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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by Zarban
Many consider Joss Whedon to be strong supporter of equal rights for women whose work often features strong female characters.
But he likes to write strong female characters of a very particular type: quite young, pretty, filled with secrets, possessed of awesome powers of destruction, and—if possible—programmable.
Is this really feminism?
"May not have noticed"? Dude's a wookiee.
Can we stop acting like Joss Whedon gets a free pass because he calls himself a feminist? The guy has some issues with women and a lot of his work is problematic and damaging.
However, the question now is: hairy Hulk, Yes or no?
What is it that people like about OHMSS? Because I don't see it. Just the relationship with Tracy?
Zarban wrote:The real question should be: why wasn't the movie called Avengers Assemble and why wasn't that battle-cry used in the movie?
It was called that over here.
Exactly!
And how did they not put Bruce Banner in purple stretchy pants right from the beginning? I mean, he figured that out in Incredible Hulk. Somehow they showed up for the final battle, tho. Where did those come from? That's not what he got from Harry Dean Stanton, is it?
Also, can we discuss the hairiness? That was creepy. Hulk should not be hairy.
To be clear, I agree with Michael completely that these are both bad arguments:
* The sexy depictions of women are not sexist because men in comic books are also sexualized.
* Yes, women are sexualized for the male audience, but men are idealized because that's what women want, therefore comic books aren't sexist.
Men and women are both depicted in ways that make them attractive to their primary audience, which is young hetero men, and young hetero men don't want to see steaming hunks of sexy man-flesh. So, yes, comic books are sexist BUT NO MORE SO THAN OTHER THINGS. And if women's magazines have the same kind of depictions, then this is vastly bigger than comic books or movies, and it's silly to talk about it solely in this one context.
The real question should be: why wasn't the movie called Avengers Assemble and why wasn't that battle-cry used in the movie?
For the record, I'm on Dorkman's side as well.
What is Michael's side?! That comic books make women look sexy?! SO STIPULATED. My point is that they're no guilty of this than any other part of society, so this thread should be about the movie and not endless hand-wringing about how women are portrayed in comic books.
Zarban wrote:Women's romance novels, which I hold to reveal the darkest heart of the female psyche, uniformly depict protagonist men as handsome, confident, and competent. On the few occasions when those novels depict sex graphically, it has become something of a scandal.
This makes me think that you have not read a lot of romance novels. Their depiction of men is hardly uniform, at least in the way you're describing.
Also, what are you trying to prove with those magazine shots you're posting? Because all I'm seeing is that even women who run magazines have internalized the idea that everyone wants women filtered through the male gaze. Even Anna Wintour can be wrong.
No I haven't read a lot of romance novels. That was a joke. My point is that all of society depicts men who are good catches as handsome and successful.
The point of the fashion photos is that this discussion is far, far bigger than comic books and is not solely a problem of the way men view or portray women, because they are depicted the same way in magazines by women, for women. People keep posting links to comic books like comic books are the heart of the problem.
Oh of course. It's all a big conspiracy by female editors and gay photographers.
Zarban, you've been approaching this from the standpoint of "sexism as gender bigotry," not sexual objectification per se. Can you think of a relevant example of what you would call male sexism and female sexism, in that case?
Female sexism tends to take the form of depicting men as incompetent and laughing at their stupidity and impotence, especially when men are shown having to cook or take care of small children.
But my point is only that all of this is a discussion about gender politics in Western culture that has almost nothing to do with this particular movie or with comic books. One person just used a minor piece of this movie's marketing materials to make a joke about it. That's all.
historically and even within living memory, it has involved socially coercing women to hide their sexuality and thereby prevent the nasty consequences of visible lady skin on society.
Jeez, don't make me take Michael's side now. Sexism is just discrimination based on gender, which commonly takes the form of denying equal treatment to women. That can manifest as a car dealer talking condescendingly to a woman, a man grabbing a waitress' ass, or any number of things other than coercing her to hide her sexuality.
My point is that, in terms of depictions in Western society, men and women are commonly depicted in ways that are most attractive to the opposite sex. For women, that's being sexy; for men that's being successful.
This is so pervasive that getting upset over one use on a movie poster (especially for a movie directed by a card-carrying male feminist) is ridiculous.
Women's romance novels, which I hold to reveal the darkest heart of the female psyche, uniformly depict protagonist men as handsome, confident, and competent. On the few occasions when those novels depict sex graphically, it has become something of a scandal.
The women are presented in a way that is gratifying toward men primarily, or even exclusively.
VOGUE is a women's fashion magazine. This is apparently what women want to see.
Face it, thruout Western culture, women are generally depicted as sexy, and men are generally depicted as handsome, confident, and competent, because that's what members of the opposite sex find most attractive. Expecting anything different from comic books and movie posters is dumb.
Those are WOMEN'S FASHION MAGAZINES, Michael, created for and largely by WOMEN. Everyone, men and women, typically depicts women commonly as being sexy.
You don't have a problem with comic books and movie posters. You have a problem with Western culture. Why are you talking about it in the context of comic books and movie posters?
I'm just going to start posting photos from Vogue, Elle, Cosmo, Fashion, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, and other women's fashion magazines....
