Gender, feminism, and heroism in Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men comics
| dc.contributor.advisor | Kearney, Mary Celeste, 1962- | en |
| dc.creator | Sharp, Molly Louise | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2011-06-23T17:57:20Z | en |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2017-05-11T22:22:25Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2011-06-23T17:57:20Z | en |
| dc.date.available | 2017-05-11T22:22:25Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2011-05 | en |
| dc.description | text | en |
| dc.description.abstract | Hero characters and their narratives serve as important sites for negotiating a culture’s values. Informed by sexism in Western cultures, female heroes often construct and perpetuate women’s statuses as second-class citizens. However, female heroes also can and sometimes do work against such representations. This thesis argues for a third wave feminist interpretation of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men comic books as a text that brings multiple feminist perspectives into conversation with each other and that opposes certain patriarchal systems. Through narrative and formal analysis, I explore female X-Men Emma Frost and Kitty Pryde as characters who reject gender essentialism and misogynist value systems and whose relationship addresses concepts of difference in third wave feminism. Using similar methods, I also explore an interpretation of villain Danger as a failure to integrate radical feminist ideologies into third wave feminism. I believe that Astonishing X-Men provides an example of how norms of the mainstream superhero comic book medium, which scholars have criticized as sexist, can be reworked for a new generation of feminists. | en |
| dc.description.department | Radio-Television-Film | en |
| dc.format.medium | electronic | en |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/2152/11903 | en |
| dc.language.iso | eng | en |
| dc.rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. | en |
| dc.subject | Superhero comic books, strips, etc. | en |
| dc.subject | Third wave feminism | en |
| dc.subject | X-Men | en |
| dc.subject | Whedon, Joss, 1964- | en |
| dc.subject | John Cassaday | en |
| dc.subject | Emma Frost | en |
| dc.subject | Kitty Pryde | en |
| dc.subject | Heroines in literature | en |
| dc.subject | Heroines in art | en |
| dc.title | Gender, feminism, and heroism in Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men comics | en |