They Should Invent A Way To Save Your Mother

The Gendered Gaze in the Superhero Genre

Whenever media objectification of women is brought up (eg. “sexualization of female bodies is because our culture is centered around the male gaze”), some people like to counter with “but what about all the male shirtless scenes in Marvel movies?” The point being made is really that women can’t complain about our bodies being sexualized in media because so are men’s! Another argument is “well, women have been sexualized in media for so long, so let’s sexualize the men, too! Equality!” Additionally, many filmmakers/actors/fans like to justify said male shirtless scenes with “Here’s some eye candy for the ladies!”

But here’s the thing. Sexualization of male bodies in film and comics doesn’t actually cater to the female gaze.

Hyper-sexualization of both women and men in comics increased drastically in the late 80s and defined the 90s, especially with the rise of artists like Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld.

You look at this and think “Hot women for straight men to look at and hot guys for straight women to look at. Sounds equal.” Except, female comic readership declined significantly in the 90s (mostly because of the increasing female objectification). Comics were being distributed to direct-market shops, which were largely male-dominated spaces. Even characters who were historically feminist and targeted at girls were being drawn by artists (Mike Deodato Jr.) who openly referred to their art as “porn Wonder Woman,” and were now being targeted at straight men. As far as the creators were concerned, their readers were predominantly male. Male comic creators were completely uninterested in catering to women. Their hyper-muscular male characters were targeted at men as power fantasies, and that’s really all there is to it.

These portrayals? Plenty of straight women appreciate it, sure, but this is still the male gaze. Male directors might convince themselves that it’s “a little something for the ladies,” but it’s not. It’s continuing a male-targeted trend of the genre.

I’ve watched the Superman movies (1970s to now) with several female friends, and my overwhelming observation has been that they are far more affected by Christopher Reeve’s sweetness and adorable awkwardness than they are by Henry Cavill’s muscles.

As a longtime member of internet fandom, I’ve also noticed a major trend in fanart drawn by women and queer people that actually minimizes the muscle definition of male superheroes, frequently accentuating their body fat and generally making them look very soft and squishy instead of bulging veins and eight-packs.

When women routinely prefer character depth to physical attractiveness; sweetness to big muscles; fuller bodies to tightly muscled ones; hand touches to shirtless scenes; it becomes clear that the “we’re doing this for the ladies 😉” argument has little ground to stand on. It’s not about equality. It’s not about pleasing women. It’s about male power and toxic masculinity.

So actually no, directors have no excuse for dehydrating Henry Cavill and Chris Hemsworth to the point of hospitalization so they can “look like a superhero” and give the ladies some eye candy.

doodle page 2. frankie + diane frankensteinn . morticians and their crazy scientists i stg……….

“If a society puts half its children into short skirts and warns them not to move in ways that reveal their panties, while putting the other half into jeans and overalls and encouraging them to climb trees, play ball, and participate in other vigorous outdoor games; if later, during adolescence, the children who have been wearing trousers are urged to “eat like growing boys,” while the children in skirts are warned to watch their weight and not get fat; if the half in jeans runs around in sneakers or boots, while the half in skirts totters about on spike heels, then these two groups of people will be biologically as well as socially different. Their muscles will be different, as will their reflexes, posture, arms, legs and feet, hand-eye coordination, and so on. Similarly, people who spend eight hours a day in an office working at a typewriter or a visual display terminal will be biologically different from those who work on construction jobs. There is no way to sort the biological and social components that produce these differences. We cannot sort nature from nurture when we confront group differences in societies in which people from different races, classes, and sexes do not have equal access to resources and power, and therefore live in different environments. Sex-typed generalizations, such as that men are heavier, taller, or stronger than women, obscure the diversity among women and among men and the extensive overlaps between them… Most women and men fall within the same range of heights, weights, and strengths, three variables that depend a great deal on how we have grown up and live. We all know that first-generation Americans, on average, are taller than their immigrant parents and that men who do physical labor, on average, are stronger than male college professors. But we forget to look for the obvious reasons for differences when confronted with assertions like ‘Men are stronger than women.’ We should be asking: ‘Which men?’ and ‘What do they do?’ There may be biologically based average differences between women and men, but these are interwoven with a host of social differences from which we cannot disentangle them.”

— Ruth Hubbard, “The Political Nature of ‘Human Nature’“ (via gothhabiba)

Yes.

