Evaluation

My Final Results

As for my dissertation, I am very proud of the written aspect. I feel it raises important issues, makes valuable arguments while considering various opinions of theorists, artists, editors, publishers and even the results of scientific experiments. All points are backed with quotes from at least one source, while also considering the time this quote was said and the context it was meant for. 

If I was to criticize my dissertation, it would be that I feel the beginning is fairly slow, while I discuss and introduce the history of sexism in comics. Sometimes I feel for example, when explaining Wonder Woman's origin story, the reader could loose interest. The times I do this however, is when I feel it is important for the reader to understand what it is I am talking about so my point can be made clear. For example, without knowing her origin story, when I describe what happened in the later years reboots the differences would seem vague, as the original story would remain unknown.

The only thing I would change is that I would love to carry on writing, as although the dissertation is nearly 9,900 words (my maximum word count) I feel I could carry on to discuss more points and issues up to at least 1,500 words and still have a strong, solid essay that doesn't ramble. For example, I would love to raise the work of artists Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Phoebe Gloeckner who write autobiographical comics centred on the sexual abuse they suffered at a young age, and discuss where the line should be drawn when introducing themes like this in graphic novels, especially to the graphic extent these artists illustrate these events. I would also love to discuss many of the events in 2014 featuring sexism including: 

• The issue recently raised to Anita Sarkeesian who runs a YouTube channel called ‘Feminist Frequency’ where she received rape threats for her criticism’s of sexism in the video game industry. 

• The criticism comedian Dapper Laughs received for the outrageous sexism he displayed in his shows, in which he encouraged rape, resulting in the cancellation of his shows, cancellation of his album, and the end of that ‘character’ he portrays. 

• When scientist Dr Matt Taylor (who landed a probe on a comet)  broke down in tears during live broadcast following criticism for his ‘sexist’ shirt featuring scantily clad women, and weather he deserved such criticism.

• Or even the media coverage Kim Kardashian got simply for showing her (heavily photoshoped) bum, and why we live in a society when someone’s (not even real) bum can become such a large part of the news.

There is so much more I could discuss, but unfortunately with only a maximum of 9,900 words there had to be a limit to when I had to cut some very interesting information out of my dissertation, and the reason I left some of these issues out is that they were not directly related to the comic book genre or even media, they were often just events happening in the world. If I could include one it would be the work of Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Phoebe Gloeckner. Even though I could have written far more on this dissertation, I am proud of its final outcome as I feel it is a very strong piece of writing that fairly uses different views of the portrayal of women in western comics, and results in a fair and sensible conclusion. 

As for my practical piece, I feel this is weaker than my dissertation. Though I do think it accurately displays the point I am trying to get across, and shows an alternative way to portray women in comics where I think they still look cool and 'badass' while still being visually interesting, and shows that the sexualisation of women in western comics is unnecessary. I simply wish there was more time in which I could expand this work and produce more work in the form of a short comic perhaps, in which these characters can interact, show their personalities more and create an actual story and issue for the team to overcome. 


Synthesis Between Practical Work and Dissertation

I feel the synthesis between my practical work and dissertation is very strong.  In a dissertation called Feminism, Sexism, and the Portrayal of Women is Western Comics, I have in my practical re-designed western comic book characters with feminist designs that in no way are sexist to enhance the portrayal of women in western comics.

There was also many quotes in my dissertation, and which I found when researching my dissertation, that influenced the process of designing these characters, accurately correlating the to written and practical pieces, most of which have been labeled in posting the design work upon my blog, but I will show a few key quotes that I considered below;

“Whenever there’s a female superhero, it’s always a more sexual plotline rather than seeing an actual character on screen...I don’t think that’s cool. I think it’s rather sad...I would love to change that, hopefully, there will be some cool female superhero movies in the future. I hear there’s a Wonder Woman movie coming up. Hopefully they won’t sexualise Wonder Woman too.” - Chole Graze Mortez, August 26^th 2014 http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/08/26/chloe-grace-moretz-kick-ass-3-piracy/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_258081&xid=partner_zergnet - (Accessed on the 13/10/14) 

"Females are always sexualized, big bum big bust, no ribs no internal organs, and its just the contrast that often comic creators, especially American ones, tend to draw ‘Ass Action comics’. Some people still think that in comics, and games, its all men buying and its not its 50/50." - Ellu Kaska, MCM London Comic Con. 25^th October 2014.
 

