The Size of the Pie
Jan. 4th, 2012 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynThis idea has been stuck in my head for a while now.
Yesterday, I was reading an article about DC's latest reboot; they now have only two women working on the 52 DC Universe titles (one author writing two titles, and one artist doing one cover). That's out of 209 artists/writers/cover artists.
The sole female writer called on DC to hire more women, and one of her fellow creators was unhappy about that. His argument, albeit not in so many words, was 'which of the us do you want to get fired for this?'
And this seemed like entirely the wrong question. DC and Marvel's superhero comics are read by, I dunno, maybe a couple million people. Out of the seven billion people in the world, these giants in the field are reaching maybe a thousandth of a percent. And it's not that people don't like superheroes: I'd guess that at least ten times as many people watched Captain America as read even one superhero comic in 2011.
So this guy is saying 'I don't want to lose my job to some woman just because she's a woman and there aren't enough jobs for everyone'. Which is totally understandable. Except that it ignores the ability of people to MAKE MORE JOBS. It ignores that maybe if the DC Universe wasn't a No Gurlz Allowed club, maybe it would appeal to more people. Not just women, but men too. Maybe if you weren't so jealously intent on protecting your little bitty pie from anyone else getting a slice, you'd find out that you could make a much bigger pie.
But it's not just this one little thing. It's so many things where I feel like we as humans are totally misguided, where we act as if resources were not just finite but narrowly bounded, as if there's a fixed amount of wealth in the world and there can never be any more so we have to grab as much of it as we can and keep anyone else from getting their hands on it. We can't let immigrants into our country and steal OUR JOBS. We can't let people get rich because that should be OUR MONEY. We can't be happy for a friend's successful blog because those should be OUR READERS.
One blogger called it 'slottiness', when aspiring writers would get jealous of another being published, as if that author had taken their slot. But we do it with so many things. It seems like common sense to think that if one person gets X, the next person can't.
But it's still wrong. There's so much that we can create. Life is not zero-sum. We don't have to make sure someone else loses in order for us to win.
Posted via LiveJournal app for Android.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 08:12 pm (UTC)As for the 'friend's successful blog' thing, I seem to remember someone, possibly Cliffski of Gratuituous Space Battles observed once that it is always a good thing when your "competitors" are doing well-- they are your market as well, people who play their games will probably also play your games. Likewise, people who read your friend's blog are also likely to read yours.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 08:42 pm (UTC)Oh, but first, they have to have something for these people to do, don't they? No company hires people unless they have jobs for them to do, correct? Maybe this, then, is what that "slottiness" comes down to; DC isn't going to hire women as writers if they don't need more writers. Or artists, etc. Sure, a company can invent work for people to do. But that would affect profit negatively. And all these public companies could care less about anything else but that profit.
While you are correct in theory, having companies actually step up and hire people for what they really need done has been an uphill battle. Getting them to hire folks for no real reason but "the pie should be bigger" won't cut it.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 09:59 pm (UTC)And it's not as bad as you're making it out. Marvel's branched out into making comic book versions of published novels, and importing popular European comics and releasing them under their label. DC's been putting out random non-superhero comics under the Vertigo category for decades. Both of them are trying to take their core IP and revitalize it for new markets by going into movies and video games (on the theory that the comic book format itself is the problem).
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:17 pm (UTC)But I feel like comics are not the problem -- there's a huge audience for manga! And superheroes are not the problem -- the superhero movies have mostly been blockbusters! The single paper issue may be a problem: they're expensive to make and hard to stock. Maybe the monthly deadlines are too tight. I don't know. I just can't help feeling like they gave up on superhero comics and are just trying to sell them on what the suits think are their strengths: exaggerated anatomy, T&A, and exaggerated violence. Everything else -- plot, characters, continuity -- is irrelevant.
But I've been out of it a long time, so maybe it's not as bad as the glimpses I get of it make it look.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:36 pm (UTC)...and I didn't see it. She changed from 'optimistic and dorky' to 'bitter misfit' which doesn't seem like a huge stretch. She wears skimpy clothing for the same reason she always wore skimpy clothing which is that she's socially awkward and overly proud of her heritage, and doesn't care what it makes people think about her (that's *their* malfunction).
