Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

  • Mood:
  • Music:

Micro-aggression, sexism, and cover art: some thoughts.

I want to open this by saying that I love my cover art. It's a blanket statement: I am one of the rare, lucky authors who has never had to grit her teeth and stand behind a cover she didn't care for. The Toby covers are atmospheric and brilliant and show Toby accurately. The Newsflesh covers are iconic in a way I could only have fantasized about. The InCryptid covers are amazing representations of the characters, done by the first cover artist I got to choose for myself. I virtually campaigned for Aly Fell, and I could not be happier with his work. Like, seriously, could not be happier.

But here's the thing.

When I go to the bookstore, half-naked women greet me in literally every section except for cozy mysteries. There are elegant half-naked women on action novels, waiting to be ravaged. There are misty, wistful half-naked women on YA novels, ready to embark on romantic adventures, probably while drowning. There are lots of half-naked women on science fiction and fantasy, many of them happy to show me their posteriors. And this doesn't even touch on the comic book store, where there are so many half-naked women that I barely even notice them anymore. Once I stopped expecting puberty to give me a figure like Dazzler or Illyana Rasputin, I just tuned all the thrusting hips and pointy boobs out, like the white noise that they were.

I don't actually know very many women who go "Oh, oh, I gotta get me a book with a naked chick on the cover." I do know a lot of women who are uncomfortable with those naked chicks, and who try to avoid reading books with naked chicks on them in public. I had a few people get angry on my behalf when the cover of Discount Armageddon was released, before they realized that I had petitioned for that image, and that it was an intentional send-up of certain cheesecake conventions. And without speaking for any other authors, I am the only one I know of who actually said to her publisher, "Hey, you know what would be awesome? If my smart, strong, savvy, heavily-armed protagonist was in a miniskirt." (DAW took this in stride, by the way, which was hysterical when you consider that my one cover request for the Toby books was "Can she be wearing clothes?")

I also don't know many, if any, women who defend the often exaggerated and impossible anatomy that shows up on these covers. In fact, women tend to decry it, and when I have heard defense, it's mostly come from men. These are very general statements, and I know that: I am not trying to imply that all men love plastic spines and thighs the length of torsos. Jim Hines, for example, has done some excellent deconstruction of these covers, recreating them in the physical world (as much as he can) to demonstrate just how ludicrous they are. And if you think I'm exaggerating, I invite you to Google the phrase "Escher girls," and see how incredibly much oversexualized, anatomically questionable art makes it onto the cover of books and comics.

So it seems likely that the intended audience for the half-naked women is largely male. Okay. As a bisexual woman, I like looking at pretty girls, and I don't see anything wrong with men liking to look at pretty girls. When I sit on the train, I should see dozens of men reading books with half-naked women on them, right? Because they're trained to the male gaze, so they should attract it, right?

The single most common critique I received of the cover for Discount Armageddon was from male readers saying they could not read the physical book in public. And while I think anyone should be able to read anything they want to without feeling ashamed, this critique does raise a question about who the half-naked women are actually for, if guys don't want to be associated with them.

I was recently involved in an online "cover battle," where people voted for their favorite cover of 2012. It was super-fun, and I made it to the finals, where the cover of Discount Armageddon was rightfully defeated by the cover of Chuck Wendig's fantastic Blackbirds (which you should read if you haven't already). Except maybe I'm exaggerating a little when I say that it was super-fun, because for me, the fun started dying when people started leaving nasty comments about my cover.

"Wow, so garbage made in Poser consisting of a scantily clad woman in thigh-highs is winning over that beautiful piece of art on the Wendig book."

"WHY IS DISCOUNT ARMAGEDDON WINNING? D: When did we start liking slutty girls in miniskirts holding guns and swords, Dragonites? WHEN?"

Even some of the site text was faintly shaming, with comments like "because of our male readership massively voting for the sexy cheerleader chick" when trying to deduce why my (fantastic, thank you Aly) cover was still in the running. (The site text was updated after Chuck stated that my cover was still in the fight because it was a damn fine urban fantasy cover. The text was, in fact, updated to quote Chuck directly. I love Chuck.)

But let me tell you, shit like that? Harshes my squee real fucking fast. Thanks for the assumption that a girl in a miniskirt must be slutty, commenter! Thanks for calling it garbage, other commenter! Thanks for making me feel like I don't get to be a real author because I wrote a book where the main character can accurately be depicted by the cover image I asked for and received.

