Huntress and Arsenal. 1 page from outsiders volume 3 issue 12

[requiem2adream]

I have a question about Huntress and Arsenal's one night stand so of course I turn to the lovely ladies and gents of scans_daily to hopefully find the answer.

The first I heard of it was in BoP: Dinah, Babs and Helena are meeting in a park to discuss whether or not they can work together as a team and the subject of Helena's one night stands with Dick and Roy comes up and Helena has the brilliant line 'Archers... they pull a mighty bow but they're quick to let fly'. Which of course pisses Dinah off royally and nearly ends the team before it even begins.

I went back and read the Outsiders issues where Helena takes Roy's place on the team while he recovers from being shot, thinking that would be where I could find the Huntress/Arsenal stuff (I'm a massive Huntress fan and I've been trying to track down and read pretty much everything she's been in because yes I am obsessive) but apart from the kiss at the end




there's not really any interaction between the two and certainly no sexy times going on between the pair.

So folks my question is this: is this the first time it's ever referenced or is does the Helena/Roy stuff happen in different issues to the ones I've been reading? 

Comments

[whitesycamore]

You took the words out of my mouth (off my keyboard?)

Whether or not a woman ever could/would enjoy casual sex or not is not something germane to most comic book conversations. Pretty much the only way to introduce that possibility is to write her as having casual sex at some point. And actually, it kind of bugs me that we even need to establish a "type" of female character who would do that - particularly when most male characters are assumed by default of being capable of casual sex in at least some situations.

[benicio127]

And actually, it kind of bugs me that we even need to establish a "type" of female character who would do that - particularly when most male characters are assumed by default of being capable of casual sex in at least some situations.

Ohmygod Yes. But by comic book logic, it seems that the fandom equation is, for example: Cheshire having casual sex is OK; Stephanie Brown is not. (

[whitesycamore]

I'm beginning to see a parallel between this issue and the good old "I don't have a problem with X being gay, except that up until now he/she has always been portrayed as straight - making him/her gay is not being true to the character."

While this sounds reasonable on the surface, it ignores the fact that the default orientation for characters has always been straight - just like the default sexuality for "good" female characters has always been committed and monogamous. You need to actively declare a character gay; there is no need to declare them straight, unless you state otherwise that's just assumed. The burden is on the writer to declare that a heroine might enjoy casual sex - because otherwise it's conventionally assumed that she doesn't.

And if a writer does make that declaration, people will be unhappy with it because she's never been written as that "type" before.

[benicio127]

Well, I think that's extremely reasonable thinking and is why the whole idea of parents enforcing heteronormativity to their children is a bad idea -- the assumption that their child will be the default straight.
And we have no idea unless a person tells us about their sex life and since that's such a personal topic, the automatic assumption is that good person = chaste person.

And don't even get me started on how disgusting it is to be OK with a Talia who pines away for a man who loves another woman over her (in fact that man loves many women!) and be chaste for him, yet when she has agency and makes her own choices of who she's having sex with, that that is the truly bad move.

[whitesycamore]

Well, I think that's extremely reasonable thinking and is why the whole idea of parents enforcing heteronormativity to their children is a bad idea -- the assumption that their child will be the default straight.

Um yeah, that's the point I was trying to make, but maybe it got a bit lost. I meant that considering everyone straight by default is a product of heteronormative thinking, and actually not at all a reasonable assumption to make.

But a similar assumption of chastity operates in the way we see (and the way writers write) heroines. Casual sex apparently needs an established history of "sluttiness" in order to be in character - which is weird because I'm fairly sure that Helena never explicitly said "btw guys, I only have sex with men I love and am in a committed relationship with."

[benicio127]

But a similar assumption of chastity operates in the way we see (and the way writers write) heroines. Casual sex apparently needs an established history of "sluttiness" in order to be in character - which is weird because I'm fairly sure that Helena never explicitly said "btw guys, I only have sex with men I love and am in a committed relationship with."

I have nothing to add except thank you for this very awesome point!!!

[bluefall]

Well, again, it depends how it's presented. Is it her story, in which she is a protagonist with agency, or is it an off-panel swerve in service of a male character?

I wouldn't be too thrilled with a Superman comic that abruptly had "Batman's ex-boyfriend" show up to make Clark look all super-accepting and liberal either.

[whitesycamore]

I wouldn't be too thrilled with a Superman comic that abruptly had "Batman's ex-boyfriend" show up to make Clark look all super-accepting and liberal either.

Is it bad that I might be at least a little bit thrilled by that?

Joking aside, yes, I do get why fans aren't happy with this happening while Helena's essentially a bit-part character. That's pretty much the only aspect I do get, but yeah, I get it.

[bluefall]

Yeah that might actually be worth it just to see the fanboy's heads explode, I gotta admit. XD

No but yeah, that's basically my point. The other thing is that Winick has a longstanding habit of ignoring prior characterization, so even if I didn't have an issue with him developing Helena's character in such a glancing, bit-part manner, I don't actually believe he's developing her here at all, just grabbing a convenient blank slate for his Roy/Dick whim. And pretty much just carelessly slapping a target across her chest for all the dudebro contempt the fanbase can muster while he's at it. He doesn't care about her here, not who she was before or where she'll go after. That's not an okay attitude to have when you're writing about someone else's character, period; that as volatile a subject as female sexuality is at issue is just icing on the failcake.

Then of course Gail came and tried to solve that problem by, um, validating that slut-shamey default dudebro read and throwing in some no-no-yes to boot. I'm willing to bet that a lot of the read you see from fans on this scene now, as opposed to when it was published, involves some back-propagated slut-shaming from that. -.-

_{dudebro, dudebro, dudebro, let me say it a few more times it hasn't yet entirely lost all meaning}

[whitesycamore]

And pretty much just carelessly slapping a target across her chest for all the dudebro contempt the fanbase can muster while he's at it. He doesn't care about her here, not who she was before or where she'll go after. That's not an okay attitude to have when you're writing about someone else's character, period; that as volatile a subject as female sexuality is at issue is just icing on the failcake.

Hmm. I'll admit that maybe I hadn't fully considered the perspective of fans who, while not being inclined to slut-shame themselves, dislike this scene because it exposed Helena to a lot of nasty remarks from dudebros.

Female sexuality is a really contentious issue. I don't think it should be, but it is. I guess I can see why you'd be unhappy with Winick for not anticipating/not caring about the fallout for Helena. I suppose it would have been different if he'd been her main writer at the time, and prepared to go the distance and defend her decisions.

It's really unfortunate that her actual main writer's attempts to "fix" this were far more offensive.