#marvel sexism

[salarta]

Now that I've been banned over a tame joke on CBR, I might be making more posts over here on Tumblr. This is one such post.

I usually, deliberately, do not post stuff about the current X-Factor book. Why? Because it's trash. And the current X-Men senior editor, Tom Brevoort, has previously said that he thinks being a colossal asshole is "good for business" because it gets people talking.

Of course, that's just him trying to make excuses for being an asshole, just like he tried to make excuses for why Polaris "couldn't" be Magneto's daughter. But I digress.

The reason I'm bringing it up now, though, is pretty simple.

He fucked up. Hard. And not only does he know it, but he's trying to change the subject away from his fuckup.

This past Wednesday, Marvel released X-Factor #2. If you're going to read it, do so by pirating. Or not at all. Because any purchase for any reason gives the false impression that they should keep doing what they're doing.

In this week's issue, the "Polaris" in the story wasn't just bad. Wasn't just 90s nostalgia bad. It was the most blatant display of nostalgia for regressive sexism toward Lorna in decades. It was bad enough that it would've skated on thin ice even before Lorna surviving the Genoshan genocide.

The basic summary of all I've seen is this.

Story forces Havok x Polaris trash just because of nostalgia. Lorna acts all submissive and needy around Havok, like she desperately wants his approval and involvement in her life. Havok comes with her to a Mutant Underground meeting, but only to spy on them, and Lorna somehow (brain worms tiem) doesn't notice he's wearing a button cam. Despite, you know. Her powers.

For some reason, and by some reason I mean "nostalgia for an attitude that Lorna is a nobody character," Lorna is just a rando in the Mutant Underground surrounded by other randos. Even though she's a survivor of the Genoshan genocide, and had trashed Orchis' space station basically days prior in comics time, she's treated as just a random nobody in the group. And when Mutant Underground realized Havok was wearing a camera, they took Lorna hostage - without a fight from her - with implication that they might kill her due to his actions.

.............

If you're wondering how it makes sense, it doesn't. This isn't Lorna. It's Brevoort's shitty fanfic idea of Lorna as a nobody character whose only value is to promote his favorite straight cis Aryan male, Havok.

Obviously, because we're not living in the sexist late 60s and 70s, this treatment of her has been universally panned. Even by people who want to support the book. The few people trying to defend it, do so under the guise of "lol it's a parody so it's perfectly fine," but that shit's been getting shut down fast by pointing out that parody isn't an excuse for some things. Like this.

This is where the biggest reason for my post comes in.

Yesterday, literally one day after releasing X-Factor #2, Marvel used their favorite sycophant fan site to release an "exclusive preview" of X-Factor #3... a whole ass month in advance. Unlike the last two previews that emphasized Havolaris shit, this preview didn't include the Havolaris shit. It focused on Havok and Friends.

Anyone who can read between the lines on this stuff can recognize what it means when a company rushes to release brand new teaser stuff for the next issue immediately after releasing the current one. From a marketing and buzz standpoint, if your work doesn't suck, you want to give audiences time to digest. You want them to think it through, build it up with word of mouth, convince other people to buy into the book and be on the lookout for new things before you put out a teaser. And you wait until later to publish the teaser so it's fresh in minds to go out and buy it.

Rushing out the next preview means they're desperate to change the subject with what's on hand. They can't radically change the next issue (maybe the next few) in response to criticism and complaints because they're too far along in the publishing pipeline.

They, especially Brevoort, also don't want to admit they made a mistake. Because at the end of the day? Treating Lorna like shit off of sexist nostalgia is what they want. They want people to accept it and let it pass, because they think that unlike Storm, Jean Grey, Emma Frost, etc, that they can get away with being sexist fucks about how they depict Lorna.

So with changing the next issues not an option, and offering up an apology and admitting any kind of fault isn't an option, there's only one real recourse they have.

Releasing shit stupid early and hoping people will change the subject so they can get away with the sexism.

The current X-Factor book is shit. It's based heavily on one man's sexist fantasies for a time decades too old for today. Keep that in mind when you see this stuff.

For my money's worth, this isn't even Lorna. I refuse to recognize this character as being Lorna, because it's blatant that the intent behind it isn't to acknowledge Lorna or her fandom and do right by the character. There's no actual Lorna in this. Therefore it's not Lorna. If you're jonesing for a Lorna fix, read a fanfic, because fanfics are more accurate than what Marvel's publishing.

