It’s really great when legends
in a particular field dismiss the concerns of minorities. Did I say
great? I meant horrible. But that’s exactly what happened at the
Television Critics Association press tour.
Comic book creators Michael Kantor, Todd McFarlane, Len Wein and
Gerry Conway participated in this press tour to promote a documentary on
American comic books called “Superheroes: The Never-Ending Battle.”
As reported on Think Progress, they said some pretty messed up stuff.
There is a disturbing sexist streak that runs through geek culture,
and comic books are no different. Women are vastly underrepresented at
the big two comic book publishers, Marvel and DC. According to McFarlane
and Conway, there’s not really any need to worry because there isn’t
really a barrier to entry!
“There’s nothing stopping the people that
want to do those from doing it,” McFarlane said when I asked if the
dominance of the kinds of images he’s produced suggests a creative
stagnation in superhero comics. Conway agreed, saying that “There may
be some people who are actually very, very passionate to do that
themselves, and they should. I mean, I don’t think there’s a barrier
necessarily in the field. There’s certainly a barrier at the two main
companies for new talent,” in a nod to my point to McFarlane that the
employment levels of women and people of color at major comics
companies are extraordinarily low.
Yeah, because we all know how easy it is write and draw in your spare
time while working a job that supports you and your hobby, then build
up a fan-base that will eventually pay you for your content. A major
publishing house has nothing over the power of the Internet!
As painfully tone-deaf as those statements are, I’m more concerned
about something else. Alyssa Rosenberg reports in the piece from Think
Progress:
It’s an ancient canard that male heroes
are as idealized as women, an idea that ignores their costumes, the
difference between a fantasy of power you want to inhabit and sexual
ability you want to take advantage of, and the contrast between
admiring what someone can do with their body, and what you can do to
theirs. But when I followed up with McFarlane, Wolverine creator Len
Wein, and The Punisher creator Gerry Conway, the presentation became a
showcase for a kind of attitude that’s far from universal in comics, but
that still exerts considerable power among both creators and consumers
of comics. In Conway’s words, “the comics follow society. They don’t
lead society.” And the society they follow is all too comfortable with
McFarlane the fantasies of artists like him dominating superhero comics.
Comics don’t lead society, they follow. This feels like an epic
cope-out. In essence, what they are saying is this: white guys dominate
the culture. Until they don’t anymore, comic books will be dominated by
white men.
OK, cool, but comic books are part of culture. White guys will
dominate culture until they don’t anymore, but the people who make the
culture we consume refuse to diversify. I’m not the only one who sees
this as a self-perpetuating cycle, right?
Furthermore, this seems like a dumb way to run a business. Sure,
comic books are art, and art should reflect the culture in which it is
made. But look at superhero-sized blockbuster Marvel’s The Avengers.
Women accounted for
40 percent
of those who saw the movie on opening weekend. And are you familiar
with cosplay? Think of all the hours of thought and planning and all the
money it took to create these
amazing comic book-inspired costumes. Don’t tell me these women aren’t fans and don’t deserve to be represented in the medium.
Perhaps the most insulting thing to come out in Rosenberg’s piece is
that these respected comic book creators seem to believe that giving in,
as it were, to demands for more female/POC/LGBT representation in comic
books would necessarily lead to bad stories.
Conway, McFarlane, and Wein all defaulted to another line of
argument: that anyone asking for more diverse superhero comics is
effectively asking for an entitlement that won’t produce good
storytelling.
“There hasn’t really been historically a
comic book that has worked that is trying to get across a kind of
message, if you will,” McFarlane insisted. “So the female characters
that work are the ones that are just strong women that actually it’s
good storytelling, and the odd character that is a minority that works
is the one that is just a good strong character. They’ve tried to do
minority characters and bring that label and that surrounding [debate]
into it. You’re aware that you’re reading a minority comic book. I
think it’s wrong.”
I guess since white, hetero, cis-male are the default human setting
that those characters bring only universal truths to the table. I think
the point is that we’d like to see a lot of different characters from a
lot of different gender, ethnic and racial backgrounds. The problem with
the “token” character is that that character then has to speak for an
entire race or gender, and that’s not fair. No one wants a crappy
character just to fill a quota. However, it’s not unreasonable to want a
superhero that you can identify with.
(Oh, and for evidence that comic books can have wonderful diversity
of characters while still managing to tell a really compelling story,
pick up Gail Simone’s new title,
The Movement.)
The comic book industry has a problem. It’s too white, it’s too male
and it’s too skittish, and it’s unfortunate that it seems unwilling to
confront this problem and grow from it.
This
week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) sent Sen. Dick
Durbin (D-IL) a letter that claimed the Senator’s investigation into
ALEC’s involvement “Stand Your Ground” laws was a form of “
