Classic Vixen
Vixen "Light" in latest JLA"It is not just a coloring error. This does not fucking happen with the same frequency (if ever) to Luke Cage and Shang Chi as it happens to Storm and Jubilee. Skin colors are lightened. Features are changed. Why? I would really like to know why. But every time a person stands up and asks why, she's shouted right down. She's ignored. You're seeing things that aren't there. Let's talk about something else. Right?"
So what is it, folks?
Is it a case of an artist who draws everything in a cookie-cutter style?
Is it a case of institutionalized racism?
Is it wrong to have a light-skinned black woman in a comic?
What about Cheryl's point that many comic book artists are not schooled in how to draw variations in race and ethnicity? Is such a hope a pipe dream in the case of an artist like Ed Benes, who draws all his women -- young or old, black or white, the same? Shouldn't we consider ourselves lucky not to have the tits and ass completely shoved in our faces in those books, let alone getting ethnicity correct?
Now, historically in pop-culture, there has been, to my observation, a "whitewashing" of certain characters.
I remember going through the "artist bibles" and licensing art for the Hunchback of Notre Dame animated movie when I used to edit Disney books in the mid 1990s. The consistency of the skin color for Esmeralda became an issue somewhere in the mix of all that. Her skin was noticeably lighter in the licensing art & toys than in the film. When we colored her skin in the comics to match the brown of the provided film stills, we were told to lighten it to match the licensing bible.
Now, for a slight change of pace let's take something like the cover to Fantastic Four #555, which depicts an evacuation scene with a cast of hundreds:
Not a tremendous amount of people of color on this cover.
But now that I say this, the mine-field starts.
One commenter would say: "Why should there be any people of color on that cover? That's racist of you to think that every crowd scene should have African-Americans on it. Maybe they are in a place where there are no African-Americans. Stop tokenizing everything."
That's the sort of argument being leveled against critics of the Vixen art in JLA -- that they themselves are racist against Halle Berry, or something like that. Step into this seething mix of comments if you dare.
I enjoy the Halle Berry defense, because it seems to be positioned in such a way as to attempt to discredit Cheryl's valid contention that many comic artists typically don't "do" diversity well. It's the old "answer charges of racism/sexism by turning the tables on the accuser and calling them a racist/sexist" bit. "If you think it's racist, it's because you are a racist." "The problem is you." "There is no racism/sexism."
It would seem that one motivating factor in the "you are racist/sexist/homophobic if you see racism, sexism, or homophobia in popular culture" would be to shut people up and scare them from voicing their opinions in the future.
And that's exactly the idea. Ditto for writing about sexism, ditto for writing about homophobia. If the pop culture critic can doubt their own instincts and think it's better not to write anymore on the topic as to avoid accusations, the dialog stops. You have to admit, it is a brilliant tactic to shut people up.
Cheryl:
"In conclusion, sometimes admitting that there is a problem can help to alleviate the bad feelings concerning the problem. Telling the person shedding light on the problem that he or she is making things up and then circling the wagons? Not helpful."
That said, there are some people online who just use these arguments and tactics simply to extend flame wars and fight because they feel ornery. You know it and I know it, enough on that.
Of course, I have to admit that the first thing that offended me regarding the art in question was not Vixen but this:
Yes, more half-naked Wonder Woman butt. They should have just titled the story "ASS."
But I know, mentioning the sexism makes me a sexist, right?
"There is no problem."
"There is no spoon."
(in other news, congratulations on Halle's new baby. Considering she is 41 and it's her first child, that's quite an inspiration.)
Here are some helpful resources regarding the application of critical thinking to the study of pop-culture. I now include these links at the bottom of every pop-culture article I write:
Pop-culture studies: a definition
bell hooks on critical thinking (video, some scenes NSFW)
Resources for studying gender in popular culture
Resources for studying race and ethnicity in popular cuture
Racialicious -- a blog about the intersection of race and popular culture
I think it's more that artist don't feel confident they can draw characters from other races, while still making them "attractive".
ReplyDeletefor example,I didn't know the wasp in THE ULTIMATES was asian until the character herself pointed it out.
the issue of attractiveness is probably tied to racism, but it's such a visceral, instinctual kind of racism, that I can't see the use of arguing against it, you can't convince a person someone is attractive. The only solution is hiring someone that was raised with a wider perceptual scope, that person will probably be a better artist too.
