Hijab Wearing Cosplayer Proves She's Worthy of Cap's Shield

Cosplay: Hijabi Hooligan Cosplay Photo by: Transwarp Photography

By now, you've likely seen this photo of cosplayer Dania Khalil of Hijabi Hooligan Cosplay (I could not love that name more, by the way) as Captain America. I'd be surprised if you haven't since her photo has been shared far and wide from the She-Geeks Facebook page to Gizmodo to Fashionably Geek, she basically exploded overnight!

Now, Khalil is no newcomer to cosplay. She's got several great cosplays in her costume arsenal (my favorites are her Lady Loki and Assassins Creed), but her Captain America is what's getting all the attention. As of this morning, she's just proven just how appropriate all this attention is.

Right now, being a Muslim in America is difficult with hatred, ignorance, and outright bigotry running wild, but Khalil's patriotic cosplay has cut right through all of that to bring out the best in us as fans. Since her photo started making the geek rounds, she's received a ton of wonderful messages and comments from fans, and apparently plenty of offers to send her actual cash to help get her a more professional shield to compliment the quality of the rest of her outfit. She's received so many offers that she had to address them publicly, and how she is choosing to handle all of the attention she's getting proves that she absolutely deserves to carry that iconic shield:

"Hey everyone! Many of you have offered to donate to GoFundMe to get me a better Cap shield, but I think I have a better cause for your money to go towards. I set up this campaign to aid Syria, as they desperately need our help at the minute. I'm sure many of you are aware of the atrocities being committed in Syria and the hardships the people there are facing. Stories like that of the 12 year old girl who tried to take her own life to give her family one less mouth to feed have rocked the world and brought tears to my eyes many a time.
If you could all spare as little as £1/$1 and share the link with your friends and family, I would be forever grateful.
Thank you all for the love you've shown me- now let's show those in need that same love. <3"

In true Captain America fashion, she is diverting this attention away from herself and on to others in need. Seriously, this woman is just a shining example of the best in all of us. If you'd like to spread the good around, you can find her GoFundMe page here. I think it's safe to say that we could all use a a few more people like her in the world.

Keep making us proud, Dania!!

CoastCon Happened, and I Was There

Unlike San Diego, Atlanta, or even New York, New Orleans isn't known for a particular convention, but the Gulf Coast is home to several conventions held throughout the year. It's my goal, here at She-Geeks, to showcase those smaller (but no less enthusiastic) conventions. If there is a convention in or around the Gulf Coast that you'd like to see me cover, please send the convention details to eris.shegeeks@gmail.com.

One of the Gulf Coast's longest running conventions, CoastCon, is a volunteer run organization with a focus on community in fandom that's been around for more than 35 years. Many of the attendees at CoastCon have been faithfully coming out for years, and that makes this con feel vastly different from, say, a Wizard World convention. There's a great deal of hugging, hand-shaking, and casual conversations among friends who may only ever see each other at CoastCon. It's a very friendly environment overall, and quite a welcoming place for families as well (even vendors and artists have been known to bring their kids with them). That's not to say that there isn't fun to be had for those of us sans children, though! This con may have a cozy feel to it, but it's still large enough to have plenty of interesting things for fans of all ages. So, from heart-warming interactions with kids to panels about human decomposition, to random belly dance routines, follow along as I run down some of the things I saw at CoastCon 38!

Marvel Responds to Spider-Woman's Butt!

I wrote a post earlier this week about the 'Spider-Woman' variant cover controversy. In it, I expressed my displeasure for the only reaction I had seen from someone at Marvel about their distasteful choice to have an erotic artist produce a variant cover for the first issue of a series aimed at women. At the time, all that had been said was from their VP of Publishing, Tom Brevoort, and it was less than stellar. In fact, it was dismissive and ignored the actual issue altogether: 

"It’s also, for a Manara piece, one of the less sexualized ones, at least to my eye. Maybe others feel differently. But given that the character is covered head-to-toe, and is crouched in a spider-like pose, it seems far less exploitative to me than other Manara pieces we’ve run in previous months and years."

