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A small battle of words has broken out over this(and it’s follow-up posts).
Now, do I think super-hero comics are primarily read by men? Yeah. Do I think, to a large extent, a lot of the marketing divisions of Marvel and DC still kind of has them in mind as their primary source of income? Probably.
So should we just shrug and say oh well? Are we asking too much for comics to not pander to the lowest aspect of maleness? Is it asking too much for female heroes who are just as fully realized as characters as their male counterparts? Is it asking too much that they not be played up as merely “hot babes in spandex”? Is it crazy to ask that Powergirl be more than a pair of breasts with a super powered person attached?
I think the answer is a pretty resounding “no”. Yeah, the main audience buying comics is male. But that hardly means sexist portrayals of female heroes is acceptable. It hardly means we just stop challenging the industry toward better portrayals of women in super hero comics. Will that change bring more women readers in? Maybe not, but it sure can’t be a bd thing for the readers that are already here.
Imagine a show on TV that had a primarily white audience being defended by,”Well, our audience is primarily white, so it does not really matter if our minority characters are basically stereotypes.” Would we nod and just say, “That’s the just the way it always has been and always will be”? No, we would ask for change. We would be seeing letter writing campaigns to get the guy who said it fired. “Thats just how it is” seems like a defense for doing/saying nothing.
Super-Hero comics that are not sexist are good whether there are a lot of women reading them or not.
