Semi-review: The Supergirls

Maybe in the most basic sense, superheroes are the modern day descendants of the ancient gods. The ancient goddesses held the power of life and death in their hands... compared to men, comic book superheroines may have been short-changed in the power department, but these women had a secret weapon that has kept thme in the game for the past sixty years - sex appeal. 
The Supergirls, Mike Madrid 
(299:2009)

Complaint
It's unfair to say that Madrid's book on the comic book superhero (female) embodies all of my frustrations with contemporary popular comic book criticism, but it did irritate me. Lacking any illustrations or even consistent references to particular comic book issues, it takes an obvious concern - the representation of women in superhero comic books - and advances an argument that concludes that... perhaps there is a problem here.

Are they like Gods? Prove it
The notion that superheros constitute a 'modern mythology' has been thrown around for the past fifty years - Jack Kirby's Fourth World seems to have been deliberately created to draw the parallels - without any serious attempt to draw precise comparisons. Madrid throws it in at the end of a chapter without having developed the idea. A grounding in classics or anthropology might allow for some kind of analysis, a compare and contrast chart between the DC Universe and the gods of Olympus, perhaps. Anything would be better than a vague suggestion. The most comprehensive work on the subject, Supergods, is as much an artistic autobiography by Grant Morrison as a study of the deus in pictura. 

The Obvious
Madrid's publishers were probably saving money and time but not actually putting any pictures in The Supergirls, but he does give detailed descriptions of the heroine's outfits. He makes the points that these outfits are inappropriate for crime fighting (4: 2012), that the female body in comic books became more eroticised during the 1980s and 1990s (297: 2012), that 'the bad girl' look was more enticing (288: 2012) even to women viewers and... so and so on...

The Valuable
The most interesting parts of Madrid's analysis comes from his comparison of DC and Marvel during the 1960s. The Marvel Age - as Stan Lee described it - is recognised as a the period defined by Lee (and Kirby and Steve Dikto et al) through a radical 'realistic' approach to the superhero. But, as Madrid explains, it was over at DC that women were given more progressive roles. While the Invisible Woman was still playing Damsel in Distress and The Wasp was more fashionista than action girl, DC's Elasti-Girl was a key member of The Doom Patrol and Wonder Woman is getting a starring role in The Justice League. And Batgirl is stepping out of the shadow of the bat...

She doesn't don a costume.. to prove her love for Batman... she is not his girlfriend or faithful handmaiden... Batman did not have power over Batgirl's emotions.. this was, perhaps, the key to Batgirl's liberation... a female who Batman can actually regard as a brilliant peer and a partner in the war on crime, the same way he would a male.
(124 - 125: 2012)

The Obvious (Reprise)
Madrid majors on the sexual anxiety of USA culture - the 'nation's Puritanical roots' (245: 2012). The tension between the sensual bad girl - whether she is a villain (Eisner's P'Gell in The Spirit), morally ambiguous (Catwoman in Batman) or a heroine (Storm's 'punk period in The X-Men) - and the pure superheroine (Mary Marvel, Supergirl or Invisible Girl) dovetails elegantly with the 'Madonna/Whore' dichotomy. So elegantly that it is predictable. It probably needs to be restated, just because it is so present in comic books. 

The Interesting
Comic book history frequently revolves around certain moments, that are recounted because they do something unusual. One day, I'll make a list of them... it's the scene where the black man tells the Green Arrow and Lantern how they deal with 'coloured' people. It's that time Northstar comes out of the closet in the middle of a battle. Madrid does add in The Valkyrie and Ms Marvel, 1970s' attempts by Marvel to address the rise of feminism. The Valkyrie has a special meaning for me (Madrid says her 'all black Wagnerian garb, with its menacing silver nose cone breasts sent a clear verboten message to any male she encountered' (149: 2012) but there was at least one seven year old boy who would have begged to differ), and I'd like to see her become one of those 'certain moments'. Her tenure on The Defenders straddled a suspicion of feminism and the desire to tell a story about a woman's journey to self-knowledge and...

Hold on. That's the story. I'll be back later...

Cui Bono? Cui Bono?

