This clip from one of the Special Features Documentaries for the new Wonder Woman 2-disc DVD or Blu-Ray features yours truly talking about the Amazon Princess!
The book itself won't available until late Summer/early Fall, but I will be sure to post publishing details, speaking engagements, reviews, and interviews both here on my blog and on Facebook.
In the meantime, here is some advance praise:
“Female heroes abound in literature, film and all walks of life, although most people don’t know that they do. Not surprising given how much they challenge the gender roles in which women and girls have historically been confined. This wonderful book shows female heroes breaking out of gender boxes left and right and illuminates new possibilities for the indomitable hero in all of us.”
"Once upon a time -- only a few years ago, actually -- women could turn on their TV sets and glory in the adventures of Buffy, Xena, Sydney Bristow, Dana Scully, and many more strong, ass-kicking women. Today there is not one show on the small screen that stars a female action hero. What happened? Comics are not much better. Aside from the occasional exception (for which we are grateful) like Birds of Prey, and women writers like Ivory Madison (The Huntress) and Gail Simone’s newly feminist interpretation of Wonder Woman, most comic book action heroines continue to be male-written and drawn creations whose breasts are bigger then their personalities.
Now along comes Jennifer Stuller, with her very entertaining book, Ink-Stained Amazons, to explore the whys and wherefores of pop culture super women, and perhaps jolt us all into demanding more and stronger women characters. Thank you, Jennifer. We need those role models!"
"The Humanization of Weisinger's Legion of Superfluity," "Sequential Signs: Comic Art in the Gallery," "The Feminstas of Justice" — do these titles seem a bit high falutin' for a comic book convention? Well, they're the titles of a few of the presentations slated for the Comics Arts Conference, a full- fledged academic conference that takes place each year at both WonderCon and Comic-Con International: San Diego.
Founded in 1992 by Dr. Randy Duncan — of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas — and Dr. Peter Coogan — who teaches at Washington University in St. Louis — the Comics Arts Conference brings scholars and professionals together to talk about comics with the public by breaking out of the ivory tower and holding sessions during two of the nation's most influential comic book shows. This year marks the CAC's 17th annual conference at Comic-Con International and its third at WonderCon.
Headlining this year's CAC presentation at WonderCon is the legendary cartoonist and San Francisco native Trina Robbins, a special guest at the convention. Robbins will be presenting "Nell Brinkley and The Brinkley Girls," a talk on Jazz Age cartoonist and illustrator Nell Brinkley, whose glamorous, curly haired "Brinkley Girls" were a household name in the early 20th century when Brinkley was "The Queen of Comics." Robbins' talk is drawn from her Fantagraphics book The Brinkley Girls, published in January, and Robbins will be signing copies of after her talk.
Comics have been moving into the classroom and gaining ever-greater acceptance at educational institutions. This acceptance is reflected in two CAC presentations. The first is "Cross-Curricular Comics: Applying Comics in the K-8 Classroom" a workshop by middle-school teacher Liz Vizcarra that demonstrates the application of comics in the K-8 environment to meet California standards. A professional development certificate is available for teachers who attend this session. The second is from CAC co-chair Randy Duncan on his new comics studies textbook, The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, to be published in April by Continuum Books. As the first textbook on comics and graphic novels aimed at undergraduates, The Power of Comics is an exciting breakthrough in the cultural legitimization of the comics medium, and the CAC offers a first look at this important work.
Besides the classroom, comics have broken into the museum, and the CAC does as well, in a pair of talks. Fine arts scholar Kim Munson explores the importance of comics to contemporary visual culture and the central role of the 2005 Masters of Comic Art exhibit in breaking comics out of the art world's high/low debate. CAC co-chair Peter Coogan presents "Superhero Science 101," a talk originally given in conjunction with the Marvel Comics Super-Hero Science exhibition at the St. Louis Science Center. Dr. Coogan explains the science- fictional laws that operate in superhero universes, including why Bruce Banner's pants stretch so much and what we in the real world can learn from such "rubber science."
