[Guest Post] Women In Horror Month: Women Killing Zombies
- Next up in our Women in Horror Recognition Month blogfest (and taking the torch from Maura McHugh) is writer Chris Farnell, who is our go-to consultant for bespoke zombie apocalypse contingency planning. (Wanna join the guest blogging fun? Send your pitches to [email protected].)
I love zombie movies. I run a blog about them, I just helped run an event at the Science Museum about them, and I once sent BadRep writer Hannah Chutzpah to get arrested just so I could write about a zombie flash mob.
One of the things about being a fan of all things zombie is that on a regular basis I come across articles declaring the end of the ‘zombie craze’, saying that all the stories about zombies have been told, that the genre is exhausted. These articles will usually involve puns.
It’s an argument that essentially misses the point of how both people and stories work – we don’t tell a story and then move onto the next one, we tell the same story over and over, from every possible angle, trying to tease out something new or rediscovered each time. One of the reasons I love zombie movies is they’re full of opportunities for that.
But that said, there is one zombie story that I have yet to see told anywhere (and if it has, and I missed it, please tell me. I wanna see). Particularly, it involves a group of people that zombie movies have led me to believe could make up as much as a third of the global population – women.
Zombie movies have, on the whole, managed to avoid most of the standard horror movie tropes when it comes to women. The amount of alcohol and sex a woman enjoys doesn’t usually directly correlate with their survival chances. Chase scenes rarely take place while female zombie fighters are in their underwear.
Yes, the first proper zombie movie, 1968’s Night of the Living Dead did star a woman (Judith O’Dea, right) who switched between being hysterical or catatonic, and another who gladly let herself get stabbed to death by her own daughter, because that’s what good mothers do. There was another woman in that film as well, but nobody ever remembers either her or her boyfriend, so we can safely ignore them. However, after that initial outing George Romero actually seemed to learn, and the way women in zombie movies are portrayed generally has improved as a result.
By 1978, and Dawn of the Dead, the main female character (Gaylen Ross’s Francine) may have found herself in the role of “house mom”, and not just because she was pregnant. But she fought against that role, insisting that the others teach her how to fire a gun and fly the escape helicopter, skills which led to her being the movie’s only survivor.
Day of the Dead (1985) had only one female character, but Sarah (Lori Cardille) was also very much the brains of the film, a badass, level headed under pressure, and again, one of the three characters to make it through the film.
When Night of the Living Dead was remade by Romero in 1990, Barbra, our alternately catatonic/screaming heroine from the first film, was now – played by Patricia Tallman – also a badass who knew her way around a firearm.
This is a pattern that’s replicated across the genre. You can see it in Selena in 28 Days Later (and yes, that is a proper zombie movie), in Ana, the lead protagonist in the Dawn of the Dead remake, in Wichita and Little Rock in Zombieland (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin, right), and in Kelly, the lead protagonist in Charlie Brooker’s Dead Set. Even in Shaun of the Dead, Shaun’s girlfriend Liz (Kate Ashfield) is the level-headed straight woman to the comedy antics of the rest of the cast.
And now we’re getting to the nub of the matter. Liz is the straight woman.
You see, zombie movies come in many different flavours. They can be war movies, economic parables, satire, or an examination of the violence inherent in human nature. They can even, with their “bunch of people locked in a building together” format, be a sitcom. But in most cases, one thing you see a lot of in zombie movies is wish fulfilment.
It’s the reason why so many perfectly sensible, realistic people have more detailed plans for a zombie apocalypse than they do for a fire breaking out in their home. There’s an appeal in the idea that real life, with its bills, jobs, relationships and traffic jams, might one day give way to the sort of massive catastrophe that would finally reveal the inner badass you’ve been all along.
Zombie movies are filled with guys who lead boring or screwed up lives before the outbreak hits, only to rise to the occasion and become the hero. Shaun is stuck in a go-nowhere job and has just been dumped by his girlfriend when the zombies turn up. Zombieland’s Columbus is a phobic shut-in who plays endless World of Warcraft and has “perfectly justifiable to speculate on” virginity. 28 Days Later’s Jim is a bicycle courier who goes from being a liability at the start of the film to single-handedly taking down a house full of armed, trained soldiers by the climax. Even Ash Williams, famed zombie killer extraordinaire (despite the Evil Dead films, I’m sorry, not counting as proper zombie films. I don’t make the rules) started out as a shop clerk.
But it’s always the guy. The guy is allowed to start out hopeless and go through the learning curve required to reach the point where he’s massacring zombies with a lawnmower (Braindead, incidentally, is another example of this trope). Female characters in zombie movies nearly always start out with their badass qualifications already in place. Only guys get to use the zombie apocalypse to escape how little they can cope with day-to-day life.
And it’s not because this is an exclusively a male fantasy, not by a long shot. If you doubt me, do a quick search for “zombie survival” among the women of OKCupid. Talk to Mary Hamilton, one of the brains behind Zombie LARP, or Naomi Alderman of Zombies, Run!. Talk to my own sister, who has an imaginative, if fatally flawed zombie survival plan that involves stealing a train. Even with my fairly limited social media following, I was able to find five women with zombie survival plans in the space of an hour (and one of them had three plans, depending on her circumstances).
So, going back to the beginning, this is the new zombie film I want to see. Show us a zombie film with a hapless female protagonist caught in a shitty dead end job with mounting bills and a disaster of a love life. Then, over the course of the film, have her discover she has a knack for clean decapitations and barricade building.
It’s not particularly groundbreaking, but I can’t find that film out there, and I’ve looked hard. If you make this film, I’m telling you, there’s a huge readymade audience for it.
- Chris Farnell is a writer who lives dangerously close to a graveyard in Norwich. You can buy his book, read his blog, and locate his 140 character wisdom at @thebrainofchris. You can also take part in his most recent zombie project, The Trial.
Women In Horror Recognition Month at BadRep Towers
If you’re big into horror, feminism or both, you might already know that February is Women in Horror Recognition Month.
Sponsored by the US-based Viscera Film Festival, WiHM has really taken off since we covered it in 2011, and we’re very proud to be WiHM Ambassadors – check us out on the list!
