Posthuman Superheroes (Part 2): Performing Gender

This is the second part of a four part essay dealing with posthuman superheroes and theorises Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs as a negative ideal of a posthuman subject and analyses Martian Manhunter performing gender in two issues of Justice League Task Force.

Part One provides an overview of posthuman theory which include evolution of the human through mutation; and the idea of embodiment which theorises that the mind, body, and environment are a continuous entity.  It then identifies a number of superheroes as having posthuman bodies and genders

Part three ‘Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes’ theorises the superhero characters, Mystique, Jean Grey, Apollo, Midnighter, The Engineer, Jack Hawksmoor, as posthuman subjects.

Part four ‘Coming Off The Page’ investigates the growing real world emergence of the posthuman. 

The character of Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is another example of posthuman gender albeit a negative one. Halberstam notes that Buffalo Bill resembles ‘a heavy metal rocker as much as a drag queen’ (2000:60), and assumes a posthuman gender because he is: 

simply at odds with any identity whatsoever; no body, no gender will do… what he constructs is a posthuman gender; a gender beyond the body, beyond human, a carnage of identity (2000:58).

Halberstam notes Bill is ‘prey to the most virulent conditioning heterosexist culture has to offer. He believes that anatomy is destiny’ (2000:60). I would argue that the anatomic destiny to which Bill aspires is an illusion. Anatomy is more than the female skin which he violently covets. It is the illusion of femininity to which Bill is attracted as shown by the scene where he tucks his genitals between his legs, to give the viewer (and himself) the impression that his genital region, on the surface, looks like that of a woman. Combined with his awkward dancing it is clear that he is playing at being woman. Without male genitals, and of course also without those of a female, he theoretically becomes sexless. By clothing himself in the skin of a female he is clearly playing woman, yet becomes sexless. It is the appearance, the illusion of woman, which is attractive to Bill. The skin becomes a fetish – or even a kind of skin as condom. He can’t wear female skin in public (one presumes) so this pursuit is entirely of a solitary, and extremely private, nature. In a sense he is not really playing woman either. The skin he removes from his female victims can no longer be designated “woman.” Woman is the performance Bill wants to enact. The sexless female illusion he aspires to is similar to the way drag queens present a heightened version of femininity of which women provide no real counterpart. Drag queen make-up covers prominent male features or exaggerates them to something which is not recognised as male. Similarly Buffalo Bill simply uses the skins of women to cover up his maleness rather than to become a woman. Bill wants to wear the skin of women. He wants to be covered up. As noted by Lecter in the film, Buffalo Bill is not a transsexual but he thinks he is. Bill ‘hates his identity and thinks that makes him a transsexual’ (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991)[i]. Lecter is right. Bill has deluded himself. He is nothing more than an extreme cross-dresser, a drag queen who doesn’t want to dress like a woman, he wants to dress in woman. But the fact is that the skins that Bill collects to stitch together and wear will never look like him with his penis tucked between his legs, will never meet the illusion, the ideal of his aspirations. The skin becomes part of the performance. As Halberstam notes, to Bill skin is gender, all surface. This production of posthuman gender involves a process of violent transformation, one built through oppositions – Bill is completely opposed to everything. He is a gender in process, becoming something other:

he divorces once and for all sex and gender or nature and gender and remakes the human condition as a posthuman body suit. Buffalo Bill kills for his clothes and emblematises the ways in which gender is always posthuman, always a sewing job which stitches identity into a body bag (Halberstam, 2000:67).

Halberstam’s idea of the posthuman body suit is one that can be constructed and put on, taken off, and exchanged when necessary. Bill’s posthuman body suit takes dressing in drag to a violent nth degree. It is not enough for Bill to dress as a woman but he is not suitable for gender reassignment surgery, of which he has been rejected. Bill’s gender resides somewhere in-between. Though it is clear that Bill doesn’t think he, or at least his body, should suffer in his search for a clearer/individual identity/gender and it is at the cost of women that he seeks to achieve this posthuman gender agenda. Halberstam writes: ‘Buffalo Bill thinks he is not in the wrong body, but the wrong skin, an incorrect casing. He is not interested in what lies beneath the skin’ (2000:60-1). I take issue with Halberstam on this point because once Bill has his victims’ skin on, he lies beneath the skin, and he is certainly interested in himself. And if we are talking about posthumanism here then the skin cannot be separated from the body because the skin is the body. If it was simply Bill’s skin that he had the problem with, why not replace his own skin with a woman’s using skin grafts? He would then be incorporating rather than eviscerating the essence of woman which he desires. Thus it is not the wrong skin that is the problem, but the wrong appearance, and again it is not Bill who violently loses his skin to fix the problem. Of course, I realise a solution effectively cancels the premise of the film’s horror narrative but my point is made. While this incarnation of posthuman gender is achieved through violent transgression and opposition, it is not to say that it is the only way. Of course if such ideas like posthumanism are to be embraced we must accept that not all realisations/theorisations of the concept will be of a positive nature. There must be room for those which are achieved through the negative and dark. What gender is Buffalo Bill then? Some (see part one). To be clearer in this explanation I guess it is perhaps better to say that it is uncertain what gender he is, or more correctly, to which he aspires.