It's like the japanese, they clearly prefer the look of european features to their own, is it a bad or good thing, or is it just something that just "is"?
After looking around, even Benes depiction of Vixen looks nothing like Halle Berry. It's much closer to the JLU version of the character.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.comicvine.com/vixen/2551/costumes/&c=13895
I gave up on Benes after he did a Supergirl story for us where he was supposed to draw a granny and she was drawn like a thirty-something hottie with a tank top and a mini-skirt. We sort of looked at that panel, considered asking him to change it, and then just said "f**k it."
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see I'm not the only one who noticed that FF cover. If I remember correctly, the write-up in Previews said something about everyone going to some "off world utopia", which just added another level to whole thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, I don't think faces are Benes' main artistic focus.
Dwayne McDuffie is incredibly outspoken writer on issues of race in comics. I'm really happy to see Vixen, Block Lightning, and Green Lantern brought into the fold of JLA.
ReplyDeleteThis issue, however, is a good example of editors intentionally overlooking bad choices.
"Dwayne McDuffie is incredibly outspoken writer on issues of race in comics."
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the reasons I think Benes was a poor choice of artist for his run, because he just doesn't have that range -- or simply chooses not to use it, in favor of a more "uniform" style of design. Where women -- regardless of ethnicity -- look like those interchangeable "dolls" you can dress up and customize online.
but more than that, you need an artist who can nail facial expressions. A lot of these artists of the Benes style, while admittedly very popular, don't do a heck of a lot of characterization or variation in expression on the faces.
They draw characters with these stony, cold "supermodel stare" type faces.
Whereas when Neal Adams drew Batman or Superman upset, you damn well knew it.
I stopped reading it so I don't get to see whether or not I would have noticed.
ReplyDeleteSlightly off topic, but I also really really hate the way most superheroes are drawn like crazy roid-rage bodybuilders. I know it goes back a long way and maybe is traditional, but it drives me nuts.
Superman is powered by the sun, but the sun doesn't give his muscle perfect tone.
Would Green Lantern, a pilot really be super muscular, or rather lean and tough looking?
Benes is nasty, I'm not sure that every hero should have crazy muscle striations on their forearms unless they've been dissected. I say that if you draw that much muscle detail you might as well put as much detail into the old groin area too, you can't have it both ways, lol.
yeah, uh-- institutionalized racism pretty much hits the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteAren't there artists out there that can draw in the 'Benes style', and have some ability to draw more than one face?
ReplyDeleteAfter he submitted artwork that didn't meet your standards, why did editorial just let him submit the work? Was it a deadline issue? And if he was turning in substandard work, why hire him for future projects?
"After he submitted artwork that didn't meet your standards, why did editorial just let him submit the work? Was it a deadline issue? And if he was turning in substandard work, why hire him for future projects?"
ReplyDeleteBecause when he came on board, sales on Supergirl -- a book slated for cancellation -- went up dramatically.
There's the paradox. And, for all the criticism over his art, JLA is one of DC's few top 20 titles.
So the question is -- if the sales are there, do you mess with it for aesthetic or even ethical reasons?
Any guesses as to where they might be in 2008 where there are no people of color?
ReplyDeleteA Klan meeting?
Skrewdriver cover band show?
Nascar race?
Silliest argument ever.
I was also listening to some political cartoonists the other day, saying that it's difficult to have a funny cartoon of Hilary and/or Obama, because exaggerating features could easily be viewed as sexist and/or racist. Saturday Night Live's blackface Obama, much like Darrel Hammond's blackface Jesse Jackson, it's a fine line before bringing up racism. Whereas if the characters were simply white males, there'd be no problem exaggerating noses or ears.
ReplyDeleteNow, in defense of the Fantastic Four cover (and having no context to say any of this), I don't know if the artist has the same experience in illustrating diversity as one would growing up working here in the states... not that there's "mandated quotas" here, but there is a certain expectation for people of color.
Like Halle Barry, I'm a person of mixed race. I'm white and asian, and have "ethnic" features of both, and don't really fit in either. Does it mesh with Benes's Vixen so far - absolutely not.
Learning ranges of ethnicity does take some study, but it is possible. Especially for people as professional as Hitch and Benes.
Again, though, I can understand the reluctance. It just requires people to be more vocal.
