Because it was thirty years ago, delivered to a twenty-year old, and sounds like a ridiculous oversimplified caricature of an idea that is actually not totally insane if you are able to think about it with half an ounce of nuance instead of knee-jerk reaction? (Also because it’s clearly a bait-y headline of the “lets get feminist outrage clicks” variety?)
Like believe it or not, there’s nothing in the statement “if you draw women, you’re colonizing them with your eyes” that says “never, ever draw a woman or you are evil,” which seems to be what everyone is reacting to because this is ground zero for male freeze peach nerdrage. But the male gaze is a real thing, male (and white) author/artists receiving accolades for their graphic interpretations of female (and non-white) stories while actual female (and non-white) creators struggle to have their artistic voices heard is a real thing, and if you can’t deal with “hey maybe consider the position of societal power you have over people who are the subject of your artwork and how that affects said artwork” then maybe you’re a shitty artist. But I grant that I wouldn’t have been able to suss that out during undergrad, so I’m accepting that the message didn’t get through at that time (if ever) and is now remembered as a single shocking sentence in isolation–misremembered or misinterpreted.
