Sexism and the Small Press Expo
SPX was great fun and, as usual, I've found some neat new comics to follow up with.
There was one mini-comic that ladyaelfwynn picked up Saturday, however, that she found offensive. I took a look at it and can certainly see the point. At SPX you see lots of mini-comics of all kinds of quality. A fair number are nothing more than a few pages of quick sketches to be funny or strange. Here's a description of the comic, as neutral as I can make it:
Page 1: We see Darth Vader in his chair with a set of headphones on. He's listening to REM's song "Everybody Hurts." An assistant comes up to him and announces that they're at their destination.
Page 2: The assistant confirms that they think a Jedi is hiding out on the planet. Darth Vader goes down and explores some ruins on the planet, saying, "Hellloooooo?"
Page 3: A Jedi drops down behind him with her light saber. They start fighting. He says to her, "You're pretty." Next panel: "Would you go out with me?" She answers, "No!" He says something to the effect of, "Oh well" and stabs her with his light saber.
Page 4: He's lying down cuddling her body, with the headphones on listening to "Everybody Hurts."
Now, I think the response he was going for was a laugh and something like, "That's just wrong!" On Sunday I looked at the other comics on the table and didn't see evidence of anything else like that. It was silly geek jokes, basically. The guy seemed pretty young - possibly still in college.
I told him that I thought the mini was sexist. (I was careful not to call him sexist - just the mini.) He seemed surprised and said, "How so?" I explained that if you look at it from a certain viewpoint we have a guy asking out a pretty girl. She says no so he kills her. (At that point the woman sitting at the next table over said, "Huh!") He replied that, well, Darth Vader was a bad guy. I said, "Even so, it can have that interpretation." I could tell he was a bit perturbed, and my point wasn't to have a big debate with him on the spot. He said that he thought he'd know if it was sexist because he'd grown up with a mom who'd majored in women's studies. I replied that it was just something for him to think about and left the table.
My goal wasn't to have an in-depth debate with him on the spot. I honestly don't think he'd intended it that way, so I wanted to deliver enough of a shock to hopefully get him thinking about it. I think that was the best I could have done.
What I wish I'd said but thought of later was this. The sexist bit is not that Darth Vader did that in the mini. It's that it was the subject of a joke. Yes, it was intended to be a kind of twisted joke, but the source of the humor was a situation in which a woman is punished for turning down an advance.
ETA: I should note that SPX is the best comic con that I go to for gender mix. There are lots of women who attend and lots who are creators behind the tables. I find this quite encouraging.
There was one mini-comic that ladyaelfwynn picked up Saturday, however, that she found offensive. I took a look at it and can certainly see the point. At SPX you see lots of mini-comics of all kinds of quality. A fair number are nothing more than a few pages of quick sketches to be funny or strange. Here's a description of the comic, as neutral as I can make it:
Page 1: We see Darth Vader in his chair with a set of headphones on. He's listening to REM's song "Everybody Hurts." An assistant comes up to him and announces that they're at their destination.
Page 2: The assistant confirms that they think a Jedi is hiding out on the planet. Darth Vader goes down and explores some ruins on the planet, saying, "Hellloooooo?"
Page 3: A Jedi drops down behind him with her light saber. They start fighting. He says to her, "You're pretty." Next panel: "Would you go out with me?" She answers, "No!" He says something to the effect of, "Oh well" and stabs her with his light saber.
Page 4: He's lying down cuddling her body, with the headphones on listening to "Everybody Hurts."
Now, I think the response he was going for was a laugh and something like, "That's just wrong!" On Sunday I looked at the other comics on the table and didn't see evidence of anything else like that. It was silly geek jokes, basically. The guy seemed pretty young - possibly still in college.
I told him that I thought the mini was sexist. (I was careful not to call him sexist - just the mini.) He seemed surprised and said, "How so?" I explained that if you look at it from a certain viewpoint we have a guy asking out a pretty girl. She says no so he kills her. (At that point the woman sitting at the next table over said, "Huh!") He replied that, well, Darth Vader was a bad guy. I said, "Even so, it can have that interpretation." I could tell he was a bit perturbed, and my point wasn't to have a big debate with him on the spot. He said that he thought he'd know if it was sexist because he'd grown up with a mom who'd majored in women's studies. I replied that it was just something for him to think about and left the table.
My goal wasn't to have an in-depth debate with him on the spot. I honestly don't think he'd intended it that way, so I wanted to deliver enough of a shock to hopefully get him thinking about it. I think that was the best I could have done.
What I wish I'd said but thought of later was this. The sexist bit is not that Darth Vader did that in the mini. It's that it was the subject of a joke. Yes, it was intended to be a kind of twisted joke, but the source of the humor was a situation in which a woman is punished for turning down an advance.
ETA: I should note that SPX is the best comic con that I go to for gender mix. There are lots of women who attend and lots who are creators behind the tables. I find this quite encouraging.