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Scary Sex Stuff

  
  

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Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
03:15 / 03.06.07
And, duh, here's the actual blog linking to Takeshi's comments.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
04:04 / 03.06.07
Interesting context on the extent to which a cover artist is actually instructed ~ in this case, at least. No information about the content, just

I was instructed to draw them trying to escape from a hive of those little alien-like creatures and to make the girls sexy
 
 
This Sunday
21:33 / 04.06.07
There isn't enough happy stuff here, mainly because it isn't a happy thread, but a 'scary' one. Anyhow, from the Lying in the Gutters column: When asked at Bristol who would win in a fight between the Israeli agent 355 from "Y The Last Man" and the dinosaur Old Lace from "Runaways," Brian K. Vaughan replied, "It would be a draw. And then they would make out."

Almost makes up for the incredibly uncreatively-gendered Xavin.

I'm finding the handling of much of the commentary on the Heroes for Hire cover to be refreshing in comparison to the MJ statuette. Except for Quesada, whose entire 'no tentacle rape' - especially when one considers that tentacle-rape is basically what the Brood are there for even if it isn't on-panel - defense and characterization of those offended was almost calculated to be offensive in and of itself. During the MJ thing, it almost felt like everyone on any side was just trying to rile me, but the artist and outside comments from most people talking about that cover have been sensible, and the fixes offered (by Lea Hernandez, which doesn't hurt) were actually viewable by me as improvements and addressed the things I found offensive/wrong. And only Quesada came on with an 'it's not intentionally offensive so it's not offensive' line.

In both the statuette and cover cases, I am wondering, however, how much is weighted in terms of these being pre-existing characters with histories and personalities and all? That to me seems a big (but, not the only) hanging point, but I know much of the offensiveness would remain for many people if these were created from whole cloth and tied to nothing narratively.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:40 / 04.06.07
"And then they would make out." Almost makes up for the incredibly uncreatively-gendered Xavin.

What the fuck are you on about now? How does... no, never mind. Ass backwards and incoherent, again.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:11 / 04.06.07
Fly- I think ze is saying that the silly response almost makes up for Vaughan's decision to have the character of Xavin, who is in a relationship with a queer female and is notably a Skrull with mutable gender options, to remain primarily male. Mostly a facetious comment, one assumes.

Actually, I've become more on-the-fence about whether Xavin irritates me or not. I think the idea that Xavin self-identifies as male but assumes the female form for Karolina's sake does have interesting story possibilities, partly because one of the ongoing character dynamics in Runaways is that while Xav prefers to be male unless he's, ah, involved with Karo, virtually all the regular cast members make an issue out of him remaining male despite Karolina preferring women, and at one point Molly said she'd actually prefer him to be female, and that most of the others would as well. It's sort of an interesting tension in the characters' dynamics even if the basic reason behind him remaining male most of the time is due to editorially mandated reasons. The series does have some interesting sexual politics going on, in particular when you consider Nico's relationships with her friends and her reaction to stress -- her relationship with Karolina is also noteworthy for being rather complex.
 
 
This Sunday
22:28 / 04.06.07
Flyboy, yes, the Xavin thing's a joke. Referencing, from memory, one of maybe two issues raised about Runaways in this thread, the other being Nico's kiss-away-tension tendencies. And it's been raised more than once.

Surely there's something more obscure even in the above post to raise ire? But, apologies if it was that annoying.
 
 
This Sunday
22:38 / 04.06.07
Papers, I haven't been keeping up with Runaways very much, lately, but if they are dealing with the Xavin thing in the story, now, I may have to make the effort.

Vaughan seems to be putting effort into being aware, both socially and of his readers' perspectives, and strikes me as very good about working with those perspectives in mind. I do appreciate his willingness to stretch an offense or annoyance out to make a point, the few times I've seen him do it, and if the default-to-male thing is part of that, great. Even if it's an adjusmtment only planned because of fan-reaction, still, great.
 
 
TroyJ15
04:17 / 05.06.07
Just some quick bits:

1) I do believe that alot of artist have issues with the opposite sex. Female or Male. Novelist or Penciller. It always comes out in alot of creative-types work, usually in a very sexual nature.

