A number of people are discussing the art on the covers of one of (if not the) most successful remaining genre magazines, Realms of Fantasy.
K. Tempest Bradford contends that the covers show “plenty of boobs. Fish-girl boobs and nipple-less boobs and snake-woman boobs and boobs and more boobs.” Jim Hines adds that he’s “tired of my genre worshipping at the Altar of the Big Breasts.”
As often happens, this controversy gelled at a particular instant over a particular image, and there are a lot of behind-the-scenes politics about changes in the management at RoF. Without getting into all of that, I wanted to share some links to some websites that this discussion reminded me of. They provide some pretty compelling evidence about how men and women are portrayed differently in fantasy art.
First off, we start with some pages from a book about how to draw women and men in comics. There’s a lot of traditional sexism here. Check it out, just because some of it’s pretty facially ludicrous.
Then there’s the turn-around where an intelligent artist took the same images and showed how sexist they are by switching the sexes of the figures. It’s all pretty strange looking, since we don’t often see confidently over-muscled women, and arched-back pouting men. But it gets more remarkable toward the end, in the section on how to draw sexy poses. We’re so used to seeing women in those sexualized poses that they seem almost unremarkable and generic — but when we put a man in the same poses, it becomes really clear that no one ever really stands like that.
Finally, there are a bunch of scattered illustrations of male superheroes in poses that female superheroes are shown in all the time. These really show how silly the poses are in the first place.
Anyway, I thought all these links were really neat when I saw them in the first place. I was happy to be reminded of them, and I wanted to share. Enjoy!
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P.S. I said that I didn’t want to get into all the controversy about the specific RoF cover that has been the flashpoint for all this, but I do want to say — while the image is sexualized, there are some really nice things about it, including some very palpable textures, and an interesting color palette. I’m sure it must suck for the artist who painted that image to have it being discussed as the nadir of fantasy art and I really don’t think it is. The female is in a pose I find sexualized, and her breasts are large and gravity-defying, but compared to a lot of fantasy art and even past Realms of Fantasy covers, it’s a pretty unremarkable piece on the objectification front. That doesn’t mean that the piece can’t or shouldn’t be considered in the context of a large number of illustrations of naked women that contributes to a broader context of how women are represented in fantasy art, fantasy fiction, and art in general — but I do think it’s unfortunate (if inevitable) that this piece bears the brunt of the frustration just because of the particular moment when it was published. Despite the fact that I can criticize the art (hell, I can criticize anything), I would probably be pleased if that picture were an illustration of one of my stories, particularly if the story itself had sexual undertones.
This post has crystallized my issues with most American superhero comics and their portrayal of the sexes. I have friends that insist to me that it’s not sexist because “look! The male figures are unrealistic as well!”
These comics emphasize what they feel is the most relevant and important feature for each character – and for men it’s generally their strength and power, and for women it’s their sex appeal. How is that not a double standard?
I knew there was a reason I don’t buy comics any more. I’d thought for a long time how crazy it is that every woman is so blasted thin for her height, and with such long legs, and lips big enough to use for dock fenders. It was like they use a template and just move it around to get poses. Speaking of poses, I noted 25 or more years back that sf and fantasy paperbacks had the male characters on the cover in such and such sort of poses and the women in entirely different ones, the latter kind of bizarre and suggesting passivity or possible spinal damage unless one is unusually flexible. The upper half of the body bent backwards, as if pushed, the air pressed out of the lungs.
When I read some of the cartooning guides in the library it was even worse–they were still telling us that 8-heads-high crap, or even 9, still putting the crotch halfway up the total height or higher, and so on. I’ve read about how birds can be fooled into sitting on giant fake eggs to the point of neglecting their own, by a sort of sensory overload they are vulnerable to, and that is what I think of when I see the populace brainwashed into expecting all attenuated, scary-long-legged, spaghetti-waisted, giant-antigravity-breasted, long-necked, baby-faced, puffy-lipped women, all the time. There isn’t even any imagination involved any more, it feels like. And yes, I know the men are just as unrealistic. But if you’ve got to make up unrealistic humanoids, heck, why stop at just 2 types?
