Women, Comics, and Conversation - Linguistics 362
*To protect their privacy, the participants in the conversation I studied have had their names changed.
Introduction and Background Literature
Conversations about shared interests – especially those considered “nerdy,” or else fan-related – reveal the work that language can do. The language used in fandoms relies heavily upon a shared jargon or slang, as well as common knowledge about the subject in question, but not necessarily an intimate knowledge of where certain terms came from. Participants in fan conversations don’t need to know every detail about the history of their fandom, as this interaction demonstrates. What makes this data particularly important is that the two participants are female, and speaking about comics, which is stereotypically viewed as a male-dominated interest. Their genders are significant not because of any perceived notions of how women talk, but because a large portion of their interaction is spent discussing the state of female characters in media. In fact, this discussion is in the form of a narrative, and the entire interaction can be seen as a series of narratives within each other and strung together. The communication between these two women shows the work that a narrative can do, especially in the context of a shared niche interest.
Data
The two speakers in the transcription are close friends of mine, and they have known me and each other for several years. Rachel is 21, identifies as female, and is white. Celina was 20 at the time of the recording, identifies as female, and had difficulty in deciding whether she should use the label “Hispanic,” “Latina,” or “white.” Because race and ethnicity aren’t the focus of this analysis (and because Celina and her sister were coming up with equally valid reasons for all the descriptors), I opted to list all three in the transcription. The conversation took place in the apartment that Celina and I share, and both participants were seated on couches, with the recording device on the edge of the coffee table between them. The device was a Zoom H4n Handy Recorder, with unidirectional condenser microphones. I sat in a different room with the door closed so as not to interfere with their discussion. Celina reported afterword that she and Rachel became very physically animated at certain points, and would gesture and wave their arms around. However, as I wasn’t there to witness any of it, and I didn’t use a video camera, there is no way to analyze their bodily expressions.
In order to give a greater understanding behind the background of this conversation, it would be worthwhile to discuss the participants’ histories with the topic. Both Rachel and Celina have been involved with the Marvel comic fandom for years, though Celina has greater knowledge of the stories and histories of the characters than Rachel does. In addition, both of them engage in the online aspects of fandom, and are able to speak with a shared set of words. They also use Tumblr, a blogging platform, where users who are fans of comics will occasionally engage each in other in debates on female characters. As such, they are surrounded by the same discourse on women in comics.
Analysis
Before I enter into the main analysis, I’d like to start with an anecdote. On the blogging site Tumblr, a user posted a page of a comic starring a cartoon character named Pepper Ann. On this page, Pepper Ann is standing across the street from a comic book shop. Her inner thoughts, represented by a ghostly image of herself in the window behind her, say, “You’ve been standing there for ten minutes now. Just go in! You’ve never been in there. It’s just a comic book store.” The Pepper Ann in reality responds, “‘Just a comic book store?’ It’s Dr. Explodo’s Closet! I am persona non grata! I am persona non-male!” Her inner thoughts say, “This is America. As an empowered female, you can go wherever you want. Well, not the men’s room, but--” Pepper Ann comes back with, “It is not America in there! It’s a place where geek law is enforced by nerd militia!” The comic continues on with an imagined scenario of a “femalert” alarm going off as soon as Pepper Ann steps inside, whereupon she is promptly strapped to a chair interrogation-style and barraged with questions about obscure, nerdy knowledge. When she wails, “All I wanted was a comic book!” the imaginary males congratulate themselves and declare that she’s not a real comic book reader.
But the most important detail about that comic is that it was published in 1998. It has been fifteen years, and quite literally, people are still discussing the masculinity of comics and its fandom. Though individual fans may not be able to provide personal stories of when they had to “prove” their knowledge and legitimacy while in a comic book shop, it’s very easy to find those kinds of stories. In a similar sense, plenty of women are able to recount times at fan conventions when they were accosted, talked down to, or received sexual advances based on their costumes. There are also blogs that lampoon comic book art of female characters who have been drawn in anatomically impossible positions because the artist wanted to show off their chests and rears.
This is the context in which Rachel and Celina are talking with each other. Still, the situation in general isn’t the same as it was in the past fifteen years. Thanks to the explosion of the internet, female fans have had a much easier time finding and communicating with each other. There are sites that are specifically for female fans, such as TheMarySue.com. Bury notes that female fans have long been residents of online culture, and the choice “to stake out and colonize cyberspaces of their own” is not a new concept (2005). Even as fans bemoan how society uses fan culture as a source of humor and ridicule (Haenfler 2010), female fans feel ostracized from a group that claims to be a welcoming place for those who are enthusiastic about certain works of media. Depending on what places a fan visits most on the internet, and whether or not that person attends live events with other fans, it’s possible to avoid much of the sexism, but not all of it. Stories about sexism can be spread around very easily on sites like Tumblr, and websites may cover the most dramatic offenses. The conversation that Rachel and Celina have can be seen as an extension of this general discourse.
