The battle against sexist book covers in sci-fi and fantasy

[Theozilla]

Having read through the various standpoints and perusing the links, etc., I think this debate has lost its way a little.

[/B]
If Looneymoon's last post is anything to go by, it has become a shameless parody of a clearly misunderstood convention.
Pretty girls get pushed to the limelight in every form of media, films are a classic example. Look at JK Rowling, she was a frump when the first Harry Potter book was released, now she's immaculately dressed because she's in the public focus. You think Lara Croft would have been such a successful moneymaker if she'd been left as her original design intended? Fuck no!
Let's face it, society as a whole gets a kick out of aesthetics. Mother Teresa vs. Princess Diana, no contest. Mother Teresa was by far the bigger conributor to humanity, but Princess Diana was a doe-eyed heroine who walked from a Royal marriage smelling of roses.

I'm not saying it's right, but that's how it is. Targeting one medium isn't going to make a jot of difference.

While it is true that sex/beauty/etc. sells there are ways it can be done more tastefully than not.
e.g. Elisa Maza from Gargoyles has very beautiful character design but she is also an amazingly well written character who actively participates in the plot even if she is not the most physically capable character on the show.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Also, Princess Di had nothing going on.

 

[Ⓐaron]

Mother Teresa did a shitload of harm to humanity with her boneheaded stance against condoms amongst other even more heinous things, most damningly the reuse of dirty needles which no doubt contributed to the further spread of AIDS (see this review of a book by Hitchens since I'm pretty sure the book itself would be tl;dr for most people here). It's arguable that all the charity she did was far outweighed by the negatives of things like her social conservatism being imposed on so much of the world.

Granted, Princess Di had plenty of her own problems.

 

[Deleted member 546]

That's Catholicism for you. She'd make a shit comicbook heroine anyway.

 

[looneymoon]