Need to bone up on your superhero history? The fifties, sixties, and seventies get a thoroughgoing review in a matched set of three presentations. California State University librarian Douglas Highsmith and University of California librarian Chuck Huber examine the superhero comics "between the Flashes" from the last appearance of the Golden Age Flash in 1950 to the first of the Silver Age Flash in 1956 — yes, there were superhero comics in the early fifties! Moving on to the 1960s, independent scholar Jeff Barbanell peers through his timescope to find the first "Marvelization" of a DC series in Jim Shooter's Legion of Super-Heroes run and his infusion of his comic book narratives with the Lee and Kirby techniques of group dynamics, hyperrealism, and cosmic context. Finally, the "ink-stained Amazon" Jennifer K. Stuller attempts to resolve the conundrum of the "feministas of justice," the superwomen of the 1970s such as Valkyrie, Diana Prince, Ms. Marvel, and Lois Lane, who presented a superficial image of feminism but continue to serve as symbols of female empowerment in the cultural imagination.
But like the world of comics, the CAC is more than superheroes. CAC presenters take on social issues that resonant with today's headlines. Indian cartoonist Gokul Gopalakrishnan (aka Gokul TG), who is a fellow of the Centre for Performance Research and Cultural Studies in South Asia, investigates the cunning exploitation of the misconception of comic strips as "harmless fun" to enable cartoonists to sidestep censorship, focusing on O. V Vijayan's Malayalam comic strip Ithiri Neramboku, Ithiri Darshanam ("Bit of Trifle, Bit of Philosophy") during the 1975–1977 State of National Emergency in India. Diana Green of the Minneapolis College of Art & Design unearths the GLBT in EC Comics and the play of these stories in the burgeoning, shifting acceptance of gay culture that began in the 1950s. And Trevor Strunk, graduate student at New York University, takes on the topic of hybrid cultures as they are expressed in Jaime Hernandez's Love and Rockets output.
With the Comics Arts Conference, WonderCon offers attendees a unique chance to dig into comics' past and present and give their brains a workout while in the midst of one the country's great comic book conventions.
(BTW - - "The Feministas of Justice" is me! - - Thanks to Hubby for the title suggestion!)
"Girl-Wonder.org is calling for submissions to our brand-new online newsletter, which will mix focused discussions of feminism (and other forms of -isms) in the comics genre with a fun-loving celebration of comic geekdom. This newsletter will be our ongoing love letter to comics - sharing all the serious and not so serious aspects of comics that keep us coming back for more."
On the subject of female heroes in movies and television I wanted to link to a couple of thought-provoking posts & sites.
The first is by Cindy Cooper of Blog Spot "The Bad Genious" who passionately writes about the need for women and girls to see positive heroic representations of their sex/gender to be able to grow up believing in themselves. In fact, she relates a story about spinning with her sister until dizzy and nauseated, hoping upon hope to burst into Amazonian Princesses, that echoes one I tell in my book introduction almost word for word. She also asks, and answers, the question,"So why didn’t those little girls watching superheroes grow to be a generation of women reading about superheroes?" and notes the frustrating fact that movies featuring superwomen just aren't given the same respect as those with supermen--which forces young girls to identify with either the love interest or the contemporary male heroic ideal.
Supervillainess over at "Female Comic Book Superheroes" asks female audiences an important question with What's Your Dream Superheroine Movie? (My desires include: A Modesty Blaise movie worthy of her character, a Promethea movie, a good Buffy movie, Wonder Woman, natch, and Birds of Prey.)
And Heroine Content always has thoughtful critiques of race and gender in movies and television.
"I was surprised when Rose brought me a script of Red Sonja that she liked,” adding, "I found it very entertaining. Sonja was strong, smart, cunning — just about everything she'd have to be to survive."
Rodriguez wants to cast the slight McGowan as the red-haired warrior, saying
"Rose is a pistol. She's whip-smart, has attitude to burn, is sexy, extremely strong, yet has a vulnerable side that would surprise her closest friends. That description also fits Red Sonja."*
This isn't going to be an adaptation of any particular comic book story arc, nor will it be a remake of 1985's awesomely awful Dino De Laurentiis produced Red Sonja which starred a young and svelte Brigitte Nielsen in the title role.
Red Sonja became the final installment in a trilogy that included the fabulous Conan the Barbarian which was followed by the atrocious Conan the Destroyer, which unlike Sonja can't even be described as "good bad." And it's so good bad that I had to go buy a copy. See what I mean - -
The characters of these movies were loosely based on the 1930s pulp writings of Robert E. Howard. Red Sonya had appeared in only one of his stories, “The Shadow of the Vulture,” as a pistol wielding Russian in the 16th century. In the 1970s, the character was adapted by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith for Marvel comics as a supporting character in their Conan title. The spelling of her name was changed from Sonya to Sonja, and her origins were moved from Russia to Conan’s fictional prehistoric “Hyborian Age.” Her deftness with a pistol was changed to mastery of the sword.
