A Sense of Doubt blog post #2059 - Racism and comic books - a vehicle for social change - part three
Today would have been my Mother's 84th birthday.
Tomorrow I have to give a presentation wit a colleague on comic books and racism -- a vehicle for social change.
Here are a lot of my resources.
I have been up at 3 a.m. two days this week.
Long haul, but it's done and it went well. Maybe at some point, I will compose all the text and the slides with images and share them all here.
Meanwhile, it's all I can do to share some stuff.
I have added the journal prompt that I created for my students with links to the text of the presentation and of the slide deck.
More later.
More later.
Don't forget this:
27 DAYS - daily countdown to election day
Here's the announcement of the presentation.
The journal prompt:
VOCAL
https://vocal.media/geeks/comic-heroes-and-racism
STUDENTS CREAT GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE STANFORD UNIVERSITY 2010
COMIC BOOKS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE - DIGITAL LAB NYC - 2015
GOOGLE SEARCH - "racism in comic books"
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2010.07 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1923 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
27 DAYS - daily countdown to election day
Here's the announcement of the presentation.
October 8: Comic Books as a Vehicle for Anti-Racism
Presented by Chris Tower and Abbie Leavens
Like everything else in America, comic books have a history of perpetuating racist stereotypes and fostering implicit bias, and yet since the 1960s, comic books have worked to be a vehicle for social change and currently are trying to be a truly anti-racist art form. What is anti-racism? How can art forms like comic books effect social change?
October 8, 12:00 pm - 12:50 pm (you can log in up to 10 minutes ahead)
Join the Conversation
Join the Conversation
The journal prompt:
EXTRA JOURNAL ENTRY BASED ON THE COMMUNITY CONVERSATION PRESENTATION: COMIC BOOKS - VEHICLE FOR CHANGE - ANTI-RACISM
For this journal entry, reflect on the presentation or even rewatch the recording that I will share here on this page (below) and via class announcement when it’s available as well as the text of presentation itself, which you can find HERE,
and the slide deck, HERE.
If you did not attend live, to do this journal entry, you have to watch and review the materials.
Start the journal entry with two parts of the presentation that struck you and explain why. Did you learn something that you did not know? Something about which you want to learn more? Did some aspect make an emotional impact? Why? Are you inspired to check out some of the graphic novels mentioned?
After describing at least two parts that impacted you in some way and explaining how and why (more is okay, too), conclude your entry with an overall impression of the presentation and your reaction to it.
No set length requirement for all of that, but you can imagine it may expand over more than a single paragraph.
Thanks for watching and thinking about it!!
This journal entry should use the title I have above underlined and in bold. It should be the last entry in your journal, which means all the required entries should always be written above it.
Thanks.
RECORDING - TBA - STAY TUNED
https://sensedoubt.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-sense-of-doubt-blog-post-1393-bechdel.html
VOCAL
https://vocal.media/geeks/comic-heroes-and-racism
Historically, there has been a dearth of black superheroes in major comic book companies since their advent and it is only recently that Black characters have been written with any kind of depth at all at either of the major publishers.
It has only been within the last 25 years that an African American owned comic book publishing company has even made inroads into the game with Milestone Comics, creator of such characters as Icon and Static Shock.
Older comic book fans can recall the hackneyed manner in which both Black superheroes and villains were created back in the day and the condescending manner in which they were named. Black Vulcan, Black Lightning, Black Manta, Black this and Black that…and we know we weren’t alone in our surprise that Black Widow was a red-headed Russian spy upon her debut in Tales of Suspense #52 in 1964.
Even though Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were likely two of the most woke white folk around 70 years ago, many other publishers and editors still relied on the same ol’ same ol’.