[rhfffas]

incels trolling the marvels and trying to be objective with “the plot is bad”, DUDE, you’re watching marvel movies where captain america tried to choke a robot and iron man tried to fix ai apocalypse with another ai and hulk can only turn green when hes man paining and thor caused war just because his own stupidity and old man hawkeye can’t deal with grief so turn into a killer for hire

BUT YOU ARE TELLING ME WOMEN SAVING THE UNIVERSE IS BAD?????????

your misogyny is fucking showing

[divorce-quartet-memes]

pov i'm trying to read mcyt fanfiction

[velvet4510]

A Rant About the Writing of Jean Grey in the Fox X-Men Movies

Is it just me or is Jean Grey’s entire characterization and storyline in the Fox films unbelievably sexist? I’m just so appalled by it. I have no idea if this is a hot take - I’m brand new to these films, and am totally unfamiliar with the comics - but I really can’t see this as anything other than misogynistic writing.

Between the idea that “woman can’t control her own power” and “woman who two guys are fighting over” … both of those are such dated and regressive concepts but for Jean Grey to embody BOTH of them … and literally NOTHING else? She has ZERO character development outside of these two traits. We don’t explore her friendships with Storm or Rogue or any of the other female mutants. We don’t explore her feelings toward humans, if she entirely agrees with Xavier or if she’s ever curious about Magneto’s view. We don’t get any understanding of her own wants and needs. She ONLY exists to cause pain to all the male characters.

We’re supposed to sob at the end of X2 because all the men are sad. But we are given no reason to care about her for who she is as an individual - only for her ability to make men sad.

Then after it turns out she’s alive in TLS, she goes full-on villain. No psychological complexity, no moral struggles. Just villain. Oh, no, too much power for woman!! Woman can’t possibly control a force like this!! Man must kill her - must kill the love of his life, oh, no, what a tragedy!!! There’s no hope for her; the only way is to kill her.

Then after her death, she is not framed by the narrative in memory as a great X-Man, or as a fallen hero. She is framed as the lost love of a man who she didn’t even love in return. The power that she couldn’t control caused her to kill the man she really did love - Scott - but all the remaining films frame her as no more than the source of Logan’s torment and manpain.

Even when she returns at the end of DOFP, the joy comes from Logan finally getting a second chance at resuming his rivalry with Scott over her.

I haven’t even seen Apocalypse or DP - and I don’t want to - but I already know that those films only make the exact same mistakes all over again!

I guess I should blame the comics for coming up with this BS in the first place, but the movies didn’t even try to improve upon it.

Jean Grey is the most poorly written female superhero film character I’ve ever seen.

[salarta]

The irony of this while Polaris was punished for daring to be more feminist (for her time) than other Marvel women by immediately being turned into Havok's damsel-in-distress supporting character girlfriend. And then Marvel continuing to stick by this poor treatment for decades, up to and including the present, where the current X-Men office still insists on not giving Lorna her due on anything.

Why? Because they don't want to question their negative impressions of her that were built on decades of sexist depictions of her.

Marvel, where progress is only allowed if the character is a household name, otherwise they just go "fuck her" and continue to be sexist as fuck.

Marvel’s Voices: Infinity Comic #45 (2023)

written by Andrew Wheeler art by Carola Borelli & Brittany Peer

[fixing-bad-comic-art]

Gave her thicker limbs and more realistic proportions; fixed up her costume so it doesn’t look painted on; gave her some actual shoes instead of whatever footie-pajama thing she had going on (campbell does that often); and tried to make her facial expression slightly more serious and not so cookie-cutter.

submitted by @the-beacons-of-minas-tirith

[wintersangelic]

female character: "hey i'm a strong, well-written character."

male 'fans': "okay, you're weak and useless though because you experience human emotion."

female character: "no i mean it. i'm not only the most powerful species in my source, i'm also a goddess and the literal incarnation of life energy itself. i canonically devour entire planets like they were popcorn kernels. i can explode the universe just by thinking about it. i also have more emotional complexity in my left foot than you do in your entire body."

male 'fans': *proceeds to reduce female character to 'weak'/'useless' for having any emotions or flaws*

male 'fans': "why don't we have any strong, well-written female characters?"

