Mark Millar and His Disparaging Outlook at Women

Two things that are highly important to living an enlightened life:

1. Jokes about sexual assault are never, ever, funny and the fact that this discussion is still going on is embarrassing for anyone and everyone who makes them.
2. Mark Millar is scum.

Okay now that that’s cleared up, here’s why this life lesson is being conducted.

Most of you know that Kick Ass 2 was released recently and has been receiving less than favorable reviews most of which cite the lack of satirical flare from the first one being present as the major downfall. But also in the complaints is again the gratuitous violence and the vocal presence of comic originator Mark Millar.

Who really should have just learned to never speak ever since his comics showcase how heinous he is without his voice contributing to the evidence.

In Kick Ass 2 a female character is SPOILERS almost raped but instead it’s turned into a joke because the villain cannot get an erection to perform the act.

So phew, she isn’t raped but ew at the something as traumatic and scarring as sexual assault being turned into a joke again.

Millar isn’t new to using rape as shock value in his comics. In Wanted (the comic the 2008 Angelina Jolie film is based on) the “protagonist” commits multiple rapes. In The Authority, a Captain America analog rapes two unconscious women and in issue four of Kick-Ass 2 a group of villains finds the protagonists girlfriend and proceeds to beat her and then gang rape her.

Which isn’t surprising given this is one his most recent statements on the matter:

“The ultimate [act of rape] that would be the taboo, to show how bad some villain is, was to have somebody being raped, you know? I don’t really think it matters. It’s the same as, like, a decapitation. It’s just a horrible act to show that somebody’s a bad guy.”

First things first: decapitation is not the same a rape. Not at all and it’s ignorant and pigheaded to say as much especially in referral to the hyper-violent and hyper-stylized world of comics. In his comics the violence is used in a satirical manner and a head flying off, or blood gushing from a gaping wound isn’t real to readers, it’s cartoonish. Decapitation isn’t something that we see on a day to day basis but is something that is saved for movies or HBO series. We can look at it and say this isn’t real.

Rape on the other hand is far too real and something that is a huge problem in today’s society where much of the general public still victimize the women (and men) who are subjected to it. It isn’t funny and it isn’t something to use as dismissively as Miller does.

He also happens to think that comics aren’t for women so hey, what does it matter if rape is used as tool for the male characters?

Let’s just clear one big thing up: it’s very easy for someone to say rape isn’t a big deal when they aren’t the target victims. Women are under more duress of sexual assault then men so the tone in which men adapt when discussing the subject is often offensively flippant. This isn’t a topic to shrug off; this isn’t a topic to use as nothing more than a way to cause the male protagonist angst-completely ignoring the pain and trauma of the female character. Rape in comic books isn’t meant to hurt the female victim or provide a message about how terrible it is-it’s a means to showcase how much the act hurts the male hero, or how evil it makes the male villain.

It’s deplorable and exploitative and the fact that people are just now catching on, barely, is embarrassing.

I’m not seeing Kick Ass 2 and not just because I think it looks terrible. I refuse to pay into the mindset that Millar seems to keep that women are nothing more than sex-objects to use at his disposal and I am sick and tired of this “geek girl myth” that he also buys into. A large percentage of the “nerd culture” is women, despite the unwelcoming crowd they’re met with, and its reasons like the sexual assault so carelessly tossed into these comic narratives that keeps their voices quiet.

Rape is never ever funny and shouldn’t be written about if the victim isn’t going to be the focal point. I’m sick of female characters being fridged or sexually assaulted for man pain and oh my word am I sick of Millar.