2) Rape in a story has always seemed cheap to me. Black Cat and Sue Dibny recently come to mind. It's kind of a hack thing --- like: "Oh, this character needs to be REALLY evil! What can we make him do? Rape the love interest? Or kill small children?"

3) Before I even knew about the MJ statue or the Heroes for Hire controversy, I had planned to purchase the MJ statue. And I really liked the Heroes for Hire cover, because I realized it was referencing the tentacle porn genre --- which is gross, mind you --- but I liked the kind of clever acknowledgement of it from Marvel.

4) I understand what Hughes was trying to say about the N-Word. As a black man I have asked myself the same question. Is the context making it okay? He's just playing Devil's Advocate.

5) A female did the Heroes for Hire cover. Does that make it okay in my book? Yeah. Sorry, double standards exist.

6) None of the things I pointed out make objectifying women or misrepresenting homosexuals okay. But that MJ statue is awesome. (sorry)
 
 
This Sunday
04:59 / 05.06.07
TroyJ15, I agree with you on some of that, but I would draw your attention to the fact that Marvel has steadfastly not given a clever acknowledgement in reference to the Heroes for Hire cover, instead, there's been an assertion that nobody had any intent of referencing tentacle rape and that Quesada, despite ostensibly having his finger firm on the pulse of geek culture, does not even now have any awareness that such a thing as tentacle rape exists.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
05:01 / 05.06.07
TroyJ15 Before I even knew about the MJ statue or the Heroes for Hire controversy, I had planned to purchase the MJ statue. And I really liked the Heroes for Hire cover, because I realized it was referencing the tentacle porn genre --- which is gross, mind you --- but I liked the kind of clever acknowledgement of it from Marvel.

Clever acknowledgement?

A female did the Heroes for Hire cover. Does that make it okay in my book? Yeah. Sorry, double standards exist.

But what if The Man is oppressing her and making her draw that cover? What do you do then hotshot?
 
 
TroyJ15
05:02 / 05.06.07
Well, you know the deal with that: Quesada is just maintaining the Company line. Any publicity is good publicity and he is toying with it and feigning ignorance.

I want to point out that this is why I came to Barbelith in the first place...for discussions like these. This topic is very insightful and very lacking FLAMEmatory fanboy nonsense.

...and Nobody oppressed her to do that cover. She knew what she was doing. I can't really feel to much sympathy on that.

While I'm not a chauvanistic jerk (I don't think so), I kinda have to take the alphamale approach that the female body is always alot more fun to look at than a male one (y'know with it's hairy parts and sweating instead of glistening). I also I have to take the approach that this problem is across all entertainment and Comics don't suffer because of it like I read in a post earlier --- they are just another part of the whole silly sex sales thing. And it does (I mean it fooled me).
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
05:16 / 05.06.07
For "clever acknowledgment," read: "Steadfast refusal to acknowledge." With added non-sequitors like, "But those tentacles belong to Brood aliens! So they aren't tentacles."

From what I understand, part of the problem with the Heroes for Hire cover was that the artist in question was given the assignment through email and was not given sufficient background information regarding the characters or their personalities, and consequently missed the opportunity to use those characters to subvert the scary drippy sex of the cover image. Even then, women are just as capable as men of perpetuating stereotypes of that variety, as Lady notes above. One can debate whether or not its the artist's duty to subvert, pervert, convert, or revert the problems inherent cover design, but her gender is arguably irrelevant to the issue of whether or not the image is offensive.

For use of the N-word, you might consider looking to the Nick Nack thread, the Quoting the N-Word thread, and a number of others available to you by judicious application of the Barbelith search engine.
 
 
TroyJ15
05:29 / 05.06.07
When you refer to "personalities" of the character, I assume you mean in particular Black Cat. But all that ridiculous Kevin Smith garbage seems to have been Retconned anyway. Besides Marvel's been doing this Pop Cover Art thing for a few years now --- Covers that are just meant to be art and not in context of the story --- especially story contained within that particular book.

