Why can't female villains be taken seriously?

[Midnight_v]

Or, and here's a thought, we try and come up with ideas that move AWAY from sexist and regressive ideas, rather than trying to work within the confines of a broken system.

Well get to work. Give some ideas. Instead of whining like a child at the grown ups who do.
The question was why. Now you have some insight why. Fix it.
I don't even think the "use maxima" was yours, and if you pay attention the argument is literally
"Make her a Eugenicist and a tyrant" a complete monster as I said l and even then... it will be EXTREMELY difficult for her to be taken seriously overall, because
her whoooolee shtick is still wrapped up in nookie/reproduction. Terrifying.

So unless she's a preying mantis you're still working in the confines of that same system.

Moving on.
Trying to look away from the actual reasons won't help. Ignoring things that might help doesn't either.
Primarily, look at the villains that do work

I mentioned Grendels Mother for a good reason, it was a villian that WAS taken seriously. The movie kind of lampshaded the whole thing.

I also mentioned the old crone for a good reason too because you know what villian could VERY MUCH be taken seriously?

Baba Yaga.
That's a female villain that is simultaneously "Unsympathetic", Dangerous, and Commanding".
Magic in DC is very powerful and she is 1. On earth and 2. A final boss type.

I recently came across her in SCP-form



http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-352

So extrapolate her a bit for the DC universe. She's scary... superstrong, indestructible, and can become a world power, by essentially granting wishes or because people just freaking worship power.

To the Op: asking a question like "Why can't female villains be taken seriously" opens an important discourse.
Which does indeed touch on things like "What makes a compelling antagonist"

However, we shouldn't lampshade it at all if the conversation is to have merit. The true answer is "Sex" its hard to take a villian seriously if they have too much sex appeal, because there's too much concern
with jumping their bones than putting a hard stop to their evil. I shouldn't be that way, however, we should acknowledge that it is.

I mean... for years a Poison Ivy's whole thing was "Kissing" people. The Female Furies could work but Lasher is a a literal Dominatrix, and one of the other's is an angel faced rival cheerleader type.

Amanda Waller. Is a more terrifying for than Ivy, Harley, Maxima or the Furies, because her power, nor her appearance implies "sex". Further, when they made her a model in the new 52 it was outrageous.

So. yeah. Look to Amanda Waller, who is taken 100% seriously. If she was truly evil she'd be a danger to everybody.

[Rac7d*]

People are afraid to make women bad guys these days. Why do you think people are suddenly pretending Harley and Ivy are good guys and Mystique is portrayed as a hero onscreen?

Women make difficult villains unless they are all powerfull like Hell in Thor. Men fighting women never looks good, i taken not batman raley actuly fight women, then always end up tripping or falling over, unless your shiva, he wont throw a punch

i can see why they are ignored

[Midnight_v]

I agree with you both.

I had a similar conversation with another DC fan; he said Superman had so few villainesses because no one wants to see him hit a woman. I said that Superman doesn't have to hit; he does have to defeat them.

Well that right there is a big part of why they're not taken seriously. "Defeat" is in too many peoples head as the default, so when you see a female supervillian, unless somethings really unusual, they are under no
thread of getting the maximum beatdown. So the fight between Panther and Killmonger might never happen, and that removes some of the dramatic tension.

I wasn't agreeing with them. At all. The idea that 'Men shouldn't hit women' is incredibly sexist.

Oh. I see I misunderstood what you meant there. That Idea is old fashioned yes but... we should acknowledge that its a real thing.

ALso... there's a real pushback about violence against women. I personally was weaned on horror films so It doesn't bug me, but I've met people who get nauseous when seeing a woman get punched.

Regardless, thats big part of it. Understand its not personally how I feel. I'm just saying objectively... thats a thing, and its prolly a thing that should be addressed.

[mathew101281]

Well get to work. Give some ideas. Instead of whining like a child at the grown ups who do.
The question was why. Now you have some insight why. Fix it.
I don't even think the "use maxima" was yours, and if you pay attention the argument is literally
"Make her a Eugenicist and a tyrant" a complete monster as I said l and even then... it will be EXTREMELY difficult for her to be taken seriously overall, because
her whoooolee shtick is still wrapped up in nookie/reproduction. Terrifying.

So unless she's a preying mantis you're still working in the confines of that same system.

Moving on.
Trying to look away from the actual reasons won't help. Ignoring things that might help doesn't either.
Primarily, look at the villains that do work

I mentioned Grendels Mother for a good reason, it was a villian that WAS taken seriously. The movie kind of lampshaded the whole thing.

I also mentioned the old crone for a good reason too because you know what villian could VERY MUCH be taken seriously?

Baba Yaga.
That's a female villain that is simultaneously "Unsympathetic", Dangerous, and Commanding".
Magic in DC is very powerful and she is 1. On earth and 2. A final boss type.

I recently came across her in SCP-form



http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-352

So extrapolate her a bit for the DC universe. She's scary... superstrong, indestructible, and can become a world power, by essentially granting wishes or because people just freaking worship power.

To the Op: asking a question like "Why can't female villains be taken seriously" opens an important discourse.
Which does indeed touch on things like "What makes a compelling antagonist"

However, we shouldn't lampshade it at all if the conversation is to have merit. The true answer is "Sex" its hard to take a villian seriously if they have too much sex appeal, because there's too much concern
with jumping their bones than putting a hard stop to their evil. I shouldn't be that way, however, we should acknowledge that it is.