I agree with you that calling people racist for calling others racist does nothing for the initial complaint. The complaint is fair because it's clearly a coloring problem. Editorial would have to take that seriously, and if they're dismissive, they're dismissing an entire group with a valid conceit.
-Osbo
The editor on Supergirl back when I was assisting on it would override the color choices on crowd scenes because sometimes there would be very little diversity in skin tone. So he would actually get out his color pencils and recolor some people in the scene so the crowd would be more ethnically diverse.
ReplyDeleteI also remember editors getting annoyed with some colorists because they were coloring all African-Americans the same exact color. And the editor would mark on the color guide: "vary skin tones!"
Then there is the history of awful coloring in terms of Asian characters; it took comics a while to get this right, and sometimes they still screw up.
The issue with older comics also remains an ability to actually color different skin tones. One of the things that came out of Milestone was technology to do several different shades of skin tones.
ReplyDeleteBenes pushed me away from Birds of Prey , and years later, he finally pushed me away from JLA. I'm really looking forward to the McDuffie-written done-in-one issues with fill-in art, so I can pick up the title again.
ReplyDeleteUgh. I hate Ed Benes so damn much. The guy must layout a page with the booty and boob shots in mind.
ReplyDeleteIt's the only way to explain framing Batman in the middle of a panel by Wonder Woman's butt on the left and Black Canary's on the right. Give me a break.
DC obviously does not want me to buy JLA.
I'd be interested in reading what McDuffie and Benes have to say about the issue. How aware is Benes about the reputation his work seems to have gained in Internet circles?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I blame the colorists in both cases. One of the best things about coloring gigs is getting to inject diversity into books. Vixen should definitely be darker than that (though I think it's the colorist's tricksy blue back-lighting that's making her look so light) and that FF cover (which I'm holding in my hands) has plenty of folks that could be pushed one way or another (again, crazy blue light is making nearly everyone read as pale).
ReplyDeleteThis is the PERFECT opportunity for me to voice some opinions I have about Benes' art.
ReplyDeleteValerie, I don't know if you and/or the readers of this blog are familliar with the fact that Benes is a Brazillian artist.
Or the fact that he lives in a teeny-tiny city in the middle of nowhere in the north-esatern region of Brazil (witch is one of the poorest, and consequently, where the people are least educated).
Plus (and I say that as a Brazillian myself), mysoginy and objetification of women (especially the buttocks) is practically INSTITUTIONALIZED around here. ESPECIALLY in those poorer regions.
Actually, even WOMEN EMPOWERMENT is sexualized in my country.
So whenever I come across criticism towards Benes' art I have the benefit of UNDERSTANDING that MOST of the s**tty things about his art come SPECIFICALLY from the CULTURE he was born into.
Does he CONSTANTLY and RELENTLESSLY sacrifices SORYTELLING for cheap butt shots?
YUP!
Does that lessens the quality of the book?
HELL YEAH!
But have in mind that he is a fairily un-edcated guy that comes from a culture that has, as one of it's gratest turistic attractions a big street party that can only be descibed to you americans as "a mix between spring brake and mardi gras on coke AND steroids" over there, some girls show their b**bs for beeds, over here, on CARNAVAL, it's like they are competeing to see who shows more skin while dancing.
Some years ago women actually danced NAKED ON TV with only BODY PAINT covering their naughty parts!!
So when analyzing Benes' art, have in mind the he comes from a culture where most of the time it doesn't matter how good a professional, or how intelligent a woman is, because the most important thing about her is how good looking, sexy and firm her body is.
I love my country, but sometimes i am really ashamed of the people that live here.
While I enjoy the blog and generally agree with Vslerie's commentary, I think that there IS something to the "you're a racist if you see racism in pop culture" argument.
ReplyDeleteIf someone sees the changes to Vixen and translates that into a racist motive, it's at least partially because they EXPECTED to find a racist motive. If they didn't, the idea that the motive might have been racially oriented wouldn't even come up on the person's radar.
Kind of like that South Park episode where Chef is all worked up because the kids don't see anything wrong about the town flag with four white stick figures hanging a black stick figure. The kids didn't object to it because they didn't equate the stick figures as "white people" and "black people". It was Chef himself who made the connection.