Sonja proved popular enough to support an eponymous title. In the original edition of The Superhero Women, Stan Lee refers to her as “the ultimate female warrior” and suggested that because Sonja is depicted as holding her own against any combatant—regardless of gender—“perhaps through the medium of the contemporary comicbook [sic], society may inch itself a bit closer to the time when we judge an individual on his or her own merit, rather than the accident of sex.”
I'm not sure whether the comic book Sonja accomplishes this (and I invite thoughtful comments on the subject) but the movie, though it has Sonja spouting pseudo-feminist rhetoric such as “No man may have me, unless he's beaten me in a fair fight.” and “I don’t need any man’s help.” actually ends up putting Sonja in her rightfully gendered place by the end of the movie. (I go into detail about this in the book, and so only mention it here. Regardless of Lee et al's intentions with the comic, the 1980s film focuses more on Sonja’s gender than on what should be her impressive sword skills.)
Still, it's a Great God-Awful film, well worth watching. Although it's a bummer to see Sandahl Bergman go from her portrayal as the glorious Valeria in Conan the Barbarian to playing the campy Queen Gedren in Sonja--a role for which she "won" a Razzie award.
Finally, I'd originally found the news of Rodriguez's new venture over at Superhero Hype where the comments are filled with disturbing, if unsurprising, misogyny—most of it in this instance directed at McGowan.
A brief rundown includes such sexist gems as:
“She’s witch” who’s “plum bewitched Rodriguez.”
She’s called a “dumb Ho” and “Marilyn Manson’s leftovers” who is only getting roles because “she's banging robert rodriguez so he got her another movie.”
She’s not only blasted as unattractive, but as a both a home-wrecker and career poison.
One poster “Wishes Rodriguez was back with his wife cause they have a ton of kids and I know that's hard.” –an over-simplification of the situation—and another claims “She's doing to Rodriguez what Nielsen did to Stallone. (Wrecked the first marriage, leading him into dopey career moves).”
One poster even goes so far as to praise the scene in Death Proof in which McGowan’s character gets “all broken and bloody.”
Regardless of what one thinks of Rodriguez as a director, or even as an adulterer, and regardless of what one thinks of McGowan as a Beauty or an actress, the vitriol with which her attributes are addressed is alarming. These are not critiques of her capacity to fit the role, or take on this particular acting challenge, this is venomous rhetoric against women.
I don't know whether McGowan can be a phenomenal Sonja, I do think she will be perfect in the couple's remake of Barbarella and she was super kick-ass as Cherry Darling--a go-go dancer cum leader of her people in Planet Terror.
*This is all good, but I hate when strong women are praised for being "vulnerable" --as if it's a necessary qualifier. You never hear the same adjective used to praise the strengths of a male warrior.
Women Mentoring Women and an Introduction to The Sarah Jane Adventures
"I saw amazing things, out there in space--but there is strangeness to be found, wherever you turn. Life on Earth can be an adventure too... you just need to know where to look!"-Sarah Jane Smith
The Sarah Jane Adventures couldn’t have come at a better time for me, as this month I’m researching and writing my chapters on parents. As I've mentioned before one of the overwhelming themes in stories about the female super, or action, hero is that they have absent mothers and are raised or mentored by men.
I have no problem with father figures or single Daddies per se, having been raised by the latter myself. And as a woman who always identified with her father more than her mother (even before their separation) the exploration of who I am as an adult W-O-M-A-N has, is and will always be of profound spiritual importance to me -- as much so as the search for female role models in real life and in popular culture.
While it’s wonderful to see depictions of fathers who take an active role in their daughters’ lives, when we don’t see women teaching women, the message an audience receives is that these virtual Athenas, whether sprung from their father’s heads or mentored by sage men, can only be as independent as they are because they lack a mother’s womanly—almost always implied as passive—influence.
As I’ll discuss further in the book, there are a few notable exceptions:
• Reciprocal mentorship was an outstanding feature of the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, and they learned from other women as well (including Lao Ma, and the Amazons). But we never got to see either the Warrior Princess or the Battling Bard of Potidaea raise either of their own daughters.
