Is she hawt? MIRITE?

Steve – That was Johanna you’re quoting.

Ugly American – I hope that’s irony.

Chris – I don’t get it. Why would removing sexism and bigotry in the industry – or working towards that goal – remove stories that people could tell?

There was another commentary of it offered on Comics Nexus: http://comicsnexus.insidepulse.com/articles/62986/2006/11/21/dc-news–views-newsarama-and-tirade-edition.html. Skip all the news stuff to the section that starts “Tim’s Tirades”. It is an interesting read if one that is all over the place.

Ah, yes, Johanna Draper Carlson – the comics “reviewer” with a feminist ideological ax to grind who comes to her conclusions first about the sexist nature of the comic book industry and then looks for evidence to support her views or, apparently as evidenced in the quote of hers above, relies on baseless speculation about the inherent psychology of male writers of superhero comic books.

Can you imagine if a male reviewer speculated that the reason women are underrepresented in the mainstream comic book field is because of some kind of crippling emotional anger against their fathers that prevents them from being able to write about strong powerful men?

>>Johanna worked for DC Comics for a time, as did her husband. I imagine her comment did not originate in “baseless speculation” but simple observation of a number of male writers of superhero comic books in action.

How did she “observe” the inner psychology of her male co-workers such that she can so decisively determine that their creative decisions stem from their damaged and emotionally stunted childhoods?

She comes off as bitter to me and the fact that she admits in her blog she is openly “contemptuous” of most of her former co-workers makes me think that she is responding from an emotionally biased perspective rather than a factual one.

I also know from reading Johanna’s messages on other sites that she is not as open-minded and liberal about diversity in comics as she pretends to be. She once commented negatively about Greg Rucka introducing Maggie Sawyer into the GOTHAM CENTRAL cast asking why he had to make another female cast member be a lesbian. As if there ought be some quota on lesbians in comics. Can you imagine if someone said that about having more than one Black person in a comic book?

“How did she “observe” the inner psychology of her male co-workers such that she can so decisively determine that their creative decisions stem from their damaged and emotionally stunted childhoods?”

I dunno. Maybe some of them told her?

One thing I do know is that the notion of an unusually high percentage of comic creators having been very sick and/or having had absent fathers as children is far from an uncommon one; it certainly doesn’t originate with Johanna.

Stating that childhood scenario contributed to immaturity as an adult is perhaps a stretch (then again, perhaps it isn’t–you’d have to ask some of the creators in question, I suppose), but even if that’s the case, the cause is less relevant than the immaturity itself, which certainly would’ve been observable to someone in Johanna’s position.

I used to work with a bunch of immature, emotionally stunted people, and I must admit, I don’t hold them in any higher regard now than I did when I quit the job. Granted, that wasn’t in comics, but the principle surely remains the same: some people are worthy of contempt.

Of course, that is an decision that’s almost certainly at least partially informed by an emotional response, and I’ll admit my former co-workers’ sexism, racism, and homophobia disgusted me then and still pisses me off now. That said, I don’t believe the emotional baggage I carry in regards to them invalidates my belief that their habits and beliefs were and are just plain wrong.

It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg argument, I’ll admit, but you seem to be presuming Johanna got PO’d and is distorting reality to justify her feelings, whereas I find it just as, if not more, likely that the feelings are a direct result of her former, actual cirumstances.

I don’t know the context of the Maggie Sawyer thing, but yes, I can imagine someone asking why there’s more than one black person in a comic book–for instance, if the story takes place entirely in China, that could be a valid question. Which isn’t to draw a parallel between Johanna’s comments to Greg Rucka (again, I haven’t read them), but to answer your question of whether I could imagine such a situation.

A

To Johanna: Yes, of course, dear, if someone disagrees with your opinion and demonstrates how it is based on specious assumptions then they, too, MUST be operating out of sexist motivations (e.g., “they can’t stand girls in the clubhouse”). It must be so convenient to be able to assert unprovable psychological motivations for people’s actions and creative decisions. It lets you off the hook very easily in terms of providing actual proof to back up your arguments.

