Ever notice how the names of female comic characters denote their sexuality and place in society and the names of their male counterparts proclaims their power and alpha-maleness?
Diana Prince: Named after a mythical Goddess, but her surname defines her in terms of a title reserved for male royalty.
Anthony Stark: The surname means devoid of adornment or artifice. With Tony, even in armor, what you see is what you get. Often what you get is an uber-powerful jerk with unlimited resources to crush an opponent.
I'm sure there are many others...
Tags: Seduction of the Innocent Harvey Comics Bunny Ball
Thursday, December 28, 2006
What's in a name?
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well I actually think Prince has more sense that Princess, or at least I haven't heard of anybody with the family name of Prince.
ReplyDeletehmm, not sure about that one... selena kyle...? jean grey? scott summers? bruce wayne? lorna dane? wally west? casey jones? kara zor-l? t'challa? ororo monroe..?
ReplyDeleteYeahhh. I'm just screwing around here. You could make any name seem like it's oppressive if you work at it.
ReplyDeleteAnd Bunny Ball could mean "Rabbit Dance", but no one mentioned that.
Also the guy who created Wonder Woman was a well documented deviant...
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget Stark could mean "naked". Maybe Tony's the one being objectified, here. In theater, we used to call them "tag names". And yes, I think they pretty much always mean something extra to the writer, even if it's not obvious to the reader. Nice post.
ReplyDelete