On Lesbian Couples

[Ozaline]

The fact that the rape in LEG II is punished does not neccesarily excuse it from being mysogistic though.

In LEG I Mina is saved from rape by a man, and in LEG II her rape is avenged by a man. So it's still being used to drive male characters and that aside from the simple fact that he uses rape all the time (and it's usually best to avoid it if you can, I find), makes it problematic.

I know you were saying that Alice but just thought I'd reinforce it a bit.

[Alice Macher]

^No problem, Ozaline. Although do note that the Miracleman example I mentioned happens neither to a woman, nor to a man in revenge for a woman. Moore still could've used some other way to bring Kid Miracleman "back to life."

[JerrBear]

This works great for 'citizenry'. I fully get why, say, a news reporter or desk jockey or a weatherman or a cook might prefer to make the world work on their terms, rather than looking for a miracle cure for one disability or another.

But it strains credulity when you're talking about capes, for much the same reason that it would if we were talking about cops or firefighters. These are professions where physical prowess WILL be an issue at some point, and where physical conflict is almost unavoidable, and--and this is a big part of the issue--where other people's lives will depend upon your ability to perform the duties you're called upon to do.

Now, I can get around this a bit by declaring that Barbara/Oracle exists in the "Batman" splice of the DCU, where technology is usually "cutting edge" at best, and anything more than that tends to go horribly wrong. So it makes a certain amount of sense that Oracle can't just snap up a cure. (Still, even then, I think it's almost criminally stupid that her chair wasn't as rigged out as, say, the batcycle. Note: It's been a few years since I followed comics closely, and I'm speaking right now mostly of how I remember her, which was the first, glorious run of Birds of Prey.)

I can see where suspending disbelief can be hard in the case of superpowered individuals. Especially since, as the trope you linked mentions, these fictional worlds tend to have better science than we do. In the case of Oracle, though, considering she's still physically able to kick ass (from what I read on TV Tropes) I don't think the wheelchair really hinders her.

Edit: I also agree she should be able to at least have a battle wheelchair. Hell, I want a battle wheelchair!

[retrophrenologist]

I can see where suspending disbelief can be hard in the case of superpowered individuals. Especially since, as the trope you linked mentions, these fictional worlds tend to have better science than we do. In the case of Oracle, though, considering she's still physically able to kick ass (from what I read on TV Tropes) I don't think the wheelchair really hinders her.

Unless there are stairs.

I'm a little disappointed that Bryan Q. Miller's run on the current Batgirl title is coming to an end. But as a comics fan, the illusion of change is something that you have to get used to.

[CBrachyrhynchos]

To my memory, she was offered a cure or prosthetic a couple of times in Birds of Prey. But the results were either problematic, (parasitic infection by a version of Braniac as I recall) or unsatisfactory (painful, unreliable, and clumsy.) Besides, the concept of the elite hacker managing as many as a half-dozen agents in the field is fucking cool. The DC Universe has an overabundance of scrappers, Oracle was mastermind. A good Birds of Prey plot combined the best features of Ocean's 11 and James Bond.

[martinraybourne]

I feel I should jump in here to play advocate--not necessarily of the Luciferian persuasion.

There's a tendency to react against stories that don't represent how we want the world to be--why everyone wants a superhero of their race, or they want some representation of homosexuals, or whatever minority you can pick out of a hat.

But there have been next to no "superhero" genre comics that are primarily or solely the work of a single author--or, to drill it down, no longstanding comics, to put aside short serials like Watchmen.

It seems unfair to say that, drawing from the examples offered above, making Oracle able to walk again is "ableist" (let me go on the record and say that has to be one of the worst terms people have come up in until the rise of Web 2.0 jargon) because the writer may only be considering where he or she wants to go with the character. I don't think it's fair to condemn any writer with the burdens of years of canon because in the comic book world this stuff gets rewritten all the time. Reboots and retcons are by now a requirement in any superhero lore. Likewise, what would people have thought if First Class had made Mystique the biggest lesbian stereotype ever to grace the screen? Would people have been happy that the "idea" was there but the execution was atrocious?

Ultimately I (and the vast majority of comics readers) are looking for interesting stories and (hopefully) compelling characters. Enjoyment is much better when you aren't checking off quotas or trying to impress your vision on a writer who is bound to upset someone no matter what he does.

[Ozaline]

Ultimately I (and the vast majority of comics readers) are looking for interesting stories and (hopefully) compelling characters. Enjoyment is much better when you aren't checking off quotas or trying to impress your vision on a writer who is bound to upset someone no matter what he does.

