Marvel Divas & American Superhero Comics As A Medium

[timepiececlock]

I remember reading reactions from the comics fans on my flist when the cover for Marvel's new potential series Divas was leaked. It seemed pretty offensive, but I was prepared to dismiss it as used-to-it-whatever stuff from media entertainment, but today I saw a quote that prompted me to make login accounts with a bunch of different websites just so I could shout back at the stupidity. And I'm not even a comics reader! But the sad thing is, I'm so close to being one. I even considered it after watching the Wolverine movie. And yet, every time I almost jump in, something sends me running in the opposite direction. Like this.

"If you're [a] Marvel reader and truly feel we're sexist, then why are you reading our books? Now, perhaps you're not a Marvel reader, then if that's the case, I'm not quite sure what you're criticizing if you don't read our books?" - Joe Quesada

I could go on about Quesada’s dispiritingly poor use of hypothetical "logic" to make his point, or I could talk about the sexism *in* the argument he advocates. Or wait, I could do both! Let me do a comparable example to match his:

Approx. July of 1776 - August of 1920
M: “Oh, you don’t like not being able to vote? Well, why are you an American? Why don’t you go live somewhere else, huh? Unless you’re *not* an American, in which case, baby doll, I don’t think you actually understand what democracy means and of course no one will give you votes if that’s the case. But I’m sure you don’t really want to be involved in politics anyway, since it’s not really of interest to ladies, we all know that.”

Sounds pretty ridiculous, right?

So was his argument. Let's break it down:

"If you're [a] Marvel reader and truly feel we're sexist, then why are you reading our books?"

That statement, and its use of pronoun, says loud and clear that Quesada does not consider women and girls as any part of Marvel's audience. Not even a little. People who might find it sexist--which it's clear Quesada assumes is only women--are not part of "our". That's the first problem.

The second is the sheer ridiculousness of that statement. Women and girls, just like men and boys, read superhero comics because women and men like superheroes. They like adventure and battles and cool costumes and larger-than-life stories. Since Marvel is a behemoth in the industry with decades of beloved characters, the idea that women aren't going to read them is ridiculous. And what, should women stop going to movies because they think most movies have male protagonists? Stop watching tv? Stop reading Sci-Fi novels? Give up on media altogether? That's nonsense. Women read comic books because they like the best of Marvel, not the worst.

"Now, perhaps you're not a Marvel reader, then if that's the case, I'm not quite sure what you're criticizing if you don't read our books?"

There's a neat little circle trap that doesn't even try to veil itself in tact or artistry of prose. Only people in the audience can criticize, but if women don't like what they see, then it's better for them to stop reading rather than to criticize!

Yeah, nothing sexist there. ^eyeroll^ You can read the full statement here, scroll down near the bottom. It actually gets worse with context.

The thing is, here, I am the perfect candidate for Marvel to build their female audience up. I'm a nerd girl with long fangirl history. I love geek stuff. I watch the movies. I read the books. I watch anime and read manga. I go to conventions. I talk and talk and talk about the geeky media that I love. I harp on continuity and I applaud characterization. I will spend money. I'll by junk just because it has a character's face on it. I'm a freaking dream to these companies. Why aren't they courting me? Courting us?

I was discussing with irrel why both of us like manga (well, I like anime, and I sort of like manga in conjunction with that) but neither of us can really get into American comics or comic-based cartoons. And what we both agreed on was that we just don't feel welcome. Just looking at the art, it screams "FOR BOYS FOR BOYS FOR BOYS." At least with manga, even with all the sexism I complain about, I still can tell that manga exists for both male and female audiences. It has both male and female creators. It sells, and sells well, to male and female readers. There's gender divisions in the material, but there's still manga writers and artists who cross those divisions. Women who write shonen series like FMA and Ranma. Even if the communication is rough, I feel that at least they know female readers exist.

I have had a limited amount of exposure to American comics. It's all what seeps in through pop culture and shows like I Love The 80s. I know the big characters, the ones on t-shirts or in the movies, and the ones from occasional viewings of tv cartoons. That's where I come from when I say that I look at Marvel and DC comics in the bookstores and all I see is "Not for you! Not for you!"

So instead, I watch anime, and sometimes, if I buy anything in a drawn format, I buy manga. There's a few titles I'm very loyal to. Some of them are overtly for girls (Furuba) and some of them aren't (Blade of the Immortal), but both types invite me in rather than pushing me out.

This is just a question, but... are the American comics industry even bothering to ask themselves why girls and women are latching onto Asian comics, cartoons, and fetishist stuff? Is that discussion happening?

