The latest Stunt Casting was able to find one of those rare individuals who had never purchased, read or even held a comic book in their hands. She kindly agreed to allow the Factual's Intrepid Interviewer into her home for what was, quite possibly, one of the most boring hours of her life. Thankfully, she was interesting enough to make this interview, which is rather lengthy, quite entertaining. Included are her thoughts on the latest issue of DC's The Spirit, whether Wonder Woman's costume makes any sense, and all around good sportswoman like behavior from someone who, more than anyone else, was doing us an incredibly kind favor.
Cat Discussions
TFO: [Regarding the cat] I saw the other one in the back.
Stephanie: She had her butt examined by the vet and she's been hiding under the bed since then. She's very upset.
TFO: [Long pause] Alright, you ready to do this?
Stephanie: Sure.
On What She Chose, And Why She Chose It
TFO: Well, what made you choose that comic, The Spirit?
Stephanie: The silly dude who has the ape-jaw on the cover. Who was not in the comic.
TFO: That made you mad?
Stephanie: Yes. Yes. I needed him! He's got like a...stick, or something, that he's going to kill someone with. AND. They're wearing sneakers. Instead of tights. Or silly shoes.
TFO: Had you ever heard of that character [The Spirit] before?
Stephanie: No.
TFO: How little experience would you say you have with comics?
Stephanie: I would say that I've seen Spider-Man the movie. That's it.
TFO: So this is the first time that you've actually picked one up and opened it and read it.
Stephanie: Yes. Well, I've read the funnies in the paper. But also, they [funnies] go in one line. So I didn't know how to read this.
TFO: How difficult was it too get used to the...text, the picture layout: the actual process or reading it? How quick would you say you picked that up?
Stephanie: Well, I obviously did it, but I was still just doing: Words. Pictures. Words. Pictures. If the words got boring then I started to just look at the pictures and then I had to go back and read it. So I don't think that I got "good" at it.
TFO: Well, you finished it, so that's...
Stephanie: No, it was Task: Complete, but not necessarily "Success."
TFO: What I mean is that you were able to keep up with the story--
Stephanie: Oh yeah. Yeah.
What She Thought About It
TFO: Out of curiosity, because that one is kind of a done-in-one, a "starts on the first page, ends on the last page," it's not like a "Part One of Six," that sort of thing--if it had ended on a cliff-hanger, did the story have enough interest to you that you would've wanted to know what happened next? Not necessarily that you'd want to buy it and read it, but that you would've looked it up online to find out how it ended?
Stephanie: No.
TFO: Didn't think so. What would you say about the art?
Stephanie: [Pause, look of concern.] I didn't find it very interesting.
TFO: No?
Stephanie: No. It wasn't that the colors were dull...it's that the colors didn't pop or stand out. The frames were just shades of blue, or shades of yellow. I just didn't think the colors were very interesting and the art was just...the drawings were flat and easy.
TFO: Easy?
Stephanie: Yes, it felt like the easy choice as opposed to making things more interesting. I thought it was easy for the old lady to be fat and have a horn held up to her ear. I think there's a lot of ways to draw old age without having, you know, an old lady 'stache and a horn out the ear, but it looks like the easy route, with real easy lines. It's not that it's minimal--they aren't stick figures or anything like that. It's just--"This is a person." It could be any person.
TFO: Meaning it's just really basic?
Stephanie: Yes. From person to person it's just a matter of changing the hair color.
TFO: Well, what about the ones that are more garish caricatures, like the Chief of Police.
Stephanie: Oh, the commissioner guy with the gigantic chin?
TFO: Yes, with the huge chin.
Stephanie: I just felt like it wasn't very inventive. It's like, of course the Chief of Police has a pipe and a gigantic chin. They all do.
TFO: Well, these characters were first "invented" in the late 30's, published in 8 page stories that would come free with your newspaper. Those characters, the Commissioner Dolan, the Spirit, the Commissioner's daughter, the little black kid who drives the cab...
Stephanie: They've been around for that long?
TFO: Yes, they were all done pretty much by this one guy, Will Eisner. He created them, wrote short stories that came free with your newspaper.
Stephanie: So these guys are just copying what came before?
TFO: Well, not the stories. The characters, the basic ideas...
Stephanie: That makes sense, because it made me think of a movie--where the men are classically beautiful, the women have shoulder-length hair that flows--no woman will have short hair, the men won't have a weird mole or something, they don't look like you or me, they look like blond-hair muscle people. That makes a little more sense.
