Momma, Don't Let Your Girls Grow Up to Be Superhero Love Interests

Cuz all you'll do is their laundry (and them, presumably). Once again, it's brought forcefully home to me that misogyny is not only alive and well, but still thriving, and being happily passed on to the next generation. I'm a little late to this party, but I just have to say WTF?! Whose brilliant idea was this piece of crap "action" figure?

And it only gets worse in surroundsound.

Fortunately, it's been brilliantly counteracted by Logansrogue, who not only drew up the bitchin' prototype of Peter Parker in a posing pouch (say that fast five times) washing out MJ's lingerie, but had the ovaries to post it on the Marvel blog (from which it was summarily deleted. Chickenshits). Go read her post for the whole delicious guerrilla counteraction, with the sketch.

The topic has been pretty well worked over already, and really, it all seems so obvious. Why isn't it? Why does it have to be pointed out that this is not cute or funny or sexy, but demeaning? Why is this concept so hard to grasp? Because the obtuseness of producing something like this makes men seem either stupid or willfully ignorant. Or worse, that you just really don't care what we think. As one commenter on the Girl Wonder forum wrote, it may look sexy to you, but "the only thing I can think of is 'She's presenting like a mandrill!'" Repeat after me, boyz: Portraying women performing subservient acts in a sexually enticing pose is not flattering and it won't get you a date, let alone laid. Does this illustration from Logansrogue help get the point across?

Not so funny now that it's Bend Over Spidey, is it? All I can add is, Rock On, Logansrogue. And don't you idiots at Sideshow (and Marvel) have mothers, wives, daughters? And why haven't the former two whacked you upside the head for the sake of the latter? Is this the kind of image you want to give your adolescent girls? Is this what you really think of your wives? Ya'll could learn a thing or two from Joss Whedon.

I have, sadly, bought my last action figure from you jerks, which is too bad, cuz your Obi & Qui rock. This is just too egregious to let slide. Can you spell boycott? Or in this case, girlcott, mofos. Oh wait, you might take that last a little too literally. My bad.

Update: This just gets better and better, actually, or worse and worse, depending on your viewpoint.  Here's the perpetrator, er, artist, Adam Hughes, on the MJ figure's genesis:

Also, if it was Mary Jane doing the laundry, there would’ve been suds everywhere, and I would’ve done a better job of doing it, so there would be no question – that would be Mary Jane doing the laundry. I thought it was a kind of cute, funny, “discovery” moment with a classic pin-up feel. That’s pretty much all I was shooting for. Yeah, she’s sexy, yeah, she’s dressed like a sexy chick…but look at her history – that’s how she’s been portrayed for years, even when she’s not doing chores. Mary Jane is a bit of a bimbo. She’s been a supermodel and a dancer, an actress and a model…so I gave her a cute, sexy moment.

1. If she's not doing the laundry, what is she doing? Just posing with Spidey's wet duds? Oh please. No woman thinks housework, espcially hand laundry, is arousing or sexy.
2. So the "Classic pin-up feel" makes it somehow excuseable? What part of "objectification" does he not understand?
3. MJ is really a bimbo, so it's okay to objectify her? Model, dancer, actress, they're not serious careers. She's just playing around. Isn't that cute?

Dimwit. And I'm being nice.

Comments

[Chuck]

"Not so funny now that it's Bend Over Spidey, is it?"

Well, yes. It is. It's pretty hilarious in fact.

[Lee]

Well, yes, but not in a way most guys find funny. Marvel was not amused, and it didn't have anything to do with copyright issues.