Gambit and Nightcrawler - male exploitation

Obviously, men can be harassed and raped by women. On the other hand, I have a very, very difficult time buying the idea that male characters, being written by men, and being drawn by men, can really be called "exploited." And I think talking as though they're being exploited, and comparing them to how female characters are treated, is just absurd.

You think they're exploited? Get back to me when it's women writing those scenes, and women drawing those scenes.

And frankly, pointing to female characters saying their sexy costumes make them feel empowered is another part of the problem, because - again - those scenes are almost always written by men. Power Woman doesn't have a giant frigging hole for her tits as "empowerment" - she has a giant hole for her tits so male readers can ogle her. So many characters wore swimsuits because it was something that appealed to male readers. It's not "empowerment," it's sexual exploitation. You're not likely to hear women in comics complain about exploitation, because the male readers don't want to hear about that. They want the fantasy that women like being ogled. (Though there was that scene during Dark Reign where Moonstone complained about the Ms. Marvel costume she was given.)

Power poses for men are sexy, but not for women? Why? Why the double-standard? Why is it a male in a dominant and aggressive pose sexy? Why is a woman in a similar pose not? And I'm not even saying men should be posed differently; but the fact that even your "exploited" men still get to look stronger than 90% of female characters traditionally have makes the idea that they're "exploited" look silly. (Luckily, Marvel, at least, has made actual efforts to improve this: Female characters are getting fewer "sexy" poses, and more strong poses.)

Namor is extremely exploited.
And he's Marvel's first character.

I'm getting a sense of this topic getting mixed -- like you're talking about two different things. It doesn't matter who creates what material on whether the character is being exploited or not. If you want to go that far, then one of the major editors for the X-Men franchise is a gay male (Ketchum) -- so does that mean that he's incapable of exploiting female characters, only male ones? See how that starts getting muddied? The conversation is about the presentation of the characters, and it's not a mutually exclusive situation. It can happen to either females or males. Because we come along and say this is a ploy also used with Nightcrawler and Gambit doesn't mean that it isn't also used with Betsy, Jean and Emma, ok? 

If creators use skin shots, provocative situations or poses or generally meat appreciation techniques, it can be considered exploitation of sex to sell a product. 

And yes, having your thoughts, words or actions being rendered irrelevant IS being disempowered. Real life example: I once went to a superior in my company with a potential program issue that I thought should be addressed. He gave me a crooked smile, eyed me up and down leisurely and then disagreed it was a problem. He suggested maybe my thought process wasn't cut out for the corporate world and I should go back home and tend to my babies.  THAT was disempowering and dismissive.

Betsy is not a disempowered character while she's swinging swords and kicking butt and making the hard calls. People saying she's all about how much of her butt is hanging out are wrong, as can be proven within the story context. Storm showing miles of legs while she blasts lightning from the sky and leads the charge isn't disempowering. 

Iceman being perpetually shown in a bathing suit and portrayed (and subsequently dismissed) with the maturity level of a 14 year old 40+ years into his history is disempowering. Kurt standing there naked with a humorously drawn bamf oogling his bits and then being give zero say in everything that's transpired since he was gone then being shuttled off to be manipulated by his ex-girl/sister again is disempowering. 

Are these the kind of poses you're talking about? I mean, Lindsay there is showing quite a bit of skin and has the whole black lace corset thing going on, but I don't think I'd want to be the one to tell her she's demeaning women and disempowering them by wearing that outfit.

Actually, those women are posing in the same ways a man would. They're posing in ways that accentuate their strength, rather than their femininity. And she's choosing to dress like that - she's a woman making a decision for herself. With women in comics, though, their clothes are being decided on by the artist. It's the artist (and sometimes writer) who chooses what the woman wears. So the argument that the female characters dress the way they do because it's empowering falls flat on its face, because it's a man deciding what counts as female empowerment, and deciding that female empowerment means having their tits half hanging out.

I think who creates the content does matter. Men writing and drawing women in bondage situations is very, very different from women writing and drawing women in bondage situations. Men are the ones who have the power in society. So there's a very distinct undertone when they put women in bondage situations and have her rescued by a man. It changes the context.

Betsy is disempowered when the panels focus on her ass, no matter what she's doing. It's saying that no matter how good a fighter she is, no matter how strong and powerful, she's still ultimately a sex object. When that happens, she's being drawn in an exploitative way.