And I fail to see how even if you were arguing about cliche and repetition in your GOTAHM CENTRAL comments how that makes your comments about more than one lesbian in a comic book any less offensive than if someone had said “ANOTHER Black person?!!?” Maybe Rucka had a reason for wanting to have two people of the same sexual orientation in the comic, to show how their past experiences led them to live their lives differently, despite their shared sexual orientation. But of course you couldn’t consider that alternative because it would negate the ideological presuppostions with which you approach nearly all superhero comics written by men.

Christopher: I admit I made a mistake in my original attribution of Johanna’s quote. However, that doesn’t negate my original comments which were that is apparently OK to attack sexism against women in the comics industry by making sexist generalizations about men in comics — generalizations which are based in assumptions about male psychology which cannot even be proved, which of course makes it a convenient tack to take.

Andrew: If you know if any objective scientific studies showing a higher than average percentage of men working in the comics field having been sick or had absent fathers as children, please direct my attention to it. It would be refreshing to read opinion based in grounded fact rather than baseless psuedo-psychological speculation.

Andrew:

No, I have no studies showing men working in the comics field aren’t more sexist than men in other professions – that was exactly my point. It’s ridiculous to make broad generalizations like that without stronger proof or evidence.

If your standard of proof is going to be anecdotal evidence, well then let me say that I personally know three men who work in various positions at DC Comics and none of them have ever evinced any sexist attitude, at least in my presence. Now, that’s just my personal experience. But that’s the level at which Johanna has chosen to base her argument, so my claims are just as valid as hers. I’m sure some men at DC Comics are sexist. And some men aren’t. Looks like a wash to me and certainly no basis upon which to be making broad generalizations about the psychological nature of men who work in the comics field.

While it is true that Johanna has actual personal experience working in the comics field that might lend credence to her opinion, let me ask you a question: Have you personally visited Iraq since the US invasion and if you haven’t, has that prevented you from formulating an opinion about the Iraq war and US occupation? Several members of the Bush administration have visited Iraq many times since the invasion and have consistently reported that things have been and will be getting better there. The majority of Americans haven’t ever been to Baghdad, yet their lack of personal experience hasn’t prevented that majority of Americans from voicing exactly the opposite opinion to that of the President and his Cabinet. Personal experience doesn’t make someone automatically right.

Getting to your broader questions, Yes, I believe there is institutionalized sexism in the comics field, based on what I know of the industry and based on my own experience reading about and seeing how women are portrayed in comics. It is still by and large a male dominated industry with a mostly male readership and I think there are ways in which women are portrayed in mainstream comics that are, to say the least, insensitive and that reinforce sexist stereotypes.

Rather than resort to insupportable psychological explanations about the childhood experiences of men working in the comics field – explanations which are sexist and hateful – I think it’s more fruitful to examine the sociological and institutional underpinnings that lead organizations and corporations to make the decisions they do. In uncertain market conditions with a shrinking audience and competition from other sources of entertainment (including non-comics sources of entertainment) how do you hold onto or even expand your audience? One way, as the original blog article alluded to, is to make your product more similar to the other entertainment products out there – and in our modern culture, there is an increasing coursening with more explicit sex, explicit violence, explicit “realism.” I believe it’s called “institutional isomorphism” where companies in a similar field facing similar challenges become more similar than different. In the case of IDENTITY CRISIS, this approach led to DC choosing to go down a path which they hoped would maintain its core audience of (older) men while attracting more general readers because of its increased realism.

While I found Sue Dibny’s rape distasteful in the sense that it once again showed a woman being used as a helpless victim and a plot device, I also saw that it wasn’t exactly something that was celebrated within the pages of the comic itself. It’s not as if Dr. Light was portrayed as someone whose actions were applauded. He was shown as the Bad Guy and someone who should be punished. I don’t think any hormonally charged heterosexual teenage (or adult, for that matter) male came away from that scene thinking “Huh, so it’s cool to rape women. Dr. Light did it, he got away with it, and everyone liked him afterward.” So…mixed messages to be sure.

