"Justice" League

 From: Connie

 

From a very young age, boys are brought up idolizing superheroes and senses of power or control. In Laurie Rudman’s “The ‘Two Cultures’ of Childhood,” she explains how dolls, for boys, are commonly referred to as action figures due to their ability to fantasize fighting or toughness (Rudman, 61). Obviously, this can also be said for dolls for girls, such as Barbies, as they can also perform action-packed sequences if our imagination desires. Unfortunately, this is not a common practice due to societal and cultural ideas affecting how children play.

The Smurfette Principle, coined by Katha Pollit, describes how in the media, it is the standard for there to be a group made up of mostly males and only one female. Furthermore, this female does not have the same amount of importance and tends to just fit sick stereotypes. Pollit best puts it as “boys are the norm, girls the variation; boys are central, girls peripheral; boys are individuals, girls types” (Pollit, 2).

In my image, it is clear that the majority are big powerful men, with Wonder Woman being put off to the side. All of the male heroes are covered in armor, but Wonder Woman? She’s all skin to show her real ‘power’ in society: her body. These superheroes are only ever being showcased for the male gaze, which is easily seen in Wonder Woman’s short shorts, corset, and thigh-high boots. How is that comfortable to fight in? It's quite possibly the most inconvenient costume for battling, but who cares right? This underscores the objectification of female characters and their subordination to male counterparts.

I also use different camera angles to showcase the importance of each superhero in this line-up. Clearly, the men are being looked up to because they symbolize power and confidence. On the other hand, Wonder Woman is being looked down upon because even though she is a superhero, she is not above her peers because she is simply there to show a strange form of diversity as she “exists only in relation to boys” (Pollit, 2).

Lastly, I wanted to use color to further depict how the women in these groups are overlooked. The walls behind all these heroes are blue, while the floor is pink. It is very common for the walls of a building to tell a story and be more important than the look of the flooring, as floors are only ever walked over, but walls are looked at and admired. These females are constantly being walked over because they are sidekicks or secondary, explaining why the floor needed to be pink in this image. The walls are blue and bright showing male dominance in groups of fiction, always being idolized, looked up to, popular, and primary.

It becomes very clear how many groups in media, television, and toys are examples of the Smurfette Principle when you first learn of this topic. Not only is it very easy to find these specific groups, but it is difficult to show the opposite, as the opposite is not often popularized or successful.This is not only an issue of children's toys or media; it is widely seen in mature films and productions. We as a society eat up this idea, without knowing, which only makes it even scarier to know we blindly support an idea that is so clearly harmful to one's self-image and self-worth growing up and being grown.

 

Works Cited:

Rudman, Laurie A., et al. “The Two Cultures of Childhood.” The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. The Guilford Press, 2015, 59-63.

Pollitt, Katha. “Hers; The Smurfette Principle.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Apr. 1991, www.nytimes.com/1991/04/07/magazine/hers-the-smurfette-principle.html.