I kinda believe in the double-standard. It's a fuzzy gray non-commital area, I know, but I figure if a woman did the cover and doesn't really argue the point of mysogny then it must not be that big of an issue that everyone makes it out to be.

Now the MJ statue is whole other deal --- but I just think it's "purty."
 
 
This Sunday
05:36 / 05.06.07
I would ask anyone who is comfortable using the argument that a representation of women by a woman cannot be offensive/sexist, if they believe the same to apply to men.

TroyJ15, ass backwards and incoherent as I am, I would suggest you might get more mileage with qualifiers on things like what bodytype is more fun to look at. An 'I feel' or 'for me' rarely hurts and it doesn't exclude the possibility of alternate perspectives. Other people having differing tastes hardly ever impinges on your freedom to have your own.

Aside from that, I do feel a great deal of sympathy for anyone who finds themselves doing something they are vehemently against because they need the money for food and rent and stuff. That may not be the case here, which seems to be more about miscommunication or lack of detailing to the artist what the characters are like and so on, but I'm still a slight bit wondering if the imagery defaulted the way it did because the artist thought that was what was expected of her, and knew/suspected it would sell.

And 'sex sells' isn't really the issue, I'd assume, for most folks in this thread. It's the type of sex/sexuality/sexiness that grates. Where the lines are drawn comes down to finer camps, but I don't think anyone's calling for a remodeling where every person illustrated in a comic be a PC-gone-mad parody stickfigure and be horribly unattractive for good measure. Look at the Hernandez fixes on the H4H cover, for instance. It's the type of sexualization.

When rape and/or submissiveness are the only aspects or presentation of sexuality, it does damage the industry, in terms of whose keeping in comics, whose sticking with comics, and how the read-no-comics public (who probably read comics in their local paper or online or in a magazine, but don't consider them comics because there's no guy in tights punching another guy in tights) view the industry, the materials available, and the people who work in and/or enjoy comics.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
05:40 / 05.06.07
Also:

Well, you know the deal with that: Quesada is just maintaining the Company line. Any publicity is good publicity and he is toying with it and feigning ignorance.

"Feigning ignorance" = "Damage control before potentially inflammatory parents groups who have concerns about the manga crossover trend catch wind of dubiously sexualized imagery being marketed to their children." Toying with it? No, that's Quesada doing a terrible job of encouraging audience support by trying to make a section of that audience look like idiots for complaining and looking like an unaware out-of-the-loop editorial doomsday device.

...and Nobody oppressed her to do that cover. She knew what she was doing. I can't really feel to much sympathy on that.

As an artist, she would have been doing the cover on commission to make money - in that sense, she's only being oppressed by economic forces and the need to support herself. In doing so, however, she has or may have ended up presenting an image influenced by oppressive cultural forces which have imposed a particularly slanted view of how women should be depicted upon her. I would also argue that "she knew what she was doing" is unsubstantiated at best and inflammatory at worst; very few artists are completely conscious and aware of the subliminal or subconscious messages that might crop up in their work when they initially create them, and often depend on others to point out themes, motifs, questionable nuances to their work.

In the case of the artist in question, she is a Japanese artist drawing a comic book cover for a North American market and consequently issues of taste and sexual culture will be different, with different reactions to sexual images.

I kinda have to take the alphamale approach that the female body is always alot more fun to look at than a male one (y'know with it's hairy parts and sweating instead of glistening).

I question the "always alot more fun to look at" on the grounds that (a) the straight male gaze is not the only one (are we really back there? Again? Seriously?) and that for some people body hair can be attractive. Also: one person's glistening is another person's sweat, and vice versa.

I also I have to take the approach that this problem is across all entertainment and Comics don't suffer because of it like I read in a post earlier --- they are just another part of the whole silly sex sales thing. And it does (I mean it fooled me).

