Sexualised garments

Not that superheroines and their ilk can’t wear impractical outfits at all but not only are their outfits impractical, they’re also weirdly very sexualised like how it sets them up for indecent exposure and stuff. It kind of does make you wonder why Supergirl keeps flying around in a miniskirt every now and then, despite various attempts to keep her out of that article of clothing. Though there are instances where she does wear shorts underneath those, one might only wonder why she barely (if ever) wears longer skirts to superheroing. It would be just as impractical and at risk of indecent exposure if she doesn’t wear tights underneath those, but I suppose if Supergirl did wear a longer skirt with tights underneath she’d risk looking too matronly.

And it should be noted that in some countries like the Philippines schoolgirls do wear longer skirts with shorts underneath to study, which makes one wonder if the tendency to put Supergirl in a miniskirt is there to sexualise her at any point. A maxiskirt would be just as impractical in combat as a miniskirt would be, but when paired with tights underneath Supergirl would risk looking more like a schoolmarm anyways. So it’s not hard to see that many superhero cartoonists have a habit of sexualising the female characters a lot, often putting them in potentially risque outfits without regard for how indecent they’d come across as in some situations. Kind of makes you wonder why Mary Marvel’s dress shortened over time.

(I refuse to call her Lady Shazam.)

In the earlier stories she did wear a dress with longer hemlines, much longer than is usually seen in superhero stories without slits. It’s as if the female characters have to be played up for sex appeal, even when it’s unnecessary or even highly embarassing in some situations. But then you have some people who think x superheroine isn’t recognisable without a certain article of clothing, sort of like what Black Canary gets if she doesn’t wear fishnets. There have been occasions where she didn’t wear fishnets at all, most notably in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Considering how tights can get easily ruined, one would wonder why almost nobody bothered making her wear trousers for long.

It’s kind of trickier than imagining Supergirl in a maxiskirt with tights because the latter is still very much a feminised Superman outfit, even if it makes her look rather matronly instead, but it’s doable that the leotard would be easily reimagined as a bustier top and the fishnets can be swapped for trousers. But the trouble is it makes her look too ordinary, too nondescript really so this is part of the problem. Even then it does make wonder why superhero cartoonists are too hung up on the female characters’ sex appeal, without making them dress like what ordinary women do on a day to day basis. This would make them more relatable or at least less offensive to other people really, though there’s the risk of making them look too bland.

Especially in Black Canary once any pair of tights gets replaced by sturdy trousers, she starts getting read as ‘ordinary civilian’ from then on. But it seems with superhero cartooning, a superheroine would have to be differentiated from a normal woman by wearing much racier clothing. Sometimes it looks like she’s just wearing body paint, sometimes she looks like she’s into bondage despite evidence to the contrary (Cassandra Cain, anybody?). It gets worse if some of these authors are into this sort of thing themselves, most notably Chris Claremont and William Moulton Marston, that this kind of sexualisation inevitably seeps into the stories they write about.

It’s not a surprise why superheroines are so sexualised when the authors behind the stories they appear in are also major perverts themselves, even if it’s not true for all of them but it still feels this way. When coupled with certain clothing choices like miniskirts whenever this character flies around (Mary Marvel and Supergirl), that it’s like these cartoonists want to perv on them at any point in time. Supergirl in tights and a maxiskirt would kind of evoke the image of schoolgirls in some countries like the Philippines, but in western countries she’d risk becoming a Supermatron instead. Black Canary would risk looking nondescript if she swapped fishnets for sturdy trousers for good, even if it’s an image that looks very presentable in real life.

One would wonder why to these people, to be modest is to be frumpy, even if it’s not like that in Muslim majority countries. But it does speak volumes about the way they expect women to dress, in ways that hew towards either abject sexualisation (the west) or pious obedience (Muslim countries).

When Amazons get attacked

When it comes to the character of Supergirl, no matter the age, a blonde woman in a feminised Superman outfit (and also with many of his powers) will often be recognised as her anyways. Supergirl falls into a strange limbo where she’s a viable enough character to make frequent appearances in the DC comics canon, but practically unable to sustain her own magazine series for long. She’s one of those characters that largely work in theory, conceptually speaking a female Superman is intriguing. But depicting a female Superman in practise, let alone a recurring one, is something of a narrative headache.

Given how complicated her backstory is, like having to explain how are Kryptonians able to survive the destruction of their planet enough to send another one to Earth, along with being adopted by Earthlings as a minor makes it harder for writers to make her stand out from Superman without making her too unrecognisable. Supergirl isn’t so much a bad character as much as she’s an unsustainable one at that, as her own magazine series (despite DC’s best attempts at pushing it) don’t last this long. Even Jimmy Olsen’s and Lois Lane’s own magazine series outlasted her own, if we restrict this to the 1950s up to 1980s half of the DC comics canon.

That’s not to say that Supergirl is inviable as a character but that there is a way to differentiate her characterisation whilst keeping her mostly intact, though I feel part of the problem lies with the way the superhero school is structured with the way female characters are written. In the sense that the average superheroine is barely if ever like the average woman and becomes less so over time, especially with Marvel’s Kate Pryde. She started out as a fairly ordinary young woman, evidently into some of the things girls would be into like ballet. But over time writers and especially her creator Chris Claremont made her more outlandish, like giving her a pet dragon and the like. At times she seemed more like an idealised teen boy than a realistic teen girl.

