Do comic book companies unintentionally discriminate against certain groups through their portrayal in comics? One example that comes to mind immediately is Marvel's treatment of powerful female characters. Why is it that virtually all of Marvel's most powerful female characters (typically mutants) go crazy? Jean, Wanda, Polaris all have drunk from the goblet of madness at some point in time, but the men tend to be able to better control their powers. Is it the nature of their powers, or is in an inability to handle them? Xavier said of Phoenix something to the effect the even he might have trouble controlling that much power. I can certainly understand if it were simply a matter of experience. Jean wasn't as experienced as him at that time. But what of the others? Women seem to lose control much more and wreak more havok than their male counterparts when they do.
Another example is the way they treat characters from outside of New York. None of the original five X-Men had accents, but some later characters do: Banshee, Rogue, etc. While it's understandable that writers may choose to convey a character's background by the way they speak, it seems to be only certain (not even all) people that came from places other than New York. The way Rogue's speech is written is interesting, because it only represents a portion of the myriad accents of the South. This also underscores biases that can be associated with region and class. The most prominent Southern characters in Marvel tend towards stereotype: Rogue, Gambit, the Guthries all come from lower-income Southern families.
Dr. Strange has never been shown to have a midwestern accent, yet he's from Iowa. Did he lose it after living in NYC? What about Storm? Why is her English not portrayed with an accent? Too difficult to convey? And Wong? I wonder what the standard is for deciding what accents to portray.
Thoughts? Any other examples, or am I being too PC?
Regarding the female characters going wacky...
Did you know that the Greek word for womb/uterus is hystera, as in, yes, "hysterical"?
It has long been the male's opinion that women, by nature, are not as emotionally stable as men because of their connection to the reproductive cycle. Hysteria was thought to result from disturbances in the uterus.
Seems like there should be more female writers on staff, or for that matter, writers from other parts of the country. But then, comics' chief consumer are young white males (I think), so to deviate from that might hurt their bottom line.
Comics are, after all, still a business.
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I don't think that women especially are seen as villains in the Marvel universe, but I can definately see where it can be construed as such. I always thought Rogue was the most sexist character because she sucked the life out of every man she was with. Also, I think that honestly the men can get just as screwy. Anyone remember Quan-Yin Xorn? He got owned by Wolvie though.
seems to me like some of those comparisons revolve more around the "target" character or group being treated in a certain way, not how they're treated relative to others. noone makes a big gender issue out of legion, mikhail, proteus or various other male characters ****ing shit up. comparatively, i'd say male characters have been portrayed in negative lights much more often than female characters. there were only two big female "villains" in the x-universe, unless you count dark phoenix; those being selene and cassandra nova. no real others that i can think have had the same weight as their male counterparts, such as magneto, apocalypse, sinister... even henry gyrich gets the shit end of the stick, relative to val cooper.
as far as the accents, or the diversity of the creative teams, i've got no real comment. accents really depend on the writer, and i couldn't give two shits about the business side of the industry.
No matter what, someone is gonna find the smallest detail and call it discriminating. Women going nuts ala Phoenix/Scarlet Witch, men being portrayed as babbling idiotic brutes ala Blob and such, black people apparently being not as powerful as white people, white people not being as powerful as Asians, blah blah blah. Its a comic people, let it be. If you really need to sift through everything in pop culture and try to find racist or intolerant undertones in everything, maybe you should just get another hobby. Is it possible that someone involved in comics is prejudice? Yes. Because coincidentally, lots of female characters go nuts at one point, does that mean that they hate women? No. All powerful characters go nuts at some point in the comics, hell, look at Hulk. He's ALWAYS nuts. Don't worry so much about it, worry more about them writing good storylines and making it worth your buck to keep buying.
I read a book called The Alchemy of Love and Lust by Theresa L. Crenshaw, and in this book it stated that women are prone to be affected by a hormone called oxytocin, which was referred in Laymans terms to be a sort of skin hunger (Oxytocin is also a chemical that is highly present in females that are about to give birth). It goes on to say, that women are more prone to "Jeckyl and Hyde" type personality shifts due to hormonal embalances than men.
A friend of mine once said "Women judge things based on emotions whereas men judge things on a rational basis". I won't blatanly go out on a limb, and say that women are bipolar by nature, because there is nothing futher from the truth... however women have different chemicals than men in order to protect their young as well as themselves. I am referring to the book that I mentioned reading earlier. So in accordance to what I read, I would say "no women are not stereotyped by comic book companies, rather it seems that the writers may know more about psychology than they are given credit for". I'm sorry in advance if what I've stated offends. Truth be told, not everyone is the same, but in general they are; hence if you cut me will I not bleed?
id be reeeeeeeal careful with a statement like this
for the most part, the characterization of heroes is meant to attract and hook in new readers
Nobody in a comic is potrayed in a moderatly realistic light, they are sureal impressions of the writers fantasies and imaginations that, for the most part, lack any real 3rd dimension (I'm being very general, but lets be honest, nobody wants to read a book about how dull having a real life and responsabilities are)
It may be more true to say that "Yes, women in comics are presented in a fantasized hypersexual manner, but so are the men" rather than "Comic writers know lots about psychology" because i'd be willing to guess that a) they dont or b) accurate psychological potrayal of characters makes for a less marketable book and therefore is not done as often
I have to somewhat disagree. To become a good fictional writer, you have to always reflect on the type of character that you're working with. Not just anyone can be Peter David, this guy has studied psychology in order to make his characters come to life. Unless you somehow believe that you can write for a company like Marvel, or DC without going to college.
If you look at Batman today as opposed to Batman 30 yrs ago you'll notice a huge difference in the character, he was a 2d character with very little depth in the 70s, but now he has been developed into a character that appears to be one step away from a meltdown. My point is just to say, that today you can close your eyes and picture exactly what Logan would act like as opposed to back in the 70s where Robin used to say things like "Holy Baterangs Batman".
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Mar 9th, 2006 08:59 PM