We recently kicked off a set of posts on Women in Horror with a return to our soapbox by Irish horror author Maura McHugh, who returned to BadRep Towers to spotlights some women she admired working in the genre across a range of media.
Before we go further, though, we’d like to share the Women in Horror Month Mission statement.
This Mission Statement is taken from the Women in Horror Recognition Month website. They’ve asked that it be shared, quoted and spread about as much as possible, so we’re giving it the spotlight in itself for a moment, before we get down with our horror-nerdy selves in these pages.
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The Mission
Women in Horror Recognition Month (WiHM) assists underrepresented female genre artists in gaining opportunities, exposure, and education through altruistic events, printed material, articles, interviews, and online support. WiHM seeks to expose and break down social constructs and miscommunication between female professionals while simultaneously educating the public about discrimination and how they can assist the female gender in reaching equality.
The Vision
A world in which all individuals are equally given the opportunity to create, share, and exploit their concept of life, pain, and freedom of expression.
IT’S THE YEAR 2012, NOT THE 1950s. IS THERE REALLY A NEED FOR WiHM?
Absolutely. Otherwise, WiHM would not exist. Women are still not offered the same pay and opportunities as their male colleagues in many industries, particularly the arts. Discrimination runs rampant in Hollywood and it’s very difficult for females (even well-known actresses) to get their films funded by major studios.
Statistics prove that women are still not offered the same opportunities as men due to an array of reasons, from discrimination to female professionals accepting less than they are worth in order to receive the same opportunities as their male colleagues.
In other parts of the world, women are still stoned to death for speaking their minds, excommunicated when they are sexually violated, and not offered proper education. Atrocities continue to happen that force the female gender to be subservient to a patriarchal system that tells them how to dress, who to marry, and what they should do with their lives. All discrimination must be exposed and obliterated for the female gender to truly achieve equality.
WiHM focuses on supporting the achievements of women who utilize the most extreme mirror available in storytelling: horror. We encourage women to explore and represent these horrors constructively, in positive environments.
WHAT ARE THE INDUSTRY’S STATISTICS?
- In the 1920s there were no more than 10 women working in Hollywood in leadership positions.
- In 2009, the mainstream film industry’s ratio was 16% women to 84% men.
- In 2011, women made up only 5% of directors working in Hollywood.
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SO WiHM IS ALL ABOUT WOMEN. WHAT ABOUT MEN?
WiHM was created with no exclusion. Men play a vital part in the female gender reaching equality. There are many male WiHM Ambassadors and artists who choose to assist and work with professional and talented underrepresented female practitioners. Be a guiding example of a man who respects both genders equally.1
WHAT CAN THE PUBLIC DO TO ASSIST WOMEN?
Personal Responsibility
We all must take personal responsibility for our beliefs, values, and actions. Participating in positive, constructive environments that encourage and provide a safe platform for women to share and explore is vital.
Education
Education is essential. Knowledge is power. Understanding history and where that puts us today, politically and socially, demonstrates how we are interpreting each other and ourselves.
Work with Women
Finding professional women to work with in leadership positions is one of the most important actions you can take to assist the movement. Don’t just work with a woman because of her gender, work with her because she has a lot to bring to the table.
Banish social constrictions
Stereotyping, judging, cattiness, competitiveness, comparing, and gossip – all of these actions hurt men and women. We are all on our own path in life, careers, and personal relationships. We are encouraged to play into these cultural expectations when we are young, which can create judgment of those who are different. Stop it.
Be a WiHM Ambassador
Every February, WiHM Ambassadors host charity events (blood drives, film screenings, art shows), write blogs and articles, conduct interviews, and create videos and podcasts for mass consumption. All of these events and content specifically represent and assist the underrepresented female genre artist and are for philanthrpopic reasons only. No profit is made from WiHM, or the Viscera organization.
Participate
Go to the events, read the articles, watch the videos. Be conscious of the fact that you are consuming different perspectives of a movement that is assisting a struggle that women have experienced for at least the last four thousand years: equality. We have incredible potential right now to destroy discrimination. It deserves your attention.
Donate
Donate to WiHM. All funds go directly into the organization to improve the events, materials, and outreach. WiHM needs the support of the public.
Support other organisations
Organisations such as CARE, Women for Women International, RAINN, and WIF. All these organisations work hard all year round to assist women in achieving equality. Visit their websites and educate yourself.
The Board
The Board of Directors for WiHM is comprised of women from all facets of the horror film industry, including WiHM founder Hannah Forman, Debbie Rochon, Jovanka Vuckovic, Heidi Honeycutt, Jen and Sylvia Soska, and Shannon Lark.
The Organisation
WiHM is a service provided by the Viscera Organization, a 501(c)3 non profit organization expanding opportunities for contemporary female genre filmmakers and artists by raising awareness about the changing roles for women in the film industry.
- www.womeninhorrormonth.com
- www.viscerafilmfestival.com
- www.facebook.com/WomenInHorrorMonth
- womeninhorrormonth.tumblr.com
- Ed’s Tiny Note: Our team are in full support of this; given the diverse make-up of our own team’s, we would likely expand this phrase where it occurs to “all genders” and “all gender identities, presentations and expressions”. [↩]
Of Deep Silver, Dead Island, and Conversation Pieces
Editorial Note: Deep Silver have, since this post was written, apparently issued some sort of apology for this. Which is progress! Hooray! Nonetheless, we’re not seeing a reason not to post this anyway, because it’s not as if this kind of shit isn’t part of a wider stream of crap that makes us feel pretty endlessly tired when we’re trying to get on with consuming our pop culture. And a retraction doesn’t really answer the question of why this crap was and is so often considered OK in the first place, and is only reconsidered when some sort of hullabaloo is made. And also, Mia wrote this very promptly, and I, the ed, was under a pile of Stuff and couldn’t get to posting it on the day. But what she has to say about how she felt remains pretty on-point about the issues in general. So: let it stand.
