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scans_dailyI had a very negative reaction to the preview for Birds of Prey #3, and wrote about it on my Tumblr, but am re-posting it here, with images added for illustrative purposes.
In total this post contains about one page's worth of art/panels from the BoP #3 previews, maybe a bit over. (Most of them are from the preview on the DC Comics website, but one is from the preview on IGN.) Also, I've included the cover art to Gotham City Sirens #9.
Fair warning: this post contexts a lot of text.
The Penguin is injured and hallucinated that the Birds are...well, doing this:
This book is breaking my heart. I’m so tired of Ed Benes’ art. I’m tired of Huntress’s stupid belly window costume. I’m tired of the Birds sporting wedgies and their asses being constantly tilted toward the camera, and I’m tired of all the Birds’ faces looking the same. (That the Gail Simone’s writing here has the characters stripping/seducing, even in a villain’s hallucination, is also alienating and tiresome.)
It’s not something that’s limited to Benes, of course, but some comic book artists have the profoundly irritating habit of making most women’s faces look the same, while giving a huge amount of character to men’s faces. Check out the Penguin, and then look at all the women’s faces. It’s a similar thing with Guillem March in Gotham City Sirens. Dudes like the Riddler and Penguin get personality and individuality in their faces, but the women’s faces are kept as bland as possible.
It sucks that while we have TWO books featuring female team-ups in Gotham, both are mired in cheesecake that, in my opinion, gets in the way of the storytelling. It pulls me out of the story and kills my enjoyment. It especially sucks as a reader, because both books are written by people whose work I usually like, and characters I’m interested in following.
I realize that cheesecake and difficulty drawing women’s faces is by no means limited to these particular comics. I haven’t been reading GCS, and it’s been a while since I’ve even bothered to look at a preview of it, so for all I know, the art’s changed over time. But what I did see when the series launched was enough to put me off the book. (Also, the constant high heels on Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.)
I’m just tired of wanting to read books about female characters I like, and having to put up with excessive cheesecake. I don’t even MIND cheesecake or beefcake when it’s done well and doesn’t overpower the story. In the right context, I can enjoy it. But when it’s constant and mindless cheesecake in superhero stories, it grates on my nerves.
And it’s not just because it’s tiresome to constantly see your heroes and favourite characters sexually objectified for readers who are not me (just in case I needed reminding that mainstream comics don’t really care whether or not they have me for an audience), but because I see parallels to how women are objectified elsewhere.
I’m not even really talking about porn or other things aimed at straight men, where you do see those kinds of spine-injuring postures and objectification. I’m talking about how every magazine and advertisement aimed at WOMEN do similar things: soft lighting, make-up and airbrushing, eliminating any visual hint of “flaws” and personality. The Penguin's face could only belong to one person, and that is Oswald "Penguin" Cobblepot. Oracle, Huntress, Canary, and Dove, on the other hand? Put the same hair colour/style and mask on all of them and they all look exactly the same. The Penguin gets loads of detail and individuality on his face. But attempt to give a woman that same level of detail in a drawing, and people will probably view it as ugly.
Culturally, we give men permission to get wrinkles, grow stubble, and leave their grey hair un-dyed. We allow and enjoy visual representation of individuality and personality in men, we allow them the chance to prove their worth outside of their looks. We can love and enjoy, say, Jonah Hex, as a protagonist and hero, and we can love and enjoy Two-Face as a villain. But a woman? She must be beautiful, and if she’s not, chances are that her entire motivation and personality are wrapped up in the fact that she’s not conventionally attractive.
I can’t remember where I read it, but someone once said that women don’t wear make-up to look pretty, they wear make-up to feel human.