Because I can see the reality of it in comic stores and book stores. And I can promise you that it's not the submissive-clumsy female leads or the influence of a sexist culture that's attracting me, because I can find that in American entertainment media just as easily. It's something more. And if the comics industry in America could convince me that I'd find that something in American comics, and if the art wasn't quite so off-putting with the asses and the boobs, I'd probably try picking up a comic book. But I'm not feeling the love from Marvel and DC, not really. And that's their loss.


ETA: I have read one Western comic series--I read several volumes of Elfquest in middle school because my local library had it on the shelf. Loved it. Whatever the "something" was, they had it.

Comments

[mekosuchinae.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen most professionals in the American comics industry have no idea why manga and anime are so popular here in North America; many of them are outright dismissive of manga and anime in their entirety and belittle readers who do like manga and anime. I think I've seen maybe one discussion re: why girls and women are purchasing Asian comics, cartoons, etc., and the conclusion was basically "I have no idea why."

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

I get the 'roll my eyes' gut feeling that the reason they don't know is because they're not actually asking female fans, they're probably asking the male fans.

[mekosuchinae.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're definitely not asking the female fans; they very rarely do on any subject, and on the few occasions when they cannot ignore fannish outcry (such as with Divas or that horrific Mary Jane statue Marvel tried to put out a couple years back) they are dismissive, sexist, and clearly not listening.

I'm not even certain they're reaching out to the male fans for explanations, either: DC and Marvel, as companies, are largely set in their ways and they aren't terribly interested in constructive communication with fans or other, non-mainstream comics professionals.

....augh, see, and I LOVE superhero comics, I adore superhero comics, I will continue to purchase superhero comics until the industry collapses, humanity destroys itself, or I die. But right now it is really hard to remember why I love them!

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

*hug*

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

This is interesting, but sadly doesn't answer the overall question.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

This provides a reasonable breakdown that I'd mostly agree with:

"I think that the problem is that American comics do not provide the emotional content girls crave. That is why we love Japanese comics. Neither really provides a decent role model, and Japanese comics tend to reinforce sexist, negative stereotypes of girls and women, but at least the characters are three dimensional.

We cannot change the ideals of another country, especially when our own country is in a state of female identity crisis and celebration of raunch culture. We cannot stop girls from reading shoujo manga, nor should we. Japanese comics offer us the rare chance to view another culture different from our own. But, if we want girls to get "the right message," we have to send it to them ourselves. We have to make our own comics. We have to be the change we want to see in American comics and perhaps even in American culture."

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

From what I've seen most professionals in the American comics industry have no idea why manga and anime are so popular here in North America; many of them are outright dismissive of manga and anime in their entirety and belittle readers who do like manga and anime. I think I've seen maybe one discussion re: why girls and women are purchasing Asian comics, cartoons, etc., and the conclusion was basically "I have no idea why."

Well, and what it usually comes down to when I've seen it discussed is "manga has girly things like emotions and romance and shopping and unicorns, so it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT from American superhero comics and therefore it's completely unreasonable to expect that American superhero comics could ever appeal to girls or women, because they would have to change so drastically that they wouldn't be superhero comics any more," like basically what it comes down to is that misogyny is just *so precious* and so necessary to the genre that everything would collapse without it, I guess...?

And it's like, dude, yes, there is Relationship Manga and Teen Angst Manga and High School Drama Manga-- like, "Twilight," except manga--! But there's also SO MUCH manga out there that's popular with girls, and it's fantasy action adventure with ninjas and magic powers and monsters and giant robots-- *superheroes*, even if they're not CALLED superheroes. What was Sailor Moon? She was a superhero! She's Ultimate Peter Parker in a skirt! It's not that "girls don't like superheroes!" But you STILL see people saying this all the time, despite the explosion of manga that is basically superheroes-for-girls.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

Sailor Moon was my very first anime. She is, to this day, the only superhero I've ever fangirlled in an animation & comics medium. In total? She's one of two superheroes I've ever fangirlled...the other being Buffy. Who also didn't get to be called a superhero.

Sailor Moon is actually part of the reason I keep looking with curiousity at comics, wondering if I should get involved. Even though it was flawed, I adored Sailor Moon. I loved that she was a superhero who spent all her school day exhausted because she spent half her nights running around in a ridiculous outfit fighting monsters and crime. I loved that she had to balance having a real life with having a superhero responsibility.

And then she had a team! A whole team of other superhero girls with the same superhero problems! And she had a superhero boyfriend whose identity she didn't know IRL, but kind of knew anyway and had contentious flirting with! When I revisit the fandom I still tend to read/watch stuff from the first season--the season when identities were still secret, when the pressure to be normal vs. super was at its most realized.


