J. Ishiro Finney

Full disclosure: this review may sell you on the book if you're its intended audience. But maybe if you're a little misinformed like me, it'll steer you clear.

I apparently did not do my research going into it. I was hoping for a more academic break down of comic book and tangentially comic book movie tropes, and history and trends, I suppose. But what you'll find here is a clear anti-feminist bias. It's a long opinion piece on why women should be allowed to have big boobs, and why depictions of women in comics that deviate from a particular body type are Bad with a capital B. It decries diversity in character design, which is unfortunate. Personally, I find She-Hulk exploration of "more monstrous than her male counterpart" designs interesting, but the author doesn't seem to see any merit in that.

The author focuses a lot on Wonder Woman, and shares several criticisms of her original comic book design spanning several decades, and does also do this for many other female heroines. I appreciate the spread immensely; there's a lot to explore in the trope. However, I feel that he should have spent less time calling critics names and decrying studios' attempts at newness (claiming it was to appease the masses and become "more socially acceptable" - claims I wished had citations themselves), and more time analyzing both these views that opposed his as well views that supported his assertions (particularly Lynda Carter's). An author's opinion and bias is allowed and should be welcome in literature, but I felt it was too heavy handed here. Again, probably a symptom of my looking for something different from this book than it offered.

The book holds many stereotypes about not only femininity, but also different cultures, as law. I found it very uncreative, uninspired. It could have used a little more discussion on just WHY studios make changes they do in order to be "more socially acceptable" and maybe exploring the business decisions behind that. Appealing to new and wider audiences to expand market share is really just a business strategy.

At its essence though, this book is meant to offend leftists. But honestly? This book's worst offense is that it left me wholly and entirely bored.… (mehr)