Marvel fans who insult DC seem to be of the opinion that a superhero film is doomed to failure if it fails to stick to Marvel’s formula and that DC is wrong for not trying to appeal to Them even if it wouldn’t work in the context of Their stories. Given what I’ve seen of Their obnoxious behavior, Their habit of moving the goal posts and Their astonishing hypocrisy, I can’t say I blame DC for not wanting to indulge Their sense of entitlement.
lol nope, DC sucks
Admittedly, I’ve always been a bigger fan of Marvel superheroes that I have DC superheroes but when I put my dedication to the X-Men franchise aside I admit that DC had some of the best characters under their licensing; Barbara Gordon being just one of them. In 2011 DC relaunched themselves as The New 52 and committed many grievous sins against women.
Women were uniformly made into blowup dolls (Amanda Waller being the best example, as she was redesigned to meet white standards of beauty) and became fodder for the male gaze (many examples of this but the most infamous must be the redesign of Starfire and that scene in Red Hood and the Outlaws #1) Despite these problems and others DC did give us something great: an openly lesbian Batwoman. I loved the series enough that I stayed with DC, if only to support Batwoman, but when the creative team was about to get her married, which is something they had been leading up to, DC refused to let it happen and that’s when I seriously discussed with our community whether it was even a good idea to continue supporting Batwoman. I and many others decided it wasn’t.
Although Batwoman was the catalyst for my boycott, my boycott is based on the treatment of Barbara Gordon. As Oracle, a female superhero in a wheelchair, her mere presence within continuity did more for me emotionally than I can articulate. She became an icon to disabled people and when they cured her they committed an act of violence against our people. Genocide is a very real thing that we deal with and when anyone, especially a powerfully public corporation, erases not only the acceptance but the visibility of disabled bodies they directly contribute to our genocide.
I’ve been questioned about why I don’t boycott Marvel considering their treatment of Charles Xavier’s disabled body, that’s an extremely fair question and this is my justification:
Barbara Gordon’s “recovery” wasn’t even a plot device, she was made ablebodied because a disabled woman did not fit the brand DC wanted for itself. A miraculous recovery is a very insidious trope that I take very personally. Disability isn’t something that people understand, or even want to understand and the media has used this trope so many times that it has created a doxa that disability can be overcome through faith or strength of will.
I have literally had people, ones I’ve known and ones I haven’t, come up to me to tell me how ashamed I should be for being in a wheelchair because if I wanted it bad enough I could be cured. One childhood playmate insisted this was true because she had seen it happen many times in movies.
Because of Barbara Gordon some disabled child is going to be bullied and shamed for their genetics.
This will never happen with Professor Xavier because he never just got better. No one has ever told me that the reason I’m in a wheelchair is because an alien hadn’t fallen in love with me and through the powers of science and magic found a cure for my disability.
Taking away a character’s disability is never acceptable but the way in which it’s done is important.
Want further proof of what sort of ableist mentality DC creates? Just look at the tags of this post
^^Ok thats pretty funny tho
What, exactly, about eugenics amuses you? Be as specific as possible.
Posted on 13 Apr 2015 at 1:34PM with 1,488 notes | source | via
