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Supermoms? Maternity and the monstrous-feminine in superhero comics
Abstract
Mainstream superhero comics rely on idealized images of male and female characters that depict physical and sexual perfection. Due to these themes of idealization the portrayal of pregnant and maternal superheroines is rooted in conceptions of the female body as abject or monstrously feminine. The pregnant body is derided for its inability to respect borders, an issue that is critical to the superhero genre. Consequently motherhood is characterized as an untenable position for superheroines, while paternity is valorized as a means to accepting patriarchal ideas of law and order.
... Analyzing the superhero genre, Jeffrey A. Brown (2015) points out that "what the superheroes repeatedly enact for readers is a symbolic policing of the borders between key cultural concepts: good and evil, right and wrong, us and them" (185). ...
... With the increasing popularity of the blockbuster superhero films since the first decade of the new millennium, hyper-masculinity has been continuously held as the preferred model of gendered behavior for boys and young men in the United States. According to Jeffrey A.Brown (2016):Superheroes have always represented the pinnacle of American cultural ideas about masculinity, and have served for generations as a key fantasy for male adolescents. The superhero is stronger than anyone, defeats every villain, is always in the right, and gets the girl. ...
Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Interpretation vier ausgewählter Filme des Filmemachers Ang Lee – Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Brokeback Mountain und Hulk, die in den Jahren 1992 bis 2005 entstanden. Sie erforscht die unterschiedliche Inszenierung von Konzepten der Männlichkeit im chinesischen und US-amerikanischen Kontext, sowie den Männlichkeitsdiskurs in Räumen des kulturellen Üergangs. Die Untersuchung Lees männlicher Figuren und Männlichkeitskonzepte macht sich sowohl die chinesische als auch die westliche erkenntnistheoretische Perspektive zu eigen, dabei ist Untersuchung sowohl konzeptionell als auch analytisch angelegt. Auf der konzeptionellen Ebene soll sie zeigen, wie sich die Konstruktion von Männlichkeitskonzepten unter der Einbeziehung nicht nur der westlichen konzeptionellen Argumentation von transkulturellen Räumen (Transdifferenz), sondern auch von andersartigen erkenntnistheoretischen Perspektiven, hier der chinesischen, besser erklären lässt. Auf der analytischen Ebene werden in der Untersuchung der Inszenierung männlicher Figuren audio-visuelle Textanalysen benutzt. Die Analyse hat deutlich die Komplexität und Vielfältigkeit der Aushandlung von Männlichkeitskonzepten in transkulturellen Räumen gezeigt, wobei die Rekonstruktion und die Neuverhandlung von Männlichkeit sowohl emanzipatorisch als auch repressiv von statten gehen kann. Männliche Protagonisten bei Lee finden drei unterschiedliche Wege, ihre männliche Identität zu konstruieren. Als erste Lösung unterdrücken sie den transdifferenten Aspekt und wählen die klare Zugehörigkeit zu einer der Kulturen, die dann als Ursprung für die Restauration der Männlichkeit dient. Die zweite Lösung ist das Annehmen der Transdifferenz um eine mehrdeutige maskuline Identität im transkulturellen Raum aufzubauen. Als letzte Lösung gelingt es einen männlichen Figuren, kulturelle Grenzen zu überschreiten und eine transkulturelle Männlichkeit zu manifestieren.
... Finally, similar to how Kali is dependent upon Shiva in mainstream hegemonic upper caste Hindu mythology, Shakti's costume legitimizes the marginalization of her capacities like other female characters in comics (Zullo 2014;Brown 2011). In spite of her being an assertive figure when she is by herself, and even though the skull and the 'third-eye' are supposed to invoke fear (Figure 6), the male-centric mythology associated with these components makes her a merely complementary character in the general narrative whenever she appears in ensemble comics such as Doga-Shakti and Parmanu-Shakti (Wahi and Gupta 1998). ...
Comics are an important form of Indian popular culture. Like other forms of popular culture which have engaged with superheroes, male superheroes have dominated the comic book industry in India. Costumes enable the social construction of these characters in comics, determine their characteristic traits and emphasize their gendered roles. Female characters have had to struggle against multiple patriarchal social processes which are integral to the global comics’ culture. Costumes play a critical role in how these characters engage with the overall narrative of the comics. The article analyses the costume of Shakti – Indian comics’ first superheroine. It locates her costume within the broader literature available on graphic novels, comics and costumes. The article attempts to analyse the processes by which Shakti’s costume restricts her to a normative femininity where the power and authority of women become socially acceptable only when they are expressed or asserted without challenging patriarchal social norms.