If you're looking for a pair of scissors and you tell yourself "I'm not seeing them" you probably will miss them even if they're right in front of you. You told yourself you couldn't see them and made it happen.
To some extent, those who see racism in pop culture WANT to see racism because of their own racial bias.
red jay brings up a good point --
ReplyDeleteMy mom is Brazilian, and it took me a long time to realize that her pushiness and nagging of me regarding her wanting me to look "sexy" and skinny was partially due to the culture she was raised in. I mean, back in Brazil my cousins were all thin and worked out in the gym and dressed really "hot" and always had perfect tans and had big hair. A couple were fashion models. And, as I said, it took time for me to understand that this is the culture half of my family came from, and that my mom may not have the same views on feminism as I have as a result.
That said, I'm sure there are women in Brazil who do not fit this profile.
RE: Red Jay....ouch.
ReplyDeleteThen again latin american cultures do have that tendency, they vary in degree but it's there. Being from and living in Puerto Rico you do see it but not as in your face as in other countries. For the most part it's the brainless bimbos with saline filed breasts that are more than willing to set back women's lib if only to get a bigger paycheck.
As for Benes, well I'll just say something the late great Joe Orlando told me, "vary the looks and expressions of faces when you draw them, you don't see a bunch of clones when you walk down the street do you?"
That's a really interesting point, Red Jay. I've only been looking at his art from an American point of view.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't make me like it any more, but it *does* help me to understand where he's coming from.
There ABSOLUTELY are, thank GOODNESS...
ReplyDeleteBut they are most definetly the EXCEPTION around here.
But then again, guys like me, who actually PREFER a girl you can have a CONVERSATION with, rather than a human barbie doll, are also exceptions.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go thank my girlfriend for BEING BORN... :-P
"To some extent, those who see racism in pop culture WANT to see racism because of their own racial bias."
ReplyDeleteI think that's a pretty strong statement to make.
Maybe the key, at least in the South Park example, is to teach those kids about why Chef was so upset so they understand the context in which he had such a strong reaction.
I think there are two issues with the depiction of Vixen:
ReplyDelete* Skin tone, which is a colorist issue
* Facial features (and other "typical" racial features, which might include "Vixen got back"), which is a penciller/inker issue
Maybe three issues, if you include the slide from the original "she's black" view to what we get today. (Of course, that happens in varying direction based on the art and editorial teams. Look at how Storm has shifted now that she's attached to the Black Panther book, for example.)
I fully agree on the skin tone and depiction shift. I don't agree on the facial features issue, at least not much: Mari McCabe's non-supers career is/was being a model. As such, she probably doesn't have a big butt and outsized lips, because those are not common for black models (and less so for ones whose modelling careers would have been at their height 6-10 years ago, per Vixen's career in a compressed time DC Universe).
It's kind of like people getting worked up about Fire killing and doing other "secret agent/spy" things in Checkmate, when that's her pre-JLA history. (But Fire's skin color and depicted features, since she's Brazilian...)
I'm just now getting back into actually BUYING comics, and I picked up this issue of JLA. As someone that was an avid reader in the late-80s and early-90s, the thing that seems least "Vixen-like" to me is that they've done away with her Wolverine hair.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a bit overblown in some circles. I would chalk this up to a coloring issue; as Jim Drew points out, supermodels tend to be interchangeable regardless of ethnicity. The issue there is that our Western definition of "beauty" seems to concentrate on a set of caucasian features (hair type, small nose, pouty lips, et., al) more than skin color or things of that nature.
What should really be looked at is the power dynamics of the JLA. Of the four women on the team, can we honestly say that Black Canary, Vixen, or Hawkgirl is at the same level as Wonder Woman? The majority of the male characters are at a certain level of power; to use the old elementary school argument, could Vixen take Superman in a fight? Could Black Canary beat up Batman?
I think it says a lot that there are legitimate female powerhouses in the DCU that are not represented on the team. It's possible that this is because it's less plausible that Mary Marvel, Isis, or Donna Troy would be caught in "damsel-in-distress" situation than someone who can't punch holes in mountains.
Those three are good characters...how about scaling up their powers to match their circumstances?
"I gave up on Benes after he did a Supergirl story for us where he was supposed to draw a granny and she was drawn like a thirty-something hottie with a tank top and a mini-skirt. We sort of looked at that panel, considered asking him to change it, and then just said "f**k it.""