Riddle me this, o world. If women mostly don't ask for half-naked girls on book covers, if most book covers seem geared to the male gaze, whether rightly or wrongly, then why is it men stepping up to call those covers garbage, and to call the women who grace them slutty? Why is my cover getting slut-shamed by someone who doesn't know the girl in that picture, doesn't know who she is or why that image is an accurate one? It's like the art is awesome as long as it's on a closet door, but if you're asked to like it in public, it's time to throw out a few micro-aggressions to keep people from thinking you're "that kind" of person.

Fuck. That.

I want every book to have an accurate cover. If I open a book with a half-naked girl on it, I want that half-naked girl to be inside. I want to read those books while proudly proclaiming to anyone who sees them in my hands, "I have a book with a half-naked woman in it." I want everyone reading everything, and I don't want any more of this "these are the covers that sell, so these are the covers you'll get, but no one's ever going to admit to liking them." And part of this is going to be dialing back the crappy anatomy and the questionable sexuality. If the characters keep their clothes on in the text, they should do it on the cover, too. If the characters get naked, they should still be painted or photoshopped to look like people, not plastic nightmares with eleven-inch waists (unless they're wasps or something).

And let's stop slut-shaming fictional characters based on a single picture. It's not fair to the books, it's not fair to the authors, and it's not fair to the readers who might be waiting to fall in love with them.

We should be better than this.
Tags: contemplation, cranky blonde is cranky, discount armageddon
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    Anonymous comments are disabled in this journal

    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Your IP address will be recorded 

  • 168 comments
Previous
← Ctrl ← Alt
Next
Ctrl → Alt →
Well that sucks.

(I'm getting increasingly annoyed with my fellow male fans in general lately.)
I waited a few weeks to see if I'd stop being mad.

shanejayell

4 years ago

vixyish

4 years ago

I liked the cover of Discount Armageddon, I just kept having vicarious winces at it until I told myself Verity was freerunning in some sort of pushup sports bra :)
They exist! They're sold to professional ballroom dancers for things like the rumba, since otherwise ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.

sparrowpunk

4 years ago

spectralbovine

4 years ago

fadethecat

4 years ago

sparrowpunk

4 years ago

fadethecat

4 years ago

sparrowpunk

4 years ago

evieeros

4 years ago

sparrowpunk

4 years ago

liret

4 years ago

sparrowpunk

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

That is messed up in so many ways. :/

I love the Discount Armageddon cover. And I'm also very glad that Toby is allowed to be dressed equally appropriately. (Which is something I'm noticing and appreciating all over again lately because I'm finally catching up on her after getting a few books behind.)
It just makes me tired. Who are these covers for, if nobody wants to admit to loving them?

anne_d

4 years ago

hoppytoad79

4 years ago

argonel

4 years ago

I like the Discount Armageddon cover, it fits Verity.

That sucks, though.
Thank you.

bookishdragon

4 years ago

fuckyeahblackwidow over on tumblr did an essay recently on non-representative covers, particularly several Black Widow issues where the cover is her showing massive cleavage while things blow up and the story is her doing sneaky things with her shirt zipped to the neck. Covers should be accurate representations of, if not the actual plot, at least the general feel. (I have an ongoing ???? regarding comic book covers; when every issue is just a picture of the title character(s) looking heroic, it makes it harder for me to find things I'm looking for, and they don't even have the back cover text that saves me on books.)
Ugh I hate that "let's slap a girl with her top half-off and sell more books" trope in comics. We're better than that as a medium, and as an art form.
::applauds:: Well said, and I completely agree with you.
Great icon! Accurate sentiment, too. I *love* the 'DA' cover, in all its pink splendor.

On a related note - agreeing on the need for sports-bra-age! Having 'D' cups is a royal pain in the back and sports bras are the -only- boobie-binding-bras that keep the silly things from getting in my way/relieving back pain. [I recommend the 'Leading Lady' line, since they avoid underwires.]

srebrna

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

This is why we can't have nice things! If idiots hadn't done all those gratuitous and irrelevant half-naked anatomically-impossible women on all the wrong books, nobody would feel impelled to make rude remarks about your perfect cover.

Well, maybe I left out some steps there. But still.

I love the Toby covers unreservedly. It's not really that often that I look for several minutes at the cover before I begin to reread a book.

