1 It Started With A Kiss: Reframing Superheroines Visual Narratives Chadwick L. Roberts Assistant Professor University of North Carolina Wilmington 601 South College Road Wilmington, NC 28403-5933
[email protected] Anita K. McDaniel Associate Professor University of North Carolina Wilmington 601 South College Road Wilmington, NC 28403-5933
[email protected] For full paper see International Journal of Comic Art (Spring/Summer, 2016) 2 It Started With A Kiss: Reframing Superheroines Visual Narratives Fig. 1 V J Day in Times Square The famous V J Day Kiss has been referred to as the most romantic moment in American history for decades. It is a photograph of a nurse in a sailor's arms taken in 1945 as the nation celebrated victory over Japan (Fig. 1). The image has been reenacted by countless couples on Times Square and recreated in popular art using a variety of fictional characters. The iconic photograph resembles the classic swoon—a man grasping a woman by the waist for a kiss while bending her backward such that she lifts one foot off of the ground. However, this version makes the woman an object of the kiss instead of interacting with it. Thus, the kiss appears less like a mutual act and more like an act of force (Benfanti, 2011: 16). Greta Zimmer, the “nurse” in the photograph, remembers it the following way. “It wasn't my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and grabbed! I did not see him 3 approaching, and before I knew it, I was in his vise grip.