Where DC Comics Has Failed

[jadedmusings]

I'm not much into comics. I tried when I was younger and a tom boy, but there wasn't much out there for me, you know? Had I been a child when the internet took off, it might have turned out differently since I'd have access to a wider variety of entertainment and more information about how wide and varied comics can be and are.

Because I live under a rock as far as comics are concerned, I was only peripherally aware that DC was shaking things up and doing a huge reboot of its universe. Supposedly they were going to try and finally tap into that female audience they've never quite reached. The results, however, were...well, less than stellar as Andew Wheeler notes in "No More Mutants: 52 Problems."

We’ve known for a while that the cover to the Catwoman reboot has the character lying on her back barefoot with her legs in the air, baring her cleavage and pouring sparkling white droplets over her boobs. It’s very tasteful. It sets the tone. She’s a thief, you see, and that’s what thieves do; at the end of a long day of thieving they lie on a rooftop and throw diamonds away. Erotically.

But if you still haven’t understood what sort of book this is going to be, the first panel of the first page gives the mission statement. It is boobs. Bosoms. Breasts. The first panel is framed not on the protagonist’s face, but on her brassiered chest. Page two ends on a shot of her derriere. It’s an action shot. Men are unloading their guns on her derriere. On the third story page Catwoman smashes through a window with one boob hanging out of her costume. One might note that she also has a cat hanging out of a box, but there is nothing semiotically sordid about that, no sir.

And it only gets better from there.

This article is a must read for feminists, comic fans, and feminist comic fans. Mr. Wheeler nails so many points on the head and is, simply, spot-on about what's wrong with Catwoman.

But it’s the final five pages that cement this book’s place in comic history, as Catwoman aggressively turns a visit from the Batman into a bat-booty-call, thus reducing years of sexual tension into good old drunken Halloween sex.

Now, when it comes to transparent attempts to pander to the sexual fantasies of fanboys, this one looks unusually progressive. The woman is clearly in control of the situation and is using the willing male for her own satisfaction. This must be what nerds think feminism looks like. The scene is dressed up as female empowerment, but it’s not there for female readers.

It's all well and good for a woman to be in charge of her sexuality, and I love seeing a woman who is allowed to be sexual, but this isn't it. And when her being sexually empowered (supposedly) is shown as the only way to be a strong, independent woman, I have huge issues. I especially have issues if she's spending part of the comic with a breast hanging out or constantly flashing panties. Even being a bisexual woman, I know these books were not made for me and are not pandering to me.

Finally, it's the last two paragraphs that say pretty much everything that needs to be said:

But it’s not the sole responsibility of women to somehow get themselves hired so they can write books that their nieces might buy. Men – yes, even straight ones – will have to make an actual effort to establish that diverse landscape in which some of the female characters do wear pants for 20 whole pages. The problem DC has right now is that too many of their creators decided that their book was going to be the one targeted to that all-important horny adolescent boys niche, and someone else could deal with stuff like ‘women’. Somehow the reboot seems to have set DC back about twenty years.

[...]

Diversity doesn’t happen because you think it should. Diversity happens when you make it happen. DC has said several times that one of its aims with the reboot was “to diversify as much as possible”. The question we have to ask is, what stopped you?

All I can say is "Word."