It seems the issue of feminism has rared its ugly head again. Take a look at this post over to Sequentially Speaking - a very good blog by our friend Lisa at Neptune Comics up where they make them cheese wheels. Now I don't know the entire backdrop to this most recent controversy, but the whole issue of feminism and comics is certainly nothing new and I found nothing new in this debate.
Lisa and gang seem pretty upset that Marvel doesn't appear to be taking their outrage very seriously, and while I am all for P.O.W.E.R. and the general idea of equality between sexes (I mean, why not? - all -isms are the same and none of them make sense to me), I do have to say that this seems to be picking nits.
So what if there is a nudie statue of a fictional character? Comic books are entertainment and women in entertainment, specifically American entertainment, most certainly bank on their appearances. That's the main issue I have with feminism, in general: most feminists are all against busty statues and porn, but then turn right around and applaud the women who pose for them and appear in those films as being "empowered." It's the same thing as getting offended by a date offering to pull out your chair, then expecting him to pick up the check!
If you really want equality, then you can't have it both ways.
Again, none of these -isms make sense to me, but what makes even less sense is the way the activists handle it:
How is it "debasing" to women when they appear in porns directed by men, and "empowering" when they appear in those directed by women? How is it that white guys constantly come under scrutiny for the most innocent of racial faux-pas, while black people never come under scrutiny for outright racist remarks and blatant hate speech? Why are non-Muslims held to an absurd standard of "tolerance" when Muslims are not? And right on down the line...
If you are serious about changing these things, then you have to understand that you are not going to be able to do that by supporting a double-standard! In fact, these double-standards are the problem.
A rambling melange of pop-culture.
2 comments:
The thing with this wasn't so much the comic itself, or the statue or image. It was that I wasn't sure how to take it. I felt a bit like Marvel was slapping people in the face who objected to the statue in the first place, and there were a LOT of them. But once the discussion got going I was talked down, seeing other sides to it.
Hey Lisa, good to hear from you. I get what you're saying and like I said, I understand the sentiment behind the argument, I just think there are better incidents - particularly real-life ones - where these concepts could be better justified and would certainly find more support.
Of course, you and I both concern ourselves with the four-color world, and you cover politics far less than I do, so you pick your battles as you see them, and I get that too.
I am about to do a post concerning Heavy Metal to which I can tie this current discussion...
(And just for the record, I obviously entitled this post to be slightly provocative in order to draw readers - I am the true whore in all of this... as usual.)
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