Comics failing to suffer from the problem because it is an entertainment-wide trend falls flat, sorry. They might not suffer to any greater degree than other media, but they still suffer. And perhaps they suffer more on the grounds that because of a lot of factors comics are a much more insular media and market and by allowing certain image types and misogynistic tendencies to fester and multiply, they are impeding their own potential acceptance in the wider market as cultures look more deeply into how people are portrayed. The process is slow but not non-existent.
 
 
TroyJ15
05:47 / 05.06.07
I thought the word/letter "I" at the beginning of my sentence indicated it was my own personal opinion. I really was not trying to indicate my opinion is universal at all --- I was just joking, honestly I know other people don't share my opinion.

As for the comic industry, your point was kinda my point. Everyone is doing the mysogny bit: TV, Movies, Video Games, Music --- Everyone. Comics is just another facet of that whole BIG problem was my point. But because comics are so low on the respect totem pole of the general public (even though they go see the movies meant for us --- but that's a whole other thing) it does make the industry look bad, I guess. So you're right on that. Double-Standards, again.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
05:50 / 05.06.07
& also:

When you refer to "personalities" of the character, I assume you mean in particular Black Cat.

Felicia and Misty Knight, both of whom have never struck me as the kind of women to be taking that shit lying down. Misty Knight in particular should have killed at least one of the Brood with her ankles & boots instead of hanging there, morosely awaiting her fate. Which would have been a way grosser, funner, poptastic cover.

Besides Marvel's been doing this Pop Cover Art thing for a few years now --- Covers that are just meant to be art and not in context of the story --- especially story contained within that particular book.

By Pop I think you mean Pin-Up - and, certainly, iconic cover art that doesn't represent the contents of a comic is an old idea. The pin-up covers have been around for a while now and I've heard a lot of criticisms levelled against them -- from the issue of discomfort ("I would buy She-Hulk if it wasn't for the cheesecakey pin-up covers.") to the art specific ("All the covers look the same now and you can't tell issues from each other anymore.")

I kinda believe in the double-standard. It's a fuzzy gray non-commital area, I know, but I figure if a woman did the cover and doesn't really argue the point of mysogny then it must not be that big of an issue that everyone makes it out to be.

Even if other women find the image offensive? Her one lone voice eradicates all others?

Now the MJ statue is whole other deal --- but I just think it's "purty."

You're entitled to your own aesthetic, certainly.
 
 
TroyJ15
05:57 / 05.06.07
I think the cover artist on Heroes for Hire is best summed up as stated earlier: cultural differences. This would be more than okay as originally drawn in Japan.

I do beg to differ that artist need outside opinion to indicate what they were trying to say in their work. Their intentions are made before brush hits canvas or pencil hits comic board. Artist who don't have intentions before or during doing their work usually suck (that was a genralization, sorry).
I think Marvel sought her out based on the "type" of art she does and she did what she is used to doing. The end. I'ma look this artist up online and find her other works and see though.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
06:02 / 05.06.07
I do beg to differ that artist need outside opinion to indicate what they were trying to say in their work. Their intentions are made before brush hits canvas or pencil hits comic board. Artist who don't have intentions before or during doing their work usually suck (that was a genralization, sorry).

There's what they intend, which is one thing, and there's what subconscious desires and cultural baggage they unwittingly bring into the piece with them and have to examine for value (both positive and negative) after the fact.
 
 
This Sunday
06:02 / 05.06.07
I wrote off the H4H cover rather quickly, when it first came up. Due to response here and elswhere, I thought about it a bit more, and yeah, it kinda grated. For me, a big part of that was the OOC expressions and situation of the cover, but beyond that there's just an issue of representation. It is easy, though, to get self-blind or enured to certain things, and some aspects of sexism fall in that category for me, and I presume for many other fans. Once the blinders are off, though, it behooved me to recant and move forward under the new realization.