The idea of some and someness is frustrating. Some, is an uncertain path to an uncertain limit that can never be reached. And if we are to proscribe to Pepperell’s view (see part one), uncertainty is a frustrating yet essential staple part of the posthuman condition.

Another example, of a male playing woman which at first appears to embrace the idea of multiple posthuman gender, though ultimately radically fails, is exhibited by the DC Comics character the Martian Manhunter (aka J’onn J’onnz) in the connected stories ‘Valley of the Daals’ and ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ in Justice League Task Force #7-8 (Dec. 1993 – Jan. 1994). J’onn shapeshifts into female form in order to lead an “all” female mission (which includes Wonder Woman) to a hidden domain populated only by women known as Daals. In the two issue story, female gender stereotypes are addressed and jokingly played around with while actually being reinforced. J’onn categorically states earlier in the story that he is male, and certainly there is no changing this [ii]. Obviously to J’onn he is donning the outward appearance of a woman. Just like Buffalo Bill, J’onn J’onnz is ‘a man imitating gender, exaggerating gender’ (Halberstam, 2000:60). When J’onn is to reveal himself in his female form to his fellow female team members, he doesn’t want to be laughed at, invoking issues of self-esteem and appearance stereotypically associated with women. When a male compliments J’onn on his appearance he is clearly flattered, again invoking that vanity is associated with women, and that women are judged, and seek approval, from men on their appearance (lower right). The comedy elements here stem from J’onn, while playing a woman, immediately assuming the stereotypical role of female by responding to comments on his appearance and worrying specifically how others will perceive him. In another stereotypical scene J’onn initially refuses to come out of his room in his female shape because he is embarrassed [iii]. J’onn is thus not playing woman, but the stereotype of woman. 

Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz, steps out as Joan J’onzz 
(David, Velluto, and Albrecht & McClellan, 1993:12-3)

In the course of the mission, the leader of the Daals takes a fancy to J’onn (in his female guise, Joan) and arranges for them to be married, which J’onn plays along with in order to complete the team’s mission. Again he exhibits “female traits” – ‘this female masquerade is stressful. I’m irritable… tense… my head aches’ (David, Velluto, and Albrecht, 1994:2). Once married the leader of the Daals reveals herself to J’onn as half-male, half-female – in-between – solving the puzzle of how the Daals perpetuate their all woman society. Tellingly, the phallus still rules, signifying power, even in a women only society. If they are to consummate the marriage as the Daal leader intends, J’onn must, “go all the way” in his female performance, a step which he is not willing to take and he quickly changes back to his male form.

Seriously interrogating J’onn’s sexuality/gender is not an option even though, as team-mate, Gypsy, has stated earlier in the story: ‘We know you’re a shapeshifter. One shape should be like another to you.’ (David, Velluto, and Albrecht & McClellan, 1993:12). Indeed it should be, but it isn’t. Being serviced by the Daal leader would mark J’onn as a passive female, and with lesbian undertones. Throughout the story he has been playing the passive follower to the active Daal leader and to succumb to any other “feminised” role, especially sex, would further emasculate him. In simple and stark terms – the hero doesn’t get fucked, he fucks.

Startled and angered by J’onn’s deception, the Daal leader lashes out but is soon overpowered when J’onn grabs her hair and bends her arm up behind her back. Their mission accomplished, the heroes make their escape pursued closely by the Daals. The ensuing fight sees J’onn save the Daal leader, after which she forgives his deception. In these last scenes the lesbian connotations are deflected, J’onn only managing to kiss the Daal leader on the cheek. Indeed there is no questioning his heterosexuality at all, as evinced by the following passage:

J’onn: She told me I could come back if I ever changed my mind… But I think our physical relationship would be… strained.