P.
I love them too.

And while there are some steps missing, I feel you're right: if the covers were more accurate, people wouldn't be so quick to assume the worst.
I used to be angry at every single cover with a Sexy Posed Woman on it, because they were so overwhelming and constraining and full of the "Of course it's all about what straight boys want! Everyone else is an afterthought" trope. But these days, it makes me tired because it's...man, it's like putting corn syrup in everything we eat, so that sweet things don't even taste sweet anymore in comparison. Why can't we save the Sexy Posed Woman covers for the books with sexy women who pose like that? Then it's actual information about book contents, instead of reading like someone just flipped the "Also, straight men are always the most important demographic, but remember to make women insecure too," switch on the cover selection board.

I like the cover to Discount Armageddon. I did not when I first saw it, because there are so many covers that default to Sexy Woman that I assumed it was another case of that. Once I found out it was what you wanted, and represented what was inside the book, I loved it. And the problem is that all those covers of come-hither eyes when the content is anything but are making it so much harder to use book covers as some sort of useful tool for figuring out what the novel's contents are going to be. If I'd been relying on covers alone, I never would've read Hammered, which is spectacular, and in no way about a headless sexy women in a revealing jumpsuit.

Eh, I guess I'm just sort of ranting while gesturing to what you posted and going "Yes! What you said! I agree!"
Sometimes ranting is good for the soul. Rant on!
I like scantily clad characters but I don't trust it in advertising. I feel like advertisers are chumming with sex.
Ye gods the mental image!

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

Now I want wasp people (with or without eleven inch waists) in my urban fantasy. (Wait, does Sarah count since she can pass as a human?)

(It's also why I loved seeing the cover for Midnight Blue-Light Special because it so obviously showed two women who dressed in different ways that show a bit about who they are, showing that their costume choices were intentional and not just defaulting to the male gaze. I'd also like to live in a world where we look at a book cover of a character and expect that is the kind of character in the book; if she's crossing rooftops in a costume that is glorified fringe, sequins and body tape*, it's because that's the kind of thing she does.)

* I don't think Verity would do this if she had a choice; dance costumes are expensive. But she'd be far more likely to do so than Toby, even if both are urban fantasy heroines written by the same author.
I'm really hoping to have Verity on the cover of #5 in her dance costume, but that will be on a stage.

beccastareyes

4 years ago

phoenix_singing

4 years ago

"Thanks for the assumption that a girl in a miniskirt must be slutty, commenter!"

What does this even mean? I am kind of unwilling to validate the idea of a "slut" so far as to say that assuming someone is a slut means something worth noticing. Maybe it means "doesn't bow to the patriarchy's assumptions of control over women's bodies". (Hm. I think I just became a slut. Which is particularly funny with my life's current circumstances.)
I don't even know.

I hate the idea of "sluts," because it's so fucking sexist I could scream. But in this case, that person was putting all those inaccurate assumptions and thoughts on my poor protagonist, who yes, is sexually active and controls her own choices, but is not there to be denigrated.

It makes me angry.
Hear, hear!
1. I love Ilyanna Rasputin and was happy to see her mentioned.

2. I tried really hard, and let up the tight grip of control I usually keep to allow my husband to decorate his "man-cave" all by himself. This resulted in four giant comic-book lady posters. I told him how aggravating I found comic book ladies. He didn't understand why. I made him strike the pose of each woman, and freeze frame for a minute. Now he feels my internal pain.
>> I made him strike the pose of each woman, and freeze frame for a minute. Now he feels my internal pain.

Oh I love you!

H

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

This is a great topic of discussion because it doesn't get addressed very often. I'm in a popular fiction class right now and we've discussed cover art but it's interesting that for the novels we have to read, we haven't really brought this up, even though we've been circling around the sexism in fiction. Methinks that maybe I will have to get my hands on Discount Armageddon and bring it in to talk about this. Maybe if we start having more discussions about the way things are they won't be white noise anymore and we will be better than this.
That would be wonderful.
Damn straight! The last two paragraphs express my thoughts on book covers and slut shaming perfectly, so I won't repeat what's already been said. I struggle against slut shaming others at times, not so much in regards to what a woman wears but in regards to her sex life. Having friends who are matter-of-fact about their multiple partners and that they aren't at all stupid about birth control or making sure their partners are clean, and that my friends are all intelligent and generally blow apart society's stereotype of what slut is, has woken me up to how brainwashed I was. I try to educate people when I can.

It's great you've never had a cover you haven't liked and major, major kudos to DAW for being willing to listen to your input and give you what you want, and having talented artists do the work.
I am so glad that you are winning your struggle and educating those around. That's the only way that we can grow.
I'm not sure we've solved the mystery of who the half-naked people on the covers are for, if they're not to accurately represent the insides. Does the potential reader think, "Oh boy, descriptions of half-naked people inside!" I'd think they'd catch on after the dozenth time that they're fooled.
Yeah, I don't even know.

