Quote
MajorSteel
All good!! i think it comes down to empowerment which is a trendy rise and about time. Redesign what heroes wear and let them do their thing!!
The thing is, it's not about empowerment. It's about some people disapproving of what what people enjoy and how they enjoy it. Comics have been a boys club thing throughout most of the history of superhero comics. Sure, there have been comics that targeted a female audience, but those rarely had any staying power and were of a very different genre than the stuff boys read. Of course, by "boys" I mean boys of all ages, so also adult men who most likely picked up the interest at a young age and never let anyone tell them that they were too old for comics.
So considering that we've nailed down the original target demographic, let's talk about how they are looked at today. Comics fans were, as a majority, white males from teenage years to various levels of adulthood. Sure, there were fans of other ethnic, cultural, religious, or even geographic origins... but the bread and butter of the comics industry was the white youth to adult male. These days, the white male is pretty much the only group that it is not only acceptable to make of, it's actively encouraged... and it count as discrimination or oppression or anything else because white males are in power --
because that's what counts in the new definition of any -isms; you can't be racist against the people who have the power. I think that line of thinking is a complete load, mostly because it's not white males that are in power that everyone is rebelling against. It's rich people, and the majority of those are white males, but count on it that they do not represent all white males nor probably give a damn about them. Rich people care about rich people and staying in rich. But because that's who is seen as "the bad guys" out to get everyone else, we're now at a point where white males are routinely mocked, berated, and oppressed as part of the system that has oppressed any other groups in the past. That it makes it okay to tear down any and every beloved establishment that targeted that demographic as its core audience. Comics, sci-fi, video games, RPGs, anything... if it was once a boys club, it must be remade to be acceptable for everyone... even if only a small minority will appreciate those changes as being for them... and anyone who complains must be a sexist or racist or some other -ist. They complain that the things they like are changed, while those who push for the changes insist the changes will be better for everyone. Then sales start dropping off and things are ruined (Star Wars), and it's the old school fans being accused of being a vocal minority and trying to be gatekeepers to keep their interests the way they like them. But if those changes were really all that great, then why aren't the fans who are being pushed away replaced by surging numbers of new fans of anything but white & male?
The answer is because the interest is not there to begin with, and making characters, stories, and so on "more accessible" for everyone by tokenizing and proselytizing and hitting us with ham-fisted political preaching is not about making things more likable for everyone. It's about ruining it for the people who were the core demographic. It's pure spite. Women can do and like anything that men can. Sure... that's why the Ghostbusters reboot was so successful. And here's a fun fact, when it comes to what women want... the mary sue of empowerment that is "Captain Marvel" in all of her downplayed femininity for the sake of letting women kick ass... or do they want sexy manly man Jason Momoa as Aquaman or Chris Hemsworth as Thor? More men showed an interest in the Captain Marvel movie than women (I think the figure was something like 65% of the audience was male) while Aquaman had a more equally balanced audience. Go figure. And these days, with all of the token heroes and redesigned-for-SJW costumes and messages... comic books are selling at an all-time low. Embracing these "modern takes" on updating characters is not making them more popular. The only thing it does, and the only reason it's still going on, is because the two main comics publishers are now owned by Disney and Warner Bros. who use the frequent controversy caused by all of the changes to get news coverage and keep comics stuff relevant in pop culture because they are producing huge budget superhero movies. It's just virtue signalling for them.
"Look at how woke we are by addressing all these issues. By the way, go watch our newest movie and don't forget to buy the BluRay 4 to 6 months later."
Why am I bringing all of this up? Because yes, there is a certain degree of one-sided appeal in the comics art form. It has been for decades a medium aimed at audience of white males of various ages by publishers, artists, and writers of similar background. There are and always will be exceptions, and those exceptions generally stand out for a reason --usually because they are passionate about the art form. I've known women who have been comics fans, as well as people of color, and they were interested in the characters and stories as they were originally told. They did not need to have characters tokenized to feel represented. Sure, some characters are blatant wish fulfillment, such as the old Captain Marvel (Shazam!) stories about a little boy who says a magic word and becomes as powerful as Superman... But one does not need to personally identify with characters to enjoy their stories. For a good long time, Black Panther's following was primarily white, and we all agreed he was a badass all along. Wonder Woman? One of the few female characters to maintain a position of a long term solo book title (because boys used to be shamed as it was for reading comics in general, but buying "girl comics" was a hard sell). I think she got a pass largely due to nostalgia (being loved as far back as WW2 era), but whatever. So aside from someone like Wonder Woman, it was exceptionally difficult for writers to get other characters of color or female gender to sell. But that doesn't mean they didn't try, or fit them in elsewhere where they could (
team books or supporting characters of other books). So that explains why less representation over the years, but I think we're past a point where that's an issue. Nerd culture gained a huge following in the past few decades thanks to movies and video games.
