Diana Kingston-Gabai ([info]dianakingston) wrote,
@ 2007-05-15 23:35:00
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Entry tags:non-sequitur

Perfection: MJ-Gate
It exists.

http://www.devildollmedia.com/lj/spideywifeymed.jpg

My take on the MJ scandal? Conflicted. On the one hand, it's a pretty horrid example of female objectification in a medium that's practically overflowing with similar examples, and yes, sometimes I'm so goddamned fed-up with it...

But on the other hand, I don't think I'm as worked up about this as I would've been had the statue been of Sue Richards, or Ororo Munroe. As far as I know, washing Spidey's tights is all Mary Jane Parker ever does when she's not being held hostage; the statue's an objectification of someone who's practically an object anyway - the epitome of the useless appendage, the woman who only exists to motivate her man. That's always been my view of the character, and Kirsten Dunst certainly didn't help matters by depicting MJ as someone defined almost entirely by the men she's with.

The statue's a sleazy piece of work, and you can easily imagine hundreds of sweaty Kevin Smith clones descending upon it with drool on their lips... but at least it's not imposing the "sexbomb" identity on a female character, so much as showing her in the role she's always played.


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[info]hdefined
2007-05-16 12:13 am UTC (link)
I'm confused as to what this is all referring to.

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[info]dianakingston
2007-05-16 05:28 am UTC (link)
http://devildoll.livejournal.com/750924.html

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[info]kazekage
2007-05-16 12:40 am UTC (link)
I'm like you--It's a stupid thing to sell, and it's even dumber that it will probably sell, and yet . . .does it need to be pulled? I don't think so, and I don't know if I like where the hue and cry is going.

Dumb as it is, it's certainly the tip of a very large iceberg of sexism in comics and needs less to be pulled under the weight of a welter of negative publicity, than it does to suffer under the only form of censorship I tolerate: Bad business. Don't like it? Don't buy it.

And over and above that, I'm puzzled as to where the hue and cry over the statue that featured MJ gutted in her wedding dress as a zombie. I mean, if the one is offensive, why not the other? They're both disgusting and revelatory of the attitudes of comic readers.

I don't know. I can't argue with your assumptions of her character, either--from the few Spider-man comics I've read she doesn't seem to swing much weight as a character. And yet, she was still more versatile than Gwen Stacy (thank God the technology doesn't yet exist to build a statue that looks hot falling off a bridge) not that that's saying much, y'unnerstand.

My overwhelming feeling is a sort of exhausted, appalled sadness about it--that feeling that things are only sinker deeper into suckiness. "Fuckup fatigue," I think I called it.

Kirsten Dunst certainly didn't help matters by depicting MJ as someone defined almost entirely by the men she's with.

You're much too kind. IMHO Kirsten Dunst played her as someone with the alpha wave pattern of spore mold. ;)

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[info]dianakingston
2007-05-16 06:19 am UTC (link)
I certainly understand the apathy - as you said, this is only the latest in a long, long line of sexist practices, and lord knows DC is just as guilty - but shrugging our shoulders won't change anything. If pulling the statue sends a message that there are lines not to be crossed, excesses that can't be indulged without consequences, then I say pull the statue; any step in the right direction is preferable to standing in place.

(I do think, though, that the current wave of outrage is only partly motivated by the MJ statue; it's also a manifestation of backlash against everything that's been going on over the last three or four years with regards to women readers and fictional women characters in DC and Marvel - this was just the last straw.)

The zombie wedding's a whole other ball of wax, though.

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[info]skalja
2007-05-16 06:56 am UTC (link)
I actually didn't know about the zombie wedding statue, personally. I did see the variant cover, but I thought it was fairly funny because it was one of at least a dozen or so "zombie homages" makeovers of famous Marvel covers from over the decades for the "Marvel Zombies" mini-series. Were there other zombie statues as well?

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[info]dianakingston
2007-05-16 08:16 am UTC (link)
Most likely, but I tend to let most of the zombie-related frenzy fly by me. That horse has been beaten into glue at this point. :)

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[info]skalja
2007-05-16 03:53 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I can't say as I've been paying attention. *g*

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[info]kazekage
2007-05-17 01:34 am UTC (link)
Well, if it's a backlash against all the peurile sexism and near Sim-level totalty of aggregate misogyny that's been on the rise from both companies since the beginning of the Naughties and this is just that one last insult that tips everything over, I'm for it, it's well overdue. The problem is it seems most of rhetoric is far too centred on the statue itself and the message implicit in it, rather than treating it as a symptom of a larger problem that's been growing every since Marvel become the Frathouse/Crackhouse of ideas, depending on your point of view.

