Being Colorblind: Race in Comics... Again

I have written about race in comics for several of the most recent posts.  I've been wanting to write a review of the Luke Cage Netflix series and use it as an example of a trend of moving away from placating white audiences by making a white POV an entitlement.  I could easily see a time when a Luke Cage movie or TV series would essentially amount to "Luke Cage does stuff, white people think about it.".  A scenario where Luke Cage is ostensibly the main character, certainly the titular character, but his actions are filtered through some white perspective, possibly a cop, and way too much attention is paid to what white people think about what this black person is doing.  I imagine a 48 hours deal where Eddie Murphy is the star but it's all filtered through how Nick Nolte thinks about Eddie Murphy.  Granted it's been a while since I've seen 48 hours, maybe a better choice would be any Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder movie.  The movie was made to showcase the attitude of Richard Pryor but everything he says and does is commented on by Gene Wilder.

Let's Talk About Race/Gender/Sexuality in Comics... Again...

  I would like to start this off with this thing from the Onion which, in the title alone, sums up how ridiculous I find naysayers of color blind casting:

Comic Book Fans Adamant That Human Torch be Played by Actor Whose Body Actually Engulfed in Flames

  So, would that be better?  I mean really if your going to complain about the actor who plays the character why not complain that the Human Torch isn't being played by a man on fire or that the actor playing The Thing isn't a giant craggy rock monster?

  On to what I'm really here about.  Good news everybody!  Stan Lee says to create new ethnic characters!  And if you won't do it HE will!  So don't worry roughly 100 million non-white members of the population, your ethnicity will be proudly represented by this old, rich white guy who was last culturally aware back when segregation was a thing and was a voting adult through the Civil Rights.  Clearly he's the person to rally behind.  It's not that I don't like Stan Lee but I think we might give him too much credit, somehow we've made him the King of comics and I don't know if that's entirely earned or not.  It may not be entirely unearned but I think we need to be careful about who we assign crowns to and why.

  So let's talk about race in comic books, again, sorted, in no particular order, by the dumb ass statements I see.  I primarily use the word and concept of race in the examples below but the word race could be interchanged with gender/ethnicity/religion/sexuality.  I tried to stick to one concept to make things easier.

Avengers: Age of Ultron, Joss Whedon, Black Widow and Death Threats

 

Apparently the most offensive, sexist, racist, homophobic movie ever made by man.
As long as you don't count Birth of a Nation

  What is it about me that I like to see break downs in communication?  I like to examine them and see if I can understand them.  Sometimes they make me mad, sometimes they make me confused.  Sometimes I need to yell about it, sometimes I like to just talk about it.  Ultimately though I like talking about stuff like this because I think talking about it is key to understanding it and understanding it is very, very important.

  So let us start here:

People are Mad at Joss Whedon (Apparently)

This Season in Comic based TV

I wanted to touch on this season of shows just briefly.

This just hasn't done a lot to grab me.  The first episode was a little overwhelming with how many concepts and characters they were trying to establish.  It was good though, despite that it was a relatively solid premiere.  Since then the series has totally dropped off my radar.  The baddie-of-the-week premise is kind of lame and the overall story arc isn't very interesting.  Some of the characters are good while others tip the scale towards the bad.  Penguin is interesting, as is Bullock, Nygma is intriguing but doesn't get enough screen time.  Young Bruce is on a slow boil and Catwoman is a highlight.  Meanwhile I HATE Fish Mooney, I don't care about Falcone or Maroni, Gordon is boring and Barbara has been given a bi-sexual past for no real reason I can see.  If it serves a purpose I can see doing it but it just seems meaningless and is rarely used for anything interesting.  I haven't made this a priority to watch so I'm a little behind, maybe when I get caught up something will change, right now I'm on the fence.

Robert Downey Jr. Says Superhero Movies are Getting Frayed...

http://comicbook.com/2014/10/13/robert-downey-jr-says-superhero-movies-are-getting-a-little-bit-/


When he's right he's right. The superhero film genre is a bubble getting ready to burst but it's not the first time Hollywood exploited a genre for guaranteed money until it killed it. What immediately comes to mine are the Westerns and WWII movies that dominated the "John Wayne" era of movie making. It was very similar because among these guaranteed money makers you had the same output of book adaptations and a small amount of critical darlings.

It's also not the first time the bubble burst on superhero movies. From the near stillbirth of the genre by the, criminally underrated, in my opinion, Howard the Duck to the coma that Batman and Robin put the genre in to. There have been a number of stumbling blocks for comic adaptations in the past and this seems to be the golden age they finally deserve. The stories are being taken seriously and being given the time, effort and money they need to flourish. The movies are no longer dismissed as "Only a comic book." which is something Joel Schumacher said in defense of Batman and Robin. But it will pass, people will get sick of it and the easy money will dry up and the big IP's with it. Ah well, hopefully we'll get to see some more great things before that happens.

Here's what I want to see before the genre dies (or at least goes back into a coma):

-An Avengers movie with Fal-cap and Lady Thor.
-The Marvel Netflix TV verse ending up with a made for Netflix movie of New Avengers (sans Spider-Man and Wolverine of course)
-Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage
-X-Men: Salvation
-Avengers cameo on Agents of SHIELD
-Mongul in a Superman movie
-The JLA movie
-An Aquaman movie
-A Howard the Duck remake
-Armless Tiger-Man in a Cap movie
-The Question on Arrow
-Flashpoint on Flash
-Flash's Rouges being bro's like they are in the comics
-Joker on Gotham


Keep in mind that when the bubble bursts we probably won't see the last of the superhero genre. Unlike westerns or even WWII films the superhero genre taps into something primal, something basic, and provides that fantastic escapism and wish fulfillment in a way that few genre's can. Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins was sort of like the superhero genre equivalent to Unforgiven which made it "okay" to like and make westerns again after a pretty long hiatus and it just came back stronger than ever whereas the western is still in short supply. What will likely happen is the current Marvel "Phase 2" and DC's "Movie Clusterfuck" will run it's course, making less money as it goes and "Phase 3" along with DC's "Movie Clusterfuck 2: Clustershart" will be put on ice until they can make that next comeback masterpiece that will make everyone pay attention again.

