Why is Eowyn always painted or drawn with sensible armor?
While hunting for images for my believable armor thread I’ve come across dozens and dozens of Eowyns – by professional artists and amateurs, of variable quality from awesome to awful, and of varying age from decades to recent. None of them have bare bellies or exposed cleavage. Why do you think this is so? btw I believe some of these options are incorrect ... can you guess which ones?
Chpas and chapesses please be nice ... NO FLAMING!
Chpas and chapesses please be nice ... NO FLAMING!
- Why is Eowyn always painted or drawn with sensible armor?16 votes
- The artists wouldn’t dare! They know the Tolkien fans would lynch them.18.75%
- Tolkien described his character too well, and his description didn’t include bewbs.12.50%
- The books came out before they starting drawing fantasy females as nearly nude.12.50%
- The famous artists depict Eowyn gave her sensible armor, and now it’s the way everyone visualises her.12.50%
- Deep down artist know that excessive boobage is wrong, and Eowyn is too well loved to desecrate her.0.00%
- Peter Jackson didn’t give her a metal bikini.18.75%
- Who the hell is Eowyn?25.00%
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Comments
1. She wore "real" armour in the movies.
2. She was written as an actor, not an object.
I had a third reason but I forgot it immediately after I started writing. Yeah, the "traditional RPG visual" definitely didn't oversexualize women! Wait, what?
@meagloth see the above paragraph. Firstly, people have been drawing and painting Tolkien images for over sixty years - and yes, you can find images that old on the net. Secondly, people often draw what they read, not what they see. The descriptions in books have always given many people their own internalized images of what they are reading about. We don't have to actually see it to SEE it!
@squire I've done a quick search to find some of the amazingly sexist book covers and comics that came out in the fifties. These are all sci-fi because pre Tolkien there really wasn't much fantasy. Click on the links for a giggle or two.
Weird Fantasy
Captain Science
Dynamic Science Fiction
For standard fantasy in the sixties and seventies just think Frank Frazetta and you'll get the idea.What intrigues me is even that early how fan art and professional illustration of Tolkien and Eowyn was so different to the usual images. I remember buying Tolkien calendars while at uni, while my class mates had pin up posters of girls in liquid metal bikinis.
@Kamigoroshi Eowyn and her uncle were very nearly a snack for a flying monster ... and as she is called "The White Lady of Rohan" I bet someone somewhere has made an ice-cream sundae or a cream cake dedicated to her name
I doubt it's 20 to 1, but that's your view. Just remember that people will most often see what they want to see.
@CrevsDaak "since she was dressed as a male warrior of Rohan to go to the war against the servants of Sauron (and she did better than many others), and besides that part, she never wears an armor again, so I'd say it is because of that" Now that really makes a lot of sense. There is a rich collection of UK folk songs, legends and poems featuring women dressing as men to go to war, and in all of them nobody could tell they were female. Tolkien must have been well aware of them.
If you are searching artists instead of official media, then no wonder. Thing is, artists do whatever the hell they want, so your complaining isn't going to fix that. Of course, you can point fun at that and it's totally ok, but topic about "pointing fun" that has over 20 pages is little off board. We have already two of these, and this is beginning of the next one and my first comment here is refering to that.
I mentioned official media (advertisements, TV, games and so on), so why not expand this a little. It's basically "sex sells" rule. Whatever is appealing to opposite gender works and this is also the reason why men and women are presented in different way in media. You won't see a weak and unconfident looking, dirty and incompetent men in advertisement much, as you won't see very ugly women much.
Additionaly, according to psychologists, to most women it is more important what man is capable of than how he looks, while to most men, woman has to has good look first. That is why you don't usually see art with men wearing plated strings, because they would look funny and non masculine that way. I also cannot help to notice that majority of people are totally ok with bare chested medieval warriors in media. Nah.
Anyway, back to Eowyn. Why is she presented in practical armour. First of all, Tolkien fanboys (not that there is difference between fan and fanboy). Second, but probably more important, her description in books. And finally, her description in the movie.
But the stereotypical later fantasy writing was coming from a later time, with later influences, it was in a sense pulp fiction made to appeal to young males and their *fantasies*. So that's where the sexy warrior women tropes come in. I mean, it's a great way to draw men into a book, to have a cover with a sexy female on it.
Actually the fact that pre Peter Jackson Tolkien fans seemed to be pretty much equally male and female could be another factor in why Eowyn has always been drawn the way she is.
About artists and media - artists most definitely don't always do what they want. If they don't want to be starving artists most of them do what the client asks for, or they do what sells. (Hobby artists are a different matter, but I haven't really been looking at them) However this just shifts the question from "Why do fantasy/sci-fi artists portray women like this?" to "Why do clients and the people who buy their products want them to portray women like this" or should that even be "why do the people with the money think the people who buy their products want them to portray women like this."
What I told you are basics from psychology of marketing. Accept it or deny, I don't care either way.
I was of course reffering to hobbists artists. But yes, artists often do exactlt what they are commissioned with. And whola, we have marketing again.
You can be a fan of Tolkien for even 50 or 70 years. As long as you are sane, you are neither fanboy or fangirl.
Also, why do you think it's mostly ugly women who complain?
My mother never allowed me and my sisters to have a Barbie doll because of her ridiculous shape. She also never allowed my little brother to have a he-man doll or any of the similar dolls because of their ridiculous shapes. If I'd been blessed with kids I'd have done the same.
But this thread isn't about toys, it is about art - and any reasonably large sample of fantasy and sci-fi art will show that the vast majority of female images are under dressed, use either display or submissive posturing, and are frequently utterly unbelievable. There are grossly exaggerated and unbelievable images of males out there - but they don't outnumber the reasonable pics by thirty to one or more.
We better stop now, cos I'm hijacking my own thread
I don't see why that would matter (and if course I knew that) - the movies would still have done a lot to shape peoples' perceptions of the characters and setting design. Number two also refers to the books, not the movie plot.
It's funny you should bring that up in such a way, because feminists were practically the only ones who protested against he-man.
I like how you called yourself ugly at the end, though. But no, that's certainly not my experience, but I havnoticed that the only people who say stuff like that are either trolls or really fucking stupid people. Which one are you?