Why is it that the majority of the predominant villains in literary history have been males? It's as though there is some sort of prerequisite of being male in order to be considered a suitable villain. Perhaps the inherent qualities of villains usually pertain to males, or they might just simply be more strongly represented in a male character. The common perception of villains usually characterizes them as big, strong, scary, and just pure evil. And even though there are many female super-heroines, almost never do you find a female super-villain. This factor could be attributable to the fact that women are generally admired for their beauty and grace. But, in my personal opinion, a female character can easily be created to be just as big, scary, and evil as any guy; even if she is still depicted with great looks and a killer bod.
However, even the colloquial title of villains as the "bad guys" denotes that they are all, well, guys. I can guarantee you will never hear anybody say, "Oh, wait, who's the bad girl in that story?"And I admit, I would find it weird if someone did say something like that. To further call attention to this perception of villains as necessarily male characters, Google "villain." If you did so, you would have to weed through hundreds of pictures of male evil characters to find even the first female. Is there something that makes girls incapable of evil?
For me, I usually do first associate "villain" and male. This isn't necessarily right, but I also do assume woman to be more caring, not evil. However, just because it is my first assumption, doesn't mean that it must be that way in my mind. Because men are, on average, more aggressive they are villains more often. On the other hand, that same quality makes female villains even more frightening. On my favorite show Bones, the most evil serial killer (supervillain of the season) is a woman, the Gravedigger. When women are bloodthirsty, it opposes the early learned gender norms so much, that she, at least to me, is scarier than her male counterpart.
ReplyDeleteI think that Emma Frost, The White Queen, from The Dark Phoenix Saga is an interesting supervillian to discuss. She is illustrated as a blond attractive woman that is dressed in a white corset, white boots and a white cape. Frost is not depicted as a big scary monster but she is apart of the Hellfire Club and is a serious villain to the X-Men. Her telepathic powers make her a large threat to the X-Men and if it wasn't for the power of the phoenix force that Jean Gray uses against her she might have kept the X-Men imprisoned. On the other hand, I do believe that if she were to be illustrated as a dark or frightful character she would be a more intimidating villain. Even though in this issue Frost is more of an evil mastermind than Shaw, I think that the readers associate Shaw as being more villianous because of his "big, strong, scary" appearance.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree that it is normal to associate super villains with being male, I also don’t think it is uncommon for there to be female super villains. It is not unheard of for a female to serve as a villain; a prime example is Cruella DeVille. I have also been surprised in the comics we have read in class thus far by the amount of female villains, appearing in Wonder Woman, X-Men, and Sheena. Often, these female villains seem to be cunning rather than physically strong, which may make them even more dangerous than a male villain would be.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that we often associate super villains to be males. Males are usually capable of cruelty and brute force. In contrast, women are usually looked upon as compassionate caretakers. In fact, when we do come upon female superheroes, they are usually not focused enough as the male superheroes, with a handful of exceptions. But, what exactly characterizes a super villain and superhero? The Dark Phoenix (aka Jean Grey) blurs this distinction. Jean Grey, before becoming Dark Phoenix, was once an X-man, a super heroine equipped with telepathy and telekinetics. One can argue that she is the most powerful mutant on the X-men. After becoming the Dark Phoenix, she seems to become indestructible. The manifestation of her evil is apparent when she declared herself free from the X-men and beaten each of them senselessly. So, we see that Jean Grey was once on the good side but would her destructive path characterize her as a super villain?
ReplyDeleteI think that the reason that males being villains comes down to gender roles. Males are associated with destruction (and they preferred to be associated with destruction) and females are more associated with gentleness. Just think of the question,"How many wars have females started?" Very few is any. That isn't to say though that females can't be devious at all. Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer does a wonderful job at being a villain. The thing is that her deviousness is an extrinsic quality more than an intrinsic one, as her evil comes from her making bad choices in life rather than that evilness coming from inside of her. I think that there should be a higher number of female super villains to show that evilness is a human trait as much as goodness is.
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