DC at SDCC: Provocative (Grant Morrison in a Dress) is Good? (Final Part, Saturday)

[turtlefu]

This is it! The final part of this massive clusterfuck! But first, legality!
 

Maybe they'll get around to the black guy... eventually

 

DC’s New 52 Panel (Saturday Morning)

Winick says that with Batwing, he’s trying to mix superheroes with real-world issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He called Africa “a very politicized and ravaged country”.

“Now THERE’s that white privilege I was talking about! Good job we have mighty whitey to tell us how horrible of a “COUNTRY” Africa is! I get a huge feeling Winick is going to use this book as his mouthpiece for his opinions on the politics and culture of Africa, which he will grossly misunderstand and possibly turn into a "look at those SAVAGES" situation.”

DiDio made a list of heroines in starring roles. He says DC has the best percentage of females in starring roles.

“DC, DIVERSITY IS NOT ABOUT NUMBERS. Why don’t you guys GET THAT!? Also, I call bullshit on that anyway. Besides, Marvel is employing far more female creators (Deconnick, Immomen, Rios, Liu, etc.)”

Morrison says that Cass still exists in the DCU.

“Yay Cass!”          

The same Batgirl fan from the panel who asked about heroines on covers asked this panel why there weren’t more female creators in DC. DiDio says, GET THIS, they hire the best writers and artists they can! And the audience applauds! Morrison mocks her by saying he looks great in a dress, then turns around and encourages the female fans to submit work to DC.

“So, DiDio implies that the female talent out they isn’t good enough for DC, and then Morrison mocks a justifiably upset fan. Then he turns around and saves face by encouraging the female fans to submit their work. Presumably to be told that they aren’t good enough for the wealth of talent that DC only employs, like the kind that puts out Cry for Justice or the Rise of Arsenal.”

DC’s The Dark and The Edge Panel (Saturday Afternoon)

Lemire says Animal Man’s main character is actually Maxine, Buddy’s daughter. She gets her own powers.

“Which is interesting, but I can’t help but feel it takes away from the “everyman” qualities Buddy was supposed to have”

Cornell SPECIFICALLY calls Horsewoman a “diversity character, to state it crudely”, and compares her to the Man with No Name [Clint Eastwood’s Western Character]

“Good Job Cornell, you just took away the good feelings I had for you. Turns out his wheelchair user was just there for diversity cred!”

Cornell says Apollo and Midnighter are still gay, but they meet for the first time in the first issue, and their romance is slow. He also says that if he changes anything he won’t expect to come out of the “Gays in Comics” Panel alive.

“Okay, I do like the idea that they don’t immediately jump down each other’s pants, like they did originally. But apparently Cornell feels like the only thing wrong with changing their sexualities would be the negative fan reaction? Uh, you shouldn’t change their sexualities because that would homophobic, not because you fear how the fans would react.”

This one is the worst. DC replies to the negative fan reaction towards Harley’s new costume by saying “Provocative is good”, but says that Harley still has the same personality.

“REALLY DC, why is PROVOCATIVE only good for your FEMALE heroes, so you can dress them is as objectifying clothes as possible, but your male heroes wearing briefs on the outside is SO BAD it needed to be changed IMMEDIATELY.”

“Oh and just to add, included were some pages from an unknown book showing a gratuitous scene with strippers. I think it was either from Blackhawks, Suicide Squad, or Sgt. Rock.”

Comments

[mrstatham]

I call bullshit on the complaints about Harley's new costume. She was wearing skintight gear before, but the second we see some skin, everyone casts their hands up and cries sacrilege. Her new costume's no more provocative than Ivy when she's prancing about sans boots and gloves with just the leafy bathing suit on.

[mrstatham]

And the book with the stripped was likely Voodoo, unless anyones commented on it above. It was her job for a long while on the Wildstorm Universe, so that's clearly a callback.

[greenmask]

Skintight gear that you can, as many cosplayers have shows, prance athletically about in without revealing 'private areas'. This new costume? No chance. She's practically coming out of it on the cover. And there is, indeed, a socially accepted difference between "naked silhouette, but physically covered" and "actually naked, nothing between eyes and skin".

