The Hawkeye Initiative

QuietlyListening

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Jux said:
QuietlyListening said:
I find this to be endlessly hilarious. I cannot get enough of it. Enjoy!
If you like that, you might also enjoy eschergirls.

Or, if you just like making fun of bad comic art in general, there is an endless supply [http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/4/21/2960508/worst-rob-liefeld-drawings] of Rob Liefeld [http://www.progressiveboink.com/2012/6/14/3084348/the-second-40-worst-rob-liefeld-drawings] art to make fun of.
Wow. Thank you. So much.

Best quote:
This one has all the signature Liefeld touches:

1. Pouches worn around the thighs, even when you aren't wearing pants.
2. People who grow hair only on the very tops of their heads.
3. Guns that are literally bigger than people.
4. Women with waists the size of their wrists, standing like they're trying to take a shit on a swingset.



Also, for those of too lazy to look: http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/
 

KissingSunlight

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If you like the Hawkeye Initiative, then I'm pretty sure you are going to enjoy this music video.


I think this is good for a laugh. If you are trying to glean an important statement about gender issues from this, you are sadly misguided. It's simply bad art. Male characters are constantly drawn in ridiculous ways as well. It's just guys are not that sensitive about it.
 

QuietlyListening

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That is pretty funny. And it makes a good point. A lot of media is created from a pretty shitty male perspective. Men are portrayed as strong and capable (power fantasy) and women are portrayed as sexualized objects. Or, men you want to be, women you want to have. And you're right, it is bad art. The unfortunate thing is that this represents the state of the art in a lot of media: comics, movies, music videos, etc. So I'm all for satire that calls out this bullshit and does so in a funny way.

Thanks for sharing it!
 

jamail77

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Queen Michael said:
You make a good point in that it may not be the best way to demonstrate that the sexualization of heroes is unequal. However, that's not really the point. It's not to make every male hero into the female equivalent of ridiculous female sexualization. It's not to change every established male hero into an Edward (or whatever his name is) and show how annoying that is, so we can empathize with how often this happens to women. It's to show what is often unfairly done to women looks ridiculous on men, but for some reason it's okay when we do it to women. It creates a cognitive dissonance for those who say "Yeah, this gets bad sometimes when done in inappropriate contexts, but it happens to men just as often!" because the sexualization isn't similar enough. Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but not nearly enough to make sense of how differently they are sexualized and how each sex's sexualization is respectively justified.

Speaking of which, I'd like to take the time to point out that no matter how many people try to convince me that the constant presence of buffed up guys in appropriate settings is equal to the ABUNDANT, more than just constant, presence of eye candy girls in inappropriate settings, I refuse to believe it. One is more often used in appropriate settings while the other is more often used in inappropriate settings. That makes them inherently unequal.

KissingSunlight said:
Male characters are constantly drawn in ridiculous ways as well. It's just guys are not that sensitive about it.
See my above response to Queen Michael on why those aren't equivalent, at least from my point of view. Besides, I see tons of men's rights activists complain that people don't talk enough about the sexualization of male characters. Seems like they are pretty sensitive about it.
 

KissingSunlight

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jamail77 said:
Queen Michael said:
You make a good point in that it may not be the best way to demonstrate that the sexualization of heroes is unequal. However, that's not really the point. It's not to make every male hero into the female equivalent of ridiculous female sexualization. It's not to change every established male hero into an Edward (or whatever his name is) and show how annoying that is, so we can empathize with how often this happens to women. It's to show what is often unfairly done to women looks ridiculous on men, but for some reason it's okay when we do it to women. It creates a cognitive dissonance for those who say "Yeah, this gets bad sometimes when done in inappropriate contexts, but it happens to men just as often!" because the sexualization isn't similar enough. Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but not nearly enough to make sense of how differently they are sexualized and how each sex's sexualization is respectively justified.

Speaking of which, I'd like to take the time to point out that no matter how many people try to convince me that the constant presence of buffed up guys in appropriate settings is equal to the ABUNDANT, more than just constant, presence of eye candy girls in inappropriate settings, I refuse to believe it. One is more often used in appropriate settings while the other is more often used in inappropriate settings. That makes them inherently unequal.

KissingSunlight said:
Male characters are constantly drawn in ridiculous ways as well. It's just guys are not that sensitive about it.
See my above response to Queen Michael on why those aren't equivalent, at least from my point of view. Besides, I see tons of men's rights activists complain that people don't talk enough about the sexualization of male characters. Seems like they are pretty sensitive about it.
It's obvious that you are passionate about this subject. So much so, that you have actually managed to find a few men who are sincerely upset about male sexual objectification. However, you can not convince me that images of muscular men are not sexually appealing to women. Also, that women would kill to look that sexy in those outfits that they wear in comic books and fantasy art work. In short, what is a power fantasy and sexual objectification is a matter of perspective.
 

