Less Tits n' Ass, More Kickin' Ass

Don’t like it, don’t buy it?

Hey so my brother posted this to facebook. I’d love your take on it. I don’t agree with him, as spider-man has a REASON to be in that pose, as his powers include climbing walls, and he has to cling that way to keep him where he is, whereas Spider-woman’s powers and location have NO need for it.

http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=spiderwomans_ass

*sigh*

My first impulse when I got this question was to write out all the things this guy’s whining about and translating it into what he actually means. The problem with this approach is that it won’t help. It won’t change his mind, or that of those who agree with him, and would only serve to fuel a flame war, and that’s the opposite of what I want this page to be about. 

I will say this: Maddox is entitled to his opinion and he has used a public forum to state it. Therefore, his opinion is open for criticism. My biggest problem with his opinion is that his entire premise is: 

“I don’t have a problem with this cover, so you shouldn’t either. If you do, you’re an idiot or a prude, or both.”

He also calls in several false equivalences. The picture of the cover of Spider-Man is one where the superhero’s acting like a spider, not a sexdoll. He also completely discredits the opinion of those who were upset, disturbed or otherwise offended by this cover. And because he has a handful of Spider-Man butt pictures, that somehow invalidates the gazillion pieces of art where women are T&A before anything else. His redraw takes Spider-Man (whose bulge is barely defined, really) and turns him into Spider-Woman’s camel toe. So he took a non-sexual image and made an exaggeratedly sexual one in response, proving… that he’s completely missed the point. 

Oh, I also need to point out how he both tries to shame his opponents by calling them prudes for trying to take sexuality out of the women in comics, but at the same time tells us that sexualisation is in our heads and thus we’re perverts for seeing sex where there is none. And the irony doesn’t even register. 

Anyway, my basic rebuttal of the webpage on which the video is attached is we can choose to vote with our dollars, but thanks to the internet, we also can send our messages to the creators of those things we want to purchase, and let them know when they advertise something, “yes we like this and we will buy it” or “no, we don’t like this, change it so we will be more likely to buy it”. I feel this kind of opportunity is one we SHOULD take, but that option seems to be lost on this guy.

Basically, this guy’s a blatant example of male privilege at work, with the backlash of “women want to take my stuff away” (especially obvious in his last paragraph). There’s nothing I can say or show that will change his mind, because it’s already made up. 

And that’s sad. 

Re: Manara cover redlines

Just to let you know: I have received a lot of messages regarding this. A lot of them repeat each other, and a lot point out the same things. I will try and condense things into few posts, combine several of your asks together, so as to not fill dashboards with a bunch of asks that will likely be repetitive after a while. This will take me some time because, like I said, there’s a LOT of material to go through here.

Thanks for your patience! 

A woman wrote this. Yes I’m a woman. And I wrote this. It contains opinions.

kanthara:

keiren-smith:

Been asked for my opinion (in phone calls and PMs I’ve gotten) and I’ve pointed out that I’ve tried to not comment on ‘the’ cover directly (I’m sure I slipped up somewhere! Gotta be honest, I giggle so hard every time I see it that it’s hard to put a thought together). My entire point, my near-constant argument in life, is that people get to have opinions… and by people, I mean “women”.

Short version:  most women are terrified to speak out loud and express an opinion. They are utterly petrified to do so when they are addressing issues of women, sexism and feminism. The internet has emboldened women to speak out more—but it has also enabled men to easily put more effort into silencing them, or threatening them into silence. When I say “terrified” I mean TERRIFIED. All of you were able to grasp how horrible it was when Janelle Assellin wrote about the death and rape threats she gets…none of you seem to get that the constant onslaught of mockery, sneering and general disrespect is equally exhausting. (Do consider, gentlemen:  You find a woman daring to criticise a working comics pro or illustrator as “disrespectful”, appalling, etc. but you have utterly no problem with mocking her or her defenders across the internet and starting memes to continue that mocking. She’s not entitled to her opinion…so she’s entitled to YOURS telling her that.) Most women I know fear having that spill into public encounters with these men, and having to work or socialise in now-toxic environments. To that end, I have had many private talks with women genuinely upset with the online discussion about the cover, or the levels of vitriol found in the social media accounts of men, even comics pros, they admire. Thus, they are fearful to engage.

The first argument is, of course, that YOU are equally entitled to your opinion.

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Thank you so much for this, Keiren! Your support and explanations really mean a lot to me. I’m reblogging this in both my main tumblr and lesstitsnass. 

Also a big thank you to Yanick Paquette, who pointed me towards this post in Facebook, and revised his stance about the situation after reaching out to me and chatting. The positive feedback REALLY outweighs the negative crap I’ve been getting, and I’m grateful for each and every piece of constructive commentary I’ve been receiving (yes, even the ones that disagree with me, if the issue is about the topic at hand, not on my person or other derailing tactics). 

This is how criticism works, people. I commented about a piece that I thought was a problem in its posing. People who’ve disagreed with me by sending me 3D models showing the pose are actually arguing for the validity of the anatomy, and these are VALID CRITICISMS of my own criticisms. YES. This is how it works. I will comment on these as soon as I can, but first I have 5 pages of script left to storyboard on this episode, and I want to deliver tonight. Yay deadlines! 

FYI.

I have a bunch of asks in my inbox, and I will get to all of them, but I have a more pressing storyboard deadline so I’ll get to your messages as soon as that’s put to bed. Thanks!