it’s a bird! it’s a plane!
TRANSCRIPT
Katy Rex
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a… Woman?!
The moment when a child recognizes its own
image in the mirror is crucial for the
constitution of the ego… the image
recognized is conceived as the reflected body of
the self, but its misrecognition as
superior projects this body outside itself as
an ideal ego, the alienated subject.
--Mulvey on Jacques Lacan
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013
Total number of comics in Top 100 with primary female protagonist(s)
5%
95%
Percent of comics in Top 100 that have primary female protagonist(s), 2002-2013
With primary female protagonist
Without primary female protagonist
0
20
40
60
80
100
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013
Number of Superhero comics in Top 100, by year, with female
protagonist(s)
Without female protagonist(s) With female protagonists)
0
20
40
60
80
100
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013
Number of Superhero comics in Top 100, by year, with
women on the cover
No women on cover Women on cover
It is worth remembering that the victim and hero functions are also fused in the so-called action film– but in the person of a
male… although male action films can indeed wallow in suffering, they also wallow in extended frenzies of sadism of a
sort exceptional in horror… the nature or quality of the suffering, which is said to be based on castration anxiety in the action film, [is] a far messier and less wholesome business in
horror.Carol J. Clover, Men, Women, and Chainsaws
The first appearance of Wonder Woman, All Star Comics #8, December 1941Created by William Moulton Marston, pen name Charles Moulton
Kneel before me. I said… KNEEL! Is not this simpler? Is this not your natural state? It’s the unspoken truth of humanity that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power. For identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.
-Loki
The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound… all this is a universal truth, a fundamental subconscious feeling of normal humans.
-Marston
