* <<F5R.0806>> Anonymous demands his right to titties.
I got a volley of private responses to my Hillary/Manara/Spider-Woman
opinion piece from a ~very angry~ Anonymous the other day. Here's a
public response:
Anonymous said:
1.) gwen is in college so no she is not a freaking teenager. do
some fucking research before you imply another creator is doing
pedo-istic things in his art.
I made no such implication. You know, most people enter college as
teenagers, albeit ones above the age of consent. Furthermore, having
lascivious thoughts about a 16 or 17-year-old girl might make you a
dirty old man, but it does not, by definition, make you a pedophile.
It's not an issue of whether Gwen is or isn't jailbait, it's an issue
of Spider-Gwen being, presumably, a role-model character for young
female readers and being sexually objectified. I can understand if
your reading comprehension was flagging near the bottom of the essay
– it was pretty long – but I clearly stated that I didn't have
any issues with Cho's drawing. I thought it was funny.
Also, the word is pedophilic.
Anonymous said:
2.) males are not sexualized especially in comics, because there is
factually not half the consumer-ship for it. the vast majority of
female readers do not give a shit about sexually attractive males,
while at the very least a 3rd if not half of male readers Do want to
see attractive females for attractive females sake. the output is
unequal because the demand is unequal, you forcing the companies to
ether equalize it or drop it completely does nothing but alienate a
large fan-base.
I don't think you know the minds of women as well as you think you
do. I remember an amusing anecdote from James Bama: American Realist
regarding publishers' apparent surprise to find that book covers
featuring nude male buttocks sold very well to female readers. Women
like a bit of a tease, too.
Giving the existing readership what they want keeps that readership
happy, but what about new readership? If the movies and TV shows of
the last fifteen years have shown us anything, it's that all kinds of
people, young and old, of all genders, enjoy superhero stories. If
Marvel and DC find ways to get comic books into the hands of more of
the people who are seeing the movies and watching the TV shows, they
stand to gain tens of millions of readers – and if they alienate a
few million existing readers in the process, I think it's a fair
trade. More readers means more circulation, more revenue per issue,
and that translates into more opportunities and better pay for
creators – that makes comics a more attractive medium for writers
and illustrators, and that means, ultimately, more and better comics.
Anonymous said:
on that note who the fuck do you think you are? i fucking despise
fifty shades of grey, but i do not try and remove its existence or
degrade its readers, what fucking gives you the right to tell me i am
not allowed to buy books with spider-woman with a large ass or the
goblin qween with under boob. there are fucking shit tons of comics
that will cater to your prude taste, you do not need to alter the
ones meant for me and other consumers with my taste.
Okay, you're kind-of going off the rails, here. I didn't tell
anyone that they're not allowed to buy comics with titilating
imagery. I said I wanted more balance in the representation of men
and women in comics, and I said I think the industry should try to
reign-in gratuitous sexual objectification of female characters in
what are presumably comics aimed at a general readership. I don't
think that's an unreasonable position.
I neither called for the abolition of comics targeted at male
readers, nor degraded the readers of those comics. I like Manara's
work. I used to read Heavy Metal on a semi-regular basis, and I
actually wish there were more comics anthologies for grown-ups like
Heavy Metal, but they don't seem to do well in the US market for
whatever reason.
I'm amused to have been called a prude for the first time in my life,
so thanks for that.
Who the fuck do I think I am? I'll get back to that in a moment.
Anonymous said:
marvel was trying to cater to everyone can you not see that? spider
gwen and to a lesser extent silk where marketed to the female reader
crowd, and spider woman was clearly meant for the male reader ship
(what with land in). WHY can they not cater to them separately??? why
in the fuck must all 3 cater to the female readers? are you really
that fucking narcissist that you think its ok to throw a giant public
shit fit just because a company puts a book out for people with
different taste then you?
My wife actually laughed at "throw a giant public shit fit". I
thought it was a pretty level-headed opinion piece, myself; she says
it was too level-headed – to the point of being boring. Then she
did her impression of me, which consists largely of her putting-on a
deep voice, taking a sort-of paternal tone and saying things like
"well, I don't agree with that, but I understand why people say it"
and "you've got to take both sides into consideration". She says I'm
pathologically diplomatic.
I recognize that Marvel and DC are making some efforts to attract
(and hopefully keep) female readership, and I think that's great, but
the fact remains that superhero comics still are, by and large, by
men, for men. And I think that sucks. Girls love superheroes! But,
they don't buy a lot of superhero comics. It's not because girls
don't like art, or reading, or because they have some kind of grudge
against the medium. Girls don't buy a lot of superhero comics
because, among other reasons, women and girls are not represented as
well in the medium as they are in films and TV.
And, here's the part you didn't see coming: I actually thought the
Hopeless/Land Spider-Woman was (or is – I haven't kept-up with it)
totally A-OK with its treatment of female characters. There is
nothing going-on on the inside of that comic to indicate that it is a
book targeted at male readers. You're wrong on that point. Land
always draws tiny women with enormous boobs, but whatever; his art on
Spider-Woman has been completely tame. It's a general-audiences
book. And that's why having the sexy Manara cover was such a goofy
thing for Marvel to do.
Now, getting back to "who the fuck do [I] think [I am]": I'm a guy
who has read thousands of comics, who has drawn a few, who loves the
medium, and is every bit as entitled to my opinion as you are. If
having an opinion and publishing it makes me a narcissist, well, shit
– call me Narcissus, then.
I've kept things pretty civil up to this point, Anonymous, but let's
talk on the level here: getting shit like this in my inbox is
unpleasant. You want to disagree with me, fine. I've got no problem
with disagreements. I'm wrong sometimes and I'm happy to admit it
– but have some decorum. Who the fuck do you think YOU are to
condescend to me, you gutless, know-nothing moron? You want to take
an indignant tone and start hurling insults at me because you think I
and the International Feminist Conspiracy's Social Justice Warriors
are going to take the T&A out of your precious comic books?
Learn to read, then learn to write, then maybe try again, you twit.
--
Excerpted from:
PUBLIC NOTES (F)
http://alph.laemeur.com/txt/PUBNOTES-F
©2015 Adam C. Moore (LÆMEUR) <
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