This is one of two essays originally designed to follow the two Sequart essays-- MAKING A DIRTY BREAST OF IT PART 1 and PART 2 -- commenting upon the Kelly Thompson essay linked below.
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The
word “objectification” dates back to the 19th century, where it
originally connoted "the act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing." In modern times, it has become all but synonymous with the concept of "sexual objectification." Within the sphere of this essay all of my references to objectification will follow this colloquial definiton.
Objectification of this kind is thoroughly implicated with the rise of feminist politics and ethics in the early 1960s. I confess that I do not know which authors are most responsible for the circulation of the term. I will note that one of the earliest landmark examples of a feminist protest against objectification in a defined social setting occured in 1963, when journalist Gloria Steinem assumed the job of a "bunny" in a Playboy Club in order to write about the less than glamorous aspects of that particular form of feminine employment. Though I did not find the word "objectification" in the Steinem essay, the job of being a Playboy bunny would seem to satisfy the philosophical ramifications of objectification as later codified by
Martha Nussbaum.
I
will not print all of Nussbaum’s seven factors of objectification here, as I
feel that all seven can be boiled down to two.
In my essay objectification is defined as an attempt to make a living
being into an object by denying that being’s subjectivity and freedom, or
agency, to act upon that subjective will.
I specified above that the Steinem
essay successfully protested against objectification in “a defined social
setting” because, although I think the essay demonstrates political
objectification in that setting, I don’t deem that it, or any other writing,
has as yet demonstrated that objectification transpires in fictional narratives
in the same manner as in real-life sociopolitical situations.
The erroneous parallel usually
precedes thusly:
In real life, comely women are
exploited to be “objects of lust” for horny Playboy club-members.
And even if no sexual favors are demanded of
the employees, one can reasonably imagine real processes of objectification
here, in that the employees must act as if they were objects of pleasure to
club-members.
At no time in the
relationship of the female employees and the customers whom they entertain must
the customers be aware of either subjectivity or agency on the part of the
female employees.
From this situation of genuine
inequity, however, many have chosen to read that fictional narratives which
depict (or are said to depict) any perceived gender-inequity must be just as
guilty of objectification.
And this is
not true.
In one analysis of the
process of narrative identification, I specified the following in this ARCHIVE essay:
Identification need not always
connote one's sense of participation in a given character's bodily reality,
although when speaking of erotica, that would be the natural assumption. It's
equally possible to identify with a nonhuman creature, or even an inanimate
phenomenon, by identifying it as an expression of a particular will to do
something within the sphere of a narrative.
Slightly later I specify that
identification by its very nature can be “fleeting.”
However, this does not in any way nullify its
greater implication in potential subjectivity: to place the reader in a
position where he can comprehend any character’s subjectivity, if the narrative
allows for that possibility.
All too often, comics-critics cry
“objectification” in any circumstance that would seem to put a female character
in a position like that of one of the aforementioned Playboy Bunnies.
However, of the many ways narrative fiction
that narrative fiction is not like life, it is not a given that sexual display
connotes objectification in the sense of denial of subjectivity and agency.
In
Kelly Thompson’s essay “No, It’s Not Equal”, the sexual display of “drop dead
gorgeous women” always connotes “the sexism of comics by way of the
objectification and hyper-sexualization of female characters.” Thompson provides numerous contemporary
examples of hyper-sexualization, but I argue here that objectification does not
follow from the presence of hyper-sexualization. Since Thompson does not define her concept of
objectification, I’ll examine one of the characters she cites by the standards
of the shortened Nussbaum definition.
One of Thompson’s more questionable
citations was the Marvel character “the Black Widow,” whom Thompson described
as “regularly unzipped, sometimes heels,” while providing one image of the
Widow showing off her cleavage. In one of my responses, I objected to using this character as a fair example of one given a “porn
star” body. I did not deny that some
artists may have drawn the character in this fashion, but Thompson failed to
note that many versions of the character had not been “hyper-sexualized” in her
sense. I cited a 1970s Gene Colan
rendering of the Widow as an example where the body was not pictured with a
“porn star” physique. One respondent to
my essay asserted that it was immaterial to counter with an example from the
days of “all ages” comic books.