In a recent conversation, a friend suggested that, by giving credence to the claims of certain characters from the 'manosphere', I am tacitly giving my support to the hate campaigns that have been directed at women like Anita Sarkeesian. I argued that, in order to have a debate and not just the shouting match that appears to pass for discussion these days, it is necessary to admit all opinions, even those expressed by utter arseholes. I added that I rarely mention, say, Sargon or Thunderfoot, without sneering at them, to emphasise my distaste for their methodology, rigid application of a single epistemology, and that way they talk like they've got their victim tied up in a basement.

While I regard some of the claims about Sarkeesian as valid, if melodramatic (her visit to the UN, when she asked a patriarchal body to limit freedom of expression on Twitter seemed counter-productive), I abhor the language of violence, personal threats and general misogyny that has been directed against feminists. I'm not keen on the whole 'male tears' privilege routines, the rejection of racism unless it is part of a systemic racism (I think Chuck D said something about this ages ago: I admire him, but disagree that racism can only be racism if it is directed against an oppressed group).

I'm clinging to a belief in dialectic, and regard the mansophere and YouTube feminism as mutually arising terms in a debate, both feeding each other until the actual issues are buried beneath ad hominem arguments (which are not always invalid) and spiteful mash-ups. 

On the whole, the 'rationalist' videos of Sargon and Co. are more unpleasant, and the language used against feminists is more aggressive and a prime example of the privilege that YouTube feminists decry. However, the rise of Sarkeesian is a result of these videos. She became famous because she was attacked (her actual reach is limited in terms of actual subscribers to her channel, Feminist Frequency).

I'm saying a curse on both your houses. Reductive versions of feminism are the product of reductive rationalist analysis of feminism. Characters like Big Red have come about because the manosphere creates them, by giving attention to their antics, and lending them justification by being needlessly insulting.

I'm all for the freedom to insult. I just think it is a bad tactic, and it polarises rather than resolves.

If I tend to be heretical towards what ought to be my own side - the feminists, the LGBTQI activists, it's because I agree with the Dalai Lama that religion is all about self-reflection, not self-righteousness (religion here is not worshipping G-d, it's an internally consistent system of beliefs and behaviours). I have frequently called out socialists for authoritarian attitudes, Christians for homophobia, Platonists for believing in the literal theory of pure forms. 

Take The Pink News: it has consistently posted articles trying to undermine the reputation of Pope Francis (S.J.) as a progressive. Any statement made by the Vatican against same-sex marriage is headlined as The Pope Says, even if it is a report made by bishops. There's more to this than I can explore just now, but the antagonism of their approach encourages the continued conflict between Catholicism and activists for gay rights. Cui bono? 

How about the snowflakes chasing bad fashion victims with scissors, and the way that gets loads of internet response? Cui bono?

The wage gap is a real thing, but misusing it allows the manosphere to deny it. It's a calculation that shows the overall disparity between male and female wages and identifies the structures of capitalism's bias towards traditionally male models of work and pay. It's not claiming that every single woman gets paid less for the same work as a man. But if that misinterpretation gets talked about, cui bono?

These are specific problems within movements that I would align myself alongside, if I were not such a bourgeois anarchist. And I'd rather my beliefs, and fellow believers, grew up and looked at how their behaviour undermines our shared beliefs.

Against this specific examples, I have a broad disrespect for the agenda of the manosphere: I do not believe, ultimately, that their mission is anything other than a defence of male privilege. It also uses dodgy ideas - evolutionary biology, the free market - without appropriate critique. 

I learnt a new word last week - epistemology. It's the theory of knowledge, how different ideologies and individual use facts, theories, methodologies. The manosphere has lots of them, although a few beliefs are shared across them. It usually comes down to 'rationality is the only way' and 'that's not science'. The problem in this flame war is the poor epistemological grounding of both sides, which is probably the product of technology that lets anyone add their ha'porth without rigorous thought and the weakening of theoretical grounding by post-modern rejections of authority. 

But - to conclude: I don't like hate campaigns. I speak to both sides because that's dialectic. I'm very pretentious. I am rude to people that I disagree with, almost as a defence when I seem to be taking them seriously. That's actually not cool. In line with my own philosophy, I could do with cutting that out. Unfortunately, I think being snide is funny.

OMG! Jack Chick and Gareth K Vile.

Yes, it's the Dream Team: lap-dancing and clown art advocate, Gareth K Vile, does his copyright violation thing on the comics of Jack Chick!