And she's in a story about 'Red Hood' tracking down the evil demigod who had a bunch of his friends assassinated. She's the muscle. Last issue someone pulled a superman-kryptonite style gambit on her to take her out of the picture. I don't see how you can reasonably say she's there for T+A.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 11:24 pm (UTC)One of my coworkers is a big superhero comics nerd. I should ask her what her favorites are, because now I'm kinda wanting some. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 03:19 pm (UTC)Anyway, I definitely agree: If you're in a struggling business, you can't be looking at the idea that you've got a finite pie that can only be sliced up so many ways. Cutting up the pie into smaller pieces just for the sake of doing so will have the predictable effect of ... just making smaller pieces. However, if you're running out of pie, then get back there and BAKE ANOTHER PIE.
Now I'm hungry for pie. Apple, specifically. Ala mode would be nice.
Getting back to my mangled metaphor, hiring a new artist or writer who's DIFFERENT than the current crew can be worth it as a gamble (it might or might not pay off, of course) if the intent is to generate new and different material to appeal to people who wouldn't otherwise be buying your product, rather than "cannibalizing" your own readership.
That's what I'd hope would be the plan, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 03:36 pm (UTC)And, yeah, I am not into diversiy-for-diversity's sake generally, but when your organization is 99% male, you gotta at least consider the possibility that you may be missing some useful perspectives. c.c
no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 06:44 pm (UTC)After you pointed that out last night I picked a fewrandom comics from my stack looking for that sort of horrible poses and didn't find anything. Well, zero examples of the stupid 'boob and butt' pose or the detached leg silliness but one example of someone with way too narrow of a waist I guess.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 06:51 pm (UTC)Just to be clear, I was thinking of the superhero comics that I remember from when I was still reading them (which was 15+ years ago!) and the images that I've seen from new ones online (which could easily be cherry-picked to be stupid, obviously). It's the look I remember from Marvel/DC/Image. I didn't think it was common outside of those three, although I guess Escher Girls had some manga in there.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 07:36 pm (UTC)I think of the posed-ness as part of the continuing exaggeration in superheroes to make them more "super". Akin to the way that the figures have always been 8 heads tall and have exaggerated chests and narrow waists and broad shoulders (this applies to male and female), but applied to pose instead of just shape. So that everything looks over-the-top and extreme and action-y. I can see why the artists make the choice, and I'm not saying it's all about objectifying women by any means. But I really don't like it.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-05 06:56 pm (UTC)I am honestly not trying to tear down or deride comics as a whole. v.v I read dozens of online comics and still love them a lot. There's probably tons of variety even in superhero comics, and I'm just not seeing it. v.v
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 02:42 pm (UTC)Wouldn't it be NICE if the technological revolution actually DID make our lives easier, less stressful, more leisure time (ya know like we were promised 'in the future').... ya know if we each had more time we could do more things just for us. Hobbies, side businesses, personal productivity. Even if it didn't make the world a more productive place (and I think it would), it certainly would make it a better place.
France used to have a MAXIMUM work week of 35 hours, in 2005 they increased to 48. However, anything over the 35 hours is overtime. The purpose of which was to prevent people becoming slaves to their jobs. It was brilliant, it was much envied, and the changes were fought hard against, but it's still a damn site better than a lot of people in North America are faced with in their jobs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4225243.stm Another interesting possibility is expanding mandatory vacation time to a more European standard http://www.justlanded.com/english/France/France-Guide/Jobs/Working
You're right, largely companies and people aren't going to do these things voluntarily, because it DOES appear on the surface to cost the company MORE money. However, again I strongly suspect that hire more people / give the people you have more room/freedom/less stress - you get more productivity. Really how many of these corporations have the 'skunk works' departments of the 50's 60's and 70's that resulted in so many of the innovations we have today. I say give people the freedom and space to create, and they will create.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-04 11:15 pm (UTC)But we shouldn't mistake our competitors for enemies, or lose sight of the value of cooperation, or forget that we're all in this together. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 01:34 pm (UTC)I'm in favor of encouraging change which has the potential to grow the pie in spite of the disruption it creates, but we shouldn't kid ourselves about that disruption. If you're right that adding female artists will grow the pie, the reason is likely to be that it will encourage migration to new drawing styles which will make comics as a whole more popular. That change is not a positive one for those who are specialized in the old drawing styles.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-07 12:59 pm (UTC)But yeah, sure, in general, the existing business of buggy-whip manufacturing is not going to be helped by the invention of cars.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 02:34 pm (UTC)Beautifully said ... nothing I could add to this
no subject
Date: 2012-01-09 10:33 pm (UTC)