Lobdell to fans: you just interpreted it wrong!

[benicio127]

Scott Lobdell does an interview with Newsarama on Red Hood, Starfire, sex and gender inequality.



I honestly had a particularly negative reaction to this interview. So did some others, including Ragnell, who I don't always agree with, but I thought had a great post and criticism of it.



The good thing is that the story has gotten people to talk about issues they are passionate about — and that can only ever lead to a better understanding on everyone's part.

It.... kind of sounds like he's saying it's a good thing he wrote this problematic portrayal because it's helped to foster discussion!

More and a bit that really made me grate my teeth:


Nrama: The character is obviously very comfortable with nudity and sex, which isn't exactly new to her character, but was really played up in the art here. Was that the intended message behind the way she was visually portrayed?


Lobdell: I'm not really sure one draws a Koriand'r in a bathing suit on a tropical island without making her sexy.



Also, I don't think a beautiful and confident woman needs to apologize to anyone for the way she dresses, on a beach or off.


Nrama: How do you see Kori in the first issue? Was she meant to come across as a little weak as she leaned on Jason for decisions and offered sex to Roy, or was there another meaning behind her actions? What can you tell us about how she acted in the story — and why? 


Lobdell: I think in a courthouse this would be called "leading the witness. "

In the first issue Kori shows up only when she is needed to rescue the guys. Once that is accomplished — between panels as a way to show how her sudden appearance completely changes the power dynamics present so far in the story — she politely asks her friend if there is anything else she can do to help. Polite is the new weak? Would it have been a better portrayal of the character if she had said "I will fly ahead and kill everyone in your path, Jason?" 



Yep, so if you had concerns about that part, you just interpreted it wrong! Personally, I did not find any friend-type behaviour in that scene, particularly not on Jason's side of things. This was also the part I had the most problems with; where Jason made a joke about Kory's boobs and then talks about using her dislike/distrust of soldiers to his advantage and then it just... got worse from there.

And one more bit for good measure!


Nrama: What was the thought behind the story description of Tamaraneans as not seeing humans as much more than sites and smells? Does that mean she doesn't remember things that may or may not have happened in the past? Or was there another meaning behind that statement?


Lobdell: I love the fact that Kori is an alien. She and the rest of her race have been described of being descended from felines and we all know that humans and cats have different ways of perceiving our environment — so it stands to reason that Humans and people from Tamaran see things differently.



Now, as Humans we might fall into the prejudicial and xenophobic trap of applying a judgment onto other races that they are somehow lacking or even "stupid" because they see the world from another perspective. But I'd like to think that as comic book fans we can all accept that not everyone in the galaxy sees each other as we do.
 


/FACEPALM

For legality: Kate Beaton's STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS!!!

Comments

[kirke_novak]

Yesterday, I read comments about the overuse of the word b***h in the new Arkham City game and every third comment was how it's coming from the bad guys (not true, some guards use it as well, including one protagonist) so it's ok because this is how the bad guys speak.
I am NOT in the mood for more of that "you see, you don't get it, because [...]" nonsense. I get it, YOU don't.

[shadeedge]

Also, I don't think a beautiful and confident woman needs to apologize to anyone for the way she dresses, on a beach or off.

See, this just seems like someone attempting to position themselves as a champion of women, but once you actually read it, it doesn't truly work. What do beauty and confidence have to do with whether a woman should apologise for what she's wearing? If she was ugly, she'd need to apologise? If she was shy, she'd need to apologise? Oh, and "confidence" does not equal simply being blunt when she asks to have sex with you.

Polite is the new weak? Would it have been a better portrayal of the character if she had said "I will fly ahead and kill everyone in your path, Jason?"

Quite possibly. But without excluding the middle, a better idea might have been not to either defer or command, but offer an option. It's a team, after all. But by and large, personally this particular point is only a problem in combination with everything else. If Starfire hadn't been a terrible character in the other ways, I think i'd not be too bothered on this one point.

Now, as Humans we might fall into the prejudicial and xenophobic trap of applying a judgment onto other races that they are somehow lacking or even "stupid" because they see the world from another perspective. But I'd like to think that as comic book fans we can all accept that not everyone in the galaxy sees each other as we do.

Oh, fuck off. Something is only prejudicial or xenophobic if we apply a generalised rule to an individual - "all those people act like that". It's not prejudice to say that a character acts in a stupid way - if, indeed, people claimed that in the first place - if the character is acting in a stupid way.

And a general "fuck off" to the "Aha! People who called her a slut, you're the bad guys in this!" Yes, those who went for a slut-shaming route are twats. But that doesn't mean the guy who creates a character who basically seems to be a cipher with T 'n A whose purpose in story is "blow up things when the male characters say to" and provide said male characters with fodder for innuendo and fuck-buddy-ism is not a bit problematic. One of the reasons why people are focusing on the sexual aspects of her character is because - dun dun dun - there are, apparently, no other aspects to her character. And if this is because her character will be fleshed out in a future issue - guess what, you've still got an issue where we have no reason to think that will be so.

