David Finch Clarifies His "Wonder Woman" "Feminist" Stance

[Blacksun]

Feminists are not only real, but are also totally fallible, like everyone else. You can have a fallible, real character also be completely feminist, it's really not that hard.

And Wonder Woman has to be feminist because that's her thing. It's what she was created to be and is also what she's supposed to be a symbol of. It's like asking why Superman has to be so damn hopeful all the time.

yeah,I just don't see the relation between being feminist and because of it having to be perfect. write a feminist character doesn't mean that the character doesn't has flaws.

I know he doesn't have bad intentions and did the apology, that still shows that he doesn't understand what feminism is.

[gwangung]

I understand what he meant. It's just a lot of people want to twist his words and turn it into something they can complain about.

Well, no....Words mean something. They mean something in particular to a group that has known oppression in the past (because words are often the only thing they have). An adept writer knows what effect their word choice will have on an audience.

This just wasn't an adept performance.

[t hedge coke]

Remember when comic book fans wanted a book just to entertain ,and not make a political statement?

Nothing made is apolitical.

And, comics have been openly pushing politics, and social politics, since before Superman ever told anyone to support the war effort and indulge in casual racism at the same time.

[Sacred Knight]

DC should just stop having their creators do interviews on the internet. Marvel too. Not worth people overreacting and causing a storm over nothing.

In any case, kudos to him for clarifying to anyone who couldn't grasp the meaning in the first place. Still sad he had to apologize though.

[gwangung]

You're going to take whatever offends you the most. That's what you're looking for, right?

It is obvious, but how are the outrage junkies going to get their fix if they don't jump to an absurd conclusion?


Dude clearly just wants to write stories about a badass warrior woman without making any big political statements one way or the other. Unfortunately, when it comes to feminism, there's a very strong "you're with us or you're against us" mentality that demonizes anybody that doesn't tow-the-line 24/7.

Heh. Talk about demonizing....

Heh. Irony's killing me.

[brettc1]

What a truly baffling clarification.

He's taking the stance that being a feminist is somehow mutually exclusive with the idea of being human and fallible. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and just go with the idea that Finch is truly clueless about issues of this nature, but that just begs the question as to why DC thinks he's qualified to have any input on this book whatsoever.

Let's not even get into what a non-apology this is. It's the classic first mistake, he's not apologizing for saying something stupid. He's apologizing that *WE* took it the wrong way.

I think a lot of folks did take it the wrong way.

Unless women stopped being human and I missed the email.

Feminism is about gender equality, but humanism is about equality for everyone. It encompasses differences in culture, ethnicity, religion AND gender.

[brettc1]

DC should just stop having their creators do interviews on the internet. Marvel too. Not worth people overreacting and causing a storm over nothing.

You couldn't say something more true if you had the magic lasso around you.

[TheTangibleDark]

Yeah I think he just meant he doesn't want her to be this saint who stands on a pillar and preaches about feminism. Obviously that's not what a feminist actually means, but at least I'm sure Finch meant well.

Far from my actual concerns with this creative team.

Yep, this pretty much sums up my *exact* thoughts on the situation. I just think he's confused about the meaning of the term "feminist". It just doesn't seem like a very ill-intentioned comment on his part, just somewhat ignorant. But yeah... will the book be as good as it was previously with the new team? Highly doubtful. Will it be good at all? Maybe, we'll just have to wait and see, but I have concerns too.

[Sacred Knight]

We agree again? Surely this is the work of the Anti-Monitor.

[gwangung]

I have a feeling I know what he meant, but he said it so badly he's just put his foot further into his mouth.

Yeah, I think that pretty much gets it.

You can get what he meant, but you can still wince at how ham-handed, clumsy and borderline insulting he could be.

("Uh, dude, you shouldn't use "Oriental" here...and given that I'm Chinese American, using Japanese terminolgy seems...inappropriate.")

