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Holy Men in Tights! Academic Superhero Conference
Malfourmed writes "The University of Melbourne's Cinema Studies Program, School of Art History, Cinema, Classics & Archaeology is hosting a four day conference (and fancy dress ball and movie programme) on superhoeroes and supervillains. The interdisciplinary conference will address the varying roles, identities, and social functions that these superheroes serve. Topics include censorship; industry and franchise differentiation (eg DC vs Marvel); mythology; the female superhero ("It has been a very much male-centred universe," co-convener Saige Walton said. "They need some more chicks."); ethnicity, class and race; diverse media formats (cinema, comics, computer games, television) ; the resurgence in the cult of superpowers in recent cinema; super-auteurs (eg Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Tezuka Osamu, Grant Morrison); fan culture; the science and physics of the superhero; ancient superheroes; and the 'hero' who isn't 'super'."
Why not just leave it at being entertainment.
Making it a science takes all the fun away.
Yes, but the authors are also males and are projecting their conception of a "strong male" into their artwork. It means rugged looks, broad shoulders, muscular physique.
When they project their impression of "strong female", we get diminutive height, waspy waist, large breasts, well-shaped vulva, and perfect skin. They have confused (or purposefully replaced) strong with sexy.
So only sexy female superheroes exist. Unsexy females can't possibly exist because it would shatter the geek audience's preconceived notions of what a strong female looks like.
They celebrate the male characters by drawing them in that way, yet they demean the female characters by the same drawing techniques. It's not something that can be cured overnight, but it is something that ought to be taken note of and resisted.
...its to do with time when most of the famous characters were created I think, there was a great deal of interest, and post 1945, collosal anxiety about radiation. I expect to see more modern creations having something to do with genetic modification and perhaps nanotechnology in their origin stories. These things don't necessarily happen by accident, I understand Stan Lee was thinking of issues of race and prejudice when he came up with idea of the X-men as being mutants persecuted for being who and what they were born as. Professor Xavier can be seen as a sort of Martin Luther King to Mangento's Malcolm X. In more recent times I've had the suspicion that this form has been reworked slightly to have more resonances with regard to society's treatment of homosexuality (I definitely got that feeling in the second film in the scene where, was it Iceman(?), goes home and his parents get upset when they find out what he is. Would appear to mirror many a "coming out" story).
This reflection of anxieties in popular art forms as a way of exploring or dealing with them is fairly well noted; for example, Bram Stoker's Dracula has an underlying theme of fear of supressed female sexuality, whereas Frankenstein is clearly all about fear of science. Its all the same thing really.
As an aside another reason Batman wins over his only DC rival, Superman, for readers internationally is that Superman is a little overly wrapped in the stars and stripes (of course "Red Son" had much fun playing with that aspect the strip) to the extent where his popularity waxes and wanes with regard to how people feel about the USA. He was big in the 1980s when American culture was at its zenith of being "cool" in Europe. Right now nobody wants to know really. He's always been and still is popular in countries that target the USA as a migration destination.
On closer examination though I think Superman is very symbolic but I think that Bruce Wayne/Batman is probably nearer the American dream ultimately. By day he's an enlightened capitalist in the modern American mould (rigorous businessman but very charitable etc) who still finds time to be a 'self made man' and act in a sort of "Wild West" state of mind by night.
Hang on, inherited wealth, wild west mentality, hangs out in a technologically advanced underground bunker...Batman=GWB? Holy known unknowns and unknown unknowns Batman! Makes you wonder if Wayne Industries had the contract for repairing the damage to Gotham done by the Batmobile and the Joker blowing stuff up. Meh, politics.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
But for some of us, devouring puerile comic book entertainment and debating it as if they were something worthy of serious analysis appeals to the immature smart aleck eleven year old in us.
[disclaimer: the following was written by my inner child]
Now, for a demonstration of black belt level irony: those of you say we shouldn't talk about comic books actually hold the same opinions and have the same attitudes as those who say we shouldn't read them at all. Opinion: You both agree that the idea that comic books are anything based on them could have any literary value is absurd. You only differ in that you find comic books entertaining and they do not; they find pretentious intellectual blather entertaining and you do not. Some of us like both. Attitude: Both the literary stuffed shirts and the literary know-nothings share the attitude that people who don't like the same things as them need to be corrected. In short, you are both prigs. But I mean that in a nice way.
[/disclaimer]
Now, for you pleasure (or mortification (or both)), I will repost my K5 diary in which I analyze Spider-Man 2 on a level that would probably get me beaten up if I did it in my high school English class. By my teacher.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, at the very least his level of experience makes him exceptional. Implausibly exceptional. Actually impossibly exceptional. I mean, is it signficantly more likely that you might obtain Batman's wealth, brains, experience, and technology on one hand, or that you get hit with some mysterious radiation that imbues you with strange powers? By significant, I mean, enough different that it might affect how you think or act in real life? No? Then why sweat the difference in your fantasy life. In that case, there is no difference in plausibility.
Batman is interesting because represents a kind of boiling point view of superherodom. Ordinary traits, like wealth, experience, and cunning, if raised to a sufficient level induce a kind of phase transition from normal human existence to super-human existence. Comic books have to have to operate by a kind of logic that explains the nature of the hero's super-human nature. That explanation is not only typically implausible to the point of impossibility, it has to be, in order to explain how the hero is exceptional to the point of impossibility. Batman, in practical terms, is no less implausible than any other super hero. Nor should be be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Bruce Wayne is a normal guy that everybody can relate to. He has no special powers to rely on; only the technology that his wealth affords him.