[eyz]

Blah :/

*will wait until a reboot of the reboot or until I become EIC of DC in 204X*

[meowshi]

So tired of this argument.

[jeyl]

Lobdell: I think in a courthouse this would be called "leading the witness."

Yep, and it's usually permissable depending on certain circumstances. But the best part here is that we're not in court, and observations on comics are usually the key component when one wishes to understand how characters are treated. Sure he asked:

"Was she meant to come across as a little weak as she leaned on Jason for decisions and offered sex to Roy, or was there another meaning behind her actions."

But mainly he was asking:

"How do you see Kori in the first issue? What can you tell us about how she acted in the story — and why?"

You don't answer those questions. Instead, you answer the question that you're all "Ooo, you can't ask that in court!" and ignore the real question outright.

[mrstatham]

Jesus, some of DC's writers should really just stick to explaining themselves through the books, because they've got all the PR skills of a dead cat.

I also think Lobdell's a bit of an idiot for continuing to do interviews that deal with that first issue, because any improvements made in the second issue or even later are gonna be overshadowed by repeatedly bringing attention back to that clusterfuck. And whilst some writers could actually answer the questions smartly, Lobdell's just going to dig himself a grave over a few pages.

He should just let the book speak for itself, now it's supposedly improving.

[tauruschick12]

"The good thing is that the story has gotten people to talk about issues they are passionate about — and that can only ever lead to a better understanding on everyone's part."


Well, to be fair, that line came right after this:

“

What surprised me was that it almost caused the Internet to melt. Mostly, what has surprised me has been the very vulgar way that people believe they are coming to the defense of Kori: they hurl words like “slut” and “whore” and expressions too disgusting to repeat here that are only used to demean women.

Lets consider an imaginary woman who has more than one or two lovers. Is it fair to label her with dismissive and derogatory language? Because we disagree with the choices she makes, to do what she wants with her own body? Are we still at a place in society where we’re going to call a woman — any woman — names that reinforce gender inequality?
”


So, in context, I think he was talking about more how people can get into a discussion about what is wrong with those kind of statements and how people could learn to understand why calling a female character vulgar things is wrong and problematic.


Yeah, the other stuff he says though...egh.

[nezchan]

What is it with the DC guys, whenever they produce something like this and get called on it, the responses always end up as "you're whining" and "we're right in the first place" and then proceeding to demonstrate they don't understand the objections in the first place. It's like they've all got a variation of .

[dr_archeville]

This is an issue I've grappled with for some time. I've always felt it is appropriate -- to a degree -- to show bad guys doing/saying bad things, thus establishing that they are bad guys. Show they're bad guys, rather than just having someone say they're bad guys. But where's the line between "establishing this character/this group of characters is Bad (and worthy of being trounced by the Heroes)" and "egregiously offensive to some percentage of the audience"?

[nagaina]

So, basically he's saying that we're interrogating the text from the wrong perspective?

OH, SCOTT LOBDELL, NO.

[littlepunkryo]

I am not the least bit surprised that his answer to everyone's criticism is basically "it sounds like a personal problem to me" and "I think you'll find that it's YOU who's sexist/xenophobic." I really just wish that DC hadn't "suggested" he use Kory in this book because I've been reading all of his interviews and he'll go on and on about his plans for Jason or his plans for Roy (although Jason gets more attention) and Kory will get like one paragraph that says really nothing at all. He has no idea what to do with her or how to integrate a female character into his "buddy" story at all.

[nezchan]

Then there's this little gem where Lobdell talks about "the constant wailing and gashing of teeth" from the fans and how they have no effect at all on his writing. Except to make him defensive, I guess.

Saves me some trouble, now I know Lobdell doesn't give a shit about readers or their concerns, I can happily not buy any book he takes on.

[drmcninja]

See, this is why first impressions are so important. Even if you believe everything Lobdell just said, people will still be extremely skeptical about this book, look at it with that always in mind, and he lost a ton of new readers who may have otherwise stuck with him considering how much better the second book was.

[hyperactivator]

He does realise that if he has to explain his story in a forum outside of the story then he has failed as a writer right?

If most people people find your story offensive, sexist and badly written then they didn't interprete it wrong you most likely wrote an offensive sexist badly written story. It doesn't matter if you didn't mean to. Scott Lobdell failed in the eyes of thousands of readers to write Starfire and no amount of explainations is going to change what he wrote.

[laddical]

It's maddening - I find myself torn. I want to just cut this guy off at the knees in terms of the books I'm buying, but... but... Superboy and Teen Titans have actually been, ya know, interesting, easily two of my favorites from the New 52. But the more this guy opens his trap about the one book I didn't buy from him, the less I can ignore the fact that it's him writing the books I did.