Perhaps that’s an oversimplification and is not a universal explanation for every woman who puts on make-up, or for every comic artist who simplifies women’s faces to the point where they all look the same, or for every magazine that photoshops away every wrinkle and smidgen of fat off of women’s bodies. It’s hard to articulate, but there’s always an implicit rule that women who don’t fit into the conventionally attractive mold will be rejected, individually and by society. That threat of rejection, of being dismissed, seen as sub-human, unworthy of any consideration or respect, it’s in male gaze, it’s in superhero comics, it’s in advertising, it’s in consumerism, it’s in products/magazines/advertising/other content aimed at women, it’s in the news and politics, it’s in strangers’ eyes, and it’s in the mirror. Every day. Often it’s subtle and easily ignored or goes entirely unnoticed, often it’s not and it doesn’t.
There’s a reason why I’d rather pick up Birds of Prey than Cosmo or whatever. It’s because I expect a superhero book to pull me in and make me forget about that crap, to make me feel at least a little bit empowered. It’s a superhero fantasy, and it should be fun, exciting and inspiring, not aggravating and tiring.
I realize that this is a very personal reaction to certain styles of art, that some find it difficult to draw women’s faces, and that there are other forces at work besides an artist’s particular style. Not everyone may think along these lines or feel this way, but when I read this preview of BoP, all I felt was tired. It’s not just a problem of one artist I don’t like on one book I should like, but just another facet of a much larger problem that manifests so frequently in comics, and practically everywhere one looks. When I say I’m tired of mindless cheesecake in superhero comics, it’s not just because it’s a problem in comics, but because I see it as a part of a continuum of a larger problem.
I’m tired of it.
Try to imagine what this scene would look like if the male character were swapped for a female one, and the female characters for male ones. If it were Batman and Superman sexily posing and stripping for a daydreaming, fully-clothed (non-spandexed, non-sexualized) Catwoman being creepy, DC would likely never publish it because it’d probably be seen as too demeaning to their favourite superhero guys.
You’d never see a beefcake equivalent to Gotham City Sirens, where every cover has, say, Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, and Wally West sexily and seductively posing together, with their skintight costumes highlighting their nipples, crotches and butts all at the same time. Despite how (b)romantic Superman/Batman can get, you’ll never see the same kind of sexual objectification of them in that book.
And if you believe that men are equally objectified and idealized as women are in superhero comics, you should compare and contrast. (Men are idealized as being “strong”, women are idealized as being “sexy”. Not the same thing, not equal.)
I have no idea what Gail Simone was aiming for when writing the scene we see in the BoP #3 preview, but it doesn’t appeal to me. In a recent interview, she talked about Ed Benes’ art:
I guess Your Mileage May Vary. I don’t see “joy and freedom” in it, but rather the same old trappings.
In total this post contains about one page's worth of art/panels from the BoP #3 previews, maybe a bit over. (Most of them are from the preview on the DC Comics website, but one is from the preview on IGN.) Also, I've included the cover art to Gotham City Sirens #9.
Fair warning: this post contexts a lot of text.
The Penguin is injured and hallucinated that the Birds are...well, doing this:
This book is breaking my heart. I’m so tired of Ed Benes’ art. I’m tired of Huntress’s stupid belly window costume. I’m tired of the Birds sporting wedgies and their asses being constantly tilted toward the camera, and I’m tired of all the Birds’ faces looking the same. (That the Gail Simone’s writing here has the characters stripping/seducing, even in a villain’s hallucination, is also alienating and tiresome.)
It’s not something that’s limited to Benes, of course, but some comic book artists have the profoundly irritating habit of making most women’s faces look the same, while giving a huge amount of character to men’s faces. Check out the Penguin, and then look at all the women’s faces. It’s a similar thing with Guillem March in Gotham City Sirens. Dudes like the Riddler and Penguin get personality and individuality in their faces, but the women’s faces are kept as bland as possible.
It sucks that while we have TWO books featuring female team-ups in Gotham, both are mired in cheesecake that, in my opinion, gets in the way of the storytelling. It pulls me out of the story and kills my enjoyment. It especially sucks as a reader, because both books are written by people whose work I usually like, and characters I’m interested in following.