All things considered, Buffy was a better superhero because she got more done and did it better than SM. But Buffy wasn't a traditional superhero. She didn't hide in a costume, and her identity was known. Even to the point that she, by the open name of Buffy Summers, was the Boogieman of all low-level vampires and demons in the town. She felt the desire to be normal, but after the first two seasons she didn't have to hide who she was.

I like secret identities, and costumes, and mistaken identities and hidden roles. I've always liked that about superhero stuff. SM was the only show I've ever really fangirlled that gave me that.

(coherency potentially limited by finals panic.)

[mekosuchinae.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, yes, I am hugely unsurprised that they would use that as an argument. (I had to take a moment to breathe deeply so I could refrain from putting my fist through something fragile, like my computer screen.)

Along with that there's the idea that boys couldn't possibly be interested in stories that deal with emotions and relationships, which very neatly ignores the very large group of male readers who are interested in emotional storytelling and relationships, as everyone knows emotions and romance are the purview of women and therefore uninteresting and inferior. And I hate that women are told not to read superhero comics if they don't like misogyny for all the reasons detailed - because it's demeaning, because it's stupid, because it assumes that women are just looking for things to complain about, because evidently it is impossible to love something and yet notice flaws that need to and can be corrected, because ultimately what it says is that women are unimportant - but also because the assumption is that it's okay and even expected to encourage and sell misogynistic storytelling and imagery to boys and men. It's not. It isn't okay to sell that shit to anyone.

And it's like, dude, yes, there is Relationship Manga and Teen Angst Manga and High School Drama Manga-- like, "Twilight," except manga--! But there's also SO MUCH manga out there that's popular with girls, and it's fantasy action adventure with ninjas and magic powers and monsters and giant robots-- *superheroes*, even if they're not CALLED superheroes.

Yes, yes, yes, THANK YOU. As if girls and women don't compose the majority of the shounen-reading audience in the USA, as if shoujo consists entirely of melodramatic love stories set in middle or high schools and never once delves into epic fantasy or philosophical science fiction or superheroism (and as if melodramatic love stories are somehow immediately devoid of any artistic value), as if it's impossible to enjoy emotional storytelling AND dudes getting punched in the face, as if everything can be simplified to a single argument which can then be discarded so the comics industry can go on without being forced to do something terrifying like change.

BLAH.

[mekosuchinae.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I just realized my second paragraph reads like BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BOOOOYS, which is not what I intended. Excellent, Mem, good job.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

From Women In Comics And Manga, page 2

Sara: I'm wondering where the creators fit in all of this. Barbara, you mentioned that superhero comics are still predominantly male. Meanwhile, the magic girl genre is created primarily by female manga-ka. Do you think this affects the differences we've pointed out?

Barb: I think it does. They play on different fantasies. Women and men have different fantasies in pop culture, because of the ways the genders are divided. For men, the fantasy seems often to be Desired. They want to be Most Desired Above All. They want to be powerful, save the girl, beat up the bad guy. It's a very primal fantasy. Women tend to fantasize about having the power they're denied in the real world. Women can get men, but they have to act a certain way to do it. They have to relinquish their assertiveness and their identity. So their fantasy tends to be about being able to be strong and assertive and not be called an unwoman for it. Sailor Moon gets to be powerful and wear a flowing dress and get the guy and no one insists that by saving the day, she's castrating Tuxedo Mask.

Casey: So, in other words, men want to be recognized and rewarded for being powerful, and women just don't want to be punished for being powerful.

Barb: At its core, right now? Yes. I think that's it exactly.

[mswyrr]

You pinned his facile little argument down and dissected it very neatly, but I just can't resist poking my scalpel in this bit:

I'm not quite sure what you're criticizing if you don't read our books?

Yeah. This guy, being a white guy, doesn't get how images in media actually shape the shit we Others have to put up with.

"If I'm promoting dehumanizing propaganda about you but you don't have to read it, what's the problem?"

All the fuckers walking around with your propaganda in their heads in my fucking world! Grr. Not to mention the idea that there are spaces I have to avoid because I'm dehumanized there, but there are no such spaces for the American comics target audience.

I'm a freaking dream to these companies. Why aren't they courting me? Courting us?

Isn't it amazing? Shit like sexism and racism can actually dig so deep it makes people act against their own greedy self-interest! It's astonishing.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ri/]

Elfquest happens to be co-written & drawn by a woman.

That said I agree with your post.

