Girls beating guys = Comedy Gold? PART II

Everytime I write something and publish, I think of two million more things to say.

I went back to the Pandagon post that inspired me to have something more to say on the subject of women hitting men and considered some more. It occured to me as funny that in the first snarkoleptics post I linked to before that twice someone brought up the lesson they learned as kids that just because someone hits you or says something bad doesn't mean it's okay to hit them. It is very often considered childish to lash out violently and be goaded into hitting back is shameful because you're lowering yourself to a childish level of behavior.

At Pandagon, Amanda quotes a Dr. Helen:

Scalzi shows a picture of Krissy with a baseball bat and a caption reading, “Respect me for me. Or because I will beat the holy crap out of you. Really, it’s your choice.” How charming. So the implication is that if one is a woman, she can beat the crap out of someone for “disrespecting her?” This regressive behavior is typical of the violent youth I see who have so little impulse control that they beat someone up for “dissing them.” I would hope a grown woman of Krissy’s obvious intelligence would have more sense than that. But no. She decides that a man in an open public place just trying to touch her warranted shoving him against a wall and putting her hand to his throat.

This quote reminded me of the same thing it did Amanda, it seems. Blaming the victim, especially in rape cases.

There are plenty of cases where I applaud someone for being "bigger" and finding a difficult but just solution to harassment or verbal assualt. But I can't blame anyone for wanting to scare the hell out of a jerk by reacting violently. Sure, it could instigate violence out of the jerk who was all talk until then, but if someone doesn't take you seriously, it certainly sets a different tone.

I remember getting in a bad fight in 6th grade. I was tiny and white and my bus to school was entirely non-white and had a lot of boys on it. So I got picked on since I was an "other" and things were thrown on me. What they didn't know was that I'd punched the one school bully at my elementary school in the gut and from then on, she'd left me alone and I was full of pride and vinegar. So when they threw an egg at the back of my head, I turned around and declared war. I lost the fight, but they didn't mess with me anymore. I wasn't worth the trouble.

What I remember was that they all stopped laughing when I formed my little hands into fists.

So maybe on that level it disturbs me that a woman being violent is funny. Because so often in real life a woman turns to violence to show how serious she is.


Of course, I still don't consider this admirable behavior. There's a reason why I didn't tell my parents about the fight and hid my one bruise on my face with makeup (oh, and it was right before the school Christmas concert, too! So I had an excuse to wear makeup!) It did feel like lowering myself. But I knew that telling on them would do nothing and I had no other choice for getting to school. The bus was seriously overcrowded (3 kids to a seat) and I was the last stop, so I couldn't hide or sit upfront. It felt like a last resort. And it certainly feels hypocritical to praise any sort of violence when I'm a NAPper. Throwing an egg at me and insulting me in languages I didn't know wouldn't have justified me kicking all their butts even if I'd been capable of that. So neither do I think threatening violence towards a friend, even in a joking manner, is an appropriate response to their saying something offensive. But maybe it's a learned behavior women pick up on - that guys will treat your complaint seriously if you threaten or use violence. Even if you're joking. Or half-joking.

If that's the truth, then, well, it's a shame.

Girls beating guys = Comedy Gold?

There's been a bit of discussion in the livejournal snarkoleptics community about webcomics where a girl hitting a guy is played for comedic relief (starline's post on Questionable Content, kdsorceress's on Dominic Deegan). My first thought is that this is something often done but not so often thought through. So let's think this through.

Violence is funny, especially between friends. I mock hit my husband when he says something stupidly funny on purpose. I quote "One of these days, Frankie! Bang, Zoom, right to the moon!" (and gaze wistfully at the sky, because the more references you can do in one joke, the better). Between some of my girls and myself "Bitch, Ima cut you" or any phrase using the word "cut" is rife for giggles. It's funny between us because it's totally understood we all love each other and would do anything to not hurt one another. Counterpoint - injokes don't usually translate well to a broader audience. If the audience doesn't understand the years of love and trust behind the actions, it's a swing and a miss, quite literally.