[rei-ismyname]

The O5 X-Men being fucking creeps

Look at them, like the little rascals peeping through the hole in a change room. Iceman, Beast and Angel leering at Jean while Cyclops angsts about POWER BEAMS FROM HIS EYES. Unsurprisingly, this is written as normal and acceptable behaviour. I don't really truck with 'attitude of the time' BS - Stan Lee sucked at writing women.

I do wanna hear what Christian Dior thinks about that design though.

[atlasscrumpit]

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Don't Be So Blind

(dealing with sexism and SA) 

You came back from a press meeting and sat on the couch, placing your head on your hands.

"Doll, it's okay. These things don't always go to plan. I get hate all the time." He said as you groaned and looked at him.

"You get hate because you killed people, I get hate because I was born with a fucking vagina. I am so sick of this." You grumbled as Bucky sat beside you.

"You don't get it... I know you would always do your best to understand it, but you can't understand what I have to go through. With Nat it's different you know? Well for starters she doesn't have a period cause she has no uterus but she's pretty and sexy so no one bothers her. But, me... I'm not like that so people always have something to say about it." You muttered as Bucky gently rubbed your back.

"I think I get four days a month where I'm okay, and that is it. It's always ovulation, or periods or bloating, pain, bleeding, moods, hormones... There is so much I have to fucking deal with. Yet, I still do all the same training and missions as all of you guys. Everything is so much fucking harder for women, and what do we get? Hate and sexism. Sometimes I don't blame Wanda for going evil." You muttered as Bucky looked at you in shock.

"Y/N, don't say stuff like that." He said as you chuckled dryly.

"Can you fucking blame her? You killed so many people! And you got let off with a fucking slap on the wrist. Wanda controlled a few people and they wanted to burn her at the fucking stake!" You shouted as you stood up and began to pace.

"Buck, I get it, okay? You've been through hell, with Hydra and everything. You were hated because of something you did, but I am hated because I was born. I just need to fucking get this out because I am so sick of it!" You shouted, grabbing a vase and throwing it a wall.

"The constant comments from people, fucking kills me." You grumbled, sitting back down.

"You just need to not listen to it." He said as you laughed and shook your head.

"Buck, I've been fucking try to not listen since I was three years old. The first time someone fucking sexualised me." You replied, harshly.

"I get that it's hard, Y/N. But, it's hard for all of us. I mean, Peggy rose through the ranks and she never had episodes like this." He said as you slowly turned to face him.

"Because she would've been fucking fired, or killed, or fucking raped if she spoke up. Sometimes I forget when you were fucking born." You growl standing up before Bucky grabbed your wrist.

"You know I've been sexually abused too? It's not just women." He said before you slapped him hard across the face.

"Shut the fuck up! Oh my god, Bucky. I fucking know okay? And I am here for you one hundred percent, but the only time you bring up your assault is to fucking silence me! The only time you bring it up is when I talk about sexism. I'm sick of it, just leave me alone before I fucking stab you." You growled storming away and getting in the elevator.

Steve entered and looked at Bucky.

"I heard some of that..." Steve muttered as Bucky kicked the coffee table in anger.

"She's fucking infuriating!" Bucky said before he sat down.

Steve sighed and sat across from him.

"Bucky, Y/N sat down, upset and tried to explain how she felt and you basically invalidated her and told her she shouldn't be upset. How is that supposed to be good for her?" Steve asked as Bucky looked at him, still seething.

"Women were never like this, back in the day. They were fine, happy even." Bucky said making Steve groan and rub his head.

"Bucky... You need to take off the rose coloured glasses. The time we lived in was horrible. I saw first hand what Peggy went through. The countless abuses and assaults. I saw what my mother went through. Buck, they didn't have a choice and if they dared speak up their entire life was ruined. When Y/N talks about this stuff she isn't blaming you for being a man, she is asking for understanding and maybe some protection." Steve explained as Bucky sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

"Have I really been that blind?" Bucky muttered as Steve chuckled softly.

"Yeah, Buck. You've been very blind to all of this. We all get paid from Shield to keep up this superhero work, Y/N and Natasha were getting a lot less then all of us. And they still do from shield, but Tony uses his own money to close that gap. Did you know Natasha tried to make super hero suits specifically designed for women's bodies and shield said no? Do you even see what happens at these press meetings? Did you see the man grope Y/N? Did you hear the man who called her a slut?" He asked as Bucky looked at him in confusion.