Gypsy: That’s your call, wouldn’t you say, J’onn?

J’onn: Perhaps, but not a decision I choose to make.
(David, Velluto, and Albrecht, 1994:22, emphasis in original)

J’onn doesn’t want to be a woman, which isn’t surprising after all the negative connotations that have been associated with being female throughout the two issues. To cap it off, being the bride of a hermaphrodite is not the stuff of heroes, especially a male hero. J’onn becoming a woman “for real” or indeed questioning his heterosexuality in any context can only be done as an aberration to his male heroic role, and only when necessary to carry out a heroic mission. Recalling J’onn’s own fear that he would be laughed at, the narrative implies that even in a women-only population, female traits are stereotypical across age, race, and even species. It must be inherent, even if you’re a man who is only pretending to be a woman for a while. The narrative of dressing in drag, or playing opposing genders and sexualities, is one which is continually replayed in our culture. From Some Like it Hot (1959), Tootsie (1982), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Strange Bedfellows (2004) to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) and any other number of movies and television series, straight men have performed female and gay roles, and mainly for laughs. The same can’t be said for lesbian or gay men playing it straight, which often ends in tragic circumstances. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and to a lesser extent the western, The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) are just two examples, which unlike the aforementioned comedies, have their basis in reality.

Read Part One: Posthuman Bodies and Genders

Read Part three ‘Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes

Read Part Four: Coming Off the Page

Reference

David, P. (w), Velluto, S. (p), and Albrecht, J. (i) (1994) ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ Justice League Task Force v1 #8 (Jan. 1994), New York: DC Comics.

David, P. (w), Velluto, S. (p), and Albrecht, J. & McClellan, A. (i) (1993) ‘Valley of the Daals’ Justice League Task Force v1 #7 (Dec. 1993), New York: DC Comics.

Halberstam, J. ‘Skinflick: Posthuman Gender in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs’ in Badmington, N. (ed.) (2000) Posthumanism. Palgrave, pp. 56-68.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Orion Pictures, Demme, J. (dir.).

Footnotes
[i] Transsexual as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary is as follows: A. adj 1. Of or pertaining to transsexualism; having physical characteristics of one sex and psychological characteristics of the other 2. Of or pertaining to both sexes. B. n A transsexual person. Also, one whose sex has been changed by surgery (‘Transsexual’, n.a. 1989).

[ii] The Martian Manhunter has always been considered and represented as male. During his pre-Earth life on Mars he had a wife and son.

[iii] The idea of “coming out” is not lost on me here either.

Review - Superior #2 by Mark Millar and Leinil Yu

Superior is Millar's attempt to return to more traditional type of comic story, one filled with magic and wonder. In this Millar follows in the footsteps of Kurt Busiek's Astro City and Alan Moore's Tom Strong. This may not seem much of a talking point but since Millar's stories (The Authority, Wanted, Kick-Ass and Nemesis) are generally wall-to-wall blood-filled, over-the-top, action extravaganzas, a little magic and wonder is definitely a different tack for Millar.

I haven't reviewed issue one because, while I bought it, I lost the copy! Where it went...

Anyway here's a quick recap. Issue one saw multiple sclerosis sufferer Simon Pooni granted a wish by Ormon, a talking monkey in spacesuit. The last talking monkey I saw was in Grant Morrison's The Filth - and a foul-mouthed simian he was! Simon's illness has left him wheelchair-bound with his parents having to help bathe and feed him - terribly embarrassing for a budding teenager. Simon is also bullied and spends most of his free time immersing himself in movies. All pretty standard stuff but let's face it, anything with a talking monkey instantly elevates the story to comic book gold! Simon's wish? To become Superior - the superhero star of the Superior movie franchise played by actor Tad Scott. Wah-lah! The monkey grants Simon's wish. This has echoes of Captain Marvel/Billy Batson and smells of adolescent power fantasy. Well, really, which superhero comics aren't adolescent power fantasies... None of it's subtle but Millar doesn't do subtle.

