The Occassional Superheroine and sexism in comics
For any who’ve missed out on the imbroglio over former DC editor Valerie D’Orazio’s blog postings about a series of very negative experiences in her life, you need to go here and get caught up. To get the full story, it’s best to start at the bottom and read up.
In short, Miss D’Orazio says she saw some dark sexism within DC’s vaunted halls and was castigated for challenging such behavior. I write that she “says” she saw this and not that she “did” see it simply because it hasn’t been proven yet, not because I don’t believe her. Much has been made of the sexism that runs deep in the boys club of comicdom. There are too many stories out there about such sexism, so I’m inclined to believe this story as well.
It is a depressing, chilling story, and an important one to receive attention, because only when you shine a bright light onto something like this can it begin to dissipate, and that it should. A lot of credit goes to D’Orazio for speaking out. However, after reading most of her memoir, I think it’s guilty of the needless sensationalism and bloodlust of which she accuses the creators behind Identity Crisis (We need a rape, she quotes editors as saying).
To quote from D’Orazio’s blog:
I think Broken Vagina is a good way to begin this theoretical memoir. It’s provocative and begs explanation. Of course, you might be wondering what a theoretical broken vagina has to do with comic books. It has a literal and figurative meaning, both of which I hope will be apparent buy the end of this post.
Actually, let’s get the figurative one out of the way — I WAS FUCKED BY COMICS!
Ok, super. Let’s go.
She goes on to start the story (and spend quite a bit of its space on) a sequence of events in which she had consensual sex with a man and had a serious internal tear that damaged her gravely and contributed to the negative situation she found herself in. In the writing, she sets this up as a parallel to the sexism going on in comics. Getting fucked and getting fucked by comics. But there is no parallel there.
Consensual sex and all its repercussions has nothing to do with sexism in the office, and it only draws attention away from the seriousness of the issue of sexual harassment to try and “sell it” with a sensational phrase like “broken vagina” (which is repeated ad infinitum) and descriptions of blood pouring over comic books.
I realize that people react angrily and expressively when pressed into a hard spot, and D’Orazio is certainly due her venting. But for the long-term, if she really wants to write a memoir of her experiences (and wouldn’t it be great to see it done in comics form?) I hope she realizes what her story is really about, and that she needn’t dress it up in gore and gratuitious sexual imagery.