Character designs: sexism and objectification

Started by Sethala, April 30, 2013, 12:07:31 AM

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Kazyth

... are you sure you're just NOT seeing them where you don't want to see them?

Again, you're pointing to exceptions that are small, small parts of the greater whole.  Yeah, Tony Stark had a drinking problem.  And it was dark, and bad.  But he got over it.  Was it in there to teach a lesson?  Maybe.  But then again isn't drinking to excess something generally considered 'cool' by teenagers?  I know it was when I was in High School and College, among just about every peer group except maybe the Uber Christians.  And the thing of it is, you knew Tony was going to get over it.  Because he's a Man and Men don't let things beat them.  Just like you know Batman is going to beat the bad guy.  And so is Iron Man.  They are stronger than any addiction, any setback.  Male Power Fantasy.

And as for Batman, yeah, he wanted a family.  His parents alive.  But they were killed, and he became Batman.  Whatever he wanted, he gave it up to STAY Batman.  He never has a family, never gets married, he sacrifices it all to be a badass with all the toys who beats the crap out of his opponents and always has the right tricks to win.  So yes, he is still a badass.  Maybe they wanted to show a bit of a more human, vulnerable side to him, but in the end, he's still goddamn Batman.

Jessica Drew is an exception.  Remember I mentioned those?  Pointing to one character, one example, and saying "This, right here, this disproves everything everyone is saying that I don't like" does not work.  And if I recall, her powers don't have anything to do with fear.  She can fire blasts of bioelectricty, but she also has a pheremone that attracts men and repulses women, doesn't she?  How much fun can that be?

Frankly, sometimes being in the middle of a hobby means your view is limited.  Forest for the trees, and all that.  Just because you don't get why something offends someone doesn't mean it isn't legitimate, or that it is being blown out of proportion.  The flaws you scrutinize and look for are different than the flaws another person will scrutinize and look for.  One person and one person's views don't negate a problem, anymore than folks who think it's fine and funny to be racist in a comedy or whatever negate the racism.

80's cartoons and their positive messages at the end of the shows don't negate the fact that the cartoons were made to sell toys.  Toys to little boys mostly, who couldn't care less about, or were just starting to learn about, breasts and sex and the rest.  And they kept their messages simple.  "Don't be a bully", "Don't shoplift", etc.  It's like saying that the kids who grow up today watching Teletubbies and the like who go on to make comics and shows and all the rest won't be sexist or unfair to women, because Teletubbies wasn't.  There are plenty of other mediums and shows that did and do perpetuate the problem.

As to your rant about the Woman in the Fridge, again, why not show weaker men getting victimized instead of women and children?  Why always take the easy way?  There are plenty of ways to show someone is big and bad and mean without having to have them rape a women, or mutilate, or murder her.  Why do women always have to be shown as the weaker ones?  Because it's easy, because the audience expects it.  It's lowest common denominator, and it's too much effort for many of them to really make the effort.

I have a feeling that the people on E who feel strongly about this subject -have- looked deeper.  As have many others who take exception to objectification of women in all forms of media.  Sure, there are knee-jerk reactionists, but there always are on both side of any issue, and they are often the loudest.  But that doesn't mean that every person who feels strongly that this is something happening and is wrong fall into that group, my self included.  And thus far, I've yet to see a single thing brought up that actually goes any distance toward disproving that this is an issue.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


Beguile's Mistress

There is a movie from 1939 titled "The Women" with a total female cast.  It was about divorce and infidelity primarily but that was an important topic of the time.

I'd love to see a movie like that taking up some of the current issues women deal with.  I'd like it to have women producing, directing, scoring, editing and writing as well.

Shjade

Quote from: meikle on April 30, 2013, 08:17:56 PM
I'll be happy when we have movies with all-female casts that aren't about witches or sisterhood.

Let's see some women dancing around to Stuck In The Middle With You and chopping off ears.

