Female Redesigns

[Netzilla]

As to the original topic, I can see (and agree with) the complaints about the sameness and color palets of the suggested redesigns. Likewise the lack of heroic proportions. What boggles me are the complaints about daring to have them wear something less revealing or that might offer marginally more protection.

 

All the characters depicted get hit and injured on occasion (thus none are untouchable) and the distraction argument is a weak justification for titillating costumes. If you like skimpy costumes that resemble swimwear more than anything else, just own up to it. Heck, I like a shapely woman in skimpy clothing quite a bit. However, I also realize how such imagery can be off-putting to women in general and is actually counter-productive to getting more female readership. Even if you discount the value of female fandom in its own right, the increased revenue potential is justification enough for change.

 

So toning the costumes back a bit is no bad thing. I think a valid middle exists between the suggested redesigns and the original comic depictions.

[Netzilla]

Learn to recognize a joke when you read one, you soulless robot.

None of what I wrote was intended as a personal attack. You made a mistake and I called you on it. There's no need to get heated over this.

 

Your point about heroic proportions was well-made and cogent. It's unfortunate you took offense, as that provided some solid ideas on how to get to a more reasonable depiction of females in comics while still maintaining superheroic look.

[massey]

Even if you discount the value of female fandom in its own right, the increased revenue potential is justification enough for change.

 

 

I'm going to disagree with you strongly here.  "Increased revenue potential" is a business decision, and a cynical one at that, not an artistic or story-related decision.  By your logic, if someone thinks there's more money in it (more "revenue potential"), that's enough justification to make Supergirl a hardcore porn title.  Why shouldn't Superman carry guns, have regeneration powers, shoot people in the face, curse a lot, and smoke weed all the time?  If it sells more comics, that's all that matters, right?

 

At the end of the day, business decisions have to be balanced with artistic ones.  And these are horrible artistic choices.

 

Anyway, I believe those redesigned costumes would decrease sales significantly.  I don't think Power Girl is going to appeal to a lot of female readers regardless of what you do to her costume.  Comics have an overwhelmingly male audience.  Making her less cheesecake does not mean that feminists in their 20s and 30s are suddenly going to flock to comics stores to buy her book.  You are trying to make her more appealing to a group that does not and will not buy your product.  From a business perspective, it's a terrible idea.  You decrease the appeal to the audience who is buying your product to marginally improve reception with people who are still not going to buy it.  It's like a strip club having a women's Bible study night.

 

Edit:  Comic books are a unique medium, and provide a specialized type of storytelling and art.  Generally they are bright and colorful, and the people wear outlandish costumes and have fantastic powers.  This is one of the conventions of the artistic medium.  Of course it is not realistic.  Superman's friends are the same people as Clark Kent's friends, he does not wear a mask in either identity, and nobody notices.  Batman has a secret identity, but every day he drives his superhero car to his hideout on the same street as his giant mansion, and no one notices.  Nightwing wears a domino mask that conceals less of his face than a pair of sunglasses.  Genre conventions, and not realism, are the order of the day in these comics.  We don't question why Mickey wears pants but no shirt, and Donald wears a shirt but no pants.  Pluto is a dog and can't talk, but Goofy is a dog and drives a car.  Because they are just cartoons.  Realism doesn't come into play.

[Netzilla]

I'm going to disagree with you strongly here.  "Increased revenue potential" is a business decision, and a cynical one at that, not an artistic or story-related decision.  By your logic, if someone thinks there's more money in it (more "revenue potential"), that's enough justification to make Supergirl a hardcore porn title.  Why shouldn't Superman carry guns, have regeneration powers, shoot people in the face, curse a lot, and smoke weed all the time?  If it sells more comics, that's all that matters, right?

 

At the end of the day, business decisions have to be balanced with artistic ones.  And these are horrible artistic choices.

Perhaps I phrased it a bit strong and should have written "a justification" thus removing any implication that I felt sales were the be-all, end-all of costuming descisions. So no need to worry that I'm making a "money-only" argument.

