Ok, so what aspects of the way these characters are drawn cause them to be sexual? I mean, lets look at the Punisher one, this just looks like a pose a body builder would take, which plays into the power fantasy. The first one, well what is it the butts? And I don’t even know about how the last one is sexual but hey whatever floats your boat…
Check out the Hawkeye Initiative. It has dozens of examples showing just how ridiculously oversexualized female comic book characters are by redrawing male characters in similar garb and poses.
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Men who are powerful are sexual.
Go outside and ask any male and if they think women find powerful men sexually attractive. It does not even matter if women do.
I don’t understand why this is even a debate. That men are equally harmed by unrealistic depictions of idealized men in comic books does not diminish the harm women are caused.
I get the feeling that the ridicule behind this is “supposed to be” obvious, but I really don’t see it. Looks good to me!
I kind of like the Captain America one. (These discussions are a bit difficult, since I have to imagine what it would be like to be into guys.)
Well get on out there and see if you can start a market for these, I guess. If you say “Hawkeye” fast enough it sounds like “Hot Guy.”
Sexual appeal can be a side effect of power, but power is not inherently sexual. Most women don’t typically fantasize about doing it with the Incredible Hulk or Darkseid or Galactus.
The way women are typically drawn in comics is inherently sexual. Sex appeal is the only reason that anyone would be drawn or posed like this, because even in a universe governed by mutant superpowers and magic and fantasy there’s just no reason to go into combat dressed like a stripper. The cosplayer on the right is a good example of how out-of-place it looks on a male character.
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He needs to feel more comfortable in his own skin. i can’t tell whether the white balance is off, or whether the boy should get outside more often.
The background is also pretty distracting
This really isn’t what I’m talking about. This isn’t an example of an overly sexualized male character. Unless you think a topless Hulk is also sexualized since, if we were to draw She Hulk topless she would be sexualized.
You’re just taking the sexualization of women and applying it to men, but this does not sexaulize them. Since they are often drawn in quite revealing clothing or in odd positions.
(I mean, come on, you can count the change in his coin purse.)
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Not only is “power” not inherently sexual, power is not even inherently defined. Secondary sexual characteristics are morphological, they can be seen. Power is merely potential. Power itself does not have a direct visual representation - although certain things can symbolize power for the individual. Saying that “muscles = power” is merely one possible value-laden interpretation. The arbitrary quality of this becomes even more apparent in comics where “powers” are commonplace and diverse.
I think that this represents, again, a misunderstanding between “sexual” meaning distinguishing features of sexes, and “sexual” to mean actual sexual activity. The word has several meanings, and people here seem to be using them interchangably, which does not contribute to clarity.
It could be argued that the double-standard is in the eye of the beholder. All these comparisons indicate to me is that double-standards are being applied by many, and are even expected. I don’t relate.
I like his gold/white ensemble though.
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Long thread now, and lotsa thought provoking statements, or statements I readily agree with, but…
Comics, graphic novels… are definitely not cinema. Even if cinema often relies on storyboarding. Cinema, some of the best moves have been to move away from the strange physical caricatures depicted in comics.
Realism in your fiction is very important. It makes the fantasy all the more compelling. It keeps the bubble of believability unbroken. But there are many tradeoffs here, and many ways to do this. And many ways not to do this.
If you contrast 60s cinema with today’s cinema, you will often find slow, laborious, probably many unnecessary scenes. Whereas today you can very often have the problem between showing a really engrossing good story, and confusing that with non-stop action and movement.
Story & characterization which comes about from it is critical. So, when I think of hyper “idealized” bodies, I think mostly of comics and anime which I have forgotten. Some exceptions there, like with “the Darkness”, “Conan”, or “Heavy Metal”.
None, however, which strike me as the most powerful lines I have ever come across. No. For that, there is the Watchmen, Sandman, Bill Sienkiewicz Shadow & Elektra, Death Note, Attack on Titan, the Invisibles, and so on. Where this sort of hyper idealized form is not the substance of the comic, by any means, but the story is. And the characters.
Likewise, in cinema (which I would include as television shows)…
One problem with graphic novels is the format is extremely difficult (even with photo realism) the beauty of characters. The gleam of the eye, the subtle textures of the skin (which I do believe is especially in the advantage of women).
I do think beauty is a very important component of any good art, but I almost hate to say it: it is the inner beauty which ultimately matters the most. That requires characterization. Inner beauty, I do believe, however can have form to it. But that form is not about nakedness and strange idealizations of the body.
