IN FOCUS: Gender Identity and the Superhero
IN FOCUS: Gender Identity and the Superhero Representation and Diversity in Comics Studies by ELLEN KIRKPATRICK and SUZANNE SCOTT n spring 2011, Bart Beaty broke new ground by editing the first In Focus section of Cinema Journal devoted to comics studies.1 Beaty curated a thematically important issue, concluding with a round- table on the state of comics studies—a section befitting a rapidly evolving and expanding field. However, there was a noticeable ab- Isence of matters of representation and diversity in the section’s vision of “comics studies” and an equal dismissal of studies of representation in that roundtable. To some extent, this absence is understandable, especially as the primary function of the section was to rationalize and celebrate the study of comics as a distinct media form. Though issues of representation were certainly of concern within comics scholar- ship and culture at that time, Scott Bukatman identified “representa- tion of ” studies as one of the problems “endemic to a young field.”2 In their understandable effort to privilege the “how” of comics, the panelists, however, not only marginalized “scholarly work that tends 1 “In Focus: Comics Studies: Fifty Years after Film Studies,” ed. Bart Beaty, Cinema Journal 50, no. 3 (2011): 106–147. 2 For a small selection of the work being done on comic-book representations at the time, see “Superheroes & Gender,” special issue, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 2, no. 1 (2011); José Alaniz, “Supercrip: Disability and the Marvel Silver Age Superhero,” International Journal of Comic Art 6, no. 2 (2004): 304–324; Aaron Taylor, “‘He’s Gotta Be Strong, and He’s Gotta Be Fast, and He’s Gotta Be Larger than Life’: Investigating the Engendered Superhero Body,” Journal of Popular Culture 40, no.
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