TFO: That it's dated?
Stephanie: That it's dated. I don't know if you watch movies from that era, but I have a hard time remembering which is Cary Grant and which is Humphrey Bogart. They all look the same to me. Same with the women.
Why She's Never Read Comics
TFO: Why would you say you have "no experience" with comics. Not a philosophical explanation, but more what would you say has kept them away? Has it been availability? Has it been that you haven't had an interest?
Stephanie: Well, possibly all of the above! Plus being raised in a "girly" household. We played sports, but the toys we were given were "girl" toys. We didn't have Nintendo or "boy" things. We had dolls, we played dress-up, we read Little House on The Prairie. We didn't read this. [Holds up Spirit] Also, if you're growing up in a real small town, if it's a specialized industry, we don't have it. [Comics] would've had to have been something I would have found on my own...which would've taken effort, as a little girl in a beach community.
TFO: Since you've lived in [New York City], have you even come across this kind of stuff? In a place where it's more easily accessible, has it even crossed your path? Have you been in a place where they sell these? Ever?
Stephanie: No. Well, I've been to your apartment. Otherwise...
TFO: Just so you know anything that comes up about me, I'm not going to write that down. [Shit]
Stephanie: Well, no then. I haven't been to a store.
What She Thought About Reading This Comic
TFO: Would you say you even liked this? That you enjoyed reading it?
Stephanie: No. [Laughs]
TFO: Why or why not?
Stephanie: It was boring! The story was really simple--I guess any thirty-minute sitcom is equally simple, but...I found the art to be relatively uninteresting, the characters jumped to conclusions really fast--like "Obviously this is the Truth, because I said so!" They don't give any background as to how they really solved the murder. I knew as a reader because I saw the "once, a long time ago, this happened." There's no point A to point B, they just "know." There's no process to it. If this same plot were in a movie, you'd watch 45 minutes of trying to figure it out. This just gives you three panels to figure it out--most of [the story] was just the action of the murder or the action of "now I know." The process of thinking was very minimal, and unimportant. Which doesn't make sense to me, because that is the important part. How do you make sense of [murder]? Not "how do you get them to jail." In a car!
TFO: You just finished reading Kavalier and Clay. Would you say that had any impact at all on your reading of this?
Stephanie: Yes! I would. I gave this a little more of a chance than I would have otherwise. I enjoyed that book so much--the characters struggling to make money with that form of comics, but also them trying to make art out of making comics, I felt for those guys so much. I don't want to be one of those people that's just "That's stupid, because it's comic books." I want to support those characters, so I think I gave [The Spirit] a better chance as being something I could, possibly, maybe like.
TFO: So you gave it a handicap, and it still couldn't pull it off.
Stephanie. Yes.
Your Interviewer Attempts To Shanghai The Interview Into An Aesthetic Discussion, She Saves His Heavy-Handedness
TFO: Nice. Nice. Oh, yeah, this'll be fun. You consider dance an art form. Yes. Yes?
Stephanie: [Laughing] Yes!
TFO: So would you consider--not on the strength of this experience--it's possible for comic books to be a form of art as well?
Stephanie: Yes!
TFO: It sounds like that's something you'd think based on Kavalier and Clay.
Stephanie: Nooo. Maybe reading Kavalier and Clay forced me to consider my answer before giving it. It forced me to think about it a couple of days ago, which is why I've got one now. Of course, I think it's a form of art to stand on stage and eat a grapefruit, if you do it gracefully. So, if I'm going to say that I think it's dance for me to stand on stage and scratch my butt and then walk across to the other side and do a little spin, and call it fantastic modern dance--I mean, that's incredibly pedestrian. Anybody can do that. It may not be as interesting when a fabulous dancer stands there on stage as it is when it's "some dude." You know, stage presence, body appearance, focus in the eyes, that sort of thing. I do still think that pedestrian movement can be dance, likewise, [The Spirit's] very cut-and-paste sort of drawing...while I'm sure that there are people more talented in this style of drawing than others, I do think this is...the first way you learn to draw. Which I can't do. But when you're taking drawing classes in third grade, you learn to make something that looks like a real person, but isn't detailed. It's completely flat. The point is across: you would never question "Is this a person." Obviously, it's a person. You wouldn't think it's a "real" person, it doesn't feel lifelike. But just because it feels simple and "anybody" could do it, that doesn't mean it isn't art. Although, I can't draw worth anything.
