In Your Face Jam - Jul 9, 2014

[JanArrah]

Remember when Arisia was rapidly aged and then started sleeping with Hal Jordan and it's always been a creepy aspect of Hal ever since they did it? Yeah.. well now Sam Wilson has had the same happen. Congrats.

[vmcb]

I'm no fan of Remender but I'm glad that nothing came of this "movement", if it can even be called that. Tumblr is a ridiculous, unpleasant place at the best of times but "fire comic book writer because fictional 23-year-old has consensual sex with male character" may be the stupidest thing the internet has ever conceived.

And that's a long list.



Brett, men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women are. When you're walking home late at night, you're a lot more likely to be attacked than a woman.

Facts aren't your enemy and I've never liked the mindset that the people who supposedly support women the most are the ones telling me what fragile victims they are all the time.



Yep, this. It actually seems like she's doing pretty well following creating the hashtag. All the new publicity and complaints about abuse (for trying to get someone fired, incidentally, so I have zero sympathy for her), she could be the new Anita Sarkeesian.

Huh? You're actually trying to say that it's harder for men to walk home alone late at night then it is for women? Try telling that to my numerous female friends who have been assaulted or cat-called by groups of drunk men on the regular. None of my male friends have to deal with that. None.

[kayfabetravis]

In short, I think Eve's grasping for straws a bit but her heart is in the right place.

It's hard to say, honestly. Just because the cause or topic might be valid doesn't mean the person bringing it up is doing so for as noble or straightforward reasons as you would hope.

A good example is Gloria Miller, who also wrote a set of articles on this topic:
http://www.examiner.com/article/why-...-rick-remender

In the article she parrots the same false logic around the character's age and then throws in a few of the standard tropes. In a follow-up she avoids correcting her earlier mistake and throws out the logic that anyone who argued with the original point was hateful and victimizing fans. But then on her Facebook page she jokes about baiting Remender fans and encouraging their hate. Someone who is actively trolling and baiting for attention loses the credibility of doing a 180 and claiming victimization when the trolling is successful.

Hey, it's the internet. There are lots of reasons why people write what they write and bait each other, and it's not lost on me that in Miller's case gaining traffic is beneficial to her job. But it does impact the motivations of the comments that get written. It's hard to carve out the ground that you're a concerned fan while you're joking about trolling a comic writer (and their fans) at the same time.

Eve isn't exactly the same case. But the bouncing around on the issue (the original argument has been beaten to death as a false premise) starts to crumble away at the original concerns. It doesn't mean the original arguments aren't valid. Nobody serious is going to claim that discussions of rape isn't an important discussion. But pinning it onto an ultimately false argument, and then further compounding it with strange parallel snipes at an individual... it does make the whole argument convoluted at best and easy to ignore at worst. If you believe the root of the conversation (in this case, the presentation of rape) is worth talking about, then getting to this point has to be profoundly disappointing.

[tsaimelemoni]

Remember when Arisia was rapidly aged and then started sleeping with Hal Jordan and it's always been a creepy aspect of Hal ever since they did it? Yeah.. well now Sam Wilson has had the same happen. Congrats.

Except there was no rapid aging in this case. Jet Black still experienced at least 23 literal years of life. She didn't morph from a child into an adult, she aged into one over time.

[Sam Robards, Comic Fan]

I won't weigh in too much on this, having not read the story in depth or the vast numbers of responses, but this story seems to be the Hal Jordan/Arisia of the internet age.

A character is introduced as a young girl, she rapidly ages and the hero romances/sleeps with her. It's just interesting to see how the responses to such a story varied according to the communications tools available at the time of their release.

[Disco_Magic]

Except there was no rapid aging in this case. Jet Black still experienced at least 23 literal years of life. She didn't morph from a child into an adult, she aged into one over time.

The real small-minded folks in all of this are the timestream bigots that think just because they live in a universe where time flows a certain way and at a fixed speed central to their perception, that every dimension should abide by the same rules for speed of time-flow. Why couldn't/can't/someday won't we all get along?!

[Exciter]

A character is introduced as a young girl, she rapidly ages and the hero romances/sleeps with her. It's just interesting to see how the responses to such a story varied according to the communications tools available at the time of their release.

Or, rather, the miscommunication tools. The information spread about the story to non-readers was completely fabricated. I would venture to guess that, given the grudge against Remender that the individual who started all this has, the spread of misinformation was an intentional and malicious act. This is because the book made it very clear that Jet was an adult woman, and there was nothing confusing about it at all. Ian was the child to whom Cap was a surrogate father, not Jet. Jet was the leader of Zola’s armies. As the two were very clearly separate characters in the book, I sincerely doubt this was the result of honest confusion and believe it was more about the opportunity to rally non-readers against an author based on some social injustice that never actually existed.