In this panel, Vile suggests that The Illuminati are loving the row about how intersectionality is becoming authoritarian: time is being spent on moaning that the 'feminists' are attacking freedom of speech, while the immensely wealthy are having a high old time getting all the money.

The lady is speaking from an anti-feminist position, although she could also be a feminist being nasty to a 'snowflake'. That's the magic of pictures - they can have more than one possible reading! This interesting thought has not occurred to many on the 'manosphere', who apply a lumpen version of objectivity to shout down feminism, or intersectionality.

The complexity of intersectionality is ill-served by the attempts to claim privilege through oppression. Recently, I have seen videos in which a white man has been told that if he believes 'black lives matter', he ought to kill himself. This is inevitably going to be retweeted by the people who don't like his movement, and make the entire campaign look like a rampant and racist attack on white people, rather than a recognition of the particular problem of black people being killed by the police in greater numbers, and for no reason. 

I have also seen a woman told that she cannot say that trans-women do not have the same life experiences as a cis-woman. Even though that statement has a good basis in reality (I don't like the word truth here...), her right to say it is rejected on the grounds of her gender. That would be sexism, then. 

The notion that oppression or bullying is only really racism if it is systemic - or at least supported by authority or culture - allows the idea that it is not oppression if it is done by an oppressed person. This has led to the public declarations by people who haven't even finished their degrees to say that they can't be oppressors, even if they do something that is oppressive. 

Here's the irony: many of the arguments about whether or not trans identity is respected (and yes, it should be) are not directed at the people who are in positions of control, but at individuals who are likely to be sympathetic if they weren't being told that they are oppressive, or don't have the right to an opinion. 

Meanwhile, the patriarchy is probably masturbating over videos of excluded groups trying to exclude each other. 

Why I am a Feminist, Yet...

I have been pondering whether to write a couple of articles about my current relationship with 'feminism'. I do struggle with some expressions of feminism, and have wanted to argue against them - but that does not mean that I am ready to abandon the ideal that have inspired me over the past couple of decades. Since it is International Women's Day, 2016, I thought I'd go with the reasons why I call myself a feminist, and come back to the particular difficulties later on the blog. 

I don't live in a world where the current value of a belief system is defined by the quality of Mad Max and Ghostbusters  reboots. I go to lectures by Cara Berger about Cixous, have access to fancy libraries and have enjoyed feminist theory ever since I stumbled upon Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves as a Classics undergraduate. This makes me disconnected from the mainstream, and probably pretentious, but that is consistent with my personality and not just my feminist ambitions.

I'm currently reading Undressed for Success, in which Brenda Foley examines how prohibitions on the presentation of the female body manifest social anxiety about female sexuality. The genius of her argument is to take both burlesque strippers (American variety) and beauty pageants as examples of how this anxiety is expressed.

I came to the book hoping for a defence of striptease, but also got a challenge. While the conclusion offers no conclusions about how future legislation ought to work (for both media), it reveals how the attitudes towards them are implicitly patriarchal.

There are feminists who like porn: there are those who hate.
Some feminists are separatists, and others who ain't.
Some fight for sex-work while this  group aren't so keen.
Whatever you're discussing, there's a feminist meme.
If you're having male problems, I feel bad for you, son.
But I've got ninety-nine problems, and feminism ain't one.

This follows on from the previous point, but is worth its own moment. The habit of MRAs to identify 'feminists' as a monolithic group is a deliberate misreading. Other phrases, like Social Justice Warrior, attempt to reduce the pluralism of feminism to an easily mocked stereotype (notice how they go after the easy targets, like YouTube videos). Having a debate is a good idea, but maybe an effort to take down bell hooks might be more difficult if, like, they actually spoke to her and not the MTV version. 

When I'm not just irritated by MRAs, I marvel at their desire to only debate with populist feminists, and not the serious academics. If they think men are more clever, why not try out their dialectic on a proper scholar?

The Fringe Mansplained!

I have a very strict rule when talking about feminism: it always has to have an adjective. Saying a work is 'feminist' is both too simple and too complicated.

It's simple because it reduces feminism to a monolithic block of thought. It's complicated because it fails to open up conversations about what that description actually means.

