Monday, October 10, 2011

There Are No Good Superheros for Women

When reading the Sun a few weeks ago, I learned of a new CBS program entitled "Unforgettable" about a woman who has a genetic defect that causes her to remember everything. She uses the skill as an FBI agent investigating homicide cases since her talent makes her more apt to pick up on the little clues that most normal people would miss. When watching an episode of this new show over the weekend, I was amused by one of the scenes in the episode starting at 37 minutes, 20 seconds (http://us.mg4.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?ncrumb=zBtCj0C3Gxo&clmigstart=20110815&.rand=1482059190&nmig=yes#).
The woman is trying to coax the little boy, who witnessed his parent's murder, into revealing the murder suspect by explaining that he can catch the villain and be a superhero. She begins this conversation by saying she found it troubling that "there were never any good superheroes for women." She goes on to say that "Wonder Woman is boring." The context of the situation must be considered when analyzing this conversation, however I thought that was an interesting message to convey to a 7 year old boy. It's instilling in a young male that women do not hold as strong a place as men. The woman explains that she had to always create her own superheroes since she did not have any existing ones to look up to. While I think over time this problem has evolved, it is unfortunate that many girls do not feel they have the same endless options of people to look up to as some males. That said, a little imagination is never a bad thing.

(I highly recommend this show).

3 comments:

  1. I think its a matter of breadth not depth. Men may have a lot more heroes to chose from, but they are not the most complex characters around. Heroines are usually super dense catch all creations or shallow and one dimensional. Either way it's hard to relate

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  2. While there are definitely more famous superheroes then heroines, there are still many role models in the world for women. Not every role model needs to be a superheroine and using your imagination is not a bad thing, since all superheroes are just characters who were imagined by someone anyway.

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  3. I agree with Michele, just because the super hero is not in a comic, it doesn't mean they aren't a super hero/heroine. Role models can be real people that we hear about on the news, family members, ect. I think that these "regular" people need to start to be recognized as super heroes/heroines as well.

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