rivers_bend

There were men in the movie??????

LOL, I love comic books, and I even have a file at the local comic book shop, but yes, sexism is alive and well in many of the ladies' costumes! I never understood why the men need to be completely covered in Kevlar but some of the women need to show cleavage/midriff and have long hair, not a good idea against bullets or in hand to hand combat...

I assure you that some heroines do dress appropriately though (e.g. full body coverage, masks, AND sensible boots) and still kick ass :D

When I saw that you saw this, the first thing that popped into my head was, "I wonder what rivers thought of the giant blue peen?"

It was a good movie. I'm kinda in lovehate with evil JDM. And, I swear to god, I didn't even NOTICE that the women didn't wear masks. What the hell does that say about me?

I've ordered the graphic novel in the mail.

You got to see it in IMAX?! *iz jealous*

I haven't read the graphic novel, and I freely admit I went primarily for JDM. (There's a reason it's "Confessions of a One-Track Mind".) Sadistic? Um, okay. As long as he smiles that flashy smile of his. And wears lots of leather. And makes John Winchester look like Father of the Year!

The feminist perspective on The Watchmen: There IS no feminist perspective. I have a feeling that liberation of every kind came to a crashing halt in that particular AU, courtesy of Tricky Dick and the Republicans. (Which sounds like a punk band, doesn't it?)

IDK MASKS ARE SEXY.

/shallow.

(Malin was on Fallon last night, I believe, and said that her costume contained prosthetic nipples so they'd always look hard.)

((oh, oh, also: In that scene w/ the fire, from the trailers - I remeber being in the theater going: REALLY? IT'S WISE TO HAVE YOUR BEAUTIFUL HAIR DOWN IN A FIRE???)

I kept being struck by the fact that men need to wear masks in order to hide their identities, and women just need to wear garters.

I was wondering about that as well!

And then I took a second look at the men's masks and realized that, apart from Nite Owl, they weren't really hiding anything, so I figured men were all, "Oh, masks, cool!" why the girls were smart enough to realize they were just dumb and ineffective. *g*

LMAO I'm laughing at the guy yelling DICK! LMAO indeed.

Ozymandias didn't wear a mask either (just random lightening bolts near his eyebrows). I'm not certain why the new Silk Spectre didn't wear a mask, but the old one was cashing in on her fame for all it was worth (she had an agent and everything) so her identity wasn't as much of a priority as being a recognizable face.

I think it's all just a nod to superhero fashion. Like how Watchmen has a superhero who gets killed because of his fashionable but useless cape.

Its funny, with comics they either have a highly plausible costume, like Batman or Night Owl or Catwoman, that would help distract from their real identity or they just have latex and that seems to distract enough too, like Silk Sceptre II and Robin. I have decided that really, the public just don't want to know. The illusion of a hero, as designated by the costume they all share as a uniting factor, is was the public want and they are all happy to not look to closely.

Annddd enough of the thinky thoughts. Lets be shallow. I liked the swinging blue peen and JDM all old and worn and wearing a dirty bathroom but still sexy as all fuck..... NNNNGGGHHHHH.....

I totally had to stop by your Watchmen post now that I saw the movie and read the novel. And! You know, I think the term "mask" is used as another term for "hero". If you're a Hero, you're a Mask, whether you wear a mask or not. I think the idea comes through much more stongly in the novel, though. I'm not sure a strongly feminist reading of the text is possible, but I think it's a simplification to say that the Silk Spectres' lack of physical masks is Sexism, Straight Up.

And I'm going to elaborate a bit more, but I've completely forgotten how to write academically (thank god!), so please excuse my rambling style. *g*

Silk Spectre I, in the novel, never attempts to conceal her identity, or that of her daughter. People already know who these women are. There's an interview with Sally Jupiter, forties glamour girl, after she's retired and Silk Spectre II is making the rounds:

Probe: You're retired now, and it seems your daughter has been groomed to follow in your footsteps. Having seen the lifestyle for yourself, how do you feel about that?
Sally: Mm. That's tough. I guess, in a lot of ways, it was me who pushed Laurie, that's my daughter, pushed her into this line of work... I know that when she's upset about something she always blames me for shoving her into such a weird career, but underneath somewhere, I think she secretly kind of likes it. She likes to bitch about it, but what else would she have done? Been a housewife? Got a job in a bank? So she didn't have a normal life! What's so great about normal life? Normal life stinks! You can ask anybody! No, no, of course, I'm her mother, I get worried about her. But in the end, I think she'll see what it was I gave her. I think she'll start to see her life next to the lives of other kids and she'll start thinking in terms of what I saved her from instead of what I condemned her to.
Probe: You think so?
Sally: I hope so.

I think in so many ways Sally and Laurie are key to Watchmen. They don't wear masks because they never had anything to hide. It was a job for Sally, a career she could make money from:

Probe: Sally, how much would you say that it's a sex thing, putting on a costume?
Sally: No. I don't... Well, let me say this, for me, it was never a sex thing. It was a money thing. And I think for some people it was a fame thing, and for a tiny few, God bless 'em, I think it was a goodness thing. I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't a sex thing for some people, but, no, no, I wouldn't say that's what motivated the majority...

She listed her agent in the phone book, and she married him. In a lot of ways, she was a precursor to Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias and his decision to ditch the mask and make money from his life as a Mask. Thematically, I think unmasking is way more important in Watchmen than the actual wearing of the masks, and what those unmaskings reveal about the motivations of the people underneath. Because it's not a story about superheroes or perfect beings or easy morality, it's a story about flawed people with questionable motives and perspectives who decide to dress in stupid costumes and beat up criminals.

So that is what I think! I think it's easy to read the women's lack of masks as sexist, but I think that's a surface reading, and that it really does fit with the theme of the novel for them to be without. And, okay, people can be offended by the female costumes within that reading, but even then, I think, well, think about the historical context. The interview with Sally happened in 1976. Laurie's costume was designed in the early seventies. You can't really divorce Watchmen from history. *g* Also! Seventies feminism, and Sally thinking she was "saving" Laurie from drudgery... That seems a pretty feminist motivation to me.

I'm totally offended by how Laurie is written in the novel, though. So whiny and self-involved. And nagging! All the time. I like movie!Laurie much more.

ETA: Sorry, I hate it when people edit comments and you end up with like six millions notifications in your inbox, but I just remembered: They TOTALLY sexed up movie!Laurie's costume. In the novel she's wearing a yellow mini dress over a black leotard. No latex in sight!