Easy pickings today as the comic book genre is not exactly a bastion of feminism. That being said, it just behooves me not to share the head slapping stupidity of the people who designed an open contest to see if they have “the chops” to join the DC team. Let’s just let the vile bags of douche speak for themselves:
Harley Quinn. One page. Published work. Breaking into comics was never this fun. ;)
— Jim & Dan
Here’s how to enter:
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Read the rules & regulations listed below to confirm that you are eligible to enter DC Entertainment’s Open Talent Search and agree to the terms and conditions.
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Read the following script page and give us your original artistic interpretation of what those four panels should look like on a single page:
PAGE 15
4 panels
PANEL 1
Harley is on top of a building, holding a large DETACHED cellphone tower in her hands as lightning is striking just about everywhere except her tower. She is looking at us like she cannot believe what she is doing. Beside herself. Not happy.PANEL 2
Harley is sitting in an alligator pond, on a little island with a suit of raw chicken on, rolling her eyes like once again, she cannot believe where she has found herself. We see the alligators ignoring her.PANEL 3
Harley is sitting in an open whale mouth, tickling the inside of the whale’s mouth with a feather. She is ecstatic and happy, like this is the most fun ever.PANEL 4
Harley sitting naked in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before the inevitable death. Her expression is one of “oh well, guess that’s it for me” and she has resigned herself to the moment that is going to happen.
Ah. Naked-happy with suicide is a okay – Let’s pause a second and set our phasers to “juxtaposition” and take a look at this snippet from the Atlantic Wire.
“Batwoman may be a superhero, but her powers apparently don’t extend to being able to marry someone of the same sex. The heroine, a Jewish lesbian, was denied a same-sex marriage by the execs of DC Comics, leading to a resignation of two Batwoman authors.
“We’re both heartbroken over leaving, but we feel strongly that you all deserve stories that push the character and the series forward. We can’t reliably do our best work if our plans are scrapped at the last minute, so we’re stepping aside,” wrote Batwoman co-authors J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman on their website late Wednesday night, explaining that DC Comics had squashed many of their editorial choices and “most crushingly, prohibited from ever showing Kate [Batwoman] and Maggie actually getting married.”
In addition, Williams tweeted:
@andykhouri Not wanting to be inflammatory, only factual- We fought to get them engaged, but were told emphatically no marriage can result.
— J.H. Williams III (@JHWilliamsIII) September 5, 2013″
Okay, so to summarize.
But this, is not.
Yah. So the abhorrent usual of objectification, degradation and violence against women is green lighted with an open invite for artists to “join the team” no less.
But…
A same sex marriage? Obviously completely off the fucking chain and gets shut down by DC in a heartbeat.
A double of patriarchal bullshite, with a heaping side of misogyny seems to be DC’s answer to the problem of rape culture in society, because pushing against toxic societal norms an artistic medium is hard.
Extra bonus fail for DC – September is Suicide Prevention month…
1 comment
September 7, 2013 at 4:05 pm
sm
i dont know anything about these story lines, but I am curious as to why one of the few female characters has to be portrayed as lesbian. Is that because a strong woman can`t also be heterosexual and must therefore be a woman who sexually plays the role of a man? Is that because if a female character WAS heterosexual, she would then have to become less powerful if she partnered with a male? That male would become “whipped” or the female superhero would lose her power, I suppose. By the same token, are there male homosexual characters? I suspect not. Because, the genre is patriarchal, and while males can, to some extent condone the voyeurism of implying two women having sex, they cannot tolerate the notion of a strong heterosexual woman, or, a homosexual man. Sure, those two women can have sex for the pleasure of the observer, but not if it means that they get to make independent choices outside the patriarchal rules of the comic book world
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