ALSO GOOGLE SEARCH - "comic books for social change"
Panelists discuss the importance of comics in today's turbulent political landscape and how comics authors and illustrators can foster social change both by creating work that gives underrepresented communities a voice and bring new diverse talent into the spotlight as well as by using their influence to shake up the culture and norms of the literary world. Thi Bui (THE BEST WE COULD DO), John Jennings and Damian Duffy (KINDRED: A GRAPHIC NOVEL ADAPTATION), Rachel Ignotofsky (WOMEN IN SCIENCE), Kate Schatz (RAD WOMEN WORLDWIDE), and Miriam Klein Stahl (RAD WOMEN WORLDWIDE) share their ideals with Dr. Travis Langley (WONDER WOMAN PSYCHOLOGY: LASSOING THE TRUTH). Sign up for the Penguin Random House newsletter to get more videos and book news: http://bit.ly/1QThDZ Thi Bui's writing: http://www.thibui.com John Jennings and Damian Duffy's work: http://damianduffy.net Rachel Ignotofsky's writing: http://bit.ly/29Gglc5 Kate Schatz's writing: http://bit.ly/2tuoWqU Miriam Klein Stahl's writing: http://bit.ly/2tk3m4t Dr. Travis Langley's writing: http://bit.ly/2voI1bE
COMIC BOOK AS A FORCE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE - SAN DIEGO COMIC CON - 2017
STUDENTS CREAT GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE STANFORD UNIVERSITY 2010
Stanford students collaborate in "comics journalism" -- producing books on contemporary social issues. This year's book, Pika-Don, tells the story of the man who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. News story: "Stanford class creates graphic novels, from concept to finished books" http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/oc... Stanford University: http://www.stanford.edu/
COMIC BOOKS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE - DIGITAL LAB NYC - 2015
We held a “Digital Comics for Social Change” LAB at Art and Design High School in New York City to develop the model and curriculum for students and teachers to use to implement this simple and impactful workshop in their communities. Students worked with an experienced comic book artist and mentor to script, design, color, and layout a comic book before turning it into animated GIFs using Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker and augmented reality pages using Blippar’s free AR software and APP. The teaching artists were comic book artists Ivan Velez, George Zavala, and technologist Ram Devineni. The sessions were run by City Lore through the support of the HIVE Digital Media Learning Fund in the New York Community Trust.
A Culture of New Racism in Comics
By Whitney Hunt
New Racism Ideology In the USA
Whiteness is an enduring construct of privilege and power that systematically shapes and maintains racial inequality, resulting in a hierarchal system of oppression toward people of color (Feagin & Elias 2013). Systematic racism requires generations of people reproducing racist institutions and the white racial framings that support them (Feagin 2013). According to Feagin (2013), the white racial frame is a broad concept encompassing racist practices, imagery and discourse throughout US society shaped by and for the primary benefit of individuals considered white by society. In all eras of American history, manifestations of racism contain the ideological underpinning that justifies racial inequality. Moreover, the societal grip of white racial framing underscores the gross reality that America’s racist foundations are regularly unacknowledged (Feagin 2014; Bonilla-Silva 2017).
When matters of white racism are overlooked or ignored, the issue is forgotten among most whites. Feagin (17) emphasizes that “the collective memory of racism also involves a collective forgetting” and underscores research finding older white Americans recalling the Jim Crow era as a time of peace and equality between races. After slavery became illegal and before the civil rights movement, Jim Crow laws legalized ‘separate but equal’ realities of segregation. These laws personified a system of racial inequality barring black Americans from voting and owning land, deliberately blocking every opportunity to intermingle throughout legal, political or social settings in American society (Feagin 2013; Bonilla-Silva 2017). To some, the end of the Jim Crow era represented the end of racism. Race scholars argue this thinking has only produced an emerging ‘new racism’ since the late 1960s (Bonilla-Silva 2017).