 

Anyway, I believe those redesigned costumes would decrease sales significantly.  I don't think Power Girl is going to appeal to a lot of female readers regardless of what you do to her costume.  Comics have an overwhelmingly male audience.  Making her less cheesecake does not mean that feminists in their 20s and 30s are suddenly going to flock to comics stores to buy her book.  You are trying to make her more appealing to a group that does not and will not buy your product.  From a business perspective, it's a terrible idea.  You decrease the appeal to the audience who is buying your product to marginally improve reception with people who are still not going to buy it.  It's like a strip club having a women's Bible study night.

The redesigns from the original post, I agree, are problematic and stated so earlier. This does not mean that redesigns are always bad. Several male characters have gone through multiple costume changes, some more radical than others, and it's generally considered acceptable.

 

Also, just because comics have traditionally had an overwhelmingly male audience does not mean that it needs always be so. In fact, one of the most off-cited reasons that this has been the case is because of how women are depicted in comics. The fact that comics with more positive and less blatantly titillating female depictions tend to have higher female readership percentages bears this idea out. This is not an attempt to appeal to "feminists" but rather to women in general. With movies drawing more attention to comic book IP, the potential to appeal to a broader audience, including women, exists. Why risk alienating that potential? Do you really believe that removing the cleavage-window in Power Girl's costume is going to cause a significant drop in male readership? Would such a change lack artistic merit?

[massey]

The reason I focus on 20-30 something year old feminists is because I don't think young girls are offended by Power Girl's outfit.  I don't think 9 year old girl is going to notice those things.  By the time a woman gets old enough that this sort of consideration is a factor, I think they are unlikely to purchase comics anyway.  I call them "feminists" not to be derogatory, but to try and distinguish adult women who are buying comics for their own reading, from moms who are buying comics for their kids.  A 27 year old woman who goes into a comic shop looking for a story about an empowered female lead is in a different market than a 27 year old mom who wants to buy little Timmy a book with colorful pictures.  They are basing their purchases on different criteria.

 

I do believe that some percentage of male readers do buy female character comics because of the cheesecake factor, so decreasing that would decrease the number of readers you have.

 

Whether it lacks artistic merit is a question of why you made the change.  You can have a good costume without a cleavage window, but her costume is pretty good right now, so it would need to be one with a strong visual design.  It has to be a good change, not one ordered by a corporate guy to try and boost sales among women.

[Netzilla]

The reason I focus on 20-30 something year old feminists is because I don't think young girls are offended by Power Girl's outfit.  I don't think 9 year old girl is going to notice those things.  By the time a woman gets old enough that this sort of consideration is a factor, I think they are unlikely to purchase comics anyway.  I call them "feminists" not to be derogatory, but to try and distinguish adult women who are buying comics for their own reading, from moms who are buying comics for their kids.  A 27 year old woman who goes into a comic shop looking for a story about an empowered female lead is in a different market than a 27 year old mom who wants to buy little Timmy a book with colorful pictures.  They are basing their purchases on different criteria.

 

I do believe that some percentage of male readers do buy female character comics because of the cheesecake factor, so decreasing that would decrease the number of readers you have.

 

Whether it lacks artistic merit is a question of why you made the change.  You can have a good costume without a cleavage window, but her costume is pretty good right now, so it would need to be one with a strong visual design.  It has to be a good change, not one ordered by a corporate guy to try and boost sales among women.

 

It sounds like you and I aren't terribly far apart on the issue.  We both seem to agree that non-cheesecake costumes can be artistically appealing and will appeal to a broader female audience.  We also both seem to agree that the redesigns linked in the original post lack the general feel of comic book costumes.

 

The main disagreement seems to be that you feel the potential loss of male readership will more than counter any potential gain in female readership.  If that sounds reasonably close, then I think we can proceed from that premise onward.

 

The main argument I would make would be that the mom in your scenario is going to have had her perception of comic books colored (no pun intended) by what she saw of comics growing up.  If her recollections of comics all include women displayed purely in cheesecake costumes, then that's going to inform her decisions on what she buys for her kids (or allows her kids to buy for themselves).  Likewise, such an impression will influence whether or not she would like to get back into reading comics when she's no longer a starving college student or if she'll continue reading after she picks up an issue to learn more about the character in the movie she just saw.

