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Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because society at large has a FANTASTIC track record with minorities. White males aren't over represented at all.Originally Posted by SMHFConvoy
COMPLETELY different to the comic fandom/industry/whatever. How could I even dream of making he comparison???
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
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Oh I see... I used the term, "white males." I apologise for your taking offence ;-)
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Nope society has plenty of problems, but I see comics, places where imagination is king... sticking staunchly to views that are extremely outdated as extremely troubling. Why is it something that speaks so to the disenfranchised so rigid in it's views?
Costumes design is a massive thing, especially for women. It is actually depressing to read how people react to things like Psylocke changing costume, that even, and where cries of "there is equal sexualisation between men and women!" rum rampant as the latest super heroine breaks her spine on the cover. But yeah, these have been a part of comics for so long. Sure. Okay. But because of that there is now a massive push to not change and make sure the straight, white male stays comfortable which is keeping it shrinking. And the creators are trying (sometimes in frustrating hamfisted ways), but they are trying and that's whats weird. The publishers seem to be changing but the fandom is resisting. It's very sad.
Basically: If your comics inspire the "Hawkeye Initiative" you're doing it wrong. Comic fans = great. Comics fandom = Severe problems that are going to prevent industry growth.
(I should probably clarify that I just view fandom as the "total fanbase" including all the crazies, whereas the "fans" are the people I actually read their stuff, would speak to and consider not... troubling.)
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Also if your stuff shows up in the Escher girls tumblr feed you're doing it wrong.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
Huh? I think something got lost in the meaning of my previous post. Life would be so much easier if someone created a sarcasm font.
I wouldn't classify myself as belonging to the comic fandom. The ONLY comics I read are Transformers comics, the last of which I read was Police Action. When it came out. So yeah I know nothing about what happens in comics or the associated discussions. But what you described above are all issues that western society deal with every day.
Disproportionate sexualization of women? Have you watched a Micheal Bay movie lately?
Resistance to change/sticking to outdated views? Gay marriage anyone?
Denial of obvious issues because fixing them is too hard/makes people uncomfortable? Just how long has Climate change taken to get any traction at all in politics?
Any gripe you can come up with about the comic fandom (or any fandom for that matter) will almost certainly have a direct correlation to the society in which it is based.
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
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Back from 2 weeks annual.leave and the place is an absolute mess. Spent 8 hours tidying uo. Yep, loving the fact that nobody gave a crap.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
I think Gouki makes a good point. It's what we call education calls the "hidden curriculum" in literature; i.e. potentially reinforcing certain prejudices, often without the author's intent.
Let's stick with Transformers for example. Is being good or evil a "genetic" thing with Transformers, or is it - as ROTF Jetfire said - "an intensely personal choice"? Because the former makes the Transformers' conflict look like a racial one. That somehow the Autobots are a heroic 'race' of robots, 'genetically' predispositioned to be good, and the Decepticons are the opposite. This is why I'm not a big fan of the "blue eye/red eye" thing in the cartoon and live action films, because it gives the Transformers a sort of robotic physical racial trait... almost like Hitler's idea of the blue-eyed Aryan. I much prefer the original toy line, comics and most other media where eye colour just varied randomly irrespective of faction.
Jetfire is an interesting character because he's demonstrated that being good/evil is a personal choice across different continuities. In the G1 comics, G1 cartoon and live action films he started off as a Decepticon but later became an Autobot (well, maybe not as much in the G1 comics since he was a mindless drone as a Decepticon). I also like characters who walk along the line of being good or evil - characters who are morally ambiguous, like Thundercracker, Grimlock, Carnivac, Octane, Blitzwing etc. The Autobot scientist Flame was one of the first who showed us that an Autobot could be evil, and in the recent IDW comics we see that the ancient Autobots were absolutely cruel, and it was their very own brutal oppression that gave birth to the Decepticons in the first place.
As for humans... that's an interesting take with Transformers too. In G1, both Marvel and Sunbow decided to make the protagonists male, which is understandable considering that Transformers is a toy line primarily marketed at boys - they wanted a young male character for the audience to relate with. But they also decided to make him Caucasian. However, they did do some things to break away from typical stereotypes, such as:
+ Giving the protagonist a non-Anglo surname, "Witwicky", which is more Polish/Ukrainian in origin.
+ They intentionally avoided giving them Judeo-Christian given names, or given names that could be attached to any religion or culture. Buster, Spike, Sparkplug... although Sparkplug's name was revealed to be a nickname, and his actual name was William Irving. And of course, they totally ditched this after Season 2 with the introduction of Daniel Witwicky, a very Judeo-Christian name indeed! Although Season 3 saw the Transformers' adventures spanning across the galaxy, so they were often seen with a myriad of other intelligent alien life forms giving the series a sort of xeno-diversity and not having everything be so "Terran-centric." Although everyone spoke English, surprisingly ('cept Kremzeek!).Oh yeah, there was also Abdul Fakkadi who was such a blatant negative Arab stereotype that it elicited Casey Kasem (himself of Middle Eastern heritage) to quit Transformers.