That sounds like sisterhood to me, but what would I know. >.>;

I have Girl Scouts waiting in my Netflix queue, I'll let you know if it might be something you're looking for. ;p
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gaggedLouise

#78
John Ford's "7 Women" too (sometimes runs on TCM). His final film, and a really interesting choice of subject and cast. The (white, American) women in the film belong to a protestant mission, they are taken hostage by a Mongol warlord in northern inland China in the late 19th century and have to find a way to handle the situation, escape, negotiate their release or get killed or enslaved together. To achieve that they have to work down some barriers, both between themselves and vs the ordinary Chinese.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Sethala

To try and break down your points meikle, would it be fair to say that the problem isn't necessarily how the industry treats female characters, but rather that there's an under-representation of strong female leads and an over-representation of female background characters, especially as victims?

Kythia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women_(2008_film)
Quote from: Beguile's Mistress on April 30, 2013, 08:22:57 PM
There is a movie from 1939 titled "The Women" with a total female cast.  It was about divorce and infidelity primarily but that was an important topic of the time.

I'd love to see a movie like that taking up some of the current issues women deal with.  I'd like it to have women producing, directing, scoring, editing and writing as well.

The women  It is literally the worst thing that has ever happened..  Not just the worst film, thats way too low a bar.  The absolute nadir of human chievement.  The single high point is the vague realisation that everything since then is better and humanity can only improve from that point.
242037

Kazyth

... I don't know about it being the worst thing ever.  Worst in the vein BeMi is looking for, but worst overall?  I think that still belongs to Manos: The Hands of Fate.  Yup.  It was painful to watch even when MST3K covered it.
A rose by any other name... still has thorns you can prick someone with. - Me.


consortium11

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 30, 2013, 06:18:39 PMOne more thing that's getting up my craw, this whole 'Women in Refrigerators' movement lambasting the comic industry for showing women getting assaulted.  Is it horrific when it happens?  HELL YES.  And what do you think most comic reading boys think when they saw Kyle Rayner's girlfriend murdered and stuffed into an ice box.  You think we were giggling and masturbating to it?  NO.  We want to kill the fucker who did it.  We want grab Major Force and beat the living shit out of the bastard for doing it, in all the worse and most painful ways we could think of.

Quote from: Chris Brady on April 30, 2013, 06:18:39 PMI grew up in the 80's watching kids cartoons, and most of them had these morality plays at the end, warning us kids about dangers, like strangers, odd looking syringes and the like, and frankly, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the comic writers ALSO grew up watching G-Force (AKA Battle of The Planets) or He-Man, or She-Ra and the like, and whenever they use such a situation (the aforementioned Women in Refrigerators) it's there not to titillate, it's there to galvanize and show that beating on those weaker than you is WRONG.

Unfortunately I think you missed why people object to "fridging".

Alex DeWitt's (the original "woman in fridge") entire character arc was basically to look pretty for Kyle Raynar, to be the "boring" voice of reason and then to be brutally murdered and stuffed into a fridge so that he could get extra motivation. Rather than being a well-rounded character with a real emphasis on her own dreams, motivations and ambitions she was essentially a plot-device to show how evil Major Force was and to give Kyle a reason to angst. The issue with it isn't that the audience is giggling away, the issue is that for far too long female supporting characters would be, at most, one note stereotypes who then die (or are injured/hurt) in a gruesome and demeaning way simply so the male central character has additional motivation or something to angst and go grim-dark about. Identity Crisis was basically one long fridging for Sue Dibny and Lian Harper's death in Cry for Justice was used as little more than a way for the primarily male character leads to cry "Justice!" and kill people.

As for a general sexualisation point in comics... just look at this prmo image:



The central male character? He's posed to be mighty and powerful. The two female mains? Well, Natasha is giving us the classic "show your bum while looking over your shoulder so there's a flash of boob" pose which basically every female character ends up stuck in at least once and Tigra is giving us her best "I'm a filthy sex kitten... meow!" pose and look. And this is by no means a rare occurrence.

The issue isn't that the characters are sexy; the majority of main comic book characters are drawn to be sexy/handsome/beautiful. The issue is the sexualisation of them. Black Widow and Tigra would still be sexy characters if drawn in more "normal" poses. The issue is how they're deliberately posed in a sexual way. It's not completely limited to women... DC have a long history of titillating butt-shots of Dick Grayson at least partly as a knowing wink to their slash/gay readers, but he is very much the exception, not the rule.