“Superbabes are stereotypically hetero-sexual male sex fantasies writ large and as much as they kick ass, they wiggle it. Truly feminist characters, these are not.” - P306 Lisa Rundle - Girls Who Bite Back - 2004, Sumach Press.

“As long as the alpha female is ‘still female’ (read: counts heterosexual-appeal among her most powerful weapons), she safely remains an object of entertainment for the traditional male viewer. The fantasy: dream fuck, not castration nightmare.” P307 Lisa Rundle - Girls Who Bite Back, 2004, Sumach Press.

"The critical suggestion that the action heroine is “really a man”, a suggestion that is addressed further below, stems from this assumption and represents an attempt to secure the logic of a gendered binary in which the terms ‘male and ‘masculine’, and ‘female’ and ‘feminine’, are locked together.....A more specific phenomenon associated associated with recent cinema is the appearance of a muscular action heroine, a figure who is discussed below in relation to bodybuilding as a sport and what this means for the development of shifting, ‘masculine’. - Yvonne Tasker, (1993) Spectacular bodies: gender, genre and the action cinema. Routledge. USA & Canada.

It was opinions like these (and some degrading opposites) that inspired my practical work, and with these quotes being in or intended for my dissertation, I feel this shows how closely the two correlate.

 

My Learning Journey

I have learnt so much during this process. When choosing this project, I started as a fan intending to defend comics from the sexism criticisms they so often get, and making the usual statements like "Men are in unrealistically good shape too!" Which is true, but it was when I discovered the men aren't being sexualised, the women are I started to change my mind. After doing some detailed research into this, I discovered that comics shouldn't be defended, and this issue does need confronting. And though I am a man, I thought perhaps this might seem odd coming from me. Maybe women are better inclined to object and explain this concept, as they are the ones being subdued and perhaps understand just how problematic the issue of sexism can be. But I believe men have just as much responsibility to voice this issue as women do, and perhaps if this opinion starts coming from more and more men along side women, comics will speed up their slow process of change. 

But it didn't just end with a realization that comics are sexist, and that it needs to change. I then got entwined with the issue of freedom of expressionism, the harm and bleak world of censorship and how these two worlds need to co-exist. I had always been confused at the concept of why as a society we are so used to and acceptance of violence in media, from children playing with toy soldiers to teenagers playing Call of Duty (a very violent and distressing subject) but why we are so reluctant to show or talk about sex? Violence is wrong. It causes harm and pain and is not something we are accustomed to in our everyday lives, and yet this is okay, everywhere. But sex, something that is joyous and pleasurable and very common in life, is always shuddered away and deemed horrific and perverted. And I thought why can't sex be used more frequently in media? Something I soon discovered George R R Martin agreed with. But then there was the issue, how can sex exist more frequently but sexism not?

And I realized the balance in this lies in rating the product sensibly, clearly, consistently and constantly. There are too man examples when comics have no rating, a rating in small print, or a rating that isn't even on the cover, and this issue isn't only in comics, or perhaps a rating that is on the cover but next to an already provocative main image, for which it is too late and the viewer has already seen content they didn't want too. I found this is actually worse in music videos, again not rated and shown anytime of day, and easily accessible on YouTube. I found that if this rating system was more heavily enforced, comics would benefit ethically, as well as the united decision by artists and editors to illustrate more sensibly when creating content, depending on their intended target audience. 

There was a massive learning curve during this assignment and constant counter arguments running through my mind to each thought. However, upon reaching my conclusion I feel that I effectively came up with a suitable solution to the issue, even though I didn't necessarily have to, and even if it is unlikely to ever be applied. However, I still think it needs voicing as I think the issue needs confronting and I currently I can't see an problem with this solution, other than editors may dislike it as a male teenage audience may want to see things adults would deem inappropriate for them, and therefore the publishers would loose sales by teenagers being restricted from buying titles above their age range. 

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 10.

