Comics / Spotlight

Women In Comics - Part 3

By Koncise
December 8, 2003 - 09:25

Echo’s From Da Void!?!

So the deal is this, at the beginning of each month I’m gonna throw something at ya. OK, well now it’s your chance to voice your views. All you have to do is drop me an e-mail. And for the rest of the month we’ll be having a nice little discussion. You wont be edited, it’s all you, but play nice!

Chapter 2.3

Easy Cats

Firstly I'd like to apologise to everyone about there being no column last week. I've been bogged down with University work for the last few weeks, which just made things impossible (even for me) :(

Still, even though I went A.W.O.L you crazy cats didn't. Readerships increasing, which is all good. I think there are 6 of you fans now. This time next year……..double figures baby lol

When I finally got a chance to look in my inbox, I got hit 3 times. Check these out;

Eric said;

I disagree with the column. There a lot of strong female (physically and mentally) characters in comics right now. Take it from a guy whose best friends are women, Alias' Jessica Jones is a perfectly well written woman (Most guys are a mix of bad decisions and insecurity, too, but Bendis nails a few problems guys just can't touch). Mystic's Giselle, Meridian's Sephie (yeah, okay, this is getting pretty CrossGen heavy). There are a lot of good female characters that aren't just getting enough attention (check out Blue Monday for realistic characters). There are way more than I listed above. Easily comparable to the male characters, too. I think it's just we're working in a very skewed sense of reality. Keep in mind tho, I'm married, and my wife reads a lot of my comics, and orders a lot of her own. My best friend is a girl too, and she tells me what's what. Oh, there we go. Wonder Woman. Right now, WW's kickin ass and taking names and doing it with a feminine edge that Bats and Supes just cannot handle.

See the thing is Eric, yes, the female characters you mentioned are strong and good characters. Other than Jessica Jones (from Alias) and sometimes Sephie ( Meridian), those characters wear outfits that have no practicality what so ever. This really takes away from what would have been a strong female character.

Zhen Diloloth said;

Hi,I did not contribute to the discussion yet because experience taught me that it was a sensitive issue with female readers, and I did not know how to contribute to the discussion without insulting the entire female audience (I still don't know how, but I will try still).

Medias like Comics or Animation depend greatly on exaggerations. Sometimes you have to exaggerate how your character looks or acts to make it obvious to the audience what exactly the character is (heroine, villain, sidekick, etc).

So when it comes to female characters, an easy and obvious way to make sure that they are recognised for what they are is to give them large breasts, slim waist, full lips etc. Elements that makes it unmistakable that it is a female character.

Just as it makes the Hero easier to identify by making him with broad shoulders, square jaw and huge pecks etc. And the Villain by making him really Evil looking, the sidekick as a goofy kid, etc.

But when you do the female form so that there can be no mistake to the audience that what they are seieng is a female, you are accused of being a pervert who want every women to have huge breasts. That you are putting down women by portraying them as a stereotype of some sort.

And when you try to get away from portraying female characters in an idealistic way (not giving them big breasts, not giving them a curvy body, not giving them full lips or lovely eyes etc), then you are accused of turning women into men.

So you end up in a, lose, lose scenario.

I guess it is similar to a white writer accused of not putting black characters in his book, but as soon as he does include black characters he is accused of portraying them in a stereotypical way as if every black people come from the "Hood", or that he is having them act like a white characters.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

As for female costumes being impractical, the same can be said about many of their male counterpart.

Wearing a cape for someone like Batman or Moon Knight is not very practical, but it looks good visually on the page. Heck you can get some nice effects and compositions in a panel thanks to something as impractical as a cape and a gust of wind.

So sometime, it will be a choice between being practical and something that looks good visually.

So all of that will influence how the character will look/act.

How to make sure that the character can be easily identified as a male/female, as a hero/villain etc. And to make sure that it looks good/interesting on the page.

So yes Wonder Woman may not have the most practical costume there is, but it looks great visually and it makes her easy to identify as a heroine and a female character.