Part of the reason I think it's important to address the sexism in comics, but haven't been moved to put up a similar thread in film, say, is because comics are such a niche market the changes could reasonably come about easier and faster (also, I post mostly to comics, so it'd feel weird to jump over to film/tv and start a big ol' thread). Comics as a whole do, however, have a weird influence on much of pop culture and entertainment. In the same way that low-budget film influences a lot of high budget blockbusters, to keep it to one medium, or low-run small press comics eventually have interesting influence over the big series everybody recognizes from a spin-off movie/cartoon/underwear. Part of that's people who grew up on them and work in film, music, whatever, but it is a presence that more celebs and artistic types are becoming comfortable admitting in public. There was a time when influence was detectable but nobody much associated Terry Southern or Dorothy Parker with comics. Fellini went to see Stan Lee, but did Stan Lee go to see Fellini?
 
 
TroyJ15
06:09 / 05.06.07
Felicia and Misty Knight, both of whom have never struck me as the kind of women to be taking that shit lying down. Misty Knight in particular should have killed at least one of the Brood with her ankles & boots instead of hanging there, morosely awaiting her fate. Which would have been a way grosser, funner, poptastic cover.


It's just a cover. That's probably what actually goes down in the book.

By Pop I think you mean Pin-Up - and, certainly, iconic cover art that doesn't represent the contents of a comic is an old idea. The pin-up covers have been around for a while now and I've heard a lot of criticisms levelled against them -- from the issue of discomfort ("I would buy She-Hulk if it wasn't for the cheesecakey pin-up covers.") to the art specific ("All the covers look the same now and you can't tell issues from each other anymore.")

I meant Pop Art. Pin-Up sounds more like cheescake in my book. And cheesecake isn't what I'm referencing. Covers that have nothing to do with the content inside but are meant to just be artisitic expression of the subject. Example:


OR...



Even if other women find the image offensive? Her one lone voice eradicates all others?

Noramlly, no. But since she is the person who created it. It makes the argument against it less valid, in my eyes. she's the artist her intentions are made clear by her voice --- y'know until she comes back in an interview 5 years from now and says otherwise.
 
 
TroyJ15
06:13 / 05.06.07
There's what they intend, which is one thing, and there's what subconscious desires and cultural baggage they unwittingly bring into the piece with them and have to examine for value (both positive and negative) after the fact.

Now that I can agree with. I kinda made that point earlier, that subconsciously all sorts of stuff is seeping into your work. Especially since she is from Japan and women have very specific roles (so, I'm told). But until she says otherwise. I can't find an issue with it.

(I'm gonna just stop trying this html thing. I suck at it if it ain't Myspace)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:26 / 05.06.07
Your last two posts are pretty much unreadable, Troy. I'd suggest PMing a moderator and explaining how you'd like them to look, or consulting the FAQ on basic HTML.

Meanwhile, I do have one question:

It's a fuzzy gray non-commital area, I know, but I figure if a woman did the cover and doesn't really argue the point of mysogny then it must not be that big of an issue that everyone makes it out to be.

Could I ask why, in that case, "everybody" is "making it out to be" that big an issue? Do you think that they are deliberately pretending to think that it is an issue in order to be difficult?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:10 / 05.06.07
Deep breaths needed, because clearly if I can't help but snap at Night/Daytripper then I'm going to plain explode at some of the other stuff that's been said since.

Fly- I think ze is saying that the silly response almost makes up for Vaughan's decision to have the character of Xavin, who is in a relationship with a queer female and is notably a Skrull with mutable gender options, to remain primarily male. Mostly a facetious comment, one assumes.

Yes, I got all that. The reason I said it was "ass-backwards" is that in the first place, I don't buy the argument that the depiction of Xavin in Runaways is so troublesome as to be part of the overall problem, or that Vaughan needs to make up for it somehow. (Xavin's identity is a thorny issue, but not one that the comic has shied away from addressing directly, to an extent that I do think is rare in supehero comics.)

Even more bafflingly, I completely fail to understand how Vaughan's comment "almost makes up" for anything. As far as I can tell, the genuine implication from DN's post is that making a joke about a female dinosaur getting it on with a female woman is somehow a subversive and refreshing thing to say in the world of comics. That's a fine crackpipe to be smoking. Inhaling the cracksome deep into one's lungs.
 