New racism necessitates subtle, more clandestine strategies that continue to preserve white dominance in society; in other words, undercover forms of racism are replacing traditional and explicit forms. Beyond white racial framing, dominant ideologies of new racism subsume a variety of interrelated concepts that include racial apathy and colorblindness. Apathy and indifference toward racial inequality generally means ‘to not care’, ‘pay attention’ or ‘know about’ ongoing racial inequality. Avoiding racial conversations sustains ignorance and indifference, further cementing new racist ideology. Racism, in this way, is surreptitiously preserved, becoming more firmly embedded within society, broadening systemic issues of inequality. Thus, ignorance and indifference reproduce racial inequality and, as a form of contemporary racial prejudice, racial apathy is an extension of colorblind racism. Scholars (Bonilla-Silva 2015; Jacobson 2015; Mueller 2017) generally describe colorblind discourse as the way people enact colorblind logic through language and text. Whites and nonwhites draw on colorblind frames to make seemingly non-racial claims about what is, in fact, irrefutable evidence of racial inequality. Bonilla-Silva (2015: 119) further emphasizes the media’s role in exploiting racial stories, only to reframe and reconstruct them in ways that validate racial angst.
Pop culture and mass media representations are mechanisms that enable larger issues of systematic racism to develop the utility and ideology of new racism. For example, Jacobson (2015) examines how race, class and gender projects overlap and finds participants generate racially constructed selves from the standpoint of a white racial frame using colorblind language and logic. “By using the white racial frame and colorblindness, participants discuss consequences of systematic racism without recognizing the intentional structural organization of social groups” (Jacobson 847). Furthermore, Jacobson (2015) finds participants assume a low socioeconomic status to explain why more black and latina women appear in hip hop videos compared to white women. These findings explicate the social consequences of white racial framings and colorblindness and how they are transmitted and internalized regularly throughout pop culture media. Feagin (92) refers to this kind of response as ‘social alexithymia’, or “the inability of whites to understand where African Americans and other Americans of color are coming from and what their experiences are like.”
New Racism Ideology & Marvel Fans
Historically, comic books have been a cultural space dominated by white, masculine characters and audiences, leaving narratives for women and minority characters as significantly underrepresented or portrayed in stereotypical contexts (Hall & Lucal 1999; Singer 2002; Davis 2013). More recently, comic book narratives are being adapted into film and television series, propelling the subculture into mainstream pop culture. Moving into mainstream media has encouraged traditionally underrepresented voices to become more prominent in the world of comic books, as women and people of color have been creating and consuming comics at an increasing rate. However, traditional leaders in comic books, Marvel and DC have been slow to diversify their characters and creators and have been subject to substantial criticism for maintaining the dominance of white male characters. Considering the wider societal context of racial representation throughout pop culture and mainstream media, I set out to research how fans of comic book culture discuss the way Marvel films depict superhero characters. Employing a qualitative content analysis of an online forum tailored to comic book culture and superhero movies, my research explores how fans of Marvel comics negotiate their continued fandom amidst claims that the comic book industry is discriminatory towards people of color.
Framings of new racism illuminate a racial hierarchy palpable through the way framings are normalizing perceptions of white dominance. My findings are commensurate with the new racism canon of literature and reveal fan perceptions of diversity are constructed by implementing a white, racially framed perspective to explain both white dominance and overwhelming absence of women and characters of color in Marvel films. Themes of new racism throughout forum discussions implied that only overt racial content suggests race/racism matters. Despite craving more diverse comic book movies and characters, most discussions reverted to maintaining a character’s origin story, even if that means character roles remain white and male. Pop culture consumers frequently adopt frames of new racism to make sense of media content that is predominantly white (Feagin 2013, Jacobson 2015, Mueller 2017). Fans not only rely on the use of white racial framings to account for a lack of diversity, but also to explain continued expressions of white dominance occurring throughout pop culture media. Accordingly, it is through the lens of white racial framing by which fans both reinforce and normalize white dominance in media and pop culture contexts, frequently asserting that the fan base is and will remain, predominately white and male.
