Jen, I wanted to finish by responding to you. I let myself get distracted by some of the personal attacks from others when you actually wrote probably the best post. Despite the constant yammering about "feminism" I want to make clear I do not expect women to all agree with me, just as my comment was not an attack on all men. I suspect some of the female board members like cloud or Sueworld might agree with me based on their past comments, but they are not active. How active women are on this site may correlate in how comfortable they are with the dealing with the climate.
When I first saw the image of this - I personally never thought this figure was dressed for combat...but rather playing dress up - as someone else mentioned a woman would wear Victoria's Secret - or some of those rather sexy Halloween costumes.
Except is not a woman playing dress up. It is purely a manifestation of a male fantasy, which is perfectly fine to a point. I am not trying to have this banned or something. I am not someone who support "hate speech" laws for example because the law should not be defined by such subjective concepts. The artist has a right to produce what inspires them and show it freely. That does not mean the aesthetic has to be uncritically welcome, however, and ridicule is a powerful tool.
Because of how I personally depict this figure - your argument of her hair, heels and clothing doesn't apply. She's posed in a relaxed manner....not with a gun in hand like she's getting read to shoot some bad guys.
That is part of the problem. If the artist simply put a woman in a suit of armour like Tony Star, she would not not "sexy" enough for him. Further she suddenly is powerful, like kicking Thor's *** powerful.
The ridiculous elements of vulnerability built into the design help reduce her as beneath Iron Man. There is no way you can look at the figure and think the artist equally respects Black Widow relative to Tony Stark. She is deliberately made less to be subordinate.
If some guy wants to imagine that this is how Black Widow likes to dress for some sexy time...then it's really of little concern to me personally.
That's fine, but ask yourself would you like to see more women in this hobby?
As I told Kamandi, I cannot get women I know who buy these products to join this site. They feel it is inevitably going to be a boy's club and basically predicted the outrage my "feminist" perspective would inspire years ago.
In turn not only does it drive away many women, but it reinforces the worst stereotypes of geek guys. If I show that image to some random non-geek accountant I work with, who otherwise watched Iron Man and Avengers like millions of people, his likely response is a 'virgin in his mother's basement' joke.
Her parted lips and vacant stare - I think is more a fault of Hot Toys not male collectors or this customizer.
That is a fair point. Hot Toys ruined the figure for me and i never bought it. I am glad we are getting a much better one.
Now some people said your post was written in a mean manner....I have to agree with some of it:
People have boiled over in rage against me for simply offering my opinion on other topics. They hate my social and political views (which we have miraculously managed to avoid openly discussing). Kibishii went there in full force, but then edited his post to remove it quickly, which I say to his credit.
Lots of post on this site are written in an extremely mean manner. The only person to whom my post was directed is not the one seething at me with a variety of insults.
I really have nothing but contempt for this "sexy" aesthetic. Just raising this issue was going to spark fury. It is sort of an under current to the hobby that probably embarrasses most men. But what set me off is no one said one negative word about it being posted in the main Marvel section, like this is no different than say Luke's Tommy Lee Jones from Captain America.
As I said in my other posts - this hobby is based on entertainment and fantasy. I really don't think the majority of male collectors here have in any way lost their grip on reality because of some scantily clad female figure. ]What you wrote, I find to be rather insulting to many of the male collectors on this board who are good guys, loving husbands/fathers, etc...and many whom I consider to be my friends.
"majority"
That is the core problem. The furious reaction is largely not what I actually criticised, but either me personally, or rather some non-existent feminist bête noir fantasy, who is against men and sexy dress in general. I keep putting "feminist" in scare quotes in my responses because to many actual feminists, I might as well be a 1950's home maker.
I mean I essentially sew for the benefit of men as my creative input to this site. I mean that jokingly of course, but binky (who would also agree with me i am guessing) really is the only woman ever to buy my work to date. My views are drawn from feminism true, but are tempered by my tolerance for free expression with which I disagree.
And please note in contrast to the personal vitriol directed at me, I knocked the art and the mentality behind the art, which are fair game. I in contrast suffered multiple attacks on my personal appearance, alleged personal life, etc. Do you really find that acceptable? That is a pretty typical manifestation of misogyny.
The fact my post is not a broadside at all men is evident in the multiple male members who said they agreed with me. I listed and thanked them by name in a previous post. That says it all on that point.
***
If you really want me to respond to some point I skipped then please ask, but otherwise I am done and this thread can be locked as far as I am concerned.