Beguile's Mistress

Quote from: Kythia on April 30, 2013, 11:01:54 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women_(2008_film)
The women  It is literally the worst thing that has ever happened..  Not just the worst film, thats way too low a bar.  The absolute nadir of human chievement.  The single high point is the vague realisation that everything since then is better and humanity can only improve from that point.

I'm not sure which version you are commenting on.  I've never seen the 2008 version so I can't make a comparison and didn't attempt one. 

Silk

#84
Quote from: Kythia on April 30, 2013, 11:01:54 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women_(2008_film)
The women  It is literally the worst thing that has ever happened..  Not just the worst film, thats way too low a bar.  The absolute nadir of human chievement.  The single high point is the vague realisation that everything since then is better and humanity can only improve from that point.



Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide
No really that film was painful

gaggedLouise

Nine - the movie - struck me as painfully sexist, objectifying and keen to reduce all the female characters to vanity dolls trying to tease up the famed director star. The cast was simply a dream team - Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz and more - the scenography was expensive, but that didn't help it. All the women, except Loren (as his mother) looked and acted like a parody of the idea that women can think only of the man they want. Maybe it was supposed to be half ironic, but that didn't work either. Bleh.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

BlightRaptor

Quote from: gaggedLouise on May 01, 2013, 10:19:38 AM
Nine - the movie - struck me as painfully sexist, objectifying and keen to reduce all the female characters to vanity dolls trying to tease up the famed director star. The cast was simply a dream team - Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Sophia Loren, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz and more - the scenography was expensive, but that didn't help it. All the women, except Loren (as his mother) looked and acted like a parody of the idea that women can think only of the man they want. Maybe it was supposed to be half ironic, but that didn't work either. Bleh.

I now recall the release of that film in my video store. I remember seeing it and thinking "hmm.. this is kinda sexist." The cover shows one dude surrounded by some pretty actresses (pretty, if you're into that sorta thing.) But what I remember most is all the wives and girlfriends dragging their guys to the counter with it in hand.

"Oh come on it'll be fun!"
"Uggghhh...."
"There's hot chicks in it!"
"Uggghhh...."

I'm not really going anywhere with this, just thought I'd share an amusing memory.

gaggedLouise

#87
LMAO! I saw it twice on a cable movie channel and it was such a mix of the sexist and the schlocky that I kept zapping back to the news sometimes, while my mind kept swinging between annoyance, anger and bewilderment.

Actually, never managed to watch it through to the end.  ::)

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

Skynet

#88
Quote from: Beguile's Mistress on April 30, 2013, 06:57:06 PM
The selling game has a motto of it's own.  "Sex sells."  When the studies tell the seller men are the primary market for something the female body is used to sell it.  Hence, the pinup calendars automotive and tool companies hand out.  Want to make money for your group or a charity?  Calendars again with curvy women and well-endowed men either blatantly displayed or hinted at.  That is only one example. 

The industries are slowly changing with advertising geared to single parent families, same sex couples and older parents of young children.  Viagara and Cialis commercials actually use actors who look old enough to need the stuff.

As long as the biggest market for video games, comic books or graphic novels is the teen-age and young adult male and as long as there are studies showing sex is part of the reason why there will be objectification.
  I think it was Opie from "The Andy Griffith Show" who said he could tell the difference between good ladies and bad ladies in the comics he read because of the size of their chest.  That was in the 60s? 

It all boils down to money and if you want to change it you'll begin demanding more realism and stop buying the games, etc. that objectify anyone.

I think that this is changing.  I can't really say for comic books, but video game players are an increasingly diverse demographic.

Here are some articles I found on a quick Google search:

According to this survery, women over 18 years of age are one of the fastest growing demographics.

There's about 130 million females partaking in online PC gaming.

Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Kythia on April 30, 2013, 11:01:54 PMIt is literally the worst thing that has ever happened..  Not just the worst film, thats way too low a bar.  The absolute nadir of human achievement.  The single high point is the vague realisation that everything since then is better and humanity can only improve from that point.

