Women in Spandex

Last Saturday I attended the Boston Comic Con and had the pleasure of introducing one of my friends to the world of comic books. She doesn't read comics, she doesn't like comics and she doesn't know anything about comics, but thanks to the kindness of the artists and writers in attendance and especially to the creative energy that filled Artists Alley, my friend ended up having a very good time. All in all, it was a very successful trip.

With one small exception. Passing by the prints and posters arrayed along the walls in front of Artists Alley, we were confronted with picture after picture of scantily clad, huge breasted and impossibly proportioned women arranged in painful and sexually charged poses. Walking past, my friend commented that as a woman, it was sometimes difficult for her to look at comics.

Here's a dirty secret, though: as a man, it's often difficult for me to look at those pictures as well, because they don't just demean women, they demean the audience too. They don't just pander to the lowest common denominator, they actually lower that denominator even further by creating a locker room mentality that alienates fully half of the potential readership of the form. If fans of comics sometimes complain that their medium isn't taken seriously, I say, look around at what we are presenting to the world, because we've earned it.

Of course, complaints about how women are portrayed in comics are nothing new. Current Wonder Woman writer Gail Simone helped bring the issue to the forefront when she was still a fan back in the 90's with her website Women in Refrigerators, which explored the many ways that female characters in comics were often abused, murdered or otherwise traumatized as plot points for their more popular male counterparts. But though the website gained a lot of attention, to the point where the term "women in refrigerators" is now comics shorthand for negative treatment of women in comics, the actual content of the comics in question hasn't changed significantly in the years since. In part this is likely due to the simple fact that, as refrigerator death scene author Ron Marz himself argued with some validity, women aren't the main characters in most of these titles, meaning that as supporting characters they exist primarily to move the plot forward for the main characters, who are usually male.

However, my concern is less with how the characters are written (which is a whole different topic) but more with how they are drawn. Comics is at heart an inherently visual medium, and how women are drawn -- how they are portrayed on the page in the literal sense of the word -- in some ways carries a more immediate and visceral message than the words and actions taken by the characters within the stories. Even on this front, of course, there are some who argue that the unrealistic depiction of female superheroes is part of the form; the male characters, after all, are also exaggerated physically, so it stands to reason that the women would also be given idealized figures as well.

But while this may be true as far as the design of the characters, it does not address the way those characters are depicted in terms of the situations, poses and contexts which they are portrayed in. There's nothing wrong with having beautiful, attractive and fit women in comics, nor in drawing them well; mainstream superhero comics have been doing this for decades. Yet in recent years, artists and editors have begun overtly emphasizing sexuality on covers and in interior shots, not just for characters whose sexuality has long been a central part of their identity (such as Vampirella or Emma Frost), but for any and all female characters regardless of their personality within the stories themselves.

This sort of blanket sexualization has several negative effects. Firstly, it damages the character's credibility with the readers, both within the story and in the larger fan consciousness. Mockingbird, for instance, was at the center of one of the most famous stories about sexual and emotional abuse in the history of comics, yet how seriously are modern readers supposed to take her when she is now best known for gratuitous ass shots? Covers like this send the message that the company itself doesn't necessarily respect their own character -- and often they don't. While the writers of Avengers: the Initiative are trying to rehabilitate the character, for the last several years Tigra has been written pretty much as a punchline, dismissed for her sexuality both by writers and fans alike. Even Mary Jane Watson, who is a well respected fan favorite, has spent more and more time in recent years lounging around in lingerie for no apparent reason, a new attitude towards the character that was perhaps best represented by Marvel's infamous "Mary Jane Bending Over" statue, complete with coquettish grin and visible thong.

This undermining of the characters is only exacerbated when the companies package their female characters together for the sole purpose of showing off their T & A (see: this review of Gotham Sirens) or throw them together into a nominal "women's" title like Marvel Divas, which appropriates the settings and characterizations of Sex & The City and then undermines whatever (debatable) appeal this might have for women by packaging it as puerile fantasy.

This kind of ill-conceived fan-service is the second major negative effect that this kind of objectification has, because by pandering to the type of reader who enjoy this kind of thing, the publishers end up alienating those who do not. This becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course, because when the only fans left are those who buy these kinds of comics, these kind of comics are the only ones that will sell. If you've devalued your female characters to the point where the only interest that remains in them is sexual, than that is the only kind of viable use left for those female characters.

This also means that in essence you are training new comic readers to expect their female characters to be sexualized. Leaving aside the impact that this may have on younger readers by normalizing these kinds of depictions of women, this has the predictable corollary of training young female readers what not to expect from comics: strong characters, reasonable representation or inclusive role models that they can become invested in as readers. And this is the third, and perhaps most important effect this kind of art has: it drives away potential female readers and creators.

This cannot be overstated. The medium of comics is inherently gender neutral. When I was growing up, I knew any number of girls who read comic strips -- collections of comics like Calvin & Hobbes or Bloom County. Yet none of them ended up making the jump to comic books. Why? Because of the reputation comics have as a boys only club.

Now, part of this no doubt is do the dominant and admittedly violent superhero genre. But much of it can also be attributed to the roles that female characters play within that genre -- not just as plot points or dead girlfriends in refrigerators, but as eye candy utilized by artists (and in some cases writers) for fan-service. Now why would any woman or young girl want to try any of these comics out? And what's true for readers seems even more true for creators. While Simone, who I mentioned earlier, has had success in the field, she is the exception rather than the rule. Historically and presently, mainstream comics have had very few women. Yet, efforts by women publishing in underground or independent comics have proven that there are plenty of women with the talent and skill to succeed in the medium. So why aren't there more female pros working in mainstream comics? Maybe because they don't want to. And why would they want to?

All this is not to suggest that there is no place for sexuality in comics, even in mainstream superhero comics. Of course there is. There are many female -- and male --characters who are sexual by nature and there's no reason to eliminate or downplay this. But by the same token, there are plenty of characters who aren't particularly sexual. There are plenty of female characters who are simply strong, or smart, or brave, or dumb, or cowardly, or weak, or beautiful, or ugly, or kind or evil or just simply boring. And that's the whole point: female characters should be given the same benefits as their male counterparts and be written -- and drawn -- as individual characters, rather than just as props in a sexual fantasy.

Because I think that's all any real comic reader wants: to read about compelling, unique and interesting characters. And once comics start giving us women who fit that description, maybe we'll start seeing more girls picking up comics, more women writing comics and more female fans able to attend comic conventions without being uncomfortable or embarrassed at they way the industry looks at them.

Posted in: Boston Comic Con, comic books, comics, Gail Simone, Scott Harris, women in comics