I'm not going to hazard a guess what it says about me, that, when Marvel announced via "The View" that the new Thor was going to be female, I had 6 people email/text/facebook/rush up to me IRL, and tell me about it.
I'm thrilled and hopeful...and ultimately suspicious.
I know, I know, I, and people all suspicious like me, put #Marvel in a no-win position. They do nothing, we call them out for obvious sexism. They take a step, and it's treated with suspicion and distrust and is 'never enough'--but from where I stand, they're taking baby steps when I'd like to see a 7 league boot step.
I was thinking this today stood in the toy asile at #Meijer today for 20 minutes, looking for an age appropriate female action figure to no avail (plenty of male ones though), and when I stand in #JoAnnFabric looking at the sign predominately featuring #WonderWoman to find out that no character fabric contained a female superhero (not that they're out of stock; the website doesn't list them, the internet doesn't contain them--unless I create my own, it doesn't exist), when I push 'play' on the first episode of "#YoungJustice" to find that apparently none of the female characters can show up (even as 'extras'--they can't pass the Bechdel test) until a few episodes in.
Of course I'm suspicious--I've been given every reason to be.
I'm suspicious because checking the news online, the first responses I read to the announcement of a female Thor isn't "huh--isn't Thor a name, not a title" (<yes, that was my first response) but significantly more like "sheesh, why do the women want to come into our treehouse and have things like CHARACTERS? Aren't the secondary characters with no speaking lines, the booth babes, and Wonder Woman enough for them?"
The folks at #Marvel said to watch for announcements. I'm trying to believe that they're going to actually try to do right on this. I'm hoping they'll see the general response of 'yay' and 'about time' and 'we're suspicious because your entire product line can't even be bothered to make an attempt at looking at feminism-even on kids' shows!' as reasons to do MORE, not reasons to crawl back into their den of inequality and continue churning out patriarchal stuff.
So, reservations aside, I'm excited. Excited enough that I'm considering re-starting a comic pull @ the local store. Please don't screw this up @Marvel.
I'm thrilled and hopeful...and ultimately suspicious.
I know, I know, I, and people all suspicious like me, put #Marvel in a no-win position. They do nothing, we call them out for obvious sexism. They take a step, and it's treated with suspicion and distrust and is 'never enough'--but from where I stand, they're taking baby steps when I'd like to see a 7 league boot step.
I was thinking this today stood in the toy asile at #Meijer today for 20 minutes, looking for an age appropriate female action figure to no avail (plenty of male ones though), and when I stand in #JoAnnFabric looking at the sign predominately featuring #WonderWoman to find out that no character fabric contained a female superhero (not that they're out of stock; the website doesn't list them, the internet doesn't contain them--unless I create my own, it doesn't exist), when I push 'play' on the first episode of "#YoungJustice" to find that apparently none of the female characters can show up (even as 'extras'--they can't pass the Bechdel test) until a few episodes in.
Of course I'm suspicious--I've been given every reason to be.
I'm suspicious because checking the news online, the first responses I read to the announcement of a female Thor isn't "huh--isn't Thor a name, not a title" (<yes, that was my first response) but significantly more like "sheesh, why do the women want to come into our treehouse and have things like CHARACTERS? Aren't the secondary characters with no speaking lines, the booth babes, and Wonder Woman enough for them?"
The folks at #Marvel said to watch for announcements. I'm trying to believe that they're going to actually try to do right on this. I'm hoping they'll see the general response of 'yay' and 'about time' and 'we're suspicious because your entire product line can't even be bothered to make an attempt at looking at feminism-even on kids' shows!' as reasons to do MORE, not reasons to crawl back into their den of inequality and continue churning out patriarchal stuff.
So, reservations aside, I'm excited. Excited enough that I'm considering re-starting a comic pull @ the local store. Please don't screw this up @Marvel.