DC FAILS TO INCLUDE WONDER WOMAN ON JL SHIRT
AMBER LOVE 21-MAR-2015 You don’t need a history lesson from me on how long WONDER WOMANÂ has been around and how important to arts culture her legacy is. Just yesterday, FastCompany released a brilliant video, about three minutes long, illustrating all that. Their video is about Wonder Woman as a brand and how she’s barely a blip on the radar of DC and their WB overlords. Fans know how important she is. People who have never read a comic book know how important she is. Why then is Wonder Woman among the many female icons that is constantly erased from options? I’ve storified my own tweets and some of the best of Twitter regarding this shirt and DC’s official tweet promoting it (see below).
And Disney/Marvel isn’t any better. Don’t fool yourselves. Yesterday, Hasbro news broke that they are actually canceling Princess Leia figures from one of its lines of toys.
Things won’t be getting any better any time soon. Hasbro has announced the details of their next waves of Star Wars Black Figures, and they have actually canceled Princess Leia from their upcoming waves of releases. She’s getting replaced with Storm Troopers, of which there are many in the Black line. (via BadDigest)
There are constant cries for merchandise of blockbuster film characters like Gamora, Nebula, and Black Widow. What about Agent Carter? Can we expect anything with her on it? Toys, costumes, figures or statues? Last August, geek columnist Amy Ratcliffe lead the charge behind #wheresgamora.
Another interesting merchandising decision: Gamora and Nebula are both included in the Guardians of the Galaxy Minimates release. That’s cool, but you know what’s not cool? According to Marvel, the other four members of the Guardians are available at Toys “R” Us online and in stores while Gamora (along with Nebula) will only be available at specialty stores. Seriously. (via Geeks With Curves)
Fans are constantly being challenged for their fandom instead of thanked. It’s our fandoms that make these corporations millions of dollars. It’s fandom that drives producers to take a risk once in a while and pull out an otherwise B-list character like Iron Man and turn him into the biggest household name. Yet, as we’ve seen with X-Men’s Storm and with Justice League’s Wonder Woman, the fans themselves do a BETTER job at making content. Fans do it better. The corporations should just open source these licensed characters already so we can make what we want.
And what about Lego? It’s the only version of Wonder Woman seen to date in a feature film and they made that nifty invisible jet. You’d think Lego, of all businesses, gets it. Yet, this week, Lego magazine included debasing beauty tips for girls. It’s not that you shouldn’t incorporate beauty products into cartoons/comics merchandise. I’m in favor of the MAC cosmetics line of Wonder Woman makeup even though I’ve never used it. MAC, however, is a grownup product. You don’t give MAC makeup to 5-year-olds. You would, however, give Lego magazine to one.
It not only boggles my mind that corporations essentially don’t want to make more money, but also when the gatekeepers jump in and say people like me are whining cry babies of feminism who don’t matter and never did (because they’ve rewritten comics history and have also erased how many girls bought comics over the last 70 years).
We fight the corporations begging them to sell us more shit we probably don’t “need” in our materialistic lives.
We fight the gatekeepers who don’t want women in their clubhouse.
We fight some of the creators like Erik Larsen, Brett Booth, and J. Scott Campbell who think their presentation of women is the only “right” way.
We fight when people in the editors’ offices make huge mistakes that alienate, hurt, and trigger their own audiences like with BATGIRL’s Joker variant, now canceled from its June release to be replaced with something more appropriate.
We fight to even get comics like BATGIRL where a female lead solo title allegedly can’t sell enough to sustain itself; meanwhile, the new female THORÂ comic is outselling beloved original Thor by leaps and bounds. Trust me, I still have issue with calling her by the “Thor” name, but I never said a woman didn’t deserve to lead the title.
How long are fans and retailers supposed to fight for feminism in comics, gaming, and toys?
STORIFY 21-MARCH-2015
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model. 2 Comments on DC’s “next best thing” is seriously lacking & it’s no surprise who’s missing.
Comments are closed.
Wow. Their decision to exclude WW makes no sense whatsoever.
And, most fans I know are huge WW fans. I’ve never understood why DC ,Marvel, etc believe female characters don’t sell. I suppose the only solution like others said is to write, email, tweet DC until they get the idea.
After the heat of this week with the pain they and some of their creators put female fans through, releasing that shirt or promoting it, was a huge mistake. And the problem is, all the companies are complacent in this erasure.