There is a line between a woman with masculine hobbies and interests, and a female character that would’ve easily been a man, though it’s easy to confuse and conflate the two. The way Kate Pryde came to be characterised, especially under Chris Claremont’s pen, seems like a grab-bag of what young lads would find cool or intriguing. Especially once she received ninja training when she got brainwashed or possessed by Ogun, gained a pet dragon and the like, which all scream young boy ideals. That’s not to say teen girls can’t enjoy these things, but when many of them identify more with Hermione Granger than they do with Harry Potter, this should tell you about the things that a teen girl might relate to more or aspire to be, pardon if it sounds kind of sexist.

Aside from Superman and Wonder Woman, the one other character Supergirl could be analogised to would be Nancy Drew. Much like her, Nancy Drew has been characterised by different authors over time, albeit all of them taking up the name ‘Carolyn Keene’, and also has a pet cat called Snowball (as encountered in ‘Mystery Of The Brass-Bound Trunk’) and a dog named Togo. Both of them are also the same age or same age range (emerging adulthood), except that Nancy Drew’s far more successful among female readers than Supergirl is. While there are some nonviolent Supergirl stories out there, it’s much commoner to find her beating up bad guys in some way.

Whereas Nancy Drew spends her time investigating cases, even if she has time for certain hobbies like playing tennis and hanging out with a consistent set of friends called Bess and George. Supergirl does have friends but a number of them tend to be also derivative of other male characters, like what Batgirl is to Batman generally speaking. There are stories where Supergirl does investigate cases of some sort, but like I said it’s more common to find Supergirl actually fight people. Not that women can’t get into fights and sports, just as Nancy Drew is into tennis herself. But it’s kind of hard to make Supergirl more than a female Superman if writers don’t bother delving deeper into her characterisation, whether if she’s way more into STEM than he is.

We have no idea what her hobbies are, moreso if they’re not frequently and deeply portrayed even in her own stories, like she could be big into stargazing and learning more about European wildlife, though these are my interests (but I actually do more ‘moongazing’ really). Since she’s more of an outsider to Earth than Superman is, it should be natural for her to become curious about Earth fauna as these are unfamiliar to her in their home planet. In the same way that European wildlife is largely unfamiliar to Southeast Asians, like they’re the ones who’d take time knowing what polecats and hedgehogs are. There’s a way to make Supergirl into more than a female Superman without reinventing her so much, but this involves digging deeper into her characterisation.

What are her interests and hobbies outside of crimefighting? If so, do they differ from Superman’s? These do exist but sadly not very often to the point where Supergirl comes off as rather half-realised, where it would be this easy to reinvent her every time. But this might not be unique to her as it’s shared with other characters, even other female counterparts to preexisting male characters. Cassandra Cain is one of many female counterparts to Batman and she does have hobbies and interests than differ from his, like drawing and dancing, but she also spends a good chunk of her fighting just the same. To be fair, certain hobbies and responsibilities can make it harder to focus more on your hobbies, so being a superhero is no different.

But since superheroing’s not an officially recognised job, one wonders what they actually do for a living. Even if something’s part of the informal economy, one would wonder how are people like Batgirl and Supergirl actually getting paid for what they do. Even professional martial artists and combat athletes get paid for a living, but for some reason we have little idea of what Supergirl and Batgirl earn in their second jobs, if they’re doing so to earn more money than what they’re getting from their other jobs. It’s not hard to get the idea that the superhero school’s more of a boy’s power fantasy, in the sense that we know boys like to play fight. So the superhero’s tendency to go into fights with others plays into this, but I suppose if Supergirl gets into crimefighting because she wants to get paid more would ruin the whole fantasy of it.

Even if this is something anybody would reasonably do if they’re not earning enough in their other jobs, though it makes too human and far less escapist, not that female readers don’t enjoy escapism at all. But I feel the way Supergirl’s been characterised, especially in some stories, makes it harder for her to not only appeal to more female readers, but also make her more than a female Superman. Especially in terms of characterisation with regards to her hobbies and personal interests, that whatever time she has for them is cut short because she has to beat up bad guys time and time again. She’s not necessarily a bad character, but it can be hard getting more of her when writers don’t bother to dig deeper into her personality.

Perhaps this is likely one reason why we don’t see this many blatant female counterparts to existing male characters in other fiction schools, like crime fiction even if Nancy Drew could arguably be seen as a one-woman army equivalent to the Hardy Boys. Even if Nancy Drew does share some characteristics with Supergirl, despite being intended as a kind of female readers’ very own Hardy Boys she still manages to be recognisably her own character early on. That’s not to say Supergirl lacks female fans at all, but it’s hard getting more of her when writers don’t bother further developing her characterisation. That and the limiting nature of superhero stories make it harder to further flesh out certain characters, if because people are expected to fight.

We have little idea of what Supergirl actually does in her spare time, not necessarily of the pervy variety, but that we barely ever get to witness her stargaze, learn more about Earth animals and stuff despite being a newcomer to this planet. She even barely has her own recurring supporting cast, let alone something that’s not too contingent on Superman’s at times. One would wonder if she actually works much better as a supporting character, given any attempts to make her star in her own magazine series don’t last long. Nancy Drew held onto hers much longer and more often than she did, that you get a sense of her being a more fully realised protagonist.

