Misogyny in Comics and Cartoons of the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries

The purpose of this exhibit is to demonstrate the ways that gender roles manifest in visualizations and depictions of women in a selection of comics and cartoons from throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In each of these depictions, women are reduced to several characteristics that serve to objectify them and limit the scope of their character. This manifests in the way they’re illustrated, their relationships with men, both visually and as spoken in the text, and their actions, or lack thereof, in relation to the scene. 

Drawing from notable sources such as DC Comics, Batman, Marvel, the X-Men, Popeye, and Disney, these portrayals are accepted and normalized in the media. This creates instances where over a series of decades, certain depictions which negatively portray women remain as hallmarks in the genre. One aspect of this that is explored in the exhibit is the trope of the “damsel in distress”. Common especially in comic books, this trope sees women as helpless or captive, entirely reliant on their male counterparts to save them. This trope manifests itself in a portrayal of women who lack narrative power or influence in the story. They become objects with no agency that get swept up in the story by no choice of their own. This is something that can not only be read in the text of a material, but seen in the way that the artist illustrates the situation. 

This exhibit aims to showcase the evolution and prominence of the objectification of women in these types of media. Objectification of female characters often presents itself in the way they are shown in relation to men. Commonly, they are treated as an accessory of sorts. Think of the cover of a comic book where a woman is hanging off the arm of the superhero. Objectification also occurs in absence of an identity in a female character. This occurs mainly when focus is brought onto the body of a female character while her name, face, or role in the plot is absent. In these cases, the relevance of a female character is regulated to her body or attractiveness while ignoring integral parts of her character. 

Intention is a large part of understanding how and why a female character is depicted in a certain way. Along with many of the Disney characters present in this exhibit, there is also text describing the intention behind their design. You will be able to see instances where characters who otherwise would not be understood to exhibit sexual characteristics are purposefully imbued with them. Take, for example, Minnie Mouse or the little girl in the Jungle Book. Both characters which typically would not be understood as sexual had been purposefully created to exude such characteristics. 

Throughout the almost century-wide range of materials in this exhibit, many of the earliest depictions remain prominent while some evolve over time. Take, for example, women in relationships. In early media such as in the Popeye and Sappo comics, women are portrayed as inferior and subservient to their male partners. In later media such as the X-Men, the focus on women in relationships is not so much their inferiority, though that is undoubtedly still present, but on their sexuality. In either setting, the placement of women in comics and cartoons remains to be observably misogynistic, and seeing as these forms of media are easy to consume and marketed towards impressionable audiences, namely children, their reproduction of harmful stereotypes and misconceptions is especially damaging.