Greg Rucka hat den Ruf, starke Frauen zu schreiben (man denke nur an seine Heldinnen aus Batwomwn, Whiteout, Queen and Country und viele, viele mehr). In letzter Zeit konnte man im Internet einen Essay von ihm über das Schrieben von weiblichen Charakteren finden – und ein Interview, in dem er Hollywood (und die Comic Industrie) ziemlich scharf kritisiert. Hier ein paar Auszüge:
Gender isn’t simply a biological trait; it’s a societal one. The female experience is different from that of the male, and if, as a male writer, you cannot accept that basic premise, then you will never, ever, be able to write women well. A man walking alone through Midtown Manhattan at three in the morning may have concerns for his safety, but I promise you, it’s a very different experience for a woman taking the same walk, and it’s different again for a man wearing a dress. Think about it. That’s a societal factor, and it’s a gendered one, and this is not and can not be subject to debate. If you’re looking to argue that sexism is a thing of the past, that the world is gender-blind, you’re not only wrong, you’re lying to yourself.
“There’s an absurd marketing issue which is this conceit that Hollywood labors under and they’ve got studies to back it up, that their market is men 18 to 34, and they won’t go see a woman in an action role, which is utter bulls**t. I mean, if you can think of any demographic that’s more likely to go see women in an action role it’s going to be a guy who’s eighteen! W
hat’s the thing that eighteen-year-old is constantly thinking about? Girls. It’s absurd and the more you look into it, the more the fallacy falls apart….
….The same studies that these guys swear by—‘our demographic is men age 18 to 34, who drive purchasing’—well, alright. Those same studies say it’s women age 20 to 40 who control the income outlay. They control the pocketbook, so why aren’t you marketing to them? It doesn’t make any sense and it’s a fundamentally misogynistic market field and people wonder why we see such negative representations of women or the same consistent galling of women and objectification of women in media and you strip everything away and the only argument that remains is it’s a misogynistic industry—they don’t like women. And you see that all over comics now, too.
That’s what they said at San Diego—not only do we not care but we actually don’t want you here, go away. Well, guess what? That’s a sh***y business model and you’re going to lose money and you’re going to lose readers. It doesn’t make any sense to me from a business standpoint, right? I was lecturing at the University of Oregon yesterday and the only analog I can come up with is if Apple had said, ‘you know what? We’re only selling iPhones to blondes.’ It doesn’t make any sense—why would you just exclude a whole portion of your market? And the combination of arrogance and ignorance is appaling, and people should be angry. And the mere fact that the people who then actually spoke out about it who were threatened—talk about wanting to make ourselves look good. Nice endorsement for the industry, there.”
Ein Comic Leben 
Eine Antwort to “Greg Rucka über Comics, Frauen und Sexismus”