Strange Tales: The Watcher

[xdoop]

[Banned]

Comments

[xdoop]

It's making fun of how Uatu dresses, not transgendered people. It's a parody.

[sethgray]

It may be intended to mock Uatu, and not transgendered people or transvestites, but when it uses every single indicator of transphobia it becomes something else.

Why is it necessary to depict the flabby visible nipple? Uatu is neither overweight, nor sporting a visible nipple. Since neither of those things is in his design, the creators had to get the ideas from somewhere, and since they are the most prevalent transphobic codes it isn't hard to guess where.

[xdoop]

Why is it necessary to depict the flabby visible nipple? Uatu is neither overweight, nor sporting a visible nipple.

Because it's a parody, and they wanted to make him look silly.

We know he's not gay because he's peeking in on She-Hulk. And if he was supposed to be transgendered, they'd probably give him makeup or lipstick or something.

I never once got the idea that he was supposed to be transgendered here.

[sethgray]

If you don't see it, you don't see it but it reads like a freakin checklist to me.

1) Man in dress.
2) Overly sexualized
3) Creepy stalker
4) Weak and ineffectual
5) Rebuffed via physical violence

And last but not least, an actual, verbal, in-text denigration of a man in a skirt.

That's every transphobic stereotype I can think of. The only one they missed is a speech impediment of some sort, which is impossible in a printed medium.

[sethgray]

Oh, not to mention that by making fun of the way Uatu dresses they're perpetuating the idea that a man in a dress-like garment is inherently funny. This was just a poorly thought out and badly executed project, all around.

[auggie18]

No offense, but with the exception of 'wearing a dress', that reads much more as a check list of nerd stereotypes. And I've never actually heard the 'creepy stalker' thing applied to transpeople before now.

Also, it is insanely easy to put a speech impediment in print. L-l-like thith, for example.

[sethgray]

I've never seen a nerd drawn in an overly sexualized way, but it is a frequent stereotype of transmen and women, and gender nonconforming people in general. So is the attitude that it's okay to treat them with physical violence, and that they'll try and come on to anyone, which is where the creepy stalker thing comes from.

Typing out the speech impediment hadn't occurred to me, but even in its absence the other things still speak for themselves, I think.

[auggie18]

Nerds aren't over-sexualized, but they are very, very often portrayed as perverts like the Watcher is here. Voyeurism is a huge aspect of the nerd stereotypes. It was in all "Revenge of the Nerds" and countless other movies. The Watcher does not come onto anyone, but remains isolated, commenting outside the regular social sphere. If the Watcher flirted with anyone, then yeah, it would've seemed suspect, but he didn't. He made excuses and shied away from others.

Granted, the upskirts and high heel seem feminizing, but that could just be taking the piss out of the sexualization of women. (If the girls in comics with skirts get upskirts, why not the dudes?)