I'd agree with that. Mind you, it's rather telling that the best characters tend not to be sexualised.Fappy said:
When I did a google image search, getting nothing but canon art, I saw the same kind of skin tight, can guess their nipple shape if I was within ten feet outfits the rest wear. So where was the nonsexualization? Pics please as I don't read the series.thaluikhain said:
Well, alot of it is in the writing, but for example:DeathWyrmNexus said:
I stopped here but basically the problem with men is that it's harder to draw us in a provocative way and get away with it.The Article said:
Surely that just means that it happens alot so people expect it?Lyri said:
Birds of Prey, right?thaluikhain said:Well, alot of it is in the writing, but for example:DeathWyrmNexus said:
[http://img204.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=200245213_DetectiveComics862013_122_423lo.jpg]
Here you have both Batman and Batwoman following similar cases, and both have just been thrown out of vans, and adopt the same pose on the ground. Batwoman here is being more or less exactly the same as Batman (she's the one on the bottom), being no more sexualised than Batman is. Alot of Batwoman's run on detective comics was like this. Alot of the time, you could swap Batwoman for Batman and it'd make no difference (well...except when going into her backstory as coming from a Jewish military family and being kicked out of the US army for being a lesbian).
Huntress and Cassandra Cain...yeah, now that I stop and look at it. I'll try to cop out and say that they aren't always as bad as most, higher ratio of action shots to playboy poses, better writing...[small]mumble mumble mumble[/small]
Time and energy in this case = page space, pacing, etc. Fanservice is wasting the limited resources fiction uses. Compare something like Persepolis to something that devotes page space to fanservice - the work that takes itself seriously as a story is head and shoulders above the rest.DeathWyrmNexus said:
Read the quote again. It's not sex appeal or sexualization that's bad - it's the *way* characters are usually sexualized. The whole cheesecake/beefcake thing portrays the character as passively posing as opposed to acting (or really, doing anything that makes sense in context), wherein lies the problem. Sex is fine. Wank material is silly and weak storytelling. Again, go back to the team Jacob vs. team John McClane issue.DeathWyrmNexus said:
Haha, you reading something incorrectly =/= backpedaling. See response to the above quote.DeathWyrmNexus said:
Ah, the old "comics don't have to be internally consistent or be good stories!" argument. Dude, I agree with you that most mainstream comics suck. I'm talking about how they can avoid sucking.DeathWyrmNexus said:
Missing the point much? You need to make a distinction between sexy and sexualized. Fenris is more sexualized (in the wank material sort of way) because he was designed from the ground up as a love interest/wank material, whereas Garrus was designed as the Dirty Harry...In SPAAAACEEE! alien dude - i.e., as something other than wank material.DeathWyrmNexus said:
And I've never heard of your example and still haven't heard of your Kushana character. So I can't follow your example. Also, fan service is only wasted if the fans aren't serviced in some way. Kinda boils down to what actually rocks your boat in a comic.Kahunaburger said:
Again, you're comparing apples to assholes and it doesn't work. They aren't in the same genre thus aren't comparable. Jacob is a guy trying to bed a girl. Storm is a heroine. Compare things that actually compare. So yea, this is backpedaling with a comparison that is still inaccurate. Storm is pretty fucking sexy and I still manage to respect her as a character. *shrugs*
No, I am saying that you are bringing up credibility and bitching about outfits and poses in a world where people fly and punch buildings. The whole thing is fantasy and ridiculous. The thing is that I can find them credible despite their outfits.
Fenris was designed to be a slave with grafted armor but I won't judge what you wank to. I found him compelling and didn't use him simply because I was pro mage every time but still made sure to talk to him and fully max out friendship every time. However, I will say this. I didn't feel compelled to get ME2 but I did get DA 2. Garrus becoming space batman was interesting but didn't compel me. Sooo, I am not feeling ya. Sorry. I liked Fenris as a character just as much as I liked Garrus, more so but eh, fans will be fans, I suppose. Cliches and all that in both directions. One didn't work so they went to the other.
