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Sunday, November 27, 2016 

Why did BBC remove a video about alleged sexism in comics? Good question

Bleeding Cool said 2 days ago that the BBC had removed a supposed report about sexism in superhero comics:
With the ongoing conversation about sexism and inclusion in comics is relevant today even more than ever, the BBC posted a video titled Redrawing women Tackling sexism in Comics earlier today showing various women speaking of their experiences and thoughts about female superhero characters. Awesome, we thought, let’s go find out more, but as it turns out, within a few hours the video had been removed with a generic note: This video has been removed for editorial reasons.
Knowing how dishonest the BBC can be, I wouldn't be shocked if their report had been as one-sided as is possible for them to be, and any women who said they had no serious issues with babes drawn gorgeous were otherwise excluded from the interviews. If they couldn't be honest about the Gamergate campaign, which even video game producers were supporting, women included, then why should we expect this to be any different? It's possible some sensible minds in the medium protested, much like they initially did when Fredric Wertham tried to publish a real screed in a magazine back in the 1950s, and the Beeb luckily agreed to withdraw it. I hesitate to think just how many decent artists might've wound up defamed by the Beeb, had their alleged "news" been kept around.

And if there's something to comment on here, how come they're so concerned about "redrawing" women but not about rewriting women, as was the case in 2004 with Identity Crisis and Avengers: Disassembled? Thinking about this now, it's become apparent that discussion of artwork's come to serve as the perfect cover for obscuring the more challenging topic of scriptwriting that's potentially bad. If the BBC left that out, that's why their so-called report was best discarded.

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It's like the controversy over Tifa in Final Fantasy 7. (Mind you I'm going on what I've heard since I haven't played the game.) When the HD remake was announced there was a move to have Tifa's breasts reduced. Video game commentator Gaijin Goomba did a video noting that Tifa was actually a well-written character and good fighter who just happened to have larger breasts, and that the petitioners were just shaming real-life women with large breasts. And it's not like the franchise hasn't had normal-breasted women in the games before.

Like you said, they're worried about body shaming, which is granted something to keep in mind, while themselves body shaming, when they should be looking as to how the character is written. But that would take time to actually read the stories when looking at the pretty pictures is much easier and what they think comics is about anyway.

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