prej·u·dice [prej-uh-dis] noun, verb,
1. a preconceived judgment or opinion
2. Deciding a comic book is racist before you’ve even read it
Earlier this year, DC comics released this image of a new version of the Green Lantern. The cover of Green Lantern #0, which depicts a dark-skinned Green Lantern holding a pistol, became an object of every viewer’s worst fears and left Internet morons rushing to judgment quicker than the Flash on Adderall.
For some, the image was their worst, most racist nightmare. His mask looks like a ski mask! Why is he holding a pistol? DC comics must really hate black people! Wait, is that an Arabic tattoo on his arm? DC comics made a TERRORIST superhero! Those bastards!
For others, the image, and the new Arabic character are further examples of DC forcing *GASP* diversity into its stories. One article weirdly claims that DC comics hates America and that the design of Green Lantern’s mask looks like a burqa. Why on earth an Arabic MAN would wear a burqa is beyond me, but hey, whatever. Maybe he’s supposed to be a cross-dresser.
Most of this flapping of the gums happened before a single story with the character was even published.
Granted, the gallons of premature Internet ejaculation are not entirely unwarranted. It wouldn’t be the first time that the entertainment industry has lazily pumped out dumb racial stereotypes in lieu of writing actual characters. Remember the oh-so-a-sneaky Asian aliens in Star Wars Episode 1? How about the illiterate, jive-talkin’ black robots in Transformers 2?
As for the people claiming that DC is pandering to minority groups, well, over the past year DC has gotten a lot of shit for sexist storylines and a lack of female writers. I’m not sure there’s a direct connection between the fallout from that and their sudden burst of gay and minority capes, but a little pandering sure would help them score some PR brownie points.
Here’s a quote from their blog.
"We’re committed to telling diverse stories with a diverse point of view. We want these adventures to resonate in the real world, reflecting the experiences of our diverse readership."
How’s that for some corporate wankery? "Make sure you hit the minority & female character quota in your books this month, guys. We need to make sure our diversity is so diverse that we out-diverse the assholes over at Marvel."
Thankfully, Green Lantern #0 finally came out last week. So which is it? Is the character a big, offensive, racial stereotype or is he a shitty, forced, insincere attempt at diversity?
Surprise, assholes! He’s neither.
The new Green Lantern is a Lebanese-American who steals cars to support his dead brother’s family. He ends up being framed as a terrorist and is taken to Guantanamo Bay, where some shady government agents attempt to use "enhanced interrogation" on him. When he resists, they try to kill him, but he’s saved by his own transformation into a Green Lantern.
You can’t really accuse DC of playing it safe with this issue. After all, their arab superhero is a car thief. He’s a criminal who has a tattoo which is banned by his own religion. He’s hardly the squeaky clean, innocent, boring character they would have used if they were just trying to pander to an arab/islamic audience. This should be no surprise, since the book’s author, Geoff Johns, is half-Lebanese himself. On the flip side, the character is nowhere near the black or Arabic stereotype people have been decrying since the issue was announced.
So all you overreacting Internet idiots, here’s an idea. Next time, why don’t you read at least one issue of a comic book before you get your cape and tights in a bunch? Comic books are supposed to be fun. Chill the fuck out.
It’s not that the character comes off as racist, or an ethnic caricature. Most of the complaints I’ve heard have nothing even to do with any racial, socio-political criticisms, and are similar to my own criticism of modern super hero comics in general; that the character is an example of the latter day modern superhero generic mold. Gritty, check. In your face with his gun, pistol whipping your fan boy ass right off the page, check. Convoluted back story, which isn’t really that convoluted, that is the social result of thirty years of broken homes/single parenthood/ latch-key self rearing; that results in the character having a chip on his shoulder, and a bad anti-authoritarian attitude; so he’s a rebel that does shit in a new badass way; but he gets shit done, check… It’s like the 90′s for Marvel and DC just never ends.
The character isn’t racists and most people aren’t falling into the trap of accusing it of being such, they’re rolling their eyes at how generic modern super hero creations are in general, in this non-stop quest for gritty, realness, that are actually even more cartoonish, and sillier than the silver and golden age archetypes. I’ll admit, as a comic reader my taste moved away from super heroes when I was an early teen, towards comics with finite stories and dealt with other genres, and I’ve avoided super heroes since then exactly because of this shit.
Hornblower’s Ghost, you’re absolutely correct with your observation. The rise of the anti-hero forever changed the superhero genre. However, I tend to love dirty, flawed characters and despise old-school characters like Superman. However I understand people not liking it. It’s a matter of taste.
Then again, I LOVE Captain America, who stays for the most part in his golden-age style. I love that he’s noble, patriotic, and religious, maybe because he’s refreshing when compared to the snarling Wolverines and Punishers that make up the vast majority of mainstream comic books.
