feminism

Sailor Moon is inescapable. There’s the new anime of course, and the new musicals, the merchandise, and the retranslation of the manga. But it’s the emblem of a wider renaissance as well, a resurgence of love for mahou shoujo, or magical girl anime and manga — a movement led by women well out of their childhood years. A quick stroll through Tumblr reveals Sailor Moon cupcakes, punky Sailor Moon jackets, heartfelt essays about what the portrayal of lesbianism in Sailor Moon meant to the reader, dozens of artists working together to reanimate an episode of the anime, Sailor Moon nail art tutorials, cats named Luna, Beryl, Haruka and everything in between, hand-sculpted figurines, ornate embroidery projects, and an endless avalanche of fanart. Sailor Moon as an Adventure Time character. Sailor Moon cheekily clutching a Hitachi Magic Wand. Sailor Moon as a vicious biker chick. Sailor Moon protesting the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling. Sailor Moon fans have not so much rediscovered their love for Naoko Takeuchi’s sword-and-sparkle epic as they have elected her queen mother of their imaginations and ultimate aspirational self. She is, simultaneously, symbol, cause, and leader. This resurgence is animated by more than typical fannish passion. This is a need to return to a world where young women are in charge. This is an anger at the pabulum of Good Role Models for Girls, at boob windows and “fridging" and “tits or gtfo.” This is 15-year-olds covering their notebooks in “MERMAIDS AGAINST MISOGYNY” stickers, yet also gravely serious grad students applying bell hooks to Takeuchi’s use of Greco-Roman myth. This is a collective invoking of spirits, made more potent in their absence — Usagi Tsukino and all her friends as saints and saviors, carrying the light of childhood optimism to an adulthood in sore need of it. This is nostalgia as a weapon. “Pretty soldiers” indeed.

DC has a Wonder Woman problem. Or perhaps more accurately, Wonder Woman has a DC problem. The idea of Wonder Woman as a feminist icon is so imprinted in her history, and in analysis of the character, that separating her from feminism should be near impossible. But that hasn’t stopped people trying. Much has been written over the years about the ebb and flow of feminism in the Wonder Woman comics, the relative feminism of her appearances on the small screen, and her role as an icon for the movement. A recent interview with the new Wonder Woman creative team of Meredith Finch and David Finch has brought the topic back into focus.

This week, David S. Goyer, writer of Man of Steel and its upcoming sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, appeared on a writers podcast called Scriptnotes to talk about being a screenwriter for superhero films. Apparently he thought it would be a good idea to do this by characterizing She-Hulk as "a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could f*ck" before getting into an extended discussion about how the Martian Manhunter sucks so bad that he can only really work in a story where he also has sex with She-Hulk. Who would've ever thought that the guy who wrote a superhero movie with the line "you c*ck-juggling thunderc*nt" would have some problematic ideas about female characters?

Adam Warren's Empowered is one of the best superhero comics being made today. Sometimes I think Empowered might end up being one of the greatest superhero comics ever. The elements are all there: engaging characters, a plot that springs from them organically, an inventive setting, and scads of emotion. Its parodical beginnings -- based in the jokey premise of superpowered woman Empowered de-power

Welcome to the latest episode of ComicsAlliance Presents "Kate or Die," a series of exclusive comic strips created by one of our longtime favorite webcomics cartoonists, Kate Leth! In this episode, Kate takes on the conventional Hollywood wisdom that women action heroes don't "open" movies, a claim that's been refuted time and again, but never more spectacularly than in recent

Kudos to game developer and geek dad Mike Mika, who achieved what few parents can by making the seemingly impossible happen for his three-year-old daughter, a Donkey Kong player who asked the simple question, "How can I play as the girl? I want to save Mario...

Comic book projects that might not otherwise be made through traditional channels are turning to Kickstarter or IndieGoGo in order to crowd-source the funding necessary to get their books to audiences. The Dungeon and Dragon's-inspired webcomic The Order of The Stick famously raised over $1 million on Kickstarter, and although such success is rare, several well-known creators have turned to the s

In a lengthy and in-depth conversation with attendees of this year's Edinburgh Book Festival in Scotland, comics writer Grant Morrison indicated his long in-the-works Wonder Woman project may finally appear in 2012, that it will be influenced by the character's fetishistic roots in the original comics by William Moulton Marston, and that it is the most difficult project the prolific and popular wr

Buzz and controversy have been swirling around Wonder Woman a lot these days. The politics of retcons and reboots have thrown interested parties into an absolute tizzy over the lineage, age, and even the fashion sense of the original super-heroine...

Earlier this week we featured Feminist Hulk, the Twitter feed where Hulk smashes the patriarchy, but feminist tweeting doesn't all have to be capital letters and bad grammar. We'd like to imagine that there are plenty of comic book characters out there with something to say about feminism -- here's our thoughts on the third wave of the DC and Marvel universes...