Over the past decade, across the world, people have flocked to watch superhero movies, and noticeably all the movies have featured men as their lead, that is until now. Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins, was recently released in cinemas much to the excitement of women and girls across the globe. Women have been in comics and behind the scenes of comics for decades but with innovation in technology and vocal female population, there has been a greater demand for representation on both sides of the comic world.
“To trace the history of women in comics, you have to go back to the 1930s, when popular women’s magazines like Calling All Girls featured a hefty offering of comics. Even the initials for ‘Marvel Comics’ first appeared in June 1961 on the cover of Patsy Walker, a lighthearted comic written by Ruth Atkinson that targeted women readers.”[1]
Some may think the superheroines were initially created for the eyes of the dominant male consumers, but in fact they were created, specifically with regards to Batgirl and Wonder Woman, to attract the female population, and it did just that.
“‘There’s this conventional wisdom in place that female superheroes were always designed with titillation in mind,’ wrote Comic book writer B. Clay Moore. ‘Forget the strange, psychosexual implications inherent in that idea. The fact is that most female superheroes up through the ’70s (maybe into the ’80s) were created to attract female readers, not to pander to boys.’”[2]
Both DC Comics and Marvel, comic book publishers, would go on to create various superheroines and villains who were female. Though, it is must be noted that there was a period of time where it did become all about appeasing the heterosexual men.
In 2017, you will find a greater access to comics for women and girls on the internet, as publishers are no longer limited to providing comic books to stores. The alternative digital format of comic books has enabled the female population to go online to retrieve their favorite comics on sites as Comixology .[3] With the call for greater representation, an importance in having women of colour and queer characters has been with emphasized, with examples of characters as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, Ironheart/RiRi Williams, Catwoman, and Harley Quinn.
Although a great deal is needed to be done, as a “study conducted by comic book historian Tim Hanley in June of 2014, [noted] only 10.1% of DC comic credits belonged to women, [and] in the same month, 12% of Marvel Comics credits belonged to women,”[4] we continue to see improvements in the comic book world. And hopefully we will see more representation of the female population with all our layers and complexities on the big screen.
[1] Claire Landsbaum, “How the Success of Marvel’s Female Superheroes Heralds a More Inclusive Age of Comics,” Vulture, May 21, 2015, http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/marvels-female-superhero-renaissance.html.
[2] Laura Berger, “History Lesson: Female Superheroes Were Not Created to Excite Men,” IndieWire, March 23, 2015, http://www.indiewire.com/2015/03/history-lesson-female-superheroes-were-not-created-to-excite-men-204190/.
[3] Landsbaum, “The Success of Marvel’s Female Superheroes.”
[4] “Female Superhero Representation in Comics,” The Artifice, August 20, 2015, https://the-artifice.com/female-superhero-representation-in-comics/.