ReplyDelete...She was supposed to be a granny? I'm assuming this was the Linda Danvers scene where she's in the alternate timeline and talking to her daughter, right? Because if that's the case, then yeah, she WAS a thirty-something hottie. She was, what, mid-twenties, maybe older, in her usual timeline? And then she was in the Silver-Age earth for seven years. She wasn't going to be that old.
And I still maintain that it was the fact that the Silver-Age Supergirl who was returning that made people buy the book, not because of Ed Benes. ^_~ On that note, what the hell happened to the ink work on it? I barely noticed any cheesecake on Supergirl during that time and the lines were bright and clear and smooth. Now the inking on JLA looks like somebody just scratched a whole bunch of lines in and said "go nuts, colorist!"
"...She was supposed to be a granny? I'm assuming this was the Linda Danvers scene where she's in the alternate timeline and talking to her daughter, right?"
ReplyDeleteI think this was a different scene, at the beginning of the run, where she is talking to her grandmother about her mom. And the woman in question had a tank-top and a mini-skirt. I might be wrong, but I remember we did raise our eyebrows at the scene.
I agree about the inking. I forgot who the inker was on Supergirl, but I do not think Benes was inking himself. Is he inking himself in JLA? At any rate, I do not like the scratchiness of the inks in JLA, and I think the line gets so thin and inconsistent in places that it drops out of the art entirely.
"Is he inking himself in JLA? At any rate, I do not like the scratchiness of the inks in JLA, and I think the line gets so thin and inconsistent in places that it drops out of the art entirely."
ReplyDeleteI don't know about other issues, but in this one, it has Sandra Hope and Ed Benes on the inks.
About the inconsintence in the art, is not only about the line if you look at it closely. Athough (and as far as I know this is PURELY heresay, I personally have absoltely NO evidence on this) it is said around the comic-artist circles here in Brazil that Benes actually uses ghost pencilers (a LOT of them) in his work.
It WOULD explain a lot of those inconsistecies in the artwork Valerie was talking about.
And maybe even the inconsistency in facial features.
What I want to see at the end of Final Crisis, once all the mad crazy ideas and universe-shattering, doppelganger-rife hypertime shenanigans are done, is...
ReplyDeletePants. For Wonder Woman. They can still be the standard painted on superhero pants that everyone wears, but I think, after over 60 years of superheroics, the poor woman deserves to have her ass covered.
Personally I like Ed Benes, but outside this forum I spend a lot of my time doing really cheese cake pin-ups. I don't want to know why someone wants a picture of Wonder Woman fighting a giant snake, just pay pal me my 30 dollars and no questions asked. So from my perspective (the cheese cake pin-up artist) he's great. On the other hand I would feel a little odd giving a copy of JLA or BOP to say a 10 or 11 year old. Then again with all the stuff that goes into comics these days I have to think twice about what books I donate to the boys and girls club (which I think is a shame).
ReplyDeletebut that's not really the issue at hand.. let get back to racism. I had no idea Vixen was supposed to be black. From the way she's drawn I was guessing maybe latino. Drawing faces with varried expressions and features, not just "racial charactaristics" is incredibly challenging. There's a reason there aren't that many George Perezes or Dave Gibbons It's a hell of a lot easier to be a Jim Lee, instead of worrying about facial features just worry about hair styles. Plus glossy, pretty and vacant sure seems to sell better than detailed, varried and realistic do. I guess I'm just not sure if that's racist or not.
Well, I always fear joining these conversations because I am a white heterosexual male and that seems to put a bullseye on my back no matter what I say.
ReplyDeleteWhat tends to bother me about racism/sexism talks in comics, is that they often focus on things which I think are minor or overblow, when major problems are everywhere.
In this case, it is hard for me to think the lightening of Vixen's skin tone is overt racism when the two african-american male characters are not also done in that palette color. If the idea is that this represents 'institutionalized racism', wouldn't Jefferson and John also be 'light-skinned'?
In fact, I think it is somewhat strange that people are calling this book racist when 3 of the 10 members are black, the biggest percentage of minority members ever.
I think that the obvious sexism in Benes' art is a much bigger problem with the title. It is shameful that the women are constantly portrayed the way they are.
