| Description |
Comic books are beginning to be recognized for their impact on society because they inform, channel, and critique cultural norms. This thesis investigates how comic books interact and forward postfeminism. Specifically, this thesis explores the ways postfeminism interjects itself into female superhero team comic books. These comics, with their rosters of only women, provide unique perspectives on how women are represented in comic books. Additionally, the comics give insight into how women bond with one another in a popular culture text. The comics critiqued herein focus on transferring postfeminist ideals in a team format to readers, where the possibilities for representing powerful connections between women are lost. Postfeminist characteristics of consumption, sexual freedom, and sexual objectification are forwarded in the comic books, while also promoting aspects of racism. Through utilizing the methodologies of close textual and close visual analysis to study the team comics, the moments and arguments of postfeminism in the comic books come to light. Furthermore, close textual analysis is utilized to understand the critical response to the comic books, and how that response often overlooks aspects of postfeminism. The comic book companies argue that women are receiving fairer representation because they are shown in teams, but the team format provides a greater platform to further objectify women. Overall, the comic books argue the further marginalizing of women in popular culture through the ideals of postfeminism. |