In a broader sense, I don’t think the fact that superhero comics are written to appeal mostly or primarily to men is inherently sexist. If that is the case, then soap operas and romance novels, which are written to appeal primarily to women, are inherently sexist. And Black Enterntainment Television is inherently racist. And the gay cable channel Logo is inherently heterophobic. I don’t think the male-oriented nature of superhero comics excuses the blatantly sexist way in which women are sometimes portrayed — but I don’t think aiming your product at a specific demographic segment of young males as a marketing strategy is inherently sexist. Poor marketing maybe, in that you’re excluding potentially half the population, but not inherently sexist.

My main problem with Johanna’s comments stems from the fact that she wasn’t using a very logical or intellectual argument to back up her assertions. She was basing it on wild generalizations about men that was blatantly sexist and offensive and did nothing to advance her argument. If I wanted to be really sexist about it, I would say something like “I guess that’s just women’s way of arguing. They argue from feeling rather than facts like men argue.” But of course, I would never say something like that. ; )

>>Hardly wild and hardly generalizations. She made specific observations of specific men, those in the comic industry; men she (and her husband) had been in a position to observe for a substantial period of time.

Um, what “specific men” in the comic industry was Johanna criticizing? Maybe if she named names, or said she was thinking of specific people she had had specific interactions with, and described those interactions, it might have come across as less of a sweeping generalization.

Re-read her comments with an open mind – it’s obvious she’s not talking about one or two specific men but “many” men and “a bunch of… men” and “all” men in the mainstream comic book industry:

>>You put a bunch of immature men, many of whom were very sick as children or had absent fathers or both, and all of whom escaped into over-muscled power fantasies as a result, in charge of a publishing subgroup with no prestige and little money…They’re still geeks, mentally, with low self-esteem and no success with women, few of whom they actually know in person, but they’re power brokers within their little world, and there are thousands like them who desperately want to be them.”

I can’t imagine if someone had written a similar condescending and insulting psychological profile of women or Blacks or gays that it would get such an easy pass. It comes across as a bitter, purely emotion-laden argument and undercuts whatever other argument she is trying to make.

At any rate, as I’ve noted, I’ve also had interaction with men who work in the mainstream comic book industry and they’re hardly sexist so if we’re going to argue on the basis of personal, anecdotal evidence, then there is just as much disconfirming evidence as confirmatory evidence.

When I read Valerie d’Orazio’s story, I really felt sick. The stuff she writes about is soul-crashing and the fact that it happens in a lot of work enviroments doesn’t make it acceptable, but even more disgusting.

Tim:

In post #11, Christopher Butcher (a complete stranger to me) addresses me as “darling.” But I suppose that was OK, and conducive to “productive discourse”, since you didn’t call him out on it?

And for your information Valerie Obrazio: Brad Meltzer, the writer of ID Crisis, is a married man.

Get lost Tim Oshea. Can’t deal with opinions other than your own then join some golf club or whatever.

It’s not that there’s a rape in IDENTITY CRISIS or that there are issues with how it’s portrayed.

It’s that the decision to have a rape in IDENTITY CRISIS arose not from any need of the story itself, but from the editors saying “we need a rape” and selecting a target. It was a crass, cynical decision wrapped up in attempts to claim that this was an Important Work of Comics Literature.

I’m not entirely sure myself of the problem owing to specific psychological problems endemic to comic creators, as one can find more-or-less-equivalent levels of sexism in other industries populated by “normal” people, but that there’s a way of thinking that props up a “boys’ club” mentality is something worth addressing.

Evan,

Non-powered characters are murdered, robbed, and assaulted (or threatened with such) on a regular basis in mainstream superhero comics. Why is presenting rape in superhero comics any less of a “crass cynical” decision than presenting any of these other crimes?

I agree, the use of the rape was intended primarily for shock value. Could there be any other way of presenting that kind of image without it being shocking?

Would you have found it more preferable for Sue Dibny to have been shot point-blank by a robber (as Bruce Wayne’s parents were or Peter’s Uncle Ben)? In both those cases, the characters’ death served as an impetus for the main character to avenge their loved one’s death and fight against crime. Are you saying that a rape shouldn’t ever be used in the same way?

Should superhero writers and artists censor themselves and never write about or portray rape – just your garden variety murder, robberies, and assault?

Rape isn’t sex, it’s violence. So if less violence would be good for comics, then rape should definitely be out. Duh.