Blogpost 1: Heroines Revealed

Being one of the students in Multimedia arts, we appreciate different kinds or forms of arts. Comics are one of mediums of an artist; they juxtapose panels of images that are drawn, they also perceived stories in their comics. I was reading a comic about our common heroes, and I got curious about why are super heroes always get to be a guy. I also asked some of my colleagues that are there any women super heroes; they asked me “why would a hero be a girl? It would be weak”. Browsing through the internet I stumbled upon an article that tells about what comic books teach us about gender attitudes.

                        Speaking of comics I just read about an article that Christina Blanch wrote about titled “What Do Comic Books Teach Us about Gender Attitudes”. Christina Blanch taught students at a State University about gender through comics, she said that when the topic was opened the class seemed to be engaged. Students shared their experiences on reading comics, and she stated some of heroes in her article on what she saw on the students.  One example that Christina gave was the Man of Steal known as Superman, he exhibits the strong type of guy that is impermeable to harm. Blanch also added Lois Lane who is a gusty, beautiful character that was a headline-hunting reporter. By then when Superman was released they portrayed women as office and factory workers while the men were fighting in the war.  But when the war had ended her role as a smart and hard working woman took a toll. She seem helpless to the eyes of man, she was always abducted by villains and always been rescued. 

“My hope is that future comic book narratives reflect a society that continues to make strides in understanding gender.” Said Christina Blanch, as society develops we are in the process of developing our world. There are still a lot more comics to make and she hope it will make us understand more, so we could understand each other more.

                       

                        Besides Christina Blanch’s article I have also stumbled upon the “7 Female Superheroes to Look Up To” in allwomenstalk.com, it was stated there that female heroes doesn’t get enough spotlight as to their counterparts. So the author presented different female superheroes that the ladies can also look up to with out male counterparts. There were 7 female superheroes; one of them was Wonder woman, many have said that wonder woman was the counterpart of superman, but she isn’t. Unlike superman, Wonder woman was truly a figure of a powerful lady where she is beautiful, hard working and brave. She is a great example of a heroine because she fights for gender equality, so that men and woman have equal rights. Second heroine icon we can look up to is The Manhunter, as to what she is named because it was said that she’s tired of men getting away with all the murder and crime, so she is in search for justice. Great thing about her is that she has no special powers to do her job, she only had her brain and gadgets to fulfill her duties. These are truly amazing heroine characters to look up to, and there were still others.

"There are so many more female superheroes to look up to out there; these are merely my personal favorites. I love the diversity that the comic book world is continuing to introduce." from allwomenstalk.com it's not bad having to look up to men superheroes, although there are also heroines that we women can look up to.

                        In the article of Christina Blanch she presented other examples of superheroes that had an opposing effect on how women are viewed. Others have counter parts and portrayed as a support for the leading character, it was always like that but through time more and more comics are made and portrayed women differently. Little by little some are portrayed as strong willed like the female heroes that had no counterparts. I like comics but I never thought that other people’s views on women were different; I didn’t expect that the characters that were portrayed gave the ideas on the viewers such negative effect on women being in a lead role. I too also hope for gender equality on both sides like Wonder woman, whether you want to be different or to stand out, we should appreciate everybody around us. We are unique and remarkable individuals, we should use our talents to portray and understand each other. We are still making mistakes and trying to learn from them.