Dear Deep Silver,
I have just seen the parody ad for the collector’s edition of Dead Island: Riptide. While violence against women and graphic dismemberment are fairly cheap, extremely tasteless and far too easy targets for “shock value”, I’m impressed by your provocative attempts to further the dialogue about the sinister and ingrained misogyny of videogame culture by taking it to a disgusting extreme.
Limited Edition! Specially designed and crafted! Completely and utterly terrible!
Oh… wait, hang on, I’ve just heard from Rock, Paper, Shotgun that you’re actually serious about this. This apparently isn’t just a misguided pastiche of publicity stunts. Oh. Oh dear.
You claim that this hunk of resin will:
… make a striking conversation piece on any discerning zombie gamer’s mantel.
Well, as someone who has notched up damn near 1,000 hours of zombie killing in recent years (thanks, Steam, for keeping track of that. I was starting to worry that I was wasting my life), let’s have a conversation about it. I’ll go and brew up a steaming cup of Sityourassdown while you perch on the naughty stool and think about what you’ve done.
I can hear it already, the rumbling of defensive PR managers approaching.
“But it’s a zombie game! The whole point of it is to commit heinous acts of violence against the undead in self defence! A zombie torso with its limbs severed is a trophy that represents your prowess!”
Before I address this, in the interests of full disclosure, I have to say that I am not a qualified physician. However, from my forays into the study of human and zombie biology, I can confirm that the healthy, warm-tanned skintone, obvious freshness of the blood, the lack of any sort of necrosis or decomposition of the flesh indicates that this torso was certainly not a zombie at the time of her dismemberment.
Exposure of the lower ribs suggest traumatic chest injury; however, it’s not clear whether this occurred before or after the time of death. My working hypothesis is that her death had something to do with either decapitation or the loss of all her blood. Even without formal medical training, I am fairly confident in positing that there is no coming back from complete removal of the head.
There isn’t even any artistic merit in what you’ve created, which is almost as offensive as the glorification of horrific violence against women. You have the gumption to describe it as:
…Dead Island’s grotesque take on an iconic Roman marble torso sculpture.
No. Stop. Please. The skies are filled with the anguished cries of Classics and Art History students, joined by the despairing sobs of everybody with a functioning pair of eyes. There are several salient differences between your abomination and classical works of art, but I’ll set out a few of these for your convenience:
- Artistic merit. Marble sculptures are exquisite works by highly-skilled craftspeople demonstrating the depth of their abilities. Weeks of work go into a marble sculpture, creating something dynamic and evocative from a chunk of something cold and unyielding drawn from the earth. These are not pieces that can be “designed” in an afternoon by a gaggle of fratboy marketers over their weekly office keg.
- Anatomy. Sculptors who work with marble show an intimate and thorough knowledge and understanding of human anatomy. Every muscle, every curve, every millimetre of skin is honed to a perfect representation of the human form. What you have done is plonked two tennis balls on a solid block of resin, doodled in a crude cleavage with a Sharpie, then splashed raspberry sauce all over it and called it a day. Which brings me neatly onto my next point…
- Overt sexualisation and glamourisation of violence against women. Classical torso sculptures are not without limbs due to some horrible run-in with a horde of undead and a crazed survivor with a katana. If any Classics types would like to weigh in on this, I’d be interested to learn. However, I’m pretty sure that the motivations of those classical sculptors was not “Hurr, violence is EPIC. You know what else is epic? TITS! Yeah! But you know what’s not epic? Any part of a woman that isn’t tits or crotch. Let’s put, yeah, some tits and a crotch in a string bikini, and like, cut everything else off. Gamers will eat that up. Oh man, I’m jizzing my pants already. Tits and extreme violence. We’re geniuses.” (Again, classics students, if there’s any evidence of the great Graeco-Roman sculptors having had this discussion, I will withdraw this point. Let me know.)
In summary: what the hell? After the first Dead Island game failed to quite live up to its own teaser trailer, do you just feel like you need to continue along this trajectory of disappointment? Were you hoping to hit rock bottom with today’s sick display in the hope that thereafter, the only way would be up? If that’s the case, I’d be tempted to applaud your shamelessness, had it not been such a swing and a miss.
Now, I’m a feminist, but I also don’t believe that every catastrophic misunderstanding of how to exploit the “desirability” of anything that vaguely resembles a woman’s body (usually one that conforms to narrow standards of Western beauty) is born of true misogyny.
I believe it’s quite possible that you “just didn’t think” of the implications and repercussions of showing a violently dismembered female torso and selling it as an ornament. For those of us – women and some men – who actually live in bodies like the one messily represented in your collector’s edition, it isn’t possible to “just not think” about the possibilities and the realities of violence.
Women are disproportionately more likely to be the victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse, both by people they know and by strangers. We are taught from childhood that our bodies are weaker, that if we don’t want to be attacked we have to dress demurely, to know our limits, to keep our mouths shut and to do as we’re told.
We live in a victim-blaming world that constantly promotes the idea that the only way to not be a victim is to not provoke those strong and burly menfolks, who cannot be held to account if they attack you because you were obviously “asking for it” if and when it happens. Although this line of reasoning was born of institutionalised misogyny, it doesn’t exactly paint men in the most flattering of lights either.
The discussion is thankfully broadening, so this is not an issue I’ll go deeper into here. But Deep Silver, consider yourselves called out. There’s a wealth of resources, information, blogs, zines, articles, and opinion pieces out there. You have no excuse for not educating yourselves about why what you have done is damaging and irresponsible.
Everybody fucks up sometimes when it comes to the way they think about or treat people less privileged than they are. What really proves whether or not they’re capable of meeting the criteria for being a decent human being, or a company with any integrity, is how they handle and learn from their fuckups. My advice? Apologise. Be humble. Be grateful to people who have called you out on this. Make the choice to educate yourselves. And for the love of all things zombie, don’t do it again.
I do, however, have one thing to be grateful to you for about this. Should I find myself romancing a fellow gamer in future, and we go back to their house, this statuette will be an immediate and unmistakable red flag that this person has questionable taste in games, décor and attitudes towards women. This information will be a clear indicator that this isn’t somebody I should be spending time with.
Perhaps your statue could replace the endless whining about “the friendzone” as the hallmark of somebody utterly clueless about human relationships and endlessly disrespectful to women. Then I would laud you for your achievement, because that shit is getting very, very tiresome.