 

Like many of us here, I've been a comics fan pretty much my whole life.  I've discussed this issue with various women over the years because I'm the kind of guy whose always had a lot of female friends (both that I've dated and not).  This covers high school through college and now into middle-age.  When they've learned about my hobbies, it's sparked conversation and it's been nearly universally the case that they'd be more interested in comics if they weren't so obviously geared toward adolescent males.  The fact that female purchases have gone up as comics have gotten better in their depictions of women (as has also been the case for SF/F books & movies, RPGs and video games) suggests that women do not reject comics for being comics but rather for their content.  Give them content more appealing to women and they'll consume that content.  Part of what makes for more appealing content is not depicting female main characters as cheesecake.

 

In addition to the above, I don't think that any would argue the fact that superhero comics are, basically, morality plays.  This isn't true for all, but it's still probably true for most.  It's also pretty common, for better or worse, for comics fans to attribute the development of their own morality to what they read in comics growing up.  Setting aside the morally questionable lesson of conflict resolution through beating people up (which does seem to be a distressingly common event in real life), there is a moral question of what associations comics are setting up for young men in regards to women.  I realize this gets perilously close to a "video games cause violence" argument, but it is something to consider.  Even if negative depictions of women in comics won't set up negative associations (and I suspect it will in at least some segment of the population), the chances that positive depictions can set up positive associations is of value.  A big part of why I've always had more female friends than male and my own attraction to strong-willed assertive women is due to the fact that a lot of genre fiction I read and watched growing up depicted women with those characteristics.  I admired characters like Storm, Polegara, Ripley, Sara Conner and their ilk growing up and I think that's no coincidence.  I also tended to get annoyed weak or overly-salacious depictions of women, so perhaps I'm odd in that regard.

 

So, my very long-winded point is: sure, reject the specific depictions of those female characters linked in the original post, but don't reject the idea of a less cheesecake costume design out of hand.  I think there are many potential benefits to be had from such redesigns.

[massey]

[Simon]

And...someone is done here.

 

Jackalope will no longer be joining us on these forums.

[TheQuestionMan]

Of coarse he wore a mail shirt he was a man's man.

 

 

QM

[Netzilla]

Ouch.

[Enforcer84]

I'm mostly upset that Supergirl and Powergirl lost their capes. 

Edna Mode is a troll 

[Ninja-Bear]

Yes, it is false. You made a blatantly false statement, don't treat others like crap for pointing it out.

Your description of Conan sounds like someone who only ever read the comics, not the source material, it is that blatantly wrong. Conan wore armor every chance he got and he never willingly walked around in a loin cloth. He usually wore the clothing of whatever country he was in (if he could afford or steal it) and was described as being hairy (also unlike the comic).

The examples you so readily dismiss were not all chain mail shirts, they included full chain mail, full plate, and full scale armor. Unless he was trying to be sneaky he never willingly went without armor, period.

I believe in the story "The Black River" he mentioned that he survived the ambush of the picts because he oiled his chainmail and the others would not. (Should use that in a fantasy hero game sometime!)

[assault]

Incidentally, both Power Girl and Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) started off as notionally feminist-influenced characters.

 

No doubt there are other examples from the 70s.

 

Needless there was a backlash - more or less from day one in Power Girl's case - turning them into cheesecake.

 

So yes, the fact that Power Girl is a prime example of the kind of character a feminist wouldn't read these days is ironic in terms of the original intention for the character.

[Ragitsu]

And...someone is done here.

 

Jackalope will no longer be joining us on these forums.

 

Damn, Aside from swearing once or twice, he made some rather salient points (some of which weren't refuted all that well).

[Ragitsu]

Incidentally, both Power Girl and Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) started off as notionally feminist-influenced characters.

 

No doubt there are other examples from the 70s.

 

Needless there was a backlash - more or less from day one in Power Girl's case - turning them into cheesecake.

 

So yes, the fact that Power Girl is a prime example of the kind of character a feminist wouldn't read these days is ironic in terms of the original intention for the character.

 

There's also a weird kind of contradictory subtext: "You can wear what you want, except when we say you can't." Whether it was inserted in to begin with, or slid in later, I can't say.

