DC’s Essential Graphic Novels Essentially Screws Over Women

(picture via dcwomenkickingass)

DC Comics recently stated that they will be releasing a free essentials guide to their graphic novels. This guide will be sent to fans, comic shops, and libraries. It is also notably lacking in women.

Certain characters have received multi-page spreads in this book. Most of these characters are the ones that you’d expect, such as Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and, weirdly, Green Arrow. Perhaps Green Arrow was given his very own spread because he is currently a popular character due to the TV show Arrow, but Green Arrow has never been a part of the main lineup of DC superheroes.

You know who is, though? Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman, who is an Amazon, member of the Trinity, and one of the main leaders of the Justice League, does not get her own multi-page spread with her fellow superheroes. Neither do any other female superheroes—not even Batwoman, who is one of DC’s top selling female-led comics along with Batgirl and Wonder Woman (source).

So where are the women in this “essential” guide? In a two-page spread called “Women of DC”. The only women featured in this section are Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman, and Huntress. Yes, the ladies have been screwed over.

(picture via dcwomenkickingass)

Furthermore, no women or men of color are being featured. There’s no sign of Cyborg, Cassandra Cain, Mister Terrific, Static Shock, Katana, or Vixen.

This book says a lot about who DC Comics are trying to promote and sell to. Remember, this guide is going to be used not just by fans but by comic shop owners and libraries to determine what graphic novels they should order. It has often been said by creators and companies alike that ‘for some reason’ the comics which don’t feature white heterosexual male characters don’t do as well. Well, maybe that has less to do with what DC’s readers want and more to do with how they promote their characters. Just a thought, DC.

On Marvel’s Mega Minds and Missing Women

Marvel’s 2010 crossover storyline Fall of the Hulks, which occurs sort of concurrently with the events of the Siege storyline, details among other things the plot of a cabal of evil, brainy superheroes to kidnap the world’s eight smartest people. The Intelligencia [sic], as they call themselves, arouse the ire of various Hulks in the process, leading to all sorts of hijinks and craziness, as well as the World War Hulk story and its two issue miniseries, Hulked Out Heroes.

Try not to imagine the kind of mindboggling destruction that an entity equal parts Hulk and Deadpool would wreak. Instead, let’s go back and talk about the fact that Marvel has offered up a list of its terrestrial supergeniuses. This is great! I really want to know who the smartest people on Earth-616 are, don’t you? Let’s take a look at who was worth capturing (in no particular order):

The Winter Witch

Since everyone in my neck of the woods has been enjoying relatively warm weather, I thought I would discuss a novel set in wintry Wales. I was hesitant at first to review this book because I found it in the teen section. Teen novels are not everyone’s cup of tea. However, I try my best not to discriminate against books based solely on their intended audience. Not every teen novel is stupid and more than a few have a good story to tell. They will often even have interesting heroines and heroes. Paula Brackston‘s The Winter Witch is a pretty cool novel. I’m always up for a book about magic, but what I got was far more than another book about a teenage witch who finds love. I don’t think it’s a stretch to call The Winter Witch a fantastic piece of fantasy fiction, and the protagonist Morgana a well-written and interesting character.

Web Crush Wednesday: Feminist Ryan Gosling

You all know Ryan Gosling, talented actor, the lead in most romance movies these days, activist, and even—feminist? Ryan Gosling certainly isn’t afraid to point out issues of sexism and patriarchy. I mean, look at this quote:

You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film. (via Ms. Magazine)

Or this one:

It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. (via Ms. Magazine)

Yeah, he is pretty freaking amazing. Isn’t he?

Another person who is incredibly awesome, but who, unlike Gosling, you might not have heard of, is Danielle Henderson.

Henderson is a devoted feminist, writer, published author, and graduate student. When studying feminist theory at school, Henderson created a fun way to help her remember all the feminist theories she was learning. What was born was Feminist Ryan Gosling, fun little memes that depict our favorite heart-throb waxing poetic about feminist theory. Check out some of my favorites.

On Geek Gatekeeping and Inheriting The Earth

[This is chiptune rock, which might not be your thing. The lyrics sort of make the point, and you can just look them up.]

It’s always scary, seeing a ghost. Not a literal ghost, as I’ve never seen one, but something you thought was dead and gone away. You see, I thought we had put the “fake geek girl” problem to rest. I assumed that it was broken down, dismissed, and relegated to the darkest corners of the places for which I have no time. Even Cracked tore this one to shreds, and this was some six months ago. So I had assumed that we were collectively over it.

I am not, however, over the Too Late To RuPaulogize video. Look it up.

It turns out that this was nothing more than a egocentric dream, the folly of a mind that occasionally assumes that everyone is a feminist, or that everyone knows that President Bartlet would be the best president ever. Of all time.

Back in November 2012, comic book artist Tony Harris wrote a rant (read: vomit-inducing, misogynistic tripe) on Facebook. This seemed to be the culmination of a season where what even Forbes Magazine called “Geek Gatekeeping” was on everybody’s lips (including Lady Bacula‘s). Then, in an effort to spread his sexist, body-policing brain diarrhea, Harris asked his twitter followers to read and retweet it. We were talking about this fake geek girl bs all through the winter, according to my extremely scientific research method of checking Google Trends for “fake geek girl” and “fake nerd girl.” By March, It had sort of faded from my view. It had been discredited all over the internet, and I figured that was enough.