Ivy isn't really a prancer, is she?

[mrstatham]

Prancing is just my choice in terms, I guess, and I do see your point, but at the same time. I don't see why there's such distaste toward the new costume. Provocative as it is, it distances her from Joker and the nonsense and bullshit of Gotham City Sirens.

It might not be a big step forward, and it certainly doesn't play to the bullshit 'iconic' argument DC are currently peddling, but to me, it at least says that DC are willing to try something new rather than rely on the BTAS crutch her character's relied on and which doesn't work in the main DCU.

[greenmask]

Because her breasts are literally coming out of her costume on both covers we've seen so far. He costume is COMING OFF, and that's realistic to what would happen if she really wore it in real life. This new costume is explicitly explicit - it is making Harley distinct from the Joker, yes, but it is also making her distinctly a heteronormative, male gaze fanservice object at the cost of her established character and in-world practicality.

Making a female character about how much of her tits the reader can see is not a step forward of any size. It is a boring, boring, insulting regressive step exactly NOWHERE, and in the case of Harley it's an actual step back.

[valtyr]

I call bullshit on the complaints about Harley's new costume. She was wearing skintight gear before, but the second we see some skin, everyone casts their hands up and cries sacrilege. Her new costume's no more provocative than Ivy when she's prancing about sans boots and gloves with just the leafy bathing suit on.

You consider a precariously-laced corset to be no more provocative than a bathing suit? Either you have a fantastic time at the beach or find fetish clubs very boring.

I'm pretty sure that it is generally agreed a skimpy corset is more provocative wear than a bodysuit. Hence Jean Grey and Emma Frost's respective costumes.

[mrstatham]

I honestly just fail to see the difference between something that shows skin and a bodysuit or whatever that adheres to every last curve. Both, under the pencil of many comic artists, are equally explicit, imo.

Both are used to the same purpose, given I'm sure we could count the number of provocative Poison Ivy images out there with her breasts heaving until the cows come home.

On another note, the corset doesn't do a lot for me in a sexual sense at all. So I'm not arguing for it on those grounds, and I'm fairly certain there's guys who feel the same way. The idea of Ivy's bathing suit of leaves does interest and excite me a lot more than Harley's corset, especially when she's drawn by Nguyen.

[turtlefu]

Bodysuits can be drawn as non-explicit. You know, the way that artists draw the MALE costumes. It's much harder to draw a tiny corset (which is already oppressive clothing) as non-objectifying. Obviously, both have the potential of being explicit, but the potential for the corset is much larger.
Furthermore, as a former gymnast, the bodysuit made sense for Harley because that is what many gymnasts wear.
For Ivy, her clothing has always had a low-cut, but Harley's hasn't.

[valtyr]

I don't think anyone's arguing that Poison Ivy hasn't been depicted provocatively.

Even if it's not to your taste, I'm sure you realise a corset as outerwear is a provocative garment. It's not based solely on the amount of skin covered/uncovered. Compare Emma Frost and Wonder Woman's costume; even with the debates about the bathing suit's impracticality, Emma's costume is still more provocatively, and clearly intended to be sexual, than Diana's.

[cleome45]

Yeah, this.

Uncovered skin tends to communicate vulnerability, which is why we so seldom see super-dudes running around with a ton of bared skin.

I'm sad when I realize that even Emma's original Eighties get-up was pretty demure compared to what she usually wears now.

[turtlefu]

On the scale of "unnecessarily objectifying" I would argue a skintight costume at least has some practically for a gymnast, compared to a corset and miniskirt and NOTHING ELSE. Nobody is saying that Harley's old costume WASN'T provocative. It was just provocative and objectifying in a whole different way (and IMO in a lesser degree) than her new one.

And while I think Ivy can be drawn unnecessarily a lot of the times, she's a completely different character than Harley. Ivy is more like a "femme fatale" who uses sex to get what she wants. Harley isn't really a "sexy" character. She's supposed to be deranged, unhinged, yet somehow goofy. I think the new costume tries too hard to cater to the first two points and ignores the third.