Wherein Starfire (and other things) Are Discussed
Today I posted this link from The Mary Sue on my Facebook wall: http://www.shortpacked.com/2011/comic/book-13/04-remedial-adulthood/math/. And the following is one of the responses I got after I had responded to an earlier statement. I’m not gonna post those because the following is something that stands alone.
The post:
So you're saying that there are no girls out there who want to be buxom and sleak and pretty? I agree that this is geared towards a male audience (I said most characters people either want to be, or _be with_) but not every single producer and every single writer and every single comic book artist is a male trying to get his and his buddy's rocks off. revealing clothes sell and it's women that buy them. Women buy fashion magazines with half-naked ladies in them. These type of women also see a buxom sleak character and think she's "cool" even if she is uninteresting intellectually or otherwise.
I didn't mean Starfire is doing whatever she wants - I was meaning to say that one of the popular things in the entertainment industry is that if you want to do art you will always be unhappy in life until you do art, and then you will be happy and succesful. Or if you like someone then you will be sad until you confront it and then everything will work out and you will be happy. In general characters are two dimensional and things always work out for them, whatever it is thier character strives for, they will get it no matter how implausible that would be in real life. More realistic characters are not always pretty, but find other ways to stand out and over come thier adversity, more realistic characters may pursue art but ultimately fail and learn to do it as a hobby, more realistic characters may have unrequited love or emotional instability.
Overall, I agree that this new Starfire is not good, but I would attribute it more to laziness and a lack of creativity than to some sort of sexist mis-interpretation of the target audience. Our culture, as a whole, is hypersexualized, especially in regard to women and thier bodies, and I think the comic book industry is more of another causalty of that than a cause. Besides, in the end I think you will find more independent comics and graphic novels that tell stories of strong-willed and empowered women than you will find in any other media. Nonetheless, these comics don't sell nearly as much as DC and MARVEL... which again goes back to the idea that the demand for the DC and MARVEL material is public-driven, not industry driven, because the industry has a wide array of product, but the public is only buying a small portion of it in large quantities.
In conclusion - if we fix public mindset, then comics will be a lot better.
That is the response, unadulterated, except for one use of Starfire, which was a typo. Now I am posting how I responded. I didn’t clean this up for grammar or anything, but I did omit names, because it isn’t fair.
My response:
I want to take a moment and address that you brought up that women buy revealing clothes and buy magazines with half naked women who are modeling clothes that they might want to buy with a story from my life.
A certain friend of mine can and will tell you that I made a drummer for Rock Band. I put her in tight leather pants and a bra. I then colored that bra to match her skin tone with the pattern of a skull and cross bone over the nipple. The overall purpose? I wanted her to look like she was wearing pasties. And man, I totally succeeded.
Now, contrast that with if Rock Band only gave me that model. Or only a model with revealing clothes and no options, sorta like the armor in so many rpg games. Do you see a difference? Can you discern it? If you can't the difference is that I chose to dress like a tart. Me. Not my daddy issues. Not an anonymous exec. Not my insecurities. Not amnesia. I created an avatar that was black, lithe, with short hair, named Slasher Lane, wearing virtual pasties. I chose it.
But you bring up this point of public driven. No, it really isn't. See, there are studies that exist, by credible scientist and duplicated, that show that women cannot affect certain markets (movies being one of them) with their money. It shows that execs take a "if women buys it, ha!" or a "if they don't buy this product, there is no pleasing them."
And even if it is public-driven. What you're saying amounts to "sex sells". Why yes, yes it does. You know what else sells? Crack rocks. Meth. Weed. It doesn't mean you perpetuate this. Now, I am not saying that those writers, animators, and other industry folk are uniformly producing things to get their rocks off, but when you say "sex sells", then you are saying "we did this to get your rock off". And if they aren't saying "sex sells", and it is as innocent as anything can be, having diverse opinions changes that. Women are not in high places in this industry as a thing. You have spots, but to the degree necessary to say, in the environment that produced this Starfire, that one of them can say "Fellas, this is gross" and then have it actually change the gross thing? No.