Issue two sees Superior/Simon convincing his friend, Chris, that he's actually Simon in Superior's body. Thankfully we're spared the "I'll tell you something that only you and I know" scene. They test out Superior's super abilities to see if they're the same as the Superior movie character version or the comic book version - some pretty standard "new superhero learns how to use their abilities" stuff, but at least a little amusing. Simon uses his frustration of living with multiple sclerosis to fuel the control of his new powers. The climax sees Superior confronted with his first major disaster. There's also a hint that Simon may not be Superior forever.


As I've come to expect from Millar the story jumps along at a nice clip but like Nemesis I feel that Millar is delivering only just enough per issue. This issue could've been told in half the pages which means we could have double the amount of story! Do we really need half page splashes of Simon/Superior learning to fly? Or him learning to use his supervision?

The issue's high point is Leinil Yu's realistic styled artwork. Each panel is meticulously drawn and striking really producing a big look.

The one thing that was disappointing was the comic's colouring, especially on Superior's face. It just looks heavy-handed at best, amateurish at worst, and takes away from Yu's fine pencil work. Pages with just Yu's pencils are reproduced in the back of the issue showing the detailed and crisp line work.The colouring really obliterates this detail. I'm assuming the colouring has been done digitally I've found this on any number of occasions in comics. It used to be worse, especially in the 1990s when the use of computers and digital imaging was just beginning. Thankfully proficiency and programs have improved but like anything it can be done badly and here, I think it is. I sometimes think that I'd prefer to see the comic printed just as pencils without the coloring.

If there's one other small criticism, while Yu's work is fantastic, the poses Superior strikes are still in the vein of superheroic. There's less conveyance of a young goofy boy in a hulking unfamiliar body. Nothing like how Frank Quitely brilliantly managed to pull off making Clark Kent look completely different, and actually hold his body different, to Superman in All-Star Superman.

Superior #2 is entertaining enough and is setting up the longer story nicely. Millar is one of the superstars of comic writing at the moment and it's easy to see why. He's developed a distinct style in his storytelling - bold in style, big in concept. Millar produces a spectacle, leaving lots of room for his artist to work. Still, I just wish there was more...

This: Solid and interesting
Forthcoming: Why not? Talking monkeys (and ones that grant wishes) are always a drawcard. Let's see where it's going...

Read review of Superior #3

Something Quite Close to Hell - The Monstrous Female in Darkchylde

Randy Queen's drawings of his scantily clad and vulnerable heroine, Ariel Chylde coupled with outrageous demons and monstrous violence made Darkchylde a massive seller. With the release of a new Darkchylde comic (albeit a joint Darkness issue) at this year's San Diego Comic-con it's seems appropriate to revisit the 1990s incarnation of Darkchylde in an academic format.

Part 1 positions how monstrosity is produced when, psychoanalytically, separation of mother and daughter fails.

Part 2 investigates representations of the archaic mother and pre-oedipal mother in Darkchylde.

Something Quite Close to Hell – The Monstrous Female in Darkchylde (Part 1)

The female body shares with the monster the privilege of bringing out a unique blend of fascination and horror (Braidotti 81)

In the 1990s superhero comics were beset by a plague of ‘bad girl’ titles. Fathom, Witchblade, Danger Girl, Painkiller Jane, Chastity, Glory, Avengelyne, Allegra, Lady Death, Pandora, Webwitch, Shotgun Mary, and Allura were but a few which clogged comic shop shelves. Some have kicked on, while most have mercifully been sent to the remainder bin. These characters were generally young and attractive, sexy, sexually vulnerable, but ultimately packed a mean array of weapons, powers and skills. Maybe they were ‘bad’ because they transgressed patriarchal boundaries, or because they were powerful and seductive at the same time.

Or maybe as Jessica Rabbit says, they weren’t really bad, they were just drawn that way.

Randy Queen’s Darkchylde (Wildstorm/DC) was one of the more popular ‘bad girl’ titles at the time. This essay uses Darkchylde to explore representations of the monstrous female, specifically the pre-Oedipal and archaic mothers. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis as a point of departure it investigates how the concepts of the Law-of-the-Father and the symbolic order are pivotal in the production of the monstrous woman in Darkchylde. Drawing from Barbara Creed’s (1993) work on the monstrous feminine, I will argue that Darkchylde’s main character, Ariel Chylde, represents a female body in rebellion against the symbolic order’s oppressive and marginalising structures.

