* <<F4F.0744>> WW Script draft

Look, what's important is not what you wear, but how you wear it.

The sexual objectification of female characters in comics IS a 
problem.  Let's not be naïve and say it isn't.  But is covering-up 
the solution?

Some well-meaning people say that outfits like these aren't 
practical, or realistic, and that the only purpose they serve is to 
titilate male readers.

You want practical and realistic? Okay, let's get real:

---

This is what a female warrior wears.  This is serious business.  Lots 
of protection, lots of mobility -- plenty of supplies on-hand, 
practical footwear... but here's the problem:

If an artist wants to sexualize me, they're going to do it no matter 
what I'm wearing.

---

The nude figure is a powerful medium of expression.  Without the 
protection of clothes we are our most vulnerabile, our most fragile.

But the naked form in action -- how better can you corporealize 
strength, courage, bravery?

In my opinion ...or, rather, in the artist's opinion -- I'm only a 
projection of the artist, after all -- the reason superheroes are 
visually compelling is largely due to their effectual nakedness. 

There is nothing practical or realistic about men and women running 
around in their underwear fighting crime.  The costumes are symbolic, 
the figures are expressive.

--sidebar--
Kids get this.  Kids may not be versed in semiotics, but they intuit 
the difference between signifier and signified, and they get the 
symbolic content of cartoons without getting hung-up on the verity of 
representation.  As we get older, we tend to lose this, demand 
"realism" ...why?
-----------

Now, before you accuse ME of being naïve, let me concede that there 
ARE costumes intended to titilate.  I don't think this is one of 
them...

...tho' I'm not entirely sure about Plastic Man's...

...and there are issues with the way this one gets drawn. You know: 
too low in the top, and too high at the bottom.
 
But THAT's the problem -- it's usually not the costume, it's the 
tweaks some artists make to sex-up the costume, and that's part of 
the larger problem of the overall visual treatment of female 
characters.

Like, why are we sticking our butts out all the time, when we're 
doing things that don't require sticking your butt out?  Don't give 
me that shit about female lumbar curvature -- this is sticking your 
butt out.

For that matter, why are we presented backside-front, looking over 
our shoulder so much more frequently than male characters?

And why are THEY so frequently shown DOING stuff, while we're so 
frequently shown standing around trying to look glamorous or cute?

-----

There are quick and easy answers, of course.  

Artists like to draw what they like to see, and editors are never 
eager to send work back for revision, even if it might be a bit 
inappropriate, since there's usually not much public outcry from the 
core superhero comic demographic, and, frankly, a little bit of sex 
never DECREASED a book's sales, right?

Those are valid, surface-level complaints -- but it's a deeper 
problem than that. 

Sexual inequality is a problem endemic to ...heck, I was going to say 
western civilization, but it's a problem endemic to civilization, 
period.

There are still a LOT of people in the world who believe that it is 
by divine ordinance that women belong in roles deferential to men.  
In some cases, roles of downright obedience and servitude.  

Even many people with more secular viewpoints believe that women are 
subject to sexual objectification simply by the law of nature -- 
~that's just the way it is~.

...

--
Excerpted from:

PUBLIC NOTES (F)
http://alph.laemeur.com/txt/PUBNOTES-F
©2015 Adam C. Moore (LÆMEUR) <adam@laemeur.com>