Week Six: Underground Comics

The first title that caught my eye was Girl Fight Comics (#1). Generally speaking I enjoyed it; this brand of feminism is very in your face, and largely intersectional. The piece immediately introduces you to a protagonist that is a woman of color, a sex worker, and a character who is very much in charge of her own narrative despite a number of less than favorable circumstances. The work goes on to reveal that she is also a queer character, as she engages in a relationship with another woman early on. I especially like this part because so often sapphic interactions/relationships between women are co-opted by the male gaze, but being that this is a clearly feminist piece interested in empowering women above all else, I feel like it's fair to assume that even the sexually driven interactions are meant primarily for women to consume, not for the typical heterosexual man who gets a kick out of watching lesbians kiss. 

I was however, unsettled by the duality of the seeming intersectionality in the work. Despite how much the work relies on the identity of its protagonist-- that being one of an African woman with strong ties to her background-- we still see an entire page where white women are subduing antagonistic black men and calling them the n word. I don't think that was necessary, but instead largely contradictory to everything else that was presented in the piece. It felt like it was trying to unite these women by means of protecting themselves from men, but tried to achieve that in this part of the work by means of using racial slurs. I think women can practice intersectional feminism and feel connected without having to resort to using historically demeaning slurs. The only defense I can think of for this was that the authors of the comic were interested in pointing out the flaws of white feminism, perhaps-- which I still feel could have been achieved differently.