The Four Color Media Monitor: Brian Bendis supposedly against sexism

ScienceFiction.Com pointed to a rebuttal Bendis gave to a stupid question on his Tumblr blog, where the query was:

I understand trying to make comics female friendly, but aren’t you guys worried that you’re going to lose your core audience which is male? In the X-books you’ve had more focus on the likes on these females like jean and kitty while it should be Cyclops who has been the star of the X-Men comics for years. What warrants these characters more page time than him? Jean and kitty are secondary characters. You guys listen too much to women bitching. They cause so much freakin drama in comicdom.

He responded by saying:

Wow. you are the first person who I am kind of glad asked your question anonymously because I don’t want to know you.

as a reader of my work I want you to listen to me very carefully: you have major major issues. almost every line of your question reeks of complete misunderstanding of yourself as a man and of women in general.

it’s okay to find yourself more interested in something than others, of course it is, it’s okay to like Cyclops more than Jean Grey, but for you to draw the line at women characters not being interesting to you because you are a man or that you think I am being manipulated by some bitching women is really out there.

and as a reader of the X-Men whose entire philosophy is about tolerance and understanding… you are missing the point.

Unfortunately, so is Bendis. He was the architect of Avengers: Disassembled, Hawkeye's exploitation of Scarlet Witch (or her doppelganger) in 2006, the Hood's assault on Tigra, the storyline where Spider-Woman was stripped by the Wizard, and worst, he's one of the most cynical writers I've ever known working for a major company, so while I do concur that the question was mighty stupid, I can't see why they'd think Bendis really cares. He's never apologized for cranking out such horrible stories or for gloating, and if not, then I don't see how he's standing up for women. I doubt he has many female fans either, and judging from sales receipts at this point (his All-New X-Men isn't selling very high), I find it all the more unlikely he's winning over much of a following now.

And funny how the anonymous asker at Bendis's blog wasn't asking why he put Cyclops through such an embarrassingly bad story as Avengers vs. X-Men.

Labels: Avengers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, women of marvel, X-Men

Bendis is supposedly against sexism? That's a laugh, considering how basically he writes his female characters as being the victims of torture porn, such as Tigra having the crap knocked out of her by Mary Sue villain the Hood and Spider-Woman being naked and bound. Or his pathetic treatment of the Scarlet Witch, for that matter. Until he acknowledges those errors, i can't seriously believe that he's truly against sexism.

Posted by Anonymous | 1:23 PM

That's called a 'false flag operation.' It's a commonly used tactic by marketers and politicians alike.

There are two scenarios.

1.) The false flag operator joins a cause and tries to make them look bad by being a platform for toxic views that the cause would never support. They try to gain support for those toxic views to create chaos amongst the members of a given cause.

This leads to the media talking about a 'divide' and how 'part of the cause' supports horrible ideas no sane person ever would. The operator is usually a charismatic 'alpha' personality who has all the extraverted clique-cluckers fall into line.

This doesn't work so well with introverts, but when you consider extraverted movements like #Occupy, you can see how incredibly successful it can be. Introducing a radical alpha element into any extraverted cause can bring it down. It often does.

You can read all about this online (just google 'occupy movement false flag operations'). It sounds like a hilarious conspiracy theory but that's the world we live in.

2.) The operator joins a forum where people are dubious or suspicious of a political group or corporate entity. They use archival skills, charisma, and some cleverly fallacious logic to convince people that they're not as sure about their position as they believe. They're often joined by other false flag operators who then 'buy into' what this spin merchant is selling.

The more extraverted, less confident people jump on that bandwagon to be with the 'growing and cool in-group.' This noise then drowns out anyone who stands by their convictions. Extraverts can be used as a social noise weapon in this way, and regularly are. This allows companies with bad reputations to get some good buzz going. It's the simplest form of social engineering, and so incredibly effective.

3.) The false flag operator creates a dummy account to be a proponent of toxic notions. This person then attacks a public figure about the kind of issue the public figure is known for without ever bringing up that they're known for it. In this case, it was an obvious sexist remark made at Bendis. (And it looked really manufactured, too. It didn't have any conviction behind it or subtext to speak of.)

What happens is that when this public figure 'stands up' to the false flag operator, they become 'heroes' in the eyes of the media who fall over themselves to fawn over and praise him. They just want to break the story first, it's good for them too as it brings them page hits and ad views. It's all part of the media ecosystem. False flag operations of this sort are good for their business.

Need evidence? Google 'bendis is sexist.' Before this happened, the results brought up lots of pages with loads of evidence. It also brought up his other questionable issues like his obsession with snuff porn. Today? Today it brings up media reports of how Bendis 'boldly stood up to' some no-nme, faceless fan. 'Bendis puts the SMACK-DOWN on sexism!' they yell. Yet more extraverted noise.

False flag operations are all about using extraverted noise to your advantage. Extraverts are very weak willed, so they just follow the status quo and the opinions of alpha personalities.

What happened with Bendis was the third kind of false flag operation.

Like I said, it's obvious to me. I'm an introvert with an education in psychology and social engineering. This is Extraverted Brainfuckery 101.