Darkchylde is the story of seventeen year old Ariel Chylde who lives with her abusive father, Robert. Of her mother we only know that she “left” when Ariel was very young, although the assumption is that she’s dead. Ariel is the possessor of the Darkchylde giving her the ability to transform into demons from the Nightmare Realm. These generally manifest when she or people close to her are threatened with harm. When the threat has been neutralised, Ariel and the demon separate. Ariel regains her human form and the demon scarpers back to the nightmare realm via a portal. To complicate matters, Kauldron, a human exile from the nightmare realm, has taken control of several demons before they have had a chance to return to the Nightmare Realm. Ariel must then save herself and her town from Kauldron and the demons under his control.

Ariel’s first transformation into a monster occurs during an incestuous attack by her father which ends when Ariel kills him. She is then helped by Perry, a male love interest, and his father Jack, a bigwig in the government agency SENTRY that deals with strange phenomena.

After Ariel’s second transformation she’s taken to SENTRY headquarters and subjected to experiments and tests (for her own good, of course). However, Ariel escapes with the help of Jack, Perry and three sympathetic demons from the nightmare realm – Sage, War and Piece. We find out that Sage is the spiritual representation of Ariel’s dead mother, and as her name suggests, she is very much a voice of wisdom and guidance. By the end of the comic Ariel has wreaked bloody carnage on most of the characters and the town of Salem; actions that lead to her exile.

Investigating the monstrous females in this simple narrative begins by examining the pre-Oedipal phase. In Lacanian psychoanalysis the pre-Oedipal (as Freud describes it) or Imaginary phase of development consists basically of two terms: the child and the image of the other, which is usually the mother (Eagleton 165). Elizabeth Grosz states that as the child develops, this dyadic structure is disrupted by the father who represents ‘law, order and authority for the child’(1990 68). The father is a ‘Symbolic or imaginary father’, a representative of the Name-of-the-Father that stands for patriarchal ownership. Taking on the Name-of-the-Father positions the child beyond the structure of dual imaginary relations (Grosz 1990 47). Recognition of this ‘paternal metaphor’ charts the child’s entry into the symbolic order and the social world beyond the family structure (Grosz 1990 104). Therefore, the Name-of-the-Father signifies the ‘Law’ or Law-of-the-Father that is the wider set of social and sexual roles rules upon which the symbolic order rests and relies. Keeping this in mind, let’s examine Ariel’s relationship with her “father”, Robert.

Ariel is sexually abused by Robert who represents the ‘Law’ of the symbolic order. However Ariel has a deeper feeling that Robert isn’t her father at all. She says –

I usually just call him Robert. He hates it but “Dad” just doesn’t feel comfortable. It’s funny, sometimes I feel like he isn’t my real father at all, just a man with the title (Queen 23).

In relation to paternal authority, Jane Gallop writes:

What if in making love the father still remained the law, and the daughter were just passive, denied? The father’s law has so restructured the daughter and her desires that it is hard, well nigh impossible, to differentiate the Father (that is to say the Law) from the male sexed body. What if making love with the father were merely a ruse to get the impertinent daughter to give up her resistance to the law? (Gallop 78).

This quote presents an excellent explanation of Ariel’s incestuous relationship with her father. Her use of Robert instead of “father” or “dad” is a resistance to the Law. She sees past Robert’s ‘male sexed body’ denying him the recognition, the ‘patriarchal right’, he ‘deserves’ as an embodiment of the Law. Robert’s sexual abuse of Ariel is his attempt to quell her impertinent resistance to the Law.

At the end of the comic we find out that indeed Robert is not Ariel’s father at all, he is simply an agent of the Law. Thus the Law itself is positioned as Ariel’s “father”, which is embodied by the many different male characters in the comic. This also explains why there are so many male figures (Robert, Perry, Jack, Kauldron) in Darkchylde compared to the solitary Ariel. Each male is another representative of the Law trying to quell her resistance. As Gallop states precisely for our purposes:

the law of the father gives her an identity, even if it is not her own, even if it blots out her feminine specificity. To give it up is not a ‘simple’ matter. It must be done over and over (Gallop 78).

As Robert is not Ariel’s father, she eludes the Name-of-the-Father that is patriarchal ownership (the identity he has given her is not her own). However she is still imprinted with the identity of the Law (i.e.: she is ‘imprinted’ with the ideals of woman that phallocentric culture positions as ‘feminine’), and as will be shown, trying to ‘give up’ this imprinted identity, by eliminating repetitions of her father (and herself), is something that must be done ‘over and over’.