Underdog violence feels good while being funny. We cheer when the weaker party lands that one blow on the cocky stronger party. Tom and Jerry cartoons are a good example. How else do you get past the horrendous beatings a little mouse puts down on the big, predator cat?

I don't think you can even have a discussion on why it's supposed to be funny when a girl hits a guy without understanding either above point, or the inescapable idea that women are weaker than men. Sure, there are several exceptions, but who today, when presented with the phrase "the weaker sex" thinks of men?

I am also a big fan and, at the same time, bitter enemy of switching sex to see if it feels the same with men and women in the other's places. It sure makes a point, but shouldn't be an end all to the discussion. That said, I'm going to start with the obvious. Take the recent Uma Thurman movie, with her palying a superhero who wigs out when her boyfriend dumps her and does funny things like throw a shark at him. Putting aside the fact that throwing sharks is the coolest thing ever and I want that for a super power despite how impractable it would be and how I'd cry myself to sleep each night because I love sharks, any male superhero going around wrecking up his ex-girlfriend's pad and throwing marine life at her would have to fast for 2 months on burning coals while sewing clothes for orphans who love sharks before most people would consider him even on the road towards repentance. Somehow I doubt Uma's character did that in the movie.

So what about the friends in Questionable Content? What if Marten was the girl and Faye the boy? Is this an in-joke between these two friends? I don't really know QC that well, as I find it as easy to follow as your average soap opera, by which I mean I used to watch maybe 2 weeks total in an entire year of Another World when it was on and I could follow it just fine. (And I loved it. I wish all soaps were smoking the same crack and not pretending to be realistic while bringing people back from the dead and enacting evil plots for love! PS Rachel and Carl forever!) Anyway, from what I can tell, there is that basic understanding between the two characters that they are friends, but there's also a sort of real fear on Marten's part that Faye might indeed react violently if Marten says something wrong.



Faye also seems to react this way to just about everybody (check out Starline's examples in her post), which makes it more of a character trait. As brought up in the discussion in the thread, this seems to excuse it a bit. In my way of thinking, this only excuses it if it's brought up. Maybe someone can point me to the story arc where Faye gets brings this up at counseling and wonders why her first response to things that offend or upset her is violence or the threat thereof. THEN it's a character trait. If no one notices that she does this all the time, except to cower or cut off what they're saying around her, then it's a failing and needs to be addressed. Having said that, this is an ongoing comic that seems to take forever to do story or character developement, like most comics that have a few panels with a punchline at the end. J. Jacques could just be getting around to it.

In which case, he'll also have to deal with Dora doing the same thing half the time. When both your main female characters threaten violence as a joke and sometimes as an actual solution, you really can't leave that sitting around. "Addressing" it doesn't mean solving it and everyone goes on happy happy, but let the cast notice it, even if they do nothing about it.

To bring this back to the wider picture, I think the reason this bothers me and so many others is that it is so prevalent. Like using rape in a storyline, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept, as fiction is not an idealized world where everyone has no flaws and bad things don't happen. It gets to be a problem when it's used often and often used badly. Unless it is used as an injoke between friends, it's hard to see the "violent little woman" as anything other than playing with the "women are weak" concept. And if your joke rests on a negative stereotype, I fail to see how you're committed to destroying said stereotype. I adore breaking stereotypes for humor, but there does come a point where you're trying to build a complete character and the stereotype is near death, and the only thing that's keeping it alive is the stereotype breaker herself.

You see this often with "tomboys", who are so determined to not fit into the classification of girly girls, they perpetuate the tea parties with stuffed animals as typical girl behavior just to set themselves apart. I was a tomboy for certain, but I did realize at one point I could do what I wanted to do without having to make fun of the girls who swooned over the New Kids on the Block. I didn't have to classify myself as anything or anti-anything. Funnily enough, I realized this when the other hardcore tomboy in my 5th grade class seemed to think there was a competition between us for the most boyish and I thought that was the dumbest thing ever and we should be friends since we had so much in common.