Now, thankfully, we have a more in-depth statement from Marvel's Editor-in-Chief, Alex Alonso via an interview with Comic Book Resources. He says, in part:

Spider-Woman's (now) Famous Butt

I wasn't going to write this since there are so many wonderful criticisms already circling the internet, but since a conversation was sparked among friends on Facebook via an article I shared, and since several people have asked for my opinion about it, here goes:

In case you've been living under a rock, the controversy I'm referring to started when the variant cover for 'Spider-Woman #1' by Milo Manara was released. Now, it is important to keep in mind that it was announced that 'Spider-Woman' would be getting her very own series at the Women of Marvel panel at this year's San Diego Comic Con. These panels are wildly popular sit downs where some of the prominent female writers, artists, creators and editors at Marvel speak openly with fans about topics ranging from sexism in the comic industry, to getting a foot in the door, to their favorite series. Make no mistake, these panels exist because Marvel (and the comic industry as a whole) has finally started to acknowledge that women not only read comics, but crave story lines that don't involve putting a superhero's dead girlfriend in a refrigerator, or the brutal rape and murder of an otherwise capable and formidable female superhero in order to elicit her male counterpart's heroic revenge story arc. Considering, then, that this series has essentially been touted as another instance of Marvel's current strides to court female readers, it came as more than a slight shock when we found out that Marvel had tapped legendary erotic artist, Milo Manara, to create 'Spider-Woman's variant cover. This is what he gave us:

Is she mooning the city, or is that just an open invitation? (Image from Comic Book Resources)

Now, there is a list of basic things that are wrong with this cover art that need to be touched on before we delve into the controversial, sexualized depiction of Spider-Woman. In my opinion, this is an all around poorly produced piece of art. This isn't the caliber of work one would expect from a professional artist working in the industry since 1969; it's first year art student quality, at best. His lines are sloppy, the shading is either too heavy or too soft, and her features are flat. While realism isn't exactly the first word that comes to mind when we think about comic art, artists should take things like human anatomy and basic physics into account when drawing figures. Manara, clearly, did not. In fact, she appears to be in need of medical assistance: her right shoulder is dislocated, her left shoulder is missing, her right hand appears to have been run over by a car, and judging by her left leg, her thighs are twice as long as her calves. That's all without even touching on that anatomic nightmare going on between her chest and her enormous butt (which, taking perspective into account, I've estimated to be about 4x the size of her head).

Girls and Film!

Everyone who's anyone is talking about the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' lately, and for good reason. Starting as early as last Thursday's midnight previews, 'Guardians' has been breaking records and setting new movie premiere standards all over the place! Along with destroying the previous record for an opening weekend in August, 'Guardians' also broke the record for the most women movie goers for a Marvel film. According to exit polls, 44% of the audience this weekend was female. That beat out 'The Avengers' by 4%; not much, but still a significant number. The question is, what is it about this movie that attracted so many more women than the other Marvel films (and 'Avengers' for that matter, but since the Guardians are often considered to be the Cosmic equivalent to the Avengers I'll focus on them)? I've seen it, of course. Hell, I've seen it twice already (yes, it's that good), but I've also seen every other Marvel film out there more than once. That's to be expected; I'm a geek. I suspect, however, that since the numbers of the other Marvel movies are so much lower than 'Guardians', it's safe to assume that we can't attribute its record breaking numbers exclusively to She-Geeks. So, what's so special about 'Guardians of the Galaxy'? Let's visit some of the most likely theories:

DEADPOOL!!

Despite my undying love for DC, there are several Marvel characters that I absolutely adore (Rocket Raccoon is certainly up there, so my excitement for Friday's Guardians of the Galaxy release has nearly reached critical mass). The very tippy top of that list, though, belongs to the one and only Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool. I love everything from his tragic backstory to his unrequited bromance with SpiderMan to his hatred of Jar Jar Binks.

