Wow. Superhero comics are already borderline unreadable, since long-term serialization destroys any semblance of coherence in both story and characterization, but they also seem to have really terrible fans (admittedly, the internet turns everyone into an angry teenage boy, regardless of actual demographic).
Somewhat relatedly, why is this discussion so long, vitriolic, and largely irrelevant?
Thatâs a pretty big assumption, that these supposed âhalf-pointsâ are in any way intended to justify sexist bullshit. Since the sexismâs so damn obvious, perhaps youâd do those of us supposedly defending it the courtesy of considering that perhaps itâs obvious to us too?
Sexism is one of many ills deriving from a lack of unity and fraternity, and you think itâs worth trying to solve by being all hysterically partisan? Please.
Letâs start by calling things what they are, instead of inviting corrections galore by spraying unjustified hyperbole around.
16yo character or not, in just about every instance of somebody like @beschizza attempting to tar somebody with the paedo brush here, itâs totally a foul, because the fact sheâs 16 isnât apparent or very relevant unless youâre au fait with the story inside⌠itâs not like Iâve seen anyone before your post trying to justify the publishersâ depiction of a child. Pretty sure we all agree itâs sleazy.
And someone made a good point that if they arenât implants in the story, then theyâre not implants despite how implanty they look; thatâs just bad art, so letâs call it that. Or if you want to be all pissed-off and ranty about it, you might say itâs misogynistic art that fosters unrealistic expectations⌠but FFS, I havenât seen a satisfactory reply to the argument that this art is equally unrealistic in its depiction of men, so thereâs that⌠this shot would be better aimed at womenâs magazines. You know, that utter fucking dross, with all the celebrity photochopping that women inexplicably continue to lap up?
The obvious exaggerations âhalf-nakedâ and âhead-sizedâ, along with the implant call, just sound like someone playing âmy PC-ness is bigger than yoursâ to me, and I wasnât the only one to call Rob on it. If you ask me, the issue behind this cover art is cynical hind-brain button-pressing by The Man, with no regard for the cumulative long-term effects in general, and I totally think thatâs a conversation worth having.
But most of whatâs going on in this thread amounts to wannabe feminists hamfistedly painting pedants as misogynists, whether they are or not. Itâs pathetic. If I keep seeing this kind of shit, Iâm going to have to re-think my relationship to Boing Boing.
Inaccurate, OTT headline.
So you believe that sexual objectification is just as big a problem for male characters as female characters, but then you go on to say this:
Leaving aside your implication that any female character who doesnât look like a porn star must be an âugly hagfest,â it clearly isnât the case that male characters have to be sexually attractive to sell comics. Think Spawn, Deadpool, Swamp Thing, the Toxic Avenger just for starters. Even when thereâs a female counterpart to a grotesque male hero sheâs usually drawn to look like an overmuscled supermodel (think She-Hulk).
Sexism in comics and the comic-reading community is NOT 50/50 or anywhere near it. To believe otherwise requires a willful ignorance of the entire history of the medium.
Hey man, comics gave me my share of body image issues as a kid. I remember wistfully perusing the Charles Atlas adsâŚ
Calling it âsexual objectificationâ kinda obscures what youâre trying to illustrate a bit IMO, since people have a hard time seeing that applying to men, and there are one or two other possible motivations for wanting to look like a superhero besides being attractive; I donât think itâs fair to point out comics and say, âlook how sexist they areâ when theyâre pretty much as sexist as any other mainstream product of our culture.
âŚIâm reminded of that awesome song title of Nirvanaâs; Radio Friendly Unit Shifter. Iâm sad to see this opportunity to hang shit on capitalism so widely missed.
IMO womenâs magazines are far worse; thereâs no such opaque sneakiness about the sexism in comics.
If you want a comic which deals somewhat more seriously with well-endowed ladies â admitting that theyâre fun to draw and look at but also recognizing the difficulties of being one â Iâd like to recommend Waspi Square. Itâs classified as âsupernatural slice-of-lifeâ, and alternates between high adventure sequences and those dealing with more ordinary issues (though somewhat exaggerated by the nature of the characters). Good storytellingâŚ
âŚand an interesting contrast to this specific discussion because one of the characters weâre currently spending a lot of time with is a young siren who has just hit rather major physical development with very little warning.
