As for the popularity of some characters with girls, I've always wondered how many girls really read superhero comics. Characters like "Wonder Woman" and "Supergirl" have a certain appeal based on name alone...their names suggest power and competence. I think girls might see "Supergirl" more as a title for themselves, like "Athlete" or "Genius" or for that matter, "Princess" (notice how many favorite girl characters are royalty). They may not know or care that, for instance, Supergirl's real name is Kara, that her secret ID is Linda Lee, and so on. They just might see a beautiful girl who can fly and lift things and think that's enough.
Well, by their nature superhero comics are for boys at some level - the elements that make up superheroes are things designed to appeal to the minds of boys: fistfights breaking out, attraction to the filthy and abnormal (monsters, robots, aliens), and that whole Edgar Rice Burroughs vibe of unlimited power and unlimited sexuality. Alan Moore made a point a while back that one of the differences between the pulps and the comics is that there was a repressed sex urge in the pulps that isn't present in the more wholesome comics. I don't know if I'd agree with that general sentiment, because part of the unstated "fun" and wish-fulfillment of being Superman is that he was something special, and so he probably could get laid very easily. He had women catfighting over him.
Okay, yes, a guy as clean-cut as Superman probably wouldn't seal the deal with the girls in his Crush Ring, but it isn't important whether he does or not; what's important is that he COULD.
On that same note, of the intriguing differences between boys and girls is that girls are attracted to the pretty and clean, whereas boys like the dirty and the scary. Notice that all of the female characters that women respond to are very glamorous figures. I suspect it was for this reason that the Englehart creation, She-Thing, never really caught on; girls don't like monsters as much as guys do. The one monster that a lot of women like, Dracula, is a monster with a great deal of sexual power always played by these "Latin Lover" types. He's the ultimate sinister and aggressive giggolo type.
This is why I've never thought of LOST BOYS casting vampires as "party all night" types in leather jackets and tattoos is that much of a leap of the imagination; if Dracula was written today, he'd drive a motorcycle.
I don't have any statistics on hand, but I'll bet ten to one that the girls that like Catwoman, Sandman, and the X-Men are more likely to be the same kind of girls that like to play with bugs and worms, and listen to Joan Jett, and less likely to play with Barbies and listen to Susanna Hoffs.
Same with Wonder Woman, a character who I'd argue has gotten by for 60 years more on the power of her name and image than on the strength of her mythos.
I don't know if that's entirely fair. Wonder Woman has had a few impressive moments; the Martin Pasko and Alan Gold stuff in the seventies and eighties comes to mind, as does that Kurt Busiek miniseries from the 1980s and the George Perez stuff.
Lois in SR I see as kind of harried and overwhelmed by life, the way a lot of us adults are. She's not as "in your face" as Kidder's Lois because she's already made her point. She's a mom and she has fame and respect for the way she does her job, so she has nothing to prove. In contrast, I felt Margot Kidder's Lois went out of her way to constantly prove "I can do anything a man can do, only better!" And in my opinion by the post-Women's Lib year of 1978 that didn't make her a pioneer, it just made her annoying. Now when Phyllis Coates was kicking butt and taking names in the first year of the 50s TV show, that was a different story. Showing a career woman on TV in 1951...one who was NOT pining away for Superman and counting the days til she could quit work and be a homemaker...now THAT was bold and progressive. (But of course that "edge" was gone by Year Two and the arrival of Noel Neill).
Interesting analysis; it had never occurred to me that the change in Lois's characterization come Kate was due to a process. I just figured it was one big galumphing "break" between SR and the first two, which bothered me until now.
The only "girl" book I really liked was Wonder Woman when George Perez was on it. I started reading for the pretty pictures, but I lingered because Diana was written as a strong, very likable character. And yet I must admit that every time I bought it I felt a little self-concious about it, and wondered what "the guys" would think. :lol:
I think it's possible to enjoy a comic book or story with a central female character. There was a gag on FUTURAMA, where Fry was drafted into the military:
"I'm a science fiction hero! Like Uhura...or Janeway...or Xena!"[/list]
On the WONDER WOMAN season 1 DVD, Linda Carter was asked about the costume she wore, and she said that she didn't even notice that it was a bathing suit; she just thought of it as a uniform.
The ideal approach can be found in the recent ad campaign for the 2000 CHARLIE'S ANGELS film. I swear, whoever was responsible for it deserves a Nobel Prize for Marketing, because they chanced on the most brilliant advertising strategy ever conceived, a strategy that singlehandedly made a wild success out of what was otherwise a rather pedestrian television show remake-slash-action picture. They sold the Charlie's Angels as positive, strong role models for girls, while simultaneously selling them as wank fodder for those girls' brothers and Dads.
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