May 23, 2007

Wherein We See That People Lack A Fundamental Understanding Of Sexism

So with Spiderman 3 being huge these last few weeks and Captain America's death not too long ago, plenty of attention has been brought to this little hobby of mine that isn't necessarily always this intense. While most people are plenty familiar with the nerdly love of toys representing their favorite characters, what's probably a bit less well known is the niche industry of sculpts/busts. While I often appreciate the craftmaship in these little sculptures of characters, I can't say I've ever really understood collecting them. Whatever, this sort of thing is out there, and while women may not always be portrayed in a flattering light in comics themselves, the sculpts are vastly worse. While a woman may be written well in a comic and merely portrayed in a sexist manner, scuplts usually go out of their way to reduce the woman to a sex object. Of course, the response is always that it's evoking "pinup" art of the 50s, that it's just fantasy anyway, that it fits the character's "personality", etc. BINGO! (explanation).

4 comments:

MosBen said...

God, I just finished reading the comments section and they're even worse than the interview. I know, comments sections on the internet are almost *always* worse than the interview/article they're attached to, but still. If this were a sculpt using racist imagery people wouldn't be jumping to its defense. Sometimes the level to which people think sexism is "cute" makes my head explode.

Dan said...

She's hawt.

Jason said...

Dan beat me to it, but I was gonna say the same thing. Mary Jane is definitely smokin'.

MosBen said...

< shakes head > You bastards...