
- 230 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes
About this book
Impossibly muscular men and voluptuous women parade around in revealing, skintight outfits, and their romantic and sexual entanglements are a key part of the ongoing drama. Such is the state of superhero comics and movies, a genre that has become one of our leading mythologies, conveying influential messages about gender, sexuality, and relationships.
Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes examines a full range of superhero media, from comics to films to television to merchandising. With a keen eye for the genre's complex and internally contradictory mythology, comics scholar Jeffrey A. Brown considers its mixed messages. Superhero comics may reinforce sex roles with their litany of phallic musclemen and slinky femme fatales, but they also blur gender binaries with their emphasis on transformation and body swaps. Similarly, while most heroes have heterosexual love interests, the genre prioritizes homosocial bonding, and it both celebrates and condemns gendered and sexualized violence.
With examples spanning from the Golden Ages of DC and Marvel comics up to recent works like the TV series The Boys, this study provides a comprehensive look at how superhero media shapes our perceptions of love, sex, and gender.
Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes examines a full range of superhero media, from comics to films to television to merchandising. With a keen eye for the genre's complex and internally contradictory mythology, comics scholar Jeffrey A. Brown considers its mixed messages. Superhero comics may reinforce sex roles with their litany of phallic musclemen and slinky femme fatales, but they also blur gender binaries with their emphasis on transformation and body swaps. Similarly, while most heroes have heterosexual love interests, the genre prioritizes homosocial bonding, and it both celebrates and condemns gendered and sexualized violence.
With examples spanning from the Golden Ages of DC and Marvel comics up to recent works like the TV series The Boys, this study provides a comprehensive look at how superhero media shapes our perceptions of love, sex, and gender.
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Yes, you can access Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes by Jeffrey A. Brown in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Popular Culture in Art. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Publisher
Rutgers University PressYear
2021Print ISBN
9781978825260, 9781978825277eBook ISBN
9781978825284Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction: Signifying Love, Sex, and Gender
- 1. The Visible and the Invisible: Superheroes and Phallic Masculinity
- 2. Women Dark and Dangerous: Super Femme Fatales and Female Sexuality
- 3. Secrets of the Batcave: Masculinity and Homosocial Space
- 4. Marriage, Domesticity, and Superheroes (for Better or Worse)
- 5. It Starts with a Kiss: Straightening and Queering the Superhero
- 6. Even an Android Has Feelings: Learning about Love and Robots
- 7. Super Fluidity: Transing and Transcending Gendered Bodies
- 8. KRAKK! WHACK! SMACK! Comic Book Violence and Sexual Assault
- 9. Pleasure, Pain, Climaxes, and Little Deaths
- Conclusion: Love, Sex, Gender, and Superheroes in Real Life
- References
- Index
- About the Author