Steve’s article about sexy superhero movies argues that Hollywood is only playing up the eye candy aspects that were there in the original comics anyway.  There are a lot of good points made, but now I’m going to turn those on their head.

When a comic becomes a movie, it’s going to have to be sexy to draw in the masses.  A movie with a lot of special effects is going to have a big budget, and therefore it can’t risk not selling an even bigger number of tickets.

Also, if you look at Hollywood’s movie star population, you’re hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn’t look great in neon spandex.  Actors are sexy; that’s their job.  When you cast a Hollywood film, chances are, you’re already picking from a group of professionally beautiful people.  You’d have to go well out of your way to write a superhero movie for Steve Buscemi or Roseanne Barr, and even then, it would just be a parody.

Now, that’s all well and good for traditional comics – Superman, Batman, and so on – but what about modern comics?  Comics were about muscly guys in skin-tight suits only in the Golden Age.  The stories therein were generally about beating up the badguy.  Bang!  Pow!  Forgive me for disrespecting our roots, my fellow comic book fans, but early comics were a little primitive in their plotlines and “yellow narration box” storytelling methods.*  So, I’m wondering, can Hollywood handle a darker or more complex series?  Say, “The Dresden Files” or “Umbrella Academy.”  The box office tends not to favour such stories, so could the adaptation from comics to movies cause a rift in comic genres?  The classic heroes and their stories have always outshined those niche experiments, but could the conversion of some comics to movies cause those niches to be totally eclipsed?**

And what becomes of the heroes who do indeed make the cut?  How much of their integrity is maintained once their marketing shifts focus?  These heroes were not intended by their creators to be sexy.  Actually, the reason why superheroes wear skin-tight costumes is to make them easier to draw.  Ever try to draw a hoodie and sweatpants on someone leaping tall buildings in a single bound?  The folds are a nightmare.

And on that note, I could argue that it’s not sex appeal per se that’s behind the marketing at all.  Just, “appeal.”  A movie is sold on what I call non-sexual porn; it’s going to be action-packed, have lots of explosions, and maybe have a little on-screen chemistry between the hero and love interest although that’s not the main draw.  For example, you might be interested in seeing Peter Parker kiss Mary Jane, but the main reason you went to see that movie is because you want to see Spidey swinging around and fighting the Green Goblin.

Also, these movies are marketed on the names of these longstanding properties.  You don’t go to see a Spiderman movie because you’re interested in teen angst.  You go because you love the Spiderman series and you want to see a live action version.  Accurate or not, the market research says that superheroes are mostly a domain of fanboys, not fangirls.  Therefore, if it were about sexual marketing, the main focus would be on a female character.  And, sure, they somehow manage to work a “Suggestive Female” into most movies of any genre, but a superhero movie is about the hero himself.

Or herself?  That’s another point.  Why are there so few movies about female superheroes if these movies are allegedly marketed to fanboys on a basis of sex appeal?  There was only one such movie that I can remember (Catwoman), and it tanked!  So maybe there is more going on than just how sexy a character looks on screen.

Maybe using a guy as the meat instead of “Suggestive Female” is not so much a desperate attempt to bring in the other half of the population (therefore doubling their sales).  After all, superhero movies have featured dudes in spandex from Day One.  What if it’s not about sex appeal so much as the promise of action?  Which brings in another point about the gender divide; strength and beauty.  On a guy, they are generally considered to be one and the same.  On a girl, they are opposites.  There is a fine line between masculinity and power.  The guys are muscly because they’re strong, not because they’re trying to look sexy.  If it was about sex, then the marketing of “300” would have been MUCH different.  It just so happens that what society considers to be sexy on a guy is also what means he’s physically powerful.  However, female beauty is associated with a frail, slender look, which better lends itself to “damsel in distress” rather than “ass-kicking superheroine”.  This explains why most female comic characters are either civilians or magic-users who don’t have much physicality about their attacks (which doesn’t play as well, visually, for a big dramatic final battle).

However, if you look at a film series like “Harry Potter” where everyone uses magic, you’ll also notice that all the actors were chosen to look like regular kids, not Hollywood hotties.  You’ll also notice that Harry Potter has been more successful in bringing in both male and female audiences.  Hopefully, Hollywood will take a lesson from this, and put plot before porn a bit more often.

I am hoping that this trend of superhero movies is nearing the end of its cycle.  The longer those spandex-clad stars occupy the big screen, the higher the perceived demand will be to make them more porn-like.***  The appeal of superheroes, at least in my opinion, is their role as defenders of the innocent.  It’s their cool powers and crazy adventures.  The draw of the superhero mythos is their saga stories that evolve over time, and cannot be summed up in a simple 90-minute “Biff!  Pow!” segment.  As the sexy superhero movies continue, whether they visually embellish the characters or not, the more the story falls apart.  When the movies focus too heavily on muscles and laser beams and big explosions, it becomes the non-sexual equivalent of porn.  Just… flashy lights and pretty colours for the sake of flashy lights and pretty colours.  There is an assumption out there that “mainstream = low brow, because people are stupid,” so the only way to make back the money you spent in production is to make sure you are producing overwhelming eye candy.  When that happens, movies pull away from the stories and characters that we fell in love with in the first place.

*That’s just my opinion.  Please do not melt me with your laser eyes.
**Or at least wander the web for eternity, doomed to remain webcomics forevermore.
***Clearly, Hollywood has never heard of Rule 34 or seen an online art community, as there are some fans who don’t wait for the movie.

-Tamara Hecht