Superhero Sausage Fests- Gender Bias and the Comic Book Media

Comics A.M. | Should feminists give up on superhero comics? | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment:

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It appears that the burning question in all of mainstream comicdom has (thankfully) become "are comic books sexist?". Granted asking this question is incredibly valid, as all male dominated and male geared industries need to honestly evaluate such questions...but I wonder if this self-consciousness is a bit late in the day.

 One doesn't have to do much digging to find evidence of how women are depicted in comics, especially in the 90s  (otherwise known as the dark age of comic books). This was the age of the super heroine "bad girl", oversexed, little in the way of characterization, even less in the way of clothing. Believe me when I tell you the costumes get more and more stripperific.  Use cases in point like Witchblade, Lady Death, Psylocke and well...you can see the point. Why would a woman or girl find exhibit A heroic in the slightest? Many a new reader looking at superhero comics assumes that all women have the most common superpower.

On Why Ult. Spider-Man is Far More Than Amazing.

The Ultimate Comics version of Spider-Man has been much maligned (though little of it justifiable non-tebagger histrionic reasons), Seen as a "stunt" and a "gimmick" and railed against before the readership had even gotten the opportunity to read anything about the character in question, I was admittedly curious about who this young Miles Morales would be, and how his road to great power and responsibility would begin.

Finally getting the opportunity to sit down with the issue and, leveling with you here, its far and away a brilliant origin story. Miles comes off as sweet, sensitive and self aware in a way that makes him instantly endearing, and Sara Pichelli's pencils are both refined and dynamic, its a real pleasure to see such a(female) talent display her craft with such aplomb. I fully expect (and hope and pray) we see Pichelli carve quite a career for herself based on this.

Regarding Brian Micheal Bendis, the pacing and the characters are pretty inviting all at once, and given the white knuckle rage so many seemed to have regarding the passing of the guard, given the first issue is doing so well out of the gate, I'm hopeful that this tea partyesque freakout is unfounded. Seriously, look at issue #1's letters column for the tiniest of doses of thinly veiled racist stupidity. Its indication enough that this series succeeding is going to have to do so in the face of ignorance and biases about who can legitimately claim the mantle of "hero", and who we are comfortable reading stories about.

Luckily, Miles and his new cast seems to be in incredibly capable hands, between Bendis and Pichelli we have what looks to be on the verge of a great new era for the Ultimate comic (which frankly, I hadn't touched since issue #1). The moment where I felt that this comic was going to speak to the audience in profound ways was when Miles and his parents were crowded in an auditorium anxiously awaiting the opportunity to attend a prestigious charter school. Its a scene so reminiscent of "Waiting for Superman", and so brilliantly telegraphed by both writer and artist that its almost painful to watch. As one student is granted this luck of the draw, and given a genuine chance at a future, others are denied and left behind regardless of whatever phraseology Dubya would care to use. Miles father watches and reacts with the sort of cynicism and horror rational people do at how much is riding on educational emancipation from the inner city and underfunded school systems and how skewed it seems. The scene only lasted a few pages but carried a tremendously impressive weight.

The commentary is only one of the reasons why Ultimate Spider-Man #1 is exemplary. In many ways its a benchmark on how to write/create new characters and make them meaningful in a world full of comic story hegemony. Young Miles is so new and so full of potential, his version of New York is such a vivid, unexplored one, that anyone'd be remiss to not tune in to explore both the character and the world with as he develops in it. I don't think I've read a better number one in quite a long while. Hands down, its how comic book characters ought to be done.

Easy listening= The Pass- Colors

Superheroes Can Fight Anything- Except "fanboy" Racism. (Ult. Spiderman "Controversy" breakdown)

Long time no see. Due to excrutiating technical difficulties, I've been out of commission this week. Its sad how much internet withdrawal I've gone through. (I haven't felt this cut off from civilization since I moved to Eastern North Carolina the first time)

A lot's gone on in the world since the great crash, some more interesting than others.