It's funny, I tolerated Benes' art much more on Supergirl and Birds of Prey than I do here. I think that is because Benes' runs on those titles were written so well by Peter David and Gail Simone. As JLA has yet to impress me at all, I tend to notice the flaws in his art much more.
And as a huge fan of Supergirl and in particular Peter David's run, I can tell you the 'hotty grandma' is in fact Linda's mother. Early in the Benes' run, we learn Sylvia Danvers' is pregnant. She is supposed to be in her 40's but she has a white streak in her hair from a near death experience. Despite her being middle-aged and about halway to term, she is drawn stunningly beautiful.
Okay, now that I have said my piece, I am ready to be yelled at.
As always Val, great site.
"I think that's a pretty strong statement to make.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the key, at least in the South Park example, is to teach those kids about why Chef was so upset so they understand the context in which he had such a strong reaction."
I understand where you're coming from. That being said, the point South Park made was that the kids in the show were so accepting of different races as just "people" that when they saw 4 white stick-people lynching a black stick-person, they just saw 5 people, whereas it was others like Chef making the distinctions between the races and calling the image as racist.
It's just images, but people make an interpretation of those images for themselves. And those who see racism or such in them are forming that interpretation out of their own heads. It not like South Park told us the flag was racist up front, nor do comics artists go saying "this is intended as racist/sexist/misogynistic imagery"
Ultimately WE define how we interpret images.
About Wonder Woman's costume, a friend of mine has the perfect definition for it.
ReplyDeleteShe says:
"I'm a HUGE WW fan, but her costume is a JOKE!
It's like she woke up in the morning, put on the bracelets, tiara, armour plate, but was in such a hurry that she ended up leaving home in her PAJAMA PANTIES!"
'I understand where you're coming from. That being said, the point South Park made was that the kids in the show were so accepting of different races as just "people" that when they saw 4 white stick-people lynching a black stick-person, they just saw 5 people, whereas it was others like Chef making the distinctions between the races and calling the image as racist.'
ReplyDeleteIndeed. One must see race to see racism. If no difference exists, there's no difference to be exploited.
Growing up in 1990s Oregon, race was never mentioned except in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and slavery, both of which were treated as completely historical. MLK's efforts were generally described as he himself described them - as an endeavor toward a world in which race didn't matter. It was assumed in the curriculum - and in the actions and attitudes of our class of students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds - that he'd succeeded. To us, he was just the next great American after George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
-
I don't suppose Vixen's fictional tribe is from somewhere in the area of Ethiopia/Eritrea, btw? As a population of dark-skinned African Caucasians, Ethiopians generally have features (and sometimes have skin tones) consistent with her recent portrayal.
I think Ed Benes is a horrible artist. He can't do perspective to save his life, can't maintain a spatial relationship between characters in any kind of consistent way from panel to panel, can't draw more than one face or body type. His crosshatching is random, his light sources are all over the place.
ReplyDeleteBut worst of all, he has no idea about "acting." In the first issue of the Meltzer JLA, someone (Batman or Superman) zings Wonder Woman with a smartalec comment and her reaction is...
No reaction. None whatsover. In close up. To emphasize that she doesn't care or has the emotional content of a Mr. Spock impersonator?
It's supposed to be a funny moment where she reacts, but Benes absolutely kills it by giving her the blank face of a store mannequin. That's failure right there.
I know none of that matters to the average buyer who just wants stuff that "looks cool" or whatever, but anytime I see his name attached to a project, I think, "Well, they're certainly not concerned with whether I buy it or not."
He's probably a nice guy and all, but he's a lousy, lousy artist. It's ridiculous that putting him on a book would increase sales, but that's mainstream comic books for ya.
So I put it down to "Hey, he increases sales, so why should we care that he destroys aesthetics and characterization? No one has a reader's vocabulary anymore to understand these things, so they'll accept any old junk, including race changes."
I believe Valerie herself can enlighten us in that matter, but I have from a VERY reliable source that Eddie Berganza, who edits JLA, himself is NOT particularly a FAN of Benes's art. Especially in what refers to his storytelling.
ReplyDeleteIf that is not PROOF that the sales speak louder regarding certain artists in certain books, I don't know what is.
Kind of like that South Park episode where Chef is all worked up because the kids don't see anything wrong about the town flag with four white stick figures hanging a black stick figure. The kids didn't object to it because they didn't equate the stick figures as "white people" and "black people". It was Chef himself who made the connection.