Yours sincerely,
Mia Vee
- Today we’re honoured to welcome author Maura McHugh back to BadRep Towers to kick off a series of posts on the theme of women and horror.
In February 2010, Hannah Forman (under the pen name Hannah Neurotica) began Women in Horror Recognition Month as a way to celebrate women’s contribution to the horror industry.
She began the campaign out of frustration at the lack of coverage of women working in horror media, and received a terrific response to the initiative. People used social media and blogging platforms to discuss their favourite women creators throughout the month of February, and aided the conversation about horror and women’s participation in it. It’s a fine example of how online communities can be harnessed to a positive effect. It’s become an annual event since then.
In the past four years there’s been a discernable increase of attention given to women’s contributions across the creative spectrum. This has not been given freely. It’s come about because women and men have asked to see a more equal representation of work by creators they enjoy. It’s because of campaigns liked Women in Horror Recognition Month that some media sources have finally noticed there are women in the industry, and that many of them have been around for a long time.
Hopefully there will come a time when such an initiative is redundant, but since the Vida statistics on the participation and coverage of women’s work in many media sources remains low, that time is not upon us yet.
Two years ago, Bad Reputation asked me to write an article called Women in Horror: Five Recommended Writers, and this year I’m singling out the work of women who create across horror media.
1. Livia Llwellyn – Short Story Writer
Livia Llwellyn was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and raised in Tacoma, before moving to live on the East Coast. She’s been making a reputation for herself in horror circles since her stories began to be published, from 2005 onwards. Her work has been printed and reprinted in many prestigious anthologies.
She writes difficult, fascinating characters coping with disturbing situations. Some of her stories are unashamedly erotic in a way that honestly reflects the terrible fixations of desire.
Her first short story collection, Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, was published by Lethe Press in 2011 and contains ten of her stories. It received rave reviews, and was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection. It announced the arrival of an original talent, and one fans of horror fiction should watch.
2. Jen and Sylvia Soska – Screenwriters, Directors, Actors, Producers
Jen & Slyvia Soska are Canadian identical twins, long fans of horror, and have trained in martial arts and stunt work. Their first short film was a trailer for a movie, Dead Hooker in a Trunk, which they then made as their début film. They wrote, produced, directed, and acted in the movie, and it gained a lot of attention on the horror film festival circuit.
They created their own production company, Twisted Twins Productions, and made other short films, such as The Hornet, Together We’re Heavy, and Bad Girls.
It was last year’s movie, American Mary, which showed the development of the sisters’ work. Once again they wrote, directed, and appeared in it. It stars Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) as Mary Mason, a broke medical student who changes her career after a traumatic experience, and puts her knowledge of physiology to use by doing extreme body modifications.
The film won five awards at Screamfest last year, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Over the years they’ve demonstrated determination, creative progression, and ambition, and I’m looking forward to what they will do next.
3. Hannah Berry – Comic Book Writer and Artist
Hannah Berry began drawing from a young age, inspired by comics like Calvin and Hobbs, and French bande dessinée. She completed a Degree in Illustration at the University of Brighton, and during that time began work on her first graphic novel, Britten and Brülightly.
Her noir detective story featuring ‘Private Researcher’ Fernández Britten was picked up by publisher Jonathan Cape, and hit the shelves in 2008. It was universally lauded, and was translated into many languages.
The French edition was chosen for the Official Selection of the prestigious Angoulême International Comics Festival in France in 2010. While not overtly a horror story, the dark, noir atmosphere is resonant with supernatural mystery tales.
She was the Booktrust Writer in Residence in 2012, and has been an instructor on the Arvon Foundation’s Graphic Novel Writing course several times.
Her latest graphic novel is Adamtine, an eerie story about a late night train journey that stalls and brings its passengers on an altogether unexpected journey. Its atmospheric art and complicated narrative prove that Hannah has the chops for slow-burn supernatural stories.
A free preview of Adamtine can be downloaded from her website.
4. Alice Lowe – Screenwriter and Actor
Alice Lowe attended Cambridge, and started her career co-devising and performing in small fringe shows. She appeared in Garth Marenghi’s Fright Knight in 2000 at the Edinburgh Festival. The show was nominated for the Perrier Award, and Alice won it the following year for her performance in the sequel, Garth Marenghi’s Netherhead. The show was then turned into a Channel 4 comedy, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Alice has also appeared in such television shows as The Mighty Boosh, Little Britain, and The IT Crowd.
She went back to Edinburgh Festival in 2005 with her own Kate-Bush inspired prog-rock spoof, Moonjourney, co-wrote and starred in Channel 4’s Orcadia, and was part of E4’s sketch show Beehive.
In 2010 she and director Jacqueline Wright set up Jackal Films to challenge themselves to create a short film every month, which they did. She also created Alice’s Wunderland, a
comedy sketch show for BBC Radio 4.
Alice’s work focuses on comedy, but there are often dark veins of horror threaded throughout her material. A case in point is the film Sightseers, which was released in November 2012. She co-wrote it with Steve Oram, with some material by Amy Jump, and co-stars in the film with Oram. The film is a black comedy about a couple who go on holiday in a caravan and get up to a bit of murder along the way.
If you’re not familiar with these women’s work, I encourage you to seek it out. I should note that this is a personal pick: there are many other talented women horror creators out there.
- Maura McHugh is a writer living in Ireland. She’s written the comic books Róisín Dubh and Jennifer Wilde, and her first collection Twisted Fairy Tales is on sale in America now. She’s loved all things spooky and supernatural since she read her first fairy tale.
- More from Maura McHugh on BadRep: our interview with her about Róisín Dubh is in two parts: Part 1 and Part 2, and you can also check out her previous guest post, ‘Women In Horror: Five Recommended Writers’.
[Guest Post] Young Avengers #1: Sex and the Female Gaze
- Alyson Macdonald, who blogs for Bright Green, sent us this post. Do you have a guest post brewing in your brain? You know the drill: email us on [email protected].