• Trina Robbins’ and Anne Timmons’ Go Girl! series features a kick-ass mother, AND a kick-ass daughter who have a deep and meaningful bond.*
• Beatrix Kiddo, of Kill Bill, has a daughter, and in keeping with the homage to Lady Snowblood, Tarantino has noted that he would like to make sequels that feature daughters avenging their mother’s deaths (think of Vernita Green's daughter Nikki Bell--who we know will, in fact, still be sore that Beatrix killed her mother). Whether this pans out, or would even feature women in mentor roles is totally up in the air.
• In the movie Elektra, the title character teaches Abby--a young martial arts prodigy played by an actress with a Red Belt in Tae Kwon Do.
• In some versions of Wonder Woman (particularly the original) she has a close bond with her mother and with sister Amazons. And of course, Wonder Woman sets an example for everyone.
• In the comic book series Birds of Prey, particularly Gail Simone’s run, we see instances of sisterhood, which is an important counter to the perennial catfight, but is also different from an adult/child relationship. (I haven't yet read the issues with Black Canary and Sin.)
• In the final season of Alias, Sydney Bristow mentored Rachel Gibson and presumably her daughter, Isabelle Bristow Vaughn.
• In the final season of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Buffy, Willow, Faith, and Anya train the Potentials.
• It appears that Araña Corazon has been mentored by Ms. Marvel (but I haven’t read those issues yet, and therefore can't speak to them).
Now it seems I can add another “exception” to add to my list!**
Serendipitously, right when I started collecting and organizing my research for these two chapters (Fathers and Daughters, and Mothers and Daughters) Ryan pointed out that the Sci Fi channel was running ads for a series called The Sarah Jane Adventures and noted that it looked like it could be of interest to me (the ad posted above is from the BBC, by way of YouTube). When I caught the commercials myself, I looked into the series on the Net and discovered it’s a spin-off of Doctor Who intended for children.*** Elisabeth Sladen who has embodied the investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith off and on for over 35 years stars.
Sarah was a companion to the third and fourth doctors (Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, respectively) and appeared regularly over the years 1973-1976. Sladen has since revisited the character a number of times—including in a pilot featuring Sarah and the robot dog, K-9 (K-9 and Company didn’t evolve into a series but is rumored to be released on DVD this Summer) as well as in a special feature-length episode of Doctor Who called “The Five Doctors.” Sladen also reprised the role in the second season of the recently revitalized Doctor Who alongside David Tennant’s Doctor (the tenth incarnation) and Billie Piper’s Rose in the episode “School Reunion.”
The Sarah Jane Adventures debuted in the UK with an hour-long special shown on New Year’s Day, 2007, called “Invasion of the Bane,” In it, we meet a thirteen-year-old girl named Maria Jackson (Yasmin Paige) who has just moved to West London with her dad after her parents' recent divorce. Dad is a stand-up guy, and while Mom is flighty, she frequently drops by for hellos, meals, and family time. Her living situation (a daughter with a single father) could have made Maria yet another victim of the female hero-sans-female mentor trope that has plagued myth from ancient through modern times, but her mother isn’t dead, drunk, ill, or vindictive; she’s just elsewhere, and, has kind of a difficult personality.
Her first night in her new home, Maria is awakened by a strange pinkish glowing light emanating from outside. She sneaks out of the house and across the street to spy Sarah Jane conversing with a floaty, ethereal, otherwordly creature (who we later discover is a Star Poet who’d gotten lost on her journey and sought Sarah’s assistance with directions).
Maria is understandably curious, but Sarah Jane is terse and standoffish with her neighbors, believing that others should not be subject to the danger involved in her investigative work.
When Maria and her friend, Kelsey, take a tour of the Bubbleshock Soda Company they run into Sarah at the factory trying to expose the soda makers for who they really are---tentacled aliens whose mother bug secrets a substance marketed as the “organic!” additive “Bane” -- actually an alien chemical used in the soda to turn humans into easily controlled zombies (fortunately, Sarah and Maria prefer tea to soda pop).
In the process of escaping the factory they encounter a human boy, called "The Archetype," who was designed by the Bane species to find out why 2% of the population didn't like Bubbleshock Soda, and is made up of the thoughts and wishes of over 10,000 people. Sarah and Maria rescue the child, and at first, when he asks if he can live with Sarah she says no, but she ultimately “adopts” him into her home.