So, as a reminder of how great patriarchy is, I am going to list a performance feminist top five... and label each show with an adjective to say what kind of feminism it represents. 

Before I go on: if you want to read proper feminist blog...

First up: Smooth Faced Gentlemen

I dig this company because their name sounds like a hip hop crew. They do all-female versions of Shakespeare. This year they have Titus  and Othello. Some genius on The List has lumped them in with some other female companies - he's such a lazy writer - but what feminism are they?

Well, turns out this is hard. A single adjective is not enough. 

The feminism that looks at gender by switching male to female and vice versa, and seeing what happens. 

Experimental Feminism.

Moving swiftly on: Desiree Burch

It is unlikely that I am going to shut up about Tar Baby in the next three years. I have a total art crush on Burch, and my interview with her has me being schooled by her. I usually worry about the USA's cultural imperialism but I want her to stay in Scotland forever and preach.

The feminism that recognises the intersectionality of race and gender and challenges cultural norms.

Dynamic Feminism.

The next show: Pole

This show deserves props not just for messing with expectations of what a midnight pole-dance show can be, but also for their support of Eaves Charity. They have not just taken the words of dancers and used him to get a theatrical thrill... they are helping fight trafficking of women.

The feminism that is ready to put money where its mouth is.

Activist Feminism.

The Penultimate: Fiona Soe Paing

Is a work a priore feminist because a woman made it? Or is feminism is the moment of connection between audience and art? Or am I making a list of cool stuff by women and using 'feminism' as a tag to link them? I have a slight obsession with the wooden doll that is the image of this show... but a woman in the macho world of electronic music is worth celebrating, especially when they never get booked at festivals.


The feminism that works in a medium dominated by men.

Subversive Feminism.

And finally: Diane Torr

I saw Donald...  at Buzzcut. Wait for the finale if you fancy seeing a layered male to female to female to male... she makes it complicated... so Diane does Donald doing Dusty. She also does Man for A Day workshops, with gives context to the show (as the show gives context to her remarkable career).

The feminism that messes with strict gender identities, reminding that it is all performed.

Torr Feminism.

There we go, Ladies. Feminism explained. I don't know what the fuss was about...

Anti-Feminism Time.

The best thing about living in the twentieth first century, an age in which metaphysics are dead, ethics have got a headache and reasoned argument is locked in the toilet, is that slogans have replaced thinking. Saying some shit is the same as having considered it. 

I don't actually know who Chrissy Teigen is, but some article said that this was an example of a 'woman's voice more powerful than her body'.

Actually, that's not feminism she is describing. It's Conservative party policy since they won a majority at the election. A feminism without a sense of morality? Her definition does not even include any mention of the many forms of gender identity. Messed up, indeed.

Only fair to include some kind of anti-feminist slogan to mock. I love the way that this contrasts a pin-up image with a series of slurs against feminists... although if they did hate men, the designer of this particular meme might ponder whether the message of hate here could justify that rage?

Also, hairy legs are a personal choice.

It's a classic, but there has to be space for the reverend Pat's classic definition. He probably started up the 'messed up definitions'. Here, he confuses feminism with... communist satanism. 

I admit that I wanted to mock the former leader of The Labour Party for this act of bad faith: he is, after all, wearing a t-shirt rather than addressing the issue of gender equality in a meaningful manner. But this seems a fairer way to present him, especially after he lost the election.

I do find this meme funny on all sorts of levels. 

I just remembered that I said I wouldn't say 'feminism' without a qualifying adjective... so this has been bought to you by a Cixous inspired feminist.

Women in Theatre

This is not what a feminist looks like.

During the 1990s, I made a considerable effort to understand feminism. Jane Graham told me that men couldn't really be feminists (perhaps because they don't experience the embodied misery of mundane sexism), but I am, at least, sympathetic to what I understand to be feminism's intention. 

I read both Andrea Dworkin and Camille Paglia, Faludi's Backlash (and then Stiffed), engaged in conversations with feminist friends and supported anything that aimed to end systemic oppression. It got a bit difficult in the twenty-first century: things like the Slut Walk are more complicated than demands for equal pay and status, in their analysis of women's rights. 

But I still believe that certain manifestations of feminist thought - say, the domestic violence legislation developed in Scotland over the past decade, or support for Glasgow Women's Library or Crisis Centres - are an important part of shaping a compassionate and egalitarian society.

