[AlexG]

Came across this active thread on the GeneX Magazine forums – thought I'd pass it along in case anyone was interested.

She-Hulk could bring FBB into the public eye?

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[cpbell0033944]

Can't see it doing a huge amount, in all honesty. 🙁

[baditude41]

Personally, I think it would be a great idea.  The only problem I forsee is the stereotype people already have of fbbs.  Society (for the most part) only believe in FBB's who are very slender and slightly muscular in build.  I DON'T agree with that, and there are some others in this forum who don't agree with that.  But, alas, we're not the masses.  Another, is the "Hulking Out" factor.  People easily embrace a male who can hulk out, but for some reason, watching or having a female hulk out is somewhat taboo.  I can't figure out why…and I hope this taboo changes.

[AlexG]

My own opinion is that if the FBBr is positively packaged, say on the lines of Cory Everson as Atalanta in the Herc series, as a balance of feminine with the overt  buffed-up-ness along with a really good storyline (say, one written by Terry19d) and a director who cares about the character, it might give people, particularly women, a pause for thought that muscles on females aren't so bad, are even attractive looking.

It certainly was the case with Linda Hamilton after the T2 movie.

The transformation could be handled in a more subtle manner.  Rather then violent, it could be gradual or even a personal moment of unexpected revelation.  I know that that won't be to the liking of the die-hard Savage types, but it wouldn't be the first time that a particular superheroic character's background had to be "modified" in order to be marketable to a broader audience.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Prophet Tenebrae]

I'm not sure the parallels are there… I mean, She-Hulk is essentially a woman that lucked out and got a ripped – well, depending on who's drawing – physique… body builders have to work hard and I don't think any of them enjoy the kind of body that Jen got. FBBs and She-Hulk probably just aren't that close together in the mind of the public.

Also, I agree with baditude… I'm not sure I'd say that it was a taboo perhaps but there seems to be a great deal more reluctance to have a woman hulk out – presumably because femuscle is generally looked down upon and because breasts bursting forth from a top are somewhat more provocative than Banner running around in purple pants. Plus, if you say that

Of course, all that said – a She-Hulk bursting out of her clothes on screen is probably going to lead to more "converts"… and that's probably a more valuable commodity than glancing interest.

[cpbell0033944]

AlexG said…

My own opinion is that if the FBBr is positively packaged, say on the lines of Cory Everson as Atalanta in the Herc series, as a balance of feminine with the overt  buffed-up-ness along with a really good storyline (say, one written by Terry19d) and a director who cares about the character, it might give people, particularly women, a pause for thought that muscles on females aren't so bad, are even attractive looking.

It certainly was the case with Linda Hamilton after the T2 movie.

…thereby saying what I wanted to say, but chickened out of.  I think that female muscularity, either already extant or newly-developing ( ;D) can be sold to the great unwashed, as long as it's handled sensitively.  What I'd like to see put across to people is not only the empowerment of buffness, but also the idea that it enhances femininity, not reduces it.  The fact is that a balanced, proportioned muscular physique enhances women's natural shape and curves.  I would propose, as did Alex, that a 'classic' femuscular physique would be a good starting-point: as much as some here (myself occasionally included) may like hyper-muscle, it can look bulky when at its extreme, and, sadly, so often goes hand-in-hand with an androgenic appearance, which, a few hardcore schmoes apart, will kill any popular interest stone-dead.
As Alex says, storyline and character development is utterly imperative also.  An empty shell whose only feature of note is being hugely muscular will only reinforce erroneous stereotypes.  One has to think "mass-market" here, and what people like is characters they can understand and empathise with.

With regards to the actual "hulking" aspect, I always find the idea that US a movie (I'm giving-up using British English here as most of our members are from the US) showing a woman's breasts is too provocative for cinema, yet movies with multiple gory deaths and what I call the "everyotherwordisf***" syndrome to be rather ridiculous.  If censor's ratings are insufficient to tell people that the film has adult content, then they should stay away and take-up knitting.  As for the muscle growth being taboo – well, this is why I feel that more exposure in movies and on TV for buff female characters, in the mould (mold?) of Atalanta would be better preceeding a movie with FMG content, as, if the audience aren't comfortable with femuscle, they won't be happy with FMG.

