable? If it's "compelling" to have a women have her costume get ripped "near her...genitalia," but in a way to not "get the censors all aggro about it" how would it be hard to have that happen to a guys costume? Last I checked, the genitals were in the same place for both sexes. Plus, what censors? Neither company has them. They have editors that have a mandate from their bosses to not show or put characters in certain situations or nudity. They have the threat of law compelling them to label explicit adult material. They have the comics code authority which holds no actual sway over any comic company and don't even enforce half of the standards they were initially created to enforce. I know I've sure seen a lot of "violence against authority" and concealed weapons in my comics in code-approved books.
It seems like you're saying that since the female form is marketable, then hen women fight in comics clothes getting ripped and torn suggestively is just an unfortunate side-effect because that's what readers want to see, and that cannot out should not be changed because it could jeopardize the financial stability of a publisher. If that's the case, then that shows a startling lack of value of female characters as anything other than sex-objects, which in turn shows a gross lack of respect for women. Female characters are still worth having if they get into a fight and not one uniform is shredded, torn or burned off ever again. Lessening the amount that a woman loses her clothes in a fight is not some insurmountable task that is too risky from a marketing perspective. In fact, doing so would be better for the industry since it would show women (statistically the largest group of active readers of fiction) that female characters are valued for more than just cat-fights and that the majority of people currently reading comics aren't just guys looking to get a glimpse at well-drawn female flesh.
[/quote]
Why is this point insane? You are a retailer. If you have two different posters, one of a naked Wolverine and one of any naked female character, which one are you ordering more of?
I never said that there should be more instances of female's costumes being ripped in a suggestive manner. I was explaining why it happens. In the beginning of what I wrote, I acknowledged that it was an issue. Stating why things happens isn't an endorsement of the actual transgressions themselves.
I agree with alot of your points Thatcher, it just seems like you are arguing with me over semantics.
Comics and all media have a long way to go in portraying women and minorities in an equal standing with their WASP counterparts.