The strong history of sexism in the industry.

[Zauriel]

True. But hentai is literally porn. While mainstream comics filled their mouth talking about equality and all that. While having a trackrrecord of treating female characters as less than male characters.

Then I apologize for making a bad comparison. I retract my comments as well.

[Zelena]

That's a good point. (That treatment of the real women in the industry is much important than portrayal of fictitious characters.)

Sorting things out in the real world would probably result in more positive portrayals in the comics anyhow.

I wouldn’t say that: it’s important there are positive portrayals in the comics for the young girl that read them to develop a sense of self. In that aspect, I want to thank Christopher Claremont for all his strong female characters.

Edit: It’s true though that nowadays comics is not the most prominent media and has therefore less influence.

[JackDaw]

I wouldn’t say that: it’s important there are positive portrayals in the comics for the young girl that read them to develop a sense of self. In that aspect, I want to thank Christopher Claremont for all his strong female characters.

Edit: It’s true though that nowadays comics is not the most prominent media and has therefore less influence.

I didn’t say positive portrayals in comics wasn’t important. It obviously is…but I do regard as treatment of the real people that work in the industry as more important still. And there’s an obvious link between the two…if the industry is staffed with people who treat real people well, the comics will to a large extent reflect that harmony.

One thing not mentioned much in this thread so far is that some scenes that depict sexist actions are often there to establish some one as a villain (or to have some negative characteristics)….they don’t necessarily reflect the writers or artists own views. I’ve certainly seen example scenes in this thread where my own interpretation was “writer is telling us that character is a prat”, rather than “this is a sexist comic”.

[godisawesome]

I didn’t say positive portrayals in comics wasn’t important. It obviously is…but I do regard as treatment of the real people that work in the industry as more important still. And there’s an obvious link between the two…if the industry is staffed with people who treat real people well, the comics will to a large extent reflect that harmony.

One thing not mentioned much in this thread so far is that some scenes that depict sexist actions are often there to establish some one as a villain (or to have some negative characteristics)….they don’t necessarily reflect the writers or artists own views. I’ve certainly seen example scenes in this thread where my own interpretation was “writer is telling us that character is a prat”, rather than “this is a sexist comic”.

You're point about needing creators to reflect the diversification (arguably much more than marketing diverse character) is spot on - especially because, yeah, sometimes if a white dude is writing a story that involves sexism, their prevailed perspective as a white dude might cloud how much of their stuff is a conscious storytelling choice and what's instead a reflection of unconscious bias on their part.

Privilege is a weird thing because it can screw up good intentions, creating an obfuscation for more conscious use of sexism as a marker for a villain elsewhere.

Like, in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy (yes, I know I always bring that up) the fact that there were no female writers or directors when the main character was a woman likely contributed to the stories failure to juggle Rey versus other characters. In one movie, you've got JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan leaning into some #MeToo paralells with Kylo to make him a more loathsome villain... but then Rian Johnson comes in and sees Kylo as a magnetically attractive woobie Rey's supposed to have an understandable attraction to, while also sort-of half-heartedly creating Rose to get Finn away from Rey without making her interesting on her own right... and then Abrams and Terrio come in and try to follow up in a half-hearted way on his Rey and Kylo relationship, but end up banishing Rose from importance because they're uninterested in her.

Where did conscious use of sexism to mark a villain exit and subconscious bias come in? because them's fighting words among Star Wars fans.

[CSTowle]

In fairness like I said previously Wonder Woman had a female director and still had a problematic handling of the main character's driving motivational factor being her romantic partner. It reminded me of Daenerys in GoT, I also wasn't a fan of her character but when they straight-up heel turned her after the White Walker threat was over I was like "do you have any concept of this character, or are you just flinging s##t on screen so you can wrap the series?"

If anything Steve Trevor should have been a minor supporting character and the traditional "introduce the character to the real world" POV guy instead of her focus. Make her like Thor, strong/mythical/otherworldly who might be intrigued by romance but isn't defined by it. Or switch it up and have her be attracted to one of the other heroes, to tie back to GoT having her interested in Mamoa's Aquaman would almost elevate him a little and be something they could tease out (not to mention probably more to the audience's taste than Chris Pine, no offense to him).

[Rightoya]

That said, yes Wonder Woman has historically been weaker than Superman. So have most other characters in superhero comics. That's not the point of Wonder Woman.

If that is not the point of Wonder Woman, why did the creator of Wonder Woman specifically stated that was the reason why he created Wonder Woman:


“Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.”
― William Moulton Marston

[shooshoomanjoe]

IMO, Wonder Woman wasn't created with sexism in mind. It looks like that because the creator was into bondage.

[WonderLight789]

IMO, Wonder Woman wasn't created with sexism in mind. It looks like that because the creator was into bondage.