New Racism Ideology & Marvel Films
Representations of race are producing new and more subtle forms of racism. Historically, comics and film have exhibited ways that reflected overt racism and sexism of the past. The recent surge in Marvel superhero films are a pop culture phenomenon that has been highly criticized for a lack of equal character representation on screen. White men are still considered as the primary consumers, creators and central characters throughout the genre; neglecting women and characters of color or casting them as the perpetual sidekick or hypersexualized love interest (Singer 2002; Wolf-Meyer 2003; Davis 2013). Fan discussions collectively concur that film companies, like Marvel, are primarily profit driven, leaving women and characters of color for secondary roles because it would simply be bad for business. Yet, fan perceptions are inconsistent with independent market research, as young women are predicted as the fastest growing demographic of comics (Pantozzi 2014). Furthermore, Marvel comic book films are slated for release through 2028 and beyond, however, these adaptations continue offering representations that do not match up to their changing demographics (Keyes 2014). Women and people of color are more likely to go to the movies, are purchasing comic books more than ever before and are just as likely to attend comic conventions (Comichron 2016). However, male characters outnumber women 9 to 1 at both Marvel and DC franchises and an estimated 79% of comic creators are white (Hickey 2014).
In April of 2017, The Federalist, a conservative web magazine, released an edgy piece that politicized issues of character diversity and argued that political correctness is causing Marvel to lose money. The editorial further claimed that creativity would continue to decline unless there was an increase in Christian values and a decrease in “extreme leftist” values staff in Marvel’s writing room. To defend these claims, the author cited a trade magazine’s interview with Marvel’s vice-president of sales, David Gabriel, who declared that fans did not want more diversity or female characters (Del Arroz 2017). What is not explained in the article is that the author misquoted the VP of sales. Gabriel went on to say that the numbers indicated a lower interest in some of the more diverse films but that that did not necessarily match up with fan desires and that Marvel would therefore continue to promote diversity in film (Griepp 2017). The conservative argument was effectively using underhanded strategies to generate and spin conflict against diversity in comic films. Not long after the film adaptation of Marvel’s Black Panther hit a number of records at the box office, IndieWire (2018) released an article with the headline: “Marvel Movies Are Now ‘Required’ to ‘Reflect the World in Which They Are Made’.” According to Marvel Studios president, Kevin Feige, proof of increased diversity lies not only in the blockbuster success of Black Panther, but also in the talent behind the camera. Feige asserts that most of the Marvel creators are limited to the collaborative imaginations of filmmakers and because conversations about increased diversity throughout the industry are beginning to produce results, Feige subsequently yields to the success of the African-American-directed Marvel film Black Panther, as the driving force to continue creating stories with “diverse talent.” (Erbland 2018) Moreover, Marvel will continue the pace of increasing diverse roles with Captain Marvel, expected to be released in 2019 and is “Marvel’s first film focused on a Superheroine.” (Erbland 2018) Furthermore, Feige claims that this project marks the first time a woman has been involved in the directing process. Working as a co-director alongside Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden is the first woman behind the camera for Marvel. While this may be a major milestone for Marvel, it is a small step for mainstream millennial fans, as they make up most of the movie-going audience and are on track as the most educated, multicultural and liberal of any generation to date (Pyles 2013; Gao 2016; MPAA 2016; Milkmen 2017).
Whitney Hunt is a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant in the department of sociology at Wayne State University Detroit, MI, USA. Her research interests include inequality of race/ethnicity, sex/gender and class, socialization, media representations and transmedia. This guest piece briefly talks about her recent research, which is forthcoming this year in Media, Culture & Society.
WORKS CITED
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. “The Structure of Racism in Color-Blind, ‘Post-Racial’ America.” American Behavioral Scientist 2015, pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.1177/0002764215586826.
—. Racism Without Racists: Colorblind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.
Davis, Rebecca. “Fighting Like a Girl: Gendered Language in Superhero Comics.” Griffith Working Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communications, vol. 6, n. 1, 2013, pp. 28-36.
Feagin, Joe. The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Framing and Counter-Framing, New York, Taylor & Francis, 2013.
Feagin, Joe & Elias, Sean. “Rethinking Racial Formation Theory: A Systemic Racism Critique.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 36, n. 6, 2013, pp. 931-960.