So sometimes the creators will have to choose between what they think might be the best to do the job in their story, or try to be PC.

I know that I would choose the story.

How about you??

Now Zhen has some interesting thoughts here and they could be partly the reason for the way women are portrayed and drawn. The thing about the argument of they are that way so we can recognise them for the character and role they are meant to be, is basically showing a major flaw. The STORY. If the book is written well, these said exaggerations wouldn't be needed. So, is this situation all done to, just plan bad story telling?

Now to show that the ladies are no longer mad at me

M. Alice said;

As a female comic artist, I find that the most common reaction from men to my work is, "Well of COURSE your female characters don't have huge breasts...you're a girl!"

I think that really sums it all up. People draw what appeals to them, and people buy what appeals to them. The male 18-25 demographic usually wants to see T&A as much as possible, so that's what women are most often portrayed with, in order to attract readers. Contrariwise, 13-17 female demographics want to see realistically drawn younger girls, who fight evil and whatnot while still maintaining an aura of cuteness and innocence.

These are just some generalities, but I feel they really fit a good 70% of each genre. Male readers also prefer their indentity characters (the large steroidal men) to be idealistic fantasy role-models. Female readers lean more towards familiar, close-to-home characters, which is why the school-girl genre of japanese comics is becoming so popular in america.

It's only natural to expect teenage and twenty-something male readers to WANT to see scantily clad women. But asking female readers to enjoy the same thing by slapping a feminazi, no-nonsense attitude, weak "grrl power" dialogue and special gadgets on the same top-heavy characters, just isn't going to work. Conversely, the bulky musclemen aren't drawing us either...a recent study shows that the average male's perception of how much muscle mass is attractive to a woman, is TWENTY percent more than what the average woman actually finds attractive. Twenty percent of your body weight is an awful lot, guys.

I think that if companies such as Marvel want to attract more female readers (as they have stated numerous times in releases), they need to stop handing the slightly-feminized scripts to the same male artists, and pick up some fresher female artists. That larger companies are trying to appeal to female readers more recently is a very good start, but they're asking a lot of their old artists, who are stuck in a rut of wobbly-chested women in vinyl bathing suits.

And on a personal note: as a cosplayer, I can tell you that vinyl bathing suits and thigh-high boots are impossible to pose in, let alone run and jump in. :)

-M. Alice

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner :) M. Alice, really nailed the situation I think in her e-mail. A reason we see women portrayed the way they are is, because men are drawing them. And their drawing them to be every little boys fantasy. To be honest, I can't even think of any female artists other than Andrea Di Vito (Brath), which is pretty shamefully. I'm sure there are more, but how many big books are they drawing.

That was also a very good point about the fact that female readers are more inclined to pick up manga than anything else. In these books females are drawn to look innocent, but are not breast over matter and for the most part they do where clothing.

Now this way of showing females isn't completely lost on American comics. If you pick up Runaways ( Marvel), all the female characters wear normal clothes and aren't weighted down by huge breasts. The same would go for Daredevil ( Marvel). Alex Malkeev, does a wonderful job of showing females. In both books we know what role the character is and their sex without exaggeration. Is this just down to great storytelling from Robert K Vaughan ( Runaways) and Brian Micheal Bendis ( Daredevil), or is it just a case of the artist not wanting to alienate the female readership? There are other books that do a good job with their female characters, these were just a couple of examples.

I think in the last couple of columns some good points have been made in regards to this subject.

Are women portrayed in a ridiculous fashion, yes they are. I don't know whether this will ever change, but I think we can see that there are exceptions and not everyone wishes to be the same. So there is hope for females to be represented correctly.

And Now!

Well, I think we've had an interesting discussion, but it's time for a new subject. So tune in next week and we'll be changing clothes :) If you have any ideas for future columns or just have something you'd like to say, drop me a mail at;

koncise@comicbookbin.com

And let me say thank you to this weeks contributors;

Eric


Zhen DilOloth


M. Alice

Koncise an out :)

Whatever your views are though, drop me a mail at; koncise@comicbookbin.com

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12