Retreading "feminism"

(1) There's no way I'm getting in the middle of a thread with this title, especially given some of the stuff I saw skimming through it. If you remember the days when I would get involved in such threads, you know what I think...

(2) I'd be glad to answer specific questions, though, if you've got 'em.

How would you depict a female pile of animated granite?

As a Horta with a heart of gold...?

Hmm, that does seem to be a loophole in the question.

How would you visually depict a female pile of animated granite?

Well, I don't draw, but if I were giving the artist directions, it would depend on my conception of the character. Is there a reason for her to be human-shaped? If the rock people don't feed their young through lactation, for instance, there's not necessarily a reason to give her stone breasts (and even if they do, there's not necessarily a reason to). Has this come up earlier in the thread?

Believe it or not, it has. Well, female granite armor has. Granite lactation is, I'm pretty sure, a Hickman original.

I'm sure there's a spackling and grouting joke in there somewhere...

(1) You are a wise man. Or at least a wise guy

(2) Without regard to any classified knowledge you may possess, how do you parse Sister Psyche becoming angry to the point of yelling at an adolescent male for imagining her in her underwear?

Does the fact that her outfit is skintight impact the level of justification for her reaction in any way?

Suppose you were commissioned to write a story about her, set in 1890. What springs to mind in terms of how her attitude, role as a super-powered being in respect to her gender, and outfit would differ?

(1) It's true. I'm in the Witless Relocation Program.

(2) I did that in the comic for a couple of reasons. The more practical of the two was this: Mark Waid had made the characters pretty edgy in his initial arc for the comic. As mine followed his, I didn't want to just suddenly do a "culture shock" kind of deal with them when I made them more the way I wanted them. That's why the Phalanx in the first issue of my arc (especially Psyche and Statesmen) don't necessarily act the same way by the end of the third. I was hoping that the writers who came after me would follow my lead, though I'm not sure they did. I was shooting for the group to be more like the JLA or Avengers of the 1970s, a Steve Englehart kind of group. With Psyche, I was told that she was rather, er, "witchy" (or something like that), but I didn't really care for that notion, so while she might've been MORE that way in the beginning of the arc, I wanted her to be a lot more than that by the end.

The other reason is that she's someone who, even though she has some control over her mental abilities, has to constantly be picking up thoughts, and there are going to be a fair number of those thoughts that are lewd in nature (some probably downright disgusting). If you were perpetually having folks who didn't know you as a person telling you what they wanted to do to you sexually, it might make you occasionally cranky (talk to some of the women who frequent comic shops... ). So yeah, she kind of bites the poor kid's head off in the first issue. I like to think after the third issue was over, though, she took him out for ice cream and gave him an 8x10 glossy. As far as the costume thingy, she probably doesn't see any point to "covering up" as a way of diverting such thoughts, as we all know that you can be wearing a gunny sack stuffed with doorknobs and guys (and girls) will still fantasize about you.

Anyway, that's what I was shooting for. Realize that I had to tell a story with seven or eight heroes, half a dozen NPCs, and a bunch of villains, all in something like 55-60 pages, so a lot of it had to be shorthand. I'll leave it up to you whether it worked.


P.S. I'd have to give the last question some thought.

Do you subscribe to the notion that deep down, powers or no, anyone who would publicly attempt to be a superhero has to have an exhibitionist streak somewhere, and the costumes tend to be explicitly designed to attract attention even if its sometimes not entirely wanted attention?


Interesting real life analog. Some people say that many of the costumes worn by superheroes (and villains), especially female ones, are totally impractical to the primary task of fighting villains (and heroes). Since that is their primary focus, its illogical to wear anything that is a disadvantage. And yet, I think of all the women who go to things like celebrity awards shows, where the primary task is to look good and not look like an idiot, and wear nearly death-defying stilettos and risk falling on their face on television. That seems like a related level of logical lapse to me unexplainable by anything except simple vanity.

Well, it's hard to say in a comic universe, but I've become friends with a lot of folks in the Real Life Superhero community, and they wear costumes primarily because (A) given the kind of suits they wear, it offers a modicum of protection, (B) they do a lot of community service, and a costume allows folks to recognize them (when they pass out food, water, toiletries and such), and (C) it's a convention of the superhero genre. I don't know if they're intrinsically exhibitionists, though I'm sure some of them are.

