Thursday, August 20, 2009

Friends and Special Friends.

One of Gail Simone's responses to the whole Cry for Justice #2 thing (you know the one, where Hal gets backed into admitting he had a threesome with the Huntress and Lady Blackhawk) was that it's troublesome to see people write strong female friendships in a way that inevitably lead to sex. Like two women can't just be good friends with each other, because if they're that close they obviously must have some sort of sexual interest in one another.

To drag out a good quote of hers:
"What IS it about female friendship that is so scary or impossible to imagine that it's so rare in comics? Honest to god, and I"m not talking about this book here, but it's something I've thought of often, it's just utterly baffling to me how poorly female-to-female non-sexual relationships are realized.

We have tons and tons of historic bromances in comics, but I really had to invent a superhero female friendship for Diana because she didn't really have one outside of Donna. How dumb is that, in seventy years of stories? The Jla, the Avengers, all that stuff, hardly any lasting friendships between two women.

Once again, JLI was ahead of the game with Fire and Ice. But the vast majority of female team books are of the dumbass Charlie's Angels mode, where everything is about fake lesbian posery and talking about men, as if the characters don't exist without them.

When I wrote bop, we went almost five years with no serious romantic subplot quite intentionally, with the idea of showing that women can actually have real friendships and arguments and all of that range of emotion without having to connect it to guys for it to carry weight and validity. And I think it worked, I think people understood that Canary and Zinda and Babs and Helena loved each other, genuinely loved each other. I think that was the pure joy of the book, really.

Why is that such an unbelievably rare thing, not just in comics, but in all media?"
Yeah. Seriously. Unless it's in a show, movie, or book specifically targeted towards a female audience. Certainly anything aimed towards the male gaze has a lack of them, and even "neutral" things, like, um. BSG (okay, arguable if that's a neutrally targeted show, but that gets into the whole women-liking-scifi thing and I'll save it for another day). Even BSG has a lack of female friendships. Tigh and Adama's friendship is one of the core relationships of the series. The [heterosexual] romantic relationships certainly are, and ended up being the most important plot points of the arc, by the end. (Don't even get me started on sexuality in BSG.) But there was no strong female friendship, despite having lots of strong female characters hanging around.

I'm conflicted on this one. On the one hand, I absolutely agree with what Ms. Simone is saying. In comics (and other media intended mainly for men), female friendships are rare unless there's some kind of sexual subtext involved. On the other hand... I ship it.

What I mean by that is something I've talked about before: subtext. I'm a Xenite. That's arguably one of the strongest female friendships in pop culture history. But if you asked me if they were having sex with each other, I'd say "yes" in a heartbeat and not feel a tad guilty about it because I ruined the portrayal of a strong female friendship. In my mind they remain great friends, because ... what's that quote? Love is friendship set on fire. Word.

Here's the thing. I'm not just a woman, I'm a gay woman. (I know, shocking.) And as a gay woman, I have been pretty much starved for representation in the media. Disney princesses end up with Disney princes. Everyone on TV, everyone was trying to be in a relationship, make a relationship work, or dealing with the hilarious hijinks of having a relationship (depending o the type of show), and all of those relationships were heterosexual. Even the cross-species love (Kermit and Ms. Piggy) was still straight love. Every movie I remember watching, re-watching, and eventually wearing the VHS tape out on had a heterosexual relationship at the center of the story (with the exception of maybe Mary Poppins, but I'd argue that).

I completely understand the frustration with turning close female relationships into sexual ones. But at the same time... I'd like to see some ladies lovin' each other. Even now, even post-Ellen, post-Xena, post-The L Word, we're not really well represented. (Yes, I'm a regular reader of AfterEllen.com, why do you ask?) And if we are there, we're usually chaste. Don't believe me? Compare the amount of times you saw Bianca Montgomery kiss one of her girlfriends (let alone get into bed wit one) to the amount of times you saw her sister Kendall get her freak on with various dudes.

Shuttup, I watched All My Children for the lesbian. Sort of like how I watched The OC for those 8 episodes where Mischa Barton's character (um, I don't even remember her name) was dating Olivia Wilde's character (Alex!). Sort of like how I've seen pretty much every movie on the Required List of Lesbian viewing, because it's not like there's a lot out there to go through. Sort of like how I spent hours back in 2001 downloading Real Media clips of the first two seasons of the British show Bad Girls because.. you guessed it: lesbians.