I realize that cheesecake and difficulty drawing women’s faces is by no means limited to these particular comics. I haven’t been reading GCS, and it’s been a while since I’ve even bothered to look at a preview of it, so for all I know, the art’s changed over time. But what I did see when the series launched was enough to put me off the book. (Also, the constant high heels on Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.)
I’m just tired of wanting to read books about female characters I like, and having to put up with excessive cheesecake. I don’t even MIND cheesecake or beefcake when it’s done well and doesn’t overpower the story. In the right context, I can enjoy it. But when it’s constant and mindless cheesecake in superhero stories, it grates on my nerves.
And it’s not just because it’s tiresome to constantly see your heroes and favourite characters sexually objectified for readers who are not me (just in case I needed reminding that mainstream comics don’t really care whether or not they have me for an audience), but because I see parallels to how women are objectified elsewhere.
I’m not even really talking about porn or other things aimed at straight men, where you do see those kinds of spine-injuring postures and objectification. I’m talking about how every magazine and advertisement aimed at WOMEN do similar things: soft lighting, make-up and airbrushing, eliminating any visual hint of “flaws” and personality. The Penguin's face could only belong to one person, and that is Oswald "Penguin" Cobblepot. Oracle, Huntress, Canary, and Dove, on the other hand? Put the same hair colour/style and mask on all of them and they all look exactly the same. The Penguin gets loads of detail and individuality on his face. But attempt to give a woman that same level of detail in a drawing, and people will probably view it as ugly.
Culturally, we give men permission to get wrinkles, grow stubble, and leave their grey hair un-dyed. We allow and enjoy visual representation of individuality and personality in men, we allow them the chance to prove their worth outside of their looks. We can love and enjoy, say, Jonah Hex, as a protagonist and hero, and we can love and enjoy Two-Face as a villain. But a woman? She must be beautiful, and if she’s not, chances are that her entire motivation and personality are wrapped up in the fact that she’s not conventionally attractive.
I can’t remember where I read it, but someone once said that women don’t wear make-up to look pretty, they wear make-up to feel human.
Perhaps that’s an oversimplification and is not a universal explanation for every woman who puts on make-up, or for every comic artist who simplifies women’s faces to the point where they all look the same, or for every magazine that photoshops away every wrinkle and smidgen of fat off of women’s bodies. It’s hard to articulate, but there’s always an implicit rule that women who don’t fit into the conventionally attractive mold will be rejected, individually and by society. That threat of rejection, of being dismissed, seen as sub-human, unworthy of any consideration or respect, it’s in male gaze, it’s in superhero comics, it’s in advertising, it’s in consumerism, it’s in products/magazines/advertising/other content aimed at women, it’s in the news and politics, it’s in strangers’ eyes, and it’s in the mirror. Every day. Often it’s subtle and easily ignored or goes entirely unnoticed, often it’s not and it doesn’t.
There’s a reason why I’d rather pick up Birds of Prey than Cosmo or whatever. It’s because I expect a superhero book to pull me in and make me forget about that crap, to make me feel at least a little bit empowered. It’s a superhero fantasy, and it should be fun, exciting and inspiring, not aggravating and tiring.
I realize that this is a very personal reaction to certain styles of art, that some find it difficult to draw women’s faces, and that there are other forces at work besides an artist’s particular style. Not everyone may think along these lines or feel this way, but when I read this preview of BoP, all I felt was tired. It’s not just a problem of one artist I don’t like on one book I should like, but just another facet of a much larger problem that manifests so frequently in comics, and practically everywhere one looks. When I say I’m tired of mindless cheesecake in superhero comics, it’s not just because it’s a problem in comics, but because I see it as a part of a continuum of a larger problem.
I’m tired of it.
Try to imagine what this scene would look like if the male character were swapped for a female one, and the female characters for male ones. If it were Batman and Superman sexily posing and stripping for a daydreaming, fully-clothed (non-spandexed, non-sexualized) Catwoman being creepy, DC would likely never publish it because it’d probably be seen as too demeaning to their favourite superhero guys.