What you have just done is said that women want the dead-eyed gazes of porn stars. We want to be object. Sure, women want to be lusted after; but Starfire isn't being lusted after. She's being reduced to possession.
But the most damning thing about this is the following: No male character would ever have this story line. Find me one. Find me a male character who is treated as a sex toy by the people he is closest to. The people who have been in the worst kind of situations with. Find me that male character whose friends didn't try to restore his memory so that he, as was before, can *choose* to have emotionless sex that reduces him to a sex toy. Our introduction to Ron Harper is not concerned friend who want Starfire to have her memories back, who is seeking ways to do this even if it might prove impossible. It's him saying "I thought you were Jason's?" Which implies that he doesn't even care about his other, male friend's feeling, who later high-fives the fact that they both banged Starfire.
You see, even if Starfire goes off to find some other, nameless, faceless dick to screw, at least it isn't her "friend". They don't have to be complicit in her exploitation. What happens if she recovers and remembers how Jason didn't really care that his friend banged her? If she is shocked and heartbroken that the males in her life, the people on Earth who know her the best, didn't do their damnedest to protect her? Is this something you'd want a sister or a wife or a girlfriend or ANY GIRL EVER to experience? Do you actually think we covet this?
Find me the male character that wears a banana hammock that accentuates his dick, not because it's comfortable, but so that he can pose for women so that they will have sex with him. Find me the male character whose costume is nothing but that. Find me the male character who is menaced by tentacle monsters. Find me the male character who was raped by someone because that someone wanted to get back at his wife or girlfriend. Find me the male character who is as abused as Black Canary.Find me the male character who is nothing but poses that accentuate his dick. Who is amnesiac in the exact same way as Starfire. Who wears a costume like Star Sapphire. Who is given a sexually abused background. Who is a prostitute. Who strips for men and women. Who is stuffed in a refrigerator after being brutally murdered. Who is like Catwoman. Who has a weakness that had been given to Wonder Woman.
Find me that male character and then we'll talk about aspirations and fairness and role models, not of who we want to be like, but who we want to actually be (your words). Find me a woman who looks at Starfire and her first, visceral reaction isn't "My God! Why the hell are her boobs that fair away from her body? Doesn't that hurt her back."
The post:
So you're saying that there are no girls out there who want to be buxom and sleak and pretty? I agree that this is geared towards a male audience (I said most characters people either want to be, or _be with_) but not every single producer and every single writer and every single comic book artist is a male trying to get his and his buddy's rocks off. revealing clothes sell and it's women that buy them. Women buy fashion magazines with half-naked ladies in them. These type of women also see a buxom sleak character and think she's "cool" even if she is uninteresting intellectually or otherwise.
I didn't mean Starfire is doing whatever she wants - I was meaning to say that one of the popular things in the entertainment industry is that if you want to do art you will always be unhappy in life until you do art, and then you will be happy and succesful. Or if you like someone then you will be sad until you confront it and then everything will work out and you will be happy. In general characters are two dimensional and things always work out for them, whatever it is thier character strives for, they will get it no matter how implausible that would be in real life. More realistic characters are not always pretty, but find other ways to stand out and over come thier adversity, more realistic characters may pursue art but ultimately fail and learn to do it as a hobby, more realistic characters may have unrequited love or emotional instability.
Overall, I agree that this new Starfire is not good, but I would attribute it more to laziness and a lack of creativity than to some sort of sexist mis-interpretation of the target audience. Our culture, as a whole, is hypersexualized, especially in regard to women and thier bodies, and I think the comic book industry is more of another causalty of that than a cause. Besides, in the end I think you will find more independent comics and graphic novels that tell stories of strong-willed and empowered women than you will find in any other media. Nonetheless, these comics don't sell nearly as much as DC and MARVEL... which again goes back to the idea that the demand for the DC and MARVEL material is public-driven, not industry driven, because the industry has a wide array of product, but the public is only buying a small portion of it in large quantities.
In conclusion - if we fix public mindset, then comics will be a lot better.
That is the response, unadulterated, except for one use of Starfire, which was a typo. Now I am posting how I responded. I didn’t clean this up for grammar or anything, but I did omit names, because it isn’t fair.
