tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post8593345227460331774..comments2024-03-27T08:49:38.786-03:00Comments on Siskoid's Blog of Geekery: Dial O for OrehSiskoidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-42105471824933615572017-10-09T04:27:28.406-03:002017-10-09T04:27:28.406-03:00M-EL: I think a lot of the problem with the pervin...M-EL: I think a lot of the problem with the perviness is, 1980 was not too long after the Sexual Revolution, and the old rules had been tossed out but a new rulebook hadn't yet been published. The ethic of the Sexual Revolution was "if it feels good, do it", and that's not a bad starting place, but that leads to the issue of consent, and from there informed consent. There's a lot to debate and "finalize", and I don't think they quite figured out the rules about age differences during early NTT.<br /><br />I will back this up with a few observations:<br /><br />- "The Mexicali Blues" by the Grateful Dead, where a guy is talking about his drinking and womanizing in Mexicali, and this lyric: "So instead I've got a bottle and a girl who's just fourteen". I'm reasonably certain the point of the song isn't supposed to make you go "EW!!!!" but hippies.<br /><br />- Speaking of hippies, talk to some, if you can find any. I was at a party with some aging hippies 2005 or so; said hippies were old enough that they had a daughter who was a senior in high school. Some of her friends were going to be coming over, and the dad-hippy was going on how there were gonna be some 18-year-olds dancing and gyrating around. EW!!!!<br /><br />- "Quantum Leap" reruns. You know how Al is a wacky horn dog? Well he's not afraid to leer at high school cheerleaders in at least one episode (the one where Sam leaps into his younger self), and it's supposed to be a "boys will be boys" moment. Not "EW!!!!"<br /><br />- "Raiders of the Lost Ark". How old was Marion when she first met (and dated) Indy? Sixteen or 17. EW!!!!<br /><br />- Hal Jordan was dating Arisia, originally a teenager but then she used her ring to age her body so that she was technically legal. EW!!!! Also, thanks a hell of a lot Steve Englehart you jerk. You did more to ruin the GLC than anyone, including Ron Marz (with editorial mandate).<br /><br />So I think we have a much stronger sense of the importance of age in relationships today: if you're an adult don't date underage, and additionally honor the rule of "half your age plus seven". Both of those are old rules -- we can find references to 7+x/2 as far back as 1901 -- and we gradually came to realize that yes, those are probably good old rules to preserve.<br /><br />So Marv was not writing with the same age <i>ethos</i> we take for granted today, and Deathstork sleeping with an underage Terra just meant (according to Marv) that he doesn't give a damn about the law, he makes his own rules. But then we see a sexist double-standard, where Terra sleeping with Deathstork makes her a bad person. Mind you, we haven't yet shaken that double-standard even today; women risk a stigma for being "ho's" for just doing what men are allowed to do, i.e. own their sexuality.<br /><br />Terry Long is not loathsome primarily for the age difference, but how generally oily and sleazy he is. I'll let Chris Sims take it from here:<br /><br />http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html<br /><br />http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/romance-special-wonder-girls-creepy.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-15783335789956013432017-10-08T19:06:43.065-03:002017-10-08T19:06:43.065-03:00Seeing as a LOT of readers hate Terry, probably no...Seeing as a LOT of readers hate Terry, probably not. I don't remember even realizing Terry was much older than Donna. An 11 year difference doesn't bother me particularly, and in this case, Donna was a very mature 19, hardly naive and just out of her mother's skirts.<br /><br />Terra-Deathstroke is the real aberration since it is pedophilia.<br /><br />The real problem with Terry, if it is a problem, is that it's part of a PATTERN in Titans that makes the reader suspect the writer (and some of the artists) is treating female characters as objects and putting them in his own personal fantasies. Not saying it's the case, but it's definitely an odd quirk.<br /><br />Also see John Byrne's writing for comics that expose their writer's perviness. Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-38695120523154270852017-10-08T18:38:49.919-03:002017-10-08T18:38:49.919-03:00Reading NTT today I keep wondering how much of its...Reading NTT today I keep wondering how much of its bonkers/gross sexual politics was considered normal when it came out and how much of it had readers going "ew." Was it really totally normal for a thirty-year-old college professor to date a 19-year-old in 1982?Matter-Eater Ladhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07582100232490047227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-18382537859255875912017-10-06T09:24:15.542-03:002017-10-06T09:24:15.542-03:00The sexual politics in New Teen Titans are icky, I...The sexual politics in New Teen Titans are icky, I agree with you. I got into Titans when the Baxter book started (actually when the newsstand book turned into Tales) so I missed a lot of that. Instead I got Wolfman with Writer's Block(TM) but I didn't know it. It was never my favorite book, but at the price of comics in those days, you could afford to keep up with books you found just ok.<br /><br />At this point, researching this particular story, Barreto is a clear co-conspirator with lots of unnecessary cheesecake. I was even going to do a post about it.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-26390285995359994172017-10-06T06:04:10.311-03:002017-10-06T06:04:10.311-03:00... oh, about "Children of the Sun", thi...... oh, about "Children of the Sun", this is what I think of:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf3784VNBXI<br /><br />The song's from the 70s, the animation is a new unrelated thing that is nevertheless pretty cool.<br /><br />You might recognize the song from the first episode of season 2 of "Fargo" (the 1980-ish season).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-45102808865111654772017-10-06T05:54:22.238-03:002017-10-06T05:54:22.238-03:00I was 11 or 12 when New Teen Titans first came out...I was 11 or 12 when New Teen Titans first came out, and even to my young sensibilities there was something amiss with the writing, like the writer just couldn't keep it in his pants. Issue one had doctors leering over Starfire's unconscious body, issue 2 had them making a point of putting Wonder Girl and Starfire in unnecessarily skimpy bikinis, issue 5 (or thereabouts) gave us Trigon's rapey rapey backstory.<br /><br />Then Terry Long showed up as, per widespread speculation, a self-insertion author avatar: the smooth cultured writer that the hot chicks are attracted to whether they can admit it or not. I wouldn't have been able to articulate all that when I was a kid, but I knew Terry was doing better with the ladies than he ought to be able to.<br /><br />I have had problems with Wolfman ever since. I didn't stick around for Deathstroke skeeping with an underage girl, and Wolfman framing Deathstroke as a bad-boy rebel and the girl as a harlot bereft of redeeming qualities.<br /><br />About "The Venture Bros", they're going for shock value and laughs, so I can forgive them more easily than I can "serious" storytellers. Which is not to say that VB can do no wrong! Sgt Hatred was a bad idea from the very beginning -- a villain wrestling with pedophilia -- and the show tried to play that for laughs for a very very long time. Not cool, guys. Not at all cool.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-28943048776213793502017-10-05T09:07:30.106-03:002017-10-05T09:07:30.106-03:00I'm definitely going to keep the Titans-era po...I'm definitely going to keep the Titans-era posts to a minimum. Completely agree with you Mela. Not every property needs a "loss of innocence" story.<br /><br />In any case, last we saw of the Dials, it was revealed that ROBBY had been turned evil by dialing a wrong number. So this is just more of the same, only not done as well.Siskoidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08266365376486695812noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37940560.post-56714190481492809542017-10-05T06:38:09.467-03:002017-10-05T06:38:09.467-03:00This was when I gave up on NTT. Vicki being (impli...This was when I gave up on NTT. Vicki being (implicitly) raped by the cultists & thus turned into a murderous vamp, along with the whole "she went down a ~dark path~" backstory that seems to justify the former and on Chris writing her off instead of, say, helping her get sobriety counseling was just too offensive. And as an adult, I'm even more disgusted to see that gross, cynical "this is what happens to kids in adventure stories" attitude popularized by crap like Venture Brothers vomitted onto those super fun Dial H stories. People talk about Chris Claremont's obvious fetish stuff, but Wolfman's have always been worse to me cuz of stuff like this.Melahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05539894845356203447noreply@blogger.com