I feel I felt the need to write to you to say that from your response, I don’t think you actually understood my post.
When someone uses parody to mock racism or sexism, they are not endorsing racism or sexism. Sadly, the instagram generation tends to forget this. My post was satirising people whom always go for the straw man arguments about race (and gender) in comics and focus on the minutia of an issue rather than the overall totality of it. Which is why I am unsure if you realise that my post was satirizing people who become irate at the notion of a non anglo Silver Age comic character. Or even a non anglo Doctor Who. Or even a non MALE Doctor Who, or Magneto, or Thor, and I brought these things up to editors I worked for over a decade ago, and got into rather big trouble for it. Because they would rather throw a tokenistic hat into the ring, than expand the length and breadth of "what makes a comic book hero, what constitutes a comic book hero".
Because, when you look at what pol-correct regulations are SUPPOSED to do and achieve (but fail miserably at), it’s *supposed* to be about who is best for the gig, the position, the brass ring, despite anything. Despite circumstances of birth. That’s often what heroes and superheroes and anti-heroes fight for. The racism and sexism and genderism that rails against that is often what the villains are about. But in the industry, this leads to sad ironies.
I mean, you should have seen the look on the face of an editor "back in the day” when they were spitballing alternative universes, and asking for ideas, and I said “Why not portray the Family of Magneto - a Latin name by the way - as a ruling family of Spain like in El Cid, or maybe the Incan Dynasties, or the Yucatan Royal Families, since the history and nobility and the inculcate Sense-of-Self in those ruling families actually match Stan the Man’s basis for Magneto and Polaris better than anything found in Mighty Whitey culture?”
The mere *suggestion* that Magneto or any character of his status could be non anglo was "big trouble". People could "talk" about the need for the narrow expression of race in pop art and mass media to be expanded, but DOING that was a different matter.
Talking versus doing, or in this case, greenlighting new characters and publishing them.
Versus the occassional tokenistic characters, provided by pol-correct editorial groups, are a distraction from what Al Gore might call “an Untenable, rather than Unfortunate or Inconvenient, Truth.”
What truth? “Making Whitey happy ain’t necessary to make MONEY from a comicbook character”.
THAT TRUTH.
Shaft wasn't for Whitey. Foxy Brown wasn't for Whitey. And in fact, Black Panther, the TV animated motion comic wasn't for Whitey. Dis they still make money? HELL yes. Did Black Panther, an African Focused comic and show, get paid for at full rate to be shown in Australia, where African based people are less than 0.001% of the population? Yes. Did it STILL get good ratings? YES. In competition with Spidey and Avengers and all else in a country which is VERY anglo centric.
Seem's Whitey don't care about seeing WHITEY characters as long as the CHARACTERS got some CLASS. Like T'Challa.
The whole problem with race-swapping, including the titular character of this thread, is a distraction, as is almost all overtly expressed racism/sexism/anti-queerism/ageism. It’s is a distraction from the fact that some privileged white boys and old farts can’t stand the idea that maybe they aren’t as good at their jobs as a few (or more) non anglo, non het, non male, non “standard Christian” people. I mean, have you ever seen the work of Denys Cowan, at his best?
Just IMAGINE a 24 issue run of Daredevil, written by Dwayne McDuffie and drawn by Denys, inked by Barb Kaalberg (a personal friend). With Matt Murdoch as a Nigerian or Congolese student accepted to Stanford Law School during the 60’s (similar to my stepfather, the second Black Man to attend Stanford law School). Would it have “compared well” to the Miller stuff? No.
It would have been BETTER.
BETTER.
But would it ever happen? Nope.
Why?
Because it’d show the lack of need for an anglo-centric “comic-verse”.
Which in turn proves that there’s no need for mostly white/male/het creators.
Which in turn proves that there’s no need for NON WHITE, NON MALE, NON HET EDITORS.
Hence my post above. Which was not mocking non white versions of characters; it was mocking the notion that a few variant versions of characters in a non white manner excuses the almost "Siberian Tundra in dead Winter" white aspect of comics in general.
And we all want a change from that. Seriously, all of us.
But what will bring that change about?
A lot of pol-correct posts ain't gonna do it. Pol-correct blither blather on the net has been about since 1992. Yet over 20 years later, here we are, with the same lack of diversity, with an ex DC Bat editor spending half of her bandwidth saying "Hire this female artist!" every second time she posts an entry.
If pol-correct stuff WORKED, all tbhose women would already be hired and paid THE SAME AS THE MALE ARTISTS.
“Annnnnnnnnnd in THIS cornah, we have the Latino Polaris! Annnnd in THIS Cornahhhhhhhh, we have the Mongolian Ben Grimm!” and so on. A big distraction. From the rela issues.
THAT’S what my post meant.
Best to you, Great Thread,
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