Ragnell Is My Hero

This is one of the many reasons why.

I just wanted to temporarily come out of my temporary retirement to say that.

Peoples? If you want to try to convince other peoples that something isn't really that big of a deal, perhaps you might consider not spending so much damn time screaming at the people who think that it is. Not surprisingly, it tends to have the opposite effect than what you'd hoped.

(Assuming, for no reason related to logic, that you are being truthful when you say that your intentions really are to help us poor confused, hysterical people out - not to intimidate us into silence.)

PS - I rather think the insane popularity of the new Buffy comics has something to with this. I mean, it's one thing when those silly fangirls ask an annoying question or two at comic conventions, but if Buffy can overshadow the death of the of the likes of Captain America* who knows what horrors await us if we allow these silly fangirls to continue bitching without forcing them to face the consequences. When Fangirls Attack and Girl-Wonder are tolerable as long as they stay out of the way, but what if they don't?

*perhaps not in comicbookland, but my dad heard about the Buffy comic from someone other than me, and I rather suspect he hasn't a clue about Captain America.

update: I (partly) take that back about Buffy. After reading crazy raving hobo's post, I think she's very much onto something when she talks about casual fans being the one's most outraged about the statue. Spiderman 1 and 2 were really popular among the general public. Even more so than the X-Men or any screen incarnation of Superman, I'd argue, because Peter Parker and Mary Jane are much more everyday people kind of characters - that's part of Spiderman's enduring popularity after all.

This statue coming out right around the time the third movie is coming out has brought a lot more attention to the former than we would see otherwise. Which means that a lot of people who identify with Mary Jane and Peter Parker - in ways they don't identify with Superman or Wonder Woman - are looking at something that is quite blatantly objectifying and they are taking that very personally. So they are complaining, loudly and in places where non comicbookland people are listening. This spill into the "real world" has gotten the panties of many members of the often insular comicbookland into quite a twist.

update 2: With that idea in mind, I rather wonder if part of the mainstream outrage is not so much that Mary Jane is doing laundry or that she is objectified, but that the combination and manner of doing so is seriously pissing a lot of people off because it mocks the hard work that (mostly) women do do keep our homes running. Some female/feminist comic fans are arguing that it doesn't annoy them as much as some other stuff because (for example) MJ isn't a superhero herself, so to them it's not undermining women's strength as much as other stuff does. However, such a ridiculous looking statue of MJ is demeaning women's strength in the eyes of women whose authority has its foundation in areas traditionally considered women's work. And those women (currently) outnumber female comic fans.