A Brief Commentary on Changing Races in Comics

Originally two posts from my Facebook page.

This is, apparently, offensive to some people.

  If I may rant a bit. Should DC, or really any entertainment entity (such as the movies with the new FF cast) stop changing things for diversity? No. That's my simple response. The reason for this is because most of the characters were created back when the default setting for a character was "white male". Nearly every major character came out of the white guy machine and into the comic universe leaving women and other demographics relegated to stereotype, bit players or comedy sidekicks. So, yes, it is important to modernize comics. As a white guy I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to role models in the comic world. Someone who isn't a white guy and is looking for role models is going to be hard pressed to find one that is popular, well known and well written.

As for changing favorites? Yes, they should. They should because otherwise nobody latches on to the characters and they get pushed to the side. By changing Wally West to make him more diverse they take a character and thrust him into the front stage. He now has to be used, he has to be made to work and now we have a major character, a big player, who represents diversity. Otherwise what we have is a bunch of fanboys whining about how their favorite character isn't getting enough panel time because of some "PC bullshit, affirmative action character" who then gets slowly phased out.

This isn't about being PC, it's about inclusion. It's about included everyone and providing a role model for all kinds of people, it's about providing escapism for all people. That's what comics are about, when things are crappy or when you need someone to look up to you have that world and it's important to be able to see yourself in that world. What kind of statement is being made if you have to tell someone that the only way to escape, or the only way you can look up to someone, is if they first imagine themselves as a completely different race or gender? What if when you were growing up the first thing someone said to you was "Alright, first imagine your aren't anything like you are. Step one is you have to picture yourself as a white male because being a black woman isn't good enough. Now have you completely disassociated yourself from everything you are both physically and culturally? Good, because those things mean that you'll never be as good as this white guy. Now that you are distanced from everything you actually are, here enjoy these stories about all the white people better than you." That's kind of a bullshit position and if you hold that position you maybe need to re-evaluate some things.

Finally it seems fans or, at least, a vocal minority of fans, want zero change. They just want everything to be the same always. If that's the case then read the old stories! They aren't gone, they're still there. They'll always be there. They'll never go away. That's the beauty of a print medium. If you're so invested in the status quo just read the old stories. That's basically what you're doing anyway. Why force a brand or creators to write the same shit over and over to appease your fear of change? Just stick with the old stuff you like, shut up and give other people a shot at finding a beloved character.

  To me here's the circular argument you get into when it comes to changing race or gender of a character using Wally West as an example:

"Wally can't be black."
"Does race affect the character?"
"No, that's why he should stay white."
"If race doesn't affect the character then it doesn't matter if he's black. Why can't he be black?"
"Wally can't be black!"

And it just goes and goes. Race can't both be something unimportant to a character but also be vital to a character. Either race/gender don't matter and you can make anyone anything or it is the only thing that matters and they have to stay what they are, which is mostly white.

As for the "They don't make Luke Cage/Black Panther white!" argument. Many ethnic characters were created as a commentary on race or specifically for people of other races. They had to be or they would have been pooped out of the white guy machine. So you can't do that to them BECAUSE race would severely affect that character.

Fan Films: A Necessary Part of Fandom (save one film to save many)

  For those of you who don't know Marvel took down the Blinky Deadpool Webseries.  I started writing about the series from the first time I saw the trailer because the trailer LOOKED awesome and I knew with Chris .R. Notarile at the helm it WOULD BE awesome because he has made some of the best fan films I've ever seen, many of which are reviewed here and will continue to be reviewed here.  But when I did my "gritty reboot" I thought I would expand to fan films as a whole because I started watching fan films made by people other than Blinky Productions and I was amazed at the variety out there.  Some of it excellent, some of it not but all of it necessary.  Liking something is totally subjective, I may not like something but that doesn't devalue it, no matter how I, or anyone else, may criticize it because a fan film generates interest in the character.  Good or bad it makes a person aware of that character and may cause that person to seek out other examples of that character.  That may include other fan films or the comics or big budget productions, the point is that someone out there found this thing that is awesome and now shares a passion for it.  The best part of a fan film is that it's made by fans, fans who may have a better understanding of the character and even with zero budget produce something as good as any big budget production and the fact is that because they aren't beholden to any commercial interest they don't have to make compromises.

  So I've been mulling over how to best support this cause and thinking about what I could write and post to help.  Then this video was posted and it says things better and more succinctly than I could in any post that I could have written.  So check it out, below the video are the petition you can sign, links to the Facebook group you can "like" and a link to the video and the IMDB page where you can leave a review.

  I want to make something clear though, we as a community cannot get anything done by simply yelling, name calling and feces throwing.  As I have said previously, it's up to us to take the high route and elevate the discourse.  So please stay classy, don't antagonize Marvel, don't name call, don't be rude and/or crude, we're trying to do something constructive and we have to act in a constructive manner in order to do it.  So help save this fan film and make a stand for all the other fan films because good or bad they are all worth saving.



The Petition

The Facebook Group (Like it)

Episode 1
Episode 2

IMDB page (write a good review after watching confirming how awesome the series is)