For Ariel, the first appearance of the Law-of-the-Father, embodied by her (symbolic) father Robert, necessarily coincides with the death of her mother. Ariel is quite literally divided from her mother’s body and wrenched from the Imaginary (the realm where there exists only the child and the body of the mother) into the Oedipal drama (where the child must recognise the Law-of-the-Father). Therefore Ariel’s recognition of the Law equates with death, and more importantly, the death of her mother. As happens in the Oedipal phase, after recognition of the Law, Ariel acquires a guilty desire to return to the Imaginary (to be one again with her mother). This desire that cannot be realised is unconscious and is compounded by coinciding with her mother’s death. Thus her Oedipal drama remains unresolved because once she has realised that she cannot be her father’s lover (complicated by his sexual abuse of her) she has no mother figure to turn to or with which to identify. Without a mother as role model she will find it hard to take up a female position in the symbolic order, which is compounded by the incestuous abusive relationship with her father, her shyness, and her constant relocation from town to town. These factors position Ariel as an outsider who stands out from the crowd. But despite this, she still longs to fit in, to be part of the symbolic order. 

To complicate matters further, Ariel’s monstrous and murderous rebellion against her father, where she refuses to be a passive subject to his abuse, positions her as a possessed female subject who refuses to take up her role in the symbolic order (Creed 38). Thus Ariel presents an interesting dichotomy – the passive victim who wants to be part of the symbolic order versus the aggressive monster ensnared within the passive victim who threatens the symbolic order from her marginalised position. To draw an analogy, Ariel is similar to the main character of the film Carrie (1976). Barbara Creed writes of Carrie: ‘on the one hand she is a painfully shy, withdrawn, child-like girl who just wants to be ‘normal’ like every other teenager, while on the other hand she has the power… to transform into an avenging female fury’ (78). Like Carrie, that which Ariel outwardly desires (to fit in) can never be attained due to her monstrous, ‘uncontrollable’, capabilities which threaten the symbolic order. But from where does Ariel’s monstrousness originate? To explain we must return to the site of the pre-Oedipal and Oedipal phases.

Freud states that the pre-Oedipal phase is far more important in women than in men. This is because the mother-child relation is a site for both the transmission and subversion of patriarchal values, where the archaic force of the pre-Oedipal, which although repressed, is also permanently preserved (Grosz 1990 149). But how can this be so? How is this mother-child relation preserved? Elisabeth Grosz again explains:

As Freud himself noted, the girl remains in contiguity with the pre-Oedipal period in ways that are barred for boys […] In the case of the girl, there is no clear-cut division between the pre-Oedipal and the oedipal; she occupies an oedipalised position only gradually and unsurely. Her oedipal complex may persist indefinitely or fade because of disappointments, rather than end through a dramatic repression. She thus remains in touch with the pre-Oedipal maternal continent (Grosz 1989 115).

Ariel’s mother died when Ariel was only an infant, as is denoted by her memories:

being lost in the amber glow of your eyes as you cradled me… as you held me to your warm breast, as I listened to stories of dark forest and houses made of gingerbread… I try to recall your face but no images come. Only feelings. Feelings of love and joy… (Queen 98).

This mother figure that Ariel speaks of is the pre-Oedipal mother, who exists in relation to the family and the symbolic order (Creed 20), and as is responsible for the early socialisation of the child.

Ariel’s mother dying may have been her way of refusing to submit to the symbolic order. Thus she also becomes monstrous, as both the monster and death signify a monstrous obliteration of the self, and both are linked to the demonic (Creed 30). This is significant as Ariel’s mother resides with the demons in the nightmare realm. Ariel in her monstrous rebellion follows her mother’s lead by refusing to recognise the paternal order and thus is also produced as monstrous (Creed 38).

Even though the link between Ariel and her mother should be completely severed through death, they remain linked shown through the appearance of the bird, Sage, Ariel’s “guardian angel”; the representation of her pre-Oedipal mother. This is made explicitly clear when Ariel says:

Little bird. Always appearing and disappearing at your leisure… with your cryptic warnings… the bird of light who always seems to know right when I need her… right when I need… her. M-mom? Mommy? (Queen 129).

Thus the source of Ariel’s monstrosity is, as Creed argues, the failure of the paternal order to ensure the separation of mother and child (Creed 38).