Most everything in superhero comics is impractical: the suits, the powers, the dialog (you can't deliver a thousand words of dialog in what would probably amount to ten seconds of fighting). But then, if you look at most mythologies, they're not practical either. Stories don't exist to conform to reality; they exist to entertain, inform, reinforce values, make money, etc. As far as superheroines go, well, the reason some women in the real world dress in an impractical but sexy fashion is because there IS a certain practicality to it, as one of the ways women have been able to achieve power in our culture is through beauty or sexuality (if you don't believe it, watch a busty blonde get stopped by a traffic cop), so maybe if you really wanted to, you could make the argument that some heroines think it might give them a slight edge...? That's all speculation, but then, this is the internet...

Risk/reward ratio. If you're used to walking in heels, your chances of falling are pretty slim. On the other hand, your chances of being called "frumpy" or "unsexy" or making it onto a worst-dressed list if you wear flats are pretty high.

There's a lot of other options between flats and six inch stilettos. I think the risk/reward ratio tips over the other way past three or four inch heels, particularly spikes.

It was just an example, though. If the example fails, I'm sure there are others where people deliberately eschew functionality for fashion or appearance even when doing so has far more risks than rewards to what is supposed to be their primary priority. Hickman seems to be dismissing the notion that practicality should be a major concern in what is ultimately modern mythology. I would *tend* to agree in general.

Reframing this thread in those terms, though, seems to ask the question are the cultural keystones that myth taps into so ingrained that we can't fault comic books for wanting to leverage them rather than try to change them. We so equate female power with attractiveness that even when physical attractiveness isn't necessary or even originally noted, we often invented it. Its a myth that Cleopatra was known for being physically attractive. What she was was an extremely powerful, intelligent, and politically crafty person at a time when that was rare. That alone might have made her attractive to men of power. But somehow the notion sprung up that her physical beauty was part of her success. We don't actually know if she was physically attractive or ugly or something in between. But the myth was quick to arise that she was beautiful nonetheless.

We'll do that to actual historical figures who actually lived in reality. Should we expect and demand that the people who craft modern myths like superhero stories try to overturn that, or should we accept they might want to leverage it to create stories that resonate with a larger audience. Not universally or all the time, but often.

My own personal opinion here is that this sort of thing takes time, far longer than anyone wants, but that's because this sort of change is generational. And that's why I cut the designers a lot of slack here. I think their first responsibility is to make a commercially successful game, and if that includes appeasement of some gender skews, so be it. But they have an opportunity, albeit a not unlimited one, to play around in some areas to push things a little in the right direction. Skirts for men, suits for women, there are things they can do. But if we don't end up with high heels for men and cigars for women, that's a shame but I don't think the devs deserve to be judged too harshly there.

Of course, that's a general opinion. It shouldn't stop people from asking for specific things. I have a list myself. Just that not getting them isn't necessarily a sign of an unreasonable sexist entrenchment.

Bear in mind that I'm talking about mainstream, conventional comics as they exist. Twilight Guardian would never wear stilettos...

Anything over four, maybe four and a half inches is usually more the province of the "specialty shop" than high fashion.
When the primary priority is fashion, there is no such thing as going too far. Lead-based face paint, mercury in the eyeballs, cast-iron corsets, etc etc.

Now how relevant is this to a superhero game? Probably not at all. My characters superjump in stilettos, throw fire around while wearing a cape, and kick people in the head in painted-on jeans, just as easily as they would in tights and sensible shoes. But it's also impractical in another sense, in that it may be difficult to take them seriously as heroes. In an emergency situation, who is the average civilian more likely to trust with their life, Ellen Ripley or Marilyn Monroe? If the aliens are invading, who do you want watching your back, the chick who shows off her massive cleavage or the chick who shows off her Rikti-throwing arm? And if people are too busy wondering how many ribs you had removed to make that cheesecake pose possible to pay attention to your demands, what's the point of building that death ray?

