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drsevarius (drsevarius) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-03-14 08:27:00

Current mood:	depressed
Entry tags:	creator: mike grell, title: green arrow

An old letter from the Green Arrow letters page on Grell's treatment of women

And to make it legal...

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scottyquick
2009-03-14 09:01 am UTC (link)

Oh cripes, I remember the Green Arrow and Black Canary letter columns. My favorite bit was how O'Neil said "No, having Bruce fight in Dinah's high heels and stockings is totally not okay, but having Dinah fight in them is! This is superhero comics, people! We don't need to think 'man that's a ridiculous costume' even though this series is being pushed as ultra realistic!" . I mean, there were plenty of good writers (Melissa Page and Uncle Elvis!), and plenty of great discussions, but any suggestion that Mike Grell's treatment of Dinah MIGHT not have been great was instantly hushed.

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thekamisama.livejournal.com
2009-03-14 01:32 pm UTC (link)

It was Uncle E that got me started reading Green Arrow! Literally. He dropped an issue in front of me when I was register jockey at the first comic shop he worked at in podunk Kentucky (by that time he was working at a much larger and nicer store in Tennessee). He dared me to read it and not want to get the back issues afterwards. I was hooked.

It is a good thing he was into comics and not narcotics, cause Elvis was one of the greatest pushers in the history of comics fandom.

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	scottyquick 2009-03-14 03:28 pm UTC (link)
	That's ... really? You've got to be kidding me. What was he like? How'd y'know he was Uncle E? My world is shrinking! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

thekamisama.livejournal.com
2009-03-15 01:06 am UTC (link)

I knew it was him cause he lived up the road around Dawson Springs, Kentucky and was the only guy I knew around here named Elvis Orten (yes his name really was Elvis) who loved comics. He was just from around here, just the dumb luck of where my parents decided to raise a family. Almost forgot, we even went to the same High School (though he graduated quite a few years before I did).

He was always a great guy. Could make friends with anyone he met. Hell my dad even asks me from time to time if I've heard from him lately. Sadly I cannot say that I even know where he is these days, he up and fell off the face of the Earth (though like his more famous namesake, there are "sightings" you hear from other folks who know him in the area)

I am pretty sure Melissa Page lived around this area too. Her letters were always addressed from Nortonville (I think?) which is about 20-25 miles from my hometown. She must've gotten comics closer to her home because I never met her (or knew it was her if I had).

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	thekamisama.livejournal.com 2009-03-15 11:17 am UTC (link)
	Seems Melissa Page is still in comics. Scroll down to the more recent entries. Seems she was shopping closer to home, I know that store that Kevin runs. It's a small world after all. http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/ostrander/?frames=n;read=1281&expand=1 (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	scottyquick 2009-03-15 04:54 pm UTC (link)
	Eeee! This is so exciting! Man, I'd love to sit down with those two and talk about Ollie for hours and hours. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	geoffsebesta 2009-03-14 04:02 pm UTC (link)
	I also loved the great T. M. Maple and the great lettercol battle in Ambush Bug between T. E. Pouncey and Mark Hayden Frazer (of Ocomonowoc) (Ocomonowoc) (Ocomonowoc) (Ocomonowoc) (Ocomonowoc) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	volksjager 2009-03-14 10:22 am UTC (link)
	Free YOURSELF,your mid will follow. (Reply to this)

	bluefall 2009-03-14 11:56 am UTC (link)
	Man, people are stupid. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	xdoop 2009-03-14 12:05 pm UTC (link)
	What's your icon from? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bluefall 2009-03-14 12:33 pm UTC (link)
	Just a little one-panel political cartoon by this guy named Benbrook (I think. I've only ever seen it online as decoration for other discussions). (Reply to this) (Parent)

jarodrussell
2009-03-14 01:34 pm UTC (link)

Too long, but did skim. I won't weigh in on the letter except to say, I do agree with "Equal rights means equal risks" if for no other reason than I think that's the only way to get interesting stories with character of both sexes.

That said, equal risks means equal rights. If you have Batman have his back broken and come back a year later like nothing happened, you shouldn't (for any reason) make Batgirl wait twenty years. You can't take Dinah's Canary Cry away for ten~fifteen years when she gets tortured, and then have Ollie walk away from a similar situation with little more than a bruised ego.