Don’t get me wrong, I love anti-heroes for the fact that they’re fleshed out humans. It’s just that for ever Alan Moore who gave you that, you got a million McFarlane/Liefield clones churning out very one dimensional generic characters, where more guns and more attitude was passed off as gritty and real, when it was just replicating a stock type over and over. The golden age characters actually were in tune, as archetypes to the culture, the way literary and pulp characters used to be. The Captain for example is the archetype of both the best of American ideals and immigrant aspirational values that made up the American experience. Some of those things endure, others change as society changes. I think part of the problem is probably that where previous creators didn’t have templates to follow within the industry; they followed literary and mythic templates, as well as observation of the world around them and its values; whereas today we’ve got a few generations of people who just live in these characters universes and tend to take outside influences in passing or as fan service because of their complaints.
I think a lot of creators aren’t really as engaged with what goes on outside of comics anymore, at least not beyond a surface level, and can’t really draw on the outside world as an influence. When they try to, it looks out of touch and people scream it’s racist, or anti-woman; when really it’s a lack of real contact with the issues and concerns that affect the reader, who also is screaming for fan service, and the characters to act they way they think they should act at the same time; so no one wins! So we just get rehashes of an idea of the characters, or character types a creator grew up with; updated with his fantasy vision of that character; with outside cultural influence becoming bad window dressing, that people confuse lack of real engagement with as racism.
In this case it would initially seem unnecessary to make all the comic book characters be a cast of gay, paraplegic united colors of benetton…whatevers. The green lantern was gay. Now he’s an arab criminal. Spiderman is a biracial dominican with sickle cell anemia. Kingpin has down syndrome. But really, in the case of comics, they’ve been doing this kind of thing for quite some time. Charles Xavier. Ben Affleck It’s not really a new convention. Kids who are different do tend to gravitate towards comics. I think, generally, it’s a good escape for them to have.
MEGA-TANGENT: But I do get that a lot of people feel like they’re dealing with “diversity,” “inclusion,” etc. being pushed down their throats on an absurd basis. This is even true of people who are left of center in the political spectrum. Let’s be honest, it can be tedious.
I didn’t grow up with that stuff being force fed to me, but my brother did (we grew up in different towns, one was a lot more progressive than the other). When it IS force fed to you, one actually wind up with a more cynical outlook on inclusiveness for its own sake, or “equality” as a universal truth. Blind kids can’t play fucking badminton, okay? But if you grow up having to do gym with a blind kid (who happens to be an asshole) playing badminton with you in gym class, there’s probably a part of you that will inevitably hate that kind of shit. You start out at a much younger age actually being like, “fuck different people, they aren’t cool just because they’re different, even though we’re constantly reminded that being ‘different’ is awesome.” For most of our lives, the idea that different people are good (or better) is constantly drummed into our skulls at a steady beat. Reminiscent of chinese water torture (no racist).
It’s just tiresome and makes you want to roll your eyes. Letting minorities know that they’re welcome in society IS good. But I am quite tired of all the sociology “studies” and doublethink that goes hand and hand with that whole program of forced diversity. “Forced” meaning ham-fisted policies or decisions that are applied in a totally stupid, inorganic manner and actually (quite awkwardly) make minorities the center of attention in a not-so-positive manner. I also have a problem with giving “different” people a free pass (though they really aren’t different at all, they’re just like us but have hard lives because they’re different, but aren’t REALLY different). It is ridiculous to justify why certain people aren’t racists, assholes, criminals, drunks, junkies, bad people etc. but it’s done. How do these apologists explain certain peoples’ anti-social behaviors? It’s just that these not-so-different oppressed live in an inherently unfair and ageist, healthist, racist, sexist system (world). So like, lay off with your judgements, because if you dare judge someone who is different, that means you are BAD (or maybe evil depending on how much browner their skin is than yours).
I mean in some peoples’ minds you can’t even make fun of how stupid and tiresome it is; the only remaining universal truth recognized by the far left is that doing such a thing makes you a bad person. That’s seriously what they believe. It’s about as insane as people on the far right desperately searching for any and all things that could be construed as “sinful” and then bemoaning our sinful existence. At the end of the day, those noisy segments of society (far left and far right) are just a bunch of busy-bodies who want to tell individuals what they can and cannot think or do. The main difference being that the left doesn’t want to hold any minority/minority group responsible for anything (except for you know who), while the other wants to decry the whole of humanity for every minor sin ever committed (and blame you know who). Both groups are brainwashed.
Ugh, my head hurts.
“But I do get that a lot of people feel like they’re dealing with “diversity,” “inclusion,” etc. being pushed down their throats on an absurd basis.”
Yes, definitely. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. I’m against the lame, forced corporate way. Joe Quesada’s Santerians were a good example of the right way to add diversity to comic book characters, and they were completely original, which was a plus for me. The black/latino ultimate spider-man works really well too.
I’m also for a diversity of political viewpoints in comics. For a while now, the vast majority of writers have leaned liberal. However, other approaches have made for satisfying books as well. I’m thinking of Alan Moore’s Anarchist V for Vendetta and Frank Miller and Paul Pope’s libertarian takes on Batman.
http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/01/06/are-comic-books-too-liberal-for-their-own-good.html
yeah, comics do have that tradition. hell, a lot of the artists for comic books are more flaming than the human torch. not only is this a well known fact in the comic book world, but you could probably just look at how they draw the male form. what a bunch of fags! again, that’s fine, it’s a tradition. generally speaking, comic books aren’t used as some propagandistic cudgel.
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