Oh I love it when people bring up the the word quota? Where was it used? This is the same kind of reactionary goal post moving that people do everytime talk of increasing or maintaing diversity comes up. I've seen it time and time again, at the mere mention of diversity people bring up quotas like that was the issue.

I'm not saying, "DC better include 5 people in wheelchairs, 6 people with missing limbs, 5 blind people, 8 gay men, 6 gay women, 15 asians..." That'd be a quota... I'm saying to take a character who is an embodiement that people with disablities can be just as useful as the fully abled and to give her the use of her legs back like nothing ever happened, is potentially abelist. I'm not blaming the writer it's Gail Simone; I have full faith she'll write an awesome series featuring my favorite Batgirl. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of two characters I like, Oracle and Stephanie.

And for the record DC is obviously (as they have in the past when Dwayne McDuffie, rest his soul, created his own line), trying to be inclusive with this new Reboot. There are several books starring black characters coming out, Firestorm, Static Shock, Mr. Terrific, Cyborg on the JLA, and many other "ethnic characters" on different teams. DC has a stated goal with this reboot of trying to make comics more accesible to a more diverse demographic.

They are doing this of their own free will, because it's good buisness sense to create stories that appeal to a diverse crowd and just not one group, ie Straight white men, not because of some race quota.

On the other hand they're robbing DC of one of two major characters in a wheelchair, which yes does strike me as abelist. And abelism is a perfectly descriptive term for discrimination against differently abled people. Just like cis-sexism is used for descrimination against transgendered folk; yes these terms are new but these were problems that wern't recognized until recently so they need new terms.

[mindstalk]

This makes me tend to read these scenes charitably, as a response to real-world brutality. There are also plenty of shows of strength and force from the women in Moore's works.

As in other areas, the unfortunate tendency to follow Moore's surface traits a little too closely has led to some bad results (see: Women in Refrigerators). But I don't think it's fair to paint him with that brush.

There's also the way rape is treated rather flippantly in the first League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; the invisible man sets up camp in an all girl boarding school especially so he can rape young teen girls with no repercussions, and it's almost treated as comedy.

That whole scene read like Victorian porn to me (yes, I speak from experience.) The *lesbian S&M* all-girl boarding school, and the girls didn't seem unwilling.

[Alice Macher]

The fact that the girls bought the idea (which seemed to have been fed them by the headmistress) that they were "visited by the Holy Spirit," doesn't make it consensual. Still rape.

[Ozaline]

The fact that the girls bought the idea (which seemed to have been fed them by the headmistress) that they were "visited by the Holy Spirit," doesn't make it consensual. Still rape.

Also it's an adult taking advantage of the naivete of young girls, which falls under the modern definition of statutory rape, depending on what country/state we're talking about.

Now my views on the sexual freedoms of young people are a bit more complicated then that, but yes I would call it rape.

Also Alice, I wouldn't say that having a man be raped excuses the other instances from carrying upsetting undertones.

[CBrachyrhynchos]

Likewise, what would people have thought if First Class had made Mystique the biggest lesbian stereotype ever to grace the screen? Would people have been happy that the "idea" was there but the execution was atrocious?

Knowing how Marvel (unlike DC) usually handles its LGBT characters, hell yeah I'd take the biggest lesbian stereotype. Not the very least because it seems that the entertainment industry seems fixated on "not that kind of queer." But my argument, again, is dramatic license without dramatic payoff. For examples of reboots that take dramatic license and get dramatic payoff, watch just about every Oz movie made, Nolan's Batman, Jackson's LOTR, Battlestar Galactica, Young Justice, Gankutsuo, the Thomas operatic Hamlet, and the Sondheim/Burton Sweeney Todd. (Constantine sucked though, not because they made him an American with a big gun, but because he wasn't witty, scary, or tragic. Although that gun did suck.)

The problem isn't just that movie Mystique is apparently straight, and with all the Charles/Erik subtext it doesn't seem that the writers are at all shy on that front. It's also that one of the most brilliant, ruthless, crazy, and bloodthirsty anti-heroes was made into a passive foil for Charles' idealism, Erik's pride, and (really stretching it) Hank's shame. You might as well just throw in Dr. Doom as an emo scene kid from Sheboygan. And there's no payoff because none of the three main character conflicts are credible for her presence. She's almost as superfluous as the human sonar device and the human icepick.

[mindstalk]

The fact that the girls bought the idea (which seemed to have been fed them by the headmistress) that they were "visited by the Holy Spirit," doesn't make it consensual. Still rape.