Gao, George. “Biggest Share of Whites in U.S. are Boomers but for Minority Groups It’s Millennials or Younger.” Pew Research Center, 7 July 2016, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/07/biggest-share-of-whites-in-u-s-are-boomers-but-for-minority-groups-its-millennials-or-younger/. Accessed 5 November 2017.
Hall, Kelley J, & Lucal, Betsy. “Tapping into Parallel Universes: Using Superhero Comic Books in Sociology Course.” Teaching Sociology, vol. 27, n. 1, 1999, pp. 60-66.
Hickey, Walt. “Comic Books Are Still Made by Men, For Men and About Men.” FiveThirtyEight, 13 October 2014, http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/women-in-comic-books/. Accessed 15 October 2017.
Jacobson, Ginger. “Racial Formation Theory and Systematic Racism in Hip-Hop Fans’ Perceptions.” Sociological Forum, vol. 30, n. 3, 2015, pp. 832-851.
Keyes, Rob. “Marvel Studios Has Mapped Out Films All the Way to 2028.” Screen Rant, 3 April 2014, https://screenrant.com/marvel-studios-movies-schedule-releases-2028/. Accessed 13 September 2017.
Milkman, Ruth. “A New Political Generation: Millennials and the Post-2008 Wave of Protest.” American Sociological Review, vol 82, n. 1, 2017, pp. 1-31.
MPAA. “MPAA Market Statistics.” Motion Picture Association of America, March 2016, https://www.mpaa.org. Accessed 30 October 2017.
Pantozzi, Jill. “Young Women Are the Fastest Growing Demographic According to New Comics Retailer Survey.” The Mary Sue, 21 April 2014, https://www.themarysue.com/young-women-comic-demographic growing/. Accessed 30 October 2017.
Pyles, Chistine. “It’s No Joke: Comics and Collection Development.” Public Libraries Online, 25 February 2013, http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/02/its-no-joke-comics-and-collection-development/. Accessed 8 November 2017.
Singer, Marc. “Black Skins and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race.” African American Review, vol. 36, n. 1, 2002, pp. 107-119.
“Vital Statistics.” Comichron, 2016, http://www.comichron.com/vitalstatistics.html. Accessed 5 November 2017.
Wolf-Meyer, Matthew. “The World Ozymandias Made: Utopias in the Superhero Comic, Subculture, and the Conservation of Difference.” Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 36, n. 3, 2003, pp. 497-517.
GOOGLE SEARCH - "racism in comic books"
Search Results
Web results
Apr 17, 2018 - Comics might be the epitome of diversity today but some of your favorite superheroes—from Superman and Batman to Captaim America—had ...
Black people have loved comic books since the advent of the genre, but that once meant it was certain to read a racist troupe or stereotype.
It was a casual time, so comic book racism was also pretty casual. ... Here are fifteen times that superhero comics were ridiculously racist. Unfortunately, you may ...
In the 1950s the portrayal of a black man in a position of authority and a discussion of racism in a comic was at the centre of a battle between Entertaining Comics editor William Gaines and the Comics Code Authority, which had been set up in 1954 to self regulate the content of US comics amid fears they were a ...
by W Hunt - Related articles
Sep 17, 2018 - New Racism Ideology & Marvel Fans. Historically, comic books have been a cultural space dominated by white, masculine characters and ...
Comic books—surprise, surprise—are a direct reflection of our social thinking, racial tolerance, and political climate. Try reading a comic book from 1933 and see ...
May 29, 2019 - Like all forms of populist art, comic books have had the unwanted fate of growing up in front of our eyes, constantly shedding its skin and ...
Nov 14, 2018 - ... was still heavy," said the 27-year-old New Yorker who credits Lee with influencing her to become a graphic designer and comic book artist.
Nov 12, 2018 - Stan Lee spent a lifetime condemning racism and hatred, including via the heroes in his comic books. Lee, the founder of Marvel Comics, died ...
Jan 11, 2014 - This touched off a conversation about race in comic book worlds, and ... intended or not, is a book that is about racism, bigotry and prejudice.".
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2010.07 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1923 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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