In summary, perpetuating a stereotype in order to do anything that shows how against that stereotype you are = dumbest thing ever. Not that girls hitting boys is necessarily doing that, but it so easily can. Girls beating guys should not automatically equal comedy gold.

PART II

Flashing for a Purpose!

click for full size Devil's Panties!

Sometimes it's entirely appropriate to show off a little.

Like if you're a firefly trying to get laid. Flash 'em, baby.



click for full size Striptease!

Now over on Striptease, Chris has got his gang into a sort of goth-y nightclub looking for a friend who's been caged up and his girl can't persuade them to let him free. He's sending out big signals that this is supposed to be something of a fun and not entirely plausible storyline. And it is fun. Except it's sort of worrying that Alli and Rae got trapped inside a voyeur room and decided the only way to get out would be to "put on a show" and finally make the comic finally live up to its name.

OK, so not what I would think. I'd think they'd want to keep me around if I started stripping instead of opening the door. Instead I'd probably choose to be A) really annoying or B) really boring. But that's not the point. This is Sillyville, Gothland.

Unfortunately, the girls decide to discuss personal matters while, um, just sitting there in their panties. Now it's no longer fun or silly, it's a little boring (and I'm guessing THAT'S why the door finally opened! ha!) and feels cheap for Rae to be flirting with Alli and expecting a kiss? Come on, they just went over the whole who's sweet on who moments ago. And they're talking about modeling, which often takes nude people and doesn't make it sexualized. And they're mostly nude, and it's at first not really sexualized, because of the silly aspect of the world of Striptease, but when Rae decides that Alli is actually flirting with her enough to try something physical, all of a sudden it's creepy. They're being watched by unknown people, extremely sexualized, and it's tremendously creepy of Rae to be equating nudity and friendliness with "Oh yeah, totally kiss me now!".

Just because Alli's flashing doesn't mean she wants to get laid.

It's funny how just a few strips can turn what came off as gratuitous, fun nudity into creepy, exploitative nudity.

Chris hasn't updated Striptease in a while, and I hope it's not because he's written himself into a creepy, creepy corner. What's going on here? It's all fun and games until lesbians attack? I'm not really happy with the recent Alli/Rae part in this. I was promised stupid shiny outfits and bad, loud music! It was going to be fun! I want more of the fun, I suppose. And less creepiness.

And probably naked men. Too bad the only really attractive male cast member (Tommy) is out of the picture right now. When he comes back, he better be naked, Chris!

New editor for Modern Tales

You didn't read it here first, but Shaenon Garrity (she of Narbonic, as well as Smithson and L’il Mell and Sergio) is the new editor of Modern Tales, probably the biggest edited collection of webcomics around. It started off as a subscription based site, but is now mostly free and readers can benefit from having someone round up and show off the best webcomics. That someone is now Shaenon, who has pretty much awesome taste and knows a thing or two about comics, period.

So what does this mean? Of the Modern Tales family of sites, each with an editor and vision of which type of comics to bring together, half are now edited by a woman.
So, yeah, well, that's a nice little thing, but the best thing is that when I first read this, my first thought was "Oh, duh! Perfect!". Only then did I think "What happened to Eric?". Eric Burns would probably have been a great editor as well, but life happens, it seems. Actually, I think I like the choice of Shaenon better. Eric knows his webcomics and knows what he likes, but he's already been picking through them and showing off what he likes. As a reader, I'm much more interested to see what Shaenon will bring in.

I also bet you that very few reposts of the press release or comments on the change will deal with Shaenon's gender. While I realize that often being "colorblind" or "genderblind" can set back dealing with issues of racism or sexism, in some cases it's good that people will only care about the person and sex won't even enter into it.