My response:
I want to take a moment and address that you brought up that women buy revealing clothes and buy magazines with half naked women who are modeling clothes that they might want to buy with a story from my life.
A certain friend of mine can and will tell you that I made a drummer for Rock Band. I put her in tight leather pants and a bra. I then colored that bra to match her skin tone with the pattern of a skull and cross bone over the nipple. The overall purpose? I wanted her to look like she was wearing pasties. And man, I totally succeeded.
Now, contrast that with if Rock Band only gave me that model. Or only a model with revealing clothes and no options, sorta like the armor in so many rpg games. Do you see a difference? Can you discern it? If you can't the difference is that I chose to dress like a tart. Me. Not my daddy issues. Not an anonymous exec. Not my insecurities. Not amnesia. I created an avatar that was black, lithe, with short hair, named Slasher Lane, wearing virtual pasties. I chose it.
But you bring up this point of public driven. No, it really isn't. See, there are studies that exist, by credible scientist and duplicated, that show that women cannot affect certain markets (movies being one of them) with their money. It shows that execs take a "if women buys it, ha!" or a "if they don't buy this product, there is no pleasing them."
And even if it is public-driven. What you're saying amounts to "sex sells". Why yes, yes it does. You know what else sells? Crack rocks. Meth. Weed. It doesn't mean you perpetuate this. Now, I am not saying that those writers, animators, and other industry folk are uniformly producing things to get their rocks off, but when you say "sex sells", then you are saying "we did this to get your rock off". And if they aren't saying "sex sells", and it is as innocent as anything can be, having diverse opinions changes that. Women are not in high places in this industry as a thing. You have spots, but to the degree necessary to say, in the environment that produced this Starfire, that one of them can say "Fellas, this is gross" and then have it actually change the gross thing? No.
What you have just done is said that women want the dead-eyed gazes of porn stars. We want to be object. Sure, women want to be lusted after; but Starfire isn't being lusted after. She's being reduced to possession.
But the most damning thing about this is the following: No male character would ever have this story line. Find me one. Find me a male character who is treated as a sex toy by the people he is closest to. The people who have been in the worst kind of situations with. Find me that male character whose friends didn't try to restore his memory so that he, as was before, can *choose* to have emotionless sex that reduces him to a sex toy. Our introduction to Ron Harper is not concerned friend who want Starfire to have her memories back, who is seeking ways to do this even if it might prove impossible. It's him saying "I thought you were Jason's?" Which implies that he doesn't even care about his other, male friend's feeling, who later high-fives the fact that they both banged Starfire.
You see, even if Starfire goes off to find some other, nameless, faceless dick to screw, at least it isn't her "friend". They don't have to be complicit in her exploitation. What happens if she recovers and remembers how Jason didn't really care that his friend banged her? If she is shocked and heartbroken that the males in her life, the people on Earth who know her the best, didn't do their damnedest to protect her? Is this something you'd want a sister or a wife or a girlfriend or ANY GIRL EVER to experience? Do you actually think we covet this?
Find me the male character that wears a banana hammock that accentuates his dick, not because it's comfortable, but so that he can pose for women so that they will have sex with him. Find me the male character whose costume is nothing but that. Find me the male character who is menaced by tentacle monsters. Find me the male character who was raped by someone because that someone wanted to get back at his wife or girlfriend. Find me the male character who is as abused as Black Canary.Find me the male character who is nothing but poses that accentuate his dick. Who is amnesiac in the exact same way as Starfire. Who wears a costume like Star Sapphire. Who is given a sexually abused background. Who is a prostitute. Who strips for men and women. Who is stuffed in a refrigerator after being brutally murdered. Who is like Catwoman. Who has a weakness that had been given to Wonder Woman.
Find me that male character and then we'll talk about aspirations and fairness and role models, not of who we want to be like, but who we want to actually be (your words). Find me a woman who looks at Starfire and her first, visceral reaction isn't "My God! Why the hell are her boobs that fair away from her body? Doesn't that hurt her back."