 
Lugue
16:30 / 05.06.07
Are in essence you holding that without intent, there is no offense, Troy? There are plenty of ways of depicting groups of people that unintentionally reduce them in ways that aren't quite *meant* but seem *natural*, the best example being apparently positive or neutral stereotypes (Asians as "boss at math" and gays as "a woman's best friend" occur). This is not as serious as someone who flat-out expresses their spite for a group, but it remains an implicit reduction of one to a model that confines variety in a way that may offend.

Think of variety in this case as "not necessarily having to look like a blushing bride when tentacles from out of space spread towards my exposed flesh". Simple, huh? And you do realize how this is something that can be done by a group itself?

Even if you take away the artist's responsability, it's still a bit of an editorial fuckarow... You put it as an issue of cultural difference, but you reckon Quesada was actually aware of how it refers to tentacle-rape. You think that's okay, apparently. I think at the very least it's a dangerous import, and that he and Marvel staff should be held accountable for it, because they're the ones who failed to grasp the significance of that difference.
 
 
Ticker
17:13 / 05.06.07
Ah vacation, it was sweet while it lasted...

While I'm not a chauvanistic jerk (I don't think so), I kinda have to take the alphamale approach that the female body is always alot more fun to look at than a male one (y'know with it's hairy parts and sweating instead of glistening).

That's not so much an alphamale approach (you do know they come in non hetero in the human variety?) or an absolute. If we go with the idea of the existence of an alphamale stereotype and proscribe to it what kind of bodies it likes to look at we still don't arrive at anything meaningful. Perhaps you like looking at a certain kind of body but I'm pretty sure not everything female fits the bill as sexy. What does flip your switches cannot be exported as an absolute standard for reality. It also overlooks what influenced your settings in the first place including the role of various images you have been exposed to.

I kinda believe in the double-standard. It's a fuzzy gray non-commital area, I know, but I figure if a woman did the cover and doesn't really argue the point of mysogny then it must not be that big of an issue that everyone makes it out to be.

Now the MJ statue is whole other deal --- but I just think it's "purty."

Well as a female iding person I can tell you sexism and misogyny are often present in the views and actions fo women toward other women, Might I suggest the Feminism 101 thread for your further education on the topic?

As for the MJ statue being "purty" well lot's of objects that are harmful are quite beautiful. While one can elect to toggle back and forth on layers of meaning there comes a point when the repugnant layers require avoidance of the object entirely.
 
 
This Sunday
19:39 / 05.06.07
Flyboy, in the interest that it may die down, and the presumption that you're not the only one confused & offended, but that others are not driven to drop a cryptic 'ass backwards and incoherent, again' (it appears to be less incoherent and more that you just didn't agree) and then blame it on a poor defenseless crackpipe: I found Vaughan's joke neither subversive nor any sort of great progress as a narrative. As a joke, it encapsulated many of the BKV tics and tropes into one absurd package.

I like that Vaughan is willing and able to look at himself and his work critically enough he could make that joke. Does anybody think Hughes is could've made a similar joke, with the issues floating around the MJ statuette, or that John Byrne is going to make that joke about characters he's connected to? Autocrit joke, I thought, and I found that refreshing. That was what made up for what I do consider to be troublesome (well, minorly/frustratingly, and possibly to be revised once I catch up on Runaways), regardless, and I'm glad to discuss here or elsewhere why you don't think the Xavin thing's troublesome. And of course, it doesn't 'make up for' in any realistic way as a restitution or correction, but it gave me a little bit of hope for him, and apparently, my renewed hope that Vaughan was aware enough to pull some things off, narratively, like the issue of Xavin's gendering, was/is paying off.

Troyj15 I'm thinking Pop Art may not be the best qualifier for the issue at hand. Not that they aren't examples of pop art, arguably, but a primary difference between, say, the Spidey-centric covers and the H4H cover is that one is panderng to a presumed audience who need their protagonists whimpering, helpless and frightened, while exposing some good-looking flesh (as opposed to the rotting zombie kind) and getting decorated with unnamed bodily fluids by xenomorphic insectile rape machines from space. That difference outweighs the similarity that the covers may not literally represent the story behind that cover.

