Nudity and Women's Representation in Comics

This post references the article "Body Talk" by Katherine Frank (full source material at end of post)

It seems to me that one of the most common complaints people have (and it's usually people who don't read a lot of comics, but it applies to those who do as well) when they talk about comic books, is the representation of women.

Though women HAVE representation in comics, and are often portrayed as physically strong or otherwise gifted, it isn't their personalities or powers that take centre stage.

What comes to mind when most of us picture a female super hero is that of Wonder Woman in little more than a red, blue and gold bikini (I will later devote an entire post to Wonder Woman and why she actually deserves to be a feminist icon). Or more recently, Power Girl's infamous breast-baring costume might spring to mind.

I could go on and on with the different examples (Black Canary's ubiquitous fishnets, Psylocke's thigh highs, and a whole lot of cleavage on everyone), but in this particular post I simply want to discuss how nudity is used. In a later post I'll also discuss ideal bodies and how they're represented on both men and women in comics, but for now we'll just focus on the ladies.


 Exposure as Concealment

In Frank's article, she brings up the idea that for some women in strip clubs, the real exposure isn't about baring their skin, because that's what customers come in to see. The real exposure—something that often titilates the customers more and makes them feel special—is revealing things of a personal nature.

For a stripper, when she gives a customer her real name (or claims to) or tells them something seemingly genuine about herself, this is far more of an exposure than taking her clothes off.

The same notion is true of superheroines.

Diana Prince, the daytime alter ego of Wonder Woman has held many jobs (aside from being an Amazonian princess sired by Zeus). She's been an Army nurse, a military intelligence officer, a civilian employee, businesswoman, astronaut, and a staff member at the UN.

Jennifer Walters, better known as She Hulk, is a lawyer and humanitarian.

Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, is typically shown as a student, either in high school or later working on her Masters degree.

In all the above cases, the women require their superhero private lives to be kept secret for a variety of reasons. Batgirl's father is the police commissioner, Jim Gordon, and on several occasions he has attempted to arrest his daughter unknowingly, considering her a vigilante menace. How these women manage to maintain their anonymity is through costumes.

In the case of Batgirl, she is fully covered, including a cowl which masks most of her face. But most other superheroines go the opposite route, opting for a "less is more" mentality and baring almost all in their barely-there costumes. Wonder Woman and She Hulk don't wear masks at all. In fact, Diana Prince, with her Clark Kent-like glasses, is more masked in her daily life than in her super hero identity as Wonder Woman.

Much like the strippers, who expose themselves by revealing facts rather than skin, a superhero is protected by their costume, rendering them unrecognizable from their day-to-day persona.

Costumes as Comfort

In many cases, a superheroine is actually being her "true" self in her costume, as opposed to in her more relaxed daily attire.

Frank, in her article, discusses the notion that two of the things stripping does for those who do it are to increase comfort with their own sexuality, and increase comfort with women's bodies.

Though some may argue that since it is predominantly male artists and writers representing women in comics, their portrayals simply establish the "idealized woman," I think we can look at it a different way.

For superheroines, their costumes are not so much a way to accentuate their natural, um, assets, but to show themselves as truly liberated individuals. They do not need to be bound by the restrictions of what society deems to be appropriate. They make their own decisions regarding their wardrobes, and when they're in their "true" hero form, they choose not to hide or be ashamed of how they look. They're proud to be who they are, and in a way that is sort of heroic on its own merits.

One Last Consideration


As I wrap up this look at why revealing costumes (much like a stripper's naked body) might not necessarily be such a negative thing, I wanted to add something for a bit of a feminist consideration on the topic.

Yes, the costumes ARE revealing. And moreso, the poses that women are shown in are usually ridiculously over-sexualized and often physically impossible.

So for a refreshing note to leave you on, I direct your attention to The Hawkeye Initiative where fans take poses (like that of Starfire from Red Hood and the Outlaws on the right) and reimagine them with Marvel's Hawkeye (the male Clint Barton iteration) in the same pose.

The resulting images show us just how ridiculous these drawings and costumes can often be when it comes to portraying women.

A little food for thought on both sides of the coin.

"Body Talk: Revelations of Self and Body in Contemporary Strip Clubs" by Katherine Frank, in Dirt, Undress, and Difference: Critical Perspectives on the Bod'ys Surface. ed by Adeline Masquelier. 1st ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. 280. Web. 5 Feb. 2014.