... 3. The television trend is more consistently conservative than even the comics from which superhero narratives are drawn. Jeffrey A. Brown (2011) notes that in superhero comics, "female characters are so thoroughly eroticized that it is near impossible to find a superheroine or villainess that is not defined primarily by her sex appeal, all in an attempt to cater to the mostly male comics consumer" (p. 77). ...
In 2018, Disney launched a Marvel Rising transmedia campaign introducing a line of female superhero dolls and supporting media narratives across Disney XD, Marvel Comics, and Hasbro toys. Utilizing textual and industry analysis, we find that the concentration of ownership and the need to attract a new clientele resulted in a “commercialized feminism” text, one that thematically supports Disney’s prosocial messaging agenda, linking its products to what it perceives as the preferred social identity for its audience. As such, this work has implications for deeper understandings of how corporations can use transmedia rhetoric to mentor children, especially young women, toward confidence and self-empowerment while also allowing the corporation to maximize marketplace revenues.
This chapter addresses how the identity hegemony supported by Bolsonarism, a movement characteristic of the Brazilian alt-right, operates in street demonstrations through the customization of militants as characters in the universe of superheroes. Populism and superheroes meanings articulated together result in the production of the enemy, which can be delineated through the concepts of moral panic, folk devils and demonization in mirroring the moral euphoria, folk heroes and deification, cycles that political actors face from time to time. The characters Coringa Reaça (Reactionary Joker), the Vampira de Direita (Right-wing Rogue) and the Capitão Brasil monarquista (monarchist Captain Brazil) are brought to the analysis of the logic of Bolsonarism that incorporates its rhetorical forms as interpretive resources applied to Brazilian everyday to produce political positions.
This chapter explores the affordances of the comics/graphic novels medium for engaging in critical reading and awareness of relevant cultural issues and a range of experiences. The author situates comics as medium before highlighting the work of Faith Erin Hicks, noting both promise and limitation in the graphic novel series The Nameless City as a way of beginning conversations about relevant topics. The attention then shifts to include the work of Nate Powell, framed as artivism, and the adaptation process of moving the verse novel work of Jason Reynolds to graphic novel form. In this section, the author invites the collaboration of the artist who crafted the adaptation. Finally, attention is given to additional titles that teachers and researchers can consider.
The study of Indian comic book superheroines holds tremendous potential for analysing issues of gender, colour and other social processes in the Indian socio-cultural milieu. Among Indian vernacular comics, Shakti, Visarpi and Chandika are three popular women characters, each possessing a unique socio-cultural representation. While Chandika and Visarpi are supporting characters in popular male superhero comics, Shakti has her own independent identity. This paper relates the socio-cultural positioning of these characters to their costumes and analyses the importance of costumes in the construction of any superhuman character in comics. In doing so, the paper critically analyses the costumes of the characters mentioned above. Chandika, socially placed within a traditional Hindu family, dresses up in a purple costume and a mask, which covers her almost completely. Visarpi and Shakti’s costumes, on the other hand, leave a significant portion of their bodies uncovered, while still conforming to traditional aesthetic values. Taking these superheroines as subjects of study and locating them within broader pop-culture and comics studies, the paper comparatively analyses the costumes and socio-cultural location of these Indian superheroines and their western counterparts, and argues that costumes further the reiteration of the patriarchal ideas of dependency, social status, morality and femininity.
With its focus on genetics, the mutant body, and social discrimination, the X-Men franchise explores themes pertinent to the health humanities. The 2017 film Logan sharpens this focus and presents a world that echoes many current social, political, and bioethical anxieties. In the film, as a result of widescale eugenics, natural-born mutants are on the verge of extinction while genetically engineered mutants are secretly manufactured as weapons. In this paper, we explore the theme of boundaries in order to examine various intersections in Logan, including the corporeal boundlessness of dying mutants, the transgressive exploits of biotechnology, the permeability of national borders, and the unbounded potential embodied by the remnants of mutantkind. The multi-vocal nature of our approach reflects the respective perspectives of our authors as well as the rich array of topical interpretive lenses which Logan invites, offering a powerful pedagogical tool to the health humanities, bioethics, and other disciplines.
The last several decades have witnessed the publication of many revisionist and self-critical superhero comics, yet the most critically discussed of these focus on the straight white male characters who have always dominated the genre. In contrast, the ongoing series Alias (2001–4) stars Jessica Jones, a superhero turned private investigator who is empowered by a radioactive accident yet disempowered by her gender within a male-dominated superhero community that both excludes women and actively abuses them. This article argues that Alias redresses the superhero genre's marginalization and victimization of female characters by emphasizing Jessica's complex subjectivity and implicating male superheroes in her multifaceted abuse. It also considers Jessica's translation into more traditional comics series, wherein she becomes sidelined as a wife and stay-at-home mother; these series prove the difficulty of maintaining progressive politics within genres where the visual and narrative conventions are so steeped in gender stereotypes.