Put Spidey in the Black Cat's place, complete with whimpering expression and moneyshot on the mostly-bared chest, while tentacles apparently seek to steal Spidey's new bell and collar.

Now, Black Cat in place of Spidey on either of the two covers you posted. She makes a good zombie, really, and she's perfectly capable of taking off her mask.

Therein - at least, for me - most of the offense.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
20:45 / 05.06.07
Right. So, in a single paragraph:

You were impressed by what you perceived as Brian K Vaughan's self-awareness. You have not actually been following Xavin's development as a character, but what you had seen before you stopped following Xavin's development as a character "uncreatively gendered". That's pretty obscure as a criticism, but there doesn't seem to be much point in talking about it until such time as you have caught up with the character.

Why does everything have to take so long around here?
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
21:15 / 05.06.07
Xavin has grown on me a lot, in part because the fact that he hasn't be around since Day One means that Vaughan has done more active work to develop him and his relationship with Karolina - and it definitely feels to me (for some unquantifible reason) that he is her love interest, rather than any chance of it being the other way around. Tension over his gender identity is certainly there and possibly underlies the tension Xavin has in general with the group (particularly with Nico, who is the Runaways' leader and is sort of a rival for Karolina's affections).

I wonder how different the tension would be in a more "traditionally" gendered super-group (ie, the emphasis being on more male characters) - Runaways has always veered nicely in the direction of its girls - and how different the audience reaction to Skrulled Gender would be.

What's the status of Whedon's run on the book yet? Is it out yet (haven't been paying attention, trying to read them in digest form) and what seems to be the take on Xavin under the new regime?
 
 
This Sunday
21:51 / 05.06.07
Haus, Fly, I admit it was badly handled on my part, even if I don't see it as cracksmokingly incoherent, but there it is. Clearly, the meanings didn't come through for some people, and when they did it was disagreeable, and it irritated at least one, so, y'know, apologies and assurance it wasn't my intention.

More on topic - almost - I believe Whedon's run is somewhere near half-point, if he is just doing the six issue story.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:15 / 05.06.07
And, during this Whedon run - Whedon of course being famous for his strong female characters and Claremontesque bibondage fantasies - Karolina made the comment that Xavin was not pretending to be a woman, but learning to be a human, or something to that effect, which might be quite an intersting jumping point for further discussion of the treatment of Karolina/Xavin once everyone is caught up.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
04:02 / 06.06.07
Karolina made the comment that Xavin was not pretending to be a woman, but learning to be a human

In the sense of a rather dubious colonialist attitude (interesting, given her parents' status as alien conquerers), or in the sense that Xavin was experimenting with various forms to learn the intricacies of a greater selection of humans? What was the context of the comment? Now I really want the next digest to come out.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:20 / 06.06.07
While I'm not a chauvanistic jerk (I don't think so), I kinda have to take the alphamale approach that the female body is always alot more fun to look at than a male one (y'know with it's hairy parts and sweating instead of glistening)

Troy, oh god Troy, Troy, Troy.

1)You contradict yourself. You're not a chauvinistic jerk but
a)alphamale
b)generalisation of female body
c)glistening

2)
a)alphamale, already covered by BihB
b)generalisation of female body: all female bodies are not more attractive than all male bodies. You discredit yourself, the male half of the population and more relevantly the diverse and various female bodies in the world by making this comment.
c)glistening- people do not glisten Troy and complimenting women generally just for being women in such a peculiar way is not charming, it's weird, even as a joke.

Just go and read the thread that BihB recommended and stop talking about women until you've done it because otherwise some heads are going to burst. Alan Sugar boardroom style.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
16:17 / 06.06.07
The "cultural differences" argument is such a pile of shit, and not just because it's all based on presumption.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:31 / 06.06.07
On Xavin - essentially, the context was a discussion about the fact that Xavin appears to be spending a lot of time as a man. So, the point, I think, was that Xavin's relationship with human bodies was not the same, presumably as either gender is an entirely different type of body than his/her natural Skrull form. This may or may not turn out to be bollocks, of course.
 
  

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