Introducing The Hawkeye Initiative

Hawkeye, but not

Comics’ depictions of women – particularly superheroines – is something of a thorny issue. For a lot of people, both male and female, the hypersexualisation of female characters is off-putting at the very least. Those who want to investigate this angle further can read this fine essay at Comics Alliance or this one at Comic Book Resources.

There are some, however, who argue that both genders are treated fairly: the depictions of superheroes aren’t exactly realistic portrayals of men and their bulging muscles are equally hypersexualising. That, in fact, superheroes and superheroines are treated equally (badly).

To disprove this theory, a little project has been gathering steam this week. The Hawkeye Initiative (NSFW, which should tell you something) has a simple premise: take a given picture of a superheroine and put Hawkeye (the character played by Jeremy Renner in The Avengers) in the exact same pose and the exact same costume. If he doesn’t look like a tool and you can argue that what he’s wearing is actually a really good outfit for fighting (or doing anything) in, then that pose isn’t hypersexualising. And women from all over the Internet have been sending in their ‘compare and contrast’ drawings.

Compare and contrast

My favourite, though, is this one:

Batman fantasy

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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