ReplyDeleteOh Lord, even as a mild fan of South Park, I hate it when people reference their episodes to make philosophical points.
South Park is the Ayn Rand of television - they engineer situations so their viewpoint is infallible.
I teach. I'm a teacher of middle-school students. They have mild racist tendencies, without being aware of it. It's not as simple as the ridiculous Chef example.
I'm a white guy, early twenties, fairly conservative (don't read: evangelical war machine into that) and certainly a bit suspicious of political correctness. Still, it just seems suspicious to me that beautiful, dark-skinned people don't appear often in comics. Or that most women that are of color that are held up as immensely desirable have Caucasian features.
I can't force my (white, heterosexual) male friends to find dark-skinned, non-skinny women attractive. But it seems suspicious to me that the women of color they do find attractive tend to be the ones whose hair has been treated to look unnatural (and like a white woman's), whose skin color is light, etc.
Halle Berry, however, should not have to apologize for her appearance. There's nothing wrong with light-skinned non-white women - they are beautiful too (though it's their character that should ultimately matter). But it just seems, inductively speaking, odd that I am not offered many alternatives in many media to white or similar-to-white features.
The answer isn't tokenism, or at least government-sponsored tokenism. But art is powerful, and art is magick. Given how liberal most comic creators tend to be, it shocks me that they pander to the excesses of a passively anglocentric, male-centric culture. Art, as the aforementioned Rand demonstrated, is the easiest medium with which to work magick - with a good story, you can make people consider your viewpoint.
The Apostle Paul says that we can know people from their fruit. Christ said that out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Whether or not one accepts the rest of their assertions, I think there's something to these statements. If someone's art regularly leaves out non-Anglo people in situations where it would be entirely reasonable to see them, that doesn't mean the person is purposefully attempting to undermine civil rights. But it does say something about them, and one would hope that editors would be the first line of defense not to force an agenda of weak tokenism (something we've seen like crazy in superhero comics), but to craft comics that reflect social reality even if there are lasers and aliens and ghosts. People enjoy some grounding in their comics.
But there is the elephant in the room that was mentioned her - Wonder Woman's skimpy outfit. That's where the sexism does come in - while it's okay to celebrate the beauty of the human body, I don't like thinking that a comic was written to arouse my baser instincts.
"But there is the elephant in the room that was mentioned her - Wonder Woman's skimpy outfit. That's where the sexism does come in - while it's okay to celebrate the beauty of the human body, I don't like thinking that a comic was written to arouse my baser instincts."
ReplyDeleteThere IS that... But it's mostly Charles Moulton's fault for being the freakazoid that he was in the first place.
Cuitlamiztli Carter said...
ReplyDelete'Oh Lord, even as a mild fan of South Park, I hate it when people reference their episodes to make philosophical points.
South Park is the Ayn Rand of television - they engineer situations so their viewpoint is infallible.
I teach. I'm a teacher of middle-school students. They have mild racist tendencies, without being aware of it. It's not as simple as the ridiculous Chef example.'
The point South Park is making in that example isn't that the racism in question doesn't exist, but that a concept of race - in itself racist - is required for a person to perceive it.
'I can't force my (white, heterosexual) male friends to find dark-skinned, non-skinny women attractive. But it seems suspicious to me that the women of color they do find attractive tend to be the ones whose hair has been treated to look unnatural (and like a white woman's), whose skin color is light, etc.'
I don't know that that's racism so much as the well-documented observation that most mammals are attracted to members of their species with whom they share many genetic similarities. (There's good reason for this from a gene propagation perspective. First cousins are actually the ideal distance from one another from this point of view.) Exoticism is significantly desired, but is surpassed by genetic compatibility as an agent of attraction.
It's also worth noting that many of the physical traits associated (accurately or not) with African ancestry run counter to certain estrogen-related elements of appearance which are widely considered attractive in females. (Of course, the idea of an 'African' appearance is somewhat ridiculous, given that the native human population of that continent is more genetically diverse than the rest of Humanity combined.)
'But there is the elephant in the room that was mentioned her - Wonder Woman's skimpy outfit. That's where the sexism does come in - while it's okay to celebrate the beauty of the human body, I don't like thinking that a comic was written to arouse my baser instincts.'