Funny, I felt exactly this way about 300.
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Healergirl

#90
I feel that way about war and action  movies.

My family has been cursed to have many who served in actual combat branches, and blessed that a large percentage of them survived it.

There  are exceptions, perhaps I've been spoiled by Blackhawk Down, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan.  The original Die Hard well, Just Works like a Swisswatch.  More likely it's the result of being a small child, sitting piled in an armchair with my brothers, listening to our grandfather dad and our uncles with assorted other friends of theirs all swapping stories stories of what Real Combat is like.

I freely admit I was a Shellhead (Iron Man) fan in my teens, but those literal war stories probably explain why I've never really gotten into Comics.  Superheroes, well, frankly, even of the X-men, how many would survive sustained combat?  Iceman, Colussus, are arguably bulletproof.  The others?

A very long time ago, Marvel experimented with the "New Universe", the sudden emergence of superpowers in the modern world.  It struck me that one of the developing themes was how dangerous those powers were to the user, many new  superbeings killed themselves off in short order, others were gunned down by police to protect bystanders.  And the federal  government jumped right on them using the "clear and present danger" clauses.  One of the themes the creators planned to develop was the use of Soft Power.  Come under the federal umbrella, and we will shield you from those pesky lawsuits for damage that are piling up.

It was not popular.  Too close to reality.

Marvel also had a wonderful series, Damage Control, about the city services in NYC who had to clean up after a super-being throwdown.    It failed fast, the target audience does not want to worry about what happens when a lawyer serves a summons for damages against a Hero because said Hero threw a police cruiser at Something Dire.   Perhaps with a handcuffed arrestee still in the back, laying down out of sight.

My point is that despite a very strong desire to increase female readership, the core audience (as a group) of comics does not want to change, this is escape, wish-fulfillment, and they want sex kittens with big boobs and big tight asses.  And if Females superheroes are thought to be too powerful, well, they get nerfed.  Routinely.  Franky, that has always bugged me a hell of a lot more than sexploitation.  In fact, the Nerfing of Power Girl back in the day was pretty much the catalyst for me dropping comic readership all together.  Not that I particularly cared for Power Girl... but it drove home to me what was going on.  I found other uses for my time and money.

Tairis

#91
So my question would be if the 'industry' (pick one) is sexist then what is the solution? That's always my issue when this discussion comes up. Everyone complains but I never really see any valid solutions.

Better writers? They exist. Good ones create completely well-rounded characters. Bad ones... don't. It's not just restricted to the female characters. (Seem Jimmy Olsen's entire existence in 80% of superman. The poor bastard is literally just a Macguffin with red-hair). Want them to stop drawing females as hyper-sexy divas in comic books? Too bad. That'll happen about the same time that Hollywood starts casting ugly people in half their roles. Last I checked... 99% of women don't look anything like the average hollywood starlet. People like pretty people. They like sexy people.

It's a trend that has improved over the years in the sci-fi/fantasy/comicbook realm but it'll never change completely. They've become much more than they were. But I don't see anyone with a magic wand that's somehow going to make every piece of fiction perfect. Nor do the same to the people reading it. Some people are dumb. Some people are sexist. Some people are racist. Or a thousand other undesirable traits.

That's life. You vote with your wallet. Buy the things you do like, don't buy the ones you don't. But unless you're going to have some female 'sexism' czar... I don't see what you plan to accomplish by being outraged that Catwoman is always drawn with improbably large breasts. Critique a work because the writing is bad in general. Not just because it portrayed a specific gender badly.

