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Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, And The History Of Comic Book Heroines (2014)

by Mike Madrid(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1282906704 (ISBN13: 9781282906709)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Exterminating Angel Press

review 1: If you are looking for an easy, conversational look at the history of female characters in comics and how they relate to American society at the time, this book is for you! I enjoyed it. His jargon does amusingly clash at times (in the same paragraph he uses the words "slatternly" and "skank," making me laugh out loud), and it was difficult to tell what level of speech he was going for. (I decided it must be casual with the level of slang freely sprinkled throughout.) I never felt that he was judging the characters, but instead judging the people (almost entirely men) who created and drew them. Likewise, when he casts judgement on popular musical icons, I don't get the sense that he is judging the women themselves, but rather the people who fashioned those looks for them a... morend the public that ate it up. He does bring up the concept of the virgin/whore quite a bit throughout, though he clearly didn't explain it properly enough for a number of reviewers on this site to understand that it's a thing, and not something he made up to slander women. Giving it 3 stars because the chapters were somewhat disconnected (they could easily be read independently of each other), and the tone was off-kilter by all the dated slang terms. Still, I feel like I learned a lot, and I've already had several conversations with people over the subject matter.
review 2: Wow, this book far exceeded my expectations. It was an excellent survey of the history of female characters in comics as well as a fair, well-articulated critique of the inequalities between men and women in the superhero world. I would recommend this book to all comic nerds (male or female) and to feminists who want to learn more about women's representation in pop culture mediums like comic books. less

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