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bluefall
2009-03-14 01:50 pm UTC (link)

That said, equal risks means equal rights.

That's part of it, but it's still missing the issue that it's not about equal risks, it's about equal treatment. There's the catch, and while it seems obvious enough to me, it's clear from everything from this to the Rucka debacle I provoked on the old S_D that it's more subtle and pervasive than it has any right to be. If you torture the crap out of a female character, that's fine - you just damn well should be doing it the same way you torture the crap out of a male character, and for the same reason. If he's strong and defiant and she's sexy and helpless, if he breaks free on his own and she needs a rescue, if he goes down a hero and she goes down a victim, it's not equal treatment. If it's his story when he's being tortured and his story when she's being tortured, it's not equal treatment. If he bounces back heroically and she gets written out, it's not equal treatment. Equal risk is a good start, but it's only the start.

You can't take Dinah's Canary Cry away for ten~fifteen years when she gets tortured

Oh, but didn't you know? Grell never meant to imply that her Cry got taken away by the torture. He was writing realistic stories, so he simply decided she'd never had it. And hey, Hal didn't get to use his ring when he guest-starred either. So that can't possibly be sexist, right?

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jarodrussell
2009-03-14 02:28 pm UTC (link)

That's part of it, but it's still missing the issue that it's not about equal risks, it's about equal treatment.

By "risk" I meant to imply adventure. I should have been more clear. I don't mean both Batman and Black Canary need to be chained up beneath a pendulum so he can escape and save her; I mean if Batman can have a story where he escapes from being chained beneath a pendulum, I darn well expect Canary to be able to do the same.

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	scottyquick 2009-03-14 03:20 pm UTC (link)
	Rucka debacle? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bluefall 2009-03-14 03:28 pm UTC (link)
	Eh. I made apost to S_D pointing out the sexist treatment of Boomer versus Sasha in the Outsiders/Checkmate "Checkout" crossover. Rucka felt attacked and made a post on his own LJ where he spent some time beating on the "the wimmins want special treatment" strawman. It kicked around WFA for a bit, then died down unremarkably as these things usually do. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	drsevarius 2009-03-14 03:55 pm UTC (link)
	http://ruckawriter.livejournal.com/14504.html (Reply to this) (Parent)

	bluefall 2009-03-14 04:31 pm UTC (link)
	This is the long version. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ashtoreth 2009-03-15 01:21 am UTC (link)
	I completely support more sexual torture for men by villains. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	gwalla.livejournal.com 2009-03-16 04:30 pm UTC (link)
	Icon related? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	ashtoreth 2009-03-16 07:14 pm UTC (link)
	I feel that Batman/Guy Gardner is a place no sane person would go.... (Reply to this) (Parent)

xdoop
2009-03-14 01:51 pm UTC (link)

take Dinah's Canary Cry away for ten~fifteen years when she gets tortured

"Grell has since claimed that [Dinah losing her powers] that wasn’t his intention, that as far as he was concerned, no one in his series had superpowers, so she never had it to begin with."

http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/comics101/93.html

Which is stupid, but I think Grell was telling the truth. In his run he kept Green Arrow away from most of the DCU; the only characters he crossed over with were the more realistic superheroes like the Question and Batman (and I think that only happened once), and whenever Hal appeared he was always in his civilian clothes and never his Green Lantern outfit.

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	xdoop 2009-03-14 02:14 pm UTC (link)
	Did we ever see how Babs reacted when Bruce regained his ability to walk? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jarodrussell 2009-03-14 02:18 pm UTC (link)
	I never did. I wasn't really aware of Oracle then, and had a knee surgery pretty much the month of Bruce's come back, so I missed a chunk of that. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2009-03-14 06:19 pm UTC (link)
	Bruce walks by Babs. Bruce: Oh... you still need that. Babs: Yeah, it was less of a break and more some bone is missing... prick. Bruce: You can't grow that back. I expect better. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(Anonymous)
2009-03-15 06:18 pm UTC (link)

I gotta ask - what era of history was it that women risked less than men? Women don't have a lesser chance of being beaten up by men. Women certainly don't have a lesser chance of being raped. Because of the relative weakness of legal redress for women and the greater targetting of women, if anything being a woman has, historically, been more risky than being a man.

I suppose this could be a reference to war, but honestly? That comes with being in a nation privileged enough to conduct the vast majority of its recent wars on other nation's soil.

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