Edit: I am a little confused on the whole 'females getting nerfed in comics' things. I'm more a Marvel than a DC type, but off the top of my head I can think of Jean Grey (one of the single most powerful people in the entire marvel-verse) and Storm from the X-Men as major 'heavy hitters' in the Marvel-verse and that's just from the X-Men that I remember back in the day. Don't recall them ever getting nerfed over much.
"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
- Robert Heinlein

Skynet

#92
Quote from: Tairis on May 06, 2013, 11:18:08 PM
Better writers? They exist. Good ones create completely well-rounded characters. Bad ones... don't. It's not just restricted to the female characters. (Seem Jimmy Olsen's entire existence in 80% of superman. The poor bastard is literally just a Macguffin with red-hair). Want them to stop drawing females as hyper-sexy divas in comic books? Too bad. That'll happen about the same time that Hollywood starts casting ugly people in half their roles. Last I checked... 99% of women don't look anything like the average hollywood starlet. People like pretty people. They like sexy people.

It's a trend that has improved over the years in the sci-fi/fantasy/comicbook realm but it'll never change completely. They've become much more than they were. But I don't see anyone with a magic wand that's somehow going to make every piece of fiction perfect. Nor do the same to the people reading it. Some people are dumb. Some people are sexist. Some people are racist. Or a thousand other undesirable traits.

That's life. You vote with your wallet. Buy the things you do like, don't buy the ones you don't. But unless you're going to have some female 'sexism' czar... I don't see what you plan to accomplish by being outraged that Catwoman is always drawn with improbably large breasts. Critique a work because the writing is bad in general. Not just because it portrayed a specific gender badly.

The graphics are but one part.  And the problem is less "beautiful/handsome people" so much as other factors.  One is that the sexualized outfits are the norm in many superhero comics; there's not too many female superheroes in practical-looking suits and armor in comparison to the stripperific designs.  Also, rubber spines and impossible positions (Escher Girls is a good Tumblr providing examples of this).

And there are also tropes (like women in refrigerators) which happen disproportionately to female characters in comics.

Yes, there's always going to be prejudice, but doesn't preclude room for improvement.  Several decades ago, there were no superheroes of color in comics.  This changed around the 70s, but they were often stereotypical.  Now there's more three-dimensional ones such as Storm and Cyborg.

Progress is slow, but it does come.  And I hope that such discussion inside and outside the fandom brings it about in regards to the aforementioned heroes.

Tairis

Well I'm certainly not arguing that artists often fail horribly at anatomy. And again it's not restricted to women. Rob Liefield for example. Shudder.

My point is mostly screaming 'sexism' and going on a tirade is rarely as effective as simply addressing the work as a whole. The former easily triggers a backlash both justified and unjustified. The latter they can't really argue with. Bad writing is just bad writing.
"I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
- Robert Heinlein

Ephiral

Quote from: Tairis on May 07, 2013, 08:45:41 PM
Well I'm certainly not arguing that artists often fail horribly at anatomy. And again it's not restricted to women. Rob Liefield for example. Shudder.

My point is mostly screaming 'sexism' and going on a tirade is rarely as effective as simply addressing the work as a whole. The former easily triggers a backlash both justified and unjustified. The latter they can't really argue with. Bad writing is just bad writing.

So... don't point out blatant sexism when it's happening because someone might not like it? Fuck that noise. You can claim it's not there all you want, but there aren't any artists continually getting work by tracing male characters out of porn, for example.

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Ephiral on May 08, 2013, 12:17:33 AM
So... don't point out blatant sexism when it's happening because someone might not like it? Fuck that noise. You can claim it's not there all you want, but there aren't any artists continually getting work by tracing male characters out of porn, for example.

Ephiral, the key reason Michelangelo's David or any depiction of St.Sebastian (naked, tied to the pillar and bleeding from arrows) haven't been branded as speaking a picture language out of porn is that they are long since part of the canon. But if it had been the book rule to look up works of art and bash them as infected with porno stereotypes when those works were made, they would have been on the list as well. Maybe the hunt wouldn't have begun there, but in time the label would have stuck to them too.

It's a no-brainer that David can be tagged "objectifying male nudity", and he even shows his organ. Link it up with the fact that David in the Bible is clearly a macho man and you have a type A case of simplifying, bigoted intentions.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

consortium11

Quote from: gaggedLouise on May 08, 2013, 02:04:06 AM
Ephiral, the key reason Michelangelo's David or any depiction of St.Sebastian (naked, tied to the pillar and bleeding from arrows) haven't been branded as speaking a picture language out of porn is that they are long since part of the canon. But if it had been the book rule to look up works of art and bash them as infected with porno stereotypes when those works were made, they would have been on the list as well. Maybe the hunt wouldn't have begun there, but in time the label would have stuck to them too.