Last week’s long-awaited, big-release comic was Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s Young Avengers #1, a classic coming-of-age story about a group of 18-year-olds who just happen to be superheroes.
While many mainstream comics are still producing the kind of material that gets sent up on Escher Girls and The Hawkeye Initiative, Gillen and McKelvie actively reject the kind of objectification that gives the genre such a bad reputation amongst feminists. In contrast to the stereotypical tits-and-ass fare, the opening sequence of Young Avengers provides the reader with a three-page essay on the (straight/bi) female gaze. In a medium that overwhelmingly caters for straight male desires, this is a rare demonstration of how to do a sexy scene with decent gender politics.
On page one, Kate Bishop wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, having just hooked up with a man whose name she can’t quite remember. At this point anyone who’s familiar with comics, or popular culture in general, would expect to see some slut-shaming, or at least some titillating semi-nudity, but we get neither. Kate is dressed in a t-shirt which comes down to her mid-thigh, and it’s clear that she has no regrets, thinking: For a second, some part of me thinks, “I should be ashamed.” I think that part of me is really stupid.
In the fourth panel we even see Kate smiling as she thinks back to the earlier part of her evening, and it’s the smile of someone who has just got laid and is pretty damned pleased with herself.
The second page introduces us to Noh-Varr, whose bed Kate has woken up in, and this is where we see another convention subverted, because he’s the one in nothing but his underwear. In an interview with Comics Alliance, artist Jamie McKelvie explains the idea behind this scene:
We’ve long had a problem in comics where the women are “sexy” (in a sexist fashion) and the men aren’t. Time to redress the balance. And there’s a big difference between sexist and sexy.
Although male superheroes are usually drawn with extremely muscular physiques, it’s not normally sexualised in this way – the reader is supposed to want to be them, not have sex with them. This is a rare acknowledgement that people who fancy men read superhero comics too.
But rather than providing equality of objectification, the aim here is to have a sexy scene which enhances the story and doesn’t devalue either of the characters. If you’re enjoying the view of Noh-Varr in his underwear, it’s just a bonus, not the entire point of the sequence; if you’re not into it, his lack of clothes is incidental. As Gillen puts it in an introduction to the character of Noh-Varr on his Tumblr:
…characters being sexy is cool but objectification in the process is bullshit. An inability to see the difference is a fundamental weakness. My wife’s in the next room watching Lord of the Rings, and I guarantee she’s thinking sexy thoughts about Aragorn. But that works without anything which annihilates him as a character, y’know?
The reader is supposed to see this scene through Kate’s eyes, and as she watches Noh-Varr dancing around in his pants, it acknowledges the existence of the female gaze, both through Kate’s interest in watching him, and the fanservice of the artwork.
Noh-Varr has a masculine appearance, but – perhaps because he’s an alien from another dimension – he doesn’t appear to be burdened with ideas of conventional masculinity, as we can see from his music choices. The comic’s title page states that the record he puts on is ‘Be My Baby’ by the Ronettes (incidentally, this is the track played over the opening titles of the film Dirty Dancing, which is also about female sexual awakening), and he talks about his enthusiasm for “close harmony girl groups” in a way that a heterosexual Earth man probably wouldn’t, because he’d be afraid of seeming effeminate. The play on gender roles is, of course, entirely deliberate, as one of the major influences in this version of the character is David Bowie during his androgynous, bisexual-identifying period in the early 1970s.
As Kate watches Noh-Varr, the scene is interrupted by a Skrull attack (Skrulls are a species of warrior aliens that occasionally pop up in the Marvel Universe to attack either Earth or Noh-Varr’s species of warrior aliens). If this was a horror movie, this would be the moment where Kate’s decision to go back to Noh-Varr’s place for sexytimes gets her killed in a disgustingly graphic way, but rather than being punished for her naughty behaviour, Kate is rewarded with another adventure, when she pilots the space ship.
As well as understanding what many female fans want to see, Gillen also accepts that sometimes our appreciation goes beyond what’s on the page:
Ever since our work on Phonogram, Jamie have [sic] strove to make our comics – for want of a better phrase – slash-fic-able. If you’re working in certain heroic fantasy genres, that’s part of the emotional churn.
(taken from Gillen’s tumblr post on Noh-Varr)
Recent comic book adaptation movies like Avengers Assemble and X-Men:First Class have been gleefully adopted by fanfiction writers, who find that the gender imbalances and close friendships between male characters give them plenty of material to work with. While slash has sometimes been treated as fandom’s dirty secret, Gillen and McKelvie are obviously quite comfortable with it. The title page even provides a nod to fangirl culture by adopting their language: editors Jake Thomas and Lauren Sankovitch are credited with “LOLs” and “feels” respectively – that’s “humour” and “emotions” to anyone who isn’t up-to-date on their internet memes.
Young Avengers clearly demonstrates something which I’ve long suspected to be true: it really is possible for male writers to “get” female fans. Although there are female comics creators producing work that doesn’t make women cringe – even with big publishers like Marvel and DC – it doesn’t mean that their male colleagues should have a free pass to be obnoxiously sexist. We should be holding more men to the pro-feminist standard that Gillen and McKelvie have set, not just in comics, but in all forms of pop culture.
- At night Alyson Macdonald dons a cape and tights to fight sexism and the Tory government on the internet. She mostly blogs at Bright Green and tweets as @textuallimits.
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- Yet another guest post! We asked Lydia and Laura, the brains behind London feminist club night Girl Germs, to give us some tips about how it’s done. Do you have a guest post brewing in your brain? You know the drill: email us on [email protected].
Girl Germs is our DIY feminist, queer and trans* friendly club night, and soon-to-be record label. We started in 2008, as part of our university’s Feminist Week. We hired out the student union bar, and suddenly we had four bands booked. We had a lot of help from the staff at the union, and our friends in the Feminist Society blew up loads of balloons for us. And on the night, people turned up! To a club night that we arranged!
When we graduated, we decided that we wanted to do it again. We were a bit cautious, though, as suddenly we were dealing with real venues and it was just the two of us (and our friend Tukru, with her amazing zine distro). We put on several nights in Camden with no bands where we’d DJ for hours, sometimes getting our friends to help us out when we got tired. Our little venue was always full, and everybody left tired and sweaty.
