I want to talk about Dick Grayson's beauty, sex symbol status, and how it all connects for a moment.
This is a prelude to an upcoming post but I needed to include this separately because the other was getting too big.
First of all Dick Grayson is a beautiful man.
And you're probably thinking "well, no duh. Everyone knows that." but what I mean is Dick Grayson was intentionally made to be beautiful.
For a little historical context, around the late 1950s the culture in the US was changing. It was around this time, that people began exploring and accepting what they called a "feminine man".
This was really taking place in cinema and stuff where they began to show softer versions of men doing "typically female roles" as heroes.
One example is the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", a 1962 Hollywood film. In summary, it takes place in the midwest and is centered about Cowboys, gunslingers, the shebang. But the point is, there are two male leads in the movie - Ranse Stoddard (played by Jimmy Stewart) and Tom Donophon (played by John Wayne). Ranse and Tom are both the heroes in the film but with a key difference. Tom is like the sheriff of the town, loved by all and focusing his time on practicing his gun skills. The savior of women and normal people, he's the typical masculine hero. His face is rough and handsome. Ranse however was the new wave. He doesn't care about carrying the gun, he thinks it's uncouth and focuses much of his attention on sending the evil guy (Liberty Valance) to jail through laws. He doesn't want to kill and he takes a more advocative approach. He is also loved by everyone despite not being super masculine. Ranse's face is clean and almost dainty in comparison to Tom and Liberty Valance's.
Despite the complete opposites they are, both men are considered heroes. On one hand, you have the very male typical hero but on the other hand, you have the feminine male hero. At one point the evil guy laughs when Ranse walks in wearing an apron because serving tables is a "woman's job", but Ranse doesn't let it bother him.
How does this connect to Dick Grayson?
Dick Grayson is the feminine hero of DC. DC jumped on the pretty boy hero train.
That's also why in the Teen Titans (1966) comics, Dick keeps being referred to by endearingly feminine pet names by the titans which they seem to only use on him.
Standard gender roles: Men were expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold while women were expected to be polite, accommodating, and nurturing. Sound familiar about a certain duo?
But Dick? He plays both male and female gender roles in a time period where it wasn't socially acceptable to do so.
So my point is, Dick was created to blur the lines between gender and the way his character has progressed - he's meant to be the definition of a man opposite to male toxicity.
He can cook and do laundry whereas Bruce, the image of male dominance cannot.
This also falls into another role of Bruce and Dick's but it applies here as well in hindsight.
One thing people need to understand is that Dick was created to be the antithesis of Bruce Wayne. For all the gloominess that Bruce is Dick was meant to be the joy. He is the light to Bruce's darkness.
Which is why Dick often acts as the loving mother to the batfamily while Bruce acts as the stern father. Because Dick was created for the female role.
Part of the reason why I love Dick and Kory is because they do this at a time where girlbossing and malewifing wasn't a thing. Kori is consistently the dominant one when it comes to love in their relationship while Dick plays a softer, more "wife like" role. The way Kori is taller than Dick and buffer than him ✨
He is quite literally a queen consort - that is the role that Kori begs him to take after she is forced to marry someone her father picks out for her. But Dick refuses in tears because his morality cannot bear becoming a mistress and ruining someone else's marriage.
I know this is a long tangent but here's where the sex symbol comes in. Dick was created to be the most beautiful figure in DC but him being beautiful is not supposed to be confused with him being objectified.
Being beautiful is just something he was born as. What people do as a result has nothing to with DC
He's literally just showering and comes out of the shower to find a random little girl singing about his and batman's identities. Creepy? Yes. Very much so. So he chases after her and finds her gone. Well there's nothing he can do now, he needs to go back and analyze what's going on and contact the other titans-
Look at all the women that are ogling him, and even the ginger looks as if he doesn't know if he's jealous or wants to join - but there's nothing Dick did to make them do that. He's literally minding his own business and got caught outside. Did he hit on the women? Did he seduce them? Did he purposefully show off and make a loud commotion because he wanted the attention? No!
Arguing that Dick Grayson shouldn't be a sex symbol just seems wrong to me considering that it's not a fault of his.
It's like telling Kori not to have large breasts and telling Dinah not to wear fishnets.
People still ogle them regardless of how they dress because they're just that attractive. You can't tell someone to look a different way because you don't like the attention they're receiving...that's literally the opposite of everything people should be fighting for
Arguing that Dick Grayson being a sex symbol is a problem because he's too beautiful and blaming the actions of other characters for thinking so is just...
He was created to be beautiful to fight male toxic masculinity. He's woman coded for a reason.
We should be embracing him. He represents everything male freedom should be about. He constantly placed in a female role, in female positions-
He's acrobatic, slender, and sensual. He's gentle, loving, and beautiful.
When has the beauty of a person ever been a reflection of their character? The way fandom is going, it's implying that because female characters make sexualized comments about Dick's body, it's somehow Dick's fault for looking that way. We're blaming him for his "womanizing" ways as if he hasn't put his heart and soul into every relationship he's had. And while we're busy calling him a womanizer, we conveniently forget that the women he's in relationships with have significant personalities of their own. We inadvertently reduce their beings to plastic bags, ignoring that they have broken up with each other because of being unable to resolve conflicting beliefs, different career paths, different lifestyles, and more. It's not a one way road with our treatment of Dick. It's a two way street because we're harming both Dick and strong women like Kori, Barbara, Bea, Shawn, and Helena by pretending what they believe in and live for is unimportant in love.
Instead we should be exploring how the objectification might have an impact on Dick's mental health rather than blaming DC for using characters to describe how hot Dick is.
All the beautiful traits of Dick Grayson - his ambiguous sexuality, his overwhelming love for people, his affection for his friends, the way he cries and feels for others - all of it is beautiful, is it not?
From his very creation Dick was meant to be someone who breaks gender roles. The constant attraction he receives from both men and women in all of DC's media is evidence of that. The Grayson comics push the boundaries of his sexuality as much as DC will allow. To be queer without coming out with it. He is the feminine hero.
Everyone seems to hate that he's being called a sex symbol but why does that bother you? Dick Grayson IS the pretty girl of the comic universe. He IS the babygirl of DC.
DC has created the perfect view of what it's like to be a woman through Dick Grayson and we're spitting on the most accurate representation of a female that comics have ever created by blaming them for expressing what it's like to live as a woman.