I mean... for years a Poison Ivy's whole thing was "Kissing" people. The Female Furies could work but Lasher is a a literal Dominatrix, and one of the other's is an angel faced rival cheerleader type.

Amanda Waller. Is a more terrifying for than Ivy, Harley, Maxima or the Furies, because her power, nor her appearance implies "sex". Further, when they made her a model in the new 52 it was outrageous.

So. yeah. Look to Amanda Waller, who is taken 100% seriously. If she was truly evil she'd be a danger to everybody.

I agree, it stems from the need to make female characters sexy rather then scary. I've always believed sex is almost always the loudest thing in any environment it's introduced into. For example, suppose a person was giving a really important and well told speech. Now imagine someone was playing a pornographic video on a screen behind him/her with no sound. Would people really be listening to what he/she had to say? Probably not. The person could literally be telling us a full proof way of fixing all the world's problems, and most wouldn't hear him. The sexualization of female villains literally counters any attempt to make them menacing.

[Mutant God]

Theres also Silver Banshee and maybe Blackfire, not much else I can think of.

[SJNeal]

The "real" Maxima has only one character trait: her obsession with Superman's see. Putting aside how outdated that bit of writing for female characters is, it's hardly the most dignified of villain motivations. If anything the New 52 version was the first time the character felt like something more than a one-dimensional punchline.

Honest question - are you basing this off of appearances in other media besides the comics? Have you read any of Roger Stern's or Dan Jurgens' comic work with her?

She had quite the character arc from her introduction (1989) til her death (2002); it wasn't all great, but there's more there than the horny, psychotic minx that Smallville and TAS portrayed her as...

[ed2962]

People are afraid to make women bad guys these days. Why do you think people are suddenly pretending Harley and Ivy are good guys and Mystique is portrayed as a hero onscreen?

That's not a strictly a gender thing though, certain villains get popular and there's a tendency to make them more gray or into anti-heroes. Deadpool, Magneto, Eddie Brock Venom, Sabertooth was in the X-Men briefly...

[Ra-El]

One possible solution to avoid a female villain to become more a sex symbol than a villain, without having to make her look like a monster, is make them a monster in another way, make her unredeemable in a way that any romantic feeling becomes impossible.

[kurenai24]

One possible solution to avoid a female villain to become more a sex symbol than a villain, without having to make her look like a monster, is make them a monster in another way, make her unredeemable in a way that any romantic feeling becomes impossible.

That or put some stock into their female heroes so that they can have a rogues gallery of their own particularly with female villains who wouldn't or rather couldn't use their feminine wiles to seduce the hero.

[Trey Strain]

Because everyone knows that sooner or later the heroes will end up in the sack with them.

[Doctor Bifrost]

One possible solution to avoid a female villain to become more a sex symbol than a villain, without having to make her look like a monster, is make them a monster in another way, make her unredeemable in a way that any romantic feeling becomes impossible.

One would hope this would be true of Cheshire, whose poisonous, mass-murdering past should cause enough visceral disgust that even Roy Harper would stop thinking with his little head. (And create a desire that Lian never have any contact with this damaged and damaging sociopath whatsoever.) But he always seemed more sentimental than horrified concerning her. (I'm thinking more of the pre-Flashpoint era, since, nowadays, we can't really say for certain which or her famous crimes she has committed in the current DCU continuity. Or, "continuity.")

[CaptCleghorn]

There are exceptions.

[Assam]

One would hope this would be true of Cheshire, whose poisonous, mass-murdering past should cause enough visceral disgust that even Roy Harper would stop thinking with his little head. (And create a desire that Lian never have any contact with this damaged and damaging sociopath whatsoever.) .

He DID finally come around during the first Titans series and it was really well done. Later hacks just screwed it all up.

[Crazy Diamond]

I agree, it stems from the need to make female characters sexy rather then scary. I've always believed sex is almost always the loudest thing in any environment it's introduced into. For example, suppose a person was giving a really important and well told speech. Now imagine someone was playing a pornographic video on a screen behind him/her with no sound. Would people really be listening to what he/she had to say? Probably not. The person could literally be telling us a full proof way of fixing all the world's problems, and most wouldn't hear him. The sexualization of female villains literally counters any attempt to make them menacing.

Considering that superheroes already have some questionable aspects, maybe promoting the idea that ugly = evil and beautiful = good is a pretty lousy way to start.

Part of the problem with women villains at DC is that they tend to have a focus on the following:

a) Evil harpy uses her sexual wiles to manipulate men
b) Evil women thinks she's better than a man and is also a no-good feminist
c) Evil woman is the sidekick to the real male villain
d) Credible woman villain gets killed off or pushed into obscurity - that's a problem in an industry where stories can't even be allowed to fucking end.

Then again the whole supervillian concept is simplistic and promotes the idea that everyone is purely good or evil with no in-between or complexity. That's boring to me. Also keeps characters from being able to grow and change. I can't speak too much on Harley and Ivy because I haven't paid attention to them in a long time but I don't see the problem in having them gradually change from being the moll and the femme fatale.

One of the best woman villains I've read was Sailor Galaxia. I don't think there's ever been a villain like that at Marvel or DC.

[HandofPrometheus]

Theres also Silver Banshee and maybe Blackfire, not much else I can think of.

Silver Banshee was another victim of the New 52. She also turned good.