[Simon]

Damn, Aside from swearing once or twice, he made some rather salient points (some of which weren't refuted all that well).

More than once or twice...and add in multiple personal attacks on other posters.

 

Note: the most egregious of his posts were deleted.

[Comic]

Comic, originally Ben wore a full costume with a helmet to cover his face. He trashed it deliberately the first time out.

 

True enough, but not the point.

 

Ben chose to go, let's be blunt, practically naked.

 

His human body had been monstrously mutilated into a mockery of life. He had an emotional reaction. That response is part of his personality. His character. It was a statement.

 

Wonder Woman should be restricted to a standard we don't apply to The Thing, because someone's afraid teenage boys might get ideas?

 

That's an attitude I can't see Wonder Woman embracing. Or Supergirl. Or anyone male or female with a shred of self-respect.

 

I don't want to tell superheroes what to wear. That's for their creators to do. There is no difference between what was promoted in these redesigns by some random illustrator and that type of censorship. And censoring what heroes wear, for any reason, is censoring the comics.

 

You can see why someone who chooses the name 'Comic' might find that wrong.

[Greywind]

And writers/editors/artists change. Sometimes too frequently.

 

Take Power Girl. Her breasts were a joke. The artist kept drawing them bigger and bigger until the editor caught on and told him to stop. This artist was not Power Girl's creator. Yet the effects that artist had on the character still linger.

[Comic]

And writers/editors/artists change. Sometimes too frequently.

 

Take Power Girl. Her breasts were a joke. The artist kept drawing them bigger and bigger until the editor caught on and told him to stop. This artist was not Power Girl's creator. Yet the effects that artist had on the character still linger.

 

 

That's an internal creative process of a creative team. I'm not really chuffed by it one way or the other.

 

This is external to the creative team, so there's a difference.

 

It's imposing judgments from a narrow worldview to seek to curtail the creative expression of others. So that's a difference.

 

It's not even honest enough to admit that's what it's doing, so that's a hypocrisy.

 

I have no interest in reading comics where everyone dresses like Chairman Mao because someone thought it 'empowered' someone else -- who by the way didn't ask for the 'help' -- somehow threatened by the simple creative actions of pranksters.

 

Comics don't bully people by saying superhumans dress different or have different proportions. Comics are already empowering by presenting those with differences as heroic, as having self-worth, as being entitled to their differences.

 

At least, that's what this Comic is about; and that's very much not what this implied censure by Lord Drably Same represents.

[Enforcer84]

You mean the imaginary character created by guys who create female characters mainly for titillation (I can name 5 non-perfect female body-types in superhero comics (not counting children) -how many can you?) aren't asking to be helped? They are empowered by their creators to dress as scantily as they want? Well, yeah. They're imaginary. 

 

I have no idea what you're talking about with the bullying bit - these are imaginary people made with like 4 body types. The vast majority of characters are physically flawless.  It's one thing to say you don't like his redesigns it's another thing entirely to make him into some kind of horrid opressor of the good people of comicdom. Or do you mean the creators themselves?

[massey]

(I can name 5 non-perfect female body-types in superhero comics (not counting children) -how many can you?) 

 

Aunt May

Etta Candy

Amanda Waller

Volcana

Big Bertha from Great Lakes Avengers (superpowered mode only -- in normal ID she's a fashion model)

Annalee of the Morlocks

 

That's 6!  

[Burrito Boy]

There's also Sponge from DP7.

 

That's 7.

 

Oh, and Zephyr from Harbinger.

 

That's 8.

[Steve]

Hmmm... I can think of three from the New Gods alone:

 

Bernadeth

Granny Goodness

Stompa

[The Arc]

Agatha Harkness

[Enforcer84]

Aunt May

Etta Candy

Amanda Waller

Volcana

Big Bertha from Great Lakes Avengers (superpowered mode only -- in normal ID she's a fashion model)

Annalee of the Morlocks

 

That's 6!  

I'll give you five but trotting out an octogenarian isn't gonna fly. 

Also don't know who Etta Candy is. 

 

Agatha Harkness

Again aged.