Even if this isn’t always the case for other female sleuths but it’s kind of telling how they still manage to captivate female readers a lot more than their superheroic counterparts do, original or not, that it makes one wonder if most superheroines barely actually captivate women and girls for long. Like the latter find themselves undermined in some way or another, or perhaps they’re so underrealised that their own magazine series don’t last long, despite repeated attempts. Even original superheroines like Black Canary and Wonder Woman have this problem from time to time, like if they’re not insulting to women they might as well be half-baked heroines at that.

Not that Supergirl is a bad character but it’s not hard to get the feeling that she’s not particularly fully realised compared to Nancy Drew, a character who manages to not only be a viable lead character longer but also has more female readers to boot. A Supergirl like character could work, though she has to become more than that without reinventing her so much. Something like giving Supergirl a habit of stargazing and a burning desire to learn more about Earth wildlife, as befitting for a newcomer trying to adjust to our world. These are based on the things I’m into, but this is to give you an idea of doing more with her without reinventing her so often.

Cartoon character iconography

When it comes to cartoon character iconography and especially those of superheroes, once an outfit is designed for the character comes expectations for what they should look like, should they ever wear new outfits at all. In the case with Supergirl, she’s a female counterpart to her cousin Superman and the expected iconography for her involves blonde hair, blue blouse, red cape, red boots and a red skirt though the belt varies from circular to v-shaped. But certain aberrations do happen such as red shorts, a proper catsuit, blue skirts and the like, though the expected iconography is supposed to be a feminised version of Superman’s own outfit, barring the hair itself. Or for another matter, the expected iconography for Rogue’s that of a woman who dresses in a brown jacket and a green and yellow catsuit with yellow boots.

I guess if Rogue existed in the real world that even if she retained her love of dressing in yellows and greens, and sometimes wore her old clothing from time to time she would’ve also changed with the times in some way. This is what she ended up doing in the comics from time to time, but her most iconic outfit’s from the 1990s and this is the same outfit a number of cartoonists return to from time to time. To put it this way, Siouxsie Sioux is a real life musician whose most iconic get-up consists of teased black hair and black clothing, though this is the same look that she graduated from as time passed. She now has straight greying hair and doesn’t dress in the same way she did when she was younger, but you should get the point I’m making regarding iconography.

It’s easier to draw cartoon characters in the same outfits as it’s easier to draw from memory, especially over time that’s become an accepted part of their respective iconographies. It also makes it easier to lend itself to merchandising, given the character’s expected iconography. Back to Supergirl, her expected presentation’s that of a blonde woman who wears a feminised Superman outfit. Cassandra Cain’s expected presentation’s that of a young Asian American woman who dresses in a black coloured Bat outfit that comes with a mask that fully obscures her face, though ironically given her knack for reading body language this would’ve impeded her ability to carry out such a task. But sometimes impractical outfits become part of the character’s expected iconography like the latter one.

Vampirella’s own outfit would be hard to comfortably wear without risking indecent exposure, though some cartoonists take this too far, sometimes without regarding the character’s own dignity in certain situations. But it’s become an accepted part of her associated iconography, despite how inconvenient it would be in some situations as to warrant more modest redesigns. So if this outfit was designed for the character in mind from the get go, or gets popularised in a more accessible format as it is with Rogue, it would be hard departing from the expected iconography without risking backlash of some sort. There have been attempts to get Black Canary from not wearing fishnets, most notably in the late 1980s and also in the 1990s, though the fishnet thing’s so deeply entrenched that it’s easier to return to those.

Than to risk the unknown, though the animated productions have shown that this is possible without changing the character’s overall look that much, all you have to do is to substitute fishnets for an opaque pair of tights. But even then there’s often the expectation for what the character should look like, if such a look was either part of the character or is popularised in other media, that giving them an entirely different outfit would be a very drastic departure. Sort of like what happened to Street Fighter’s Cammy White upon her latest appearance, for a long time she wore a thong leotard with a beret and two braids. Then comes the latest Street Fighter game with her sporting shorter hair and a more modest ensemble, that inevitably a degree of backlash would’ve occurred anyways.

When it comes to real life musicians, fans would inevitably have a favourite look, even if the musicians themselves have moved on from it as fashions change. Let’s say your favourite David Bowie hairstyle is the iconic red mullet, even though he moved on from that haircut as the mid-1970s marched on. Then one could on go saying that they liked Liam Howlett* best when he was younger and had undyed hair to boot, this is one example but not the only one that I can hypothetically come up with. But the thing with cartoon characters is that they’re designed with certain looks in mind, not so much something they chose at their own volition, since they’re not even real. In Rogue’s case, her most iconic look is the one that got popularised on television.

But it still often reinforces people’s expectations of them, that doing a radical redesign would make them practically unrecognisable. So there’s much care to make them recognisable whilst redesigning them in some way, given how such portrayals reinforce people’s expectations of them.

*He’s a member of the group called The Prodigy and he’s its resident keyboardist.

What if it’s a guy?