BTW, I agree with the others who have criticized the headline as incorrect (she isnât half-naked, just spandexed) and making rude assumptions (not everyone who is buxom has implants, even at age 16). Definite clickbait, and to my way of thinking a good example of how BB has gotten desperate and gone downhill, not necessarily in that order.
Despite how many high-quality, thoughtful, long-form posts from you Iâve seen, Iâm just gonna write you off as a misogynist for disagreeing with the hyperbole.
Although the article that brought this up is partially focussed on the appropriate depiction of female comic characters, the original post here on BoingBoing was more about the inappropriate reactions of commenters and I think that topic is really what needs to be addressed.
The escalating nature of derogatory and threatening comments is something that we need to find out a solution to. As is the nature of all such mob driven mechanisms, the people who are most commonly directly harmed by it are the people who have less power politically and socially: women, minorities and people with lifestyles or opinions which are different from the ignorant bigots who are unfortunately drawn to anonymous forums like moths to a flame. But ultimately it also harms all of us by making these forums which could be, and sometimes are, tremendously positive, useful, life-affirming things, place to be avoided or ignored.
I personally have found the recent move on BoingBoing to sequestering the comments on a separate page from the post to be a pleasant relief as I often find that it is hard to really consider the original post when it is covered up by page after page of snark. Occasionally, if I think that a particular topic is one that might lend itself to useful additions from us masses, I will dip into the comments page but even on seemingly innocuous topics, this often leads to unpleasant quips which have little relevance to the post and do nothing to move the discussion forward in a positive direction.
Anyway, this segregation is a good start, but we need to figure out a better way to facilitate discussion on the web which promotes useful, interesting dialogue while weeding out trolling and other anti-social behavior and minimizes un-considered bickering.
Moderation as it is typically done now does not really cut it since it is by and large something that happens after the comments have been made. Even if inappropriate comments are deleted very quickly, it is difficult to turn the tide of a discussion that has gone off the rails. We need some sorts of mechanisms that happen before the discussion even starts that gives it a fighting chance to become a positive, useful, civil discussion. By-the-way, I donât mean that it should be all peaceful and light, there are ways to have heated or contentious discussions and still have them remain civil and thoughtful.
Voting comments up in the moment doesnât work as the comments on get voted up on sites that do this often end up being simply those that appeal to the same sort of mob mentality that creates this problem, but perhaps some sort of personal ranking based on who trusts your thoughts or opinions might be part of the strategy (perhaps with some sort of cloaking of your identity, not anonymous but hidden and verified if need be).
Another part of the strategy both on verified comment communities and on sites that allow wild-west commenting could be a renewed and deeply thought-out discussion of what makes a good rational argument in the first place.
And lastly I would propose a carefully thought-out and constructed strategy by those of us who care about treating our fellow human beings kindly or justly to deal with purveyors of hate-speech on the internet. The idea of âDonât feed the trollsâ works for now, sort-of. If we can get everyone on a site to just ignore the belligerent and/or violent jerks who are just there to get a rise out of people, most of them will eventually wander off to bother someone else that they can get more of a response from.
But the problems with that response are, 1. that they do wander off to somewhere and spew their hate there, and 2. that even if they are only on the board for a little while, they are still hijacking the conversation and pulling it off in a negative direction where even the best intentioned commenters are affected by what they say, whether by being goaded into arguing with them, being bullied into being silent, being distracted from the more interesting things that they could be saying or by having their conversation become awkward and stilted. Imagine trying to have an interesting debate with other intelligent people while having a moron yell profanity in your ear.
If a sufficiently large number of people on any comment page stood up to these bullies and eloquently and calmly explained why their position is BS, offensive, and intolerable while practicing effective tactics to avoid being pulled into arguing with them, I believe many of these discussions could be brought back on track more quickly and with greater resistance to being sucked back down into their rabbit hole.
If people who felt that they had been persecuted on the internet and elsewhere started to feel that they could speak out on a comment page or forum and have a growing army of people who behind them who would stand up to promote a civil discussion whether they agreed with them or not, I think more of them would start to feel safe and empowered to be a part of the discussion.
