Artifact Analysis I: Hawkeye Initiative

Female leads in comic books are not at all short in numbers. There are so many memorable, classic female/super out there, and most of them kick ass and take names, but there’s some strange phenomenon about these women in the comic book world. For whatever reason these women are drawn with unrealistic proportions, hyper elastic backbones, shirts that cup each large breast individually and defy the science of breast physics, and a super wardrobe full of armour that leaves their most vulnerable parts of their body exposed to injury.
Most women of comic books who are drawn to fit this category have a trademark pose known as the “Strong, empowered female character” pose.



Nearly every female superhero has had the unfortunate experience of having her back broken, chest pushed out, impossibly trying to show both her rear and breasts at the same time. This is just another example of the hyper sexualisation of women through the media that the once “hidden” population of female and other gender identifying peoples are trying to change. Because their visibility in the nerd community has been increasing dramatically over the past 15 years, there has been more push than ever to correct the direction the art of female characters has been going.
You can’t not see the problem here.

Even girls like Mary Jane aren't safe from
having their spine broken.

Because females have been depicted this way for so many decades, this contortion, deformation, and hyper sexualisation of these characters is often gone unnoticed. The artists fail to realise themselves the horrific anatomic errors in their art, and most readers look straight passed the awkwardly drawn poses as an expression of “femininity”.
Luckily, there have been people who have noticed the many, many problems with the way women are featured in comics and other media, and are taking action and informing others. From this comes the introduction of “The Hawkeye Initiative”. The ambition here is to get people to notice the disturbing ways women are shown off by redrawing the offending images with the marvel super hero Clint Barton, also known as Avengers’ Hawkeye imitating their crippling poses and wearing the ridiculous outfits.

©hoursago@tumblr the art that stared it all

This lead to the highly helpful creation of the “Hawkeye Test”. The rules are basic. If the drawing of your female character’s pose and outfit can be replaced or worn by Hawkeye and not look completely ridiculous then you’re set, and your image is most likely not sexist in these regards. The reason being is; seeing a man in these poses looks strange, awkward, and wrong. It stands out more because men are supposed to be strong, and solid looking. They are super heroes, not sex objects. And that is the main point of this initiative. Females also deserve to be seen as heroes, not some super strong piece of tits and ass that kicks and moves in impossible ways for your viewing pleasure. 

In a perfect world no one's body would be fetishised, one's outfits for both or any gender would be practical and do what the garments are meant to do, and super heroes will all work to be aesthetically appealing through more creative design and shorelines.
As someone whose main goal is to get into the world of comics, I want to see change in the way women and others are shown in many ways. The over sexualisation of women happens in so many aspects in todays media that it has become almost blinding to how bad it really is. It is not only important to stop the sexualisation, but to just get the women to have believable poses and bodies. This will help in getting rid of the idea of the "true woman" which we already have a huge problem with in society. If our idea of a "true woman" comes from bodies that are broken, and anatomically impossible it can become very discouraging for women who are constantly under pressure to become that idea.

Stopping this phenomenon in comics might not be a very big step, but it is a step in the right direction. If one form of media can change the way its women are portrayed, then there is a chance that other forms of entertainment will follow suit.