[ SECRET POST #2171 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2171 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 040 secrets from Secret Submission Post #310.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - 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

[fscom]

07. http://i.imgur.com/SWHBf.png

[(Anonymous)]

why are skimpily dressed male superheroes a bad thing?

seems like that would make things even

[mekkio]

Only if they are dressed in a way that would emphasize the male form rather than the female form. Otherwise, it won't come off a sexy but ridiculous. Like putting say Scott Summers in Emma Frost's outfit would look silly because Emma Frost's outfit highlight the female form. However, if you have more male superheroes dressed like Namor, who is dressed to highlight the male form, then it would work.



I wouldn't mind a little comic eyecandy. I think there are only three superheroes in comics that does the male eyecandy thing; Namor, Nightwing and Gambit. Three. There needs to be more male eyecandy.

[intrigueing]

For the same reason that skimpily-dressed female superheroes are a bad thing: it looks ridiculous and it's fucking distracting as hell. Semi-practical costumes are hot enough with their spandex and impractically cool frills and designs, they don't need to look like they got ambushed in the middle of getting kinky with their partner in a hotel room.

But yeah, I guess if you can't have everyone dressing properly, everyone dressing like porn stars is better than just the women dressing like that...

[insanenoodlyguy]

Sounds fair enough

[(Anonymous)]

I am not particularly in support of any scantily clad superheroes, because I find most comic book bodies good enough to be mildly embarrassing but nowhere near good enough to be attractive. I get nothing out of it. I'm always slightly perplexed that people go. "That's fanservice? That's... a cartoon."

[mekkio]

Personally, I think Hawkeye was a poor choice to do this project with. Because the whole idea was to show how ridiculous the poses were in the first place and then they go and pick the one character that, since the Avengers movie has come out has become either a hypersexual plaything or a running joke on tumblr. So, Hawkeye doing those poses doesn't quite the shock value the artists may have intended for. It's either funny or sexy.

They should have gone with a more serious character like Batman if they wanted more people to take notice about the issue.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know, I've seen a lot of guys making comments about how uncomfortable it makes them, which to me is a pretty good sign that the whole thing is having an impact. Sure, the people on tumblr who're actually drawing the reinterpretations have had some fun with it, but we're all kind of predisposed to see it both from the funny/sexy perspective and the "the original image is problematic".

I, personally, am not hugely in to comics, and hadn't realized the extent to which women's bodies are sexualized before seeing a lot of the original images; I mean I'd seen a couple out of context, but just the variety artists have had to choose from is boggling to me. Especially in originals that feature both a male and female character.

[(Anonymous)]

It wouldn't work with Batman. Batman has a cape to hide his sexy ass.

[(Anonymous)]

It wasn't started as a real thing. Gingerhaze and friends just really love Hawkeye and his sexy self and started putting him in the sexy and ridiculous poses/outfits and BlackWidow in the competent badass poses as a joke. Then it took off.

I think maybe if it were started as an actual serious project to make a point they might have thought more about who they were picking. Maybe.

[tamabonotchi]

It's devolved to art actually making Hawkeye more sexual than the actual comics and/or not even getting the poses right, which loses the point.
It never even seemed like a big thing to me, since I've seen people point out bad poses before and were better executed.

[(Anonymous)]

I see more superdudes than just Hawkeye. It's still funny. If we get used to seeing everyone lose their spines and gain stretchy bones, at least everyone's equal in being horrifically proportioned.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you have any idea how many comic-girl poses of Hawkeye would have to be drawn in order to make women feel the same kind of contempt and entitlement for Hawkeye's body that comics fans feel for women?

I don't know, either, but I promise you it's more than will ever actually be drawn.

[mekkio]

Then you don't know the power of tumblr. Because trust me, it can be done when tumblr fanartists put their minds to it.

[(Anonymous)]

Best post.

I swear, some people don't know the difference between sexualizing the female body in a vulnerable, submissive way and how when males are depicted in "sexy" costumes, their poses are always reflective of the male power fantasy (wide stance, bulging muscles, etc, etc).

To see a male in a submissive pose is quite a shock, and it shouldn't be. We're just so used to seeing pop culture through the prism of the male gaze.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem I've found with it lately is that it's ceased to be about mocking the absurdity of certain poses (if I recall, one of the earlier, sillier responses was that "it's stupid for a man to pose like that because they physically can't do it. Women can pose like that because their bones are more flexible; in other words, they stretch") and more about just drawing Hawkeye in place of any female character who's showing a little cleavage or has larger breasts.

The oversexualization of women in comic books isn't a good thing, but the purpose of the Hawkeye Initiative was to mock the absurd extremes to which it's taken, to demonstrate it's not just oversexualization, it's oversexualization that doesn't make any sense. And with that in mind, drawing Hawkeye in his usual costume, standing with his hands behind his back and just going o3o is missing the point of the project entirely, even if the drawing is based on a drawing of a female character in a really sexy outfit doing the same thing.

[(Anonymous)]

I am still mad:
A. It's Hawkeye.
B. I've only seen one of them done by a good artist.
C. It's Hawkeye.