When it comes to the way women are portrayed in such media, which made worse by the sort of occupations they work in that would preclude such attire. Considering that Cammy White is something of a soldier, it wouldn’t make sense for her to wear a thong in combat. Not to mention she doesn’t seem to be a particularly flirtatious character at all, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to dress this way until recently. One would only wonder why Abby Sciutto would dress like a sexualised little girl from time to time, whereas if she were male and often wore tight trousers and a mesh shirt you’d say that she looks perverted or unprofessional. Supposing if I have a character called Fabrice Tientcheu and dresses in a tight shirt and trousers, despite being a scientist, you’d say this is inappropriate.

But that’s what people have been doing to Abby Sciutto from time to time, if it doesn’t make sense for a forensic scientist like her to dress like a sexualised schoolgirl, then you should know this by now when I’m proposing Fabrice’s presentation to you. That’s not to say there aren’t any male characters that wear mesh shirts before and the like, one example would be the one found in the Ali G movie and another in the X-Man comics (I think). Though I don’t think these kinds of appearances are recurring to the extent that both DC’s Black Canary and Zatanna get, even though oddly enough the former herself isn’t actually and exactly so flirtatious and promiscuous. She’s only ever involved in just two relationships with men, that’s about it really. Well to my knowledge, but you should get where I’m coming from.

Supposing if somebody has the audacity to publish a game featuring a man wearing bondage trousers, despite appearing to wear a suit, that he’s also a salesman makes one wonder why he’s dressed this way. You’d think he might risk tripping onto something, or whatever you think would befall him. But this is what people have been doing to female characters before in a way, some of these outfits also put them into unwanted accidents if you think about this. Graham Knightley might seem perverted and strange to you, because he actually wears bondage trousers with a suit. But when you have Cammy White, who’s supposedly a soldier, yet wore a thong leotard it should give you an idea of how bad this is for years.

It’s not that there aren’t any male characters who wear these garments before, though not very often because people would think these are too kinky/fruity/whatever, despite doing the same things to their female counterparts. These may not be directly equivalent but let’s say Colin Sallow is the son of a politician and studies political science himself, yet he dresses in a tight shirt and tight trousers with a suit that one might wonder why he dresses this way. You’d say he doesn’t look respectable, well at least some of you would feel this way. But one would wonder why somebody like Lara Croft would wear crop tops and booty shorts to work in archaeology, it’s essentially no different really.

Add to that both Fabrice and Colin have very muscular physiques, their shirts are almost kind of like body paint that one would might wonder why do they have to show off their bodies in some way despite being a scientist and a politician respectively. But then again Lara Croft was shown as particularly buxom before, like she has to show off her breasts in some way despite being an archaeologist herself. Or for another matter, Cammy White showing off her bum for years despite being a soldier. You might argue in here but the point I’m making is that if you make a male character dress in this sort of way to show off his physique, despite being a scientist/politician or why he’d wear bondage trousers (despite being a salesman), this is to give you an idea of what’s been done to the womenfolk.

Not to mention I feel these portrayals of women might even contribute to body dysmorphia for some people, like they feel inadequate looking at these characters. Like they could never ever be them in some way, despite people’s insistence that they are strong female characters. It’s like their good qualities and strengths get undermined by dressing and appearing in such a sexualised way that it would be unthinkable had they been men, like if you’re fine with Abby Sciutto dressing in a minidress then you should be fine with a male Abby Sciutto dressing in a tight shirt and trousers. Even if Abby Sciutto doesn’t always dress this way and neither does Fabrice Tientcheu, it’s still strange dressing her as if she were a little girl beyond her years.

It’s something one would never do to a man really. Why on earth would a professional grown woman working in forensics dress like a little girl? Would you be fine with her if she was a man who dresses in fishnet shirts, tight trousers and sometimes tight shirts? That’s what people have been doing to womenfolk, like they often dress provocative for no reason at all. If you have Graham Knightley wearing bondage trousers with a suit, despite being a salesman, you’d wonder why he dresses this way but that’s practically what people have been doing to Cammy White for years. If you’re weirded out by him wearing provocative trousers, you’d have to be weirded out by a female soldier in a thong really. It’s like they’re putting out their sexual fantasies in the open.

That’s not to say there aren’t any menfolk in video games who dress kind of scantily, though not very often because it would seem pervy or something. But that’s what people have been doing to the womenfolk and why it should be strange seeing a female soldier out and about in a thong, if you’re weirded out by a salesman wearing bondage trousers.

The brilliance of simplicity

When it comes to a character like Black Canary, she’s commonly shown wearing fishnets in some form or another. But as what somebody else said, they’re particularly complicated to draw. They’re even more complicated to colour due to the advent of computer colouring, that it would be time-consuming having to colour those spots (I know this from experience). To the point where replacing them with opaque tights would be more time-saving and also helps preserve the overall look without changing it much, it also helps that opaque tights also don’t have the same sexualised connotation that fishnets do. Opaque tights are very much things that most respectable women wear and is even encouraged in some professions like nursing.

