Hey, kids!
So I’ve been really sick, which is why you got no 3 Chicks and no She Has No Head! today. But I hope to be back with a new column next week, and 3 Chicks will be back soon as well.
In the meantime, here are some things I did prior to getting sick (and while sick). Enjoy!
Last week for She Has No Head! I wrote about the Avengers and the superheroine movies I’d like to see now that Joss Whedon has shown me that superheroines can be done right on the big screen. I even casted them – what more could you want?
I also put up a detailed Joss Whedon piece on Lit Reactor last week called “Can Joss Whedon Save The Superheroine?”
If you have any interest in writing, catch up on my Long & Winding Road pieces over on Lit Reactor, because Part III goes up next week!
I also participated in a Wonder Woman Roundtable over at Hooded Utilitarian. There are some amazing pieces up there, and here’s mine (which is less amazing): Wonder Woman: It’s In Her DNA (although Adam correctly pointed out that I should have called it “Wonder Woman makes a nice foot cushion” I’m thinking of renaming my entire site that.
I only did two reviews for CBR last week thanks to illness but here they are in case you missed them:
Also, if you haven’t picked up Womanthology or Chicks Dig Comics yet (both of which I’m in!) then you should do that now. Greg Burgas has a nice review up of Womanthology…Greg doesn’t pull punches so you know he’s being straight with you. I’ve rarely been mentioned in the great reviews that have been coming in for Chicks Dig Comics, no real surprise there considering the company I’m in, but Tor.com mentioned my piece, which was an awesome moment.
I’m also WAY behind on Drunk Cover Solicits. But I should be able to do it this weekend…do not despair!
Also, I may be having some very cool original art to show you guys this week…so stay tuned.
Tags: comics!, she has no head!
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I love your reviews! i know at least one made me start to rethink Batwoman. I also have a overview comic review blog. but its not just comics but companies and tv and games (mostly tabletop when i can) if you can check it out and follow that would be awesome. ill be following you.
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Welcome back Kelly, your voice was missed!
As a financially-challenged (“brokeass”) comic fan and male feminist I’ve always enjoyed reading your take on the latest going-ons. Funny, candid intelligence is too often undervalued in critical analysis so your insights really hit the spot. I actually got pretty worried after you hadn’t posted anything for 2 weeks so it’s good to know you’re back among the living.
…well, if you can call talkin comics on the Interwebs living.
Keep it up! -
BTW, I posted my response to your superheroine casting column over on SHNH! but wanted to share it here as well. (the blog tends to a draw a more – progressive crowd) Hope you don’t mind the double post!
Yo Kelly, it WAS super encouraging to see Scarlett Johansson (in a skin-tight jumpsuit no less!) make it through the movie without becoming just the “token hot chick.” Like you said, if anyone could be trusted to pull it off it’s Whedon.
I debated whether it was worth joining the rank of nitpickin fanboys down here but there is one casting decision you made that I just gotta contest. As one of the few female characters with a disability in all of Comicdom and the only one with any prominence whatsoever, it’s simply not right for Barbara Gordon to be played by an able-bodied actress. The only reason I bring this up is because I think you might listen; dissecting media representation is what you do. Since this column’s a hypothetical, intellectual exercise intended to get people talking to begin with it seems like a good place to introduce another POV into the mix.
If it was decided that an actress with a disability would not play Oracle it would be virtually impossible for her to find a role in any other movie Marvel, DC or any other comic company brings to the big screen. Would anyone think of casting an actress who uses a wheelchair to play Wonder Woman? Ms. Marvel? Gert? Hell no. How about civillian, non-combatant characters like Lois Lane, Betty Brant or Karen Page? Never. Anyone who follows you online would agree that Comics would be better off if they reflected the diversity of the real world. If an actress with a disability was passed over to play Babs it’s a safe bet to say that there wouldn’t be ANY female characters with apparent disabilities in the entire combined canon of comic-book films. Is there really no room for an actress in a wheelchair in all of Comics? I sure hope that’s not the case.
So everyone can agree that there are very few characters with disabilities in Comics, especially female characters who kick ass. You yourself took care of addressing that by including Oracle in your hypothetical movieverse to begin with. So now let’s talk about casting.
When it comes to the acting world, as Thee6Mafia says, “It’s hard out here for a gimp.” The Screen Actors Guild, Actors’ Equity Association and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG, AEA & AFTRA, the three organizations that represent actors of stage, screen and radio) found in their annual report that “characters with disabilities will represent less than 1 percent of all scripted series regular characters—five characters out of 647—on the broadcast networks.”* Even worse? “In addition, only one of the five actors has a known disability.”* So 1 out of 647. Pretty dire for a group that makes up 12% of the population*. So while it’s bad enough that there are so few characters with disabilities to begin with, the fact that actors with disabilities are overwhelmingly passed over to PLAY these characters is even worse.
We’ve all seen how shamefully ugly message boards can get when it comes to diversity in comics. From Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin to “making” Northstar gay, people tend to go crazy over this stuff. For members of the disability community, the battle isn’t over just having more representation – it’s for the “privilege” of portraying THEMSELVES when those few and far between roles even come along. When an able-bodied actor is cast as a disabled character it’s often said that “acting is acting and the best actor got the job.” But funny how that hardly ever works the other way around; how often is an actor with a disability cast to play a character that was originally written as able-bodied?
All that said, actress Teal Sherer does a better job expressing the idea in this short video than I have in this massive post (and yes, she really is a paraplegic): http://youtu.be/ByApOU31cx8 I’d love to hear your thoughts.
*you can read the report and find out more about SAG, AEA and AFTRA’s efforts to increase representation of disability on their website, http://www.iampwd.org/home
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