Superhero Comics Are For Men

superhero comics affirm men don't at me [Music] what happened to superhero comics the brave heroes the beautiful damsels in distress the evil villains to savage monsters malicious beings from beyond the stars and terrible tyrants from parallel dimensions and most of all the brutal unending battle between good and evil over the past few years Marvel has led a shift and how superhero comics are presented the stated reason for these changes is to wipe the scope of their target audience however despite everything interest in comics has declined but why I don't think it's because of the new heroes and I don't think it's because of the writing now don't even think it's just because of the loonie leftist politics I think this decline is due to something far more fundamental stories come in a variety of flavors also known as genres sci-fi fantasy horror mystery crime but the three most important genres when it comes to social justice in its insistence on contaminating beloved franchises honor action drama and romance every genre comes with its own set of expectations these expectations are often lovingly called tropes for example sci-fi has aliens and robots mystery has murder an intrigue horror tends to have monsters and creepy old people tropes are what draw in a genre z-- target audience a term which he refers to the particular group of people who are the most likely to hand over valuable currency for the distinct privilege of viewing reading or listening to a work labeled with the designated genre and filled with the appropriate tropes a superhero story can have drama and romance but the people who love superhero comics the true fans the people who in a world filled with books movies and television shows still choose to spend their money on superhero comics these people don't show up for drama and romance they show up to see mighty heroes fight dastardly villains villain commits crime hero acts to stop the criminal and it all climaxes with a violent physical confrontation everything else is just a side dish to the main course because even if you strip away all the fancy embellishments of draw and romance even if it's just a story where Lex Luthor steals 40 cakes and Superman rushes in to stop it just a story where the good guy beats up the bad guy it'll still work as an acceptable superhero comic whether you like it or not the core element of a superhero comic has always been action romance and drama appeal to the target audience of women but action appeals to its target audience of men in 2017 a study was published on the US national library of medicine's website investigating the preferences each of the two genders had toward movie genres the experiment was divided into two studies study one had the subjects designate which genre they believe is best associated with each gender study two was to determine whether or not these stereotypes were actually true and spoiler alert when it came to drama romance and action they were men were more attracted to action while women were more attracted to romance it's speculated that because testosterone the male hormone is related to the sex drive and dominant behavior men could be more biologically drawn to movies featuring competition and sex oxytocin and vasopressin the female hormones are related to pair bonding and love well normally from an evolutionary standpoint women prefer work centering around issues concerning mate choice partner loyalty and partner loss men tend to prefer works that center around protection rivalry status and the accumulation of power regardless of the reason the results of the study are clear the target audience of the action genre is predominantly men because action contains many tropes that appeal to men and not so many that appeal to women now here's where the facts really start to kick marvel at the teeth okay so how else am I'm sorry Sam I've started because Dave McKean and I persuaded some people from DC Comics to let us do a three-part full-color beautiful painted comic called black orchid and we were on the second issue a black orchid maybe even working on the third I think well halfway through the second and my phone rang and it was a lovely lady named Karen Berger who was my editor DC Comics for many many years and Karen said look we're getting a bit worried because you're doing this comic and it's a it's a top format comic you're two guys nobody's ever heard of doing a character nobody's ever heard of it's a female character that and female characters don't sell so we've had an idea we're gonna give you a monthly comic too right I'm gonna give Dave a Batman comic to draw and that way people will become familiar with Dave and they'll become familiar with you and then they'll buy Black Orchid what would you like to do as a monthly comic Sandman is an iconic comic book series published under DC's vertical imprint back in 1993 and was written by now comics legend Neil Gaiman it has become a sort of staple for both hardcore and casual comic book fans alike it had intrigue and drama romance and comedy Sandman is filled with relatable characters horrors sadness and tragedy it was also the parent series to Lucifer but more importantly Sandman had a huge hand in making the world of comics more accessible to women and and I what made me happy was you know when I did the first signings for Sandman I'd look out a line of people and they were aged between 16 and 25 and they were male and because that was the people who came into comic shops and by the end of year one I would look out and they would be sort of 20% female and by the end of year two they'd be 50% female and and in fact people in unwashed t-shirts would come up to me at comic conventions in America and they'd say dude I got a thank you I got a shake her hand you brought women and a my comic store for the zenman stands as one of the greatest comic book series ever written but it's not a superhero comic yes the main character dream does exist in the same universe as the Justice League and he even mingles with famous DC characters at the Martian Manhunter but the villains and Sandman are not conniving Lex Luthor types their weapons are not giant robots or doomsday machines and dream doesn't fight back with physical force Sandman centers more on character dynamics and dark fantasy elements in other words unlike a superhero comic the core of Sandman is not action and this isn't even an assumption or projection on my part Sandman not being a superhero comic or at the very least not being written in the style of a superhero comic is not speculation it's fact and it's been confirmed as fact by none other than Neil Gaiman himself I went into Sandman not ever having written a monthly comic and actually not certain that I could so in many ways Sandman was for me built as a kind of storytelling machine I went into it from the beginning going