Black Canary is not a particularly sexually active character, despite her choice of attire, she’s only had two male romantic partners: her former husband Larry Lance and then her boyfriend Oliver Queen/Green Arrow. Supergirl has several more and she herself doesn’t wear any fishnets, which is saying and similar things can be said of others like She-Hulk. If animation is any indication, you could always depict Black Canary with opaque tights and she’d still be recognisably herself. It doesn’t change the overall look much, though it’s far less sexualised since it’s something women in respectable occupations are wont to do. Like I said before, Black Canary doesn’t seem to be much of a romantic, being attracted to just two men in her life.

Just two men in her life, as far as I know about it. In the case with animation, there’s a preference for simplicity given making it more complex, especially in 2D, makes it harder to work it and more hours to work on than necessary. Whilst advancements in computer technology has made it easier to go ham with details, simplicity is much easier to pull off consistently in 2D animation. Perhaps this goes a long way explaining why Black Canary only started showing up in animation fairly recently, given Bruce Timm found a solution to this by replacing them with a different pair of tights. Far less sexualised and also something easier to animate with more consistently, the best of both worlds born out of necessity and efficiency.

This is something that I feel comics cartoonists don’t get when redesigning her at all, like you could always preserve the overall look whilst substituting the fishnets for something opaque if animation’s any indication and she’d still look like herself. It’s not that drastic and it’s also far simpler, far easier to draw from memory too. But this involves realising something that sometimes it doesn’t take something drastic to replace the fishnets with something else, it could be something far simpler to draw and easier to remember as well.

It’s Ugly And It’s Pervy

When it comes to sports, ballet and pop music, normal people are perfectly capable of accepting somebody wearing tights, catsuits and leotards. Whether if it’s gymnastics, sprinting, wrestling, ice skating, weightlifting and skiing they can get behind somebody who wears tights and does physical activity in those. As if superhero costume designers underestimate their intelligence, maybe not necessarily but that they’re dealing with actors who not only find their roles’ costumes ridiculous but also feel uncomfortable wearing those outfits.

It doesn’t help whenever they’re made to look in a certain way, that I think when it comes to creating superhero outfits this time you have to make them actually comfortable and easy to take off. Maybe that’s why even when they’re made of spandex and stretch cotton, many athletic and dance outfits still don’t look like superhero costumes. Maybe save for some if they’re licenced, but it’s still telling that there’s a difference between making a superhero costume and making an athletic/sports outfit. If because the latter is very much meant to do physical activity with.

Maybe that’s why they can be tight-fitting and still not be superhero-silly, even when they look similar they still have crucial differences when it comes to both usage and construction. Many athletic outfits are the best example of function and form working together, perhaps in ways that’s not considered with many superhero outfits until recently. Actually I think even today, many superhero costume designers struggle to marry form with function because many superhero cartoonists tend to be more into form than function. More into how cool the characters look on page, not so much what they’re wearing is suitable for sprinting and weightlifting.

Another one that I feel has been brought up in some form, but not always openly admitted and acknowledged is that some superhero outfits are rather pervy. Pervy in the sense of being reminiscent of sadomasochistic bondage in one way or another, whether if it’s the predicaments the characters get into or the outfits and methods they wear and use resembling BDSM. This isn’t helped by that some superhero cartoonists and writers are/were into bondage themselves, whether if it’s Joe Siegel’s BDSM cartoons, or William Charles Marston’s and Chris Claremont’s interest in BDSM.

Or for another matter, Greg Land’s habit of referencing pornography. The odd fact that Cassandra Cain’s most familiar outfit didn’t just originally belong to Helena Bertinelli but also resembles a gimp mask makes you wonder if Land himself may have referenced a bondage picture.

To give you an idea, here’s one example of a gimp mask and another is her own outfit.

A gimp mask

Cassandra Cain as Batgirl

Perhaps this is why she never wore her familiar outfit in neither film (Bird of Prey) nor the Batwheels programme, it’s too reminiscent of a bondage outfit to ever make it outside of comics and Young Justice. This is also the likely reason why you’ll never see Carol Danvers in her famous Ms Marvel outfit again*, it looks like what a dominatrix would wear. The earlier Ms Marvel outfit maybe, as it is in one 2010s Avengers programme. But when you have heroines showing up in bondage gear, that’s a line that should never be crossed because of how pervy these get.

A bondage outfit by a dominatrix.

Carol Danvers as Ms Marvel

Let’s not also forget that Ben Affleck described his Daredevil outfit as something you do dungeon bondage stuff with, you get an idea of how some superhero outfits bear an uncomfortable resemblance to bondage clothing. It’s so sexualised that it’s a line that should never be crossed again, should cartoonists and costume designers alike aim to make their stories appeal to more people. While wearing a spandex outfit or even fishnet tights would be reasonable in something like wrestling, in fact some female wrestlers do wear fishnets in combat but the bondage look is too much to be widely accepted by many.

WWE wrestlers

Black Canary

One would only wonder why Wonder Woman’s now shown with a sword, the bondage undertones are blatant whenever she ties somebody up with. She may not look like a dominatrix herself, but her methods are similar. Perhaps that’s why cinematic adaptations shy away from this, even if BDSM is getting more mainstream it’s not something heroic and even villainous characters ought to do. That’s why such outfits tend to be more toned down or even drastically redesigned in the case with Cassandra Cain on Batwheels. Maybe that’s why superhero outfits aren’t always faithful to their comics counterpart, but in ways that’s barely ever considered.