And then to say that those creators who tried to correct this slander were rape apologists or people who don’t take the plight of females in a rape culture seriously… completely unfair. They were trying to correct MISINFORMATION. What should they have done? Acted as if there actually was a statutory rape scene or even a scene that could in any legitimate way be confused as statutory rape? And why are the female writers who also tried to correct the misinformation ignored to make it seem like its a white boys club conspiracy? There is some serious dishonesty at play here.

[Prisoner 6655321]

Brett, men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women are. When you're walking home late at night, you're a lot more likely to be attacked than a woman.

Maybe, sure. But then again you're much more likely to be attacked by a man rather than a woman.

[Time Like Lightning]

Brett, men are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women are. When you're walking home late at night, you're a lot more likely to be attacked than a woman.

Huh? You're actually trying to say that it's harder for men to walk home alone late at night then it is for women? Try telling that to my numerous female friends who have been assaulted or cat-called by groups of drunk men on the regular. None of my male friends have to deal with that. None.

Yeah, um, Guest_1001 didn't mention this part of the article:

With the exception of rape, males are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than females are.

Also, point of clarity:

I've never liked the mindset that the people who supposedly support women the most are the ones telling me what fragile victims they are all the time.

You don't have to be fragile to be a victim. Being a victim of rape is about what the rapist does, not what the victim is like.

[Prisoner 6655321]

Or, rather, the miscommunication tools.

So here's the thing... For the most part, from what I do know about the various stories there's probably not anything really terrible there.... while this person (Eve) may be a gnawing at the bit a tad but there's certainly enough injustice to go around and this sort of introspection is something that can be useful. You're kinda exemplifying the sort of attitude here that makes this sort of harsh critical so vital. Honestly, look at some of the posts on here. They're pretty vicious. This young lady (who has several other articles attributed to her) most likely has some good reasons to feel bad about things and is probably coming from a place where the world has maybe a bit more of a sinister bent than it really does (and to be clear, the world is sincerely pretty sinister enough). But then again... I don't think she or anyone else really talked about some kinda “white boys conspiracy”; yes, sexism, racism, homophobia, classicism and whatever have you exist but they're not brought upon by conspiracy. These problems are both systemic and so deeply ingrained by various degrees in most cultures, not just our own, that they don't need conspiracies to perpetuate them. But no matter where they're found they're worth fighting to change. The social injustices that she's railing against are real and are real problems are huge. The topics which she brought up were legitimate. Sure, maybe she was reaching a bit and she might have even been kinda wrong in the article about some stuff ( I don't really know. I've read a chunk o' books by rick but I'm not reading any of the ones mentioned) but, honestly... this is the world of comic book fandom. People say far worse stuff about creators all the time. Heck, I've seen just as much hatred directed at Rick Remender for Franken Castle (to be fair... I didn't really dig it either but I don't dislike the guy for it) and barely anyone raises a brow. A young lady attempts to critique someones work and you get stuff like some of the comments seen here; as if this article was not what it was but rather some kind of part of a vast conspiracy to make real “imagined” social problems. I get why people would disagree with this persons assertions and obviously, not everyone is taking this to such extremes but you see a great deal of it and very few people mentioning how crazy it sounds. I get why his peers would come to his defense and from what I understand about the stories, I would expect people who are reading them to at least disagree a little but the direction this conversation seems to go, too frequently here, is frighteningly reactionary.

[Exciter]

So here's the thing... For the most part, from what I do know about the various stories there's probably not anything really terrible there.... while this person (Eve) may be a gnawing at the bit a tad but there's certainly enough injustice to go around and this sort of introspection is something that can be useful. You're kinda exemplifying the sort of attitude here that makes this sort of harsh critical so vital. Honestly, look at some of the posts on here. They're pretty vicious. This young lady (who has several other articles attributed to her) most likely has some good reasons to feel bad about things and is probably coming from a place where the world has maybe a bit more of a sinister bent than it really does (and to be clear, the world is sincerely pretty sinister enough). But then again... I don't think she or anyone else really talked about some kinda “white boys conspiracy”; yes, sexism, racism, homophobia, classicism and whatever have you exist but they're not brought upon by conspiracy. These problems are both systemic and so deeply ingrained by various degrees in most cultures, not just our own, that they don't need conspiracies to perpetuate them. But no matter where they're found they're worth fighting to change. The social injustices that she's railing against are real and are real problems are huge. The topics which she brought up were legitimate. Sure, maybe she was reaching a bit and she might have even been kinda wrong in the article about some stuff ( I don't really know. I've read a chunk o' books by rick but I'm not reading any of the ones mentioned) but, honestly... this is the world of comic book fandom. People say far worse stuff about creators all the time. Heck, I've seen just as much hatred directed at Rick Remender for Franken Castle (to be fair... I didn't really dig it either but I don't dislike the guy for it) and barely anyone raises a brow. A young lady attempts to critique someones work and you get stuff like some of the comments seen here; as if this article was not what it was but rather some kind of part of a vast conspiracy to make real “imagined” social problems. I get why people would disagree with this persons assertions and obviously, not everyone is taking this to such extremes but you see a great deal of it and very few people mentioning how crazy it sounds. I get why his peers would come to his defense and from what I understand about the stories, I would expect people who are reading them to at least disagree a little but the direction this conversation seems to go, too frequently here, is frighteningly reactionary.