These people think they’ve come a long way because now the comic heroines (and store mannequins) have a little indentation tween the shoulder muscle and biceps, instead of the pipestem arms of old. Give me a break. If you’ve got some sort of fetish, admit it is just that and quit trying to tell me it is some sort of divine archetype or something that must always be hewed to. That’s what I’d tell them if I thought there was a chance they’d listen, but the doings of the artists you link to are a more creative approach.
And this nonsense about drawing men all angular and women smooth/curved is just that, nonsense. Men are a bit knobbier, but the muscular ones are a mass of hundreds of curves, and the only human beings I could really call angular are those who are so emaciated one’s first concern is with saving their lives rather than drawing them.
In my own yet-seldom-seen work I use people of all different shapes and sizes, and if they get in silly poses it is just for fun. (Here is an aside, Mad Magazine once ran a bit about the annoying habits of smokers, and one was the affectation of phony poses that are supposed to make them look sophisticated.) But I am right glad you folks are calling those folks out on this.
Interestingly, some of the male “sex appeal” poses in the inverted version look quite a bit like common gay porn images.
“Interestingly, some of the male â��sex appealâ�� poses in the inverted version look quite a bit like common gay porn images.”
I noticed that, too.
Well, actually, I’ve never watched gay porn because I missed out on all those Sarah Lawrence gay-porn-watching parties, but I noticed similarities between media images of sexualized gay men and these drawings. Like, to use a superficial common example, some of the poses Borat takes.
Of course, poses using real humans are necessarily not as contorted…
I’m a big fan of Michael Whelan. The women portrayed in his art are treated with respect, reality (can you say that in relation to fantasy art? Heh) and softness. Even in pieces where women are semi- or totally nude, they are treated more like a classical nude, with roundness and proper proportions.
Wow, that “IM IN UR STUDIO DRAWIN UR DOODZ” post is fantastic! I’m going to be up way too late tonight laughing and reading all the altered captions.
I have never understood, not only the poses, but the outfits. Nothing on earth could force me to fight crime in a goddamn leotard.
How do you know that the reason he chose to draw the men and the women differently is sexism. You’re not a _mind-reader_ so you can’t get into his head and prove that it is sexism. Maybe he is bisexual and attracted to muscular men and skinny women. Lots of people are and that doesn’t make them sexist. Am I sexist just because I like to go out with girls? Men like being objectified anyway, I bet they wouldn’t mind it if they were drawn in those poses all the time. Isn’t it really more likely that he was sexist against men because he didn’t draw men as being sexy? You are not a mind-reader so you shouldn’t call this sexist when you don’t know it is, you don’t know what happened in his mind while he was drawing it, you are just jumping to conclusions.
All right, no one here is a mind reader, and the artist’s motives might not be discoverable–or the big question. But some of us are tired of seeing the same narrow fetish pandered to all the time, with no variety–and the message it sends to the young. That men only have to be overmuscled and super-strong to be heroes, but women have to be strong without muscles and also skinny, big-boobed, tall, delicate-looking, puff-lipped, etc., and get in these weird poses any time they are not doing whatever it is they are doing. Coming on top of the usual diarrhea of fashion/beauty rules in the “real” world, this can’t be good for anyone.
So I don’t read a lot of comics, but you don’t have to read them to see what’s on the newsstands all the time, and what’s in the books in the library if you want drawing tips–they tell you how to draw just like that, fall in line with the fetish, instead of discovering your own style and/or fetish.
The motives may not be sexist, or even conscious, but the results fall right in with the sexist current. And that’s what some of us have had enough of.
Thanks very much for these links.
But when I clicked on the very first link (to tempest.fluidartist), I got a Trojan warning. Anyone else following that link, please be wary.
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