Our latest hand-drawn flyer
But it was during the preparations for Ladyfest Ten that we plucked up the courage to put on another full-scale night with bands. We managed to put on three of our favourite bands and organise DJs, stalls and even cake. We’d somehow pulled it off again! The place was packed, and we were exhausted, but ecstatic.
The plan was to build on the success of that night, but mental health issues and a period of unemployment and geographical separation meant it was impossible. We’re back next month though, and more excited than ever.
We’ve learned a lot through running Girl Germs. But the biggest thing is: running a club night is easy. Most promoters don’t want you to know that, because they don’t want you to try it yourself. We’re poor, unsociable and uncool. We spend a lot of time talking to our cat. If we can do it, so can you.
You don’t need a lot of money
We both work really hard in low-paid jobs. We don’t have trust funds, or any disposable income to speak of at all, really. A night can be as expensive or cheap as you make it. There are very few upfront costs, because bands and venues can be paid on the night from your door takings. It’s also kind of a waste to spend loads of money on fancy flyers, because the most effective promotion now happens online through social media. We spend a little money on photocopying beforehand, but that’s about it.
You don’t need ‘connections’
To have connections, you’d probably need to network, and who wants to do that? We don’t have a little black book with useful emails in. We just write to bands we like and venues we think might want us, and ask nicely. It’s much easer that way, especially if you’re shy. Hell, we barely have the courage to speak to bands when they’re at Girl Germs ready to play.
You don’t need technical knowledge
DJing is easy, and the best way to learn is by doing. We learned on the job, and it never went that badly wrong. As well as that, bands will let you know what they need, and venues will understand their requests. Your job is to be the go-between. If you have any questions, bands and sound people are always happy to answer. That’s their job, after all. Generally venues will have most of the gear, and bands expect to bring extras themselves and sometimes share with other acts on the bill.
You don’t need to spend oodles of time on it
You won’t need to give up your day job to give yourself enough time to do this. We have very little free time in the evenings after work, but it’s enough to get things done.
In the lead-up, you’ll mainly be emailing people and drumming up support on Twitter and Facebook. If you have a smartphone, you can do this on the go (or under your desk at work). You might need an evening to write a press release, or an hour or so to set up a Facebook page and event, but it’s all manageable if you’re a little bit organised about it.
You won’t need to beg venues and bands to give you a chance
Venues need cub nights, and bands need gigs. People need somewhere to go for a dance on a Saturday night. These people aren’t doing you a favour, and most of them won’t act like they are. Venues have always been helpful and supportive to us, and bands have been excited to play. As long as you let people know what they’re doing and when, you’ll be fine.
So, there it is. Easy, huh?
We’d love more club nights to go to, run by like-minded people. Find your own theme, and give it a go. There’s almost nothing more satisfying than watching a room full of people dancing and knowing that you got them there.
If you want to know anything in more detail, or you have questions, you can email us at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to help.
- Lydia and Laura run Girl Germs from their flat in South East London, which they share with a large, angry cat. As well as organising feminist dance parties, they enjoy bikes, knitting, gardening and cooking squashes (Laura) and writing, furniture, Tarantino movies and Wotsits (Lydia). Their love for Beyoncé is deep and profound.
- Girl Germs on Facebook
- The next event: 9th Feb 2013 at Power Lunches, featuring My Therapist Says Hot Damn, Loveover, Woolf and zines from Vampire Sushi!
- @GirlGermsLondon
[Guest Post] Found Feminism: Rewatching Dirty Dancing
- Alyson MacDonald, who blogs for Bright Green, sent us this post. Do you have a guest post brewing in your brain? You know the drill: email us on [email protected].
I’m not a fan of stereotypical femininity, so when my sister decided to organise a trip to see the stage version of Dirty Dancing for her hen night – with compulsory “prom dress” costumes – it sounded like my idea of pink, fluffy hell.
But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that when you get past the neon pink advertising and the frilly dresses, there are some surprisingly serious and complex themes woven into the plot. By the time we reached the interval I had been converted, but since it can be difficult to find anyone to discuss intersectional feminism with you on a hen night pub crawl, I’ve had to save my observations for the internet.
In case it’s been a while since you’ve seen the 1987 film, here’s a quick recap of the plot: in the summer between high school and college, Baby spends a few weeks with her well-off family at a holiday resort in the Catskills, where she meets Penny, a working class dance instructor who has recently become pregnant and then been dumped.
Penny desperately wants to have an abortion, but it’s illegal and therefore expensive and risky. On top of that, she can’t afford to take time off from her second job, performing at a neighbouring resort with her dance partner and platonic best friend Johnny.
Baby steps in to help her, first talking her father into lending her the money to pay for the abortion, then learning the dance routine so that she can take Penny’s place on stage. In the process of learning to dance, she has to spend lots of time with sexy dance instructor Johnny, in situations which conveniently provide excuses for him to be wet and/or shirtless, and they end up having a hot summer fling.
Although it’s easily overlooked in favour of her romantic relationship with Johnny, it’s Baby’s friendship with Penny which sets up the film’s feminist credentials: the main catalyst for the plot is one woman helping another woman to obtain an abortion. Unlike more recent American films about unplanned pregnancy, such as Juno or Knocked Up, Dirty Dancing approaches abortion from an openly pro-choice perspective. At no point does Penny face any moral judgement for her decision, but there’s plenty of criticism for the man who abandoned her, and the abortionist who charges her hundreds of dollars for a procedure that leaves her seriously ill.
But even before she makes her grand gesture of sisterly solidarity to Penny, Baby is presented as a feminist character. When she is first introduced, we learn that she is about to go to college (it’s later explained that she plans to study economics at a prestigious women’s college) and wants to join the Peace Corps after graduating. This stands in stark contrast to her sister Lisa, whose main ambition appears to be finding a husband. Lisa and the other female guests at the resort demonstrate the kind of comfortable yet uninspiring lifestyle that Baby has decided to reject in favour of having adventures and trying to save the world.