I BET MINE ARE DIRTIER THAN YOURS
Here's a fun game: try to find a Cosmo cover that doesn't feature a sexy woman and the words "SEX" or "ORGASM".
EDIT: from the link in the previous post...
"Catwoman is not an anomaly. Every time a woman picks up a comic book, she is treated to images like the White Rabbit, Batman's newest adversary, who apparently models for Victoria's Secret and Playboy in her spare time:"
Oh, Victoria's Secret, you filthy, textbook example of a men's magazine that sexually objectifies women! Damn you!
I've watched the new installment, and it has a different structure. There aren't really clear chapters as such, and there are confessional bits that may or may not be related to a mysterious talk show that everyone is invited onto. There also aren't the same crazy-hilarious cliffhangers so much, and there's NO answer to the burning question that ended chapter 22.
I guess we'll have to wait for a fourth installment. But jeez, that's going to be FOUR HOURS of R Kelly singing about infidelity, pimpin', hiding in closets, and gangsters. Unless he hits it out the park, that's going to wear thin soon.
EDIT: That video is funny, but only in exactly the same way Trapped in the Closet is already funny. And in the real thing, instead of an empty box of cereal, he would find a midget who had been having an affair with his wife.
The title made me 
.
R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet is a work of unmitigated comic genius.
The third installment was released tonight on IFC (Independent Film Channel), continuing the harrowing story of a small group of young, mostly successful, urbanites and their endless philandering, lying, and criminal behavior. It is a "hiphopera" of epic proportions, populated by pastors, ex-cons, a stuttering pimp, white trash, a little person, gangsters, and hos of all descriptions, including a blind Asian prostitute.
R Kelly sings/raps the whole thing, including all the narration, dialog, sound effects, sobbing, and bleeping when he censors himself. The cast is a Who's Who of young black Hollywood, with Kelly himself playing several parts, including the principal character of Sylvester.
The previous installments were chapters 1-12 and chapters 13-22, each about 3 minutes long. They're available on DVD and various places on the Web, altho the videos on R Kelly's own channel often cut off the last few seconds, which is unfortunately because EVERY CHAPTER ENDS WITH A CLIFFHANGER.
I didn't take a new photo yesterday, but my house looked a lot like this again...
The table is an Amish farmhouse table that stretches out to accommodate 11 leaves, making it 18 feet long. We move the furniture to allow it to stretch into the living room.
Since we're a large extended family, we draw names and then give our Christmas list to whichever person drew our name. I thought this forum would appreciate my 14-year-old niece's, hand-written, apparently from memory....
Bleach - uncut season 10, 15
Tsubasa: season 1, 2, & OVA collection
Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE - complete season
Black Cat - complete season
Claymore - complete series
Get Backers - complete series
Darker Than Black - 1st and 2nd seasons
D. Gray-man - complete seasons 1 & 2
Night Raid 1931 - complete seasons
Witches and Vampires - DS
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 - DS
The Comedy Button: 5 guys formerly of Gamespy Debriefings podcast ... have so far made 4 commentaries.
Okay, people, you have to tell me these things. Throw me a frickin' bone here!
I've said it many times, but this community really is special, and I'm thankful for everyone in it.
Except for Chang. Fuck that guy. He's a psycho.
I did it, but I don't like it. I suspect we're going to eventually have stuff to go on the front page that is proper front page material. (Like pictures, for one thing.) But then we can always move the show stuff back to "Down in Front". Meanwhile, I made that a redirect.
EDIT: Over at Zarban.com, I added buttons that link to the wikis for various franchises, so if you click one of the buttons on the front page you get the franchise listing with a link to Wookieepedia in the case of Star Wars and Memory Alpha in the case of Star Trek. Check 'em out. Some of them are pretty bad-ass.
But there's this thread of...like...DEVOTION to the almighty genius of Sorkin permeating the entire thing. Like at one point Martin Sheen literally says "Once I stopped trying to do my own thing and just said EXACTLY what Aaron had written on the page, that's when everything started working. And once I learned that discipline, everything worked perfectly, and I became Bartlet."
I've long felt that Sorkin is a playwright for television, as Mamet is for cinema. In film and television, actors have always played with the dialog to make it their own. In theater, the playwright's words are inviolate and the actors rehearse the dialog as written until they conform to it.
The difference is striking at times, but I think it's understandable if you consider the history of Shakespeare (you certainly don't change his dialog) vs cinema (which went three decades without spoken dialog).
Simon Kinberg? of X-Men: the Last Stand, Jumper, and XXX: State of the Union?
A groundbreaking show that invented (or popularized) countless sci-fi/fantasy tropes. It's very uneven, but definitely worth watching. The 1980s revival isn't as good (for some reason it feels much cheesier than the original - maybe it's the bad visual effects).
Has anyone seen the 2002-2003 revival? Is it worth checking out?
I haven't seen either, but it's hard to imagine that it would work today, at least for a big audience. I think there were millions of people in 1959 who had lived thru nightmarish circumstances during WW2 and the Korean War and who therefore understood where Serling's combination of nihilism and optimism came from.
Maybe it was nationwide PTSD therapy. I wonder if it would help (or hurt) people coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan today.
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by Zarban
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