It’s no secret that I love strong female characters. I have written before about how much I adore terrifying women, in fiction and in real life. Women have not always gotten the best roles in fiction (the femme fatale, the damsel in distress, the love interest, the evil queen), and though this is still getting better, ladies in fiction still have a ways to go. That is, authors who portray them have a ways to go. And society has a ways to go.
And, in particular, the ways that women are portrayed on movie posters and in graphic novels could use an update. I am not saying that fictional women (or men) in graphic novels or other media should stop being attractive. I am all for characters being attractive. I am of the opinion that being unattractive should be reserved for real life unless being average-looking or ugly serves the story.
But, honestly, the way that female superheroes are drawn often involves . . . unreasonable poses. Twists that emphasize both breasts and buttocks. Or the scene is drawn from an angle that emphasizes a female character’s physique. That sort of thing.
Again, I have no problem with provocative choices in clothing, attractive characters, or even sexy poses. I do have a problem with sexim. Why aren’t more male characters drawn like that? (I know, I know—it’s a stupid question to ask. We all know why—for decades, comics went all-out to target a male demographic, and it was expected that males would be shown as powerful while females would be shown as sexual)
So, The Hawkeye Initiative is a thing. If you follow enough fun artists on Tumblr, you have probably seen images of Hawkeye (a male superhero from Marvel Comics—if nothing else, you might know him from The Avengers) drawn …