Baby’s determination to make a difference could have been presented as a straightforwardly positive trait, but her ability to help Penny is closely tied to her family’s wealth, and the writers use Johnny’s reaction to comment on her privilege. Johnny initially resents her involvement, and makes the scathing comment “it takes a real saint to ask Daddy” when Baby hands over the money for the abortion.
As they grow closer and Johnny begins to talk about his life and his precarious employment situation, Baby looks naïve and sheltered in comparison, but by the end of the film she has started to understand her own privilege and question her father’s assumptions about Johnny.
Baby’s class privilege affects the dynamic of her relationship with Johnny, giving her power and agency that goes against traditional gender roles. As a guest at the resort, Johnny relies on Baby’s cooperation for his continued employment, and he feels further indebted to her because she is paying for Penny’s abortion.
Baby’s background means that she’s used to getting her way, so she isn’t shy about talking back to Johnny during their early dance lessons, and she remains assertive when they grow closer, eventually being the one to initiate the sexual aspect of their relationship.
Women’s sexuality is a major theme in the film, and it’s actually kind of refreshing to see a film address women’s interest in sex without trying to dress it up in a desire for True Love. There are frequent nods to the female gaze, whether it’s through the blatant fanservice of Patrick Swayze’s shirtless scenes (set to music like Hungry Eyes), or the resort owner, reminding the nice, respectable college boys he has recruited as waiters that part of their job is to provide holiday romances for the younger female guests.
There are also comments about the “Bungalow Bunnies”, middle-aged women who stay at the resort all summer and are only joined by their husbands at the weekends, who use Johnny for sex in a reversal of the older-man-exploits-young-woman trope.
As a coming-of-age movie, the script also touches on the idea of sexual awakening, contrasting Baby’s experience with her sister Lisa’s. In one very brief scene (which starts at 0:50 of this clip), the two women discuss when they should lose their virginity, and Baby tells Lisa that it should be with “someone you sort-of love”; not necessarily the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, but someone you like and are attracted to.
Lisa sees sex as part of a long-term plan to persuade Robbie – who the viewer already knows is the sleazebag that dumped Penny when he got her pregnant – to marry her, while Baby, who isn’t deliberately looking for a husband, ends up with the better man and the more rewarding relationship. This might not be much of a revelation to many real women, but it’s unusual to see a chick-flick where the romantic happy ending doesn’t involve marriage and babies.
Dirty Dancing isn’t without its flaws: the Bungalow Bunnies fit what we would now call a cougar stereotype, and Johnny’s final speech about how Baby has taught him to be a better person might be kind of dodgy from a class perspective, but it’s a little unrealistic to expect a low-budget romance film from the 80s to be totally right-on.
It stands out, not because it’s perfect, but because the writers address class and gender issues at all, and as a result has been sneaking a little bit of Trojan horse feminism into teenage sleepovers and girls’ nights in for the last 25 years. It’s the feminist sleeper agent of chick flicks, and deserves a bit of recognition for that.
- Alyson Macdonald is an admin worker by day and a writer the rest of the time, blogging mostly at Bright Green and tweeting from @textuallimits. She wouldn’t normally be caught dead watching chick flicks, and hopes that her reputation as a scruffy geek survives this encounter unscathed.
[Guest Post] D&D, and Who It’s Packaged For
- Rabalias of RPG-gaming blogging collective Black Armada sent us this post, together with a petition. And if you have a guest post brewing in your brain, you know the drill: email us on [email protected].
Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is the single most famous roleplaying game in the world, the route most people got into roleplaying, and the flagship of the hobby. So it’s a tragedy that the game is pushing away potential fans through artwork and even game text that is overwhelmingly focused on one customer demographic: white men.
Photo via Flickr user Megan Knight (http://www.flickr.com/photos/meganknight/5497474167/)
That’s a pretty provocative statement, right there. But I’m confident in making it, because the evidence is there for anyone who wants to see it. You could start by flipping open a copy of pretty much any D&D book and looking through the artwork. See how many women and people of colour you can find – and then see how many of them are half-dressed or made to look weak or submissive.
Actually, you don’t need to, because someone already did it for you. Anna Kreider reviewed the artwork in the D&D 4th edition books (specifically the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Players Handbook, Players Handbook 2 and the Adventurer’s Vault) and rated the images therein.
Kreider’s findings were striking – of the 40% or so of humans (and demi-humans) that were depicted as female, well over a third hit each of the measures she chose (being half-dressed or posed in a sexually suggestive way, for instance). Needless to say, the remaining 60% of images, the ones which were of men, tended to be wearing more clothes, in more active, non-sexual poses.
It gets better, because Chris Van Dyke had a look at D&D from the perspective of race. He was able to find only two examples of a non-white character in the core books of all four numbered editions of D&D. That means non-white folks are practically invisible in D&D.
Now, these findings are based on subjective judgements. That’s unavoidable, because things like “sexually suggestive” and “white” can often only be judged subjectively in artwork. You can go and judge for yourself if you doubt their conclusions. But I think if we’re honest, these results only confirm what most of us already knew from experience.
It isn’t the end of the world. I’ve enjoyed lots of pop culture replete with sexism. And after all, it’s only a fantasy! But then again, shouldn’t our fantasy worlds contain a richer variety of creatures than real life? And what does it say to potential new gamers if they can’t find a picture of someone like them anywhere in these books? Is D&D really just a game about white dudes slugging it out in a dungeon somewhere? I don’t think so.
OK, so what to do about it? I love roleplaying, and despite years of moaning about the mechanics, I still love D&D. The fact that it’s not exactly a beacon of gender and racial equality is, for me, an obstacle to be overcome rather than a sign I should give up on the game altogether.
It so happens that Wizards of the Coast are writing a new edition of D&D right now. That’s why I put together a petition calling on them to do better.
If you’ve read this far, maybe you agree with me – and if so, it would be great if you went and signed it, and better yet share it with your friends and encourage them to sign too.
The petition won’t change anything in itself. Wizards of the Coast could ignore it, and maybe they will. But if they can see that there are hundreds of gamers out there who want more than whitewash and chainmail bikinis, maybe they’ll respond. We owe it to the hobby to give them a clear message.
