Final

“Are We Women or Are We Objects?”

By: Breezy Weyant

“Sin City: The Big Fat Kill”, the title alone alludes to a story of sin. To define sin for this context: any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.; great fault or offense. This defines how the characters now must act and be depicted. All of Frank Miller’s characters are or have done something reprehensible. The Girls of Old Town, are prostitutes for a living, the cops are corrupt and use their badges to do what they want. Everyone is stuck in a city of crime and devastation.

It seems that after WWII comic books started appearing on newsstands and in the local stores that created the issue with the representation of body. At the turn of the century body image took a turn to the extreme, “although superhero comics are still typically associated with an adolescent audience by the general populace, these texts contain some of the most complex representations of the body to be found anywhere” (Taylor, p. 347). Yes, superheroes need to look tough even supernatural or they would not be superheroes; but is this need being over depicted and creating aliens of their readers? Instead of focusing on the whole of body representation in graphic novels I will focus on female body representation. I will look at how the female is depicted in graphic novels and what effects this may have upon the readers. The readers of “Sin City: The Big Fat Kill” by, Frank Miler get a presentation of a whore versus superwoman gender dichotomy.

In this scene the Girls of Old Town, must be drawn to look like prostitutes but does Frank Miller take it too far?

The Girls of Old Town are prostitutes, but they are in power so do they really need to be slutty also? This is where Miller creates the mixed female representation. On page 72 after the ladies are done killing everyone. Gail finds something in Jackie-boy's pocket and starts swearing. Then is a sequence of paneled faces of everyone else. However, right after these panels (this is the last panel on the page) is a close up on someone's buttocks with Dwight and Gail off to the left and the curly blond off to the right, walking towards them. The buttocks is in the foreground of the panel is just from the waist down. Miller leaves out everything except the belt, with a set of keys. This creates the idea that the ladies are slutty. According to Aaron Taylor author of ““He’s Gotta Be Strong, and He’s Gotta Be Fast, and He’s Gotta Be larger Than Life”” Superhero Body”, it is very rare to have full body shots; these are only to glorify the body. Instead of glorifying Frank Miller is dissecting her anatomy across the pages. Taylor identifies this technique as being used to show a split in identity (Taylor, p. 348). The split identity here is that the girl is a sex object in one identity, but the keys alluded to her strong powerful identity.

The keys represent power because they are from the dead cops pockets (Jackie-boy), whom the girls just massacred. The importance of this panel is to emphasis the gravity of their mistake. The keys represent power, yet it’s not the power they wanted. These keys will be the down fall of these provocative, powerful women. The end because they ended up killing a cop, which means they lose their control over their area, creating a gate way for the pimps and gangs to seize back the control. Miller portrays the women as slutty, but at the same time makes them powerful. This leads me to believe that Miller finds that there is nothing sexier than a woman who knows she looks good, and has power and strength. According to Donna Haraway (Taylor 352):

“there is nothing about being ‘female’ that naturally binds women. There is not

even such a state as ‘being’ female, itself a highly complex category constructed

in contested sexual scientific discourses and other social practices”.

This characterization of women leaves the door open for artist to create a portrait or identity of women as they see it. Miller chooses to represent women as provocative, authoritative, intelligent, sex symbols.

To create this symbol he relies on the use of black and white. “In black and white, the ideas behind the art are communicated more directly. Meaning transcends form. Art approaches language” (McCloud 162).

Black and white coupled with Miller’s use of transcending from visual resemblance

(the right side of the triangle) to a more iconic abstraction of body (the left side), presented in this panel from page 72, creates the sexual object perceived. If Miller were to have drawn the buttocks on the bottom panel on page 72 as a visual resemblance, he would have been taking away from the reader. By creating a more iconic abstraction he has allowed the reader to create his or her own sense of female representation.

Therefore, Miller’s art style has put the reader in the driver’s seat to create whatever perception of feminism they find suitable for his story. One reader may find his female representation a bash on women, while other see it as a clear depiction of strength coupled with sexiness to create the perfect woman. This depiction creates a mixed representation of the female gender, but what female is really black and white to begin with.