Or bisexual women.

Anyway, my point is that sometimes I really do think the women ought to be together. Not always, no. And I absolutely agree that there is a lack of strong female friendships pretty much everywhere ever (Sex in the City and its genre copiers are exceptions, but all of those women were also defined by their search for men). But sometimes, you know. I just ship it. And maybe I'd like to see some women in comics hooking up with other the same way guys hook up with women. We've got a lesbian leading a comic, let's see how long it takes her to have the amount of sex the current Batman has had in the pages of his older Nightwing and Titans titles. Let's see how long it takes her to kiss someone.

I know that Ms. Simone wasn't saying women who are friends can't have sex with each other (in fact she explicitly said that earlier), and I know that my point of view is vastly different than the intended audience (men), so the above should be read with a grain of opinion-salt. I don't want all female friendships relegated to the dregs of "heh heh, that's hot" land, but sometimes I really enjoy the chemistry between two characters and would like to see them get together.

Preferably without a guy involved, though.

9 comments:

  1. I get where you're coming from. I didn't read Zinda and Helena as shagging each other in the (alleged) 3some, but I def agree that we do need my women relationships out there. Both the platonic and sexual kind. More representations of bi women (and men) would be nice too..I'd like to be recognised and not shunted aside as imaginary or fake.

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  2. There definitely needs to be more of the Hal and Barry/Beetle and Booster style deep female friendships in... everything, really. The great double acts, Tigh and Adama are a great example, do most often turn out to be men.

    PS, you've got me interested now, I really want to start you on your views of sexuality in BSG.

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  3. THANK YOU. As a lesbian who has been a comic/SF&F/anime fan for 30+ years, I have had vanishingly few examples in my chosen genres to enjoy wholeheartedly; I have to consume the straight-oriented stuff and the girly friendships and delve for subtext. Why NOT have women who are friends outright having sex and/or falling in love?

    And, I'm sorry, a threesome with Hal doesn't count as lesbian sex, because the power and sexual dynamics favor the two women spending their focus primarily on him -- otherwise, he wouldn't be particularly pleased.

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  4. Sometimes I think about how I'd like to write more fic with strong female friendships. Then I think about how hard this is in most fandoms, because there's a great shortage of female friendship. There's also a great shortage of female conflict between official allies that's not over a man (or, occasionally, a child).

    Then the paranoid side of me wonders if that's actually a feature, not a bug, y'know?

    Anyway, good column. I get Simone's point, but I also get the point (as espoused by other fans) that in a way, an f/f pairing in fandom can be a compliment. (Though a backhanded one, sometimes.) If characters have enough depth and quantity/quality in their interactions, fans like it taken to the next level. It can be a compliment on what somebody thoughtful is actually doing when writing canon.

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  5. Both are fair points.

    I really loved Birds of Prey for it's portrayal of female friendship and never felt inclined to ship any of the characters. I think speculating is fun when there's ambiguity, and gay women obviously struggle for representation along with other groups, but I don't think that should take away from the female friendship stories, which we need more of too.

    Equally I don't think Gail is trying to set up an arguement against more stories about gay relationships either. In fairness, the lack of representation of female friendships is a more glaring omission in some ways.

    I think part of the reason comes back to the writing: which you can see a microcosm of in the aftermath of the Birds of Prey series, and perhaps why fans are reacting strongly. It seems that female friendships are doomed to be scattered to the winds, more often than not.

    This is one advantage the representation of f/f relationships have, is they are not percieved as something that can be rewritten. Basically, the writers usually know whether a charcter has been established as gay, and that makes it a very hard ball to drop: it's unambiguous and readers can invest in them with a certain amount of security.

    On the other hand if I start to emotionally invest in female friendships...well, it currently feels like I am letting myself in for a fall. The rift between Babs and Canary, for example, hit me especially hard. I'm not saying relationships can't have their uneven periods, but you have to look at the trend.

