To the right, Black Mary Marvel. Whos' that? Well in the DC (comic book) universe, you have the Marvel family. Captain Marvel -- SHAZAM, Captain Marvel Jr., and Mary Marvel.
Mary is one of the great Goody-Goodies of the DC Universe. Sweet, innocent, trusting, and moral. Not to mention a young girl, who takes the form of a young woman, to fight evil.
Coming up they are doing a new story, the Seduction of Innocence. It will deal with Mary.
I don't know what will be happening...but I am guessing she will be seduced by power, evil, or something.
But I fear it’s gonna be:
1) Mary dressing in super skimpy black outfits and her body suddenly being drawn to be super curvy and busty
2) Her becoming slutty and everything suddenly has to do with her wanting to smex things >.>;;
It seems like whenever a female hero goes to the darkside, those 2 things happen :\
That is the way it seems to always go. A female goes bad, or slips a little she has to wear (more) revealing clothes and act more promiscuous.
Why? If Superman goes dark, what happens? Does he hit on every women he meets? Does he wear a thong? Nope.
It says something about how we as a society approach the sexes, hmm?
Evil, women, sex. Interesting?
Posts
3 comments:
Men have this love/hate relationship with the "slut". :\ On one hand, they desire that type of girl (or the idea of her neways), and on the other hand, they fear her, b/c she's smexual and therefore, she WANTS smex, and not necessarily from them. They're just a means to an end, and that scares them :\
Which is why I think evil = slutty :(
Well, actually...
In "Superman III," the 'evil' Superman (more 'petty jerk' Superman, actually) did get flirtatious with the genius/bimbo villainess/moll of the film, and it was kind of up in the air whether or not anything came out of it.
In "Lost Hearts," which ran through the Super-titles a few years back, Superman got hit with some kind of evil/hopelessness parasite thing, which caused him to drink beer and get friendly with ex-girlfriend Lana Lang (despite the fact that both were married to other people at the time).
And in "Smallville," red Kryptonite tends to make Clark into a 'badass' horndog.
He's not wearing a thong, by any means, but I don't think the evil/promiscuous shorthand is limited to the ladies. I think it's more used for the "pure as snow" characters, because otherwise it's not all that shocking. When Batman gets it on, it's not a sign that he's gone evil. Superman, on the other hand...
The obvious thing here, which brings it back around to sexism, is that there are quite a lot more "pure as snow" female characters than male ones, I'd say. After all, we have to keep our heroines chaste and virginal.
When people talk about these things it is always good to remember there are no absolutes. In many ways having a character go amoral – have sex is an easy way to go (Read LAZY – on my mental list of the ways comic writers choose to go the lazy route on interesting ideas).
Like with Superman III, he does go amoral. He hits on women. But the way to show he is “bad” is that he is gunky and grimy. Look at the video on the alter ego link for a look at him at the end. He is unkempt in a way that is almost comical. In comics they do the shaded eyes and grim look and hulking presence, with menacing stance. That says BAD.
For Supergirl, she needs to show MORE FLESH. Get a bit lesbian.
This is the big problem. The guys can be shown as getting “kinky”. Getting loose. Getting mean. Getting harsh.
With the femmes, not so much.
I remember working with a character and trying to work out a story of an alternate world, with the evil version of the female heroine (I spend so much time imagining I never actually write.). The way I saw her, she was in darker outfit, a common symbolism. But it wasn’t revealing, or provocative, didn’t make sense. It was more militant and utilitarian. As to her style of acting, she was tougher, more than willing to use force, knock down building, kill, and put her perceived better goals above societies.
She was evil. And it really never occurred to me that she should be preoccupied with sex or boys. Maybe it was because the character was so close to me, that I had invested in it, that I was interested in taking the character in a way that wasn’t a walking…sashaying…slinkering cliché. And that, I think, is a problem for many writers and editors today. They really have a so-so connection to their characters.
It is just lazy.
Superman has gone bad a number of times over the years. Not that long ago he tried to take over the world with the superman bots.
When he goes bad it is usually dark figure with cataclysmic results.
When you look at Supergirl, she usually sheds so clothes, strikes poses, and can be scary. Why not just let her be a small, silent, deadly and scary ass evil, and just skip kinky ONCE?
Evil Maxwell Lord is scarier than evil Supergirl. That is so wrong. ;)
And it is not, as if this is a genre flaw. IT IS THE WRITERS and EDITOR MANDATES!
Post a Comment