During the Television Critics Association press tour last 7 August 2013, three legendary comics creator were gathered in the stage to answer questions about the new PBS documentary series, "Superheroes: The Never-Ending Battle."
Joining Executive Producer Michael Kantor, Todd McFarlane, creator of 90s anti-hero, Spawn; Len Wein, co-creator of Wolverine; and Gerry Conway, co-creator of the Punisher, answered some sensitive questions about gender equality and women empowerment.
On stereotypical portrayal of women in comic books, McFarlane had this to say:
"The vast majority of dudes [are] doing this high testosterone sort of storytelling, and so we put our fantasy on the plate on the pages. As much as we stereotype the women, we do it with the guys. The guys are all good looking, not too many ugly superheroes."
"They've all got their hair gelled back. They have got perfect pecs on them. They have no hair on their chest. I mean, they are Ryan Gosling on steroids. Right? They are all beautiful. So we actually stereotype and do it to both sexes. We just happen to show a little more skin when we get to the ladies," he added.
According to Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress, "That McFarlane would say this isn't exactly surprising. It's an ancient canard that male heroes are as idealized as women, an idea that ignores their costumes, the difference between a fantasy of power you want to inhabit and sexual ability you want to take advantage of, and the contrast between admiring what someone can do with their body, and what you can do to theirs. But when I followed up with McFarlane, Wolverine creator Len Wein, and The Punisher creator Gerry Conway, the presentation became a showcase for a kind of attitude that’s far from universal in comics, but that still exerts considerable power among both creators and consumers of comics."
To echo what McFarlane said, Conway’s quipped that "The comics follow society. They don't lead society."
This is not really saying much but a reverse way of putting it means that comics don't lead society, they follow. In simple terms, he is saying that males dominate the culture. Until they don’t anymore, comic books will be dominated by males. If the people who make the culture don’t want to diversify, neither will the comic books.
And Conway, McFarlane, and Wein all defaulted to another line of argument: that anyone asking for more diverse superhero comics is effectively asking for an entitlement that won’t produce good storytelling.
"There hasn't really been historically a comic book that has worked that is trying to get across a kind of message, if you will," McFarlane insisted. "So the female characters that work are the ones that are just strong women that actually it’s good storytelling, and the odd character that is a minority that works is the one that is just a good strong character. They've tried to do minority characters and bring that label and that surrounding [debate] into it. You're aware that you’re reading a minority comic book. I think it's wrong."
Wein's tried to be neutral about all of this and thinks that this is the best way to pursue equality in comics.
"I think every time you take a female character, a black character, a Hispanic character, a gay character, and make that the point of the character, you are minimalizing the character," he said. "I have written anything you can possibly think of. I have created Storm who was the first black female superhero. I created a number of other characters, and it never matters to me what the color of their skin was. I was writing about who they were as human beings, and it wasn’t Black Storm. She was Storm."
On the issue of tokenism of races in comics, Kantor pointed out that, "When Stan Lee introduces Luke Cage and the Black Panther in the '60s, there's a level of tokenism to that, but it also reflects the growing Civil Rights movement."
As an avid comic book reader and collector, I don't see the industry as too white, too male or too skittish. It was created to entertain people and not start a global revolution for human rights and confront the race issue head on.
If the writers and character creators don't want their comic books to get ahead of the society, that's fine with me. If they decide to be less superheroic in real life, then we don't see any problem with it. Women who accounted for 40 percent of those who saw the Avengers movie on opening weekend certainly doesn’t mind not being represented, so who cares.
All comic book fanatic knows that all main characters in a comic were altered to "perfection" because that's the main point of the superhero part of a character. It's about creating the image that fits the power. At some point, people should stop reading too much into it. If you don't like them, don't read them or watch the movies.
Joining Executive Producer Michael Kantor, Todd McFarlane, creator of 90s anti-hero, Spawn; Len Wein, co-creator of Wolverine; and Gerry Conway, co-creator of the Punisher, answered some sensitive questions about gender equality and women empowerment.
On stereotypical portrayal of women in comic books, McFarlane had this to say:
"The vast majority of dudes [are] doing this high testosterone sort of storytelling, and so we put our fantasy on the plate on the pages. As much as we stereotype the women, we do it with the guys. The guys are all good looking, not too many ugly superheroes."
"They've all got their hair gelled back. They have got perfect pecs on them. They have no hair on their chest. I mean, they are Ryan Gosling on steroids. Right? They are all beautiful. So we actually stereotype and do it to both sexes. We just happen to show a little more skin when we get to the ladies," he added.
According to Alyssa Rosenberg of Think Progress, "That McFarlane would say this isn't exactly surprising. It's an ancient canard that male heroes are as idealized as women, an idea that ignores their costumes, the difference between a fantasy of power you want to inhabit and sexual ability you want to take advantage of, and the contrast between admiring what someone can do with their body, and what you can do to theirs. But when I followed up with McFarlane, Wolverine creator Len Wein, and The Punisher creator Gerry Conway, the presentation became a showcase for a kind of attitude that’s far from universal in comics, but that still exerts considerable power among both creators and consumers of comics."
To echo what McFarlane said, Conway’s quipped that "The comics follow society. They don't lead society."
This is not really saying much but a reverse way of putting it means that comics don't lead society, they follow. In simple terms, he is saying that males dominate the culture. Until they don’t anymore, comic books will be dominated by males. If the people who make the culture don’t want to diversify, neither will the comic books.
And Conway, McFarlane, and Wein all defaulted to another line of argument: that anyone asking for more diverse superhero comics is effectively asking for an entitlement that won’t produce good storytelling.
"There hasn't really been historically a comic book that has worked that is trying to get across a kind of message, if you will," McFarlane insisted. "So the female characters that work are the ones that are just strong women that actually it’s good storytelling, and the odd character that is a minority that works is the one that is just a good strong character. They've tried to do minority characters and bring that label and that surrounding [debate] into it. You're aware that you’re reading a minority comic book. I think it's wrong."
Wein's tried to be neutral about all of this and thinks that this is the best way to pursue equality in comics.
"I think every time you take a female character, a black character, a Hispanic character, a gay character, and make that the point of the character, you are minimalizing the character," he said. "I have written anything you can possibly think of. I have created Storm who was the first black female superhero. I created a number of other characters, and it never matters to me what the color of their skin was. I was writing about who they were as human beings, and it wasn’t Black Storm. She was Storm."
On the issue of tokenism of races in comics, Kantor pointed out that, "When Stan Lee introduces Luke Cage and the Black Panther in the '60s, there's a level of tokenism to that, but it also reflects the growing Civil Rights movement."
As an avid comic book reader and collector, I don't see the industry as too white, too male or too skittish. It was created to entertain people and not start a global revolution for human rights and confront the race issue head on.
If the writers and character creators don't want their comic books to get ahead of the society, that's fine with me. If they decide to be less superheroic in real life, then we don't see any problem with it. Women who accounted for 40 percent of those who saw the Avengers movie on opening weekend certainly doesn’t mind not being represented, so who cares.
All comic book fanatic knows that all main characters in a comic were altered to "perfection" because that's the main point of the superhero part of a character. It's about creating the image that fits the power. At some point, people should stop reading too much into it. If you don't like them, don't read them or watch the movies.
Posts
0 comments
Post a Comment