    I think your article is very pertinent because the percieved conflict between female friendships and sexual relationships persists. Truth be told, female friendship is somewhat mythologised because of historical and literary relationships between gay women that were either hidden or wallpapered over in the public consciousness. If you debunk some of these myths, which are nonetheless very dear to some, you're obviously going to see a bit of a backlash; especially if you consider the context for many traditional ideas about male/female relationships and a women's power within society, and the refuge such friendships provide from it.

    Anyhow, that's largely historical but it's relevant. It's why Wonder Woman still doesn't have a sex life: I think a lot of male writers are caught between the fear of becoming patriarchal opressors by "tying her up" with a man or being guilty for "fetishising" lesbian sex. Of course the problem, in such cases, is really that they don't understand the issues well enough to be able to engage with them. So it will either take a woman writer, a male writer with a grasp of the issues, or a combination of both to tackle the problem (not just with Wonder Woman).

    The fact is that female friendships are an important part of life, even if the legend about them being beyond friendships between men and women or men and other men is as much a product of the patriarchy as a rallying cry against it. I suspect that a lot of the (predominantly) male comic writers have a middling interest in them, which can be understandable, and there are many reasons it's easier for them not to get involved.

    The best solution is still to get more women writing comics, so there is more interest in/focus on female relationships as a whole, and then hopefully the grey area between canon and fanon can be a bit more relaxed and fun and less like a fight for representation.

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  6. Wow, so much to say. Thanks everyone for commenting. Let's see...

    @Saranga - As, I think, a later commenter said, what we really need is a nice balance of f/f friendships and f/f relationships. There are almost NO same-sex relationships in mainstream comics, and the ones that ARE there between women are usually written for the male reader, which is both understandable and frustrating. I want Babs and Dinah to be friends. But maybe I think Kate Spencer should really look into her "Ellen" feelings for Wonder Woman (her words, not mine), because, hey, that's real life sometimes.

    @James Ashelford - Yeah, what I'm really looking for is one of those great, classic duos. Most of them are m/m and very rarely are they even m/f without sexual tension (I guess once you add a woman, it gets sexual?). The best m/f duo I can think of is Mal and Zoe from Firefly. And the best f/f duo I can think of is Xena and Gabrielle, except I totally think they're in love, so it sort of detracts from the friendship. I know there are people out there who ship Spock and Kirk, even Tigh and Adama, and write fic to their heart's content, but there are just SO many male duos out there that it gets sort of glaring that the female duos are missing.

    And... I will write a post about sexuality in BSG. I'm behind on my reading this week, so it'll be a good filler. ;)

    @heavenscalyx - You're welcome. :) I really just write my own opinions, usually at stuff I'm annoyed by. I'm glad to know you feel similarly. Like I said to Saranga, I want a balance. I want friendships and I want relationships both. You know, like real life.

    @cleome45 - Considering how focused we readers/viewers seem to be with pairing off characters (and that leads me to my general discomfort with espousing this heterocentrist idea of two partners in a monogamous relationship being the ideal, which is another rant entirely), it is sort of a compliment when people start looking for/seeing/appreciating a relationship between two women, even if it's a sexual or (less often) romantic one. It means that they have chemistry, and chemistry is a good thing. The problem is just when it's done only for titillation, I think. And... you're right. Maybe it is a feature and not just a bug, but I don't think it has to be.

    @trypr - Wow. Thank you for your insightful response. I sort of want to go into more detail in my response, but I've run out of time at work so... expect more later. In the meantime, I actually agree with what Simone is saying, I just see both sides of it. Where we're almost completely without female friendships, I'd be happy to have some good ones in comics, and would settle for that. For now. Something I'm keeping an eye on is Batwoman (and The Question), because there's a perfectly good opportunity to have a woman have both same-sex friendships and same-sex relationships (at best), or just a romantic/sexual relationship (at worst). Then the writers can "fill that quota", so to speak, while allowing for strong female relationships to flourish elsewhere without sexualizing them.

    This isn't to say I want Batwoman turned into a guy's idea of lesbian porn, just that it gives DC the chance to write a f/f romance/sexual relationship with a character that we already know identifies that way, and one whom would never bring a male into the situation.

    In the end, what I agree with most is that we need more women writing comics. Straight women, bisexual women, trans women (trans men would be nice, too), gay women. There just need to be more women in there, which is also why I try to support titles written by women whenever I can.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, so much to say. Thanks everyone for commenting. Let's see...

