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Women don't age in dredd universe?

Started by Suede1971, 22 August, 2018, 07:16:51 PM

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JayzusB.Christ

Think I may have started this with my mention of Stalker's colouring - I don't have any problem with Beeny looking more Hispanic than she used to, and Stalker's colouring is the least significant aspect of her many transformations.

No problem with Bond being a black man either - if we insist on continuity there he should be an elderly Sean Connery. 

Dredd would seem a bit weird if he suddenly became black; as he's an older and bulkier version of the same guy of a few decades ago. (Aren't we all?). But yeah, in a reboot or alternative medium, then no problem.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Frank on 24 August, 2018, 08:28:43 PMDoesn't matter.
To individuals, personally. But we live in a society where trials have been done in various places about the visibility of women. Men often naturally think things are even when films and media include approx. 25 per cent women. Studies have been done specifically timing genders speaking in things like lecture halls (and giving lectures). Even those men who conducted some studies got the figures woefully wrong (the gist being that if women spoke for more than about a quarter of the time in total, men thought they'd 'dominated' the entire thing).

I'm not suggesting 2000 AD can fix this, obviously, but I do find it a bit ridiculous that a far-future society set in the remains of the US is predominantly white and male, and especially so when it comes to policing. Naturally, this comes from the artists predominantly being white and male, and drawing themselves, and referencing from their own viewpoints. But this isn't inclusive, and it's not the kind of representation that really makes sense, unless that's what we believe such a future will be like. (See also: Star Trek, which for all its utopian vision only saw fit to have one female senior crew member in the original run. How very progressive.)

This bends me out of joint more than it should because of mini-G. I see her growing up in a society where as a mini-bot she's already getting shit from men and boys (she's 4), and where the vast, vast majority of media is weighted against her. In short, media should do better. It's not like there's no awareness now, and it's not like it'd be that fucking difficult for artists to think: "You know, in my thumbnails for this entire Dredd strip, every single Judge has been a white bloke. I'm going to change that."

GrudgeJohnDeed

I'm not a fan of inexplicably changing races in the same continuity either, it just doesn't make sense.

Bond is a series that has nonsensical continuity and suspension of disbelief regarding Bond's regenerations baked in though, I'd be well up for Idris Elba as Bond.

TordelBack

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 25 August, 2018, 01:20:12 PM
(See also: Star Trek, which for all its utopian vision only saw fit to have one female senior crew member in the original run. How very progressive.)

In 1966*. In its 2017 incarnation a slight majority of the key characters are women (Michael,  Tilly,  both Georgious, Cornwell,
Kayla, L'Rell and arguably Adiama and the Ops officer whose name I forget) . But I agree with all your points.



*The original intention of Majel Barrett's Number One would have been a more significant step forward,  but it was obviously it was a step too far.

Frank


IndigoPrime

2000 AD can, however, do its part to try.

Funt Solo

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 25 August, 2018, 01:20:12 PM
I see her growing up in a society where as a mini-bot she's already getting shit from men and boys (she's 4), and where the vast, vast majority of media is weighted against her. In short, media should do better.

I'm not normally big on the feels, but that brought a tear to my eye over my cornflakes.  My daughter is 6, and before she was born I thought I was a strong feminist.  But there's nothing like the glaring reality of what she'll have to put up with from society to make it far more real and more personal for me.

I've been trying hard to find positive role models for her in media: where there are strong female central characters that aren't defined solely by the men around them.  Things I have found: Ronia the Robber's Daughter (book and cartoon series), the Oz books (& GN versions), Ms Marvel and The Guardians of Ga'Hoole (books).

Things that I would be embarrassed to show her because of the way women are depicted would include quite a lot of 2000AD, unfortunately.  I'm hoping it's improved and improving (I'm still reading back issues from 2013), though.

Here's an example (from 2010, mind you) of something I think depicts women as sex objects (where their male counterparts would not be depicted the same way), from Anderson's House of Vyle in the Megazine.  Oddly, someone wrote (either in Dreddlines or the msg board, I don't recall which) to complain that she was drawn too much like a man?!  So, for some she wasn't sexualized enough.

Spray-on uniform showing bubble-butt and boob:




What happens when ghostly hands attack the two main characters?



The dude (standing up straight, shown frontal)   
gets his gun taken away from him:
Anderson (arching her back and sticking out her butt) gets groped!
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Proudhuff

I refer the learned gentleman to my first letter to Tharg thirty years ago asking if Anderson's hi heels were standard issue and did Dredd have them too.
DDT did a job on me

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Funt Solo on 25 August, 2018, 05:30:48 PM
... My daughter is 6, and before she was born I thought I was a strong feminist.  But there's nothing like the glaring reality of what she'll have to put up with from society to make it far more real and more personal for me.

I've been trying hard to find positive role models for her in media:

Seriously try checking out The Phoenix. Its balance is miles ahead of 2000ad and its a great read for the young ums and I love reading it too um.

TordelBack

#54
A discussion that rings painfully true for the father of an 8-year old girl. 

Boo Cook is undoubtedly one of Tharg's very finest, but I did not like his Anderson (even if the "hands off, creep!" motif goes right back to her earliest solo strips).  However, I'd take heart form things like Beeby and Dyer's awesome version that things can change:


Blue Cactus

Good example. I think I'd feel more attached to/invested in the character now if she looked like that more often. It's a character who's grown as you've read her over the years, showing her experience on her face and posture, something I love in Joe Dredd and Love and Rockets. Dyer's Anderson is experienced and you can see how she grew out of the character we first met.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Richard on 25 August, 2018, 01:17:14 AM
Beeny was always Hispanic, but in her first few stories she looked white -- just like plenty of other Hispanics, including her own mother.

Right. So what you're saying is: you're not complaining about Beeny changing race, because you acknowledge that she's never done that, even though you originally said she did, but now you're complaining that different artists draw her within the commonly accepted parameters of her ethnicity but inconsistently with respect to each other? Have I got that right? It seems an oddly specific thing to get your panties in a bunch about, but, hey, it's a free world.
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TordelBack

I also don't think America Jara was particularly pasty as originally depicted, and certainly Tony and Alvira (sp?) were almost stereotypically Puerto Rican (I was always vaguely disappointed they didn't hail from Mega Rico, or Puerto Meg or some such - a real place seemed a bit on the nose in a quasi-allegory whose protagonist was already called America).  So any change in Ami's inherited skin-colour since Cadet is just a necessary correction.

Compare her to L'il Beeny and Judge Thug here.


Richard


JayzusB.Christ

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"