I have rarely seen inner beauty reflected in cinema and much less comics or even in photos anywhere near what I have seen in real life. One good example for me which comes to mind (that others have seen, though I am fully aware some readers here have been privy to celestial forms, to use a term): Jim Morrison. Photos of him everywhere in the world in his classic “lion” or crucifix pose, but video of the man even if blurry is far more brilliant because he had quite a brilliant soul. Known men and women like this, but right now, he is the only good example I can think of who is famous and shows their beauty.
(Known some ones people would be aware of, but who hide it.)
How about “sexual” meaning “costumes designed to showcase T&A rather than any other purpose?”
It’s not like Emma Frost is showing a lot of skin because she’s about to go swimming and she’s wearing a swimsuit (Namor the Sub-Mariner) or she’s wearing a skin-tight leotard because she’s going to do some acrobatics (Spider-Man). She’s a flippin’ telepath with a background in academia for crying out loud. She doesn’t have any more reason to dress like that than Professor Xavier does.
Of course there are double standards. That’s the point.
I don’t mind if some comics feature male characters dressed and posed like strippers, but that’s not how comic artists usually depict them and thus when we do see them that way it seems atypical. It IS how comic artists frequently draw female characters.
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Oh my god. It does not matter what women actually fantasize about.
Men in general don’t fantasize about 6’ tall size zero starving waif models. And yet, clothing models still portray an unrealistic image of beauty that women are harmed by.
And if you think that beefcake men aren’t sexualized because they aren’t posing with their bums sticking up, then perhaps you haven’t seen what men being intentionally sexualized looks like:
In other words, pretty much what a male superhero looks like except with less obvious bulge in their pants and usually topless instead of an impossibly skin-tight “shirt” (really painted skin).
I officially do not comprehend what you think you’re arguing against, if this forms a logical part of your answer. That attitude is the point. You, many readers, artists and editors also do not believe that women’s opinions are relevent. And that’s the problem.
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That’s some impressive manipulation of context.
I suppose I might not be communicating clearly enough. That would be my fault. I suppose this is a difficult concept to understand. Let me try one last time. It could simply be too difficult a idea to communicate that everyone is harmed by the patriarchy.
Your perception of what the opposite gender finds sexually gratifying is more important than what the opposite gender actually finds sexually gratifying when talking about harm caused by these kinds of images.
You believe that there are a huge number of men who find ridiculously posed women with huge butts stuck out to be highly sexually attractive. That may or may not be the case (I haven’t done a survey - most just look more silly or scary than sultry to me). It does not actually matter though because you and a good number of women believe it to be the case.
The opposite is also true. A great number of men think that heavily muscular beefcake men portrayed in comic books are highly sexually attractive for women. This harms men regardless of whether that is the case or not.
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That would be a definition of “secondary sexual characteristics”, as in body types. As opposed to having sex with somebody, which can embody certain sexual behaviors. There are practical reasons why male portrayals focus less on “T&A” - because pronounced tits and ass are not representative of male body types, while features such as angular muscles, broad shoulders and chests are. When we define “sexual” as referring simply to body type, I think the distinctions make sense. Your average healthy male is not going to have big breasts to show off, no more than your average healthy female is going to have shoulders which are 1/4 of her height. I see these differences as being statistical, rather than reflecting people’s value judgements.
Where things seem to get confused is the bleedover from recognizing and even exaggerating obvious physical differences, to the assumption that this implies sexual behaviors and/or activities. It seems to me that this occurs with many people on most sides of the debate here. Being depicted with a round ass, big muscles, or lots of nice skin does not directly correspond to portrayal of sexual situations. I am going to guess here that female superheroes are not depicted in actual sexual situations any more than male ones are, or this would likely have been publicized. Instead, what I read is that the sex is implied based upon the form and presentation of the body. I think there is a cogent argument to be made that this then is fundamentally a difference in perception.
Sort of. I think that much of the criticism I read also embodies some double standards, as much as it points out others which are perhaps more obvious.
What characteristics would make a male’s costume sexual?
Nothing is “inherently” “defined”, since words are defined by use, not by some word-etalon stored in a hyperbaric soundless chamber 500m below sea-level and stored at a constant -5° Kelvin*
What this represents is a misunderstanding between how you think your mind works, and how you want the collective mind of society to work. Even if the first instance is an accurate representation, there is an impedance mismatch with the second.
* YES I KNOW
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