Again, her posts were persuasively written. I can understand how you, a non-reader of the book, would be swayed or convinced that there was inappropriate content in the books based on the posts. But here’s the thing - it’s not that there is “probably not anything really terrible” in the book, it’s that there is not anything. The rape claims were completely false. It is simply not what happened in the book, there unequivocally was no statutory rape.

Statutory rape is a legitimate concern. Rape culture is a legitimate concern. I don’t think interracial sex is a big issue, but some people might. However, saying that Jet got raped in the last issue of Cap is not legitimate. There is absolutely no reasonable interpretation of that story that could lead to the conclusion that Jet was raped. A rape culture is not imagined, but the rape of Jet Black absolutely was and that is the core of the issue here.

And again, I understand how this could be problematic for a non-reader. Someone says there was a rape scene in a well-articulated article, and you don’t know whether there was or whether there was some ambiguity or not because you didn’t actually read the book. You’re just going by what that person said, which could be a falsehood. Its hearsay at best, and unreliable. If someone says “Hey, Ross raped Rachel in season 5 of Friends,” I wouldn’t know because I didn’t watch the show regularly. If a regular viewer corrected me and said that didn’t happen, is he a rape apologist? Should that viewer be more sensitive to women? Does the fact that I just completely made that claim up change anything?

As for the white boys conspiracy, yes it was stated that creators like Slott, Waid, and Brubaker who stepped up to try and correct the mistruths that were being spread were just older white men circling the wagons and perpetuating rape culture.

[Guest_1001]

Huh? You're actually trying to say that it's harder for men to walk home alone late at night then it is for women? Try telling that to my numerous female friends who have been assaulted or cat-called by groups of drunk men on the regular. None of my male friends have to deal with that. None.

These are the facts. Take them or leave them (and it seems you're deciding to leave them).

Maybe, sure. But then again you're much more likely to be attacked by a man rather than a woman.

Sure but what does that have to do with anything? If I got shot or stabbed, I'm not exactly concerned with the sex of the person holding the weapon.

You don't have to be fragile to be a victim. Being a victim of rape is about what the rapist does, not what the victim is like.

Well that's a fair point with regards to the word "fragile" but I still think it does women a disservice to tell me how strong women are one moment and how victimised they are the next (especially when it's over something untrue, like Brett White's belief that men don't have to worry about walking home at night).

[Prisoner 6655321]

Again, her posts were persuasively written....As for the white boys conspiracy, yes it was stated that creators like Slott, Waid, and Brubaker who stepped up to try and correct the mistruths that were being spread were just older white men circling the wagons and perpetuating rape culture.

The thing is, I'm while I'm not convinced at all she was right in her accusations. It's mostly just that people say a lot worse about creators for a lot dumber reasons and aren't so viciously derided for doing so.

Sure but what does that have to do with anything? If I got shot or stabbed, I'm not exactly concerned with the sex of the person holding the weapon.

Because (yes women sometimes commit violent crimes) most volient crimes are perpitrated by men. By in large men are more inclined to get what they want through violence.

[Guest_1001]

Because (yes women sometimes commit violent crimes) most volient crimes are perpitrated by men. By in large men are more inclined to get what they want through violence.

But I didn't mention women being the perpetrators. The perpetrators should be treated the same, regardless of their sex, and the victims should be treated the same, regardless of their sex. However, the fact is that men are more likely to be the victims of a violent crime than women and it irks me when people like Brett White perpetuate the stereotype that men "never have to worry" about things like walking home at night because it's untrue.

[Time Like Lightning]

However, the fact is that men are more likely to be the victims of a violent crime than women

I'm gonna quote the same article you used:

With the exception of rape, males are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than females are.

If we're discussing walking home at night, you can't just say "Well, with the exception of getting raped, you're totally safe, women!" because that's taking a huge factor out of the equation.