*Lothar of the Chill People: I thought the navy costume with the yellow lightning bolt was pretty classic. It was always going to be racy with those boots, but the artists kept making it trampier and trampier. In 2006 Marvel decided to really push Carol/Ms. Marvel as the elite Marvel heroine, but the artists in her series drew it as a skin-mag. They raised the leg-holes up past the hips to show a ton of skin above her sash and they gave her such a wedgie that a thong would be less prurient. The detail they put into her bare butt cheeks was literally obscene. Then they filled her chest with enough Helium to float a Zeppelin. Marvel did something similar when they pushed Spider-Woman and artists started showing off her buttcrack and the contours of her areolas. Eventually Marvel launched a a new series with an actual porn artist drawing the cover.

So nowdays when designing superheroine costumes, creators have to make them smut proof, because if you make them sexy, artists are going to turn them full-on slutty.

Even if you like the lightning bolt Ms. Marvel outfit, it would look terrible in a live action movie. The bare midriff version of the Mar-Vell outfit is a travesty.

Relatable when you think about it

Between Black Canary and Felicity Smoak, admittedly I’m more familiar with comics despite not reading comics that often, I have a nagging feeling that the former has the potential to be relatable to other people especially when it comes to online businesses. Online businesses have become quite commonplace, given how people will do things to find ways of selling something so the Internet becomes a tool to sell something with. Not just Amazon, Shopee, Lazada and Carousell but also Jumia, Etsy and Redbubble.

I have encountered artists who sell their wares online, Dinah Lance could easily do that with flowers as she’s a florist. That’s not to say there weren’t any online businesses before, one of the earliest and best-known examples would be Amazon. Amazon is a rather influential brand, especially one that opened the doors for other online retailers to emerge and flourish. Without Amazon, we wouldn’t get Shopee, Lazada, Carousell, Jumia, Indiamart, Etsy, Redbubble, Society6 and the like. Now that’s what you call a trailblazer, especially in the early days of the World Wide Web.

Being unfamiliar with the comics is one thing, considering some other character’s potential to be relatable is another. That involves realising something about either one of them that might click with other people, as well as the odd possibility that somebody like Black Canary might be more attainable in a way. Think about this, a good number of people have set up businesses online. Surely they’re not big businesses, they may not be rich but enough to get by in life. With the Internet, you could find stores and buy products by proxy.

You could sell something online and have it be sent to somebody else, especially the purchaser/buyer in question. Actually you could sell anything online, it could be used books but also fabrics, newly made clothing (though mine is offline), plants, foods and toys. I do know some people who sell fan-made merchandise online, yes that really is a thing and I’m not making this up. But the stuff they make pertain to other franchises, such as Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures and Good Omens. Not that Oliciters are any less creative, but that Black Canary could be relatable to other people in a way Felicity Smoak couldn’t do for them.

Maybe in ways they don’t expect or consider, especially when it comes to online businesses being ubiquitous these days. While the number of women in computer science is pitifully small, women who operate small and medium businesses aren’t that rare. But that could be because I know female owners of small and microenterprises, my grandmother sells jewellery, one of my aunts sold biscuits and I have a habit of selling clothes to people. There are women who sell fabric online, so Dinah selling plants online isn’t much of a stretch when you think about it.

Though that would mean not everybody can be Felicity Smoak, I don’t have a strong interest in computer science. I’m not that tech-savvy, maybe save for low tech stuff. The only one in my family who knows computer programming well is a man, I don’t think Oliciters will realise or get this but that would mean Felicity isn’t relatable for other people. Not everybody can be Black Canary, but not everybody can be Felicity Smoak either. It’s been brought up elsewhere that Felicity isn’t relatable for other people, but that involves realising the sort of life she leads isn’t attainable for others either.

A real life Oliver Queen (as presented in Arrow), complete with immense wealth as a CEO and womanising, would be more like Elon Musk than Mark Zuckerberg. A man who has a habit of dumping each woman after another, wealthy but one prone to objectifying women. If Elon Musk dated Felicity Smoak, he could dump her at any time as he did with others. Elon didn’t care much about his first wife’s feelings, especially when she got a miscarriage so he really isn’t fun to be around for others.

Let’s not forget that unless if they’re athletes, musicians or actors themselves, other men who get paid to be looked at aren’t going to be rich. I don’t think there are any romance novels where a woman dates a male model, not just because it’s too revealing but also because male models aren’t that well-paid. A couple like Oliver and Felicity (as presented in Arrow) would be a needle in a haystack, if they ever existed at all, though you could say similar things about Oliver and Dinah as they are in the funnybooks. But that would mean how unattainable Olicity actually is.

The sexualised billionaire CEOs that populate (some) romance novels are so unattainable, that they make athlete heroes look like total boys next door. If because these characters are more attainable in the real world, though I think athletes get away with it more than male models since they’re more likely to be praised for their skills and that sports is popular with men. Men are going to be more forgiving of a Steven Gerrard, David Beckham and Robert Pires (all footballers by the way) over a Fabio, Sean O’Pry and Jason Aaron Baca. You might say that Arrow and the like are works of fiction.