[octopedingenue]

I want to burn Quesada's head with acid on fire. Oh my god, you bastard, please die or have a religious conversion and move to Austria so that someone who is not a misogynist jerk can get a shot at making me not want to kill them.

I love many things about Marvel and about American superhero comics, but their treatment of women and women fans is not one of them.

[octopedingenue]

And check out Girl-Wonder.org, especially Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed).

[zebeckras.livejournal.com]

I just like the very basic circular logic here:

Either you're reading something you don't like, so you should stop;
Or you're NOT reading something and therefore don't know what is in it.

Either way, Marvel is not sexist, so Marvel WINS!

...??

And like you, I'm the ideal candidate for Marvel to court. I've been a lifelong comic fan and for the most part up until my teens I was very loyal to Marvel. I didn't discover manga until I was out of high school, and by that point I made the shift *because* of the growing sexism. Yeah - I really felt it was actually *growing* at that point, not actually from how it had been up through the sixties perhaps, but - I was totally spoiled by Chris Claremont, who actually created well-rounded and interesting female characters without making them heavily oversexed. His work on, for instance, "The New Mutants" was a great example of that, because the average age of the characters was around 15, and aside from the general concerns of dating and so forth (which were underplayed anyway) he didn't focus on sexuality. At all. Usually the artists followed this and so there were a whole range of body types, from tall and lanky to shorter and full-bodied. The bustiest character in the early years was a conservative religious 13-year-old so she kept pretty covered up.

Eh, I'm an old fogey by now. *lol* But Marvel pretty much lost all my interest years ago and they're not likely to get it back, no matter how much I will always remain fond of certain characters or titles. And yes, they are sexist, and Joe Quesada is not one of my favourite people. Well, he's the one who retconned the entire Peter/MJ marriage, isn't he? So yeah. :P

[umadoshi.livejournal.com]

If Marvel had been less crazy (partly with their writing, partly with their "we expect you to buy 10-15 series a month to keep up with the core X-Men universe!") they probably wouldn't have lost my business over ten years ago.* The western comics industry is insane, even though there are apparently lots of good non-superhero things out there (I haven't tried many besides Sandman, which I love fiercely). But I was an X-Men fangirl for most of my teenage years, with lots of love and no critical thinking at all.

*This worked out well for me anyway, because how would I have bought manga if I'd kept shelling out to them?

I read several volumes of Elfquest in middle school because my local library had it on the shelf. Loved it. Whatever the "something" was, they had it.

I think the "something" was manga influence, IIRC from reading interviews with Wendy back in the day. EQ was the other thing I adored when I was a teenager. As it happens, I think Wendy has a new series with Go!Comi these days, although I haven't read it.

[clodia-risa.livejournal.com]

There are two things stopping me from reading more Marvel/DC. The vast amount of commitment of time and money that it would take, and shit like this.

Seriously - I played a Marvel tabletop RPG. At the most recent movie I squeed when I saw the Blob because I had fought with him (on his side, surprisingly. I was a mutant working for SHIELD in Genosha for Genosha at the time, so the Brotherhood were very nice to me and mine.) See! I geek out at things like that because of my RPG! I'm a perfect candidate! I love comic books, I read thirty webcomics, I read tons of manga! But I'm never going to be more than a very very casual reader of Marvel because how can I respect a company that doesn't respect me?

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

I think this says it better than I can. It's about animated stories, but it can be applied to comic books too.

[dafnap.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's all this and more, and it's astounding to see an entire industry that is already struggling for relevancy and cashflow so thoroughly fuck themselves over.

I've been a fan of the industry longer than I care to remember when shit like this happens -- I've read Western comics since I was 8, worked in comic stores, go to comic conventions (but you knew this :D) currently work at a comic company, and even now, even NOW still feel uncomfortable in most/if not all comic stores.

American comics have to get over two things:

-that the format isn't and shouldn't be beholden to the superhero genre (and in fact, most of the break out, critical, mass market successes barring Watchmen have been exactly that: Bechdel's Fun Home, Vaughan's Y The Last Man, etc.)

-that the superhero genre should not, and when it's the most effective, HAS NOT, trade on inherently sexist tropes. Comic fans are so desperate to be considered "cool" and "mature" and "adult" and yet are so quick to give passes to what is, at it's core, wank fodder.

...all that is to say, the recent, critical, mass market successes in American comics: -- Sandman, Preacher, Transmet, Y the Last Man, etc. All of 'em? From Vertigo. An imprint that demands mature storytelling not by way of sex, violence, sex and violence, but by equal consideration to all of its characters (male and female) as people first, happenin' eye candy dead last.