[(Anonymous)]

I like the idea and a lot of the art, too, but I've seen some people drawing for it totally miss the point and use images that just have female characters who are not at all in brain-bending or hypersexualized poses or even dressed provacatively. It also seems to perpetuated the idea that any sort of revealing costume is categorically bad, when I think that that's not always the case. A non-super powered character traipsing around in a thong in the middle of a battle makes no sense, but a super human wearing a costume that shows some skin isn't necessarily impractical, especially if the costume meshes with their personality. There's also, I think, a difference between posing a character sexually in a normal context vs. art that's intended to be a pin-up.

That being said, I wouldn't mind if more male characters dressed like Namor. Or for more pin-ups with male characters in general.

[insanenoodlyguy]

You now realize the spidermen have always been like this







Yeah you flaunt that ass you little bitch tease.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from. Quite a few of the images even come with commentary about how it's so hot, which pisses me off because the entire point is to show how stupid and impractical the costumes and poses are.

I do wish they'd chosen someone else though. Hawkeye's sexualised pretty often as it is (prime example: New Avengers Annual 3. Google it. I'll wait.)

[truxillogical]

I will not lie...

I may or may not just be using it as an excuse to draw Hawkeye in sexy poses. Or because I freaking hate everything about that cover. Or both. Por que no los dos?

Mostly, though, I think it's still an effective message, especially when some artists do group pics with other heroes as well. Fangirls, for the most part, yeah we are kinda used to seeing this sort of thing anyway, so the Hawk-shock wears off after awhile.

But I think a lot of guys, especially the kind of guys who still spout "But the MEN are idealized TOO!" really aren't used to this. And it's not just confined to a little fansection of deviantart. It's up on oodles of main comic and nerd news sites. And it makes them uncomfortable. Did you see that guy who was ranting on bleedingcool about how disgusting and awful it all was? And everyone basically told him, "Now imagine 99% of the male heroes look like that at any given time, and you'll get it.

And if it makes a few dudebros feel super Hawkweird...well, I won't cry over that.

[(Anonymous)]

now I'm back to "can't wait until next week's Hawkeye comes out!" Although Issue 3 will always be my favorite.

God bless....

[iceyred]

God bless skimmpiy dressed superheros.

While I'm at it, God bless vodka.

It;sn a good night when you combine the two. :) :) .)

[stainless]

Personally, I am fine with eye candy, including scantily or ridiculously tightly clad women. I'm not fine with "that's so completely contorted it just makes me go ow."

I'd be fine with/happy about more male eyecandy actually. What I'd really like to see is not NO EYECANDY OH MY GOD BLAR BLAR but less of it being there all the time no matter what and looking dumb.

And fight poses that look like actual fighting. It's possible to do this in ways that still look hot, for one thing. And for another, I personally wouldn't feel it would appreciably de-hot a comic to have some of the fight panels drawn purely for action.

[tenlittlebullets]

On the one hand: this is a mildly disturbing and very effective reminder of how easily images, and particularly the objectification of certain people in images, affect how we view the world. Women in sultry anatomy-defying poses fly completely under our subconscious radar because we see that shit all the time. If only a few days of the Hawkeye Initiative suffice to place a particular dude in the "okay to objectify; doesn't even look weird anymore" category, that in and of itself is a pretty damning indication of why ridiculous objectified depictions of women aren't a trivial matter.

On the other: if, once the shock factor wears off, the takeaway result is "lol Hawkeye is a woman" rather than "whoa, the ways these pictures are gendered are really fucked up," I'm sure enterprising nerds will move on to other male superheroes.

On the mutant third hand, after sifting through the comments here: yes, there is a lot of meme dilution and a lot of questionably-relevant art being produced, but why should the Hawkeye Initiative be restricted to egregious anatomy-defying abominations? Stuff like Escher Girls and the various attempts by real people to replicate torso-dislocating T&A poses is there for one specific purpose, yeah, but IIRC the picture that started it all wasn't about terrible anatomy, it was about who gets the willowy ballerina treatment and who gets the competent-badass stance.

I think the HI is actually a really interesting opportunity to explore gendered depictions of body language and posing in a way that's wider than just skewering bad anatomy: stick a dude in a wide range of girls' poses and see what happens. What makes people uncomfortable? Why? What makes guys uncomfortable but causes girls to go "ooh, I'd like to see more of that"? Can we untangle the discomfort caused by images of degradation or powerlessness, or by having one's personality/awesomeness/basic physical integrity downplayed for the sake of showing off body parts, from the discomfort caused by men being unexpectedly thrust under the female gaze or posed in body language that's not degrading, just coded feminine? That's how the original HI image reads to me--hey, guys, let's stick Clint in the feminine pose originally assigned to Natasha and Natasha in the masculine one meant for Clint. Is it shocking? Why is it shocking?

(These ruminations brought to you by that one time I tried to figure out why I had a raging dyke-boner for David Tennant, and then I started sifting through photoshoots and BBC promo photos and realized how much of his body language is stuff you normally only see on girls. Dammit, media, if your Strong Female Characters are no less empowered for carrying their talents underneath a finely-tuned air of innocent, come-hither vulnerability, why can't we get more Strong Male Characters who do the same?)

On the fourth hand growing out of the mutant third hand, the occasional undertones of "lol, guys associated with feminine things, so funny/grotesque/pathetic" are pretty unfortunate.