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Wonder Woman Gets a Woman's Point-of-View
theodp writes "Traditionally, comics have been by, for and about men. But more and more women are breaking into the traditional boys' club. Beginning with Wonder Woman #14, the superhero's tale is being told by Gail Simone. It's a break from nearly 66 years of being written for the most part by men. '[Her work as a blogger] led to a writing job for the all-female comic 'Birds of Prey' for DC--which became a short-lived, live-action TV series--and in turn won her the "Wonder Woman" job. Simone says she sees a change since she wrote her refrigerator rant 10 years ago. 'At that time, the trend was towards grim stories where female characters were killed,' she says. 'We only had a handful of female characters to look up to. Today we're not seeing those stories so much.'"
Is this really such a big break when novelist Jodi Picoult wrote Wonder Woman last year, and is a woman herself?
William Marsden created Wonder Woman as a role model of what he considered feminine strengths. These are very much the traditional 'yin' feminine values and focused less on female empowerment and much more on beauty, demure behavior, and obedience. Women can be strong, Marsden reasoned, by focusing on their womanhood and need not waste time trying to fit into male roles.
Marsden was also a bit of a pervert. His wife and their live-in slave... er... maid, lived in more-or-less open polygamy. They were his bondage slaves, and were apparently quite happy to be so. This theme, of feminine happiness through obedience and subservience, is repeated frequently through Wonder Woman. Not only did Wonder Woman frequently get tied up with her own magic lasso, but pretty much all the Amazon girls loved being bound, spanked, or otherwise disciplined by their superiors.
While you may disagree with Marsden's symbolism, any retelling of Wonder Woman that leaves out the bondage isn't really doing the subject very much justice. Wonderwoman need not end up stuffed in a refrigerator, but she does need to be frequently paddled to keep the story moving.
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Her work as a blogger? Simone has been working in the comics industry for almost a decade now and got the job of writing Wonder Woman due to a solid history of writing well crafted, memorable, stories. She has worked for both the major comic companies and a few of the minor ones writing everything from established superhero books to quirky creator-owned stuff. To suggest that she got a high profile job because of her BLOG is kind of insulting to the hard work she has put in over the years.
Um...yeah...but no
Read the rant. Completely disagree. FYI I don't have hairy pits or legs.
Doesn't every character/hero of consequence go through some life-defining moment. She writes as is every female goes off to a grimson end or a tragic moment but uh hello...there's life....there's character building...there's a good friggin story.
Look at the list and it blatantly leaves out key figures in the comic universes. Examples:
Superman died
Batman was paralyzed only to come back and take out the sorry sack of shit who replaced him
Robin died
Spawn was a crusader who was reborn in hell...how more tragic is fighting for what you believe to be a noble cause and hello you go straight to hell
Wolverine was used, abused, lost his memory and then ended up working for the X-men
Sorry...but a personal pet peeve is a feminist fight without a true argument. Sorry to say but women were allowed the same fates as men. I personally love when the woman is a villain. At least we're acknowledged as a threat. A good story always involves a sad or grimsom moment for the lead character. Thankfully women have been subjected to same fates of men in the comic world.
If you'd turn away from your thrice daily dose of 'liberal outrage', and crawl out of your parent's basement, you'd realize that the 'Nazi Socialist PC ball buster' only really exists in the minds of men who are insecure about their own masculinity. Others who continue propagate such trash, do so as they believe that some reward could be gained (ratings, votes, book sales, and other forms of income in particular).
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Interestingly, Marston is also frequently credited as the inventor of the Polygraph. He discouraged its use as a law enforcement device.
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Oh, I guarantee that women like that exist. There is simply too much diversity in the world for them not to. It's the principle of "If you can think of something, it already exists on the Internet, and there's probably already fetish porn about it."
But while I wouldn't call you a "Nazi Socialist PC ball buster", look what you did here: "men who are insecure about their own masculinity."
I don't disagree that it's possible to be feminist without being a feminazi, and you may even be right that the feminazi is a myth. But I've seen women propagate and participate in that myth.
When attacking others for their intolerance or prejudice, it helps to not be showing your own prejudice in the same breath. (Not even going to start with the "crawl out of your parent's basement" comment.)
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
In 1993 I was a freshman at a large university. I saw a fellow student staggering under a double armload of textbooks, and I did precisely what I would do for any student in a fellow situation: I opened the door. The fact this student was female had no bearing on my decision. In return for this, I got a glare and then a shouted "You know, it's because of domineering, overbearing males like you that one in four college women is raped!" Then she stormed off and found another entrance to the building, just so she could avoid the door I opened for her.
But wait, she's not the caricature the far-right draws of the militant feminist. She was just a jerk. Women can be jerks as easily as men.
A few years ago I was talking to a Women's Studies professor at Florida State and I related this story. I also mentioned how angry I had been at the time, still was, to be lumped in with rapists just because I opened a door for someone who had a double armload of books. This professor listened, considered her words very carefully, and then said clearly I needed to take her introductory Women's Studies course so that I could understand the jerk's "context". I said I didn't really care about her context, it was a stupid comparison to make, and the hate directed at me was entirely undeserved and uncivilized. "Yes, but that's the point, you see," she explained to me patiently. "You've never opened your eyes and thought about what sort of life experiences could make her react in such a way, or the actions you did which provoked this response. You only care about your own male-oriented view and undercutting the validity of her life experience." (I am not quoting her exactly, but I am quoting her pretty darn close. It's been a few years, but the outrageousness of the dialog has made it stick in my memory very clearly.)
