::raises one eyebrow::

[trinityvixen]

Heroes hasn't been as egregiously bad this "volume" as last. Granted, that's like saying the rotten food they're serving is better than the shit they fed us yesterday, but I thought I'd get that out there.

Because I have another bone to pick with them. I've already gotten myself good and frothed up over sexism once today, but this isn't something as hard to define and defend. Of course it isn't--it would require Heroes to employ any subtlety. Which it absolutely cannot do.

Know what else it can't do? Respect the genre from which it is derived. The writers on this show think all of us comic book nerds are fucking losers. I'm not exaggerating. I got into it a little in my Pink Raygun review of this Monday's episode. Basically, they keep setting up stories in or around comic book shops, in case we, heaven forbid, forgot that this show is a derivative attempt to milk the decades-long success of comics. And every time we end up in a comic book store, it gets ugly. This week, Claire Bennet, human female, goes in to warn Alex, human male working at a comic book store, that the government is after him. But even before she can scare him off with that talk, he's goggling at her for being A! Human! Female! In! A! Comic! Book! Shop!

On behalf of myself and the other two fabulous comic book fan-bitches, may I heartily wish that Heroes would go fuck itself? This is like being back at that elementary panel at Comic Con where they were like "Women in comics! Isn't it amazing?" (Even the women were. Sigh.)

Amazing women on my f'list who read comics, perhaps you can tell me: what the fuck?

Comments

[avram]

Yeah, I'm used to walking into comics stores and seeing women not just shopping there, but behind the counter too. But I've heard quite a few stories about retrograde comic shops where, yeah, a woman walks in and all the men goggle at her. I think those of us who live in big, liberal cities are lucky in this respect.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I've been hit on in a comic book store, and that was sketch city. (By one of the employees no less.) But I've been in non-city stores and had a fabulous time chatting up the guys/gals working there. You might get the odd comment about being the lone female in the boonies, but even the guys who do that recognize that it's a case of limited population rather than disinterest on women's parts.

[neo-leviathan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was rather... overstereotypical. Though the "So, what power do you have?" "Err... I can breathe under water?" kinda amusing.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Makes me miss my local shop where the guys all knew us from coming in every Friday--to the point where they could have our accounts pulled up by the time we wandered over to the counter.

And yeah, Alex was cute enough later on to make up for it, but still. WTF, show?

[equustel.livejournal.com]

Oh, geez. A human female works at my local comic book store, and the human male there that owns it is perfectly cordial and sociable every time I walk in. I have yet to see a mom's-basement loser who can't make eye contact with women. This is a stereotype that is seriously outdated by now, if the dramatically increasing number of femmes attending ComicCons each year is any indication.

Unfortunately, nobody on the outside looking in realizes this. Thus, people like my boss nearly birth a cow when they see me walking in with my monthly comic subs on lunch break. Sigh.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I love reading comics in public, but part of that (I'm sorry to say) comes from the sort of illicit thrill of reading that "kind of thing" openly. That thrill wouldn't exist if people didn't assume you should be ashamed. Sigh.

Women attending Comic Cons are clearly just dragged there by their boyfriends, duh. The fact that they're usually wearing elaborate costumes means nothing. Nothing!

Sigh. It's totally about being outside looking in for Heroes. In their case, they're literally a decade behind. We stopped being ashamed of comic book movies back when Blade did some respectable work rehabilitating the genre. From there, comics entered the mainstream as they produced hit after popular hit. Eventually, something had to be conceded back to the source materials for not being just cheap trash. But from the way Heroes writers behave, you'd think they just discovered comics yesterday. Then again, they're actually running a "Super Gitmo" plotline this "volume," which proves they're always three years behind popular sentiment since people have been turning on the people behind the real Gitmo for some time now...