A woman should not have to worry about being personally attacked or threatened if she speaks up in a public forum. Just saying that that is the way of the internet and we all have to just live with it is not good enough. If enough of us stand up and say that it isnât right and put enough thought into minimizing it, we can change the tide.
So you didnât read the article either.
Iâm sure plenty of boys feel inadequate next to unrealistically rendered superheroes, but itâs still a false equivalence because both male and female characters are typically drawn for the enjoyment/fantasy fulfillment/expectations of male readers.[quote=âKimmo, post:182, topic:29080â]
Calling it âsexual objectificationâ kinda obscures what youâre trying to illustrate a bit IMO, since people have a hard time seeing that applying to menâŚ
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The only media Iâve ever seen where men are sexually objectified in the same way that women are in comics is romance novels. (And presumably gay porn, but thatâs not really my thing.)
HUGE points for pointing out Kate Beatonâs Wonder Woman. Thatâs the WW that should make the big screenâŚ
In fact I didnât, because that headline put me off. If the headline had actually discussed the issue, I might have followed up.
Lesson: DROP THE CLICKBAIT, WRITE ABOUT THE SUBJECT.
The underlying article is excellent, I urge everyone who got this far in the discussion to please read it:
If the author got rape/death threats for that, shame on those people, and most of all shame on whatever site allowed that sort of hateful community content to make it on a web page at all.
Dear Kimmo,
Iâm sorry I didnât use the technically accurate headline âCan you figure out whatâs wrong with this picture of a half-naked 16 year-old girl with breast implants the size of a canteloupe?â instead of the grossly hyperbolic âCan you figure out whatâs wrong with this picture of a half-naked 16 year-old girl with breast implants the size of her head?â
This outrageous lie, on my part, fully justified the distraction that its correction necessitated from everything else that the original post was obviously about to anyone humane enough to read it: the threats the author was subjected to, the sexism of the art, the cyclical failure of the industry to accommodate female voices, the detailed analyses posted by The Daily Beast and others ⌠all subjects whose worthiness must wait another day because the Teen Titanâs breasts were not quite as large as I suggested in a funny headline.
As for my subsequent suggestion that itâs inappropriate to furiously begin googling and posting pictures of porn stars to prove some quixotic point about breast size vis-a-vis their ownerâs heads? And various objections to equivocating sexualized minors with adults? That was, of course, prudish old Rob tarring you and others as pedophiles, as you sayâa word that, despite having not once been mentioned by me, was seemingly never far from the minds of all those so carefully euphemising the âyoung womenâ that are apparently the only subjects of discussion they want to address.
If I keep seeing this kind of shit, I'm going to have to re-think my relationship to Boing Boing.
Donât let it hit you on the way out!
Do you think comics are any more sexist than mainstream culture in general, though?
I think the bigger story in this thread is the number of folks seeking approval for their feminist pose⌠doubtless an indicator of progress, but still pretty annoying when much of it amounts to mere ad hominem.
I call bs. I can look at an womenâs magazine at the depictions of males. They are analogous to the depiction of men in comics.
Bravo. Thank you. It only took 186 comments to get to one of the best comments ever posted at Boing Boing, and I knew it would be worth it.
If an author gets that reaction for ANYTHING short of issuing equivalent threats, something is very wrong. That was the story. That should have been the headline. Instead, Beschizza flat-out demanded digression, and then complained when thatâs what happened.
WRITE. Or donât post. Or donât complain.
Iâd have thought one of the best-ever comments posted at BB would be less self-evident. But apparently youâd guess I wouldnât agree with it, or Iâd expect less of the dismissive scorn.
Thankfully there are more folks here to talk to than just yourself; some of whom recognise there isnât one inaccuracy in your headline, but three.
One wouldnât rate a mention on my part, but your spluttering hyperbole in this case is enough to get me considering whatâs behind it. Given how artfully youâve wordsmithed in your troublingly zealous straw-manning of me here, Iâm going to go ahead and posit you arenât actually stupid, although I do suspect your desperate feminist posing has some unconscious motivationâŚ
Also, clickbait.
I guess thatâs a compliment , but youâll have to pardon me if I doubt your self-appointed position of moral superiority.