"What...? Did that happen?" He asked making Steve sigh and shake his head.

"Yes, Bucky it happens all the time. The public barely accepts Sam as a superhero because he isn't white. There is a lot of work to do and you need to help." Steve said as Bucky nodded a little.

"Fucking hell... I've been such a dumbass." He grumbled before he got up to chase after you.

He found you up on the roof crying, you turned around and shook your head.

"Just fucking leave me alone." You muttered through your tears as Bucky gently hugged you.

"Fuck, I am so sorry Y/N. Steve spoke to me and I saw it from another perspective. I haven't even noticed the stuff you go through, I'm such an idiot." He whispered as you slowly cuddled into him.

"I've been really fucking blind, doll. And I am so sorry. I'm kind of glad I was blind at the meeting today otherwise I would've killed every man in there." He joked as you laughed softly.

"I want to learn about all of this. I'll do my best to understand it all, okay?" He said as you nodded a little.

"I just want you on my side." You whispered in response as he kissed your forehead.

"I'll always be on your side, I just need to do a better job."

[imjustasmalltowngirl]

“We need more emotionally complex female characters!” y’all couldn’t even handle captain marvel, Woman Who Smiles Less

[andstuffsketches]

I'm really enjoying all the super hero art you've been sharing with us! I'm not as into superheroes lately but I get excited everytime I see your posts of them. I hope you're having loads of fun! Take care 😻

Thanks!! I'm glad you like the art! I've always loved superheroes but had hardly ever read any DC stuff, so it's been fun to get into!

[salarta]

Havok's Inadequacy For Polaris Post-Genosha

I was just listening to I Want Love from Silent Hill (as sung by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn), and I had a very sudden revelation.

See, I've always figured that the biggest reason why Marvel pretends Lorna has no connection at all to Genosha, even though she's a survivor of the genocide and had a whole story arc dedicated to her working through the trauma, came down only to wanting to repeat the past. They don't like or respect Lorna, and they don't want her to be able to move forward as a character. They want her trapped into their nostalgia bubble for the 90s or earlier, in which they consider the sexism of it all to be a feature rather than a bug.

I realized something as I listened to that song though.

Polaris being a survivor of the Genoshan genocide requires that she have a partner capable of understanding how it affected her. It requires that whoever she's with know and respect the trauma she experienced, and how that trauma shaped and shapes her. It needs to be someone who can be emotionally available for her AND have her interests at heart, even if they themselves don't agree with all of what she's doing and where she's going.

Havok is not that man.

The weight of millions of deaths, the responsibility to act and fight for mutants, the horror of the lived experience still affecting Polaris? Those are all things Havok is not equipped to deal with.

Havok is a character who's regularly depicted with an inferiority complex. And as someone who would prefer to pretend he's a human who just so happens to have powers, rather than a mutant who is part of a culture that's discriminated against for how they get those powers.

A whole lot of his narrative is "me me me." Me, who wants to get out of the X-Men and live a civilian life. Me, who insists on not being called a mutant. Me, who will go have sex with a different woman every decade but expect Lorna to keep her vagina warm for me whenever I want her again. Me, who expects Lorna to support my desires and interests, and who I feel comfortable insisting that she believes in Xavier's dream more than Xavier cause she just has to fit my personal mental image of her.

The character as Marvel typically handles him is very selfish and dismissive of others' problems beyond how they make him look or what he won't be able to have because of them.

That's the very opposite of who Lorna was after Genosha, and where she should be with that in mind.

At the end of the day, Havok is not equipped to see Polaris as a person.

That leaves people working at Marvel with few options. Either rethink Havok and have him change as a character, set Lorna free of his bullshit, or just wipe out entire swaths of Polaris' identity just to make sure she can be forced into this mold that accommodates Havok.

Marvel doesn't want to do the first two. So they do the last one.

Cause at the end of the day, they cherish the sexism required to make their nostalgia and regression possible.

That's the hard truth. The Havok that Marvel wants is not compatible with the Polaris that SHOULD be depicted in official work. And their answer to that is ruining Polaris and wiping out everything that allows her to be her own character instead of doing the right thing.