But what about how the female characters look? Yes, there is a great deal of cheesecake factor. Again, target demographics discussed above... but what's the one truism that has not gone away but only been proven by the rampant expansion of the interent? Sex sells. So activist groups want to label comics they don't approve of as "porn" because of scantily clad women with impossible bodies setting unrealistic expectations when that was never the goal or even a consideration. Because if anyone looks at comics to set beauty or even fashion standards, then they need to re-evaluate their life priorities. Comics have always been about fantastic stories revolving around modern pantheons of godlike (and sometimes actual godly) pantheons of heroes. Instead of being set in the past, like the mythology everyone thinks of, they are based in modern times... much like those old myths when they were originally told. So yes, it seems like every superhero is a representation of physical perfection and beauty (
or absolutely monstrous)... but this gets dismissed as "male characters look this way for power while female characters look that way to be sexual objects." Yes, there is a certain measure of objectification... but, as mentioned before, "sex sells." The publishers knew it and often pushed the boundaries where they could just to titillate to boost sales. That's abhorrent, of course... because these fictional characters should not be exploited so... imagine if they were someone's daughters... or mothers. But they're not. They're fiction, and they're meant to provoke a reactional interest, the same way women's romance novels were. Those were never written with men in mind... and have occasionally been acknowledged as being porny... but where are the cries of sexism or objectification for the characters in those books? It's okay, they're for women, and so it should be allowed and now when conversations about such exploitation comes, those books can be conveniently ignored.
So now that I've shined a light on the conspiracy (
theory? Sure, because don't have enough evidence to prove it beyond a doubt) and comics demographics, let's look at the nature of the changes and talk about how silly they are.
Redesign artist criticizes older representations of Supergirl as not being teen enough. However, comics often show characters looking older or younger as needed for a given story or, more often, based on how a given artist chooses to draw them. My favorite example of this was Cyclops of the X-Men who were brought forward in time. He looks like he could be 18 or 19... gets accused of looking 12 at one point, and when he breaks from the team to go off and do his own thing to not be like his adult self, we seem him join up with the new Champions team and he does look like he's 12 so he fits in better with that group of kid heroes. And is Supergirl a teen? Sure, when she first came to Earth... several first times... she was a teenager and then grew up. DC does that... a lot. They let some characters age and things seem to occur that make lasting changes... until the next reboot, usually every 10 years.
Moving on. The redesign artist criticizes the amount of flesh shown with traditional Supergirl costumes, citing "since you wouldn't approve of
your teenage daughter dressing like a stripper in a cheap cheerleader costume, young Kara Zor-El probably shouldn't either." Okay... what teenager ever approves of how their parents would want them to dress? And when you're pretty much one of the most powerful people on the planet with no parents to make you behave a certain way... in what way does the redesign artist's statement make any sense? It's a statement meant to guilt people into liking the redesign and strips any agency away from the character by saying "we don't approve of that choice so she can't make or approve of it either." Nope, not buying into it.
Next up: Design.
"Even the producers of the most recent Superman movie could see that the 'iconic' blue, red, and yellow color combo is just atrocious." What producers would those be? The ones who made the entire movie bland and almost as colorless as possible to capitalize on what they thought made the Batman movies so popular? And how did that actually work out? Again, comic book characters are fantastic modern mythological myths. They not only can but SHOULD stand out as bright and larger than life because it draws the audience attention to those characters. Superman, Supergirl... these characters are more the shining example type heroes than your Batman or Punisher types who get things done in the gritty street-level after dark way. They are intentionally brightly colored and should look like like symbols... like superheroes. In fact, this statement about the Superman movie alone should discredit this particular artist and everything she has to say on superheroes in general more than any other comment made.
Hair... yeah yeah yeah, long hair bad. Not so much an issue for Supergirl, though. I mean, she could see right through it at will if it gets in her face and she chooses to see through it. X-Ray vision like a boss. There is definitely no risk here. Long hair goes back to the attractive superhero trope, though. Supers are better than everyone else and so should look like it while they do what they do. Long hair was never an issue for Thor (and damn them for chopping it up in Ragnarok, that just looked like ass)... nor was it an issue for Superman when the mullet was in fashion and he was sporting one in the 90s.
Capes. F*** the Incredibles, and Edna Mode can kiss my ass. I liked the movie, too... but I am sick to death of hearing people say "no capes" because Edna Mode. There were no capes because they were logistically problematic to animate in that movie. So they focused on a couple brief examples to use as an excuse for not including them on anyone else. Don't use inability to solve an animation problem as a justification for skipping on them. No, capes are not for everyone. But they are an iconic superhero feature, and Supergirl and Superman are iconic superheroes. They are examples that other superheroes emulate. If it weren't for Superman and Batman, we probably wouldn't have caped superheroes. So capes aren't a required feature of a superhero, but those who have them should keep them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I do not like any of the above redesigns because they do not look superheroic. They are not representative of the genre(s), and focus on making the characters look more mundane to fit with modern standards of safety rather than super fantasy. They are all bad ideas and the person who drew them should go live in a hole... on the Sun.
A high post count is indicative of little more than one having the time to post frequently.
It does not mean a person is more knowledgeable on any given topic than anyone else.