Riddle on this a bit: Not to intentionally drag issues of class struggle into the whole thing, but it *is* a fact that Bruce Wayne's extreme maxi-mega-wealth is almost as unreachable, to the average Joe-crimefighter-wannabe, as actual super powers are. He didn't earn it; he was born into riches. Extremely deep pockets is about the closest thing to an actual super power, more than great martial arts ability, more than inventing skill, more than being a supertaster, that exists in this world.
Further: what's the difference between a young Bruce Wayne growing up to become: a crime fighter, the world's greatest detective, and an ultimately good guy, and a young Bruce Wayne growing up to become: yet another idle playboy with way too much money (with all the society-warping power that provides), maybe not explictly bad, but not over concerned with other people?
Often it takes something seriously bad to happen to a person to break him out of his limited perspective and into a large view of the world. Which isn't to say that it is right that those things happen, nor that it always works that way. But often it's unavoidable, and often it does.
I'm not saying that there's no advantage. But it's not as advantageous for women as it is for men.
The advantage of having 'genetically varied children' is not as valuable as having more children.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Actually 'sexy' means 'biologically strong'. A female is perceived as sexy because her body shape 'promises' healthy children, and thus survival of the genes. The same goes for men.
This line of Darwinian rationalism is so flawed that I'm surprised many intelligent people even proffer it. Humans do not select mates based on phenotypical signals of reproductive fitness. Period. What you argue about body shape "promising" healthy children is ludicrous. China and India both come to mind. Furthermore, even a cursory survey of sexual icons and fetishes over the last 500 years reveals enough of a range--fat, thin, black, white, tall, short, disabled, herculean--that any argument about sexiness being a biological predisposition to reproductive capability is just plain wrong.
blog
Batman is a multi-billion genius scared by childhood trauma. I don't know about you, but much as I think the character is cool I can't relate to someone who is the world's best detective, maybe martial artist, speaks just about every language on the planet, is an expert in just about every field of science and fights crime dressed as an animal.
Over time the writers have made him effectively superheroic. His level of skill and knowledge is really beyong human, and it has become something of a joke that Batman can beat anyone given time to prepare. How many times has he smacked down Superman now, only becuase the writers seem to forget half of Superman's powers most of the time?
I realized this during a Women's Studies writing course I had to take - despite the objectification, comics and shows written for men show much stronger female characters than anything written for women.
Think about it - the female lead in almost any comic book, despite being terrible underdressed and having boobs the size of torpedoes, is an independent, intelligent equal whom works with the super-heroes as a team, or works on her own. Female villains are almost always the most dangerous due to their ability to outsmart the superheroes and charm to them their advantage.
Aside from the spandex, comic-book women are almost *exactly* the stereotype of the strong-minded, independent women that feminists are always saying women want to look up to!
Compare this to almost any show designed for girls, where the role models are concerned with dresses, flowers, and relationships and whose major plot revolves around getting her man despite the other girls after him. The women there are almost entirely submissive and domestic. Even if they are high-powered businesswomen, they are never happy until they meet mister right and have a ridiculously overcomplicated relationship with him that is generally spoiled due to their own weakness and pettiness, but is eventually saved because he is willing to put up with them.
I know which things I'd rather have my daughter reading. My guess is that nerds, who value intellectual discourse so much, actually *want* a woman who is an equal, whereas society really doesn't.
You sure knocked her down good!
Unfortunately, it seems that you see feminism less as a complex and nuanced socio-political critique, and more as the aggregation of opinions you've read in Cosmopolitan and/or heard women talk about.
It may be a waste of time to try to explain, but for the sake of those who may have read your comment and thought "Hey, yeah! What business does she have making me hold the door? I'M oppressed!", here goes:
You must not have had many relationships... Not meant as in insult, it's just that any man whose been in relationships with women know that this is completely false.
Just because your wife can make you do the dishes does not mean that women as a global class are empowered. This is the kind of folsky wisdom that is hilarious when it's in a "Cathy" comic, but when applied to reality, it's a dangerous denial of the fact that:
"as many as 95% of domestic violence perpetrators are male.
A Report of the Violence against Women Research Strategic Planning Workshop sponsored by the National Institute of Justice in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1995."
(according to http://www.abanet.org/domviol/stats.html)
Ahhh yes, bringing about equality through inequality. "I WANT TO BE TREATED THE SAME AS A MAN! NOW HOLD THAT DOOR OPEN FOR ME!"
Most women (I would claim the vast majority) would gladly pick "Not being objectified, cat-called, occasionally terrorized, and generally humiliated based on my gender" over "Not having to open doors or pay for dinner". I'm not saying that some women don't want it both ways (and who can blame them? I like it when someone pays for my dinner, too!), but that gets back to the fact that you don't seem to have a very clear understanding of what feminists really want, as opposed to what some random women you know want.
There's a lot of FUD surrounding gender issues, mainly because everyone thinks they understand "men" and "women" as social classes based solely on their own interpersonal experience.
It's a lot bigger than that.