Assignment 2; "Battle Armor"

This series is called "Battle Armor", where I manipulated images of classes superhero comic book characters to show more skin much like their female counter parts. It's a look at femininity in "nerd culture" and the double standard there is about women showing skin. 

All too often we see female superheroes in scantily clad costumes showing a lot of skin. It's not that I think showing too much skin is a bad thing, and I'll be first to admit that superwoman looks awesome in her costume. It's about the practicality of their costumes. I would assume it'd be pretty hard to fight off super villains in a tiny tube top and booty-shorts ensemble. Not everything will stay in place (if you catch my drift). Also, if  they are going into any kind of battle against any kind of villain, they'd would want to be as protected as possible. So why don't female superheroes get full body costumes?

Drawing the female heroes this way perpetuates the ridiculous belief that women must show skin to be "desirable" or "feminine." It's not practical at all for them to be half nude doing what they do. 

But why should I be upset if this is all fictional people in a fictional world? I know that superheroes aren't actually real and people don't literally fly off into the sky to fight giant lizards in their underwear. But what bothers me is that these expectations for women are reflected in real life. Women are seen as sensual if they wear revealing clothes, or in the opposite way they are seen as "slutty" or provocative. Either way, if you don't show skin you're "frumpy" or "prude". And when those judgements are made they have little disregard to the way the woman thinks or what her career is. Those facts are sometimes tossed aside. It effects the treatment of women real or fiction. 

For these pieces I used classic renditions of comic book superheroes from Marvel and DC comics, as my main subjects. I chose older versions partly because I like the way they look, and they are all aesthetically similar and unified. Also the periods they originate from was a time where there weren't many female super heroes. I cut out sections of their costumes but still managed to keep that comic book style, and stayed true to the original costume. I chose the slogan "ready for battle", to be a sarcastic dig on the belief that women could possibly fight dressed that way. I placed the words strategically around places that are accentuated on the female characters the most (butt, thighs, leg, etc.). I kept the background white so that the images have a stark presence in the image. 

To create the pieces I had to use images that are appropriated. However, to make it fair use I changed the image enough to make a different statement out of it. The message of the images was changed from "here's regular Captain America" to "this is the 'feminine' Captain America." The way their uniforms have been drastically altered changes the initial meaning of the subject matter. 

- Avery Violet