Get Your Own Fridge – A Mountain Of Brokeback

There are two terms that specifically refer to the exploitation of female characters in comic art: brokeback and escher girl (there’s even a tumblr). They refer to the rearrangement that happens to female characters to make their breasts and ass more easily viewed by the reader. So, I guess it’s convenient? And sexy?

DoTheTwist

When someone complains about the treatment of women in this art, there is always someone to call “PRUDE!”, instead of listening to the actual complaint. The problem isn’t sexiness. Can you even call brokeback sexy? The problem is exploitation and inequality. The men in comics art are powerful. The women look like some terrible accident has befallen them.

OneOfTheseThings

(One of these things is not like the other…)

I have no problem with sexy (seriously, if Catwoman is my favorite character and Adam Hughes one of my favorite artists, sexy is not the issue here). But twisting a women to view secondary sexual organs all in one line is demeaning and distracting. No matter how good the writing, brokeback will pull me right out of a story. Which is the opposite of what they’re supposed to do with art, right?

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