Superheroes & representation (split from questions thread)

[Traitorfish]

You are shortsighted:

Any fictional character has some elements which define him, regardless of the 'artistic' level of the work he appears in. They make it so that if you stray far away from the normal depiction of that character it is natural to be noted that some seemingly random change was introduced. But in art you don't change a person's traits so as to be PC or other such issues. If Thor is suddently black (as in an american movie) one has to ask if that is anything other than a gimmick, and how it benefits the artwork itself. Sure, a main hero in some comic (inspired by a nordic mythology) is now black, but does this serve any purpose which allows it to be something other than an ill-thought through gimmick?

Why does Captain America being white benefit the story any more than Captain America being black? You're not actually answering my question, you're just rephrasing it.

Quite simply: He's not black. Or are you suggesting a new Captain America?

That's what being introduced, a new Captain America. Steve Rogers, the white guy, is out, and Sam Wilson, the black guy (formerly the superhero Falcon) is in.

 

[Kyriakos]

Why does Captain America being white benefit the story any more than Captain America being black? You're not actually answering my question, you're just rephrasing it.

Look at it this way:

Chapter One: Character X is a white male.

..

Chapter N: Character X now is a white female, or black male, or black female etc. Why exactly? I don't recall reading any explanations on the previous chapters where he was a white male. I just remember watching a tv program on art needing to be more 'pluralistic', yesterday night. On channel 5

 

[salty mud]

Why does Captain America being white benefit the story any more than Captain America being black? You're not actually answering my question, you're just rephrasing it.

Because Captain America was made to identify with the average American soldier during WWII. A white man.

EDIT: so would you support a white Othello? Don't ignore questions you don't like.

 

[Quackers]

Nice post Kyriakos.

Art shouldn't be determined by whatever the moralists of the day think it should be.
Traitorfish doesn't know it, but he is just as bad as the Church of England, Catholic Church and the Nazis. He demands art to conform to his narrow interpretation of right and wrong. He is an "anachist" in name only, scratch the surface and he is a control freak.

 

[Traitorfish]

Look at it this way:

Chapter One: Character X is a white male.

..

Chapter N: Character X now is a white female, or black male, or black female etc. Why exactly? I don't recall reading any explanations on the previous chapters where he was a white male. I just remember watching a tv program on art needing to be more 'pluralistic', yesterday night. On channel 5

Steve Rogers is still white. Sam Wilson, a different individual, is black. They are different individuals, each with their own separate epidermis, hence the possibility of variation in pigmentation without narrative confusion.

Am I the only one who's actually bothered to find out what's going on here?

Because Captain America was made to identify with the average American soldier during WWII. A white man..

That's an observation, not an argument.

EDIT: so would you support a white Othello? Don't ignore questions you don't like

I don't support a black Steve Rogers, either, so the question doesn't make any sense.

Traitorfish doesn't know it, but he is just as bad as the Church of England, Catholic Church and the Nazis.

Sig'd.

 

[Camikaze]

I think if she was a genuine gamer I and many others would have far more time for her criticisms. I think she has her own idealogy (radical feminism) and instead of examining the video game industry rationally; she has already decided what the problem is and has gone out of her way to cherrypick the evidence to prove that. As others have stated in the thread, this is confirmation bias.

Again, you can critique anything you like. If you aren't up to your eyes in knowledge of that industry than I can also take great care when reading your opinion because it might be all bollocks and in Anita "have to kill all the strippers on Hitman" Saaky's case it is.

These quotes are truly beautiful, given how they were made in the context of critiquing 'radical feminism'.

Pretty much this. This entire thread, and by extension a lot of the PC brigade, is caused by trying to find a problem where there isn't one.

Hasn't the issue here arisen in response to people complaining about there being non-white superheroes (or superheroes that some people seem to think should be white)? I was under the impression that the discussion was about why complaints about there being non-white superheroes are ridiculous. Presumably you agree that complaining that non-white superheroes exist, is ridiculous. And presumably one doesn't have to be identified as part of the 'PC brigade' to share that opinion. Personally, I wouldn't normally give much attention to whether most superheroes are white, but I'd certainly see the ridiculousness in people complaining that some are not. I think that's why the issue has been raised - "hey, people are complaining that a superhero isn't white! WTH?"

