totally serious conversations
Big controversy in the world of comic books. Sexism reigns supreme, a story detail edited out, because…
the creators of the HBO Max adult animated series Harley Quinn revealed that a scene depicting Batman performing oral sex on Catwoman was blocked by DC Entertainment because “heroes don’t do that.”
Well, this prompted some heated conversations on social media about the censorship of female pleasure and sex in comics, even as the sexualization of female characters has become standard in most storylines.
DC supporters agreed that scene wasn’t appropriate for a show aimed at kids, but Glen Weldon of NPR’s Arts Desk says that argument can get slapped down pretty easily.
“The Harley Quinn show is decidedly aimed at adults — it’s filled with cartoon gore and explicit language, but also some very funny jokes that’d go over kids’ heads,” he says.
Okay. Is there a similar scene of Catwoman servicing Batman? Therein lay the crux of solving the sexist double standard within this… issue… at hand.
More to the point — Are such things things that people want to see?
DC Comics and Time Warner are confronted with the products of “Rule 34“, and realizes they need to monetize it.
Weldon, who’s also the author of The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture, spoke to All Things Considered about how we’ve turned superheroes into symbols of American values, the relationship between show creators and companies like DC or Marvel and what it is about comic book culture and fandom that makes it a unique vessel for conversations about sex positivity in mainstream media.
I am a bit of a fan or sympathizer of sex negativity, which tends to shunt me away from these “conversations” on sex positivity — or, perhaps, I can put two cents in and listen as everyone else at the table — or the dominant lecturer tactfully dismisses me and moves to their preconceived ideas — here wrapped in a candy coating of… Superheroes. The new Greek mythology. And… — comics aren’t for kids anymore. Pow! Zip! Boink!
Admittedly the topic as subtext is what makes the early William Marston Wonder Woman interesting — and “woke” people view such as positive where they view Frank Miller’s edge gritty interpretations with Cat Woman as prostitute as “problematic”. (Maybe we can turn it all on the head and discover Batman as her customer, and make a Lifetime movie out of it.) And in deconstruction period, I never watched the movie adaptation for Watchman, but I understand a sex scene played out against Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” was an especially low point in a movie that was a series of low points.
Having left that deconstruction period of superhero comics, moved past a neo-nostalgia period, I guess we land … Throw it against the wall, leave things sticking. Flipping through the comic book based on this adult cartoon — it heavily leans on a sexual relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. I do not know if such gets grafted into some “LGBTQ” positivity, or if we are still just in the realm of male adult fantasies — rationalize it how you may. I guess it depends on how Batman intrudes, and in reality for it to actually add up, we need the actual creation of this plot element within the series.