An Introduction to “Bitch Planet”
The dystopian sci-fi series “Bitch Planet” (2014-17) is written by Kelly Sue DeConnick with primary art by Valentine De Landro. It offers a feminist twist on exploitation films while showcasing the power of comics to speak back to power, reframing languages of objectification. 1/8
The series focuses on a diverse cast of women who have been sent to a futuristic outer-space prison for being, in various ways, “non compliant”—that is, resisting the strict rules imposed on the performance of woman-ness by a patriarchally fascist ruling class. 2/8
The scope of “non compliance” is deliberately vague, allowing the series to explore many different physical, emotional, and institutional manifestations of patriarchy within a fictional society that’s less a distortion than an exaggeration of the real contexts that inspired the comic. 3/8
The series’ diverse cast also compels exploration of how the demands of patriarchy differently impact different bodies. In other words, the series is deeply invested in the politics of intersectionality, exploring how sexism & misogyny intersect with race, ethnicity, class, and ability. 4/8
But while some issues of the series do include academic essays on intersectional feminism, the comic itself isn’t a treatise. It’s an action-adventure story that takes explicit visual and narrative cues from the historically problematic “women in prison” subgenre of exploitation films. 5/8
“Bitch Planet” deftly exploits the visual/narrative tension between its feminist ethos and its less-than-feminist genre trappings to stage provocative conversations about the nature of objectification and agency within popular visual texts in general and comics in particular. 6/8
The staging of these tensions is both thoughtful & thrilling, delivering on the exploitation premise while deconstructing the concept of exploitation. The series further encourages deconstruction by cultivating fan communities and critical interactions within paratexts & letter pages. 7/8
Our forthcoming series will look back on this provocative comic and the considerable academic discourse it generated, discussing its achievements & critiques and its ongoing relevance to a comics industry and wider culture wherein the project of women’s liberation remains decidedly unfinished. 8/8