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Thursday, September 15, 2011

Market Skeptics: Gay characters in mainstream publishing.



Wrote this in reaction to this article on the amusingly named Unicorn Booty about a writer that alleges that a publisher interested in her teen sci-fi novel wanted her to
excise the gay point of view character from the novel entirely before a deal was made.
As a pop culture nerd and social thinker of a sort, this confirms a trend I've long wondered about regarding fiction, character diversity and writers autonomy.
Its a common occurrence in pop culture and fiction, writers tending to write stories that speak to their lifeworlds and cultural experiences. Its one of the primary reasons that comic books and sci-fi have been so culturally insular for the past 50 years, especially when it relates to gender and sexuality. This is changing, as the world and our understanding of it is not rooted in 1950s psychobable anymore, but the publishing industry still has a fair ammount of control over what is published and what is stifled.
Marvel comics for example, had a longstanding ban on use of the word gay or overt references to homosexual relationships or persons in the 1980s ( so writers had to be much more subtle about relationships). Today there are at least 5 openly gay (Several of them as a long term "power couple") characters in popular comic books being published by Marvel off the top of my head. One of the things that drove this change? If Marvel wants to recruit a good, diverse talent pool, its going to encourage its writers to write stories that aren't editorially butchered into submission (No gay policies don't encourage writers who happen to not want to segregate the world). The repressive, market skittish angle the writer suggests from the publisher that approached them does not speak to creative or intellectual honesty. The market in this case does perpetuate the trends that gay characters, and by extension gay teenagers are to be neither seen nor heard, and are barely existent in fiction. It might be "reality" that the mainstream culture may be more likely to shunt such a book off into the gay ghetto of publications for fear of a mainstream base , but you'd be dishonest suggesting that it wasn't a reality that wasn't carefully managed and perpetuated by this evidenced lack of spine.

7 comments:

  1. DC has Batwoman, a gay character who has her own book every month. None of the gay characters at Marvel have their own book. I'm thinking DC is much more forward thinking, at least lately. Very complex female characters (Powergirl, Batgirl, Batwoman, etc). It'll be interesting to see what develops now that the entire DC universe has been rebooted.

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  2. You know, Batwoman is a very odd example, primarily because it took FOREVER to get the character off the concept phase, she was marketed as a "sexy lipstick lesbian" and honestly? I think it was just the insistence of the writer Greg Rucka that the story got told at all. DC seemed very reticent to do anything with the character, but given how outstanding the book is (I'll go on record as saying its the best thing DC puts out) I'm glad it did happen.

    As for DC women in ongoing series', I do think this happens more and its just one example of the gender problem in comics as a whole. You're right though, DC seems better at allowing for that at the moment.

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  3. Agreed. The thing is, I think of Marvel as "The Team Company". They have The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, etc. Its hard for me to think of a character, outside of Spider-man, who has their own book. (I mean, yeah, Iron Man, Wolverine, etc, have their own books, but they're also in the team books. I guess Spider-Man is now too.) DC really has a lot of individual characters. Sure, they have the JSA and the JLA and The Green Lantern Corps, but they really concentrate on individual characters and give them a chance. They have the whole DC triad: Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. I can't think of a similar situation at Marvel. Who besides Spider-man represents the company individually? Granted, I don't read much Marvel anymore, so maybe I'm out of the loop, but no character really comes to mind. (Well, maybe Captain America).

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  4. Hm. That framework holds a lot of water too, DB. Individual hero books for Marvel often require something of a different hook to keep the reader than their team books. With the X-Men for example, the roles of say Cyclops or Emma Frost are very specialized and they're both popular...but what would a solo series about them be like? I think there's a chicken or an egg dynamic at play here: Heroes that exist as solo heroes before being introduced to team books are popular of their own merits, and those on team books tend to stay stuck in team books...with the notable exception of Wolverine. And god I dislike him.

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  5. You're the first X-Men fan I've ever met who dislikes Wolverine, lol. (I'm more a fan of X-Factor and The New Mutants, so I don't see him!)

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  6. I think Wolverine, as a character is much better served being the gruff, cynic in the corner, laden with secrets. Like Batman, when he's overused and the focal character in a group, it absolutely kills the mystique. Putting him in 90,000 team up books including 8 of his own has taken every single bit of mystery out of the character. That, and I just don't see him comfortably leading the X-Men. Wolverine and the X-Men (which I'd argue most X-men titles had become anyway) was only a matter of time. But how the guy in yellow tights has time to lead a few teams of mutants, show up for duty with the Avengers, and have zany, stabby adventures of his own must involve time traveling powers I don't know about. Overexposure makes me cranky.

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