From the “big two” comic companies, only 26.7% of all superheroes are women. Superheroines are in short supply, but their impact on pop culture is legendary. From Wonder Woman to Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, from Sailor Moon to Kpop Demon Hunters, powerful women have captured audiences’ attention. But what makes the superheroine super?
In this course, we will track the trajectory of the contemporary superheroine in comics, television and film from the 1990s to now. What does the superheroine tell us about our cultural values and expectations of women? How has that changed in the last thirty years? In studying how superheroines are constructed, we will engage in ongoing discussions around gender, particularly as they intersect with race and sexuality.
How does the superheroine access and demonstrate power? How does she define and produce justice? Through class discussions, analytical writing, and our own creative writing, we will seek to understand what those answers tell us about ourselves, and the world we live in. We will learn what being super means to us, inclusive of all of our genders.
- Teacher: Isabela Agosa