(Untitled)

[agent_garibaldi]

Sexism in comics is, ever-so-slowly, sneaking under my radar as not just A Bad Thing, which duhobviously, but as a Thing I Really Care About. I was just having a think- comicfans, could you back me up on this? I was trying to think of the whole "Which supers would actually, seriously, class as good role models for 8-12 year old kids?" I have the

Comments

[cowprintavenger]

Sandman is pretty damn non-sexist and mostly the characters (not including the twisted, psychotic ones, obviously) would be pretty good role models. Dream is a hell of a good role-model for anyone wanting to be an emo kid, anyway!

[ohnefuehlen]

Sandman also had one of the very, very few good rape scenes in a comic ("good" here meaning not hideously stereotypical/exploitative). So, yeah. Not sure if any of the characters really qualify as role models, though, if only because you can't really base your actions/beliefs on theirs (at least, on the Endless).

[infinidimincorp]

What? What about all the stuff with Death? She's totally a role model, she even gave that lecture on how to clean needles if you're going to inject drugs. She's a concerned citizen.

[ohnefuehlen]

I guess I'm thinking of "role model" in a "what would X do" kind of way. Asking yourself what the anthropomorphic personification of death would do in moments of crisis may not always be useful. Also her team-up with John Constantine to explain how and why to use a condom was wonderful and awesome.

[ohnefuehlen]

The Big Red Cheese (Captain Marvel)
Black Canary (sensibly-written Black Canary, not blaming-rape-victims Black Canary, who WAS A CLONE SHUT UP)
Ultimate Sue Storm
maybe Stephanie Brown (Spoiler/Robin)
Barbara Gordon (as Batgirl, less so as Oracle)
Steve Traynor (Jetboy/man from Top 10)

[multiclassgeek]

Well, with the advent of the 'Season 8' comics, we can add Buffy to that list, now...

[ohnefuehlen]

Nah, too whiney. Xander, on the other hand...

[roguish_scholar]

Superman? You sure? Call me a turbo-revvin' young punk if you like, but I always saw him in a kind of negative light, in that obeying the authorities is automatically the right thing to do, without running it through a mental is-this-right filter

[roguish_scholar]

Edit: I've not read a hell of a lot of Superman, so if I've got him down wrong please correct me. The bits I've seen give off that air though, taken to a logical conclusion in Dark Knight Returns.

[silentjustice]

I dunno, I would disagree about Superman. While he certainly tends to trust authority more than some other heroes, he doesn't blindly follow it. I'd put him in the Captain America grouping with perhaps a leaning towards conformity. In the current Superman comics, for example, Superman is very introspective about his own morality and such, while in a recent Action Comics he attacked a goverment convoy that had captured a little Kryptonian boy.

Frank Miller, I think, hates Superman to an extent, and always shows him as sap, or a government stooge, or just plain inferior to Batman whenever he writes him. Have I mentioned I really dislike Frank Miller's stuff? lol

[ohnefuehlen]

The problem is images like this, with male characters in strong, dominant positions, and female characters in submissive, come-hither positions - and that one stance which no human ever adopts, invented entirely so the viewer can see the character's tits and ass from the same viewpoint.

Fantasy doesn't have to be realistic, but when women are almost always sexualised and men almost always aren't, there's something wrong.

[katarik]

Well, actually, humans do adopt it.

In porn. Because it's an awkward, awkward position to stand in, but it's theoretically attractive. The nickname for that stance is The Corkscrew, and I have only ever seen it three places: someone turning around and holding it for, like, a second while they're moving; in comic books; and in porn.