Body language in comics

[sonneillon_v]

(( TW Heterosexism, General Sexism))

I could write a lot about this but I'm not going to. It's mostly all here, including some pointed side-by-side examples of how male characters would look drawn in the same costumes and poses as female characters. Basically, female characters are posed to emphasize their sexuality. Hips, breasts, ass, etc.

Comments

[zornhau]

Aren't all those poses are sexualised and emphasising gender, though? Isn't the real issue about the range of poses they use? if the woman with the star was in the same pose as the bloke with the star, would that be acceptable?

[sonneillon_v]

Look, I'm not going to comment on Norman Osborn's codpiece. XD I'll leave that to Dr. Freud. The point here is that women aren't usually posed like Iron Patriot is posed there, with that fairly gender-neutral aggressively heroic stance. Women, both heroes and villains, get much less assertive postures and gravity-defying, spine-cracking poses meant to emphasize their bodies and pander to the male gaze. The female gaze hasn't been pandered to so much since female comic audiences haven't really been acknowledged much until recently, and even now, it's a grudging acknowledgment

[zornhau]

Ah. Missed this one. I tend to agree, with the caveat that I don't know the characters; "come hither" can be in character, and then you're into a question of how to balance different character types.

[sonneillon_v]

Also, see this handy chart.