You’d never see a beefcake equivalent to Gotham City Sirens, where every cover has, say, Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, and Wally West sexily and seductively posing together, with their skintight costumes highlighting their nipples, crotches and butts all at the same time. Despite how (b)romantic Superman/Batman can get, you’ll never see the same kind of sexual objectification of them in that book.
And if you believe that men are equally objectified and idealized as women are in superhero comics, you should compare and contrast. (Men are idealized as being “strong”, women are idealized as being “sexy”. Not the same thing, not equal.)
I have no idea what Gail Simone was aiming for when writing the scene we see in the BoP #3 preview, but it doesn’t appeal to me. In a recent interview, she talked about Ed Benes’ art:
That said, he is of the Brazilian tradition, so his art is always hugely sexy and sexually charged. It can be a bit much for some, but I never sense the, you know, the hate that some artists bring to their sexy drawings. Again, it’s like the Suicide Girls, and I’ve used them as an example before. What they do is so free of the kind of self- and other-loathing that infuses so much porn and cheesecake. It’s more about a sense of joy and freedom, and the effect is different.
I guess Your Mileage May Vary. I don’t see “joy and freedom” in it, but rather the same old trappings.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:34 am (UTC)I don't hate make-up. I like it when I'm not in good condition and a good make-up cheer me up. I just hate people(especially men) making it sounds like you're nothing when you don't have it on your face. Darn, I still remember that guy said my face can frighten ghost away simply because other girls were wearing make-up and I'm still waiting for the busy dresser because I can't do it myself. I wanted to punch him. I still want to punch him. But that was my friend's wedding and I can't/shouldn't/was not supposed to punch a guy in my friend's wedding!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:36 am (UTC)BoP is invalidating my theory on drawing and writing in comics, which is that the latter is far more important than the former. Benes's art is detracting so much from Simone's writing that this comic is unreadable. At least, unreadable without sympathetic wincing and looking away from the page in embarrassment.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:42 am (UTC)It's her right breasts side-boob. Her torso is in profile. I has to look twice as I thought it was front on and see was missing a mammary. Her, coat? jacket?, opens down the side.
...Hey, I may agree with the post, and am sick of too much cheesecake in serious action books, but I'm still a straight guy, so, boobs! :)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:50 am (UTC)BoP is invalidating my theory on drawing and writing in comics, which is that the latter is far more important than the former.
I know what you mean. I used to be able to do that, but it's becoming more difficult. With this in particular, the fact that Simone's written this scene with the purpose of delivering even more cheesecake than Benes' default setting is probably what tips the scales for me.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:51 am (UTC)If this was a story about Lesbian, killer nuns or some such, gratuitous nudity and sexy times would be ace. Empowerment through expolitation ya know. but it ain't. we're ment to feel the tension and drama of these women being hunted and kidnapped and endangered, But they are being represented by porn star like blow up dolls.
So yeah put Cliff Chiang on art (he's aceing the covers) or how about Bruce Timm for a bit. That shit would sell like hot cakes and I'd all love it.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:02 am (UTC)And, to clarify, I'm not talking just about realism or anything similar either, even the simplified styles of cartoon or some comic work should be able to pull this off. Just look at, because I've been watching it lately it's the first example that comes to mind, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee all have distinct facial features that you wouldn't end up confusing with one another despite not being particularly detailed and even if you removed their equally distinct hairstyles.
That said, this is a good post and you should feel good about it, even though it is unfortunate that this post even need to exist.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:12 am (UTC)I guess I can see why the scene would be included -- between the objectification of the ladies trying to save his ass and keeping it as impersonal as possible, even in a fantasy (all it needs is a "I told you to keep the mask on" to go with the "Mr. Cobblepot" to make it completely nasty), it seems like we're getting a reminder that The Penguin is a toad to reinforce the White Canary's taunt at the end.
