In "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice," Wonder Woman is depicted throughout the movie. At first, she is pretending to be a normal person, just as Batman and Superman do, but the way she is depicted is very different from her male counterparts. She was always wearing skintight dresses with insanely high and uncomfortable high heels on, which said to me that it would be almost impossible for her to protect herself, even though she is suppose to be this very strong woman. When she is finally revealed as Wonder Woman later on in the film, she comes out wearing her costume. Her costume was extremely tight, and it had a lot of skin showing. Wonder Woman was shown as having large breasts and a larger butt than a normal, average person. She was extremely sexualized within the film, otherwise, they wouldn't have had her costume be so revealing, which clearly her bottoms were giving her a wedgie. How do you even fight crime with a wedgie?
In the "The Incredibles," there a couple main characters that are women. They were very similar to how Wonder Woman was dressed. These women had on very tight costumes, but they seemed to be made of latex. They differed from Wonder Woman, because they didn't have as much skin showing as she did within the film. The weird part about this movie is that all of the girls and women in the movie were wearing the same outfit as their male counterparts. Good job Disney! You didn't sexualize the women within this movie, but I doubt this is still true of newer movies.
In the graphic novel, "Catwoman," she is depicted in a skintight, latex jumper/suit, which is extremely similar to how the women and girls were depicted in "The Incredibles." Catwoman is also extremely sexualized on the cover, because she has an extremely, unnatural bust and butt. On top of that, she is posing in the most ridiculous manner, which does not suggest that she is strong or empowered in any way. In one part of "Catwoman," she is lying in an alleyway after being assaulted and a man says to her, "...snarling girl in an alley who tried to scratch me." Catwoman is clearly being depicted as some type of dirty, homeless animal, which makes her seem less superior when comparing her to the male characters within the graphic novel.
In "Supergirl," she is depicted as extremely muscular and fit, and you are able to see her six-pack through her costume, which i'm sure everyone can agree that that is extremely over-exaggerated. Supergirl is also shown to be extremely thin, and her boobs are made prominent in the graphics, which draws the readers eye right to her chest. Supergirl is very sexualized throughout this graphic novel, and when she falls from the sky and rises from the ground, she somehow has perfectly painted, long nails. That should not be the case since she was literally pulling herself out of the ground, and in reality, they would have been chipped or broken. This depiction shows that Supergirl is more materialistic and high maintenance than male superhero characters depicted.
Finally, in the graphic novel, "Wonder Woman," she is depicted as busty and curvy, and she also has a very skinny waist. She is always shown with a beautiful face even when she is shown crying throughout most of the graphic novel. We find out later in the novel that Wonder Woman is 11 to 13 years old in the comic, so when you think about the body the creators had given her, it seems extremely wrong to depict a young girl so sexualized. She didn't even look young when looking at the panels in the graphic novel, but instead, she looked like a woman, which created this uneasy feeling about the depiction of women and young girls in graphic novels and media imagery.
The visual representations of women within graphic novels are extremely important. They are sending subliminal messages to culture and society about women and young girls, and how these women and young girls should look. Also, these images are sending messages to young men that women are here for their pleasure and they are more than allowed to gaze and stare at them. If women were portrayed more realistically and without sexuality being their leading factor, we could depict the other important and more realistic characteristics in women.
I am curious, as were your peers, whether or not these images or representations have evolved at all. Overall though, I think this was a productive study for you--a way to begin entering the comics "sphere" and think critically about what you see there! Well done!
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