"Getting Over It"- On Racial Obliviousness and Other Ways to Segregate.

Those of you that confront consternation about racism with a pithy "get over it" remark from their armchairs present an interesting, if not a little complicated suggestion about America and race. To "get over ourselves" is problematic in that it actively involves first understanding the self in the first place. As it pertains to the socio-economic implications of race in American culture, we live in a society that considers race so important that every ethnicity/"race" other than Caucasian generally inserts a hyphenated disclaimers FIRST stating our racial background before our nationality. As a way of adding context to this truth; the only time I’ve just been called “an American” in my life was when I was wandering around Montreal having political conversations. It was an odd bit of culture shock at the moment, and one where I was suddenly reminded how important the status of “race” is in our culture.

Some have suggested (ignorantly) that in order to “get over” race, we should abolish the idea that its important….but hundreds of years of stratification and inequality have in fact been caused and perpetuated because of this socially constructed topic. Human lives have been lost and thought irrelevant because of our culture’s inaccurate considerations of race. In short, so many abhorrent acts if human cruelty has been visited upon people of African-American dissent …and so much of our lives has been dictated by a status our culture itself has dictated is THE most important aspect of who we are that it becomes a little insulting for people to suggest we “get over” being black because it suddenly makes things easier for everyone else.

I’m reminded of a conversation I was relayed by a good friend and neighbor before Heritage day this year. The friend overheard people we know at a party say , “Man, what is up with Black people and slavery? It happened over 200 years ago! Get over it!” The suggestion that these aspects of our history that are negative and have had real and lasting implications for an entire group of people based on (arbitrarily) their racial background seems to trouble those who grapple with how to process this experience you resent and consider “white guilt”. The irony? The next day we as a community were celebrating the history of an event that happened far far earlier. I’d be curious if he felt we should get over celebrating that (arguably white) heritage as well. So again the dominant culture gets to dictate what the minority culture considers relevant, when the dominant culture has previously gone out of its way to create and perpetuate these concepts of racial and ethnic difference in the first place.

What I find suspect is that a group of people who openly display that they are neither willing or interested in considering that the history of African-Americans is no different than the history of America in general, the group of people who suggest they “get over” blackness, slavery, jim crow and the like are often the very same people who are quick to remind us of our “otherness” of our hyphenated statuses. To bring this full circle, would you or anyone other than a Holocaust denier (who I hope we can all agree would be on the wrong side of History) suggest that someone who told a Holocaust survivor or his or her direct descendants to “get over” the Holocaust and forget the fact that an entire community or nation got together and decided they should be imprisoned, and or killed based on their ethnic or racial status? How then can you be so disconnected in this regard?

Its an interesting conundrum. If you ran a poll asking people belonging to an ethnic minority group if they would like to get beyond racism as an overall society, I bet you the lionshare would say yes without hesitation. What I see as the problem to what you suggest is that your “get over it” response doesn’t – like the overheard partygoer- come from a place of historical context or awareness. It comes from a place where you feel inconvenienced and annoyed for having to recognize the negative aspects of American racial history and the part dominant culture (the part more people than you come from, I remind) has played in that. That there’s a suggestion that you as an individual of a certain status haven’t had to (ever) consider the matter of how race impacts you fully due to your status. That’s a privilege. It’s a luxury. And one I rather envy.

I can count the number of times I’ve been reminded of my statuses as being a national outsider in my own nation. Again, it took going to Canada to be reminded I was “interesting for an American”. I would LOVE to be able to “get over race”, but first it would require that a bunch of people who seem so utterly disconnected about how much its shaped the recent past of American culture actually acknowledging that these differences our culture has created happened in the first place. Coming to terms with an issue with such a profoundly large social impact requires a lot more than just deciding to “get over it”. It requires examination and understanding, reflection and awareness. If our culture’s relationship with the issue of slavery has taught us anything- its that most people in the majority aren’t interested in doing that long enough to move forward.