Feminist Re-Do: 5 Stories That Need a Feminist Re-Write

The sad tragedy of storytelling is that many of our old myths, legends, and fables are built off sexist tropes and ideologies. The sexy vixen, the wicked witch, and the damsel in distress are all classic tropes in storytelling that have been ingrained so heavily in our culture that the everyday person can easily pick them out and identify them. These narratives that so often portray women as weak or evil are especially harmful when we continue to indoctrinate future generations with these sexist tales.

Can we ever undo what these past stories have done to women? Sadly, probably not, but perhaps we can lessen the effects by re-telling and re-interpreting these same stories from a feminist perspective. The advantage here is that writers can take tried and true narratives and characters that people already like, and then make them more complex. The characters and plots of the original stories are often stereotypes or flat, archetypal characters. Reinterpreting these stories with more complexity has the benefit of causing people to like them more than the original by updating them for a modern audience.

There are many stories that have been reinterpreted over the years through a feminist lens, like Cinderella (Ever After), many of Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Once Upon a Time, Fables, etc.) and many more, but there are so many other stories that need a feminist revamp. So here are five stories that I would love to see get a feminist makeover for a contemporary audience.

Theatre Thursdays: Musical Love Triangles

Love triangles are by no means something that’s unique to the stage—they’ve been part of popular storytelling tradition for centuries. And if you’re anything like me, you’re starting to get sick of being asked which “Team” you’re on every time you consume some new media about a group of three people of differing genders. There are some very famous musical love triangles, though, and I’d like to look at a few of them and discuss why they’re problematic and why they almost always end up being unfair to the women involved.

This production of Aida really got literal with the whole triangle thing.

Ink and Luce Talk About Racial Issues: “Following the Plot”

Luce: Welcome back to this edition of Ink and Luce Talk About Racial Issues—can I just say that your username being Ink brings up a lot of issues?

Ink: Right?

Luce: Like, Ink is a black person, of course he is. But let’s get back to Rostad’s video.

Ink: Okay, last post we made a bunch of decisions about the whole piece, except for the last two paragraphs. Frankly, I find them to be the most interesting—they’re not about just Cho Chang, JKR, Harry Potter anymore—now we have this whole issue of what the Asian female-white male relationship looks like. My impression is that there’s this recurring trope of a white male and an Asian female—really, there’s a recurring trope of a white male and every kind of other ethnic female in fiction and popular culture, particularly film, and in a lot of ways that’s because we respond to that much better than the other way around—

Luce: Hold on. You say we respond to it better—but I don’t think that’s the case. I think writers and producers of media think we respond to it better, so that’s what they write. I do think that people would accept, for example, the idea of a protagonist being gay, if only they were given the chance. It’s the same thing with the idea of an Asian male and his white female love interest.

Ink: I think it’s a bit of both actually. First off, let me clarify that when I say “we,” I’m referring to our culture at large—I do believe it’s true that we respond better to a white male and an ethnic female, but let me explain why.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Ransom Riggs’ New York Times bestseller Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is about Jacob Portman, who is not a happy teenager. He has no real friends, school is a bore, his parents are barely parents at all, and his future is both well-planned and depressing. The only interesting part of Jacob’s life is his grandfather, Abe Portman. Abe is a Polish Jew who fought in the later years of WWII. He speaks three languages, knows his way around more than a few weapons, and can tell a tall tale better than anyone.

His tales are mostly about the orphanage on an island in Wales where he was sent as a war refugee. He also keeps a cigar box full of whimsical photographs; one has an invisible boy, another has girl floating, another has a skinny teenager lifting a boulder over his head, and there are many others equally as strange. However, not everything is as sunny as it seems—after a horrific incident Jacob is forced to face his worst fears. Using the clues that his grandfather gave him in his tales and photos, Jacob must find out what made Abe run and who or what he was running from. Grandpa Abe has a secret, and Jacob is determined to find out the truth. However the truth may be just a bit… peculiar.

Web Crush Wednesdays: The Smart Girls Channel

Amy Poehler is an American actress, comedian, producer, writer, and feminist. She is the current star of the excellent show Parks and Recreation, and is close friends with Tina Fey.

Amy Poehler has always been one of my heroes, but recently APerigren introduced me to her YouTube show Smart Girls, a show that interviews women who accomplish amazing things and who have a wide array of interests. Smart Girls truly shows how diverse and talented women and girls are.

The motto of Smart Girls is: Change the World by Being Yourself.

Smart Girls teaches girls to be themselves but still provides guidance to them by showing them fun, creative, strong women for them to emulate. Their mission statement explains:

Here at Smart Girls, we believe that the cultivation of the authentic self is very important. We also believe that guidance is helpful as we try to find our way to ourselves. We hope to be of help in the exploration and discovery process.

This is where you might learn about something you would like to experience. You might learn about a woman you’d like to emulate. You might learn a new perspective or an unfamiliar custom or a new way to talk to yourself about something.

It is our hope that you will learn more about your truest self. (source)

The result is an awesome web series that truly exemplifies how intelligent girls are and how many great female role models there are out there.

One of my favorite videos is an interview with a seven year old feminist, which is just beautiful and ridiculously cute.

There are so many other amazing videos and stories from Smart Girls that are just amazing. Please check them out.

Check out the Smart Girls website and Youtube channel.