Researchers conducted a textual analysis of the first 18 issues of Brian K Vaughan and Adrian Alphona’s comic book series Runaways analysing the four female and two male lead characters in the narrative – Nico, Karolina, Gertrude, Molly, Alex, and Chase. The study operationalised the ideas of rationality, intentionality, and power to create the new variables of social, individual, and authoritative agency. Researchers then assigned a score of 0–10 to the characters for each of the three variables using a Holistic Agency Scale to more comprehensively reflect the ‘power’ of each character. The study ultimately found that (1) Alex had more agency than all of the female characters, and (2) that while none of the young women possess complete agency in any of the three categories, they are all complex, highly competent protagonists.
Recent developments in superhero comics have seen positive changes to the representation of characters and storylines. In this article, we use examples of the increase in female characters and female-led titles, the swapping of gender from a male character to a female one, and the increase in female writers and artists to investigate how the representation of female characters has evolved. We argue that these changes mark an intervention on behalf of female creators in keeping with the theory and practice of third-wave feminism. We also argue that this evolution provides a good example of how third-wave feminism remains indebted to and continues the important work of second-wave feminism. The article explores the important role of intersectionality alongside themes relating to the body and sexuality, violence, solidarity and equality, and girlhood in comics such as Birds of Prey, Harley Quinn, Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, and A-Force.
In this book, Martin Lund challenges contemporary claims about the original Superman’s supposed Jewishness and offers a critical re-reading of the earliest Superman comics. Engaging in critical dialogue with extant writing on the subject, Lund argues that much of recent popular and scholarly writing on Superman as a Jewish character is a product of the ethnic revival, rather than critical investigations of the past, and as such does not stand up to historical scrutiny. In place of these readings, this book offers a new understanding of the Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the mid-1930s, presenting him as an authentically Jewish American character in his own time, for good and ill.
On the way to this conclusion, this book questions many popular claims about Superman, including that he is a golem, a Moses-figure, or has a Hebrew name. In place of such notions, Lund offers contextual readings of Superman as he first appeared, touching on, among other ideas, Jewish American affinities with the Roosevelt White House, the whitening effects of popular culture, Jewish gender stereotypes, and the struggles faced by Jewish Americans during the historical peak of American anti-Semitism.
In this book, Lund makes a call to stem the diffusion of myth into accepted truth, stressing the importance of contextualizing the Jewish heritage of the creators of Superman. By critically taking into account historical understandings of Jewishness and the comics’ creative contexts, this book challenges reigning assumptions about Superman and other superheroes’ cultural roles, not only for the benefit of Jewish studies, but for American, Cultural, and Comics studies as a whole.
This chapter discusses gender. It starts with how Lois Lane, the comics’ main female character, is figured in relation to New Deal political culture and Jewish American assimilationism. An overly willful, behaviorally “nonwhite” woman, she needs to be disciplined into proper bourgeois, “white” femininity. Second, it discusses Superman’s hypermasculinity, arguing that it was rooted both in personal, intertextual, and Jewish American understandings of desirable characteristics in a man. Finally, Superman’s dual masculinities are discussed. Superman is here read in tune with a reconfigured Jewish American masculinity and with pop culture and ethnic humor. Aside from being a practical joke on bullies, tormentors, and perhaps anti-Semites, the Superman–Clark Kent duality, it is argued, might have been a way to cast nonideological difference as illusory, or at least inconsequential.
Hillary Chute suggests ‘if comics is about mapping, it is also about bodies – about locating them in space and time’ (‘Comics Form and Narrating Lives,’ Profession 1, 107–117). If scholars envision comics as body narratives, we must also consider that which covers the body: the skin. This article offers a reading of J.H. Williams III’s work on the contemporary DC Comics series Detective Comics and Batwoman, exploring a new vision of the subject and its mapped presence on the surface of the body. These narratives embedded in the surface avoid the disjuncture between sign and signifier in categorizations of identity as various performances retain a presence on the skin. Thus, without denying the performative nature of identity, this article explores the after-effects of the performance – how its palimpsestic presence maps time and space onto the surface of the material body. Furthermore, by turning to skin, the materiality of the body is brought into focus without reducing our discussion to biology; instead the self is found in the folds of skin, where the biological and the social meet.
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