Read Part 2

Reference

Braidotti, Rosi. (1994). Nomadic Subjects. New York. Columbia University Press.

Creed, Barbara. (1993). The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis. London and New York. Routledge.

Gallop, Jane. (1982). Feminism and Psychoanalysis: The Daughter’s Seduction. Macmillan Press.

Grosz, Elizabeth. (1986). 'Language and the Limits of the Body: Kristeva and Abjection' in Grosz, E. (ed.) Futur*fall: Excursions into Post-modernity. University of Sydney.

Grosz, Elizabeth. (1989). Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists. Allen and Unwin.

Grosz, Elizabeth. (1990). Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. London and New York. Routledge.

Queen, Randy. (1999). Darkchylde Collected Edition: The Descent. DC Comics.

Part 2 - Notice the Difference? Eliminating the Feminine in Superhero Comics

Part 2 of 'Notice the Difference? Eliminating the Feminine in Superhero Comics' uses Baudrillardian theory to analyse the superhero comic Wetworks demonstrating how the phallicised female body is eliminated when it is used as a mirror that reflects male dominance and desire. The female is further not allowed to become a body due to her potential threat of castration (the vagina dentata and the phallic woman) which is eliminated when she is eliminated as female. 

Read Part 1

In the Image comic Wetworks the characters are covered by a gold bio-metalloid compound that’s like ‘having a suit of armour for a second skin… I feel as though it’s reading my mind and working with my body, making me stronger and faster than ever before’ (Portacio & Choi, Jun. 1994, 15). On initial contact the compound covers every orifice, one character having to fight desperately to open his mouth . This ‘symbiote’ makes the body smooth, shiny and enclosed, even the eyes. A goggle wearing character now finds them incorporated into his body. The Wetworks team walks naked and smouldering from their symbolic (re)birth by fire and explosion, their bodies completely covered and protected by the symbiote. Their sex differences erased and the bodies now ‘lacking’ nothing, they literally wear Baudrillard’s second skin becoming ‘more nude than nude’ and a phallic effigy at the same time.

The ‘nudity’ of the energy being superhero is best of all. These energy beings have no corporeal body. As Baudrillard writes, the corporeal body is–

denied in the interests of a second, non-porous skin that neither exudes or excretes, that is neither hot nor cold (it is “cool” and “warm”: optimally air-conditioned), with no proper density…and above all without orifices (it is smooth)…All these qualities (coolness, suppleness, transparency, one-piece) are qualities of closure… (105).

The energy being must have a suit, a second skin (their only one) to contain their ‘design(at)ed nudity’. As Baudrillard argues design(at)ed nudity–

implies that there is nothing behind the lattice of signs that it weaves, especially not a body: neither a body of labour, nor a body of pleasure; neither an erogenous body nor a broken body (106).

The suits could be any shape because these energy beings resemble Brigitte Bardot, who is ‘“beautiful because she fits her dress exactly”’ (Baudrillard 106). They fit into their suits perfectly. Because the energy being’s body is only a body because of their suit, their body is faultless. It has no gaps, no orifices and is completely smooth. These energy beings in their suits are simulacra of ‘real’ bodies but without the lack that comes with a real body. Like the Wetworks characters, the energy being is ‘more nude than nude’, lacking nothing and a phallic effigy.

Both aspects of the fantasised phallic ideal are covered in the depiction of female and male bodies in superhero comics. The first is the exaggeration of the ‘erectile’ legs in the female creating the ‘ideal’ long penis. The extra muscled legs and arms of male characters resemble ‘ideal’ thick and ‘veined’ penis. Although uncommon, some depictions have all three in one– a long, wide and veined leg/phallus.

In superhero comics the female body is incorporated into a system of phallic exchange ‘whereby woman becomes erect and man’s desire will be received in its own image’ (Baudrillard 103). The body of the female superhero is merely a disguised phallus which signals the homoerotic/narcissistic undertones of the superhero comic. This homoerotic desire is also present in mainstream media as Jane Ussher recognises–

The mass media encourages heterosexual women to desire masculine bodies, which are hard, lean and slim – at least in their ideal state. It is this that many women measure themselves against (and are certainly measured against in the media – those cellulite free thighs are very like those of boys; we may wonder whose fantasy is at play here, given it is largely men who create this imagery) (71).