    @Saranga - As, I think, a later commenter said, what we really need is a nice balance of f/f friendships and f/f relationships. There are almost NO same-sex relationships in mainstream comics, and the ones that ARE there between women are usually written for the male reader, which is both understandable and frustrating. I want Babs and Dinah to be friends. But maybe I think Kate Spencer should really look into her "Ellen" feelings for Wonder Woman (her words, not mine), because, hey, that's real life sometimes.

    @James Ashelford - Yeah, what I'm really looking for is one of those great, classic duos. Most of them are m/m and very rarely are they even m/f without sexual tension (I guess once you add a woman, it gets sexual?). The best m/f duo I can think of is Mal and Zoe from Firefly. And the best f/f duo I can think of is Xena and Gabrielle, except I totally think they're in love, so it sort of detracts from the friendship. I know there are people out there who ship Spock and Kirk, even Tigh and Adama, and write fic to their heart's content, but there are just SO many male duos out there that it gets sort of glaring that the female duos are missing.

    And... I will write a post about sexuality in BSG. I'm behind on my reading this week, so it'll be a good filler. ;)

    @heavenscalyx - You're welcome. :) I really just write my own opinions, usually at stuff I'm annoyed by. I'm glad to know you feel similarly. Like I said to Saranga, I want a balance. I want friendships and I want relationships both. You know, like real life.

    @cleome45 - Considering how focused we readers/viewers seem to be with pairing off characters (and that leads me to my general discomfort with espousing this heterocentrist idea of two partners in a monogamous relationship being the ideal, which is another rant entirely), it is sort of a compliment when people start looking for/seeing/appreciating a relationship between two women, even if it's a sexual or (less often) romantic one. It means that they have chemistry, and chemistry is a good thing. The problem is just when it's done only for titillation, I think. And... you're right. Maybe it is a feature and not just a bug, but I don't think it has to be.

    @trypr - Wow. Thank you for your insightful response. I sort of want to go into more detail in my response, but I've run out of time at work so... expect more later. In the meantime, I actually agree with what Simone is saying, I just see both sides of it. Where we're almost completely without female friendships, I'd be happy to have some good ones in comics, and would settle for that. For now. Something I'm keeping an eye on is Batwoman (and The Question), because there's a perfectly good opportunity to have a woman have both same-sex friendships and same-sex relationships (at best), or just a romantic/sexual relationship (at worst). Then the writers can "fill that quota", so to speak, while allowing for strong female relationships to flourish elsewhere without sexualizing them.

    This isn't to say I want Batwoman turned into a guy's idea of lesbian porn, just that it gives DC the chance to write a f/f romance/sexual relationship with a character that we already know identifies that way, and one whom would never bring a male into the situation.

    In the end, what I agree with most is that we need more women writing comics. Straight women, bisexual women, trans women (trans men would be nice, too), gay women. There just need to be more women in there, which is also why I try to support titles written by women whenever I can.

    ReplyDelete
  8. THANK YOU. As a lesbian who has been a comic/SF&F/anime fan for 30+ years, I have had vanishingly few examples in my chosen genres to enjoy wholeheartedly; I have to consume the straight-oriented stuff and the girly friendships and delve for subtext. Why NOT have women who are friends outright having sex and/or falling in love?

    And, I'm sorry, a threesome with Hal doesn't count as lesbian sex, because the power and sexual dynamics favor the two women spending their focus primarily on him -- otherwise, he wouldn't be particularly pleased.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sometimes I think about how I'd like to write more fic with strong female friendships. Then I think about how hard this is in most fandoms, because there's a great shortage of female friendship. There's also a great shortage of female conflict between official allies that's not over a man (or, occasionally, a child).

    Then the paranoid side of me wonders if that's actually a feature, not a bug, y'know?

    Anyway, good column. I get Simone's point, but I also get the point (as espoused by other fans) that in a way, an f/f pairing in fandom can be a compliment. (Though a backhanded one, sometimes.) If characters have enough depth and quantity/quality in their interactions, fans like it taken to the next level. It can be a compliment on what somebody thoughtful is actually doing when writing canon.

    ReplyDelete