Also, why do I need descriptions of half-naked people when I have the internet?
This post is so accurate. Who are the poses for? I just read Lois Bujold's CVA, which also has the half-nude women, and a fully clohted man. Why?

I love your writing, both the books and the blog.

Deleted comment

offcntr

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

Agreed on so many points. If it fits the character, and isn't just pandering, then why not?


If you really want to see some annoying examples, check out the Oblivion and Skyrim mods on TESNexus. It's like most of the modders are thinking "Oh noes, my strong female warrior is all scary and intimidating to my weenie, so let's dress her in the most unrealistic armor possible and give her 42H boobs!" (See also TERA Online). On top of that, there's a mod that will also make said character run like she's a 50s sitcom housewife fleeing from a mouse:

http://youtu.be/N5cBG9q1XbQ

You can't tell from the cutesy-poo anime type character (also modded) and the clothes, but it's intended to be a pseudo-medieval setting. Yeah, I can totally take that seriously.

The books covers often make me think the same thing. Gee publisher, if you pandered any more, you'd be arrested :P

But for Verity, it fits, it's her character, it's who she is. The female protagonist in the Lolipop Chainsaw game has a skimpy clothing schtick, but she also kicks ass, and it's who she is. When it's just "Hurr hurr, bewbies!" then it bugs me.
Me, too. I love Juliet's default costume, which makes sense for her as a character and as an icon. Some of the DLC for her makes my teeth grind.
If it helps, I loved the send-up of "scantily clad action girl" -- being a REAL action girl, IIRC the Trope -- and all the PINK. Pink, skimpy clothes, and SHE WILL CUT YOU (or shoot you, or whatever) if you mess with her!

I also love the cover for the next one, because it has both styles.
Thank you!
When I go into the YA section I feel like I see a lot of covers with young hot women who look dead or in a comatose state. I don't know if it because I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction but I did see that trend for a while.
Yeah, dead girls on book covers is a big, big thing in YA.
Personally I love the cover to Discount Armageddon ... it fits Verity PERFECTLY. (Of course, I had to READ the book to truly understand how perfectly.)

I also enjoyed that you explained it very quickly in the book, and then didn't make light of WHY there was that outfit.

It sort of reminds me (in a roundabout way) of DePrima's books about The Lost Fleet, where pretty much every cover has Admiral Geary on the cover in battle armor and a big gun, when in nearly all of the books he's on a ship the whole time. And then his captain makes a joke about how if he dies she'll just sell the rights to the story to her family member in publishing, and how it'll be this big joke that all the covers will have him in battle armor with a big gun doing stuff he never does in the story. I find attempts to rationalize or explain such inconsistencies endearing. But Verity really does WORK in that outfit. And still kicks butt.

I don't know, I'm off on tangents and lost my original thoughts, so I'll stop now.
Tangents are the sweet fruit of conversation. :) Like tangerines, only without the rind.

tygerversionx

4 years ago

Ooooh, wrong place to put this, maybe, but ... are a lot of the characters introduced in DA going to show up for the next book? Because I really loved their dynamic. I'll understand if you don't want to give away, as River Song would say, "spoilers." But thought I'd try.
I don't know what you mean by "a lot."

tygerversionx

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

tygerversionx

4 years ago

Agreed.

The form of sexism that involves judging a woman by what she chooses to wear is oddly tolerated.
I know, and it's horrible.

Deleted comment

Agreed. It confuses me hugely.
I'll admit to loving the covers containing scantily clad women in impossible poses. For one, they pretty accurately denote books that I'm likely to enjoy reading. It's like shorthand to say, "Em, everything you like in a story is in the pages of this book." If the content of the cover is questionable enough, I'll put a book cover on it. Mostly, I just read it and enjoy it and to heck with anyone who thinks that's inappropriate, because the people I've encountered who judge and cry slut the most are also the people who I see reading bodice ripper romances or some novel with equally "questionable" content. To them I say, "Pot, meet Kettle."
I tend to pick up books with those character poses, too, because they're often things that I'll like. But then, once I give a damn about the characters, I get really pissed at what is the equivalent of hiring a swimsuit model to be on the cover of my autobiography.

lostchyld

4 years ago

Previous
← Ctrl ← Alt
Next
Ctrl → Alt →