Of course, the deep culture that I pretended towards in the 1990s has shifted, and I am looking for new feminist role-models. As a student, I had all the great feminist academics who deconstructed Ancient Greek Drama. But the climate has changed, so I cast around to find the modern face of feminism.

It's Bill Bailey! Some people think I take sartorial advice from him, so he is a good start. I like his comedy music routines - especially when he does The Wurzels - and didn't he do a populist classical music series? I think they are great, because I can steal half-baked ideas from them...

But I haven't noticed a real feminist edge to his actual art.


Maybe the world of politics will provide me with more philosophical examples. In the 1980s, Dworkin and MacKinnon campaigned for anti-pornography legislation. They were part of the system and had an uncompromising stance (even if I found if problematic).



It's Nick Clegg! He's got the t-shirt. He's what a feminist looks like! 

A feminist looks like a man who makes a bold promise and then goes back on it once he has got what he wanted! He's the kind of guy who will destroy the optimism of a generation of students just so he doesn't look bad in front of his mates from the better private school! He's a sell-out, a political coward who failed to do what the population asked of him: to keep a tight reign on the Tories while punishing New Labour for their various compromises!

It's Ed! He must be a feminist, he is wearing the expensive t-shirt which was made in a sweatshop (according to The Mail).

A feminist looks like a man who is unpopular with the nation, who is headed a group that has so compromised its values that a traditional stronghold, Scotland, is so pissed off that they are joining The Greens in record numbers. 

Maybe it means that feminists have high foreheads? I mean, isn't 'what a feminist looks like' a campaign to show how a feminist can be anyone, but this is prescriptive, and going for celebrities rather than people who, like, actually, do feminist stuff.


This is what a feminist looks like.

Read the article. There may be some details that are challenging, or the philosophical underpinning might be problematic for some. 

I guess she just doesn't need to have a t-shirt and make a vague gesture in place of positive action. 

Feminist Theatre in The Glasgow School XXIII (part 2: a case study part 1))

It ought to be easy to define feminist theatre. Unfortunately, it consists of two words whose meanings evaporate under scrutiny. Theatre seems obvious - it's that thing with actors, isn't it? But Song of The Goat presented Return to the Voice during the Fringe, and critics said it wasn't theatre but a musical concert. A Band Called Quinn reworked Biding Time and it was half gig, half scripted drama (with plenty of video footage). The borders are porous, and much of my time as a critic is spent wondering whether I can claim Klanghaus as Live Art. 

Leaving theatre out of it, let's get to feminism. In Feminism Amplified , Kim France struggles with the paradox that PJ Harvey, rock diva who writes songs like Dress which nails the tyranny of female fashion, can deny feminism, while a Miss World contestant espouses it. The arguments around sex work - exemplified in Sister - often clash over whether feminism is about destroying exploitation or supporting self-determination. My insistence that Betty Grumble is a feminist dancer who shatters gender polarisation is mocked because she uses nudity in her routines. Feminism has been a broad church since the 1990s, when Camille Paglia claimed her feminism to defend pornography and Andrea Dworkin wrote feminist diatribes against it.

Ontroerend Goed - usually good for a scandal - presented Sirens at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe. On the surface, it seems obviously feminist. The cast is all female, the subject matter ranges from beauty products through to fear of the lone male following a woman, via fantasias on pornography, fantasy and scientific exploitation. 

But Matt Truemann has a question.

So what is Sirens? Is it a feminist action, designed to effect change in its audience and beyond? Or is it a portrait of a feminist movement: a kind of theatrical readymade testifying to the ideas and concerns of those onstage? I suspect, both at once.

Apart from the rhetorical flourish, Truemann's point is simple: is this performance merely a passive litany of complaints, or is it trying to goad the patriarchy to change? Truemann continues, questioning the company's right to make such statements.

There’s still a problem of process here though: Ontroerend Goed, a male-dominated company, determine how we should see these young women and Sirens doesn’t admit or unpick the power structures that have, however indirectly or inadvertently, shaped it as a piece. At some level, we need to know who decided how these six women should be costumed, for example, and how that decision was reached?