A similar thing to when Lucy Liu was announced as Watson in Elementary. I'd never previously thought "why isn't Watson an Asian-American female?", but that didn't make the complaints about it any less bizarre.

 

[salty mud]

Sig'd.

Are you snidely insinuating he's wrong? You can't grasp that art is an expression of the artist's emotions and thoughts. It is NOT a platform for your toxic, ill-informed political agenda.

I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why you think that this "representation" of people is necessary. Judging from how many times I've asked and been ignored, I imagine an answer is not forthcoming.

 

[Quackers]

These quotes are truly beautiful, given how they were made in the context of critiquing 'radical feminism'.

.

Do you expect me to write an essay detailing every case where she has misrepresented a game? The Hitman example is just a splendid incident which demonstrates her entire approach.

 

[Camikaze]

Do you expect me to write an essay detailing every case where she has misrepresented a game? The Hitman example is just a splendid incident which demonstrates her entire approach.

Nah, my point was that "if you aren't up to your eyes in knowledge of that industry than I can also take great care when reading your opinion because it might be all bollocks" and "I think she has her own idealogy ... and instead of examining the [industry] rationally[,] she has already decided what the problem is and has gone out of her way to cherrypick the evidence to prove that" apparently applies to one person and a topic they are not an expert on (this woman and video games), but not to another person and a topic they are not an expert on (you and feminism), without a hint of self-reflection.

I have no opinion on this woman, BTW. I don't know who she is.

 

[Quackers]

The difference between me and Anita is that I am voicing my opinion on a videogame forum.

She has been appeared in public, in influential positions where her opinion will be repeated online and in the community for years. She ought to have extensive knowledge. My knowledge of feminism is -ok- and that is enough for a forum



The standards are different.

 

[Camikaze]

That's fair enough. To be clear, you're acknowledging that your arguments in relation to feminism may indeed fall afoul of the standards you set out in the quotes, but that it simply doesn't matter if they do?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I still haven't been furnished with a reason why people feel the need to be "represented" in films and why it is such a travesty that others don't get as much screen time.

I wonder if they have this issue in Bollywood. I wonder if people cry themselves to sleep every night because white people aren't sufficiently represented. For some reason, I think not. This "everyone needs to be represented" disease is a white only illness.

When I watch a Bollywood movie (not that I've watched more than about 3), I expect to see Indian actors and actresses.

You should see the arguments about "representation" among the Doctor's Companions, and isn't it more than time for the Doctor to be female? (personally I wouldn't care for a female Doctor any more than I'd want a male Romana)


Unless a superhero's backstory is such that the stories wouldn't make sense if their sex, ethnicity, or species were changed, then why not experiment with occasional changes? Anyone remember the old TV show Greatest American Hero? That show was about the idea of an ordinary person becoming a hero. The main character happened to be a white high school teacher, but it could have been anybody else.

 

[Wrymouth3]

Indian comics are friggin awesome. People should read about Shivaji the Destroyer and Nagraj.

 

[EgonSpengler]

A similar thing to when Lucy Liu was announced as Watson in Elementary. I'd never previously thought "why isn't Watson an Asian-American female?", but that didn't make the complaints about it any less bizarre.

I agree. There's no reason that Dr. Watson can't be an Asian-American woman. Similar shrieking could be heard when Starbuck was announced to be a woman for the Battlestar Galactica reboot; boy, do those people look (even more) stupid now.

Unless a superhero's backstory is such that the stories wouldn't make sense if their sex, ethnicity, or species were changed, then why not experiment with occasional changes?

Exactly. There's no reason a Black person (or anyone else) couldn't be Captain America, and there's no reason a woman, if she be worthy, couldn't lift Mjolnir.