 Final Piece

This is my final piece, after choosing the cover I liked best after printing them, I selected this one and added a few more features that conventionally comics have on their covers such as bar code, price, and issue. To work on some feedback I got from the last crit, I added lots of leaves to Poison Ivy to make her a bit less Groot like, and made these leaves redder and more autumn colours to further reference Ivy's red hair, these can be seen on all the developed covers. I also decided to add a PG rating, as in my dissertation I concluded that comics should have a clear, consistent and recognisable rating system on their cover, I did however have add block yellow background to the PG triangle so's not to act like the bbfc have actually supported this, ( this is usually imprinted faintly within the yellow part of the PG symbol) but I have kept the symbol recognisable. I am proud of this cover, and think that if comics looked more like this they would be far less criticism for sexism in the comic book genre. I certainly would buy and read this comic, and would have throughout my teenage years, and as a twenty one year old male the sexism in comics featuring all women team such as Gotham City Sirens and Marvel Divas are aimed for an audience like me (though the publishers sometimes actually insist these titles are aimed at women!) Either way, if comics did appear more like this, with female characters who are individual, still look cool and not include unnecessary sexism that comics are often accused of being.

After finishing this, I made up a work board to present the practical work I have produced for this module (except for the academic poster as I would present this separately on a different board).

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 9.

After adding back covers to these, my decision didn't much change, but I knew I liked the first two sky based designs most. To solve this, I decided to put them into context by printing them out and seeing how they looked in real life. I would like it noted the quotes on the back cover are not what people have actually said. These are only to give an influence of what a back cover may look like.

After printing these images out and wrapping them around a comic I could gauge a felling of how the product would feel, and therefore which would look best. After looking at this, I decided I liked the design with the blue sky behind as the background doesn't effect the actual character or make the image feel crowded like the city background did. I felt the space backgrounds both left too much negative space in the image, thus making the blue sky background my favourite.

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 8.

Creating a cover

Firstly, I considered a range of covers, drew them in rough and considered lightening and posing of the figure when doing so. After some feedback I settled on an idea and drew it out.

I then coloured this images using the same technique I did for my final images. I experimented with different backgrounds but ultimately found choosing was difficult. I tended to like the first as after researching other comic covers they tend to have simplistic backgrounds to draw attention to the characters in the story, either-wise the page starts to look too cluttered when later adding more detail. But after being unable to decide I thought I would experiment further.

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 7.

Analysing Feedback From Crit

With very varied and different opinions on my work, I decided to look at some of the critiques in further detail. Here are the comments: 

• I think the aren't sexist as you haven't overly sexualised them. however, Wonder Woman is super hench and to me looks odd. 
• I don't think they are sexist, I totally agree with the above comment Wonder Woman is extremely butch.
• Is Wonder Woman on steroids? Making her bulky doesn't help. She doesn't look like Wonder Woman anymore. Poison Ivy is a bit like a female Groot now, lost her signature red hair. Would say SuperGirl is still a bit sexist. Don't think its comfy fighting in spandex.
• No they aren't sexist, they are really nice designs, especially SuperGirl, reminds me of the Edge of Tomorrow character.
• I don't think they are sexist. You seemed to concentrate on showing their strength. eg a lot of women are sporty and very muscular. The armour isn't revealing or too tight either. Love the Poison Ivy. 
• Amazing designs and nice use of presenting textures through photoshop. Look forward to future work!
• I like the contrast between big boobs to big monster, feel free to go into more grotesque humanoid shapes, you don't have to make the form completely androgynous.
• They are not overly sexualised, the idea is very interesting. Try exaggerate ideas and opposite. Really good anyway.
• Cool designs, love all of them. Read comments on Wonder Woman being too butch, but I think women do look different and not all the same, some women are body builders and the genre should represent different body types. I think its just shocking to an audience to see such an iconic character like Wonder Woman, completley re-designed, and that's hard to accept. But that's the point isn't it?

The main criticism here is the argument that Wonder Woman looks too masculine. And I have to consider that she is. But to make her more feminine is the opposite of the point in this work. I agree with the last comments counter argument about how comics should show different body types and the point is to re-design something that isn't designed to have a male gaze upon it. What here springs to mind is this quote by Yvonne Tasker in her book 'Spectacular bodies' which I read when researching information for my dissertation.