But as I said before, however about Cathy, is that Oliver Queen is pretty unattainable compared to Irving. While there certainly are women who marry into rich families, not just business magnates but also actual aristocrats they’re not all women. Admittedly it is sexist for me to say that not all women become CEOs of multinational corporations, but I don’t think a lot of women are like Felicity Smoak when you take things into consideration the way Oliciters do with Black Canary. I’m way more into fashion and soy milk than gadgets and wine.

Felicity Smoak, if she ever existed in real life, would be somebody who’d belong to the one percent. Maybe not entirely one percent, but she’s not a figure everybody else can relate to. Any woman can be a businesswoman, though the kinds of businesses they run aren’t (always) big multinational corporations. Rather, they tend to be smaller scale. They may not be rich, just enough to get by. In this light, there are more women who’re like Black Canary than Felicity Smoak in the sense of running small businesses. I own a microenterprise built on making and selling clothes.

I know women who operate and own small businesses themselves, so I do run into Black Canary-like characters in the real world (and online, if it can be stretched). I know very few, if any, women who’re like Felicity Smoak in any way. It needn’t to be Black Canary to be relatable to others in a way Felicity Smoak wouldn’t be for them, it could be Oliver Queen himself whether if it’s his attitude or his skills. There are people who do archery, especially as a sport for games like the Olympics. It could even be Helena Bertinelli, besides I do know people who not only use crossbows but fashion them out of scratch.

I feel for some people, their idea of a relatable character is a glorified audience surrogate. Somebody at Ganriki pointed this out, I guess it’s no different with Felicity Smoak on Arrow. Or for another matter, Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon on the Flash. I may’ve toyed around with having a self-insert before, but as I get older I find the self-insert type characters more irritating. They’re irritating because of how disingenuous they are, they’re supposed to be everypeople but are ironically far apart from them.

I have a nagging feeling that since Felicity Smoak really isn’t much of an everyperson compared to say Cathy, she might as well be a power fantasy for certain women. She’s got a high-powered job a few times over, succeeds in male-dominated fields and kind of openly leers at somebody like Oliver, you have women who feel repressed and shamed for having any sexual interest in men. You have women who want to succeed in male-dominated fields and kill for a high-paying job, Felicity has done them all.

Cathy, as far as I remember, struggles to lose weight, surely is neither the smartest nor stupidest person in the room, dates otherwise average men and tries to find stylish clothes. I know someone in the family who’s made to lose weight in the family, I myself try to lose weight through lifting weights so Cathy’s attempts to lose weight by exercising is quite relatable. But that goes to show you why Cathy was such a popular character as is the story she’s in, even the men she dates are rather attainable.

She may not have a high-powered job, but so do other women in the world. If Felicity Smoak isn’t particularly relatable to everybody else, I guess there are some people who aspire to be like her. Well in ways they don’t immediately recognise it, if because much of the character’s rather unattainable in some respects. They want a way to get away with lusting after men, get into male-dominated fields with ease and earn as much as men do. Not that they can’t be done in the real world.

But rather I’m advancing my theory that Felicity Smoak is a power fantasy for some women, in ways Cathy could never be because she’s always such an average person. Now that’s a character who’s actually quite normal, average or at least not too out of touch in the real world. But it’s also proof that it needn’t to be Felicity Smoak to be relatable to the audience, others see themselves in any other character really.

A taste of their own medicine?

When it comes to Arrow, that’s a programme based off of the Green Arrow comics but where a number of those fans seemingly dismiss the comics canon. When I mean by that, they say that Black Canary (who is Green Arrow’s wife or girlfriend) needn’t him. True, Black Canary herself didn’t start out as Green Arrow’s girlfriend she was engaged to somebody else before in the comics. But the fact that she became associated with him in later years makes you wonder about their compatibility.

Admittedly, I haven’t read much of the Green Arrow comics myself but I have some familiarity with them prior to Arrow due to Black Canary. I actually think it’s not helped by that other Arrow viewers aren’t that familiar with the comics and also because Green Arrow himself, despite making appearances in some DC cartoons himself, isn’t as famous as Batman. Which’s a shame because Arrow could be used to introduce themselves to Green Arrow, maybe it already does in a way. But it doesn’t help that some Arrow viewers seemingly have no interest in comics and actually prefer the telly version to the source material does explain why the show’s fandom is such a mess.

As for Felicity Smoak, she is the character some of those Arrow viewers have strongly latched onto. I even have a weird nagging feeling that whether if they’re aware of it or not (maybe some are), some of them are even romance novel readers. I have read a romance novel online before, which’s about a girl meeting a billionaire and these kinds of stories are fairly common even online. If it’s true, then I think in reinventing Felicity Smoak (as she existed in comics before where she’s not Jewish and was somebody else’s mother) they created a romance novel heroine.

Admittedly, I haven’t read that much romance novels but judging from what I read from going to romance novel websites one would wonder if Olicity’s popularity and staying power struck a chord with romance readers. True, not all romance readers watch Arrow but if some Arrow viewers are romance readers then it’s something not many realise or admit. There are certainly romance heroines who’re like Black Canary in one way or another, since she’s something of an entrepreneur herself in the comics (well a florist) there are some romance novel heroines who are like her in this regard.