jamail77

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KissingSunlight said:
It's obvious that you are passionate about this subject. So much so, that you have actually managed to find a few men who are sincerely upset about male sexual objectification. However, you can not convince me that images of muscular men are not sexually appealing to women. Also, that women would kill to look that sexy in those outfits that they wear in comic books and fantasy art work. In short, what is a power fantasy and sexual objectification is a matter of perspective.
I am passionate in general honestly or rather I can get passionate in my speech. It makes me seem more passionate about a subject than I am. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at turning that aspect of my writing down either. Sexual objectification of men actually isn't that big of a concern to me. It's not like I went looking for men sincerely upset about it. I've come across them during my time on the Internet. Frankly, they have a pretty big presence on the Internet to the extent that it's hard not to notice them...that is, if you go where I go...[small]I advise you don't go where I go.[/small]

I don't deny that women often find muscular men sexually appealing, but I don't know a single women (I know, anecdotal. Sorry.) who finds a dedicated bodybuilder attractive. You know, those people with bodies built like tanks. Women I know tend to find them disgusting actually and worry they should get medical help for possible steroid addiction. And that is usually what people reference when they talk about male sexual objectification. From my experience, women tend to prefer men with athletic bodies but not too bulkly hence the love for "pretty boy" characters like Edward from Twilight or Dante from Devil May Cry though "manly men" are fine too as long as they don't look like tanks. Not to detract from the subject, but, actually, do women find Dante attractive? I always got the impression he has an impressive female fanbase, but, honestly, I only got into Devil May Cry a couple months ago, so I'm still pretty new to it, its fandom, and the subgroups of that fandom.

As for women wanting to look sexy like that, I don't deny that either. However, again, I don't know a single women who is eager to look like the over-extensive stuff like that Spider-Woman cover, not that it bothered me much or it was sexist or anything (The outrage on that was a little extreme. There are much more serious examples of sexism. Makes sense though considering most of the criticism wasn't even from comic fans). It's so extreme it's almost not sexy anymore based on the women I've talked to. Instead of enjoying the pandering, it just feels insulting at that point, like the artist is insulting their intelligence, because it's just too much to be justifiable and they're not even the audience who should be insulted, being women rather than men!

TL;DR: You're absolutely right that it is a matter of perspective, but it stops being a matter of perspective when it becomes a trope. When something becomes a trope it lends itself a degree of objectivity due to noticeable patterns, cultural symbolism, author intent, things like that.
 

Queen Michael

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jamail77 said:
Queen Michael said:
It's to show what is often unfairly done to women looks ridiculous on men, but for some reason it's okay when we do it to women. It creates a cognitive dissonance for those who say "Yeah, this gets bad sometimes when done in inappropriate contexts, but it happens to men just as often!" because the sexualization isn't similar enough. Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but not nearly enough to make sense of how differently they are sexualized and how each sex's sexualization is respectively justified.
See, that's hwere I simply cannot agree with you. It' one thing to complain that there aren't enough sexualized men -- I can promise you that if there were a comic book with lots of man service in it, I'd check it out -- but that doesn't mean it's fair to complain that men would look silly in the poses used to sexualize women. The same poses that work for women don't work for men, and vice versa. You might as well say that the Hulk's purple pants are stupid because Hawkeye wouldn't look good in those huge pants.

The Hawkeye initiative doesn't show how silly overt sexualization is. it shows how silly inept sexualization is. That's a different can of tuna entirely.
 

jamail77

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Queen Michael said:
See, that's hwere I simply cannot agree with you. It' one thing to complain that there aren't enough sexualized men -- I can promise you that if there were a comic book with lots of man service in it, I'd check it out -- but that doesn't mean it's fair to complain that men would look silly in the poses used to sexualize women. The same poses that work for women don't work for men, and vice versa. You might as well say that the Hulk's purple pants are stupid because Hawkeye wouldn't look good in those huge pants.

The Hawkeye initiative doesn't show how silly overt sexualization is. it shows how silly inept sexualization is. That's a different can of tuna entirely.
Not gonna lie, I was mostly playing devil's advocate for those spearheading the Hawkeye Initiative. That might sound like I'm trying to backtrack from a stupid statement, but I promise you I'm not; I own up to my stupid posts. The part where I said the justification for each is way too different is my honest opinion though. Male sexualization is often justified by people trying to pretend there is equal sexualization as something for women to gawk at, but the character creators and fandom often make it clear it's more to indulge the power fantasy of the male part of the audience. Female sexualization however is often not about the power fantasy and more about the pandering. It's not the same in this sense. So, like I said, that part of my post was my honest opinion, but nothing else I said was. It was just me devil's advocating

I actually agree with you. The poses that work for women don't work for men and vice versa. We have different body types from each other. There's a reason men have more pure physical strength and women are more flexbile and this extends to why any of us look good posing certain ways even if we don't have the ideal body types Olympians or models have (who would look even better).

I suppose it does show inept sexualization at its finest. Isn't that what makes it so entertaining? I ask this because...I feel like we should move on from arguing and get back to the point of the OT, the entertainment stemming from this, or at least what's supposed to stem from this.