Monday Recap (Monstress)

REMEMBER that the Short Paper and Presentation are both due Tomorrow (Tuesday)! The paper isn't due until 5pm, but the presentation is either due in class or on the Flipgrid site by class time. I'm happy to play the Flipgrid presentation for the class if you don't mind, but if you would rather only me see it, just let me know. 

In today's class, we discussed what made Monstress, a comic from Image Comics, different from the works we read by Marvel and DC. One of the most obvious aspects was that the comic features almost solely women, and almost all are depicted as Asian, even though it takes place in a fantasy universe. This reflects the author's own struggle to self-identify through her fiction, as she explains in a recent interview:

"I grew up loving epic fantasies, and almost all of them were written by white men. With white, mostly male, casts. When you’re a kid, you don’t always think about what that means, but you do as you get older. I was deeply immersed in Chinese culture in my community and my family growing up, so how come when I was writing fiction as a kid, all my stories were about white people? Even though my personal life was incredibly diverse, my imaginary life was very white.”

The book also reminds us that superheroes (or comics, for that matter) are not a genre unto themselves. Rather, they are an approach that leads to many different possible genres: fantasy, science fiction, action-adventure, horror, romance, etc. Monstress uses typical world building and tropes from fantasy novels, as people familiar with Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and others will recognize. What makes the comic unique is how it expresses the familiar characters and tropes through the medium of comics, and how this challenges and expands our perceptions of the genre.  

After the break, we also looked at the historical representations of race and diversity in comics--or rather, the utter lack of it. Initially, racial minorities were always employed as villains: the Japanese in WWII, and later, the Chinese as evil communists (both Captain America and Wonder Women fought them). African Americans were depicted as humorous, buffoonish caricatures, and were often depicted in blackface (a white person wearing black makeup), since this was part of many white comedians' routines. By the late 60's, however, comics were starting to realize that many of their money came from urban readers who were not white Americans. 

To appeal to these readers, Marvel especially created lines of comics featuring diverse protagonists such as Falcon, Black Panther, and Shang-Chi. Though they relied heavily on stereotypes even here ("The Fortune Cookie Spells Death!"), it was at least a way to allow minorities to see themselves mirrored, at last, in their favorite comics. And you probably remember DC's disastrous attempt at racial awareness in the comic, Lois Lane: Superman's Girlfriend (at left). Yikes! 

Today, we have greater representation and much more true diversity, as we no longer simply have white writers and artists showcasing their idea of blackness, etc. Now, some of the leading African-American, Latino, Asian, Muslim, and queer writers are creating their own heroes on their own terms. The question is, are they simply superheroes and part of their respective universes, or will they continue to be seen as a subclass of hero, something that supplements the 'real' teams and heroes.