[sonofspam1972]

So in the process of acknowledging that the character is associated with feminism, he just made an offhand comment about not wanting to go out of his way to highlight and foreground the term, and then within hours Mother Jones is taking him to task.

Wow does this culture suck.

People care this much about how the ARTIST would parse the term feminism or how much he would want it to be foregrounded? Why on earth would anyone care, unless they were more into identity politics than the actual stories?

Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are associated with capitalism. No one expects the creative teams on their titles to sign written statements swearing that they believe in the free market, have never and will never entertain communist ideals.

And that's not to say that in a few short sentences Finch didn't make some kind of weird associations. Those criticizing him on those points are RIGHT, I would say.

The most worrying of his associations is this idea that feminism is about equality. It isn't. It's about arguing for women no matter what. Feminists themselves might argue otherwise, but it actually never plays out that way. More than 50% of college students and college graduates are women . . . and yet feminists still push for more scholarships for women.

Oh, before you get the wrong idea, I don't really have a problem with any of that. But I just think that this "feminists are for equality" thing is a big misnomer. It's for supporting women and women's points of views, no matter what.

For what it's worth, I think Wonder Woman works best as a female supremacist, at least for her own Amazonian way of life. I actually do like that idea and am dead serious about this. If David Finch doesn't feel like having WW associated with the term "feminist", that's fine with me too. But I think she should embody a type of female superiority.

PS. Wonder Woman herself would probably be too busy being awesome to care about whether or not a comic book artist would care to associate her with some sort of human-all-too-human political movement. She would not be begging the government for free condoms.

The problem is there are tons of rich superhero's it's practically a cliche.

Wonder Woman was the first feminist superhero and she has been associated with that for as long as she has been around.

I'm sure most female superheros would stand for or agree with feminism but WW is iconic for that reason practically.

That's not to say that every single thing she does or is written about her has to be about feminism.

[Auguste Dupin]

You're going to take whatever offends you the most. That's what you're looking for, right?

That or I may find legitimate issues with Finch's wording.
Whatever helps your philosophy of life, I suppose.

[Nite-Wing]

Wonder Woman isn't a feminist anyway
She'd become a feminist if she started taking up what's wrong with the superhero community and generally be more progressively outspoken about the wrong that's done to women.
Finch kinda mispoke by equating being a feminist to being perfect which isn't the case at all

[t hedge coke]

David Finch is a full grown man, making his living communicating to the public through art. He can handle criticism for what he says publicly. I'd hope he can handle criticism of what he does in his work, too.

The idea that the publishers should put a gag order on their talent is ridiculous. Let'em talk. Let'em all talk. The ones who come out well, probably deserve to come out well. If someone needs to clarify something, they can clarify it. If someone says something truly beyond horrible, well, that's on them.

Nobody's calling for the Finchs (Finches?) to be raped or murdered or locked up, so I wouldn't call this a gross overreaction or violent storm of protest or nothing. Some folks were concerned with something he said. He clarified his position. Wohoo.

[Blacksun]

He should have to apologize. Being afraid of feminism should be one of the most embarrassing things. On purpose or not, he's encouraging people to misunderstand the movement. It's so common and it's so ignorant.

try to be a woman and a feminist, many bad things can happen like rape threats. And Finch didn't helped

"All you have to do is admit that you’re a feminist and you will be treated to some of the most degrading, insulting and abusive insults you can imagine. “Bitch” and “feminazi” are the low end of the spectrum. And it goes all the way up to threats of rape, physical harm and even death.

Not because you’ve done anything. You’ve hurt no one, you’ve espoused no hurtful views. You’ve simply said you were a feminist. That you support the idea of equality between the sexes.

There are people who will hunt down women on the internet who apply that label to themselves specifically to throw those insults at them, to “put them in their place,” to frighten them. To make them take back that one simple word. They’re not even necessarily attacking the goal of equality, but they don’t want you to say “feminist.”

- See more at: http://newageamazon.tumblr.com/post/....11wQSTwH.dpuf "