Thursday, April 17, 2014

GENDERIZATION GAP PT. 1

Q: What time is it?

A: Time for another "gender politics" story!

The newest source of gender-related kerfluffle showed up on April 11, with this column by Janelle Asselin analyzing the cover of the newest incarnation of DC's TEEN TITANS:




I have to admit that Asselin makes her points cogently enough, and even though I disagree with some of them, I wouldn't have thought her essay particularly inflammatory. 

At the same time, I'm not as amazed as Heidi McDonald was a couple of days later:

Anyway the original column has racked up more than 500 comments. Which is crazy. I know there is mad hate for the Teen Titans Go! cartoon among DC comics fans, and, seemingly, frantic hostility in regard to anything that strays from the core demographic. I know I make fun of Bombshells and Giant Tits Teen and all that, but I guess playing to the base is what works in the DCU, no matter what the size of that base is.

First, I don't know why Heidi should be so surprised at the quantity of comments. It's clear to me that the sexual issues Asselin raised, rather than either the specific cover, the Teen Titans franchise or its "Go" spin-off are the things getting the CBR posters hot and bothered, so to speak. Yes, some posters didn't like TEEN TITANS GO, but I can't imagine why Heidi thought this was the dominating topic on this response-thread. Often the posters are talking about the same sort of issues Heidi raises all the time, as with, "Should a teenaged girl be shown as having huge boobs?"

A further note: Heidi automatically closed her own BEAT column on this subject to comments. Doesn't that argue that she was leery of having her thread explode into a firestorm of similar opinionated posts?

More later.




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