Slave Leo: King of Crossplay
Remember yesterday, when were talking about the Hawkeye Initiative? To sum up, the idea was to pose a male comic book character the same way that females are posed to show how absurd the sexualization is. Today, we have Slave Leo, a real world example of the same phenomenon.
His real name is Ryan, and he’s written extensively on why dressing like Slave Leia is generally bad. To prove his point, he decided to make his own male Slave costume. Not just wear the bikini like some have done, but actually design the equivalent costume for a man.
The result? He looks like a Roman prostitute, but again, this just proves my point from yesterday about how it’s really, really hard to oversexualize men compared to how easy it is to do with women. There’s just as much skin shown here, but it’s goofy, not sexy. Though I might want to poll some women to say that for certain. I don’t know, this continues to be a complex issue I still can’t quite get my head around.
More pictures of Leo below:
Again I have to ask what the point is. They act like they are portraying the evils of the inherent sexiness in the female form, but all they are really doing is making people giggle. Making people laugh is always worth doing for it’s own sake, but the attempted pretentious political implications they are going for just don’t hold water when you give a minute of thought to the subject. Most women I would assume dress sexy because they want to appear attractive. There’s nothing really wrong with that in and of itself. I find it more patriarchal and sexist to hassle women to dress the way you think they should than it is to allow them to decide for themselves. If you don’t want to dress up as Slave Leia, ladies, I’m with you. But if you do want to give us guys a little thrill, I say go for it.
Also, remeber that people can do exactly the same thing while actually doing the complete opposite. People can dress in sexually stimulating ways because of sbalternity to the mainstream patriachical society’s expectations of your gender identity… or you can feel empowered by your sexual life, your body or whatever other thousand reasons.
To pretend that people who dress, draw, film, enjoy, etc. certain images/styles, etc. are doing it BECAUSE of some resons or in a CONTEXT that you assume is the one and true one is pushing your reasons into others actions. Just like there is stuff I might not like, there are things others don’t like. Just like there’s stuff I like, there’s stuff others like… and they overlap and contradict each other constantly. If people don’t like the depiction of women in comics because they cosider it to be over sexualized (I have to say, men are just as oversexualized in them… but no one seems to care) there is plenty of “better” published material out there. If you prefer that, promote it, explain why you prefer it, produce more. History has proven many times that you can’t just “fight your enemy”, you have to be able to propose something esle, an alternative. All these people redrwaing pictures, dressing and so on are just telling you “I don’t like this”… but I don’t see any deeper thinking there and I especially don’t see any alternative, any proposal.
If you want your ideas to be respected, respecto others’ too. I’ve seen many women proudly cosplaying as female comic characters that are onsidered to be oversexualized… and if they do (I exclude the proffessionals and payd models), they have to have their resons. It’s their bodies, their lifes and thier sexuality and gender identity. Or should we also start bashing drag queens because they “oversexualize” the image of homosexuals and cross/trans-gender people? Should we start going against most competitive spots because they promote a oversexualized stereotypical image of strenght and competition driven men who are overpaid and get much more attention for their relatively “easy” work than… say… obsuce lab workers doing cancer research? I think (and this is just my oppinion) we have to educate ourselves and our childrento be able to read into the many, many meanings that can be in a text, so that we know to which we agree to, which ones we ignore and which ones we reject (and which ones -the most of them- wea actually put there ourselves). Know yourself and enjoy what’s out there.
“I find it more patriarchal and sexist to hassle women to dress the way you think they should than it is to allow them to decide for themselves.”
This is a Strawman. No one is saying woman need to dress in X fashion, they are speaking out about presentation, or the lack thereof to be precise. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that there can be no sexy characters.
You can argue all you want about how woman should be able to decide how to dress and the same people will agree with you because the discussion isn’t ‘We need to tell women how to dress.’
@KaosNoKamisama
Deal with it or GTFO may be something you’re okay with, but most others aren’t so cowardly.
I’d also like to show or have you tell me about some examples of men being overly sexualized. WE may find some examples, but when we stack them up against each other how could we pretend the ratios are the same? A power fantasy and a Sexual Fantasy aren’t the same thing.
“I’ve seen many women proudly cosplaying as female comic characters that are considered to be oversexualized… and if they do (I exclude the proffessionals and payd models), they have to have their resons. It’s their bodies, their lifes and thier sexuality and gender identity”
Again, no one is saying that women can’t dress sexy, or can’t dress up as a character they like. They also know of the kind of shit they get to deal with for dressing up like that. (Undoubtedly we can find some people who will say she was asking for it, just like how some would say a woman asks for it when they are raped.)
What’s being discussed here is the representation. Even if a woman (or man) wanted to dress up as a female character it not revealing clothing, what are their choices? It’s pretty limiting.
“Should we start going against most competitive spots because they promote a oversexualized stereotypical image of strengtht and competition driven men”
No one is, or is asking you to ‘go against’ comics so it’s kind of a moot question. You can still criticize something you enjoy.
Obviously fantasy is involved here, the difference is in the kind of fantasy that is being portrayed.
In regards to men in sports, I would say that there are lots of representations outside of sports that help paint a more diverse picture of men.. in regards to something like football you even have different sized players for different positions, there is a diverse array there (they are all very athletic of course, but your kickers aren’t nearly the same size as your linebackers. I don’t think there is an issue with their representation. Funnily enough, in these same sports you brought up the women are there only as eye candy in short skirts. we’re in the same position where men are being presented in an awesome powerful light, and the woman are there for the sexy. Opening it up, there are plenty of sports where men can participate and be nothing like men in other sports…tennis players and golfers look nothing like soccer or football players.
Draugr, love this and your post on the Hawkeye Initiative post yesterday.
I especially love: “You can still criticize something you enjoy,” a sentiment which explains things like how a woman who really likes Twilight can still want to be strong and independent.
I have many more thoughts, but I’ve got a post due tomorrow that’s unfortunately still swimming around inside my head. Plus, I’d probably end up rephrasing many of your excellent points. Kudos, Draugr.