Install this theme

Posts tagged: women in refrigerators

KATE

mattfractionblog:

So I was driving home and something occurred to me that I want to write about real fast, because i am apparently incapable of experiencing moments of learning and NOT sharing it here. 

I have been, over time, fond of making jokes about Kieron Gillen killing off Kate Bishop. To me, it’s a joke about cavalierly spoiling another writer’s work and filling that writer’s inbox up with concerned emails and asks. I do this because I love Kieron. He’s one of my dearest friends in comics and out and I am on any given day at any given time in awe of something he’s said or written somewhere. And because Actually Feeling Stuff is hard this is how I show affection. Or at least it was. 
For whatever reason I was chewing it over in my head and I started to feel like Lucy with the football. I dunno about you or who you are or what you like but I don’t like feeling like Lucy with the football. 
It doesn’t matter what I thought the joke was, it occurs to me that because Kate is Kate and not, say, Karl, it occurs to me that there’s another angle from which to view that joke from that makes it seem… well, mean-spirited.  Because this is a thing that comics does to Kates.  Frequently.  
Which, uh, which is bullshit.  And I’m sorry for not sensing that sooner. 
So I’m not going to make that joke any more.  And I promise nobody’s gonna off Kate so Clint can feel bad about it and do what needs to be done
Not right now, I mean.  Not while she’s carrying that baby.
KIDDING! KIDDING!
Okay, that was the last joke like that. I promise.  

For those who don’t know, Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye (not to be confused with Clint Barton aka Hawkeye aka Hawkguy) has been featured pretty prominently in two popular marvel titles. One of them is Hawkeye which Matt Fraction (the OP) writes, which is about Kate and Clint being Hawkeye and what that title and role means (and also about pizza dogs and adorable things) and the other is Young Avengers, written by Kieron Gillen, which is about a group of young super heroes (and gay love).

What Mr. Fraction is saying here that is so awesome and so wonderfully insightful into the medium he is writing in, is that the jokes he makes about Kate being killed off in the other series she is in are far too reminiscent of a real problem in comics - the killing off of women for the pain and motivation of men - as he puts it, “so Clint can feel bad about it and do what needs to be done.”

The next line is a lovely jab at both plot twists and conservative politics, because Mr. Fraction is a wonderful man.

Even if  death in Marvel comics doesn’t mean much, the idea that female characters, and the violence enacted on them are tools to further the plot of male characters is a problem, and it is one that Mr. Fraction clearly understands.

It just makes me really happy when people show awareness of the problematic tropes of their medium, and vow to work against them. Also of course that Kate will be around for a while longer.

grimesish:

killing of women for a man’s pain is so lazy though, like it’s the easiest “character development jump starter” out there.  it’s so formulaic.  the woman—a daughter, a sister, a lover—dies.  The man who loves her, be it her father or her brother or her husband or boyfriend, undergoes intense pain and radical change.  Boring.

Instead of killing women, let them live.  

Let Jennifer Blake survive Peter Hale and burn Beacon Hills down around them, forcing Derek to chose where his loyalties lie.  Let her grow even stronger among the magic in Beacon Hills and slaughter anyone who would dare take what’s hers.  

Let Andrea Harrison make it through Woodbury colder and harder and still stunningly compassionate; she won’t make the mistake of trusting a stranger again but she’ll also become a symbol, the woman who won a war with kindness and understanding rather than bullets.

Let Tara Knowles survive Gemma and fight again for her sons, and her husband, and her own life; force her husband to chose between his mother and the club that’s killed his fathers and his friends or his wife who will leave him and his sons.  Let Tara live and put her life back together; let her raise her boys right, to be good and proud and strong. 

Let Debra Parker outlive Joe Carroll and dismantle his cult by pieces; let her rescue the ones he’s taken and go out into the world and do it again and again and again.

Let Shmi Skywalker walk out of the desert unbroken; let her kindness save her son and spare the galaxy 25 years of darkness. 

Let Padme Amidala rise from the ashes of Mustafar; let her fight a war with as much strength and fervor as her fallen husband; let her raise her children to be good and just and true but to never forget where they came from; let her triumph over the Sith and see her Republic returned to her. 

Let Frigga slip past Malekith’s blade; let her see through Loki’s illusions and take her son in hand again; let her keep the nine realms safe and balanced through her wisdom and cleverness and magic.

Let Mary Winchester shove a magic knife through Azazel’s chest in their bedroom; let her drive away the hellhounds; let her raise her boys to normal, happy lives. 

Let all the women who are murdered for their crime-fighting husbands live; let them defeat their would-be killers and put their angsty husbands to same. 

Let all the superheroes’ girlfriends escape a villain’s revenge; let them dodge bullets and death rays and assassin’s knives; let them unmask those villains, let them talk those villains down, let them trample those villains to dust so they never, ever rise again. 

Stop cutting women into pieces for a man’s tears.  Stop hacking us apart to spur men into action.  Stop choking us, stop beating us, stop slitting our throats in our sleep. 

Be interesting.  Let the woman live.  Give her her own strengths and weaknesses and flaws and motivations instead of a knife in the back. 

Just think, how much more interesting is the story if the woman’s out on the battlefield instead of stuck inside the refrigerator?