Saving Superwoman

I just saw the teaser trailer for Frank Miller's new film, The Spirit. It looks like a sequel to Sin City even though it isn't being billed as such: Overly stylized, hyper-nostalgia for a kind of caricature of masculinity that (thank goodness) never actually existed. His aesthetic makes those old radio stories about The Shadow seem down right feminine. You know, in a bad way.

Luckily, today, I stumbled onto an awesome article by Shannon Cochran called "The Cold Shoulder: Saving Superheroines from Comic-book Violence" on Bitch Magazine's website. It is the perfect antidote to the two minutes I wasted in Frank Miller's world.

After discussing the distressing trend in popular comic publishing where female superheroes die, are tortured, or lose their powers in degrading and painful manners at alarming rates and in disgustingly sexualized or strangely celebrated ways, the article goes on to highlight websites and women that have taken a stand against this niche form of sexism.

Gail Simone's website, Women in Refrigerators, lists superwomen that died untimely deaths, were tortured or depowered. She says that her list is so shocking because it started out as a game:

I and some male friends started making a list of the characters that had been killed, mutilated, or depowered (also a telling trend, as the more powerful a female character was, the more likely it was that she would lose those powers). It was shockingly long, and almost no one in the already small pool of valid superheroines escaped the wave of gynocentric violence.

Another site worth checking out is Project Girl Wonder founded by Mary Borsellino who hopes that is will

stand like a watchdog. We’re working on forging contacts with media groups, so that the next time DC or Marvel try to do something as sickening as [unjustifiably and violently killing off a female hero], they’ll have to consider that there’s this group of very noisy, very angry feminists watching their every move and hitting their speed-dial as they do it.

I like that idea. And while I know that no amount of feminist noise on the internet is going to make Frank Miller's hyper masculine world where women are beautiful, young prostitutes with guns, bad attitudes and soft spots for their men (i.e. props to be objectified and killed off for plot purposes or in order to make the manly men even more masculine (dear god, is it even possible?)) less appealing to a mainstream audience. It is heartening to know that noise is being made at all. And, as Cochran's article points out, someone seems to be listening. DC is re-releasing Batwoman's story. And now she's not only fighting crime, she's dating women on her off-time.

Hopefully, Batwoman will be strong and capable enough to navigate the streets of Gotham City on her own. But it can’t hurt that there’s a legion of real-life Girl Wonders to watch her back. We’ve lost enough of our heroines already.

Amen. Also, when do you think they'll make of a movie out of this comic?