Comments | kyrax2: Oh Yes They Did: DC, Amy Reeder and Bruce Wayne

kyrax2

Oh Yes They Did: DC, Amy Reeder and Bruce Wayne

Mar 28, 2012 13:58

Note: This article was posted several months ago, but I never promoted it here. Over the next few days I'll be posting links to more articles I've written and want to share. Please feel free to comment on them here or at the original article.

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Comments 4

spitphyre March 28 2012, 21:29:47 UTC

You know... I've been reading a lot today about the new vision of the Amazons in the current Wonder Woman. ... I was mad enough to stop buying DC (despite still loving them so much) but I'm starting to actually belief that they really are trying to get rid of women readers and they actually, actively dislike women. :/ I get that this is a huge assumption but between SDCC, so much of the new 52, and this? I don't understand what else they're thinking. Not after all of the criticism. (And they have been losing money so that can't think they're doing everything right...)

kyrax2 March 29 2012, 14:33:28 UTC

You know, I totally understand that feeling. When looking at DC as a whole, it really feels like that. Yet, when I've met individual creators, I haven't felt like that at all. If anything, I get a sense of embarrassment and frustration from most creators, both male and female, about this issue. If there is some sort of 'anti-woman conspiracy', I don't think it's DC as a whole, I think it's one, maybe two people who, consciously or not, dismiss female creators as being incapable of doing superhero comics and female superheroes as being unappealing to their target audience. When I asked about Steph and Cass at WonderCon, Snyder told me that they all love these characters too, but it's not really up to them - the ones who make those kinds of decisions are above them. Even Geoff Johns and Jim Lee came across as nice, if bewildered by my "Where are the women?" question, at SDCC. And of course Gail Simone has been fighting for greater parity for years ( ... )

spitphyre March 29 2012, 18:59:13 UTC

Oh, I figure most writers and most artists aren't to blame (maybe a few), I think it's at a much higher level and I'm not sure I would call it a conspiracy so many as a strong, strong bias. ... If that makes sense. Like you said, the writers and the creators have no say in a lot of these decisions and what they control is one story line and then possibly for only one arc. It's the editors and others who are looking at the big picture but I'm guessing even among the editors there are people who don't like this direction. I have my theories about who are the most at fault here but I don't exactly have evidence to back up my claim.

Even if I'm wrong and everything else, it is terribly depressing that as so many other parts of the geek community and the industries related to that are at least attempting to reach out to women one of the biggest, and certainly one of the two best known, comic publishing houses seems to be giving us the middle finger.

kyrax2 March 29 2012, 19:21:09 UTC

I know what you mean. It really does feel like there's a strong bias, and I think that there actually has been at times in the past. Even if it no longer exists at all (which I find VERY hard to believe) it's depressing that the DC execs are apparently so...stupid. I mean, how idiotically dense do you have to be to think it's a GOOD IDEA to boot the one and only female you have on your panel a bare three months after the events of SDCC have brought you so much negative media attention about exactly that subject?

So...actively sexist or just plain stupid, I guess. Take your pick. Either way it's depressing. *sighs*

(BTW, there weren't any women on any of their panels at WonderCon, either, at least not any that I saw. Where are Paul Cornell and Si Spurrier when you need them?)

ETA: Love that icon so much.