January 16, 2008
Live Nude Superheroines!
So the blogosphere is all a-twitter over the latest issue of Playboy. This cover model in this particular issue of Playboy is a young lady named Tiffany Fallon. The problem -- and the reason it's a topic for discussion on this blog -- is that Ms. Fallon appears on the cover of the magazine dressed as Wonder Woman. More accurately, she appears on the cover painted (with body paint) as Wonder Woman. The cover is as work-safe as any Playboy cover, but just to be safe, I've put it inside the jump (via photobucket, not directly linked from Playboy's website).
It looks like the outrage started with this post at Pink Raygun (warning -- there are painted nipples available on this page). Pink Raygun later posted this note indicating that DC Comics has declined to comment.
Former Wonder Woman writer Greg Rucka is up in arms!
Occassional Superheroine points out that Ms. Fallon is actually a big Wonder Woman fan.
Pop-culture commentator Jezebel has a post on it (warning -- the painted nipples are here too).
Even feminist Law Professor Ann Bartow has written about it.
Et cetera.
Personally, I think this is much ado about nothing. Men like to look at sexy naked women. Wonder Woman is a pop-culture icon. This was not an attempt to derail feminism, or undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, or an event destined to scar the minds of 12-year-old girls everywhere. It's just a Playboy layout, no worse than any other Playboy layout (which is to say, not at all problematic or demeaning to women).
Here's the cover:
Posted by Jason Fliegel at January 16, 2008 9:01 PM
Yeah, there's no room for any sexuality in Wonder Woman. At least not that sort of tame crap. We need some actual bondage, like Marston intended when he created the character.
I think she looks great. Yeah, heaven forbid someone outside of comics create an image of a highly sexual superhero outfit. Do people complaining about this LOOK at comics? She looks more proportionally correct than most superladies in current comics. In fact, she proves that the ONLY way to replicate the comic book outfit of women in comics is to paint the costumes on their bodies. I am not a huge Playboy reader and haven't been since, oh, the mid-80's when discovering my friend's dad's collection dating back to the 60's. It was like Indiana Jones kneeling in front of that first glowing idol. We thought we struck gold. It was glorious. Since then, I have only gotten a few and sadly they all have geeky context (lady from Buffy, lady from Battlestar, lady from Star Wars). Fallon is in one of the ones I have and I found her quite attractive in an old-school voluptuous way that is missing with some models. I think her body looks great as the Lady In Bondage. I agree with Mike... they should have replicated those good ol' Golden Age bondage situations and REALLY got folks upset. Fun. On that note, I think this issue qualifies as geeky enough to get. A must own! Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, that's just light naughtiness, or 'cheeky', no pun intended. Demi Moore did the body paint cover thing decades ago, and that was a frontal view, not a coyly-turned away view.
It's not like she's on the cover of some hardcore thing in a pose that would require a plain brown wrapper.