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Post by Erika on Jul 4, 2014 23:08:23 GMT -5
Discuss the portrayal of women as characters. How are women drawn as opposed to men? How do they factor into stories? How are female characters used to advance male stories? Consider issues such as sexual empowerment vs objectification, the male gaze, roles of protagonists vs side characters or love interests, and ‘fridging.’ What does the phrase ‘strong female character’ mean to you?
This is a short answer assignment.
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Post by rypperd0c on Aug 25, 2014 10:27:44 GMT -5
Traditionally, women in comics are slotted into some basic roles, with crossing over between them happening as needed The Motivator - (woman in the fridge) including the victim to be rescued or avenged. The Love Interest - to help fill out the life of the hero, but are left under developed. The Plot Device - The NPC woman that appears just long enough to pass on information, or otherwise serve as an assistant for another character, in a role where gender is of no importance.
When looking at well known, female, major characters, we see them become more than just fluff and story support, but this is still the exception. How much does She Hulk's and Wonder Woman's gender actually have to do with their comics?
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Post by Kashiro on Sept 1, 2014 7:05:06 GMT -5
First of all - female costumes. Female costumes are more revealing, sexualised, and realistically flimsy than male costume. Women are also drawn in a different way. Men are incredibly muscular, in an almost-hyper-masculine way while women are drawn as sexual objects. Hence the "most common superpower", i.e. unrealistically large bust that somehow doesn't cause any problems or pain. The biggest issue with this is the male side is male empowerment - every guy superhero either has the muscles or can do without, compared to the female side which has become almost nothing but fan-service. The role of female characters in different mediums have been discussed, including some of the pervasive tropes that stretch back to the time when storytelling began (See: Anita Sarkeesian and her Tropes about Women in Video Games series). Comics, unfortunately, are not exempt of this. Female characters are usually less interesting, less developed (well, character-wise, anyway) than the male characters, and often have less impact on the plot. This can be usually attributed to the status quo - male protagonist, female love interest. By default the protagonist is the most well-developed, interesting and the love interest is just kind of...there. Furthermore, the objectification of women in comics is ridiculous. Take, for example, Starfire from the New 52. They changed her character so she is literally a impossibly beautiful alien who has no goal other than to have sex, in an attempt to make her a 'strong female character', and also changed her personality entirely. Now, this is a very obvious example of when attempting sexual empowerment goes wrong. Both of these come together to form the term 'fridging'. Fridging refers to the killing of a female character to forward the plot. Now, obviously this happens to male characters as well, but male characters have a much, much better chance of being brought back. It's like a modern-day, gorier version of the old "princess in the castle" trope; It's out-dated, clichéd and has no place in quality writing. Now, a strong female character. That, to me is rather simple. Because male characters are well fleshed-out and three dimensional and treated fairly (well, development-wise) in most stories and publications, what constitutes a strong female character to me is a female character that you develop like most male characters today - i.e. as a human f***ing being, not a stereotype.
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Post by Twitch on Sept 5, 2014 19:48:28 GMT -5
This topic has several questions so I must number my answers. I'm working down this order given in the prompt. 1) While comics have always placed 'form above function' when drawing women, modern comics have gotten really bad. Supergirl's wardrobe is huge, with neck/waist/hemlines rising and falling with yearly fashions and the 'comic code.' However, the true inequality between the sexes is not in clothes. It's the poses. A typical cover page features some combination of legs, bums, boobs and wind-swept hair. The poses are purely about showing off the 'goods' a.k.a. the 'male gaze.' It's gotten so bad that laws of psychics, human anatomy need not apply. A good collection of these drawing can be found at the Hawkeye Initiative along with the question "is this really empowering women characters?" 2) Women character are written for many different reasons. It all depends on how the write views women herself/himself. Since comics are originally a very male focused niche of storytelling, early story are focused on men with women being side characters. The problem starts when writers 'force' personalities/reactions/situation that make no sense for any character (protagonist or side.) One of the classic examples of this can be found with DC's Barbara Gordon, Batgirl. She has been through the whole range of roles - boring sidekick, villain bait, token female, love interest, independent series. However, worst example of forcing her story appears in The Killing Joke and its aftermath. Barbara Gordon gets shot by the Joker in her own home. This is a classic case of fridging. The writer's goal was to up the emotional stakes for Batman and get rid of 'surplus' cast. Barbara survives, but is paralyzed from the waist down. It was supposed to be the end of her character. However, enter another writer, Barbara is reborn at the tech-savy Oracle. The character was a success with fans. Oracle revived interest in the character as a whole. Many people and writers wanted to bring her back to full Batgirl stats. In the world of Batman there are multiple ways to cheat death and sickness. However it would take several long years before the DC publishers agreed to let Barbara out of the wheelchair (she was making them good money.)
3) What does 'strong female character' mean to me? Well, the phrase is a noun preceded by two adjectives. It's a well-written (strong) character who happens to be female. If someone makes character I can understand, I'll listen to the story. Part of the reason I hate stories like Twilight and Hunger Games is because the protagonists make no sense to me. Belle's emotional range and expressions don't seem real to me - never mind she's crushing on the product of Bella Lugosi and Tinkerbell's Vegas wedding. Katniss started with a solid idea, protect her sister; however the writer fumbled with explaining the transitions in her mental state as the Game progressed. People living in that kind of trauma with gobs of backstory baggage don't think that way. The characters and narration don't support each other. To me, these are weak characters, who happen to be female. A strong character isn't about abilities, look at the millions of Mary Sues in fanfiction. A strong character is about reader/viewer accessibility and can be male, female, or gender neutral.
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