I always thought of it more as "finally! actual c*ck!" But yes, realistically, rape, and what an amoral and overconfident invisible man might try to do. Of course, realistically, the whole school was a hotbed of forced lesbianism and physical abuse. Also realistically, someone would probably have tried to help and noticed that the "Holy Spirit" felt like an invisible man and grappled him down. Which might lead back to tacit consent and the *girls* originating the "Holy Spirit" idea.

But yeah, it's a disturbing thing covered up by porn-comedy. Which might serve to make the (attempted?) undeniable rape of a 'real' character more shocking when it happens.

[CBrachyrhynchos]

Personally, I suspect that scene in League is part of Moore's pointed satire (Wells, et. al. are not that far removed from trashy boarding-school porn), but it doesn't quite come off that way.

[martinraybourne]

Ultimately I (and the vast majority of comics readers) are looking for interesting stories and (hopefully) compelling characters. Enjoyment is much better when you aren't checking off quotas or trying to impress your vision on a writer who is bound to upset someone no matter what he does.

Oh I love it when people bring up the the word quota? Where was it used? This is the same kind of reactionary goal post moving that people do everytime talk of increasing or maintaing diversity comes up. I've seen it time and time again, at the mere mention of diversity people bring up quotas like that was the issue.

I'm not saying, "DC better include 5 people in wheelchairs, 6 people with missing limbs, 5 blind people, 8 gay men, 6 gay women, 15 asians..." That'd be a quota... I'm saying to take a character who is an embodiement that people with disablities can be just as useful as the fully abled and to give her the use of her legs back like nothing ever happened, is potentially abelist. I'm not blaming the writer it's Gail Simone; I have full faith she'll write an awesome series featuring my favorite Batgirl. I just wish it didn't come at the expense of two characters I like, Oracle and Stephanie.

And for the record DC is obviously (as they have in the past when Dwayne McDuffie, rest his soul, created his own line), trying to be inclusive with this new Reboot. There are several books starring black characters coming out, Firestorm, Static Shock, Mr. Terrific, Cyborg on the JLA, and many other "ethnic characters" on different teams. DC has a stated goal with this reboot of trying to make comics more accesible to a more diverse demographic.

They are doing this of their own free will, because it's good buisness sense to create stories that appeal to a diverse crowd and just not one group, ie Straight white men, not because of some race quota.

On the other hand they're robbing DC of one of two major characters in a wheelchair, which yes does strike me as abelist. And abelism is a perfectly descriptive term for discrimination against differently abled people. Just like cis-sexism is used for descrimination against transgendered folk; yes these terms are new but these were problems that wern't recognized until recently so they need new terms.

Demanding representation is the same, whether your magic number is just one person (tokenism!) or X number to fit the category.

They are comic book characters, people. If I had a dime for every time a writer decided to make Charles Xavier able to walk and then somehow he ended up back in the wheel chair I would have myself a nice piggybank. My point is the fact that characters radically change virtually every aspect of their personality and appearance is not evidence of sexism, or ableism, or what have you, it's just the comics industry. People who look for more insidious reasoning are failing to apply Occam's razor.

Put it another way: if comic book writers weren't given license to re-imagine character's pasts and personalities, most of the gay, etc. characters would still be straight as that's how most were originally conceived. Nick Fury wouldn't be black (and we wouldn't have Samuel L. Jackson in the movies), Colossus wouldn't be gay in one continuity, and most of DC's new push for greater representation would be restricted by past continuity. I don't see how it's so offensive that some of these traits get reset or subverted, because it happens to everything else.

[Tamar]

Martin, I do see your main point and agree with it to a degree. However, said point could've been made with neither reference to "quotas" (which, again, Ozaline didn't mention), nor dismissing the term "ableism." That sort of argumentation tends to get people's backs up unnecessarily.

Are there people in the world who make unrealistic and unmeetable demands for diversity (e.g. requiring a certain percentage of hirees to be Inuit when there's maybe one Inuit person for hundreds of miles around)? Are there people who see bigoted attitudes where they're not plausibly intended (e.g. shaming or penalizing people, for using terms like "lame" in its slang sense, with the same vehemence as if they'd shouted "Kill the [n-word]s")? Yes and yes. However, it seems to me that sometimes people bring up the scary spectre of "political correctness" simply as a way of stifling debate about, or efforts toward, diversity. As I said, I agree to an extent with your main point, and therefore I'm not saying you meant to engage in such stifling. But perhaps you can see how your choice of words may have given that impression? Something to consider.

Finally, "they're comic book characters" isn't an excuse for undoing diversity. Rather, it's precisely because the characters are fictional that it's easy to retain or retool them for that purpose. Whereas, to take my above example of unachievable hiring quotas, in real life a human resources department can't, say, wave a magic wand and change a person's ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or what have you. Peace.