opting out
I’m going to repeat a bunch of stuff I said on Twitter last night.
I think that, as my views become more radicalized, I also become more apathetic. I think I have to, to be able to live in the world. That obviously applies to much more than superhero movies, but I think it’s absolutely…
How Gamora, Black Widow and other Marvel women handle sexism
How Gamora, Black Widow and other Marvel women handle sexism
Turning sexism back on the people who try to use it against women feels a little bit like a superpower.
I haven’t seen Guardians yet–I know, I know, I’m a bad fan–but I was interested to read this, especially after reading this. I’m not in agreement with Alyssa on this one, in terms of the larger Marvel attitude towards sexism, in large part because I think all of the female characters in these franchises with one exception* are largely, if not entirely, defined by their relationships to men, and are in every case placed in submissive positions to men**.
I read something last week where someone wrote something along the lines of “Joss Whedon gets strong female characters mixed up with women he’d like to sleep with”; it’s a cheap line, but not one that’s completely off-base. Certainly, when I see discussions about “strong women” in Marvel movies, it often feels to me that “Women who punch things and quip at bad guys” is mixed up with independence, agency or anything approaching equality.
Nonetheless: Alyssa raises things to think about, and makes me want to see the scene in question–and Guardians in general–more than I already do.
(* That one being Jane Foster from the Thor movies. Arguably, it’s two, because there’s Darcy in those movies, as well.)
(** Part of this, of course, comes from the fact that–Avengers and Guardians aside–the movies are “about” the male lead, and so every other character is in some way defined in relationship to them. And yet… and yet…)
Geek culture is dominant, so why are so many of its fans still so angry?
Geek culture is dominant, so why are so many of its fans still so angry?
Angry nerds are not just bad ambassadors: They are tarnishing the values that made geek culture compelling in the first place.
Must-read.
And focusing on Marvel and DC at the expense of the dozens of other publishers in comics, and then declaring comics a failure at San Diego Comic-Con, is incredibly myopic. It’s a mistake to think that Marvel and DC are all that mattered, that their new events or announcements dictate the future of capital-c Comics. Marvel and DC are comics, just like the other publishers, and they make some great ones when they let the creators do their own thing. But at this point? You can’t treat them like the entirety of the comics industry, or even two companies that can dictate the future of comics. They run the movies, and that’s cool, but running comics? It’s just not true any more. Image in particular outsells Marvel in the book market as far as trade paperbacks go, and that holds true in the comics market lately, too. That’s no coincidence. People enjoy Marvel and DC, but they want more than Marvel and DC.
If the announcements from the Big Two felt lackluster, but the fans still had a great time, how did comics fail? That sounds like a Marvel & DC problem. Vertical debuted Moyoco Anno’s brand new book In Clothes Called Fat at the show, a comic geared toward adult women. They sold out of Fumi Yoshinaga’s What Did You Eat Yesterday?, a romance/cooking comic. At Image, we sold out of Greg Tocchini & Rick Remender’s Low, an aquatic sci-fi tale, and Nick Dragotta & team’s Howtoons, a comic geared toward getting kids interested in the science through practical play. Boom! burned through Lumberjanes, a comic about girls at camp. These aren’t your normal comics, and people were eating them up.
After two bad “Comic-Con was bad for comics!”/“Comic-Con was good for comics!” pieces, io9 lets iamdavidbrothers do his thing, and the result is–surprise surprise–a great piece that’s head and shoulders above the traditional (print) comic coverage on the site*.
(* I specify print because Lauren does really good webcomics stuff over there, because Lauren is great.)