Wow, so much here. I dunno if this passes the Bechdel test, since they're talking about several men (Blake, Jon) and everything else they say is incidental to that, but it's certainly as close as the book comes (except I guess for Joey and her lover arguing.)
And yeah, I too wish I could be generous enough to believe that the "medium as message" reading was intentional, but I don't think Moore/Gibbon put that much thought into Laurie or the position of women in superhero comics. "Her purpose is to move between men and stir up the plot" is pretty much exactly what they wrote on her character sheet.
Male characters' development is shown or outright stated; Laurie’s and Sally’s must be inferred.
HOWEVER! I disagree here. I think Laurie's development is made explicit, at the end: she's taken ownership of crimefighting on her own terms, or perhaps something closer to her father's terms (face mask, gun). I could go on about how Laurie becomes a whole person when she is able to incorporate her own masculinity and paternal heritage into her persona; blah blah gender theory, animus, anima, hasenpfeffer incorporated. She's grievously misused throughout the story, made to spend a decade in a bunker with Jon learning ping pong, but she comes out a whole person, which is more than you can say for almost anyone else.
As for Rorschach, just want to point out that Miller wasn't Miller when they wrote this - Dark Knight Returns came out the same year, and even then he was decades from the excesses of Sin City and DK2. /comic geek
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And yeah, I too wish I could be generous enough to believe that the "medium as message" reading was intentional, but I don't think Moore/Gibbon put that much thought into Laurie or the position of women in superhero comics. "Her purpose is to move between men and stir up the plot" is pretty much exactly what they wrote on her character sheet.
Male characters' development is shown or outright stated; Laurie’s and Sally’s must be inferred.
HOWEVER! I disagree here. I think Laurie's development is made explicit, at the end: she's taken ownership of crimefighting on her own terms, or perhaps something closer to her father's terms (face mask, gun). I could go on about how Laurie becomes a whole person when she is able to incorporate her own masculinity and paternal heritage into her persona; blah blah gender theory, animus, anima, hasenpfeffer incorporated. She's grievously misused throughout the story, made to spend a decade in a bunker with Jon learning ping pong, but she comes out a whole person, which is more than you can say for almost anyone else.
As for Rorschach, just want to point out that Miller wasn't Miller when they wrote this - Dark Knight Returns came out the same year, and even then he was decades from the excesses of Sin City and DK2. /comic geek