By moving into a deeper level of construction, Truemann makes a valuable point (although if he read the programme, he might have known that the words, at least, were those of the women on stage). The content of a performance does not necessarily make the performance political. Like a good Marxist, he is concerned about the superstructure. It's like Simon Frith says about Bruce Springsteen (The Real Thing - Bruce Springsteen): he might sing about being an ordinary guy, but he is, in fact, a multimillionaire wearing old jeans.

There is less doubt in Joyce McMillan's review for The Scotsman.

Six young female performers, dressed in gorgeous ball gowns and standing at music-stands, examine their own attitudes to feminism, more than 40 years on from Germaine Greer’s Female Eunuch.

This is where I start to doubt. There is no mention of The Female Eunuch, or feminist writing. There is a list of female celebrities (mostly called skanks, or something equally insulting) and, as McMillan continues:

There are glimpses of male sexuality at its most gross (with accompanying porn video), of the kind of everyday sexism and brutal misogynistic “humour” women still endure, and of the struggle of this generation of young women to square their sexual needs and fantasies – which may include graphic Fifty Shades-style fantasies of submission and abuse – with their sense of themselves as the absolute equals of men.

All of these are matters of concern to feminism, but in themselves do not have an intrinsic feminist message. Fifty Shades, The Musical Parody addresses the relationship of women to dirty fantasy, but it isn't being called a feminist musical. 

It is in the sequence of 'brutal misogynistic humour' that the feminism is most evident. Told in a deadpan, a series of jokes highlight how laughter can be a tool of oppression. (Interestingly, this exact technique was used in two other shows at the Fringe: Milk Presents Self-Service and Polska at Dance Base. Mocking sexist jokes is pretty easy). 

Although I agree with McMillan's analysis, I'd argue that the women are not talking about their attitude towards feminism, but their attitude towards the patriarchy. It is a subtle difference, but feminism is not put under scrutiny - as Matt Truemann suggests the superstructure ought to be examined.  

Lysistrata @ C: Team Review part 2 (On Gender stuff)

also, the gender-swapping and the whole 'no prick' thing seems to contradict itself.

The main actor playing Lysistrata- first of all, she was good. Held it together playing a part that was badly written.

aye, this is true, but only for a while.

You mean it fell apart at the end?

aye. It sort of feels like the writer just went "how could this end?" and killed off the character, and the same happened with the acting cause they tried to put in too much.

like the scene where she had the mother character putting black paint on in some type of dream sequence... it slowed down the action enough to make obvious the artifice of theatre (as Brecht would say?) but it didn't seem to do much for the story

That brings me to the big question: why did she get her kit off twice?

good question... first time is actually in the source material, I think, but in a different way

She did a lap dance in some nice red undies and then was stripped by her enemies before being blown up in the Acropolis.

in Aristophanes' version, the men get turned on by watching the women bathe and stuff - I'm guessing that's what the first one was supposed to be a nod to

I'm not sure about the second one...

When we are saying Aristophanes was more subtle, we are in trouble...

well, he wasn't

hehehe

He was: he used words to imply the attraction. He didn't just have the heroine get her flesh out...

well, yes, but he didn't have films or theatre that would let him do that without losing his audience

after all, there was no violence on stage back then... maybe there was no nudity either?

although he seemed to love phallic objects.

He did... but I saw that lap dancing scene as unnecessary to the plot and working a theme not revealed elsewhere. It is proper exploitation.

aye, it could have been cut out completely.

Indeed. And she did not need to be in the black shreddies when she was blown up.

aye, this is true.

so are you saying that for a show that is about women taking control of their bodies, it contradicts itself?

Let's talk about the speech she makes as well: the passionate one about rape culture... which came from nowhere...

yeah, I thought that was going to lead to an actual rape scene, which would have made stripping her at the end more logical...

The prologue, with the male lap dance, fits in with the other vision of feminism, where women indulge raunchy culture for fun...

Dear God, I hadn't thought of that. It gets worse...

yeah but it does seem to explore all variations of feminism - the view that both men and women can work towards equality, the anti-men arguments, and the male rights activists...

I don't think a play can complain about rape culture while adding to the objectification of women without be hypocritical

although it still struggles with the TERF - trans*exclusive radical feminists - since they are yelling 'no more prick', which is kinda body essentialist

Aha! Another problem I missed...

that's why you called me in, no?

yes