"The critical suggestion that the action heroine is “really a man”, a suggestion that is addressed further below, stems from this assumption and represents an attempt to secure the logic of a gendered binary in which the terms ‘male and ‘masculine’, and ‘female’ and ‘feminine’, are locked together.....A more specific phenomenon associated associated with recent cinema is the appearance of a muscular action heroine, a figure who is discussed below in relation to bodybuilding as a sport and what this means for the development of shifting, ‘masculine’, 

This I found an interesting point as I had directly seen this assumption that a females should be feminine and only a man can by masculine. Personally I think both females and males can be either feminine or masculine without judgement or the argument either gender should be connected to only one of those words. So while it seems big-headed and even lazy to say what I am about to, I will anyway. I chose to ignore this critique and not re-design my work reflecting on it, in light that is goes against the point in this work and my dissertation.

The only other critique is that SuperGirl is a bit sexist for being in spandex. I must assume this person however does not have much experience with the superhero genre as nearly every single comic book superhero has or does wear spandex or tight clothing. It is not a female only thing to show of their bodies. Male characters also wear spandex. I have attempted in my work to challenge the genre and change characters whom are sexist, but Supergirl here is just as if not more covered up than Superman. The reason these characters wear spandex is due to that athletes wear spandex when running, weight lifting, gymnastics and even in wrestling. It is streamline and functional for intense sport. This comment is like saying women should be more covered up and have to wear looser clothes  when performing in the Olympics because either wise its sexist despite it being less functional but men can still wear spandex. Possibly, what this person was meant to say is no character should be in spandex as it exploits their bodies. However, this seems to stand on the line of political correctness gone mad when athletes should not longer wear spandex because its sexist.

The idea that Poison Ivy has lost her signature red hair I can understand, though the roses were intended to signify and represent that, I will work to make this more obvious.

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 6.

Final Designs

 Here are my final designs. Again when doing these there was a strong intention to make all the character look individual. I have always thought that in comics, the women tend to all look the same with different hair and a different costume. All their bodies and faces looked very similar. A part of inspiration for these characters were The main Avengers: Hulk, Captain America, Thor and Iron-man. All these heroes have different level of muscle mass, different personalities, different costumes, different hair, and even different styles. Captain America is the war film, Iron man the Action Film, Hulk the Monster movie, and Thor the Fantasy film. I wanted to capture this level of uniqueness to each character so that each one has different things to offer the audience. Arguably, SuperGirl still looks a bit sexy, but my defense is that she is not sexualised. Something else I found in my dissertation was something Babs Tarr said. "Sexy is okay. But there is a difference between sexy and sexualised, sexy is done without a gale gaze." And I certainly wouldn't say any of these characters are sexualised. But they are an all female group of heroes (like the four main Avengers are all male) that provide a different perspective on female superheroes, that I feel show that not all women in comics have to be sexualised, and can be designed to look cool.

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 5.

Turnarounds

Next I created turnarounds for each character, though basic all the intention was to get a 3D feel of the character, and understand the way their costume works in each angle of their body. For Poison Ivy, this was crucial and most difficult as she had different branches coming of her head that all had to be the same size in each angle. She also had the most complicated design to try and think about in a 3 dimensional way.

My Practical Element and Considering Synthesis to my Dissertaion - Part 4.

Colour Experiments

Again, I started with Wonder Woman. After choosing a design I liked, I roughly coloured it and looked at how I thought she looked best. I wanted to keep her colour pallet as the design had changed quite a lot from her original costume and wanted her to still be recognisable as Wonder Woman.

The same process applied for SuperGirl, this however was a slightly longer process as I then wanted to think about changing the colours used in the costume. ultimately, I decided against this but am glad I explored it. There were many of these designs I liked, so after settling on one I explored it further by looking at the tones of the colours.

Next up was StarFire, After deciding on a suit for her, I looked at the colours, but I already a a vision in my head that her solar energy would be a yellowy fire colour, her suit would be purple and the energy keeping the parts together would be green, thus keeping the characters colour scheme together and her costume would make more sense. my favourite selection was the last four, and it is one of these I will likely be taking forward.

Lastly was Poison Ivy. In her design I chose to create this look where vines would hold her joints and muscles together, and maybe act like veins and artery's, her muscles would be made up of tissue and her bark would be where she would need to be armoured that would act as protection. I also added roses growing from her head to hint and reference Ivy's iconic red hair.