- Rabalias is a leftie, feminist Londoner and veteran roleplayer. He plays and GMs more than any normal person and less than he’d like to. He designs games in the time he has left over from playing them, and blogs about roleplaying at Black Armada. Rabalias has two cats and a lady companion who also roleplays, which is pretty sweet.
Theatre Review: All-Female Julius Caesar
The other week I went to see the all-female cast production of Julius Caesar at London’s Donmar Warehouse.
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, this is a gritty, bold production set in a women’s prison – and performed in a very small, intimate theatre space. This is almost punk rock Shakespeare, and occasionally it has some punk rock in it. If the Pussy Riot reference poster doesn’t clue you in already: this is a production with guts.
Julius Caesar isn’t a play I’ve studied in much depth, and I know plenty of other reviewers will do a better academic job, so I’m going to focus on what I liked about it:
- More parts to female actors! Hooray! Also, the production necessitates a certain degree of queer/genderqueer acceptance, as both Brutus and Caesar’s wives play a significant part in the story. Get on board and get on with the plot.
- The initial prison set-up is ingenious, and really adds a few layers for the first half – Caesar is a much-loved but bullying top dog in the setting. And one of the first things Frances Barber’s Caesar does when she comes on stage is smooch Mark Anthony (Cush Jumbo). Whoa! That makes… a lot of sense, actually, and adds a brilliant ambiguity to the characters’ different declarations of love for each other.
- Did I mention punk rock? There’s a bit of live music with a drumkit on wheels used to brilliant effect.
- The soothsayer is presented as the clearly-slightly-unhinged inmate who is usually seen carrying a doll and with her hair always in bunches. Adult-as-child is really unnerving and in this production, it adds a Cassandra-esque layer.
- I admit it: at times I was perving. Holy hell, Cassius (Jenny Jules)’s abs are amazing.
One problem for me was that as the action scaled up after Caesar’s assassination, I wasn’t sure what to do with the prison setting. Part of my brain was still trying to work out what significance the setting still had – for best enjoyment you just need to leave that behind and focus on with the plot, but my brain couldn’t quite do it.
The setting and the tale make an interesting mix, but they don’t fit perfectly throughout. Brick it ain’t.
Also, there was an interesting dissonance between the ‘honour’ described (OK, makes sense) and the ‘love of Rome’ which motivated Brutus and Cassius (but why do you love this place? It’s… prison.)
But if the Torygraph is spitting bullets (twice) over the casting, you know you’re doing something right:
There is a certain poetic justice that Lloyd’s effort should find itself in direct competition with the classy, respectful and hugely entertaining all-male versions of Twelfth Night and Richard III, which are running in rep at the Apollo. These productions would undoubtedly have met with Shakespeare’s approval.
– Tim Walker, Telegraph 14/12/12
BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENS?
Dude, if you feel that threatened by affirmative action: there is everywhere else that you could go.
All in all this production is tough, gutsy and giving its all to sort out the massive under-representation of women in theatre.
And the modern, unpretentious setting gives you a huge amount to think about – above and beyond the plot of an already dense play. It’s on until the 9th of February.
Found Feminism: Agent Provocateur, The Chase
I was reading about the rivalry between Victoria’s Secret and Agent Provocateur the other day (as is my wont of a Thursday evening) and in the course of doing so I discovered this classic Agent Provocateur advert:
I quite like Agent Provocateur in general – while it’s a bit ridiculous in places (this may be many things, but it is not a ‘playsuit’), I do feel like it’s positively targeted at strong, empowered women who like luxury lingerie, and their partners (the Gentleman’s Guide for boyfriends on their website is quite amusing).
This may be because their creative director is herself a female force to be reckoned with: Sarah Shotton, who worked her way up the company from an ‘apprenticeship’ when it had just started up. Now at the top, Shotton states that she tries every design she looks at on a size 8 model and a size 16, to ensure that it works on a range of shapes. No more than she should do, perhaps, but probably still more than many other lingerie designers. So I’m on side from the get-go, really.
But to the ad!
H&M’s Winter 2012 campaign
First things first, this has got to be in the minority among lingerie campaigns in that the female protagonist is active and capable. She’s not in a boudoir and she’s not being sexy for an imagined (male) viewer. I present this from La Senza and this from the M&S ‘Autograph’ lingerie range for comparison.
For a more current spin, to my right is H&M’s Winter 2012 print campaign. Oh look, it’s another woman in lingerie on a bed (/ weird sheepskin shebang), lit so you can’t actually see her face. For a more avant garde take on these same ideas, check out this bizarre mini-film masterwork from Damaris. Damaris, I love you dearly, but seriously, what is this?
Conversely, in the Agent Provocateur advert our heroine is out and about, and about to get on a bus. She’s wearing a wrap dress and plimsoles – well-dressed, but clearly not on any kind of Special Sexy Trip – and she also just happens to be wearing matching Agent Provocateur lingerie.
One effect of this decision is to make the underwear look practical. This is not true of most of Agent Provocateur’s range (or price tag). They’ve always been really into the idea of lingerie as a ‘special secret’ (not Victoria’s).
The photography on their website is lit as if by searchlight to reinforce this, and this advert refines that a little, pushing lingerie as a secret just for you, the wearer. But, they’re arguing here, it’s also something viable for every day. Our protagonist is just hangin’ out in her designer lingerie, because she wants to wear it – for herself.
Personally, I commend her: good underwear is the skeleton of an outfit, and I don’t see why, if you’re lucky enough to be able to buy luxury lingerie, it should have to languish at the bottom of a drawer until some performative Special Occasion.
But I think this ad – and its slogan, ‘sexy never takes a day off’ – is also saying that there’s something almost intrinsic about ‘sexy’. In this advert, the Agent Provocateur underwear, and the choice to wear it out and about, is just an extension of the heroine’s natural confidence and, well, sexiness.
It’s this confidence that makes her actually embark on the chase in the first place. The underwear’s not making her sexy; she’s chosen the underwear because she already is sexy. Typical advertising, of course, but isn’t it better to see someone being sexy in their day to day life than backlit in a studio, lounging on a bed?