You haven't heard of Persepolis... and you're trying to discuss female characters in comic books? Game over, man. Game, over.DeathWyrmNexus said:
Once again, not addressing the issue. There is no real reason for [INSERT FEMALE CHARACTER OF YOUR CHOICE] to be passively posing like a she's in a Maxim photoshoot when she's ostensibly not posing for something. So it not only is inconsistent with the context the character's in, it actively undermines the story's efforts to convince us that she's doing something other than passively posing. Similarly, if Jacob is posing with his shirt off even when the story's trying to convince us he's doing something other than trying to show his abs off, it undermines the efforts of the story to do that.DeathWyrmNexus said:
Well, if you like comics ironically, or like them unironically while acknowledging the crappy aspects of them, feel free to do so. In either case, it doesn't make a lot of sense for you to get all defensive over the crappy aspects of the mainstream then haha.DeathWyrmNexus said:
This isn't a discussion about DA2 vs. ME2 (no need to drag in copy-pasted dungeons and the "gigglesquee" post into this debate) and considering that your response did not address the argument it was responding to...DeathWyrmNexus said:
EDIT: Oh, you actually did something beside post a snip and *****.Kahunaburger said:
R: Women are sexualized in comics, men are sexualized in rom-coms (and NOT in comics). Men in comics are the male fantasy of ourselves. This is a surprise to no-one.
Haha, you're getting mad and not reading what I'm writing. That's all right - I was getting bored anyway. Read this: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Persepolis-Marjane-Satrapi/dp/0375714839/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1308206668&sr=8-2 instead. It's a comic book that's actually (gasp!) good.DeathWyrmNexus said:
So again, you aren't going to explain your example, you're just going to hoc a mag. Okay then. Ya, I read what you wrote and been reading it. I read how you want to keep comparing unadulterated romance porn to chics in comic books. I get it. You think they are all crap.Kahunaburger said:
I agree to a point and that point is this; by idealizing ourselves in comics aren't we, as men, over sexualizing ourselves? Besides passion and sensitivity what are women naturally tuned to be attracted to? Strength and Confidence, two things male comic book heros are usually exaggerated to portray as a means to be attractive to both something women would love and men would pine to become.Toriver said:While I disagree with the OP's suggestion that sexualization = powerlessness, let's not kid ourselves, guys. We can say all we want that there are plenty of women in comics who are not usually sexualized (Wonder Woman, Invisible Woman and Storm come to mind), but pretty much every female superhero out there has been played for sex appeal at some time or another. And enough with that B.S. about men in comics having muscles of steel as sexualization for the ladies. You and I know that's just a cheap cop-out argument with little basis in reality. Women don't go see Superman movies to fantasize about him carrying them away to the Fortress of Solitude. Nor do they watch Die Hard to drool over John McClane. As others have mentioned, characters like Edward Cullen or even freaking Harry Potter have exponentially more drooling, obsessed fangirls than any superhero. Comic books (or at least superhero comics) have for a very long time been almost exclusively been a man's medium, made by men for men, so it stands to reason that the images within superhero comics, both male and female, would be made to appeal to men. The well-muscled men of comics are not a woman's ideal of a man, but a man's view of the ideal man: the man we men want to be, not necessarily the man women want. This applies to countless action heroes in movies and games as well: Conan the Barbarian, Rocky, Rambo, the Terminator, anything Steven Seagal, Vin Diesel or van Damme have ever done, Markus Fenix, Duke Nukem (to parodic effect), Nathan Drake, Kratos, the list goes on. That's the effect they're all going for: our own gender's fantasy about our own body image. It's the image we men have built for ourselves as the ideal. And because sight is naturally much more of a primary sense for men when it comes to sex (compared to smell and touch for women), our view of a good-looking woman is a much bigger part of women's body image than the reverse. As a straight man, I will admit that men tend to be a lot more picky about what we consider an attractive-looking woman than women are for us, and that has a big part to play in what the female ideal is in the eyes of both men and women. So I just don't see how that "sexualized man" argument holds any weight in the terms of the men in action films and comic books. Sure, men are sexualized, but you can't really claim that it's in those media that they are. Superman and Batman are not, nor have they ever been, considered really "sexy" characters. The one real example of overt male sexualization I can offer in action/comic media is James Bond. Heck, I'm straight as an arrow and I'D let Bond have his way with me. But other than that, you have to look at media designed primarily for women to really see male sexualization: rom-coms, soap operas and the like. That's where the sexually appealing guys to women are. And the same logic applies: along with the handsome guys are the women that women want to be like. It's just the different ideals and interests that thousands of years of assigned gender roles have implanted in us. Whether it's nature or nurture, I really don't care.
TL
