Bajac-Carter - Heroines of comic books and literature: portrayals in popular culture

Heroines of Comic Books
and Literature

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York Toronto Plymouth, UK

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Heroines of Comic Books and Literature: Portrayals in Popular Culture would not have been possible without the support of Stephen Ryan at Rowman & Littlefield. As editors, we would also like to thank our contributors for being integral parts of this book. As a whole, your essays are creative and timely, and they allow for richer explorations of heroines in popular culture. We appreciate your works and contributions to further the understandings and readings of these heroic women.

Norma and Maja would like to thank Bob for giving us the encouragement and support to pursue this book project. We realize that as doctoral students, we are often more limited in our autonomy to initiate and then manage a book-length project such as this one. Bob, we would like to express our deep gratitude for your trust and guidance. You knew when to step in and when to let us go, and for this we thank you. We would also like to acknowledge our mutual advisor, George Cheney, in the College of Communication and Information at Kent State. We appreciate you trusting your advisees with the space to take on a book project while we were still in your classes. Thank you for being a fantastic mentor, teacher, and advisor.

Bob would like to acknowledge his colleagues at Thiel College, including department mates Victor Evans and Laurie Moroco. He would also like to thank Dean Lynn Franken and President Troy VanAken for their support and encouragement. Finally, it is a great honor to hold the James Pedas Professor of Communication positionmany thanks to James Pedas and his family for their continued support of Thiel College, including providing the funding for the James Pedas Communication Center.

We also have some individual thanks as well.

Maja: I would like to thank my family, my mother Lidija who is an endless inspiration in my life, and my brother Vojislav. Also thanks to my friends, A and D, and Norma, my greatest friend and academic accomplice.

Norma: I would like to thank my familythe Chus, Murphrees, Joneses, Rayburns, Yaghmaeis, Yangs, Chens, and Lipscombs. To my wonderful Brent, I am deeply grateful for you, and everything I do is only possible with you. I also want to thank Maja who is my wonderfully awesome friend.

Bob: My family is incredibly supportive and kind, considering the fact that writing books necessitates long hours of writing and thinking time in virtual solitary. Thanks to my parents, Jon and Linda Bowen, for everything they do to make our lives infinitely better. My daughter Kassies bright smile and the love in her eyes brings laughter and joy into every moment. My wife Kathy is my pillar of strength and soul mate.

Heroines of Comic Books and Literature: Portrayals in Popular Culture is a unique anthology that updates existing books on action chicks, tough girls, damsels in distress, and sacrificial heroines by examining the portrayal of female characters in popular culture through a range of perspectives and theories about heroines from literature and printed visual media. It is important to offer more nuanced readings of heroines and understanding of existing critiques and move beyond theatrical versions of Ripley and Sarah Connor, toward heroines in contemporary literature and comics/graphic novels, which is precisely what the authors of this book bring to the discussion about female characters. But are these characters really different? Or do we still reiterate the same stereotypes?

Heroines of Comic Books and Literature: Portrayals in Popular Culture examines the changing role of female heroines in contemporary American culture. Analyzing depictions of female heroes, the authors demonstrate how critical these representations are for readers as they explore their worldviews, both from a critical and contextual perspective. Via exciting and sophisticated examination of heroines in print culture, the authors reveal how these portrayals influence American popular culture and the foundational notion of what it means to be a woman.

This engaging and important collection reconceptualizes the study of how women are and have been represented in print media into the twenty-first century. Essays in this book introduce a number of perhaps lesser-known printed media and ethnically diverse sources that have a profound impact on the ways we look at heroines. These essays are not part of a study nor do they deal with content analysis of mass media. They survey a wide range of different printed media texts, including American and Latino literature and graphic novels, contemporary letter writing, queer works, and classic European literature and offer an updated examination of female characters/heroines who simultaneously challenge and perpetuate dominant gender and societal expectations. Award-winning contributors go beyond the expected accounts of women as mothers, wives, warriors, goddesses, and damsels in distress to provide innovative analysis that situates heroines within cultural contexts, revealing them as tough, self-sufficient, and breaking the bounds of gender expectations in places readers may not have anticipated.

The opening section of the book contains essays that take on what we may consider traditional literature forms: novels, memoirs, and letter writing. Lindow looks at contemporary women writers of fantasy and their depiction of the Heroines Journey and how it is distinctive from the Heros Journey. In this exploration of traditional and contemporary urban settings, the author examines diversity and multiculturalism in works of Robin McKinley, Nedi Okorofor, Loren Beukes, Malinda Lo, and Nalo Hopkinson. Clasen examines the traditional gender dynamic crafted throughout the Twilight series. This essay explores the ways in which Twilight shaped young adult female heroines by embracing traditional feminine notions of care and nurture. Lemley offers an interesting read of witches and their portrayal from novels to television adaptations. Laity takes on the life of the twelfth-century recluse Christina of Markyate in the context of both early medieval romances like Marie de Frances work and contemporary saints lives and reveals a woman who innovates both. Schneeweis explores the objectification and commodification of Esmeralda, from Victor Hugos celebrated novel