Naturally, then, the prospect of a Deadpool movie excites me. I'm even a fan of Ryan Reynolds playing him (despite the ridiculous version that was presented in the Wolverine movie). I have to admit, however, that I really never thought it would happen. If it did, I was certain it would be disappointing at best. Now not only does the project seem to be picking up steam, but we have apparently been granted our first look. 

When this two minute clip was originally released the other day, it was among tons of speculation. Most believed it to be some 2012 test footage from the potential movie, but some claimed that it could be from a video game. Apparently, according to Blur Studios, the clip has been confirmed to be from 8 minutes of footage that director Tim Miller hinted at awhile back. Producer, Lauren Donner, has also spoken up to confirm that the movie is, indeed, still in the works. So, without any word on when we might see Deadpool on the big screen for reals, we at least have a glimmer of hope to cling to, some amazeballs footage to drool over, and legitimate anticipation for when the other 6 minutes of still un-leaked footage will see the light of day. Now, because I love you all, I give you the two minutes of footage that I cannot stop watching:

(Squeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!)

Do We Really Need a Female Thor?

Autumn, it seems, is becoming the season of change for the Marvel Universe, and (as is geek nature) not everyone is happy about it. One of the most controversial changes is that Thor, The God of Thunder, will soon be a woman. 

Apparently, the current Thor will somehow be deemed unworthy to wield his famously picky hammer, Mjolnir, and a woman will be stepping in to take his place. This is not like any of the numerous alternate realities in which a woman ends up with Mjolnir (like the “What if” issue when Jane Smith kicked some ass as Thordis), or in the current reality when Storm was able to use the real Mjolnir to destroy the fake hammer that Loki gave her several decades before (because that wasn’t convoluted at all). No, we are being assured that this is the real deal; she will be Thor. According to writer, Jason Aaron,

“This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR. This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before.”

Here is where my first issue with this announcement crops up (which my friend, Dave, of The Week in Geek, will probably be surprised to hear): What Aaron has essentially implied is that ‘Thor’ is not a name, but a title. Thing is, much like Superman, Thor was born Thor. He is the son of Odin. He is the God of Thunder. He is Thor. It’s going to take some damn fine writing to make this fundamental concept change work, in my opinion.

Now, we don’t yet know the identity of this woman. In fact, the whole of what we do know can be summed up in this snippet from the announcement:

“The story behind her is that she created herself. She was saved by Thor, and she came down from Earth – followed him – and made herself look like Thor. And now she’s taking over.”

What is even more confusing than the sentence structure of that announcement, is that it was delivered by Jenny McCarthy (yes, that Jenny McCarthy) on ‘The View’. No, that’s not a typo. Marvel decided to make the announcement that Thor will now be a woman, on ‘The View’. The only way they could have made this a more obvious marketing stunt is if they paired the announcement with the arrival of new ‘Thor’ brand tampons. I would be genuinely shocked if there has ever been another segment on ‘The View’ about a comic book. Ever. Their choice to announce that one of the oldest Marvel superheroes is suddenly going to be a woman, on a daytime talk show aimed at housewives and stay at home moms, screams pandering to me. This doesn’t seem like a groundbreaking, well thought out decision. No, this seems more like a cheap, easy way for Marvel to throw a pair of tits on an established character that is already earning them tons of money (thanks to the popular movies which will likely not follow suit with the gender swap), and point to it as proof of their progressive thinking and general support of women everywhere. The most disturbing reaction I’m hearing from a lot of women is that we should be thanking Marvel for taking such a daring step towards gender equality. I think that’s crap. If Marvel is truly interested in equally representing women in comics, they can either start seriously promoting any of the female superheroes they’ve already got, or they can work to create a new dynamic female superhero that is representative of women without being a flying sex symbol (pants, people, women can wear pants). Sorry, guys, but I don’t feel the need to thank Marvel simply for throwing womankind a bone.

All that being said, I am willing to give Aaron and the rest of the creative team the chance to come up with some sort of epic storyline in which this all makes sense. I really would like to believe that perhaps they are trying to do this for all the right reasons. At the end of the day, though, I worry that this is going to alienate more readers than it draws in.