#stop hes growing #love love love #rick and morty

Rick in earlier seasons vs Rick in season 7

Rick in season 1:

Rick in season 7:

Rick in season 3:

Rick in season 7:

Rick in season 3:

Rick in season 7:

Rick in season 4:

Rick in season 7:

Rick in season 4:

Rick in season 7:

Rick in season 6:

Rick in season 7:

Unpopular opinion but......

Am I the only one who misses the og marauders? The marauders fandom isn't even about the marauders now, 99% of their canon personality traits hv been replaced with cliqued behaviour. For some reason there's a massive obsession with their sexuality and I just don't get it? Lyk can't u have a character with any sexual orientation with personality traits outside it anymore? Does there really need to be a complete erasure of their most defining traits? I just wish we could get the actual marauders era characters back

James Potter: Pureblood, rich, intelligent, arrogant, a bully, but extremely loyal; took Sirius in and turned into an animagus for his werewolf bestie when the whole world would have shunned him; he could have led a life of utmost comfort but chose to risk his life and fight for those he loved in a war that didn't even concern him personally. His last words were asking his wife and child to escape while he tried to hold voldy off without a wand

Sirius Black: Haughty, a bully, extremely good looking, cool, rich, blood traitor by 16, comes from a family of literal death eaters, very intelligent, loyal, will do anything for those he loves( especially james and later Harry), thick as hell (my boy really survived in a depression prison for 12yrs, tht too after all the horror he'd seen before that), dark, very traumatized and broken

Remus Lupin: Gentle (yup u read that right), kind, mischievous (ppl really overlook this), very insecure, let james and Sirius bully Snape coz he was too thankful for their acceptance and affection to tell them off, considered himself undeserving of love, his self loathing prevents him from being a responsible adult/ parent for Harry, lowkey manipulative. Very compassionate and empathetic even after everything he's been thru tho

Peter Pettigrew: Considered slow and stupid, insecure, tags along with the others for protection, but obviously cunning and manipulative, a disgusting rat tho

Regulus Black: Teenage Reggie worshipped death eaters, he had newspaper clippings of them on his wall, completely believed in those racist ideologies until he realised what the reality of being a death eater was. He tried to bring voldy down but there's no evidence of him completely changing his beliefs about everything else like muggle borns, muggles, werewolves etc. Very cunning and intelligent tho, he discovered voldemort's secret before Dumbledore did. Liked kreacher but kreacher was also brainwashed with pureblood ideology, so I ll only give him half the credit. Bravely sacrificed his life in the end, but he still chose to protect his racist family.

Lily Evans: muggleborn, good at portions, described as popular and vivacious, pretty, the favourite sibling, isn't afraid of standing up to ppl (tht smirk in swm tho?), very brave, and most importantly (ppl really choose to forget this nowadays) a mother who stood in front of her baby boy in hopes of saving him from the darkest wizard alive even tho she herself was only 21 at the time. Tho I'd still say that lily is a badly written character

It's fun to explore characters but not one of these core characteristics r even present. They're turned into one dimensional social justice warriors who r always right in everything they do

Now I get it, ppl want them to fit with current day ideals, but y not just create different/new characters then? What's the point of holding on to that nostalgia if most of their character isn't even there anymore? Where's all the toxicity coming from? And anyone who doesn't agree is homophobic and whatever other -phobic u choose to employ in the most irrelevant context ever. It's all so stupid smh🙄

Seiichi Hayashi

1. Susan Sontag—As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980, 2. Phoebe Waller Bridge—Fleabag, 3. Richard Siken—Wishbone, 4. Anonymous, 5. Atonement dir. Joe Wright 6. Hot Priest Monologue—Phoebe Waller Bridge 7. Gillian Flynn—Dark Places 8. Meditation in an Emergency— Cameron Awkward-Rich , 9. Billie Eilish— idontwannabeyouanymore, 10. Stephen Adly Guirgis— The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, 11. Lioness Dewinter—Sìren Loa 12. Bernie Wrightson’s Illustration of Frankenstein’s Monster. 13. Bonnie Winterbottom—How To Get Away With Murder, 14. Sade Andria Zabala—Paper Napkin Stories, 15. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — Love Opened a Mortal Wound, 16. Unknown 17. Miley Cyrus — Never Be Me, 18 Kim Addonizio— Wild Nights; New Poems; Pareidolia, 19. Crazy/Beautiful dir. John Stockwell, 20. I.B. Vyache, Conversations Over Sanguinaccio Dolce.

silly questions

“Yikes.”

no because this speech was kinda about them right

fatima aamer bilal, from we were put on this earth desperate, hungry and willing.

[text id: you get nervous when someone holds your hand, you wonder if they can feel the rot.]