Jason Toney

Even Super Girls Don't Sell

"I made mistakes back then. I'll never do it again." - The Black Keys, Next Girl

What stuck with me last night was Director Lauren Montgomery's candor. Here she is, the director of many an animated film, sitting next to Andrea Romano, the top voice director in the business, who is sitting next to the voices of Wonder Woman and Artemis, and she's explaining why a collection of stories that in print are titled Superman/Batman: Supergirl, had to have a title change:

Since Wonder Woman didn't sell well, we were told we couldn't use Supergirl in the title. We even had to fight to have her on the cover...It's her skanky version.

Ugh. Ultimately, Superman/Batman: Apocalype is about women kicking ass. It's a retelling of the Supergirl origin featuring long periods with Wonder Woman and the Amazons on Paradise Island and battling The Furies on Apokolips. It has epic fight scenes where Supergirl (voiced by Summer Glau) takes it to one of the most powerful beings in the universe, Darkseid (voiced by Andre Braugher). It introduces/reintroduces fantastic female characters like Big Barda and Granny Goodness and, yet, she can't get proper credit?

Come on.

Look, I realize this is a trend in the industry and there's this belief that boys (apparently of all ages) won't go see movies about girls and I want these kinds of things to sell because I love animation and comic books and smart animated comic book movies but at some point, we have to get over ourselves. At some point, we have to call out people for being, if not sexist, then, at least, stupid.

I might quibble with some of the animation in this one--the late Michael Turner's great illustration style doesn't translate as well on screen--but this is fun and entertaining (although not nearly as good as that animated Wonder Woman that no one saw) and that we assume or that it's true that the fandom for this kind of entertainment wouldn't go see it because it had a girl in the title, well, just aargh.

I don't know who to blame for this epic lameness so I will just implore you, true believers, go check out some stuff featuring powerful women and not just because they are in skimpy costumes. And don't be mad if I call this flick by it's rightful title with it's female lead front and center.

Super girls rock.

Crisis of Conscience

"I've got a feeling, it's automatic" - Zoot Woman, It's Automatic [buy the album] 

Now it's entirely possible that I'm feeling especially grrr arrgh today after reading Birth of a Nation, almost completing Where You're At?, watching the Hawk & Dove episode of JLU, and getting ready to watch The Weather Underground but something's been in my craw this evening and I don't think I'll be able to sleep unless I get it out. I don't begrudge you your political choices. Truly I don't. I might think you're out of your ever-loving mind but, you know, that's what makes America great or so I've been told. 

What I do begrudge is this: I don't understand how in one breath you can praise the wonders and joys of our mutual lovely gay friends deciding to join hands in non-matrimony (because there are some rights still not afforded to them) and in the very next breath say, "I'm supporting George Bush and Dick Cheney for election this year." I don't like to equate different movements because it muddies thing but it would be analogous to young Harry Burn, a legislator in 1920 Tennessee, an anti-suffragist who had voted against a woman's right to vote in the past, waking up on the day when Tennessee would vote on whether to ratify the 19th Amendment and maintaining his anti-suffragist attitude despite his mother's desire to vote. 

He'd essentially be saying, "I love you, Mom, but fuck you, I'm going with the folks that don't think you should have the same rights as me." 

 On that day, he couldn't give his mom the middle finger. And yet here we are, driving down this virtual street -- together, I thought -- and you're flipping off all these people I love. What kind of shit is that?