Comment on Alyssa Rosenberg: Leather & Lace

• Alyssa Rosenberg: Leather & Lace

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  • I absolutely agree with you that the super-powers naturally represent empowerment, and give license for a woman to dress however she wants.
    
    I think the issue is how often writers create characters who want to dress in thongs, and incidentally are 6 foot tall, blonde, and improbably proportioned.
    
    Where's the women in giant mechanical robo-suits? Where's the butch, pear-shaped tough grrls? Where, even, are the nudists for whom leather/lycra/latex feels artificial?
    
    Like many such cases, I don't think this is a universal complaint (I'm sure many people can name comic book characters in each of the categories above), as much as an issue of proportion (of current super-heroine population) and evolution of longstanding characters.
    
    I think some characters feel like their (super-)empowerment leads naturally to their liberated sexiness, and others feel like their outfit is dissociated from and enervates their power. Their is a fine line between the postmodern trend of acknowledging the fictional nature of the story and sacrificing the character for fan service. The line seems to be crossed more and more lately.

    January 15, 2010 1:05 PM

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Comment on Betsy Braddock--Porn Star - Ta-Nehisi Coates

• Betsy Braddock--Porn Star - Ta-Nehisi Coates

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  • There are threads to this conversation that totally resonate with me: characters you love being re-created as hoochie-mamas is both common and horrible (right up there with characters you love being killed off to prove someone's "edginess"). And, to a large extent, the babes are just gettin' babe-ier, and it's worse than it used to be.

    For me, the issue passed from "it's just the nature of the business" to "wait, this actually feels ooky" when Warbird's suit was drawn so thongy. I mean, she's the first feminist superhero! :)

    But there's another thread that seems to focus on comics, or geekdom, as the source of this upswelling (or swelling up). I think this ignores the broader trend of pornstar-ness becoming the norm in pop culture in general. I saw a woman leaving Target in tights and thigh-high boots the other day.

    TV, movies, fashion; there's a trend of impossible proportions and improbable exposure. Nerd-dom contains many fantasies of the feminine, from Trinity's (and Batwoman's) decidedly un-stiletto boots and narrower silhouette to Olivia Dunham's (and Jessica Jones's) cool strength to Pam Beesly's smile, as well as the fetish-gear cheesecake we've been talking about. Although she wore some pretty provocative costumes, Jennifer Garner won over the fans of (the TV) Alias precisely because of all the ways she ISN'T like Pamela Anderson.

    I'm not saying it's ok. I'm not saying it's less common than you make out. I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying it IS a problem, and it's EVERYWHERE.

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