As drawn by Benes, Wonder Woman's costume is fairly ridiculous. In concept, though (or, say, as drawn by George Perez), it's fine. As a female of Ancient Greek cultural extraction, it's to be expected that her attitudes on approriate levels of clothing would be different from ours. In point of fact, her outfit is conservative by the standards of female Ancient Greek exercisers. (See the URL below for a fine art representation of a typical Spartan coed athletic class.)
http://www.quercus-sys.com/home/naturism/spartns2.jpg
Women in Greece quite often wore - like the men - only a small amount of clothing in good weather. It was not uncommon to show the entire thigh and breasts in ordinary dress. Indeed, in pre-Hellenic Greece, everyday clothing often emphasized the exposed breasts, and in Hellenic culture - even into Roman times - women often wore tunics with at least one breast unselfconsciously exposed.
I take some issue, btw, with your suggestion that sexual instincts are somehow base. Historically, it's been in only the Semetic (i.e. Jewish, Musilm, Christian, and Mormon) traditions that sexuality has been viewed in such a manner. Other cultures (rightly, I believe) view sexuality as a normal part of virtuous life. Only unscrupulous sexual behavior is considered base in these cultures - the same as other normal behavior types.
Jeff said...
ReplyDelete'"But there is the elephant in the room that was mentioned her - Wonder Woman's skimpy outfit. That's where the sexism does come in - while it's okay to celebrate the beauty of the human body, I don't like thinking that a comic was written to arouse my baser instincts."
There IS that... But it's mostly Charles Moulton's fault for being the freakazoid that he was in the first place.'
No, the costume he designed (alternately composed of shorts and a skirt as its lower component) is very much in line with the more conservative historical versions of Greek and Roman female dress. Though shorts were not invented until the late Second Millenium CE, most younger or more active Greek and Roman women of more conservative dress commonly wore clothing resembling Wonder Woman's (their clothes more accurately resembled those of the Amazons, including Diana, during George Perez's tenure on the title, but Moulton's original costuming was close).
Keep in mind, one must first sexualize nudity, then make sexuality taboo before uncovered skin is wrong. To the naturalist Greeks and the Hellophilic if somewhat more self-conscious Romans, there was nothing objectionable of bare skin.
Joel Bryan said:
ReplyDeleteBut worst of all, he has no idea about "acting."
It took me far longer to realize this. It was the scene in Meltzer's last issue of JLA, in which Roy & Hawkgirl are caught in bed together. And I had *no* idea what sort of emotion was supposed to be conveyed by the scene. They were just blank faces, looking kinda bored. And that's when I realized: Meltzer didn't get so much worse with this story -- it's just that he didn't have the amazing Rags Morales adding the emotional weight and depth needed to sell the script.
And Jeff said:
There IS that... But it's mostly Charles Moulton's fault for being the freakazoid that he was in the first place.
Oh, give me a break. Moulton put her in a skirt and culottes. You can't reasonably pin the Wonder-thong on him.
Talk about buck-passing: "There's nothing we can do, because of
the kinks of a man long dead!"
Actually while he did put her in a skirt and/or culottes, you have to admit her outfit even in his tenure was pretty skimpy, especially for the time. Not only skimpy, but pretty impractical for a warrior going into battle in Man's World.
ReplyDeleteHowever there is no arguing that later artists have taken this to even more ridiculous extremes. The Wonder Thong for example.
The FF #555 isn't only thing that made me stop and think. There's that Planet of The Apes comment that sounds a lot like some racist eugenics shit that made me stop reading for a few minutes. I was wondering if the cover and the comment were hints to a future plot point or were they just ignorance on the part of the writer and artist? Unfortunately, I'm way too used to seeing offensive racist nonsense in comics to think that the FF #500 cover and POTA reference was anything more than ignorance on Marvel's part.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfortunate, but not surprising, that I have the same love/hate relationship with comic books that I do with the U.S.A. Unfortunate because it's difficult to sometimes be so angry with the country you were born in and not surprising because, as one of this country's greatest creations, the comic book cannot help but be a reflection of the U.S.A....warts and all.
I am frustrated with the number of posts defending both the sexism and racism by denying or diminishing the possibility based solely on their personal justifications and attempting to discredit other commentators that disagree. That is called 'priviledge' gentle readers, whatever form you might have you should not deny when you have it.
ReplyDelete