okay if I have somebody who has existed through all time and space up till now that gives me all time in space gives me all human history maybe it gives me all sorts of stories so I don't think I'm very good at superhero stories but maybe if it just looks enough at the beginning like maybe it's sort of superhero we to fully uninitiated then I can go on and I can do whatever I'm interested in Marvel's big push towards social justice has caused a company to abandon their most fundamental storytelling element action no longer takes center stage it's been replaced with romance and drama suddenly villains are being beaten with very little effort heroes diverge into self-righteous monologues every chance they get and the focus has shifted from how to fight the villain to how the hero is feeling and do you know what the deliciously ironic part is Marvel never needed to turn superhero comics into shallow Disney Channels sitcoms that study may have confirmed that member for action and women for romances and dramas but it also found something else few people probably would have ever suspected a some of the stereotypes may have been proven true the gender gap is a lot narrower that you might think yes superhero comics have been written and should continue to be written generally for men however they are not only for men see this this graph is displaying the results of the study testing the truth behind gender stereotypes concerning movie preferences the black dot measures how many genres and the white dot measures how women do - on the more people in each group that approved of the genre the higher the dot now let's take a closer look this is the final measurement for romance and is about what you'd expect with the gender gap being significant in favor women but take a look at this see that this is the final measurement for the action genre as you can tell the action genre is still heavily dominated by men but when you compare it to the measurements for romance the gender gap for action is a lot smaller which means women aren't as put off by the action genre as sudden I think and hold on because we're not done yet this is the final measurement for the drama's jean women are still the target audience for drama but when you compare it to action and romance the gender gap is a smallest of all which means men are even more accepting of drama than women are of action yeah so what's the solution did some penniless progressive might ask well it's all right there in the data let's look at it like this a good superhero stories shouldn't use action as its base meaning have action drive the blog mix it with some drama meaning have drama and character dynamics to give the story depth and maybe sprinkle the whole thing with a pinch of romance so fragile how do you know they'll leave it work The Killing Joke The Dark Knight Returns whatever happened to the man of tomorrow these are considered some of the greatest comics ever written each of these works revolve around crime or a villainous scheme they use drama to build character and provide death and the climax is a violent physical confrontation with the central antagonist now check this out even data published by sources which tend to push the social justice agenda and while highly suspect if taken at face value seemed to support this idea in 2013 but Shanker a pop culture and political writer for comics be published an article isolating the demographics of fans who let female comic book characters because of course he did in the total and enough to about 5.8 million people about half of the total number of comic book fans living in the United States at that time then he separated the male fans from the female fans and found that women made up a majority of people who liked female characters and that majority was a staggering sixty-two percent that meant about 38% were men in big numbers that translates to an estimated 3.6 million women and 2.2 million men that could be identified as liking female comic book characters now these numbers are confusing because according to SJW more women can only relate to female characters and men can only relate to male characters that's why men supposedly throw a tantrum whenever they replace a male hero with a female one but if you look at the data that narrative questions faster than max passaggio sales figures especially if you consider that the total number of US comic-book fans at the time was an estimated 11 point 6 million people with men comprising about 60% and women about 40% which means they were about a million women about 9% of the comic book fan base or about 22% of female fans who could not be identified as liking female comic book characters now hold on because it gets even better this is a snapshot of Marvel's general readership demographics at the end of 2013 the percentage of women rested at an estimated 36 percent but if you look at the numbers for icon comics a marvel owned imprint women make up a majority of customers at 55% so what is icon comics well marvel comics typically centers around superhero adventures but icon isn't limited to that restriction the icon imprint is reserved for creator-owned comics which means why the superhero genre is still represented works printed under icon could venture into other genres expire in crime which have a more general appeal than action oriented superhero stories so what does all this mean well maybe it means superficial elements like gender and race are not would draw women into comics and maybe the kind of women who enjoy superhero comics like them the way they were and the women who prefer romances and dramas and that perky dialogue hippie Disney Channel sitcom style of writing without the delicious action e-center simply choose to read other comics maybe if Marvel really wanted to increase their female readership they would stop during their International House of Pancakes into an International House of burgers and start a new comics improv one that centers around romance and drama just like when they created the max imprint to attract a more adult audience and maybe those readers who can only relate to heroes and characters who are the same race and genders they are just might be a shrill insignificant minority of whiny poppers so maybe inclusiveness doesn't mean what Marvel thinks it means maybe if Marvel's goal is to be inclusive its focus shouldn't be diversity and maybe what Marvel should really focus on is appealing to one of the few things every single human has loved since before recorded history regardless of race or creed or gender and that is telling a good story you

Channel: Literature Devil

Views: 163,564

Rating: 4.6478314 out of 5

Keywords: SJW Marvel, Comics, Superhero, Gender, Social Justice, Marvel Comics, SJW Comics Fail, men and women, men prefer action

Id: 6rQPDb-PJyI

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 13 2018