The execution of it is still ick, though, and not in the way that leaves me glaring at the Penguin. Trying to criticize that sort of gratuitous cheesecake while offering more of the exact same thing just doesn't work.
I'd have agreed with the assessment of Benes art back on BoP v.1, when there seemed to be a more playful element to it. Maybe Benes has a different inker these days or his style has just changed, but this isn't making me think "joy" or "freedom". It's just run-of-the-mill T&A.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:15 am (UTC)It's perception. It's the idea that women's faces should be a certain way and men's faces a different way, it's the idea that men look better one way and women another way, so we're often condition to see people that way. It's a problem of perception that so many of us have, it does seem to be come a common difficulty for artists. Particularly, I might add, with male artists in a field like superhero comics.
Like, another thing I've noticed is when comic artists draw older women, it's like they just draw young women and then add some fine wrinkles. Whereas older men are drawn in such a way that their wrinkles, the way their face has changed over time, etc, are like an organic part of the face, not a reluctantly included edition.
I totally agree on the A:TLA example, and I actually re-watched the series recently and was struck by how evocative the simple designs could be. But at the same time, in that show the male and female characters of the same ages tend to have the same amount of detail/lack of detail. It's about the gendered disparity seen in Benes' art that I find particularly weird and annoying.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:25 am (UTC)Timm tends to simply both men and women's faces, I think. I think he usually includes variation of both sexes' faces, but maybe not that much.
There's a huge amount of sexual dimorphism with Timm's art, though. He tends to draw most of the women very petite with tiny wastes and large hips and perky boobs, while most of the men are all tall and barrel-chested and well-muscled.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:30 am (UTC)And while I understand the complaints about women's faces, Benes can do different when he wants to (read the Supergirl: Many Happy Returns TPB which pre-dates his BoP work and the differences between his Linda Danvers and Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El are pretty clear) and on the other hand sometimes his men all look alike, except with different hair i.e. his Superman might as well be Generic Muscled Man with Spit-curl. I like Ed Benes a lot because he CAN deliver a good emotional or action scene when he has to (some artists can't) but you have to know coming into an Ed Benes comic what you're going to get..and a lot of his writers play to that.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:31 am (UTC)Actually, I wonder about that. As long as it's a fantasy, they might be okay with it - maybe. And I know that Gail Simone would have no problem writing it...
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:32 am (UTC)Steve Dillon, for example, is one of the premiere storytellers in the business (as long as you keep him the hell off superhero books), but he's not good at making two people look dissimilar. There's a panel in the second TPB on Preacher where, for all the world, it looks like Tulip has her identical twin sister in a leglock.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:37 am (UTC)"Hey. Don't look at ME man."
Yes, Ed Benes makes cheesecaky porny art. And I like that cheesecakey porney art. Is it realistic? Hell no. Does it break down barriers or dissolve gender inequality? Nope.
But I think you may be reading too much into a -dream- sequence which is meant to illustrate that the Penguin is a skeezball.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:39 am (UTC)Like, another thing I've noticed is when comic artists draw older women
Definitely something that bothers me as well. Women just aren't typically allowed to age in Western media, Eastern media at least tends to have the grandmother figure, and as a result they tend to fail when they have to depict a woman older than her mid-20s.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 07:40 am (UTC)I'm not a fan of Benes. He comes across as a horny guy with no goddamn impulse control and it starts discussions like this which make guys look like immature sex crazed morons. His art makes me embarrassed reading comic books.
He's a GOOD artist, but with the maturity and respect of a horny 13 year old. He doesn't seem too give a fuck about the context of what he's drawing. If he was drawing "Bikini Vampire Slayers" or "Jungle Girl Adventure" this would be awesome art, But he's not. He's drawing Birds of Prey , probably the premier female lead book at the moment, and he's diminishing their impact by drawing their be-thonged asses in our faces over and over. If I showed this to any of my not comic reading friends they would think I'm a jack-ass for liking this stuff.