Inundate Marvel with letters rather than Sideshow, I say. Not e-mails--only avalanches of real correspondance. I think a more worthwhile effort might be in making the people who produce the comics that create the characterisation that makes statues like this a good idea is treating the disease and not the symptoms, but that would require people to stop reading comics and make more noise and apprently that's off the table for the most part, because people buy them in droves no matter how vile they seem to get.

Hence, exhausted, appaled gnashing of teeth.

Why, though? Putting aside that the whole Zombie nonsense is a trend that needs to die (again) and it's meant to be a homage it's fairly disgusting and fails as a sick joke because it ain't all that funny.

To me, anyways--I recognise mine's a minority opinion. :)

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[info]dianakingston
2007-05-20 08:51 pm UTC (link)
Oh, the statue's definitely been made the Primary Target, but I think that has more to do with visibility; it's simply the most prominent example currently in circulation (let's not forget that comic book readers, generally speaking, have very poor memory, which certainly accounts for "Onslaught Reborn").

I think Marvel's being passed over largely because of its attitude towards criticism, ie: stick your fingers in your ears and hum the Spider-Man theme song. The line of thought seems to be that if protests can force Sideshow to respond, it'll get Marvel's attention by punching them in the wallet.

Yes, the zombies are disgusting, but the current outrage is motivated by sexual content rather than violent content. Two sides of the same coin, I know, but they're considered disparate enough that there's no room in the current discourse for mentioning Captain America's partial decapitation.

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[info]kazekage
2007-05-21 03:20 am UTC (link)
Well, true, but who wants to remember, "Onslaught reborn?" *L* I can sorta defend the initial premise of the first Onslaught (for exactly two months, it was going in an intriguing direction) but when you get Liefeld and Loeb (AKA The Twin-Headed Beast Of The Apocalypse) to work on a sequel . . .one casts their eyes to heaven and wondered what they did to piss God off.

I suppose so, but that kind of short-sighted-ness is kind of the problem, isn't it? So many small things get people riled up and keep their eyes off the Big Thing. Then again, to play devil's advocate, I think these kind of things come up so much it's easier to see the immediate affront easier.

That makes sense, and really, bad business is the only way any real change will be affected. Problem is: the Sideshow statue is a pretty faint blip on their overall profit margin and unless they hurt Marvel in the pocketbook, it's really all for naught. Until then it's almost a proxy war, innit?

I suppose so, and besides which--the "which is more objectionable--sex or violence?" question is one that goes far beyond the bounds of the comic medium and has never, to my recollection, ever been adequately explained.

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[info]skalja
2007-05-16 06:52 am UTC (link)
I'm afraid, as a huge Spider-Man and Mary Jane fan, that I have to strenously disagree with you both on the characterization count. Whatever the huge disservice Raimi and Dunst did her the films, this statue has nothing to do with her personality - like, say, her determination before and during her relationship with Peter not to let men define how she lives her life (oh, well done, filmmakers), or that MJ has been the breadwinner of the couple for about 95% of the relationship and wouldn't have time to do the laundry at all, much less handwash, or that Peter and her song is Kung Fu Fighting, or that in her most recent major appearance she beat out a government agent trying to arrest her for treason in a cat-and-mouse psychological head game. And crushed his self-esteem doing it, too.

... Yeah, I really, really don't like Kirsten Dunst's MJ, can you tell? *g*

Mind you, I don't think that statue matches anyone's characterization, unless "creepy dead organless zombie" counts as characterization, I'm just saying.

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[info]dianakingston
2007-05-16 08:31 am UTC (link)
The problem is, these aspects you've stressed are completely in the context of her relationship with Spider-Man: she's chased by the government because of her husband's actions rather than her own, she's the default breadwinner because he's out saving lives, and while she can insist on not being defined by men, she doesn't seem to have any kind of story arc that doesn't hinge on her love life.

IMO, it's partly because their relationship is very, very uneven. If you take Reed and Sue (pre-CW dickery, please) as an example, Reed was depicted as a certified genius who was, at times, naive and utterly lacking in basic social skills. Sue may not be able to whip up Negative Zone tech in thirty seconds, but in another sense, she has access to insights that Reed could never figure out. That's a relationship where both characters complete and compliment each other, and it's something that was always lacking in the Peter/MJ thing, because from day one she was depicted as an object, as the girl Peter had to win over. So what happens after that? What does MJ do that Peter can't, other than wash his suit?