She went on for about another ten minutes before I had enough and stormed away.
The woman in 1993 was just a jerk. The Florida State Women's Studies prof who defended her and not once expressed a sentiment of "yes, she was a jerk"? She was the right-wing caricature of a feminazi.
Fortunately, people like her seem to be rare. At least, I've never found one outside of a Women's Studies department. (And I've met one Women's Studies prof since then who characterized the Florida State prof as "what a bitch!", which did my heart no end of good.)
funny you should mention this. I saw something on the history channel about Wonder Woman and way back in the day when it first came out, even the author admits it was practically kinky porn with clothes on. It was like some pervy bondage comic. They showed shots of some pages and I was like WHOA seriously wtf.
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Soap Opera stories + violence = comic books. And pro wrestling.
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Slow News Day at Slashdot if you're covering something that was announced almost a year ago.
Still, no compassion for this girl you scared, and it's fairly clear that you scared her. Yes, it's likely she might have acted different if some girl ran up. However, just imagine a shy girl, first semester (maybe) in a large University , away from home, maybe just out of the 'date rape discussion' they force on every freshmen, walking back to her dorm, minding her own business. Random guy comes up and without any introduction get into her personal space. Then she gives a quick not even half though explanation, about why she got jumpy, but that proves she is a militant feminist.
What you should have done was announce yourself, saying perhaps 'let me get that for you'. I do it all the time, and a couple of times I've had them size me up for a second, in particular when I've blindsided them. I sincerely hope that someone doesn't judge you as harshly. Dude, you really need to take a fresh look at both of those conversations, I'll be that you see them differently, if you step back from yourself.
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Wonder Woman in a P.O.V.? That's hawt!
as a romance novel written from the point of view of the ridiculously sensitive male leads in the story:
"your tits are huge, let's shag"
yeah, that's going to sell romance novels
impossible proportioned female superheroes exist to satisfy the id of prepubescent boys. there is no female pov to these characters that has any meaning. they are stereotypical characters meant to satisfy male views about solving problems by fighting. women have their own fantasy fiction with impossible male characters meant to satisfy female views about the glory of courtship with a great guy
why mess with these shallow fantasies? nothing is improved, the value of the characters are just negated for their intended audiences
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you associate opening a door with being raped then that's not the fault of the door-opener. The wallet example is a good one. If you pick up someone's wallet (or other important/valuable item) and hand it to them, you would surely be justifiably offended if they yelled 'Thief!' snatched it from your hands and ran away. You would be even more offended if they incorporated some prejudiced slur into their justification for calling you a thief - be it a reference to your gender, race or something else. Whatever experiences that person has had, they are still a jerk, or at least perhaps paranoid to the point of illness, if they associate a helpful action with malicious intent.
im in ur
"Comics are boys club because boys don't want to read soap opera emo trash."
*cough* Sandman *cough*
Right, but "boys" aren't reading the comics. When was the last time you saw a comics shop with kids in it outnumbering the adults?
No, I think you're onto the right thing for the wrong reason. Comics lend themselves well to short, action stories and simple parables because of the nature of the medium. 22 short pages. Very little text. Lots of artwork. And a history of only being able to tell the most bland of stories due to the legacy of the Comics Code.
I do, in fact, see women reading comics - but those comics are manga stories which are usually published in large compilations that can go on for thousands of pages. In the "manga style", you can tell a long story with subtlety, spend pages exploring a single emotion or moment. But guess what, guys read it too.
There are traditional, non-manga comics which can look at these themes, and I'll pass up "Superman" every time to get to them. But those are rare and hard to pick out amongst the TONS of comic book titles.
I mean, if I'm looking for a long, epic story exploring complex themes, I'll rent a 3 hour movie. Or get a TV series on DVD.
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What orginal poster/troll? You replied to a guy talking about Wonder Woman in a pantsuit with a rant about militant feminists. Did you mean to reply to some other post?
Gail Simone is a fantastic writer and a personal hero of mine.
I'm counting on two things in her Wonder Woman run... which actually started a couple of months ago, so this story is kind of late, but anyway...
The same standard of quality storytelling and hilarity she's shown on her previous books, such as Birds of Prey (about ex-Batgirl Barbara Gordon, now super-hacker Oracle, and her various superheroine operatives). So far, we have evil Amazons and talking gorillas, so all is well.
And, as in her previous books, plenty of equal opportunity nudity.
The truth is, to an extent that's how some things tend to be in comics. An interesting article on the phenomena is discussed using the character Power Girl.
http://daveslongbox.blogspot.com/2005/09/boob-war-climax-everybody-loves-power.html
Ever notice how every strong female on Heroes is either killed off, raped or suffers an attempted sexual assault? Except the motor mimic girl, but the show went on hiatus mid beatdown.
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