I
follow a lot of people in comics, so this last week was pretty exciting as
people tweeted from San Diego Comic Con.
The
announcement that I found the most intriguing was actually a misunderstanding.
There are new Blade and Squirrel Girl comics coming out, but separately. I
wasn't sure how that team-up would work.
What
has been sticking with me more is the question of diversity. There are starting
to be more diverse characters, but they are still overwhelmingly being written
by white men, especially with the bigger publishing houses.
There
are many white male writers that I love, and I am glad they get work (though it
doesn't really apply to any of the titles I have been reading about). I am
actually not even going to focus as much on writers of color here, though there
are points that can be made.
There
are two things that are reinforced by the announcements. One is that it doesn't
look like there is much effort being made in terms of recruiting a broader base
of writers, which means that very talented people who are having a hard time
breaking in will probably continue to struggle.
The
other thought is how badly they get it wrong sometimes. A good writer should be
able to write all types of different characters - I believe that - but then they
shouldn't be getting it so wrong.
This
comes partly from an article posted on a discussion board, and the discussion
that followed:
There
is some good information there, and good links. I love the story about Kamala
Khan adjusting her costume, and it's pertinent. First I want to go to one of
the comments in the discussion group. She (a woman, yes, but one who posted a
lot of criticism of feminists) said that it was a practical thing for the women
to wear sexy costumes because it would distract the bad guys and give them an
edge. Another poster indicated that this reasoning was used in a book, possibly
by Power Girl.
I
have seen this argument too, somewhere else, over fifteen years ago. There was
this guy who wrote Wonder Woman fan fiction. "Fan" may be an
overstatement, because every single story had her being raped. Before that she
would enjoy turning guys on, after that she might want to act it out, but in the
middle she was raped. (Unless he wrote about her sister, Wonder Girl - then she
would be raped instead.) That writer also had Wonder Woman reason that she had
to wear skimpy clothes to distract the bad guys.
I
think one reason he liked that is because then it made her kind of conniving.
It went along with her being so slutty - because she may not have liked the
rape but she sure did like it rough, and doing it in play.
I
didn't think much of him, so I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about his
reasoning, but I have a few thoughts now.
One
of them is that I think you'll find that most rape victims would not find
playing games about it sexy. That he could write that indicates that he didn't
know much about it.
I
have thought more about the costumes now, and this is where we come back to
Kamala's story - those costumes are impractical. Hopefully you wouldn't want a
teenage girl to be that sexy anyway, but outfits that are going to ride up or
slip down are really annoying. A woman planning her crime-fighting outfit would
think about that.
One
problem with the other justification is that her thoughts are centered on her
enemies instead of herself. Another is the assumption that she'll be fighting
straight men. It's a bad strategy, and one that seems a lot more likely coming
from a man. It disrespects the fact that she already has super strength or
training or some trait that is her edge.
Maybe
the biggest problem is that it sounds fake and stupid, almost as if that were
not the reason at all, but a belated attempt to justify objectification.
I'm
still not saying a man can't write women, but if he was at least working with
more women, he might have a better idea of what they would do and wear. If you
hired more women and more people of color, including women of color, that could
raise everyone's game.
And
maybe a story about a woman could actually be about her, instead of a
projection centered on men.
Here
are some excellent posts about racial diversity aspects:
Just
for nostalgia:
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