This is probably where most of the disconnect between the different parties' mental images takes place - are all super heroes publicly attempting to be heroes? Well, no, that's an easy answer, as people like the Punisher and... Um... I'm not that well-versed in comic lore, but no, not every one tries to act like a traditional super hero. Oh, Blade, of course! That's another one.

There's something of a general expectation of super heroes that is neatly exemplified by a question often asked when directing character concepts: "Well, why did he become a super hero?" Thing is... He DIDN'T. He has powers, yes, and he has a general goal, yes, and he even has a hero ID - they give those out at the City Hall gift shop these days. But he isn't what you'd call a "protector of the city," he doesn't patrol the streets, he doesn't solve crimes, he doesn't watch the news for people to rescue. He just kind of does his own thing and helps people when those objectives cross paths.

So, no, I don't believe all general-purpose heroes have to be exhibitionists, because not all general-purpose heroes even have a reputation, or even care to have one. Most of mine, in fact, are just meta-humans in a meta-human society, trying to fulfil their life's goal and not die in the process. In fact, that's part of where my desire for less... "Fashionable" women comes from - not all of the women I create really care about impressions or appearance so much as they care about focusing on their primary objective, which may not even be fighting crime.

This is something that bothers me, and greatly. It's not necessarily a BAD thing, but it is bad by virtue of being so pervasive and so all-consuming. I'll almost never complain about a character (female or otherwise) being attractive, but at the same time, sometimes I still want one who isn't, because sometimes I want to create or experience something that's not a retread of what I've already experienced a thousand times over. Why would I make a hundred cheese cakes when I can make ONE and keep playing her? Why do I need a hundred fanservice movies when I can have one and keep watching that? There needs to be something new, interesting and unique in a character in order for it to be interesting, and "not an ultra-sexy bombshell" is one of the least explored new angles.

This is pervasive, but it bothers me much more so when it's exclusive. Sure, I don't mind when a character is attractive, I even prefer it. But I want a character to be attractive AND INTERESTING, and a lot of authors don't really seem to make that final step, expecting that we'll be satisfied with any female character as long as she has breasts. Sorry, but in this day and age of Rule 34, that's no longer sufficient. If that's all I wanted, I wouldn't need to subscribe to a game for it or pay whatever ungodly amount a movie at the cinema costs these days. I can simply type my fetish in Goodle and pictures and movies and even games to that effect will appear. FOR FREE!

If I'm playing a game and not resorting to the easiest, most direct source of "this," then I'm trying to imply that I want something more than just "that." Attractive is good. JUST attractive isn't nearly as good, is what I mean. In fact, unattractive can sometimes be even better.

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Here's a funny tangent: What IS attractive? Large assets? Improbably spine contortions? Chainmail bikini? Fetish gear? All of the above? Sure, probably, but sometimes... It can be something completely different. For some - myself among them - function in itself makes the form which produces it attractive. For instance, I like big guns, not because I like guns that are big aesthetically, but because big guns shoot big bullets and make big holes, and I like things that shoot big bullets and make big holes, so backtracking along that line, I end up liking big guns. And I don't mean that on a logical level of "I like the result, so therefore I must acknowledge the source." No, I mean this on a purely emotional level where the more I see something being effective and functional, the more I start to find it attractive.

Easy example: I didn't use to like Fire Blast. The breath attack seemed goofy and all of the others were kind of over too fast. However, having played a Fire/Fire/Flame Blaster to 50, I fell in love with the set. Every time I saw the sweet, sweet flash of Blaze, I got a smile on my face. Why? Because Fire Blast is... A bit overpowered. Playing with the set, I quickly grew to love the look of its powers on an instinctive level, because I began to associate that look with the performance they held. In time, the logical distinction of "I like Blaze because it's powerful" washed away into simply "I like Blaze."

This is something that far, far too many authors in general appreciate. If you make your audience care about your characters, then you've succeeded in making them care about your character designs in general. Whether your women are busty or frumpy, if you get your audience invested and interested in those characters, they WILL assign aesthetic beauty to their appearances not necessarily because they are aesthetically beautiful, but because they belong to those particular characters.

In short - you don't have to conform to people's aesthetic expectations. If you make compelling enough enough characters on their own, you can promote your own aesthetic, even if it's not the current popular fad.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Amazing pun there, kudos for that.