Formed and run by a woman.

I guess what I really wish the industry would realize was this: that including women in your audience doesn't mean you're pandering, doesn't mean you're beholden to sexist stereotypes that girls only like kittens and hearts and flowers (do they not SEE Buffy? do they not SEE Stargate? do they not SEE that properties with a majority female fanbase trade less in traditional romance tropes and more in the ass-kicking? how is this math so goddamn hard?). It means you're committed to telling a good goddamn story. It means you're committed in seeing a medium you love so much thrive again. It means you're committed to acting like the mature adult you've tried so hard to be seen as.

Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm totally ranting in your LJ. But seriously, Joe Q., stop making the rest of us look like twats.

[gojira007.livejournal.com]

I feel compelled to mention that even most of Marvel's target audience thinks Quesada's something of a moron. It's thus hardly surprising to see he made such an idiotic statement.

As someone who enjoys both American Comics, Superheroes in particular, and Manga/Anime, I feel compelled to say something, but I know that, as a young male, my perspective is irrevocably skewed in a direction that doesn't give me much credibility or reason to be listened to in this context.

Suffice it to say I think those who make American Comics severely underestimate how much of a role the Dramatic, Emotional factor you mention in regards to why Manga and Anime are so successful plays in Superhero Comics and why people are attracted to them.

[thelymachy.livejournal.com]

Formerly, my opinion used to be something along the lines that comics were equally sexist against men as they were to women. I mean, sure, ladies are running around in fishnets and bathing suits doing high kicks and yeah, that does give a little girl something to think about - but they are also kicking ass just as much as men. Men who are, incidentally, wearing skintight spandex, well-muscled and well... well, you can see where this is going. If the female superhero body is hard to aspire to, imagine the men.

However in more recent years, that opinion has changed. Generally the last couple of years Marvel and DC have been in a downward slump, particularly in maintaining or garnering attention from female readers (and not appearing like idiots). Marvel has Quesada, DC has Didio. Didio the guy who made Wonder Woman into the comic version of My Super Ex Girlfriend. Wonder Woman. Its been hard times if you are like me: a girl who has devoted years and thousands of dollars into collecting a product that could give two shits about my opinion by sheer virtue of my not having the appropriate parts to get into a pissing contest with.

So where four years ago I would have listed off awesome titles in the big superhero genres for a girl who wants to like superhero comics, said 'NO, LOOK, LOOK AT THE AWESOME' now I can only point out certain bits that don't suck as bad. Way to go, guys.

[vickiso.livejournal.com]

In a business that has a core market base (male, 13-49), it's risky to invest in the other 50% of the population because of the sheer amount of resources that will need to go into it. They can't justify printing off 500,000 licensed girly T-shirt without knowing they'll get a return on investment (they've only recently started doing this http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2009/03/26/marvel-girl-products-article-now-online/).

It's taken them long enough to change and grow, both business wise and content wise--but I've seen leaps and bounds in the Marvel world since I started reading comics in the 1990s (I FEEL OLLLLLLD).

There's too much to say about the feminism card in American comics. I can say, however, that things are slowly changing: Joss Whedon wrote a great series for X-Men featuring a Buffy-esque Kitty Pride (Astonishing X-Men). And in the business end of things, they recently published a graphic novel version of Pride and Prejudice. The female audience for comic books is growing, due to the burgeoning acceptance and popularity of big blockbusters like Wolverine and X-Men. Graphic novels are the new hip thing for old fogeys who never got it in the first place. So if you want to read comics, just go out and read them.

Anyhoo, I can go on and on about boobs and chicks getting chucked into refrigerators, but I think it's better if I just recommend some good reading instead. Whether you think it's feminist or not is up to you. I just like a good story and pretty pictures.

Kingdom Come (Mark Waid/Alex Ross, DC)
Astonishing X-Men (Joss Whedon, Marvel)
WE3 (Grant Morrison, Vertigo)
Bone (Jeff Smith, Scholastic)***YOU MUST READ THIS***
Uncle Sam (Steve Darnall/Alex Ross, Marvel)
Marvels (Kurt Busiek/Alex Ross, Marvel)
Red Rocket 7 (Mike Allred, Dark Horse)

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

Joe Quesada is a fucking moron. I've known this to be TRUFAX for years. There are good titles in the Marvel-verse. You just have to search them out and hope they don't change writers once it hits its stride. That's my problem with Runaways. Vaughn, series creator, left and the book's been subpar to sucky ever since. Esp. when Whedon wrote for it, and I'm not alone in my opinion there.