Sarah recognizes Maria's inner strength and sees her as a kindred spirit. While figuring a way to stop the Bane she tells her new young friend, "Maria, there are two types of people in the world. Those who panic, and then there's us. Got it?" Maria understands and affirms, "Got it."
Over the course of the episode Sarah recognizes, even respects, the children’s ability to make choices for themselves. And, she's remarkably honest with them. She tells Maria, and the Archetype--who chooses the name "Luke" that:
"When I was your age, I used to think 'Oh, when I'm grown up, I'll know what I want, I'll be sorted.' But you never really know what you want. You never feel grown up, not really. You never sort it all out... so I thought, I could handle life on my own. But after today... I don't want to!"
The series may tap into the lives and thoughts of children, but scenes like these can resonate with adults. Life never happens as you expect it to. You just have to stick to your values and go with the flow of the adventure. And as Sarah Jane proves, if things aren't working as they are you can always change your mind and do things differently.
At the end of the episode, when I bubbled over how happy it made me, Ryan noted that while he also enjoyed it very much, he was bothered that Sarah was given a child at the end. He felt that it was a crass attempt to restabilize her normative position as a traditionally gendered woman, and it was a shame that they didn't allow her to maintain her status as an independent adventurer who happens to work with children, rather than a Mommy (He’s been reading and editing my chapters!).
The child issue didn’t quite bother me as much as I thought it might, and I think it has to do with context. The adoption of Luke was presented as simply a part of her journey rather than the motivation for it. What bothered me much more was that she couldn’t or wouldn’t find a partner because after The Doctor, “No man could quite compare,” or something like that. Instead, she has playfully named her computer "Mr. Smith."
“wise choice to bring Sladen back with her own show. The actress projects an air of trustworthiness, courage and unapologetic independence, and though Sarah Jane’s attitude is brisk and unsentimental, it leaves room for plenty of wonder at the stranger things in the universe. And by the way, how many series feature a middle-aged woman as the lead -- and even let her battle many-tentacled aliens? Score one for the Brits.”
A reviewer for Variety panned the series, calling it “modestly entertaining for the moppet crowd” but patience trying for adults.” (He also calls Sarah Jane “a rather boring heroine”!)
From the two episodes I’ve seen, SJA is a children’s show in the way that the early Harry Potter novels are children’s books—they are ostensibly for children but have plenty of self-consciousness and intelligence to appeal to adults. (SJA does feature some farting aliens -- justifiably suitable for a munchkin audience.)
The series is wickedly smart, with over-the-top villains who shout B-Lines such as “The time of man is over!” and “ In the words of your young Earth children - bring it on.” Sarah Jane Smith is one of the only female leaders, teachers, or matriarchs of a group. But most importantly, most progressively, even revolutionary, is that Sarah Jane and Maria gift us with the all-too-rare example of a woman mentoring a woman.
A series of ten, half-hour episodes premiered in the UK in September 2007. SJA debuted in the states on the Sci-Fi Network on April 11, 2008. At least one, if not two more seasons have been ordered. Episodes air on the Sci Fi Channel Fridays from 8-8:30 pm. Cheers to Sci Fi for airing the series, Jeers to Sci Fi Magazine (the official rag of the channel) for not including Lis Sladen in their current issue "TV's Hot New Superwomen"--which has a subsection on "Familiar Faces in Fresh New Roles" as well as one on "Brit Girls")
*Trina and Anne should totally do a SJA comic!It's sooooo up their alley!
**(Hopefully, with this new generation of superwomen giving birth to daughters, and occasionally mentoring girls, we are seeing the beginnings of a progressive female heroic tradition, because generally, strong women are depicted raising savior sons (Sarah Connor, Lady Jessica—they’re mothers, not messiahs) or protecting daughters (Ripley, Charly Baltimore). One of the feminist critiques of Joseph Campbell is that in his classic The Hero With a Thousand Faces he notes that the hero can male or female, but then goes on to describe women as markers in the male quest (as goddesses, temptresses, mothers, etc . . .) and not as questers themselves. While this devalues female experience by making male experience the norm, it is also indicative of hero myths to date; Campbell could likely find few featuring women and/or ignored the experiences that make a female life heroic.)
***(I have yet to get into Doctor Who –even though Roz has told me that “Rose is so one of your women” and that I should include her in the book. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I’ll have time. --Perhaps for the next edition!)
