Treatment: Q Men

WORLD:

An alternate 1950's universe. Fashion, language, and design are all reminiscent of 1950's Aus/ USA. Same goes for the societies' very conservative views. People are defined and critically judged by their appearance and their adherence to the expected behaviours.

Like Batman TAS the universe has the design principals of a bygone era, but has technology equal and at times superior to ours, however with a naive and impractical application, i.e a 1950's view of future technology.

CHARACTERS:

VELVET FIST

Velvet Fist is a She-Hulk analogue. She is 7 feet tall with royal blue skin and flaming red hair, lips and finger nails. It is unknown if she is a huge woman or a man in drag, as she also sounds like an effeminate male and is overly deliberate in her feminine mannerisms.

She is hyper-female in appearance, always dressed in the most provocative and sexualised outfits. Her costume when in Super Hero mode is a canary yellow baby-doll teddy, coupled with impossibly high-heeled boots. She also carries a large 6 shooter on a garter on her right leg for long range combat, and changeling because of the phallic associations.

She can be bitchy like any self respecting drag queen and despite her superficial nature and cheer leader intonation and vocabulary, can be quite intelligent, manipulative and skilled at pushing people's buttons. She is also very proud of her appearance, liking to show of her body, and being desired by all, she is a complete exhibitionist.

HERMAPHRODITIE

Hermaphroditie is a changeling. Able to take on the form of any person or creature. She is a true hermaphrodite in that she is neither male nor female (referred to as 'she' for ease of communication and because she will be voiced by a female). In her unaltered state she is approximately 5'' 8' with blond hair and fair skin. She has an appearance of a 16 year old boy, but with the voice of a woman in her 30's. As her powers allow her to morph into anyone, including generating their clothes she has no need to wear clothes herself. In her un-morphed form she is naked, however with no nipples or genitals.

She is a spiky personality, very anti-establishment. She believes herself to be the have the purest view of the world because she is not bound by institutions such as gender and clothing. Her pride in her insight however lead her to being very blinkered and closed minded to any view other than her own.

She is blunt in her communication, happy to be very confrontational in any interaction with anyone, pulling them up on any opinions she believes to be ignorant or oppressive. Her views of oppression are easily inflamed by anything from language ("patriarchal in origin!") to architecture ("phallic manifestations!").


STORY

The opening narrative is read in the style of a 1950's newsreel. As the narrator reads we scan over comic panels illustrating his story. The line "...next stage of evolution superior-homo" is illustrated by the Darwinian image of apes through to man, with a new final stage of an overtly camp male, back arched, winking in a comely fashion to the viewer.

After the introduction with the narration and the comic panels the animation begins with an establishing shot of a derelict apartment building in a run down area. The apartment building is tall with hundreds of tiny windows, the rooms will obviously be small and the windows will let in minimal light. The building is surrounded by wild and unkempt gardens, overgrown and predominantly weeds. There is a broken down playground, the equipment unused for years and is various states of complete disrepair. A basketball court, bitumen broken into small islands separated by small estuaries of wild grass can also be seen, has its two rings bent towards the ground, old men now weak to fulfil their duties.

Inside an apartment it is as depressing as the exterior. Faded green walls are decorated with the sickly brown trails of water damage, the stained carpet appears a fertile ground for indoor mushrooms. HERMAPHRODITIE sits on weary couch that is hemorrhaging its stuffing. She is slouched watching a old TV, with a coat hanger for an antenna.
The door slams open with unnatural force revealing VELVET FIST, her bright yellow costume stained with large smears of blood. She complains about the lack of mortal henchmen's ability to handle a punch from a super powered being without spraying their insides. She receives no sympathy from Hermaphroditie. Velvet Fist persists with her point that it is hard for a struggling Super Hero to maintain costumes etc when they are constantly being stained and wrecked by henchmen entrails.
Hermaphroditie chastises Velvet Fist for her adherence to manufactured institutions such as 'clothing' 'gender', indirectly praising herself for her ability to transcend such trifling matters.
Velvet Fist uses her piousness against her by praising Hermaphroditie for her commitment to ignoring vanity, and not making herself more attractive, given her powers make that an easy option. Forced to maintain the course she had plotted herself Hermaphroditie acknowledges she does not feel the need to gain external validation for her appearance, even though she has clearly been hurt by Velvet Fists insinuation that she is not attractive.
Velvet Fist congratulates Hermaphraditie again on her intrinsic self worth as she asks if she will both be joining her that night at the clubs, Hermaphroditie says she will. Velvet Fist then pointedly asks if she will be attending as 'Brad' or 'Angelina', acknowledging that her digs at Hermaphroditie's appearance were meant to be an attack. Still trying to maintain that she is not beholden to such trivial notions of being judged on appearance Hermaphroditie cries that her attendance of clubs incognito is to maintain her secret identity. Given she will be hanging out with the only 7'' tall, blue skinned red head in the city, Velvet Fist is not convinced.

CONCEPT/ CONTROLLING IDEAS
To show highlight how archaic the notion is to judge someone by their appearance, and yet how someone looks will likely define their character.
To have some witty dialogue and repartee
Visually take the piss out of Super Hero and limited animation series of the 50's/60's

Challenge notions of gender and the expected characteristics associated with each.