This would have been easier if I could draw.

[odditycollector]

I really should know better, but I clicked on a link to the DC message boards, topic of the new Frank Miller cover.

In summary... this is why I’m going to stay way the hell over here okay thanks. However, one exchange did catch my attention and would not let me shake it as it might have a sane person.

maelithil:
Depicting [women] as an ass, a pair of tits, some gorgeous thighs is doing them a disservice. Distilling them into nothing but their sexual attributes is objectifying. And that's exactly what this cover does.

Random Fanboy:
And notice that Superman's chest is OFTEN a whole panel unto itself. Not Superman fighting the bad guy. Not Superman standing full figure. Superman's chest. Just his chest. His huge, massive, S-draped, extraterrestrially muscular chest. Is Superman being objectified? Is he being used? Should I cry for Superman?

And. Just. What? This is the counterexample?

But! Maybe it’s not that his logic is just that scary. Maybe it's hard to understand what she’s talking about because it really, honestly is that there’s no comparable example featuring a male denizen of the DCU. I mean, even the occasional Nightwing crotch shot *tries* to have context.

Obviously, something had to be done. For The Good Of Fandom.

Luckily, much like Miller, I have no shame.

 
Totally Appropriate Covers (with bonus, never before seen script excerpts!)

 



Hal’s flying away from us through a generic starfield, nothing interesting to see except him. Have him wriggle around, giving us a good shot of his package. Add some details, something fancy for the fanboys to drool over, but don’t let it draw attention away from the point of the cover – that Kyle has nothing, NOTHING, on my boy Hal.

 



Be careful with this one – we don’t want Supes to come off as too powerful, too imposing. Maybe have him lean a bit, off balance, the better to show off his *well filled* briefs. He's fiddling with the waist line, such a cock *heh* tease. He knows he’s got what we want, and if we turn the cover, he’ll let us have it.

 



Well, we’ve done just about every variation on the theme by now, so let’s go back to the basics: Black on black, a full cover shot of Batman’s ass. Add in the utility belt for colour – give it that Sin City look. Show me thick, powerful legs under that latex or whatever the hell he wears. Clenched butt muscles. Make it obvious this is no BatGIRL we’re talking about.

Comments

male objectification

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting stuff. I do think that males are objectified in our culture but the way in which we are objectified usually has little to do with images that parallel female objectification (i.e. as sex objects). Men are objectified as providers of money (security) and also as fantasy objects in an attempt to make a safe-feeling, insulating vision of romance appear as true so that the objectifier can, to one degree or another, see the world as an extension of her mind and not have to deal with her partner as a real person -- in a way, quite similar to what happens when a man watches porn and attempts to impose that fantasy into a real life structure -- on his wife or whoever. The unrealistic nature of this romance fantasy, coupled with the fact that reality always intrudes may explain why so many guys are called "dreamboat" one minute and "loser" the next without actually having changed.
In a parallel way to female sexual objectification, males also accept their objectification and attempt to live up to it.
Frank Miller was the artist who drew Robin as a female character in "The Dark Knight Returns." I think we are seeing some of his humor here, and it also seems like he's saying traditional comics have something homo-erotic going on. Knowing something about Miller, I see the covers as commentary on comics, not outright objectification.
Erik in Minneapolis