Therefore, these next two examples are drawn from periods when the
American direct market system had been fully established.
As this sequence comes from a Ralph
Macchio-George Perez “Black Widow” story from 1983, I predict that this still
won’t be contemporary enough for some readers.
Nevertheless, the four-part story, appearing in the quality-paper Marvel
anthology Marvel Fanfare, seems aimed
at the older fans in that it provides—albeit within the context of a standard
Marvel ass-kicking action-plot—a fair degree of T & A. In the sequence shown, the imprisoned Widow
strips off her leotard to get at concealed weapons. It’s not the least bit clear as to why this
procedure destroys the costume so that she has only enough left to cover what
the Comics Code would want covered. In any event, she spends ten pages of the
story’s last sequence fighting in a halter-top and briefs.
Is this sexual display? Of
course.
But is it also
objectification? No.
There surely are stories in which T
& A characters are deprived of any meaningful subjectivity, and I might
cite early Image heroines like “Ballistic” and “Riptide” as examples of
this. But the Macchio-Perez Widow
retains at all times a believable subjective center for the character, in terms
of what one can expect for an action-adventure hero of either sex. The plot is fast-paced pulp, in which the
Black Widow goes on a spy-mission to find a kidnapped father-figure and expose
a mammoth conspiracy within her native Russian homeland. Nevertheless, the T &A elements (as well
as some possible catfight aspects) don’t nullify the character’s subjectivity:
her affection for her father-figure Ivan and her guilt over seducing one of the
villain’s henchmen in order to gain information:
Widow (thinking): “…he had fallen
in love with a lie—one which I was as much responsible for creating as the KGB
agents who murdered him.”
As for agency, the Widow largely
foils the conspiracy with only minimal (and sometimes counter-productive)
assistance from male SHIELD agents. A
female reader might not like the T & A aspect of the story, but it
contravenes neither subjectivity nor the heroine’s ability to kick ass.
I don’t know if Thompson meant to
exclude the 3-part Black Widow series
from 2001 (recent enough?) from her accusation.
In any case, this cover illustration is fully in line with the interior
Scott Hampton art, who depicts both the real Black Widow and her blonde
doppelganger with bodies that are toned but not hyper-sexualized. One wonders if Hampton received any plaudits
back in the day for so doing.
In keeping with the more restrained
art, the story by Greg Rucka and Devin Grayson eschews the pulpier flavor of
mainstream Marvel comics for something closer to the world of John Le
Carre. In order to ferret out a plot
involving hidden nuclear missiles, the Widow uses advanced technology to switch
identities with Yelena, a fellow female Russian spy-- but without the latter’s
prior knowledge. Yelena endures torments
over her loss of identity as well as being put in harm’s way before she finds
out what the real Widow has done. At the
close Yelena speaks to her tormentor:
“I do not understand the kind of
monster who would rape me in this way.”
The Widow’s response boils down to
a lesson in the hard knocks of espionage:
“…I wanted you to understand,
finally, what it meant to be a spy… We are not heroes. We are tools.
And tools get used.”
Some critics might find the
Grayson-Rucka-Hampton work better-characterized or “more mature” than the
Macchio-Perez work. I personally deem
them both good though not outstanding works of their respective types. But the salient point is that the presence or
absence of sexual display does not limit either work in terms of making
readers—whether male or female themselves—restrict their knowledge of the
Widow’s subjectivity or agency. The
Widow commits in both stories acts of which she’s not overly proud, but guilt
doesn’t keep her from completing a necessary mission.
As I don’t claim to have read every
Black Widow story, it’s possible that some exist in which the character is
reduced to the level of a Playboy Bunny, perhaps in whatever source Thompson
uses for her cleavage-example.
But even then, I would not grant
that hyper-sexualization is the inevitable bedmate of objectification.
After all, real bunnies, as much as black widow spiders, are not without defenses. Both can bite back.