But then again there are romance novel readers who don’t identify much with kickass heroines, so it seems there are probably Arrow viewers who may not identify with Black Canary either on telly or in the comics even if she has a fanbase before. I have a nagging feeling they gravitated more to Felicity Smoak not just because she’s relatable but because she’s very reminiscent of many romance heroines in a way Black Canary isn’t. Perhaps it can be said that Oliver Queen himself’s something of a romance novel hero, especially in that show. You might say I’m projecting, but I have a nagging feeling it took off due to similarities to romance novels.

Now imagine if somebody were to retool Felicity Smoak in the comics for this decade, instead of being a blonde Jewish hacker and IT professional she’s an Anglo-Indian raven-haired seamstress. She’s not necessarily daft, given she has a habit of sewing clothes by hand using two needles at once (I did this before). Though I have a feeling by making her Anglo-Indian, this would be the most controversial reinvention of her to date even if she scarcely ever resembled her telly form when she first appeared in comics. It’s even been said that Arrowverse Felicity’s a retread of Smallville’s Chloe Sullivan.

Or as I’d like to say, the 2010s version of Chloe Sullivan. She even marries Smallville’s version of Oliver Queen, predating what would happen in Arrow. Now that the 2010s are over, one would wonder what would the 2020s version of Chloe Sullivan would be like. Perhaps it’s for the best that Chloe Sullivan would never be reinvented again for this decade, given how loathed Felicity Smoak has become for some people. But would a reinvented Felicity Smoak be more likable? Not necessarily, though I think portraying her as Indian would annoy some of her fans.

I could even imagine a Twitter hashtag campaign called #makefelicityjewishagain in light of making her Anglo-Indian, thinking it erases her Jewish heritage even though she wasn’t depicted as Jewish in the comics either. Actually that would make Anglo-Indian Felicity Smoak her return to form in a way, since she wasn’t depicted as such in the comics. Admittedly this is based on what I know of her from reading just a few Firestorm comics, but it’s clear that Felicity Smoak wasn’t like this before. An Anglo-Indian Felicity Smoak would prove this right in some way.

Perhaps an Anglo-Indian Felicity Smoak would be interesting or relatable to other people, especially if they’re Indian or generally not into STEM that much. Okay, I might be wrong about Arrowverse Felicity as well, but for those seeking Desi representation an Anglo-Indian Felicity Smoak might be the one they’re craving for. Think of it this way, there aren’t a lot of well-known Desi characters in DC Comics and Arrowverse specifically. Jinx could’ve been DC’s most well-known Desi character if it weren’t for portraying her as an apparently white girl in the Teen Titans cartoon.

Making Felicity Anglo-Indian would make her DC’s most well-known Desi character in a way Jinx never got the chance to be, likewise Caitlin Snow could become DC’s most well-known werewolf character if she ever becomes one in the Flash. Think about it. Of course, some of these Arrow fans would be mad because it doesn’t follow canon or rather their idea of canon, especially if DC makes Felicity Smoak Anglo-Indian at all. True, adaptations take liberties with the source material but with an Anglo-Indian Felicity Smoak it would be almost the reverse.

It’s like expecting Felicity Smoak to be a blonde, quirky Jewish white hacker but imagine in the comics where somebody has the audacity to reimagine her as a raven-haired timid Anglo-Indian seamstress would lead to a role-reversal since it’s television that has given us the Felicity Smoak people either love or hate. An Anglo-Indian Felicity Smoak wouldn’t be any better, but it does beg the question regarding fidelity to the source material. Perhaps for some, it’s the loss of the Felicity Smoak they know. But for others, it’s the representation they’ve always wanted.

It kind of unravels things

I have a feeling if Stephanie Brown were to get mad at Tim Drake for killing her pets and also if Black Canary were to be Tim’s biologial aunt, it would deconstruct Tim’s very presentation and intention in the stories. But in the sense that if he was meant to be likable, it would all the more shocking if he screwed up really badly.

To put it this way, many (if not most) Star Wars fans never expected Luke Skywalker to screw up realy badly. He’s the character some people do identify with or at least have known since youth, he’s a young man made to fulfill a destiny in a dangerous world. But if he’s shown to screw up badly in the later productions, that’s going to horrify those fans.

Especially if they have high expectations of him that it’s going to be more or less the same if Tim also screwed up a lot. Nobody wanted him to screw up badly and when he did, it’s annoying (trust me something similar has happened to me before). It seems with Tim, if he were to fail real badly but with people liking him a lot it’s not going to end well really.

Same thing would happen if Stephanie Brown actually beat up Tim in a rage for killing her pets that it’s going to mortify many anyways.

Not much difference

I think out of all the characters, the easiest to redesign without changing the presentation much should be Black Canary. In the animations, it becomes evident that character designers would swap fishnets for opaque tights that it’s not a big loss anyways. What if she has several pairs of tights to wear in her closet that aren’t always fishnets that it makes sense this way?

It seems some people figured this out with Wonder Woman that if she can’t wear shorts, it would be a short skirt instead. (Strange as it sounds, they came to that conclusion.) It’s always possible to do alter the appearance much without significant changes. In the case with animation, it’s done for simplicity but it’s always doable.

Though that would be realising it’s not that big of a change.