[AlexG]

. . . and because breasts bursting forth from a top are somewhat more provocative than Banner running around in purple pants.

Oh, I don't know, they didn't overtly emphasize the natural uber-endowment to his masculine equipment, either.  Which, on the face of it has to happen given what occurs to the rest of his hyperbuilt physique.  Instead, they (the artists) just don't draw attention to it.

Again, it would not require her breasts to burst forth from her outfit – it could be just as easily handled (again, using a Terminator movie example) as was the BE scene with Kristanna Loken as the Terminatrix.

Subtlety is required, even if it’s done with a sense of titillation, and not a sledgehammer.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[cpbell0033944]

Oh, I don't know, they didn't overtly emphasize the natural uber-endowment to his masculine equipment, either.  Which, on the face of it has to happen given what occurs to the rest of his hyperbuilt physique.  Instead, they (the artists) just don't draw attention to it.

Again, it would not require her breasts to burst forth from her outfit – it could be just as easily handled (again, using a Terminator movie example) as was the BE scene with Kristanna Loken as the Terminatrix.

Subtlety is required, even if it’s done with a sense of titillation, and not a sledgehammer.

Yet again, AlexG puts what I'm thinking 100x better than I can, using 90% fewer words.  Will you be my official spokesman, please?  :-* ;D 😉

[AlexG]

Yet again, AlexG puts what I'm thinking 100x better than I can, using 90% fewer words.  Will you be my official spokesman, please?  :-* ;D 😉

Heh – the contraction/compression factor.  Its an occupational hazard (or reward, depending upon your point-of-view) of writing Power Couple novellas. 

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[TC2]

I will mention a few things that will be positive news for you folks, and other things which will naturally be bad news, but I'll start with the positive.

Thanks to characters like She-Hulk, Powergirl, Wonder woman, and anyone you can think of that may sometimes be depicted with muscles.  Comic book readers are much more accepting of female muscle and FMG than the mainstream media.  After all how many times have they seen She-Hulk transform from Jen Walters into Shulkie?  Most comic book fans are much more accepting of it, and where there are comic book fans there is sometimes mainstream.

At the same time, the advent of youtube has brought a huge collection of FBB's for the mainstream to enjoy.  Though most of the times even the most feminine body builders will get comments like "Whoa she's a man."  Or the most popular "She'll crush my penis."  There have also been some converts who have said, "I normally don't like muscles on a woman, but I'll make an exception to her."

This suggests that over time female muscle is becoming more and more accepted even by mainstream standards.

HOWEVER!

Even though a lot of things are pointing towards a positive direction it is still taking an extraordinary amount of time to actually reach that point.  People still will be grossed out by the concept of a muscular woman but at the same time the more they are exposed to it the easier it is to accept it.

This is after all how the media influences the world, the more exposure we can get for FBB's like super size she, youtube, She-Hulk, cameo appearances in TV shows, then the greater possibility for female body builders to be accepted by mainstream.

FMG however, whoo… now that is something I don't forsee being accepted for the next 50 years.  A woman hulking out to the size of the incredible hulk is something that I don't think will ever be accepted in mainstream media.

Now however, if you have a woman FMG'ing into a perhaps "smaller" more realistic bodybuilder, like say Jodi Miller into Gina Davis.  The transformation would have to be done in a more sensual, sexual, and arousing way; with less focus on violence and more focus on sex appeal.

So it would probably be close ups of the breasts growing, sleeves ripping at the shoulder, while having the actress panting almost as if she were in ecstacy.  I bet a LOT more people would be accepting of FMG if it were done in that manner; even if they did see a bicep explode from the sleeve they would certainly want to watch it again.

However, even THAT would still turn off a huge amount of mainstream folks.  Sure it would convert a couple but that's something that the mainstream media just isn't ready to accept.  It's going to take a few years of bombardment from the media in order to get female muscle acceptable, once it reaches that stage then it would progress into FMG; but I highly doubt that will ever be acceptable in mainstream.

If you're wondering how I got my info, I've been doing research on this topic for several years.  Using that data I've got I'm hoping to experiment with people's reaction if I created a character that was muscular, but you didn't notice until halfway into the movie.  If people fall in love with personality, will they forget that the character has muscles?

I'll keep you updated on that experiment 😉

[Author]

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