I was pretty intrigued class discussions about Batwoman and her sexuality and I also wondered why there weren't more lesbian superheroines before Batwoman. I found the aforementioned link and I was quite surprised about some of the things that I learned. Apparently the Comic Code Authority, which is like the Supreme Court for comic books I guess, banned any and all LGBT characters in comic books - which seems outrageous to me. So far, comic books have seemed to pave way, or at least help pave way, for certain rights and liberties. Which makes me so surprised to learn that the ban was only lifted in 1989. I know that our culture isn't as open to talk about this subject as other cultures, but I would not have expected the Comic Code Authority to actually have had a ban on LGBT characters. In fact, I think that it would make the story lines more interesting. One of the most notorious bisexual comic book characters is Mystique. Who would have known?! I have watched all the X-Men movies and I would have never thought of her character as bisexual. Some comments made on this article said that the producers of the X-Men movies should have made Mystique bisexual. I completely agree - I feel like it would make her more of a round character instead of the flat character that she appears to be now. Most of the X-Men movies have not paid as much attention to Mystique as they should have. I feel like her character is extremely downplayed. I am also wondering why the movies didn't portray her as bisexual. Did the writers think that it wouldn't have been as much of a box office hit if Mystique was bisexual? Could her sexuality have impacted the movie ratings that much that they had to change how she was written?
I don't see 1989 as very recent. That's a good 22 years ago. I think the fact that it was lifted then shows how liberal comic books generally are, considering that a lot of young people read these books.
ReplyDeleteI always thought of Mystique as asexual...
I also don't see 1989 as very recent. The LGBT community is still struggling with gaining a lot of rights to this day, so I'm surprised that at that time they lifted the ban at all. The LGBT community is slowly becoming more and more accepted by people, but many people still don't accept them and I think that the fact that the ban was lifted that long ago shows that comic books really are liberal.
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