[ SECRET POST #3811 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3811 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[resized, not a repeat]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 45 secrets from Secret Submission Post #546.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

A more apt comparasion would be other covers that show the Batfam being threatened or tortured. Nobody gets upset at seeing Tim or someone being beaten or bloody, but the second it's a woman, somehow that changes everything? I don't get it, and I *am* a feminist. There's no reason to drag gender into it when it isn't relevant to their situations.

[thewakokid]

No good reason I would say, there sure as hell is a reason but there's no goo reason. This gender divide can be a weapon. If it's just "This cover makes me feel bad" you got nothing to throw at your opponents, but if it's "This cover is gendered violence, it's a misogynistic attack on me an mine, and it's the duty of every right minded person to defend me and mine from misogyny" well, then you're armed for bear, aren't you. You call someone an ass-hole cause they upset you, no fucks will be given, but you call someone a misogynist, and you have allies, you have righteousness, you have a bludgeon to bring down on your enemies. That right there is a compelling reason to bring gender into it.

Its possible I'm just a cynical fuck, but this really is the impression I get with most internet arguments, it comes down to who can grab the social bludgeon first and hardest.

[(Anonymous)]

Fair enough. But when people grab at gender when it isn't relevant then it just cheapens what actual sexism is.

[(Anonymous)]

But surely the whole argument here is that the fact that the violence is being committed towards a woman is deeply relevant, because it's gendered violence in a way that's tied to deep inequities in society. Like, surely that's the whole point of the argument, whether or not you agree with it.

[(Anonymous)]

But it isn't because she's a woman, and that isn't even a factor. It's the "bat" in Batgirl that he's threatening, not the "girl". Yet all people can see is the "girl" and they let all the violence faced by the male Batfam, including one of them being very infamously murdered by the same character, fall by the wayside.

NAYRT

[(Anonymous)]

Since when did Jason being murdered by the joker fall on the wayside? Not taking into account that big debate over whose decision it was to kill him off. I recall people being shocked and disgusted that a young hero was beaten and killed.

In the comics, it altered Batman. And when Jason came back, he didn't get over it or forget about it. He also mentions it a fair bit in his own comics. So it can't be the writers your talking about.

The fans certainly talk about it a lot too, have written fics exploring the psychological impact of it for years.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the argument that people are making is that this is a particularly morally wrong or sexist thing for the fictional character The Joker to do. That's really not where people are coming from.

Intratextually - within the fictional constructed world of DC comics - the Joker is threatening the "bat" in Batgirl not the "girl". That's the motivation of the fictional character within the story. But extratextually - approaching the story as a fictional construct - this event was the result of a decision by actually existing real world people who chose to portray this series of images and to have the Joker target this specific character in this instance. And none of those decisions are really neutral. They're creative decisions made by people in our society with all the foibles and flaws that entails.

That's true within the story of The Killing Joke (and tbh I don't think it's actually all that problematic in the context of TKJ). But it's even more true when we're talking about the alternate cover, which is a single image, entirely shorn of its intratextual fictional context, standing on its own in front of a story that it's not really related to. And considered strictly as an image rather than as part of the fictional story of the Joker, you have to ask what kind of image it is, and I think it's valid to criticize the choices made to present that single image which is an image of violence against women in that particular context. Whatever justification the fictional event might have, the image reproduced on the cover is just an image of the Joker threatening Batgirl, and Batgirl being extremely terrified, in a profoundly gendered way.

[(Anonymous)]

Did the Joker strip the rest of the Batfamily and share the pictures? I mean he stripped Gordon in the killing joke as well and that was also degrading as fuck.

The image just reminds me of that aspect of the story. The blood and torture don't bother me with either gender.

It also reminds me of how allegedly, when the guy was pitching KJ to DC they were like 'yeah, kill the bitch!'

So for me it's context.

[(Anonymous)]

Well the very fact that he did it to her dad as well shows that the stripping wasn't gendered. And he was clearly prepared to shoot anybody who opened the door.


Wasn't that said about what the effects of her being shot would be, and it was "cripple the bitch"? If someone had said "cripple the bastard" or used a non-gendered word to express the same point, or even hadn't expressed the point at all, I have a feeling people would still see massive inequity here.

Though all of it seems to be a bit irrelevant anyway because Joker didn't know he was shooting Batgirl, wheras here he knows full well that he has Batgirl tied up. I can't recall if he EVER made the connection between the commissioner's daughter and Batgirl.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not saying you don't have a point. I just think that in this particular case, she was treated differently in comparison to other male superheroes, such as Batman. And at least some of that is based on her gender.

Because even if the Joker didn't make the connection, the readers, writer and DC did.

It's not simply woman experiencing violence, it's they way they are and how it is different to their male counterparts. Though the line and whether or not it has been crossed is up for debate.

It appears we disagree in this instance.

But these are my thoughts on the KJ, the anniversary image itself well, the artist was able to depict a harrowing moment in Batgirls history. It's all in her facial expression, they way that he's in her personal space...it reminds me that he violated her. (note, I'm not saying she was raped. Though I do see forcefully stripping anyone as a form of sexual assault.)

If there'd been a similar picture of Nightwing and Tarantula, I would have felt the same.

Not saying that the artist shouldn't have drawn it, though, perhaps not for Batgirl's comic or something so mainstream.