Over the centuries there have been clearly defined and sometimes strictly kept gender roles for both genders. Comic books were not exempt from this idea, seeing as most of the artists and writers were male along with the assumed audience. The first superhero comic book came out in the late thirties and found ground well into the ‘50’s, which was the golden age of sexism. That sexism is prevalent in comics and comic based movies in general, but the superheroes and superheroines of Marvel and DC are the most gendered and objectified. This sexism is more than just a few ill advised writers or artists, it’s common and used over and over again to appease the assumed male audience, which is problematic in itself.
The first superhero comic came out in 1938, featuring a man dressed in red and blue lifting a car above his head. That character became what is now known as Superman and that lead to a whole lot of sexism in that domain of art and fiction. Things like the male gaze were finally in the most main stream type of art, set so that all could see it. Most comics and comic based movies are very heavy handed in the male gaze.
The idea of the male gaze has been around for hundreds of years. Works of art are seen through the gaze of males like Titian’s Venus of Urbino. The girl in the photo is nude with round and soft features. Her hand is laid gracefully over herself, leading viewers to question what she's really up to. That is how women are viewed in comics as well. They are most of the time not leading the story but staying in the background to give the male characters gratification, objects on the side that only are used to fuel desire.
The male gaze was originally named by writer Laura Mulvey to describe what was happening in movies. She says that the male gaze is based on a Freudian concept called scopophilia.
Scopophilia is a term used to describe the concept of liking to look at another person as an object and finding pleasure in being looked at. She argues, “...it continues to exist as the erotic basis for pleasure in looking at another person as an object” (Mulvey). She goes on to say that most art, like comics and fiction, have male characters that lead the plot or situation because men in our society are taught not to sexually view their own sex. The movies and the comics are bringing in the audience as the male character. The idea is that the person on screen is a substitute of the viewer, someone who is more handsome and outgoing so that their sexual pleasure in looking at the women on screen is rewarded.
Comics do this all the time. For the most part women in comics are introduced in a very “male gaze” -esque way. They see the girls breasts first, her legs, her hands, everything except her face. The viewer then is only seeing these body parts as objects after because that’s how they were introduced. After the female is incorporated into the story, she then is placed as a sexual outlet for the viewer and the other male characters. The females will have big breasts and tight tops that would probably not do them any favors when fighting crime. The female characters are often bent in ways that shouldn’t be possible or bent over in obscene ways to show the assumed male viewers a more pleasurable and sexual picture.
It’s a dangerous line to toe, because the male gaze is rewarding the way we look at women as objects. Men and women are repeatedly told it is okay to view females in a sexual or dehumanizing way which follows them into the real world putting women and girls alike in a very uncomfortable environment. When men are rewarded for this behavior in the movies, reading or magazines, they invariably will think they will be rewarded at the club or on the street. That’s not the case at all. The male gaze idea needs to be gone so that women can live without being viewed as objects or things that are supposed to be pleasing to men.
There is a website called the Hawkeye Initiative which takes sexually posed female characters and puts a male in their place, mostly the character Clint Barton a.k.a Hawkeye. The female characters are put in brokeback positions that seem almost normal because of our society but then looking at the male in the same pose we see that it is in fact demeaning and sexist. Spider-Man would never be posed with his back toward the audience because that’s a submissive pose, left only to the women, and it’s a pose used over and over again. Scarlett Johansson is in the pose on the cover of the Avengers movie. Natalie Portman and Gwyneth Paltrow are both posed backwards on the covers of Thor and Iron Man.
Women in comics are also dehumanized and seen as nothing but objects.
Most people looking at comics or watching the movies are more interested in the male protagonists’ problems and only feel desire to look at the female. They view the female as something that should be sexualized, like how females are introduced with their body parts or without their faces in comics. The viewers only value that character because they’re sexy and bring appeal to the movie. In 1986 Ron Goulart states, “In the days before the advent of Playboy and Penthouse, comic books offered one way to girl watch.” Then the viewer, who only values the actor or character in their ability to be sexually attractive, only view them as a pair of legs which brings us back to treating them as if they were an object.
There may also be some truth in other ideas as well though. People may argue that characters like Wonder Woman and Black Widow are strong characters that are treated without sexism. For example, Philip Crawford argues that, “The ropes and chains are symbols of patriarchy and the drama is her ability to break the shackles of male domination they symbolize.” Likewise, Jehanzeb states, “Her weapon is golden lasso, which critics have called an erotic symbol of sexual control since she uses it to make her adversaries obey her commands.” So while Wonder Woman may seem like the perfect feminist character, she is still surrounded by sexism and dominating males like Batman and Superman. Black Widow is also assumed to be a strong person, getting out of the Red Room that turned her into a Russian Assassin, she meets Hawkeye and joins S.H.I.E.L.D. She took her situation into her own hands except that she was supposed to die. She was strong and fearless and competent. She was very good at her job and as such, S.H.I.E.L.D wanted her killed, put Hawkeye on the case and then eventually hired her as one of their own, only because a man vouched for her. Without a man’s help she would’ve been killed off like Jean Gray was when she proved her power and Gwen Stacy when she proved her intelligence.
Comic books have made immense progress since they have come out in 1938 but they still have a long way to go. There is still a lot of sexist material surrounding even the most well liked and strong female characters such as Wonder Woman and Black Widow. The assumed male audience needs to be abolished along with the male gaze to give female readers the comfortable reading experience they deserve alongside their male counterparts. We need more confident respectable sexual female characters because it’s not the female’s sexuality that’s the problem, it’s how male writers, artists and other characters react to it. We need to look at our female characters like they are characters and not like they’re just an object to be viewed, but a well rounded out and well thought out person.
Crawford, Philip Charles. “The Legacy of Wonder Woman” School Library Journal: March 1,
2007.
Daughhetee, Shawn. “Woman as Object, Woman as Subject: The Male Gazed and the DC Comics Relaunch.” thedollarbin.net: Oct. 9, 2011.
Jehanzeb. “The Objectification of Women in Comic Books.” fantasy-magazine.com: 2015
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Screen 16.3 Autumn: 1975
Scantlebury, Kathlyn. “Gender Role Stereotyping.” Education.com: Dec 23, 2009.
