Some of the responses to The Hawkeye Initiative

By now, most of you are familiar with The Hawkeye Initiative, where artists are drawing Hawkeye in place of female comic characters that have been put in impossible, just-to-be-sexy poses.  Naturally, some people have taken issue with it.  

A few places, I have seen the old “men get portrayed unrealistically in comics tooooo.”  To this I say, you are missing the point.  We will not get in to how the way male comic characters are physically portrayed is more of a power fantasy, while the way women are portrayed is more of a sexual fantasy, because that is not the point. This is not about the strange, unnatural proportions found among female comic characters nor their revealing clothing; this is purely about poses.  

A complaint from some who actually got the point, that this is purely pose-based, but appear to have some unrealistic ideas about how female bodies work is that women move differently than men and therefore should be drawn differently.  On a similar note, it has been noted that, being super, they don’t move like regular people and, “oh, real guys can’t do what they’re shown doing in comics either.”  Yes, men and women move differently, but not that differently.  Sure, they walk a bit differently, but I have yet to meet a woman with that level of spine flexibility.  If any of you ladies (or even gentlemen or otherwise identified individuals) out there are able to get your spine at a ninety-degree angle, send me pictures.  Yes, most comic characters are exaggerations of how real people look or move because they are not supposed regular people, but it is only women that get put in these spine-twisting, physically impossible poses.  It is clearly just to show off butt and breasts at the same time and is completely illogical at any time, especially in combat.  Even when they are just standing, these women are frequently in that sexy, hip-up pose.  Have you ever tried standing like that?  While this one is actually, physically possible, no one would stand like that just because, let alone in the middle of a fight.