It's a no-brainer that David can be tagged "objectifying male nudity", and he even shows his organ. Link it up with the fact that David in the Bible is clearly a macho man and you have a type A case of simplifying, bigoted intentions.

I think Ephiral's point is more that a number of comic artists (Greg Land is particularly infamous) have been known to literally trace stills/photos from porn shoots as the basis for their female characters. There's a reason virtually ever female Land draws ends up have an "orgasm face".

gaggedLouise

#97
Quote from: consortium11 on May 08, 2013, 04:05:46 AM
I think Ephiral's point is more that a number of comic artists (Greg Land is particularly infamous) have been known to literally trace stills/photos from porn shoots as the basis for their female characters. There's a reason virtually ever female Land draws ends up have an "orgasm face".

I think that really depends on how and why the artists or their audience are using such styles and tactics. Franco Saudelli's The Blonde comic album abounds in cunningly bound and gagged women, some of them tortured (not heavily) or kept waiting, clearly some of those pictures are derived from the language of porno, but Saudelli also uses it to tell a satiric tall tale of media/corporate corruption and depraved journalism - the reporter and the tv channel in the story are effectively conniving with the abductress to get the most out of the juicy story, while they feign sympathy for the victims - and it's not that hard to read it as a satire on the Italy that Berlusconi would emerge from and come to lead: sexual escapades on the tv, in private and flunky journalism.

And for older examples, well, there's any number of female characters and heroines in what are now appreciated literary classics which were blasted, when those books first appeared, as being the kind of stuff that could only appeal to men who want to read about saucy hookers and sluts. Madame Bovary, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Strindberg's Miss Julie (which had to be toned down a bit in its language to be considered printable or possible to stage, even though the editor was a friend of the author - and it was still seen as scandalous when it came out in 1889; the uncensored version only appeared a century later after, get it, a forensic run-through of hundreds of corrections in the original longhand manuscript...)  Okay, I'm not claiming every hot comic book is like Madame Bovary, the point is I don't think criticism of a graphic novel, a book, a hiphop rhyme or a painting should always entail the critic nailing down half a dozen stereotypes that might be spied out in the fabric of the work.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"

meikle

Quote from: gaggedLouise on May 08, 2013, 02:04:06 AMIt's a no-brainer that David can be tagged "objectifying male nudity", and he even shows his organ. Link it up with the fact that David in the Bible is clearly a macho man and you have a type A case of simplifying, bigoted intentions.

The statue where his junk is carved to suggest fear-induced shrinkage?
Kiss your lover with that filthy mouth, you fuckin' monster.

O and O and Discord
A and A

Healergirl

tairis,

i didn't go on a tirade, and I hope I'm not seen as doig sonow.

I Just decided I didn't like what I was seeing, reading... and stopped buying comics.  Anecdotes are not the most reliable data (but they are data), and selection bias is certainly at work here... but I know quite a few women who used to buy comics and stopped for similar if not identical reasons.

Now on the flip side?  Conan is certainly objectified in the comics.  All that bare skin, Manly Muscle?  In the original stories, he wore actual clothes, and as much armor as he thought the situation demanded.  Yes, Howard/Conan was a big believer in armor.     In fact, in Beyond the Black River, Conan expressly credits his survival on the frontier during heavy fighting to his armor. His barbarian upbringing  and considerable combat experience gave him the skill to move far more quietly in armor than his very unfortunate Pict opponents would have been able to believe, had they survived long enough to think about it.

Even when in his thief phase, he wore a helmet, and light leather armor.  As a soldier, he always wore a chainmail shirt and helmet, often greaves, not frequently carried a shield.

When King, he wore the best  full-plate armor available.

In comics?  Beefcake on display.

Meikle,

From the rumors about Michalangelo... I suspect the model he used was a grower, not a shower.