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The salient points of this issue are mentioned here, as well as in other places that were linked from WFA a few weeks ago. (If you want more proof the world is a sad, stupid place, scroll down on the former link and check out the some of the asshattery in
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crazy_elf_girl's comments."Basically, righteous objection is raised over these two pictures:
No, I don't care when they were drawn in relation to each other. Frankly I find Hughes's version even more insulting than Turner's.
It's not about realism. *sigh* I'll try to explain this slowly.
One of the special magic of reading comics (reading books, watching movies), is that for a little while you can experience the world of the story through the characters that you see - for a while, you inhabit those characters. Even if you don't identify with them per se, you can still 'be' them. They're strong, intelligent, honourable, attractive, and even if they have flaws they're somehow heroic ones. And yes, they have perfect, idealized bodies, even the male characters.
It's be easy for guys to want to be Superman or Batman - their kind of idealized bodies are the stuff of action movies. All women want perfect bodies too, but when I see Power Girl, you know what I see? A PORN STAR. Only porn stars have bodies like that. Yes, the male ideal can be harmful and/or impossible to attain, but the kind of 'ideal' in the above pictures is demeaning and ridiculous, and it clearly only exists for men to fetishize.
So, just to reiterate. . .it's not about whether or not Power Girl's boobs are realistic. Believe it or not, there *are* real women out there with breasts that size. Like these two ladies:
Meet Dixie Bubbles and Summer Cummings. They're porn stars.
Do I want to be a porn star? No, not particularly. Do I find those images by Hughes and Turner empowering. . .would I want to be Power Girl? No. All they do is take me out of the story, kick me onto the curbside with a big sign that says 'boys only!'. And yes, there is room for cross-gendered inhabitation, but that is, well. . . complicated, and not nearly as wonderful as finding that Paper Mirror.
But that doesn't matter, does it? Why give a shit about what women need or find enjoyable? Everyone knows women are worth less than men anyways, and that they're only good for ogling and having sex with.
April 12 2007, 03:45:27 UTC 5 years ago
Is a chest cutout really necessary in a superhero costume? Do fishnet tights seriously offer any kind of superhero confidence in the public? Do the artists only think that women in these comics are there for sexual gratification for their male audience? Almost every time, I discover that the answers are No, No, and Of course you silly little female.
Also, I can only imagine the back pain those women suffer--I've got almost constant low- to mid-level pain in my back and shoulders, and my boobs aren't as big as theirs.
April 12 2007, 09:56:19 UTC 5 years ago
Oh, the hypocrisy.
April 12 2007, 12:43:49 UTC 5 years ago
April 12 2007, 14:08:23 UTC 5 years ago
April 15 2007, 03:57:34 UTC 5 years ago
And yet there's so much mocking of things like yaoi and slash or comics with lovely boys in them. Anything women want or like must be scorned because... because why? Force of habit? Because it's terribly important in this culture for men to have a lofty hill to stand on? Or, because it makes the fanboys understand how women feel when they see contorted females in mainstream comics, and makes fanboys realise they're not special beings, that their ogling of boobies is just the same as a fangirl appreciating a nice rear?
Oh, I dunno. I just agree with you and the original post, and will sit here and steam inarticulately.
April 12 2007, 20:34:17 UTC 5 years ago
Which pretty much summs up in its entirety why Wizard magazine and the fanboy mentality it espouses make me so fucking mad.