+ Several minor or secondary characters were shown to be other members of minorities or female, such as Walter Barnett, Charlie Fong, Chip Chase, Carly, Ali, Dr. Fujiyama (even if it's a fake Japanese name
+ In the G1 comics, the Nebulans were shown to be just like humans. And almost all of them were white (and Galen looks like Prince Valiant!), with the sole exceptions of Brisko and Lug (and Lug was only retconned as being black in post-G1 continuity (which works because we never saw him outside of his armour in G1)). The G1 cartoon was actually better in this regard by portraying the Nebulans as being green skinned with different skin lines than humans. They just gotta keep their women away from James T. Kirk.
+ Super God Masterforce showed a range of ethnicities with their human cast. You had...
Ginrai = Japanese (immigrated to US)
Lightfoot = English background, but raised in Canada
Ranger = Canadian
Road King = British
Cab = Karinese, a fictional nationality, but geographically located near the Visayan Islands, so he's probably close to being Filipino. Although arguably with that "savage native" stereotype
Minerva = French-Japanese (although she would only have French citizenship, as the Japanese govt doesn't offer dual citizenship to people who are 'only' maternally Japanese)
Shuuta Gou (Go-Shooter) = Japanese
Bullhorn = Mexican
Cancer = Chinese (though the scene where he returns to China shows a lot of cheesy stereotypes
Wilder = presumably American (or at very least he spent much of his formative years living in the US where he was a member of a motorcycle gang)
No idea what ethnicities the Decepticon Godmasters are meant to be... don't think the show gives any clues whatsoever.
+ In Transformers Victory Star Sabre's adopted son, Jean Minakaze, is half Japanese half French; unlike Minerva, IRL Jean would be entitled to Japanese dual citizenship since he is paternally Japanese. Ya know... if he were actually a real person.
+ The human (near-human?) protagonist Kain (say "Kaah-Een", not "cane"
+ Neo-Knights member and super powered mutant Hector Dialonzo (aka Dynamo) is Mexican.
+ In the G2 comics the Autobots initially interacted with G.I. Joe, who have always been a diverse team of humans.
+ In Beast Wars the only humans we saw were early hominids (pre-homo sapien). Yabba Dabba Doo.
+ Unicron Trilogy: Alexis Thi Dang & Carlos Lopez (even if he is a cheesy Hispanic stereotype
+ Animated: Isaac Sumdac is an Indian-American. Sari is Indian-Cybertronian... complicated!
+ Movieverse: haw haw haw... stereotypes ahoy! Lotsa black stereotypes in the 1st movie (Bobby Bolivia, Glen Whitmann) w/ the Hispanic stereotype in Jorge Figueroa. 2nd movie gave us more Hispanic cheesiness with Leo "I haz kitty calendarz and got tasered in da nuts!" Spitz. DotM gave us the random weird geeky Asian dude w/ Jerry Wang (a Chinese character played by an actor of Korean ancestry... 'kay).
+ TF Prime: I think Prime's been pretty good with showing diversity. Agent Fowler's African American, Raf is Hispanic and Miko is Japanese (and as stupidly annoying as she is, it's not due to any cheesy racial stereotypes (in fact, apparently she's a popular character in Japan)). I like how Raf's mother speaks with a Hispanic accent, showing some level of linguistic diversity too. I'd love to see an episode where Raf and his mother briefly speak to each other in Spanish, or if Miko ever communicated with her family in Japan in Japanese etc.
I think we're also seeing greater diversity in the cast too. In G1 almost all the voice actors were Caucasian men (Semitic Casey Kasem and Leonard Nimoy stand out as exceptions). In TF Animated Bumblebee was voiced by Bumper Robinson, an African-American. In TF Prime we have Kevin Michael Richardson (Bulkhead) who is African-American, George Takei (Alpha Trion) who's of Japanese heritage, Dwayne Johnson (Cliffjumper) who is of African and Samoan heritage, Gina Torres (Airachnid) who is of Cuban heritage, and Sumalee Montano (Arcee) who is of Thai and Filipino heritage.And voice acting is one field where, IMO, we should see a wide range of diversity -- as Neil Kaplan (RiD Optimus Prime) often says, the beauty of voice acting is that it's far less discriminating than live screen acting because it doesn't matter what you look like, you just have to sound like the character that the producers want.
Rank 8 - Deluxe Member
They did. It's called italics!Huh? I think something got lost in the meaning of my previous post. Life would be so much easier if someone created a sarcasm font.
Rank 9 - Board Staff
Not sure if you're saying Italics are the font for sarcasm, or are being sarcastic in suggesting it is the font for sarcasmThey did. It's called italics!
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I usually work late nights (4PM-Midnight or even later) and got asked yesterday to work an early shift on this Friday (530AM-130PM). It just so happens to be that the people that usually work mornings aren't available then and that I conveniently do have the skills to do what is done in the mornings from my previous store.
I stupidly said yes because this was a last minute emergency, but I'm going to make it very clear to the grocery manager (who isn't my boss but has offered me this shift because of his screw-up of not having someone else back it up) that I'm only doing this shift once because working inconsistent hours really screws up my body. And I prefer to work during the night because I'm much more effective worker at night than I am during the day. Always have been.
I'm doing them this favour once and that's it. I just saved this grocery manager's arse and now he owes me. If he tries to get me to work mornings again I will flat out refuse them. And it's not a case of my workplace promising me hours by making me work in other departments, I'm one of the best night workers and am highly sought after in that department and can get all my hours from them.
May sound harsh but I refuse to be stepped on over by other people especially by those that made colossal screw-ups. He should have had someone else back up this shift and not come running to me just because I convenientely had prior skills.
/rant end.
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