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So, I just looked over the article at www.comicbookresources.com on Native portrayals in comics and I dunno, I suppose everybody gets touchy when this sort of thing is in their backyard or about them, ostensibly, et cetera, but it still bugs the hell out of me. The people questioned on the site mostly have useful things to say, but I can't really take too much from, say, David Mack after he had Echo in facepaint talking up a big brave warrior spiritroad storm in her intro storyline from 'Daredevil' and the fact that people still feel the need to say things like "They could be used to talk to Native Americans themselves, about the necessity of preserving their own heritage and overcoming the problems thrust upon them by poverty, discrimination, substance abuse and so on. They could also be used to inform a more general audience about those issues." (Marriote) To which I can only reply by quoting a comic that did me a helluva lot of good in life: And then what?
Seriously, we seem to've got past the point where every black character is the Black Character who might as well be named Black Black, just for convention, but it seems like we can't just have a Native oh Pete Wisdom (y'know, without that accent) or Captain (he says he's Cree) Marvel... or even just Wyatt Wingfoot (who, along with the Black Panther, was pretty much my childhood comics hero - cause he sleeps, he eats, he defeats some supervillain and goes back to sleep) without Wyatt's whole town being in buckskins and beaded headbands and magick mysticism. And the magick always sucks! Except for Fanny, the magick always sucks!
And I know it's probably just as bad for everybody who's not well and thoroughly straight-white-American-male as far as American comics go. Know what was cool? When there was that translation uncertainty about 'Gunsmith Cats' and Vincent could have been... how pathetic is it of me to like desperately cling to the hope of some action-star or comics hero who connects to my genetics or my culture? Which is, arguably, just plain-and-simple American culture, just a strain or side of it.
Do British comics deal fairly well with their, say, Irish characters or their non-white English ones? Is there a particular strain of Britain that comes of as the standard? Or is it just here in the States that English equals Britain in any kind of fictional set?
I don't really notice a lot of other ethnicities kinda hiding out, though, these days, in the popular eye. I mean, it's not intentional, but it's like there's this urge to dismiss a Native person when they get to be a celeb, so as to deny me the kinda highly racist thrill of a Native Batman (Val Kilmer) or Native pirates (Johnny Depp) or psychotics (Robert Mitchum). Because it's all about me and how I feel; obviously.
And I'm wondering how this filters down to comics, when it could very well filter out, since comics, as a kinda low-wrung entertainment, a cheap medium, should be able to get away with a helluva lot more than films. Maybe.
And I feel a little uncomfortable blindly speculating about other cultural/ethnic groups. So, I'll leave that to others. You others.
Am I paranoid? Racist? On the right track? Missing the point?
Anybody got some confession or query of their own mildly in the same vein?
Oh, and for those keeping up with '52' is Super-Chief as nuts as he appeared to be or has he balanced out and somehow being played straight? |
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