There’s a world of difference between saying hero comics are for girls what romance novels are for boys (when male romance readers are rare as hen’s teeth), and saying hero comics are like action movies: aimed at and mostly enjoyed by males, but able to be enjoyed by women too, with a small-but-significant minority of female viewers/readers.

I’ve posted more thoughts along this line at greater length in my blog: http://glaurung-quena.livejournal.com/4907.html.

I do wonder, as a genre argument, at what point a girl-friendly superhero comic stops being a pure superhero book… but that quickly becomes a definitional debate of what a superhero comic really is.

Actually, when people say “superhero comics aren’t for girls,” what feminist superhero fans tend to hear is, “superhero comics can’t be made for girls.” It is one thing to say a particular product is made by, targeted towards, and/or more popular with men or women; but it is quite another to say that product can’t be modified to make it more popular with the other gender. You may mean the former, but to a lot of female superhero fans (and male fans who are also fed up with the status quo), it sounds like the latter. And if they are leaping to conclusions beyond what you intended to imply, I hope you can forgive them; when enough people belittle your interests for long enough, it tends to make you a wee bit defensive.

No one disputes that the overwhelming majority of American superhero comics are made by and targeted towards (usually white hetero) men. This genre-medium combo has been awash in male power fantasies for generations. And I don’t expect them to suddenly go away: if it sells, people will make it. What is in dispute – and what pisses off female fans – is the presumption (within the industry, among the readers, and with “outside observers”) that superhero comics can’t be made girl-friendly in the first place. Using the existing status quo to defend why the status quo can’t be changed is a weak, fallacious argument.

As you say, fighting sexism and making things more appealing to women are not the same thing; but in this case they are related. I have no idea how many women could be drawn into reading superhero comics. But I am quite sure if the Big Two toned down the sexism of their titles and just told good stories with strong female characters, they’d attract more female readers – plus more than a few men who are tired of the current products. Would they draw more new readers than they lose for tampering with a time-worn formula (a la “new Coke”)? Would the number of female readers come even close to equaling male readers? No idea. But that won’t stop the feminist spandex fans from clamoring for what they want; and it doesn’t make them any less frustrated that change is so slow in coming.

I know women who like action movies who wish they were less sexist. I know women who like violent videogames who wish they were less sexist. I know women who like superhero comics who wish they were less sexist. And all of them know other women who would at least consider trying action movies, violent videogames, and superhero comics if they were less sexist. And arguing that those medium-genre combinations are overwhelmingly male-dominated, so they shouldn’t bother trying to change them, doesn’t sit well with them.

Johanna points to the sales numbers and says, “See? Girls don’t read superheroes.” The feminist fans say, “Well, if they made better comics, more of them would!” Johanna talks about how things are; the fans talk about how they want things to be. At this point, I think of George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Or to quote a bumper sticker I saw today: “Well-behaved women never make history.” :-)

[...] May 11th, 2007 A small battle of words has broken out over this(and it’s follow-up [...]

And I’m glad restating your point worked for you… me, I’ve done that five or six times now and I keep seeing people try to attack me on their misreading, regardless. Maybe they just like you better. :)

For the record, my style is hardly “lie back and accept it”. My style is more “Regroup and restate”. Text is tricky. Language is tricky. And a lot of what we mean to say gets lost in the shuffle. I’ve been misread, in response I either restate myself (which tends to work quite nicely) or I let it go.

And I didn’t actually bring up the gender-identified genres, I brought up the mis-attribution of your quote as reason for my comment.

Nice “lie back and accept it” style philosophy from you. I expected something else, given that I’m sure you’ve also experienced being purposefully misread for political reasons.

[...] offers a reaction to the argument in a follow-up thread, then returns again with some demographic statistics from the genre’s final heyday in the [...]

Ragnell did not mention either of those generalizations in her argument.

No one’s attributing anyone else’s words to you but your own. If you don’t like the conclusions we’re drawing from them, please do clarify yourself. Otherwise, accept it. You spoke, we responded. That’s the way life works.

Way to generate traffic, Draper Carlson…

Here is my take. How are those looking at Johanna’s comments with such passionate opposistion reading her posts? It seems from what I’m reading they are taking Johanna’s as saying girls shouldn’t be reading superhero comics.

I don’t really see that, I see her as saying that their target audience isn’t girls. Which means you may have to work to find something you will like. Yet then heck I have to work to find something I like in them these days as well.

I also don’t think she’s saying “shut up” when it comes to sexism. Anyone that has followed Johanna’s work for any length of time would know she’s been one of the leading voices at pointing out the stupidity others do.

I do think she may be trying to offer words of advice from someone who has experience though. Because in a lot of ways DC and Marvel haven’t gotten any better, some might say they’ve gotten worse.

Which isn’t a good thing or something that should just be taken. Yet is something that you have to look at and give thought to if it is worth the fight to you personally.

I don’t think anyone is going to argue that with the rising age in comic readership, that the folks selling X-Ray glasses and recruiting kids to sell “Grit” made a mistake in pulling their ads, nor has anyone batted an eye that they’re now selling CARS in comics. While some of the ads could be construed as gender neutral, no print ad hits the page without some ad company hack having good reasons why the imagery and text fits the demographic of the market in which they’re spending their money.

Just as sports shows know they have a female audience, they still broadcast ads directed at males (especially young males, or guys looking for youth). And just as soap operas no doubt have a male audience, they advertise for Oil of Olay, Dove and other “feminine” products. So do comics advertise video games, action movies and other “young male” oriented junk. That doesn’t mean that women can’t enjoy comics, or don’t.

And, no, it’s not a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any responsible ad company tracks this stuff like crazy to see how effective their ads actually are. To suggest that the Big 2 aren’t continuing to target the market (or don’t know the market) to whom they believe their selling ad space to is disingenuous.

I don’t even understand why anyone is throwing their arms in the air over this topic. There’s nothing wrong with being in a minority of an audience.

And yeah, I agree with you that what something is doesn’t always define what it can be … except inertia is a powerful force. And the market dominance of superhero comics for decades means they’re far away from being a “pure” genre any more, having adopted bits and pieces of almost everything.

However, the great thing about new work is that it can break the patterns of what came before. Preacher, for example, can be viewed as a male-friendly romance comic. When you break superhero comics down to its components- a little bit of soap opera, a lot of power fantasies- there’s no inherent reason that an individual superhero comics has to be gender-centric. That doesn’t mean that Marvel and DC should start advertising its female-friendly comics in Women’s Day anytime soon; after all, there are decades of existing stories, some of which are quite good, that are aimed at a male audience. But there’s hope.

And besides, you don’t have to choose the media you enjoy strictly based on your gender and sexuality. Gray’s Anatomy is the highlight of my TV watching each week. I’ve got a shelf or two of comics where I’m not in the target audience (Hothead Paisan, anyone?) By reading media that’s not aimed at you, you can learn a little bit on how the “other side” lives, and that can be a lot of fun.