Promethea and the art of writing cross-gender

I forgot to do Thursday Thirteen! Just never occurred to me. I blame the holiday.

Anyway.

I’m reading a comic called Promethea by Alan Moore at the recommendation of a friend who read TJF and what I have of Bell Curve. The story is similar in that a character from stories comes to life. Kinda. It is a decent premise, interesting idea and of course the art is beautiful (full color graphic novels, aw yeah).

The writing kind of sucks, though. There is one bit in particular that is driving me up a tree. The author doesn’t really write women well.

Now, I’m not the type to be like “all girls are this way” and “all boys are that way”. I try to write people, not genders, and blah blah blah. And honestly, I don’t even think he’s writing men thinly veiled as women. I think he’s writing how he thinks women are, and that is seriously grating on my nerves. Examples? The women call each other names like “bitch”, “slut”, “homo” and “fat” all the time. ALL THE TIME. In fact, the author seems particularly obsessed with the lesbian thing–like, any time they touch each other on accident they freak out. In one case they jump out of bed where they were napping screaming “ew, you lesbo” or similar. I think this says a lot more about the author than the characters, don’t you? I’ve never, ever known a woman to freak out after accidentally touching a another woman. Not that it doesn’t happen, but really, I don’t think women are in general that hung up on accidental touchies. Neither, as it happens, are most men I know.

It’s like he’s aiming for snark, but totally missing the point of affectionate teasing. These women don’t seem affectionate, they seem unreal, weird and mean. They also spend a lot of time talking about their flat boobs and fat asses and generally caring about how they look even when being faced with total possession by a mythological being. Yeah, my first worry when I’m inhabited by a woman from another universe is how my ass looks. Whatever.

Points in favor? I love that his main character is a female myth that takes no crap and kicks a lot of ass. Proves he’s not a woman hater, per se. Also, there is a nice little bit where the bad guy demons punish a child molester. Third, he has a man who was possessed by Promethea, who is now a kind of transgendered dude. The men, even the bad guys, ring a lot more true and sympathetic in general.

So while I do worry occasionally about writing believable men, I think the lesson here is to remember not to write based on stereotypes. I don’t want to write how I think men act, I want to write real people who have penises. For me the tricky bit is that there are differences (can’t be colorblind, can’t be genderblind either). But they are a lot more subtle and less…important…than Moore makes them out to be.

And seriously, if you consistently call me a “bitch” or whatever as an affectionate term, I’ll probably punch you in the face. Name calling isn’t nice, especially sexually charged, sexist, homophobic name calling.

Slut.