Indeed, as Lynda Nead argues, representations of the female nude created by male artists not only testify to patriarchal understandings of female sexuality, they also endorse certain definitions of male sexuality and masculinity (283). In the case of the representation of female superheroes, the patriarchal understanding of female sexuality is not of woman as ‘other’ as may be expected, but of woman as mirror. The tough, strong, and independent female superhero becomes a mirror reflecting male dominance and desire. It is just as Baudrillard states that when woman is annexed to a phallic order she is condemned to a non-existence (104).

Eliminating Castrating Women

Barbara Creed argues in her book The Monstrous Feminine that the vampire’s fanged mouth is a symbol of the castrating vagina dentata (22). The Wetworks team leader, Jackson Dane, has a dream where he is attacked by a vampire of the “Night Tribes”, (the vagina dentata), and in typically feminised fashion is unable to fight back– ‘All he can do is bleed… and take the pain’. In a scene reminiscent of a rape, the vampire stands behind Dane snarling. Dane screams ‘SSS-stop! No more! PLEASE!’ The vampire replies – ‘Giving up already, my pet?’. Dane hopes his newly acquired symbiote will protect him, but it moves aside revealing his flesh for the ‘fanged monster’ (Portacio & Choi, Aug. 1994 23-4). Fortunately for Dane and reader alike, this is only a dream and could never happen for “real”. Still, this sequence demonstrates how the threat of castration could happen, impregnated as it is with the ideas of passivity, feminisation, rape and violence. In fact it says that castration could only happen through the male being passive and overpowered.

For Baudrillard, as with Freud, the fetishised object/phallic body part is caught up in the denial of castration. The phallic/castrating woman is mirrored in Klaus Theweleit’s description of the proletariat women who appeared in Freikorps literature. These rifle-women (flintenweiber) were depicted as cold-blooded killers, often in the company of several men (which obviously made them whores) and in no way could be trusted. Theweleit describes one image of the rifle-women that was so feared– ‘Hair flying, packing pistols, and riding shaggy horses, the women present an image of terrifying sexual potency. It is a phallic, not a vaginal potency that is fantasized and feared’ (73). This phallic potency also translates to the fear that the rifle-women have a concealed weapon (a gun or a grenade) under her skirt. The phrase that is of interest here is the phallic potency that is ‘fantasized and feared’, which plays right into the depiction of the female superhero – fantasised as phallic effigy, feared as the phallic castrating woman. But we cannot have both. They cannot co-exist.

The pervasive threat of castration embodied by the female superhero is eliminated by eliminating the castrating potential of women. This is done in a number of ways. In Wetworks the threat of woman as vagina dentata is eliminated through the symbiote’s ability to seal all orifices of the body (especially the female body) as well as protect the penis with its armouring properties. The threat of the castrating woman as a phallic woman is eliminated when her body is given male body characteristics. When she is phallusised she is eliminated as female by incorporation into a masculine ideal. Although what I am talking about here is not as extreme as Theweleit’s dissertation on the German Freikorps where the soldier seeks to eliminate the female and the threat of castration by reducing her to a ‘bloody mass’, the parallel is more to do with what he states as a ‘dissolution of the body itself, and of the woman as bodily entity’ (196). If the ‘standard’ female body is dissolved, it has no presence, no corporeality, and no representation. If, as Baudrillard theorises, the body has moved into representation, feminine specificity is thus eliminated, and the only representation that remains is that of the masculine.

To give the female a body of her own is to give her representation, to recognise her difference. Denying female representation denies her an existence, thus eliminating her, leaving only the image of the male.

Read Part 3

Reference

Baudrillard, Jean. Symbolic Exchange and Death. London: Sage, 
1993.

Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. London & New York: Routledge, 1993.

Nead, Lynda. 'The Female Nude: Pornography, Art, and Sexuality' In Segal, Lynne. & Mary McIntosh (eds). Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate. Virago Press, 1992.

Portacio, Whilce, (w,a). Brandon Choi (w). Wetworks. v1 #1 (Jun. 1994), Image Comics Inc, 1994.

---- Wetworks. v1 #2 (Aug. 1994), Image Comics Inc, 1994.

Theweleit, Klaus. Male Fantasies. Volume 1.: Women, Floods, Bodies, History. Polity Press, 1987.

Ussher, Jane. Fantasies of Femininity: Reframing the Boundaries of Sex. Penguin Books, 1997.