WONDERCON ’07: GENDER & GENRE IN COMICS

Two back-to-back panels tackled the subject of gender politics in genre fiction on WonderCon Sunday. The first “Girls Kick Ass!” was moderated by Diana Gill of HarperCollins division Eos Books and concentrated on comics and prose. The panelists were Judd Winick (Outsiders), Linda Medley (Castle Waiting), Phil Jimenez (Wonder Woman), Vicki Petterson (The Scent of Shadows) and Ellen Klages (The Green Glass Sea). The other panel, starting immediately after the first, was “Gender and Genre,” hosted by the California Browncoats in partnership with Equality Now. This panel was more concerned about television and film. Moderated by Equality Now’s Amanda Sullivan it featured Jane Espenson (Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) and Pia Guerra (Y: The Last Man).

To start the panel everybody mentioned their favorite female heroes. Jimenez set the tone of the panel when talking about the qualities of Wonder Woman he appreciates so much. “From her point-of-view she was designed to be a teacher,” he said. “To teach young people a set of values that I personally believe in.” Jimenez appreciated that she was more than just a fighting Amazon but also someone who spread knowledge and empathy, a quality rarely built into male superheroes and something that made her a strong and compelling character. As he would say later in the panel, comparing his fondness for Wonder Woman to a character like Wolverine, “I appreciate compassion and love more than the ability to gut you.”

Two major discussion points throughout were the related questions of does a female hero have to be physically violent to be “kick ass” and does it become too easy to just give a female hero masculine qualities and says to the world she’s tough? For the actual kicking of ass Klages declared “violence should be a last resort. It’s very heroic.” As for exemplifying other attributes Winick said “It’s about the story. There’s Buffy and The Bride but there’s the women of The West Wing. They’re strong and gender doesn’t really play into it.” Patterson said she does like playing with the fantasy aspects and including violence in her stories but agrees it must be organic.

When asked what women in their personal lives inspired their fiction Klages said that her interest in characters overcoming their perceived lack of strength comes from her sister who has Down Syndrome. She grew up seeing her become a person that others don’t see. It’s the reason why the main character in her book has an impaired leg. She is able to live everyone else’s world and be cool, it’s everyone else who has to get used to it.

Jimenez steered the group into an ethical discussion when he brought up The Dark Phoenix version of Jean Grey. She was the most powerful character in the Marvel Universe but she also killed entire planets of people. Does a female character have to be good to be admirable? Jimenez take on superheroes is “these characters represent a greater good. They don’t have downtime. What kind of flaw can you give a perfect person that’s engaging but can make them not evil?” During the audience Q&A a fan mentioned that characters like Dark Phoenix are cathartic, to be as bad men are and not have to pay for it.

The use of beauty in characters brought up by another audience member. “So much of it is personal taste” said Medley. “There’s a pop culture standard you can use. I like to bust stereotypes, to blow people’s minds on what their character’s personalities are.”

Near the end of discussion the subject of the panel was flipped from girls kicking ass to boys who are allowed to be sensitive. Jimenez talked about the difficulty he’s had maintaining the character Tempest. Since he’s so passive creators want to either “fix” him or kill him outright. Jimenez defends the character by saying there are already a thousand character who carter to the typical idea of a hero so there should be an alternative.

Winick said that he hopes panels like this one will be redundant in ten years. “Just like when you see older comics tackle political issues it seems clunky,” he said. “I hope my work seems clunky in a few years.”

The Gender and Genre panel started with moderator Sullivan quoting Espenson’s old boss Joss Whedon in saying that genre is a whisper into the ear of the public that can possibly change the world.

Espenson started the panel saying that the woman on television that she was attracted to were the career women such as Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies or Rose Marie on The Dick Van Dyke Show. To see a woman take a job outside of teacher or nurse was a breath of fresh air. On Star Trek, she was much more excited about the Romulan Commander on the episode “The Enterprise Incident” than Lt. Uhura.

One thing that frustrates Espenson about the television writing business, and it is something she sees less of, is the idea the women on staff should have to write the “softer” episodes of the series. Guerra said she saw similar things in comics. It kept her from falling into any stereotype. She drew what she wanted to draw, which was mainly stuff blowing up. Espenson has recently found a reversal of what she used to see. She is writing for the comedy Andy Barker P.I. and since she’s the only writer to work on dramas she is often drafted to write the action sequences.

Guerra said she was hesitant about Y: The Last Man because she worried that the story was going to be a utopian tale of how great the world is without men. “People are people,” she said. “The world is always screwed up.” She felt Y was about people picking up after an apocalyptic event.

Asked what defines a hero of either gender Espenson said that she believed they have to take up action despite fear. She doesn’t think physical strength is more inspiring, it’s just employed more in television and film because it’s more visual. Similar to the sentiments of the last panel she felt that audiences can take that kind of strength metaphorically and be strong in ways that are more accessible.

One question considered the gender neutrality of so much of the storytelling on Battlestar Galactica and how that can be sign of progress. Espenson said that maybe that’s how you know television’s gotten somewhere because you can have a damaged woman such as Starbuck and not have to worry about her being emblematic of all women in the medium. Guerra appreciated that saying she felt she comes from a more egalitarian point of view than feminist a one.

Espenson was asked to comment on a scene in the Battlestar Galactica episode, “The Woman King.” She said that while the action of the character doing the laundry while Helo doesn’t help wasn’t in the script she wasn’t too bothered by it. She did admit that “it’s easy to forget that it wouldn’t be right for the world you’re working with.”

A familiar topic that the second panel covered was the danger in writing a woman who just acts like a man. Espenson wasn’t too concerned about it. “If people are just people then isn’t a woman acting like a woman meaningless?” she wondered. “Can’t you just act like the character you are?”

As whether Espenson feels responsible to write characters that will inspire young girls Espenson said “it’s a responsibility not do negative stuff. If you just write people you’re doing your job.”