Gender Representation in Comic Books

Running head: GENDER REPRESENTATION IN COMIC BOOKS
GENDER REPRESENTATION IN COMIC BOOKS
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Lanier (2014) in the article titled The Supermen of the Justice League and X-Men: Comic
Book Representations of Masculinity for Today's Audience has provided an extensive
observation and explanation of how the media focuses on masculinity. The author has given
special attention to masculine representation in comic books like Uncanny X-Men, Justice
League and so on. These comic books represent the hegemony of the male characters, which also
represents how men are dominant in the real society. However, with the re-launch of these two
most popular comic books, the hegemonic portrayals of male characters have seen a remarkable
change. I shall use this article in order to provide an extensive analysis of the representation of
masculinity and the dominance of men in particular.
While the hegemonic representation of men in the aforementioned comic books has
changed, the inherent hegemonic characteristic remains the same. The representation of the male
characters in these popular comic books depicts the typical cultural beliefs of the population. The
male superheroes are portrayed in such a way that puts increased emphasis on their power and
strength that speaks volumes about the Western perspective about manhood and masculinity.
These superheroes with pumped up muscles and perfect body perform tasks of extraordinary
courage and valor that typify the role of men as protectors. The “ideal physique” of the
superheroes in the comic books leads to effect the perception of men in real life about their
physical selves chiefly in two ways. The first is their feeling of inferior when compared to the
super masculine male characters with unbelievable physique. Second, their consciousness about
being attractive in front of sexually appealing and beautiful women as portrayed in the comic
books. Another problem with such representation, as mentioned in the article is the personality
and demographic representation. The comic book characters have always seem to represent a

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world that is inhabited by white men and where women are young and curvy or aged and fragile
but never equal.
It has however, also been mentioned in the works of many scholars that the gender
representation has changed over time and female characters have been given prominent
portrayals. The hegemonic masculinity has been somewhat replaced by the progressive gender
representations. Examples of the shows like The Powerpuff Girls, Pokemon and Teamo Supremo
have been used to show the change in the mindset of the makers. Lanier (2014) has analyzed the
tramsition of the two popular comic books and found that both have had changes in the way
masculinity is represented. While on one hand, Justice League franchise maintained its
hegemonic demographic traits of masculinity but reduced hegemony in terms of behavioral
traits. On the other hand, the Uncanny X-Men series introduced non-hegemonic characters
having significant roles in the series.
Many other scholars have focused on the representation of women in various comic
books. Fretheim (2017) for example, decided to include three comic books to analyze the
representation of women and the heroism they demonstrate. These three comics included
Wonder Women, She-Hulk and Black Widow. In all the three books, women have been portrayed
as symbols of courage, strength, stamina and heroism combined with the roles they play in the
communities. Analyzing the article would help in understanding the representation of feminism
in the comic books in contrast and comparison to real life. In addition, the article also compares
and contrasts the three female super heroes.
The introduction of Wonder Woman in the 1940s marked the beginning of an era that
saw the emergence of female superheroes. The genre of comic books has always been dominated