Post by tiamatty on Jun 19, 2014 19:38:17 GMT -5
Exploitation requires unwillingness on the part of the exploited. And I don't think that can apply here.
Now, if we want to talk a writer wish fulfillment character, it's Cyclops. He's a type A control freak (average corporate type), he's geeky, he wears glasses, he has no sense of humor, there's nothing romantic about him, yet all these beautiful women keep throwing themselves at him. And, oh yes, he's always right.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most female characters written into situations where they're shown to have sometimes multiple males vying for their affections?
I'd say that Emma was assuredly exploited after she was rendered disempowered and victimized in her relationship with Cyclops, as was Maddie Pryor, but a character like Jean is a different story.
That's not to say it's ok to objectify characters of either gender, but the females, with a few exceptions, often have the advantage of a certain degree of control.
Yes, some female characters do end up in love triangles with multiple men. And usually, the woman winds up being a damned trophy. The woman's story becomes all about the men around her. Which is a problem comics have traditionally had in general: Female characters, all too often, are given stories that revolve around male characters. When two guys fight over a woman, it stops even being about the woman. It becomes a battle of egos, with the woman as the prize.
And control? Bullshit. The women are almost never the ones in control. The women are there to lose control, either external control, in the form of being chained up, or internal control, in the form of going crazy. If a male character has to be rescued, it's almost always going to be by another male character. If a female character has to be rescued, it's almost never going to be by another female character; it'll be a male character. And female characters are way more likely to actually need to be rescued, because they are not allowed to be the ones in control of a situation.
The same goes with relationships. Rogue was not the one in control of that relationship. Gambit would flirt, and she would freak out. And then he'd go flirt with another woman and sleep with her; even if Rogue could've done the same, she would've undoubtedly been cast as being in the wrong, when Gambit doing it was just being a lovable scoundrel.
Like I said, there's no male exploitation in comics. "Exploitation" requires unwillingness. Characters like Gambit and Nightcrawler revel in attention from women. They live for it, and they exploit that attention for all they're worth. They're still the ones in control of the situations they're in.
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