Gender Meta
"But don't put too much whipped cream on it. That's not manly." - secondhand horrifying Quote of the Day.

I hadn't expected all three of my subjects (Lord Fanny, Desire, and Wonder Woman) to line up so easily with mythic cues.

Wonder Woman's the most obvious. Her entire history and origin is embedded with influence from Artemis, Athena, and the history of the Amazons. Even among Perez's Amazons, basically an island of presumed lesbians, there are few to none "androgynous" figures. The first major one, Alkyone, appears only in Simone's run.

Fanny is more complex, as she draws on both Tlazolteotl and the modern mythic archetype of the "she-male." Of the possibly mixed gender mythic heritages Morrison could have pulled from, both the Greek Hermaphroditus and Hindu Ardhanari represent no aspect of Fanny and no mention is made of Ometeotl. Instead, Morrison tries to transform the she-male into empowerment by linking it to Tlazolteotl, who both causes and purifies filth and sexual misdeeds. It's a good effort, but I think it fails primarily because of the 'male' part of "she-males." Inherent to the "she-male" archetype is the feminization of what is, at its core, a male. Morrison simply transforms the negative sexual fetish aspect of the shemale (or "dickgirl," depending on whether you're including futanari) into a positive, allowing Fanny to draw power from the generation of 'sexual misdeeds.' This is all well and good, but it doesn't at all fit with Fanny's female upbringing, which is decidedly transgender.

Here I would divert into an anecdote from Wesley Stace's Misfortune that is relevant but not exactly comics-based.

Desire. Well. Visually, Desire defintely takes some cues from the classical depiction of Hermaphroditus. However, there's no direct mythic archetype Desire draws from. He clearly draws heavily from Loki, but Loki is primarily a trickster, not sexually/romantically-focused. The closest are Pothos/Himeros, but neither has enough background available to present a good fit.

Instead, I'd argue Desire is representative of a new mythic archetype in and of hirself, a fusion of the femme fatale and trickster archetypes, taking the desire and longing of the femme fatale with the trickster's mental agility, mischeviousness, and two-spirited nature. Desire's need to bring down his older brother Morpheous is especially reminiscent of Loki's role in Ragnarök.

This is further supported by Gaiman's statement that Desire's appearance is based on both the artwork of Patrick Nagel and appearance of Annie Lennox (though one wonders how much influence Laurence Stevens had), decidedly modern figures who themselves draw from and adapt past images and styles. Nagel's style defintely pulls from Japanese woodblock pints, whose tendency to depict kabuki actors ties it together with the history of onnagata, which is itself based on the ideal bishounen.

And to switch cues, I'm leaning more and more that in Adam Hughes's definition of androgynous ("she’s not a cartoon comic-book bimbo, but neither is she, like, a masculine She-Rambo type of character") we're primarily dealing with power dynamic cues.

Which is really hilarious, given I'd argue Lord Fanny has the exact same mixed dynamics of feminine/masculine as Wonder Woman. Both can be dominant and powerful/ambitious when need be (primarily in battle), but tend to not dominate a group (Diana has never seemed to dominate the Trinity unless in a one-shot book solely focused on her) and instead serve as support for the other members. Both also come from matriarchal lines. However, where Hippolyta is a supportive mother, Fanny's grandmother is dominant, decidedly masculine (frigid bitch archetype) in her attitudes. Yet Fanny's history as and abuse while a sex worker seems to cancel out these traits.

Desire is more of a trickster figure, Loki-esque, but whose power dynamics under traditional gender constructions are dominantly male. Only the sexual seduction element of Desire codes as female. Which is funny, given how Desire basically out-Lokis Gaiman's Loki, who is an ineffectual figure at best.

So the non-androgynous characters are most androgynous, while the androgyne is decidedly masculine.

And dammit, why am I suddenly playing JE bands and AAA on loop from YouTube, of all places? This should really not be optimal writing music. (Also, dammit, I did not expect to start liking Arashi. Not so hot on NEWS, though.)

However, with JE being so focused on pumping out bands of bishounen, it is deliciously ironic.