In the first page of the first transcription, Rachel and Celina’s interaction turns to the trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Specifically, they discuss Sharon Carter, and her absence from the trailer (lines 2-35). (Sharon Carter is long-running character of the series, and a secret agent who sometimes assists Captain America with his missions.) The two start with their own reactions, and in very few utterances, convey the same emotions (lines 5-8). “=I’m really worried,” which overlaps with “I KNOW!” are the most notable examples (lines 7-8). They continue by mentioning what happened on the “Sharon Carter tag.” (lines 10-12) This is a reference to Tumblr’s system of tagging – users can add tags (descriptive labels) to a post so that other users can easily search and find posts on similar topics. In this way, the two of them extend the group of frustrated fans beyond themselves to encompass the wider community, thus lending a stronger credence to their feelings. Celina slightly shifts the focus by mentioning one fan in particular, but she doesn’t give a name, and characterizes her as “pessimistic.” (line 15) Beginning with a quotative, “She’s like,” Celina takes on the role of this critical blogger. Seeming to confirm the person’s pessimism, Celina ends her re-told quotation with, “…this movie [is gonna suck.]” In this way, she builds a one-dimensional character in order demonstrate a broader message about Sharon Carter’s unfair treatment. Though Celina takes care to point out that she wasn’t the one who wrote that message, and that she was only reporting the person’s speech, Rachel takes up the word “suck” in line 31. Like Celina, she distances herself from saying that the new Captain America movie will suck (lines 30-31), but mentions the possibility of the movie being of low quality. Moreover, she suggestions a reason why Sharon Carter isn’t getting the spotlight. Rachel animates her voice, and specifically makes it go lower, when she sarcastically comments that Carter only appeared in the trailer because she’s “An important character:,” and was thrown into the trailer more for a visual Easter egg rather than understanding the basis of who she is or giving her meaningful screen time (lines 31-35). An especially important detail is that Rachel lowered her voice to mimic a presumably male speaker. As it’s impossible to go inside her head, I can’t claim unequivocally that this was her intention, but the correlation is too striking to ignore. This also ties in with comics being a stereotypically male interest. Besides the perception that most comic fans are male, many of the people working at the biggest comic publishers are male. As such, a common criticism centers around situations like the one of Sharon Carter in the trailer, where female characters are ignored or given secondary roles to their male counterparts.
In creating characters during their interaction, and thus creating a coherent narrative, the two use similar strategies to make “antagonists.” When recounting or imagining events, a speaker may give people they disagree with negative attributes, or not describe them in detail (Keller-Cohen and Gordon, 2003). Celina, when describing the user who voiced concerns about the movie, negatively characterizes her as “pessimistic.” (lines 13-15) Furthermore, she doesn’t give any information beyond her gender. Similarly, Rachel doesn’t give much information at all about the producers of the trailer, though this is more because the situation is hypothetical rather than actual. Still, she animates her voice to make a mockery of the imagined men who were in charge of the advertisement. Very subtly, she characterizes them as careless with the phrase, “we’ll just throw her in there.” (lines 34-35) Her emphasis on the phrase “An important character” in line 33 has the intentional opposite effect. The men acknowledge that Sharon Carter has been in many comics, but don’t understand why she’s important, marking them as incompetent at handling female characters.
This narrative of women being disregarded in favor of male characters continues with Celina’s topic change. She adds that the Black Widow, another female character, doesn’t appear in the comics (line 36). (The Black Widow is a secret agent and an assassin, and has appeared in the Marvel film series in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers.) Rachel continues the topic by mentioning photographs from the film set that show the Black Widow and Captain America (both in civilian clothes) on an escalator. The photos look suspiciously like a romantic scene, though Rachel qualifies this appraisal by noting that it only looks that way, and may not be the case in reality (lines 41-42). Celina mentions a theory that the two characters are on an undercover mission, and after an enthusiastic agreement, Rachel assesses what the scene would do to the Black Widow if it really was romantic (lines 46 and 1-14, page 1 and page 2). Notably, Rachel takes on the metaphor of literary critique. She makes repeated references to Black Widow’s “character,” which can also be read as “personality” in this context. She not only says that a romantic scene would be “kind of dumb,” (line 8) but also that it would be “uncharacteristic” of who she is (line 12). Much like how Amanda framed her story as a legal trial in Keller-Cohen and Gordon (2003), Rachel’s appeal to professional criticism gives her comments more weight.