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[info]skalja
2007-05-16 03:52 pm UTC (link)
Well, to a certain extent, all major supporting characters' lives are going to be "in the context of their relationship with [main character]," so I'm not sure what you're getting at, really. I will also note that in real life, the "default breadwinner" is often defined in relationship to what the other person's career is anyway. I'll grant the last point if you amend "love life" to "acting ... and stalkers," as it's something I've complained about myself.

As for what MJ does that Peter can't - She's holding down a dual life as an actress and as primary support personnel for a superhero, and she does it without the benefit of superpowers. Peter has remarked to himself that she holds up better under the pressure than he ever could have in her place. You talk about Sue providing insights - MJ does that all the time, along with cover stories, ideas for new identities, and occasionally a well-applied baseball bat to villainous skull. Beyond that, they're just best friends. So yes, it is demeaning to say that the only thing MJ can do that Peter can't is wash his spider-suit.

I mean, we do need to separate narrative structure from narrative, here - yes, MJ is a supporting character in the Spider-Man story, and as far as that goes their relationship is uneven because one character is the main man and the other one isn't. As far as how the relationship is written, though, they've always been equals.

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[info]dianakingston
2007-05-20 08:46 pm UTC (link)
That depends... I mean, in terms of comparison, I remember back when PAD was on Hulk the first time, and Rick Jones would at times have a completely unrelated storyline going on in the same book. It was basically a way to individualize the supporting cast as something other than the Jimmy Olsen-type sidekick, where their entire lives seem to revolve around the protagonist.

With MJ, though, I just don't see her having any kind of developmental arc that has to do with who she is, as opposed to who she's with. Saying she's "primary support personnel" implies that she has an active role in Peter's crimefighting; if she were the Micro to his Punisher, I'd concede the point. But Peter's always been the "everyman"; as opposed to Reed Richards, Peter's usually grounded enough to figure things out for himself, which is pretty much what he did pre-MJ. Strictly speaking, I just don't see what she brings to the table - all the aspects you described are things Peter could do (and has done) himself in the past. Sure, it's great that she gets to pick up some of the slack herself, but she isn't really depicted as someone whose strengths are compatible with Spidey's weaknesses.

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[info]skalja
2007-05-20 11:34 pm UTC (link)
Well, I agree with you that there's room for improvement, certainly. I think many of the writers who have tackled MJ come against one of two obstacles: 1) they are incapable of figuring out that they can write stories about her which are not about OMG sex/acting(!!!) (aka: sexism), or 2) they get into writing stories about her but get derailed by crossovers. But there are miles and miles of argument between "this character could be better" and "this is all this character is," frankly. So, "What does MJ do that Peter can't, other than wash his suit?" comes across as nothing more than a strawman, and, frankly, a somewhat disturbing one.

Actually, PAD's first Spider-Man run had a lot of good MJ scenes which showcased a lot of her talent and what she brought to a relationship with Peter, although all of his run was pre-marriage, but I would argue that a comparison with Rick Jones doesn't really stand up. The Hulk (and Rick) are much more mobile than Spidey and Mary Jane. Furthermore, Rick is associated with several different superheroes and doesn't have the "no crazy hinjinx" restrictions that are on MJ. It's all right for him to share bodies with Captain Marvel, lose an arm, or try to resurrect his wife from the dead, but MJ is restricted to "mundane" plots. This is also why comparisons with Sue are a bit on the weak side: she's not just Reed's wife, she's a fellow protagonist of the Fantastic Four and a superhero! She gets far more panel time and narrative weight than MJ - and then, on the other hand, her portrayal has been on the erratic side, if you look at her portrayal and utility to the team pre- and post- her renaming as Invisible Woman... I'd say pitting either female character against each other is rather a disservice to both. So I don't think either comparison is well-founded.

For a fair comparison, Lois Lane would probably be the closest. Of course, Lois actually hasn't been married to Clark as long as MJ, and tends to share plots with him because they work together. On the other hand the abilities she brings to the marriage are more explicitly written because she's a better investigative reporter and information-seeker, a trait Clark values. On the other, other hand, she needs rescuing even more often than MJ, and "implicit" doesn't mean "not there," it means "more subtle." I don't think there's any question in the text that Peter appreciates and feels he needs MJ's focus, balance, ambition and occasional whimsy to get himself through life.

Saying that Peter could have accomplished these tasks himself - which of course he did, eventually, with very mixed results, that being the entire point - to me is sort of missing the point of marriage.

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