[sparkysharps.livejournal.com]

Don't you get it guys? It's just part of her alien culture! It's only coincidence that said culture just happens to match up perfectly with adolescent male fantasies. Also, she's posing like a pinup girl for no reason because that's part of her alien culture too. What? This makes you uncomfortable? Well, you're senselessly attacking a BEAUTIFUL ALIEN CULTURE, you xenophobic bigot!

I believe this marks the point where I will actively refuse to buy anything Lobdell has had any involvement - past, present, and future.

[kagome654]

Also, I don't think a beautiful and confident woman needs to apologize to anyone for the way she dresses, on a beach or off.


Except she's not a beautiful and confident woman, she's a fictional character. Written by a man. Drawn by a man. Intended to (mostly) appeal to the male readership. Sorry for being slow to applaud, Lobdell.

[aeka]

Either this interview confirms that Lobdell is a terrible writer who doesn't know how to convey his message effectively on pen and paper, or how badly he fails at math if he thinks any number greater than 10 means "you're reading it wrong."

Sorry mate, but if MORE than 1% of your readership calls you out on bad writing, AND they back it up by pointing out the same problems that many others pointed out, it can't be that they're "reading it wrong." Just saying.

[jaybee3]

How about addressing some of the other complaints where he doesn't have a leg to stand on - like the behavior of our "heroes" Jason and Roy, who basically treat her like some kind of sex toy (and no, I don't think issue #1 showed any "respect" for her from them). The first thing Jason mentions is how she is "with" him (and has been in the biblical sense, many times) and how she's going to fight those guys but still be thinking of HIM. He then seems his conversations to get off on "having her" especially in relation to the loathed Dick Grayson. Then Roy, seeing something may be OFF with her (she has no memory of any of her former friends) and hearing Jason say she has the memory of a goldfish (I don't care what Lobdell thinks he intended that's the impression readers got) who can't tell Jason or Roy apart (THAT actually appears in her text box from her POV) and he immediately instead of being concerned goes off to have sex with her (after she propositions him in the most dispassionate and blase manner I've ever seen in a super-hero comic). And we're supposed to root for these two guys?

And of course we get the whole - "if we made you angry we're doing our job" line that seems to be something DC has ALL its employees say (is it some style manual over there I wonder) whenever confronted from readers about bad stories (they used the same exact line about Cry for Justice, Rise of Arsenal and Ryan Choi's death). It didn't work then and its not going to work now.

[crabby_lioness]

I'm especially annoyed by how Lobdell equates self-confidence in a woman with promiscuity. Anyone who has spent any time around high school teenagers knows that the most promiscuous teenage girls often have the least self-confidence. Quite often they are promiscuous because they fear rejection. It's the teenage girls who have more self-confidence who have no problem saying "no" when the boys want sex.

[fifthie]

Nrama: So uh, Scott, what's with the shovel?

Lobdell: Oh I just thought I'd dig myself a little deeper

[crimsondude.livejournal.com]

Yeah, here's my retort to that: http://crimsondude.tumblr.com/post/11096295373/on-writing-intent-vs-interpretation

---

If you need to explain, clarify, backpedal, or otherwise say something that should be in the published material then you have fucked up and told an objectively flawed story.

...

But the problem is that Lobdell, or any other author or creator, can say whatever the Hell they want after the fact. That is not what is in the material that people have bought and read and discussed. The story MUST stand on its own.

LIke I said at the beginning, if you feel the need or are forced to explain, clarify, enhance, “fill out,” or otherwise tell the story that you meant to tell then chances are that you fucked up. More to the point, if you feel compelled to do that then you’ve poked people in the eye who bought your product as-is expecting that the story that was published was the final word. It was published. It went through you, your editor, your other collaborators, and everyone else before it reached the consumer.

[thefiretonight]

This, like, all of his interviews on the subject comes off as he's being stubborn and defensive about the first issue. Which is fine to some sort of extent but he probably should let it be from now, at least.

I've enjoyed everything that he's written out of the new 52 expect for the first issue parts on Starfire. If I'm measuring staying along with the book based on improvements, then I'd have to say that I'm sticking with the book since issue 2 was a definite improvement.

Also, I really don't like the term Hoodie. I am not a sweatshirt, Mr. Lobdell. Heh.

[meowshi]

Does anyone actually believe him when he says that the outcry didn't affect their characterizations? I read the second issue, and Starfire/Red Hood certainly seem to have had radical personality shifts. I think he did bow (somewhat) to the pressure and is too proud to admit it.

[starwolf_oakley]

So, it all boils down to "Starfire is an alien"? Sheesh.

Sometimes that arguement works, but only sometimes. I recently got around to watching John Carpenter's The Thing, and a lot of the Thing's behavior is confusing. The only excuse I could thnk of was "Well, it's an alien."