I'm still waiting for an explanation as to why you think that this "representation" of people is necessary. Judging from how many times I've asked and been ignored, I imagine an answer is not forthcoming.

It is an interesting question, and any succinct answer is naturally going to be incomplete. You could build a university degree program around trying to answer the question comprehensively. If I could offer just a couple parts of the answer, I would say that a lot of entertainment media can be aspirational and inspirational. It also gives us a window into other people's lives that we wouldn't otherwise have access to, or that we wouldn't want to experience first-hand, even if we could. Roger Ebert called movies an "empathy machine."

 

[salty mud]

It is an interesting question, and any succinct answer is naturally going to be incomplete. You could build a university degree program around trying to answer the question comprehensively. If I could offer just a couple parts of the answer, I would say that a lot of entertainment media can be aspirational and inspirational. It also gives us a window into other people's lives that we wouldn't otherwise have access to, or that we wouldn't want to experience first-hand, even if we could. Roger Ebert called movies an "empathy machine."

None of this answers why we should try to incorporate many different "representatives."

I honestly think there isn't an answer to the question. Making a special effort to put more black people, women, aliens etc. into movies accomplishes exactly nothing.

 

[EgonSpengler]

None of this answers why we should try to incorporate many different "representatives."

I honestly think there isn't an answer to the question. Making a special effort to put more black people, women, aliens etc. into movies accomplishes exactly nothing.

It does, you just don't choose to believe me. Which is fine, I have no authority on the subject here, but you shouldn't ask a question knowing in advance that you'll be dismissive of the answer.

 

[salty mud]

You didn't give an answer. You didn't answer why people feel the need to be represented in movies and what the overall bonus of increased representation would be.

 

[EgonSpengler]

You're just being argumentative. I'm done.

 

[salty mud]

...no, you just didn't answer the question.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It is an interesting question, and any succinct answer is naturally going to be incomplete. You could build a university degree program around trying to answer the question comprehensively. If I could offer just a couple parts of the answer, I would say that a lot of entertainment media can be aspirational and inspirational. It also gives us a window into other people's lives that we wouldn't otherwise have access to, or that we wouldn't want to experience first-hand, even if we could. Roger Ebert called movies an "empathy machine."

Well, let's at least make a start on this university degree program in the complexities of "representation."

I'd run a discussion-style class here at CFCU. "Ok, students, draw your desks into a circle.

Here are our guiding questions for the day:

In what sense should a superhero "represent" the society in which the comic representing him/her is produced/consumed?

As a mirror reflects? Marvel has said they're trying better to reflect the diversity of American society.

But how can a superhero, who has to be one race or another, one gender or another, reflect such diversity?

So is it only the whole slate of superheroes who can "represent" American society in this way?

With that definition of represent, should the slate of superheroes pretty accurately reduplicate the population? I.e. 77% white, 50.8% women?

But what if one hero is named America, then what? Are the pressures to properly "represent" even higher in such a case? But still, he's just one guy. Should he be multi-racial? Or are multi-racial people an even smaller minority than people of either of the two races that make up a particular multi-racial identity?

Or does a superhero represent the way a congressperson represents: i.e. stand in for, regardless of the identity of the person doing the representing and the people being represented?

Does a Hispanic youngster need a Hispanic superhero, in order to identify with that superhero? (If "no," then this followup: But if there are none at all in the the line's "universe" how would he or she feel about that?) If Captain America is black, but a black kid thinks Iron Man is a cooler hero, is he at liberty identify more with Tony Stark than Sam Wilson? What will it mean if he does?

Do non-Irish white-guys identify with Steve Rogers more than black guys do? If so, why is skin color a bigger block to identification than nationality-of-ancestors? If not, do we need a range of white guys to reflect the various white-skinned national identities that make up America's diversity?

If the genre calls on you to imaginatively identify with a guy who, when angry turns into a green-skinned giant, is it somehow harder to identify with the white-skinned guy he starts out as? If so, why?

Discuss."

(We should at least be taking up some of the more interesting questions these moves by Marvel raise, rather than just Anita Sarkeesian: good or bad?)