[rhfffas]

and this is so slay for her🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

(x)

[allwomenjointhe4bmovement]

Show/movie fandoms when the villain is a man:😍🥵😫

Show/movie fandoms when the villain is a woman: ....🙄

[slightlycomicobsessed]

okay minor rant but it seriously grinds my gears the way that dani was written off/out of the original new mutants run. like i don’t think I’d be this pissed about it if anyone bothered to actually write about what she was doing in asgard instead shunting her to the side in favour of the x-force characters and then bringing her back to Earth as a double-agent working for the MLF, saying that she “fell from asgard” but also refusing to explain how????

also, dani goes and suddenly is working for SHIELD but literally no one explains how the hell that happened??

like wtf marvel get your shit together and write her a solo instead of giving wolverine or scott their 636833728 comic run. please

[evilwickedme]

It's very frustrating to talk about fridging bc the original point of it was like a very specific criticism of how minorities are treated in comic books in particular and it's now been universalized so much people think it means "killing a woman off because she's a woman" or "killing any character to motivate another character" (the definition according to tvtropes fyi, kill it with fire kill kill kill kill). Fridging isn't bad because you're killing a character as motivation, and it's not bad because you're killing a minority off, it's bad because it's a pattern of behavior from an industry overrun by white men writing and drawing and editing those stories. You're allowed to kill a woman off if it suits your story, but the issue was that women are constantly getting hurt or depowered or raped or killed off to motivate other, non-coincidentally male characters.

The problem that stood behind the original women in refrigerators website was that the narrative that the comic book industry at large was telling was that the purpose of female characters was to get hurt in order to motivate some other guy. Kyle Rayner's girlfriend gets stuffed in a fridge, we're not sad because her life got taken from her too soon, we're sad because Kyle Rayner just lost his girlfriend. Gwen Stacy gets killed by the Green Goblin, we're not sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life, we're sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life with Peter Parker. That is not to say that the story doesn't still get told. Peter going after the Green Goblin is horrific and terrible and amazing and leads to some great plot and character development. But the choice was not to hurt Peter himself, not even to threaten his loved ones but not actually harm them, the choice - CHOICE! - the writers in the comic book industry consistently made was to hurt a character who was already part of a marginalized group, and to do that for the benefit of a (presumably) white male cishet able bodied main character's narrative.

I speak mostly in past tense because once fridging took hold in the collective popular consciousness it didn't disappear completely, but it did fall out of favor in being used so blatantly. It became isolated cases rather than the main feature of one of the best selling batman books of all time. Characters get killed off occasionally, and those characters are even sometimes members of minority groups, and biases still inform those writing choices, but I'm struggling to remember reading a comic in the last couple of years that specifically fulfills the criteria for fridging.

Anyway if you're reading this in context, you know that at the end of this month (may 2023) Marvel is planning to celebrate the most famous fridging of all time by absolutely not learning their lesson and fridging another character. They're being lazy about it, too - they've decided to do it to Kamala Khan in Peter Parker's book, two characters that mean close to nothing to each other, and being extra awful by making it a Pakistani Muslim woman being killed off during AAPI month, and so far the information we have doesn't even involve Kamala's own friends and family and superhero team mourning her at all. It's supposed to motivate Peter, because it's part of his book, and it's also supposed to parallel Gwen Stacy, and they chose to do... This. Kamala is a wildly popular and beloved character who deserves better, and frankly Peter deserves better too. If you're going to fridge, at least do it well.

But I'm also already seeing white men, who supposedly agree with me and think this is bad, saying, well it's for MCU synergy, not "because she's a female" or "because she's not a white character" (direct quotes don't @ me). And firstly, ok, way to assume the rest of us didn't also catch up to the obvious conclusion that marvel comics is doing MCU synergy, AGAIN. The thing is that those aren't separate concepts at all? Or well, they are, but they don't negate each other. They're trying to do MCU synergy and make Kamala into a mutant, but they could've done that a million other ways, just as cheap and not as offensive - a simple retcon would've sufficed, they just did that a few years ago with Franklin Richards.

They chose to do it by killing her off, and they chose to kill her off in somebody else's book to motivate him rather than tell a story about her, and they chose to do it while celebrating Gwen's fridging for some fucking reason. This is context that, when removed from the situation, makes the whole thing meaningless. And you can say a lot about Gail Simone, but that she didn't have a Goddamn point is not one of them.