What comes next could be considered a sub-narrative within a larger narrative. For extended period of time, Celina recounts a plotline that happened in the comics. This narrative is very long, at several minutes, 111 lines, and three pages. Though an extensive analysis of how Celina told the story would take too long, it’s possible to analyze the major points of the story. Ewick and Silbey write that “Narrators tell tales in order to achieve some goal or advance some interest.” (1995) In this case, Celina goes into the comic book storyline to show textual evidence of how women in comics are consistently mishandled. After setting up the context for the story and describing major events that happened to the characters, she makes a kind of summary statement to make her purpose clear. Celina states that the fans were upset about Sharon shooting another character after Captain America had talked that person down (lines 39-45). This fan reaction is borne out by Rachel’s earlier reaction of shock and dismay when Celina first revealed that twist (lines 23-28). Subtly, this reveals that the purpose of this part of the narrative was to show the fans’ dissatisfaction with the storyline, and so discredit Rick Remender’s abilities as a writer. The second part of this narrative reveals the final twist: Sharon sacrifices herself so that Captain America can escape (lines 17-24). Rachel’s reaction of shock mimics the reactions of the character’s fans. Celina reports that people on the tag “flipped out.” (line 27) Likewise, Rachel is at first in disbelief (line 25), then argues against the character’s death (lines 28-29). Later, either in reference to the entire narrative that Celina told, or solely to Sharon Carter’s death, Rachel says, “That doesn’t even make any sense.” (line 42) After going on another tangent for a while (lines 5-30), they return to the comic book plot, and Celina suggests that Sharon Carter was killed off to make way for a different female love interest (lines 32-35). Rachel derides this motive as “stupid” and “dumb.” (lines 38 and 40) Over extended narrative, Celina has accomplished several goals. One, she demonstrated that comic book author Rick Remender is a poor writer, especially of female characters. (Earlier in the transcript, she made disparaging remarks about Remender’s skill, or lack thereof, in taking the lead of the Captain America comics.) Two, she connected the twists of this plot to an over-arching dissatisfaction with the way women are presented. Three, she provided more coherence to the shared narrative of women being consistently disfavored in comics. Narratives are way of organizing and perceiving the world (Ewick and Silbey, 1995), and the stories that Rachel and Celina tell cohere to a common idea.
Another detail that appeared during the course of transcribing the original audio is the heavy use of quotatives. Cukor-Avila outlines several forms of quotatives, and in this transcription, “be like” was by far the most common (2002). “Like” itself was used in a variety of ways, though Rachel used the word much more often than Celina did. Both of them use “like” to introduce quotes. These quotes are both statements that real people made (such Celina’s description of the pessimistic blogger in lines 17 to 28), or imagined scenarios (Rachel’s impression of men in lines 29 to 35). This is in contrast to the African American Vernacular English speakers in Cukor- Avila’s study, who usually use “be like” to introduce inner thoughts, and “say” to mark reported speech (2002). Still, Rachel and Celina’s usage of “be like” serves a similar storytelling purpose – to enhance the liveliness of the tale by expanding characters, and to describe perceived or actual thoughts and emotions.
Conclusions
Conversational analysis is a distinctive way to investigate how people perceive the world. When the speakers are somewhat unusual – or rather, if society considers the speakers to be unusual – the data can serve to illustrate how these groups navigate the culture they live in. Analyzing fans and fandom isn’t really a silly notion, especially not when said fans are female. Women have a unique take on their positions within fandoms, and they challenges they face can be viewed in terms of a larger story of sexism in broader society. Based on the media they encountered, both positive and negative, Rachel and Celina were able to create a coherent and subtle narrative of the fandom world.
Of course, there are still many points that I can expand on. I could have analyzed in great detail how Celina re-told the plot of the comic, but as that tangent was so long already, I suspect that investigation would be worth a full paper in itself. For now, I wasn’t able to adequately address the specific fandom slang that Rachel and Celina used with each other. As much as I would have liked to describe and define the slang they used (I can and do use this set of words myself), it wasn’t the focus of this analysis. Finally, I would have liked to have had both the evidence and the knowledge to explore their body movements. Celina reports that they both became very expressive at certain points, most likely when their voices increased in volume. As I used an audio recorder and not a video recorder, I don’t have this data. I also don’t have the skills and lexicon to interpret physical expressions, at least not in the way that a linguistic paper would require. This would have added an extra layer of meaning to all of their utterances, and give a greater emotional depth to my conclusions.
References
Bury, R. (2005). Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female fandoms online. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Cukor-Avila, P. (2002). She Say, She Go, She Be Like: Verbs of quotation over time in African American English. Journal and page numbers unknown, PDF.
Ewick, P. & Silbey, S. S. (1995). Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a sociology of narrative. Law and Society Review, 29:2, 197-226.
Haenfler, R. (2010). Goths, Gamers, & Grrrls: Deviance and youth subcultures. New York: Oxford University Press.
Keller-Cohen, D. & Gordon, C. (2003). “On Trial”: Metaphor in telling the life story. Narrative Inquiry, 13(1), 1-40.