The Discussion Enters The Requisite Discussion Of T & A
TFO: You mentioned that finding the depiction of Wonder Woman on the cover of the Justice League comic as offensive. Would you care to go into that more?
Stephanie: [Laughter] Sure! Sure. Okay. Thank you! Inspiration. I just think it's fascinating that a woman saving the world in a suit isn't compelling. For it to sell comics, to sell a movie, she's got to have her ass hanging out. This woman has a wedgie! There are her cheeks, and there's nothing in between them! Then there's this woman that has cleavage from hell, and fishnet lady back here?
TFO: Black Canary. The other one is...
Stephanie: Purple Girl!
TFO: I don't even know who that character is. Nightshade, maybe?
Stephanie: Nightshade? Like a nightshade eggplant? Oh, I see. I just think it's amazing that it's not "We're so proud of you for saving the world." It's "Oh god it was fucking HOT when you saved the world." This dude--although I'm assuming because he has fangs is probably a bad guy. He's really fucking unattractive, but when he blows something up, you're going to be "Omigod that was fucking cool" even though you don't want him to win, it's really cool that he blew it up anyway. It'll be really fucking hot when...what's her name?
TFO: That's Wonder Woman.
Stephanie: When Wonder Woman blows something up.
TFO: You didn't know her name was Wonder Woman?
Stephanie: No? [Words can't describe the concern on Stephanie's face] It's Giant Ass Wedgie Girl.
[Both parties laughed for a while]
Stephanie: Well, she's obviously hot. I don't even know how her top is staying up. This is just...it's belittling, I think. I don't know. You hear criticism--I don't know, like the Presidential race, "Why doesn't Hilary dress more feminine?" Because if she did, you'd call her a fucking whore! "Why is she trying to flirt with America!" Why can't she just speak about her policy? She has to toe the line by wearing a pantsuit, not a skirt-suit. But it's pink. [Wonder Woman] has to border that line, in this fantasy land--I mean, all of this [holding up Justice League] is fantasy of some sort, obviously. But it also feels to be a bit of a sexual fantasy, where you're the man in the strapping suit and you get to rescue the woman, and she's wearing hardly anything! Why doesn't the woman in jeans and a sweatshirt deserve saving? She's probably smart, and she can teach you things--or she is as hot, but she's wearing a bulky sweatshirt, so you don't automatically notice her. I don't know, I feel like this is the very basic of feminist issues, women as objects. Look, I feel it's any woman's right to wear a leotard that gives you a wedgie--but I think if we were valuing her because she was smart? You know you can run faster if you don't have a wedgie, and you aren't wearing high heels. If she were being valued for her problem solving skills, catching the bad guy, and getting a strategy together and all that stuff, she would know that she's going to be protected from the elements in long sleeves, that her long hair blowing in her face is probably going to cause her to...electric lasso the wrong person, or she's going to cut off her own damn hair! Look, it's impractical. If she were smart, she wouldn't dress that way. I think we're supposed to assume that she isn't that smart. That smart isn't as sexy as...Giant. Ass.
TFO: Nice. How do you want to close this out?
Stephanie: Is his name Spirit? Why is he wearing a fucking mask?
TFO: Oh.
Stephanie: And what's the deal with a black guy named "Ebony?"
TFO: Oh.
[Interview descends into the sort of boring backstory regarding a comic book that will interest no one.]
Stephanie: That's really boring. I think I'll leave it at that.
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Stephanie Blackmon Woodbeck
received her BFA in Dance from the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro in 2005. She has had the privilege of performing for artists
such as b.j. sullivan, Alice Lee Holland, Laura Arrington, Neta
Pulvermacher, and Jahna Bobolia. She was a member of the John Gamble
Dance Theatre from 2001-2005. Her solo work “Suffocation (of/by) the
Last Generation” was included in North Carolina’s “Best of Dance:
2004.” In 2006 Stephanie and Kathleen Kelley founded Labor Force
Dances, a modern dance company based in a feminist viewpoint. Labor
Force has performed throughout North Carolina, South Carolina,
Kentucky, and New York. Stephanie is a licensed massage therapist and a
certified Pilates mat instructor. Her choreography attempts to
investigate the existence of bodily limitations while exploring the
realm of pedestrian movement and movement elitism. For more information
please visit www.laborforcedances.com.
Upcoming performances for Stephanie and Labor Force Dances include:
March 6, 7, 8 at Dance New Amsterdam in Manhattan
March 29 at The Clifton Center in Louisville, KY
June 27, 28 at BAX in Brooklyn
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