Having your views dismissed is disempowering, yes. I would disagree that that's really happened with Gambit or Nightcrawler, though. I can't think of any instances where they went to Scott or Wolverine with a problem, and were dismissed. Well, I suppose Gambit occasionally gets that from Wolverine, but Wolverine's an ass. For the most part, especially during the Lowe years, X-Men other than Scott and Wolverine simply weren't allowed to have opinions at all - male or female.

Ultimately, I simply think there's a difference between fanservice - which Gambit and Nightcrawler definitely do a lot of - and exploitation. Exploitation is a lot more insidious, a lot more demeaning, and a lot more institutionalized than fanservice.

Well, I haven't seen anything exploitative from Soule. Nor have I seen anything from KSD. A better comparison might be, say, Greg Land compared to Sara Pichelli. Sara Pichelli drawing a sexy woman is very, very different from Land drawing a sexy woman. Pichelli drawing a sexy woman is genuinely empowering. Land drawing a sexy woman is exploitative. Because they're approaching from different mindsets. The fact that Land traces so many of his women from porn shows that he's drawing women as sex objects. He puts women in sexy poses, gives them sexy expressions - it's all about making them appeal to men. Pichelli tries to make them look strong. They're not sex objects.

None of those men have ever been put in bondage that required a woman to rescue them. It's still pretty common for women to wind up in bondage and need to be rescued by a man. Beyond that, I still disagree that any of those men are being exploited. Not in the way women are. I think to compare the treatment of men in comics to the treatment of women in comics is simply insulting, and diminishes just how horribly misogynistic the industry is, and has traditionally been. I think calling it exploitation puts it in a context that simply doesn't apply.

The difference between Bernet's piece and Land's (aside from Bernet's piece simply being objectively superior art, of course) is that Bernet has more awareness of what she's doing. As a woman, she almost certainly has a greater awareness of the objectification of women. She's presumably put a great deal more consideration into her art, and has chosen to let her women be sexual creatures. Land just finds a porn star and traces, because he thinks women should be sexy. When Bernet gives a woman a sultry look, it's because it's appropriate to the character and the scene. When Land gives a woman a sultry look, it's because he only knows how to do two expressions and "mouth wide open" wouldn't have worked for a given panel. (But don't worry, just wait a page, and you'll get a woman with their mouth wide open. Because Greg Land is a talentless hack who uses the exact same frigging faces for every single characters in every single comic that he draws. I hate Greg Land so, so much.)


Of course, Nightcrawler having a bomb strapped to him was still freed by Wolverine. I can't think of any instances where Gambit was in bondage and rescued by Rogue - her rescues of him tend to be more battlefield rescues, which are a different matter.

Beyond all this, though, my argument is that "exploitation" carries connotations that I simply don't think are fair to apply to the male characters. Exploitation is a systemic problem. It's not a matter of a couple people here and there. It's a broad, long-term trend of how a group of people are treated. So I think this thread's title and language ends up doing a disservice to the matter. It treats it as a bit of a joke - a fair chunk of the thread has been pretty much talking about how sexy they are - and it feels like it carries undertones of, "Well, sure, women are treated poorly, but look! So are men!" I think comparing the treatment of men to the treatment of women is insane. There's no equivalence. Some men get treated poorly, sure, but all women have to struggle against a society that's stacked against them. It's the same with comparing the treatment of white people to the treatment of black people, or the treatment of straight people to the treatment of gay people. They are nowhere near equivalent, and talking about them as though they're similar is just ridiculous. Straight White Male is the easy mode of life.

I remember Sara Pinis Witchblade art from way back when and as a woman I cant say it didn't feel any less exploitive and I kind of am offended at the prospect that it can be or not be seen as Exploitation at all. Anyway, this is a continuation of the huge Nightcrawler exploitation thread from the old CBR and that was tongue in cheek too. Despite that thread for being mostly for silly purposes I felt it brought some interesting insight to how sex is used in comics as a whole. I really think it depends on how its presented and I don't feel Neko meant it to be offensive. And no where was anyone saying its ok to exploit women because it happens to men. At least not me and I'm kind of offended by that accusation as a woman who has been there. As was mentioned, it is meant to be tongue in cheek and wasn't meant to make light of the plight of women in comics. Sorry it was seen that way, but it wasnt my intention.