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Thanks, I appreciate the points. Let me see if I can respond.
1) Blaming his copy editor for the bit about Gail Simone being a hairdresser.
- It's what happened, but because my name is on the article I'm ultimately responsible that it's in there. I did do the right thing and apologize directly to Gail Simone, so my conscience is pretty clear at this point.
2) Also wandering off into the stuff about William Marston's private life, which is what every piece about Wonder Woman does to add a bit of spice (he invented the polygraph! He was polyamorous!).
- Marston's private life is relevant to Wonder Woman, the same way any writer's private life is relevant to their creations. I find Marston remarkably well-adjusted for a guy who was living an alternative lifestyle at a time when living an alternative lifestyle could be very dangerous. He was also using Wonder Woman as "propaganda" (his word, not mine) to teach the world that women were superior to men, something he believed in very deeply, from everything I can tell. I also think his Wonder Woman is one of the best incarnations, and I believe it's one of the best precisely because he was putting so much of his personal life into the stories.
3) Claiming that Barbelith is a Grant Morrison fansite in the belief that the holy name of Grant will silence criticism. Then, when it is pointed out that it will not, being a whiny victim about it, demonstrating that he has not done the one thing that he was expressly asked to do when joining Barbelith - read the FAQ, to avoid precisely such fuckery as this.
- Sorry for the "fuckery." I wasn't invoking Grant's name to silence criticism, I was making a joke. I probably should have put one of those little emoticons at the end of the original sentence - maybe one that was doing a little wink? If I came across as whiny I apologize. I hate whiners. Tone is difficult to convey online, and it was silly of me to think the jokey tone of that comment would be clearly communicated to people who are obviously very sensitive about this board's connection to Grant Morrison. Yeah, come to think of it, I probably should have used a winky face.
4) Claiming repeatedly and without substantiation that the reason for Wonder Woman's popularity is that she evokes a wider debate about whether women are better than men. Particular points lost for then stating that this debate is usually unspoken (and thus not a debate). This is particularly odd when half the thrust of the article is that Wonder Woman is not successful, compared to Batman and Superman. See also "politically incorrect" and "unspeakable".
- You're right that I used the word "debate" incorrectly. I probably should have said "internal cultural debate." The idea of one gender being superior to another is one that crops up in the press quite a bit, the same way that those godawful debates on race and intelligence crop up on a regular basis. It's a non-politically correct idea that attracts people like moths to a flame. These questions/issues/whatever-you-want-to-call-them seem to strike a nerve with people, giving the amount of attention and responses they receive when they crop up, and as a society we should leave them alone. I mean, any sane person knows that one gender can't be "superior" to another any more than one race can be "superior" to another. And yet people keep circling around these issues, coming back to them again and again. They obviously resonate with folks on a very basic level. When looking at Wonder Woman you have to wonder why she's survived for sixty-six years. It can't all be crass commercialism. I posited in the article that the reason she survived is because of a resonant idea her creator embedded in her: women are superior to men. I may be right, and I may be wrong, but that's what I think. Glad you disagree. That's the spice of life!
5) Telling us what feminism is and does in a sentence.
- The article wasn't about feminism, and I didn't have room to give a complete history. But at its most basic level, yes, feminism is the politics of gender equality. I'm not sure what the problem is with that description. There are many different aspects to feminism, but they all start from the basic assumption that the genders should be treated as equal.
6) Making a statement like:
The world of international finance has already weighed in on this discussion, coming down firmly on the side of women.
And then offering in substantiation anecdotal evidence from one very, very small part of international finance - the microloans system. This is like saying:
The world of football has already weighed in on the discussion, coming down firmly on the side of the inherent superiority of women, because one linesman in the English Premier League is in fact a lineswoman.
- I expanded on this in a post up the thread.
7) Tranny hookers. They're funny - because they're trannies!
- No, I don't think they're funny because they're trannies. I was trying to make a reference to the sleazy stuff men blow their money on, and as far as streetwalkers go, tranny hookers are about as sleazy as it gets. Seriously - work with some one day. It doesn't get any worse. I'd use another phrase if I was writing that post all over again since this one phrase seems to have offended a large number of people and that was not my original intention. I just wanted to make a colorful and evocative word choice. My sincere apologies to folks who are offended.
Also, I did respond jokingly to the original trannie hooker objections with a post about Hugh Grant and Eddie Murphy. I should have responded in a much more sober and serious frame of mind. To be honest I thought someone objecting to "tranny hookers" on a board where multiple obscenities show up with some regularity had to be kidding at first. Obviously, I know better now. |
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