Maybe not in mind. Marston didn't mean to be sexist. He did good things with the character. But still had moments that weren't progressive. However. WW has been victim of more sexism after marston. And it still happens today. Which is ironic, given the fact she was created to be a figure of equality and girl power.

[Adam Allen]

I wouldn’t say that: it’s important there are positive portrayals in the comics for the young girl that read them to develop a sense of self. In that aspect, I want to thank Christopher Claremont for all his strong female characters.

Edit: It’s true though that nowadays comics is not the most prominent media and has therefore less influence.

Seconding that. Storm was leading the X-Men when I started reading as a kid; back issues showed me that she'd beat Scott for the position, even though she didn't have powers. Rachel and Rogue were the real powerhouses of the team. Loved the friendship/rivalry between Storm and Callisto. Right; the Morlocks were led by a woman, and as far as I recall, that was never brought up as any kind of issue. She just was in charge. You also didn't have Logan, Peter, or Kurt bristling under Storm's leadership. They pretty well implicitly trusted she was the best person for the job.

The New Mutants, too -- five female characters and four male, if you even count Warlock as male. One of the great things about Claremont's tendency to have 50% or more of the team as women (Original Excalibur: Kurt, Brian, Kitty, Rachel and Meggan -- and I always thought Kitty was the leader, though people have disagreed with me about that.) is that it ends up being kind of unavoidable that storylines center and develop around female characters.

Particularly considering that the X-Men dominated comics during this period, he really should get lots of credit for being ahead of his time, as far as gender in stories goes. (Also: This was the period that made Wolverine one of the most successful characters of all time -- and I think too little credit is given to the fact the character was defined greatly by how he interacted with Kitty, Storm, etc. I loved the character back then ... not so much, these days.)

[Agent Z]

In fairness like I said previously Wonder Woman had a female director and still had a problematic handling of the main character's driving motivational factor being her romantic partner. It reminded me of Daenerys in GoT, I also wasn't a fan of her character but when they straight-up heel turned her after the White Walker threat was over I was like "do you have any concept of this character, or are you just flinging s##t on screen so you can wrap the series?"

If anything Steve Trevor should have been a minor supporting character and the traditional "introduce the character to the real world" POV guy instead of her focus. Make her like Thor, strong/mythical/otherworldly who might be intrigued by romance but isn't defined by it. Or switch it up and have her be attracted to one of the other heroes, to tie back to GoT having her interested in Mamoa's Aquaman would almost elevate him a little and be something they could tease out (not to mention probably more to the audience's taste than Chris Pine, no offense to him).

I have no idea how people watched the WW movie and came away thinking Steve was Diana's motivational factor as the movie makes it clear multiple times that her main goal is stopping Ares, something she's wanted to do since she was a child. At best, Steve was more just a glorified tour guide for Diana and Thor is far more defined by romance in his movies than Diana is in any film she's appeared in, save for 1984.

I also like how you suggest pairing her up with Aquaman to elevate him in the audience's eyes because using a female character to prop a male hero is somehow different than having her be defined by her male love interest.

And not that it should matter, but audiences liked Steve just fine and there was no clamor for Aquaman to hook up with Diana.

[WonderLight789]

I have no idea how people watched the WW movie and came away thinking Steve was Diana's motivational factor as the movie makes it clear multiple times that her main goal is stopping Ares, something she's wanted to do since she was a child. At best, Steve was more just a glorified tour guide for Diana and Thor is far more defined by romance in his movies than Diana is in any film she's appeared in, save for 1984.

I also like how you suggest pairing her up with Aquaman to elevate him in the audience's eyes because using a female character to prop a male hero is somehow different than having her be defined by her male love interest.

And not that it should matter, but audiences liked Steve just fine and there was no clamor for Aquaman to hook up with Diana.

As you can notice in this thread. Many are not willing to debate the obvious sexism in the industry and the examples i gave.

[WonderLight789]

In DC's case. They are so sexist. That is also obvious by the fact that they don't even have female powerhouses. Wonder woman, supergirl, mary, powergirl etc do not count. As they are always treated as helpless ants next to superman, doomsday, and all the big threats.

[Alan2099]

In DC's case. They are so sexist. That is also obvious by the fact that they don't even have female powerhouses. Wonder woman, supergirl, mary, powergirl etc do not count. As they are always treated as helpless ants next to superman, doomsday, and all the big threats.

Nice to see you're back to your "everything that disproves my point doesn't count" methods.

[ed2962]

In DC's case. They are so sexist. That is also obvious by the fact that they don't even have female powerhouses. Wonder woman, supergirl, mary, powergirl etc do not count. As they are always treated as helpless ants next to superman, doomsday, and all the big threats.

[WonderLight789]

Amazing. Now show me SG winning against a non holding back superman.