So apparently superheroes are racist

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So apparently superheroes are racist

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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Biggest superhero franchise now has, what, a smarmy ass personification of Lockheed Martin and tech startups with the character flaw of Cool and Funny Substance Addiction, a roided out poster boy for benevolent US interventionism straight out o the Teddy Roosevelt era, a masculine deity from Norse mythology which is a favorite source of appropriation by certain folks who love all the runes and thunderbolts and shit ;) , the most benign apolitical representative of this group would be the cautionary tragedy of atomic science... so while in themselves, superheroes are a modernization of the ancient ass macho myth-hero archetype and aren't inherently racist, we can see how this crosses over with nationalism. Popular culture manifests attributes of the rest of that culture and society, so depending on what KIND of culture and society the work is coming from... things might get messy. I mean, shit, even with standard sci-fi the US examples are all just filled with Blandy McBlanderson, Sergeteanant at the Astro Space Smarmy Spacefy, receiving orders from Commanderalissimo Rock Ironbeef to freedomize the crap out of the Vietrachnids on the Nang System or whatever while reminiscing about the golly gee lifestyle in Sweet Home Futurelabama or whatever.

I didn't read the linked articles because I'm sure what I wrote is better. 8)

(Man a real life equivalent of the Avengers would be Steve Jobs in DARPA armor, working with a vibranium-shield-equpped US Army-recruited BROCK LESNAR... and, I don't know who the heck Thor would be, some HEMA-enthusiast rune-tattooed Scandinavian metal head of worrisome ideology? Hulk can be Jimmy Carter, who did help clean up Three Mile Island! :D )
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by K. A. Pital »

It's not wrong by much.

The genre itself is militaristic and even fascistic. It relies on a cult of personality and the concept of a superhuman (funny that Cap America was a supersoldier created through experiments to fight Nazis...).

That it would fall into the typical nationalist and racist tropes is very much expected.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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K. A. Pital wrote:(funny that Cap America was a supersoldier created through experiments to fight Nazis...).
Wasn't part of the point of that (and Superman for that matter) specifically that Jewish writers and artists decided to create characters that mocked the concept of a Nazi superman by making literal supermen who fought for justice and democracy and freedom and generally were as anti-Nazi as possible?
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Simon_Jester »

K. A. Pital wrote:It's not wrong by much.

The genre itself is militaristic and even fascistic. It relies on a cult of personality and the concept of a superhuman (funny that Cap America was a supersoldier created through experiments to fight Nazis...).

That it would fall into the typical nationalist and racist tropes is very much expected.
Would you mind providing a precise, clear definition of "fascistic" and explain precisely how the superhero genre fits that definition?

I'm on a George Orwell kick lately, and he was a big fan of the idea that words have meanings. "Fascist" is a word whose abuse he particularly disliked.
Ralin wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:(funny that Cap America was a supersoldier created through experiments to fight Nazis...).
Wasn't part of the point of that (and Superman for that matter) specifically that Jewish writers and artists decided to create characters that mocked the concept of a Nazi superman by making literal supermen who fought for justice and democracy and freedom and generally were as anti-Nazi as possible?
Very much this. For that matter, the (fictional) Superman even managed to defeat the (real) Ku Klux Klan, utterly humiliating and neutralizing it with a handful of radio shows.

Since then, we've seen superhero fiction used as a tool to explore the effects of racism, alienation, bigotry against various alternative lifestyles, and so on. It is not a uniform tool of oppression.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Ralin wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:(funny that Cap America was a supersoldier created through experiments to fight Nazis...).
Wasn't part of the point of that (and Superman for that matter) specifically that Jewish writers and artists decided to create characters that mocked the concept of a Nazi superman by making literal supermen who fought for justice and democracy and freedom and generally were as anti-Nazi as possible?
Superman was initially created as a Nazi Übermensch villain, and these roots are pretty much impossible to erase. They're organic in the character design. He is a superhuman, a man of action in no ways bound by human law, the ultimate fascist ideal of man.

On Captain America, I really don't know.
Simon wrote:Would you mind providing a precise, clear definition of "fascistic" and explain precisely how the superhero genre fits that definition?

I'm on a George Orwell kick lately, and he was a big fan of the idea that words have meanings. "Fascist" is a word whose abuse he particularly disliked.
I will explain a bit further, but here's some interesting reading on the matter, until I have more time to elaborate on the fascist ideal of man:

https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/1 ... scist-man/
Last edited by K. A. Pital on 2017-05-07 04:33am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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K. A. Pital wrote: Superman was initially created as a Nazi Übermensch villain, and these roots are pretty much impossible to erase.
...What?
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by K. A. Pital »

Ralin wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote: Superman was initially created as a Nazi Übermensch villain, and these roots are pretty much impossible to erase.
...What?
You did not know?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reign_of_the_Superman

Telling, as this is a story from 1933.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Shroom Man 777 wrote: I didn't read the linked articles because I'm sure what I wrote is better. 8)

(Man a real life equivalent of the Avengers would be Steve Jobs in DARPA armor, working with a vibranium-shield-equpped US Army-recruited BROCK LESNAR... and, I don't know who the heck Thor would be, some HEMA-enthusiast rune-tattooed Scandinavian metal head of worrisome ideology? Hulk can be Jimmy Carter, who did help clean up Three Mile Island! :D )
The first article is ridiculously long and I would rather someone like the OP summarise it. The second one I skim read and it could boil down to white people like heroes to be like themselves, without needing to go along with such rhetoric which made it hard to understand.

BTW - Steve Jobs is Syrian. He was adopted by the Jobs family, but his biological father is Syrian.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Joun_Lord »

I would not say superheroes are intrinsically racist though there certainly is a some racial and racist problems related to the genre. It is very much a white male power fantasy thanks to comic books having been forever viewed as just the thing of white male fatty nerds. Even today where comic book movies are big business and comics themselves are a billion dollar industry not even counting merchandise its still seen as solely the realm of white guys. Thus comic book creators aim their products to what they believe is their audience and what they believe their audience wants. They labor under the mistaken belief that its just white guys reading comics and said white guys only want to read Liefeldian power fantasies with giant muscle dudes with more pouches then a herd of kangaroos and practically pornographic women to the point sometimes poses are copied from actual porn.

Some people point to how poorly some female led (either behind the scenes or as characters) comics performing poorly as evidence. One has to wonder if its true whether its the result of publishers just not giving enough love to female led comics or fans really not wanting female led comics. Either selling them short because of some expectation of them performing poorly and creating a scenario where they will definitely perform badly or just putting in bad talent that either has an agenda (certainly some of the male writers who seem determined to turn beloved female superheros like Wonder Woman and Starfire into nothing more then sex objects has some fucked up agenda) or can't write for shit.

Its supposed to be the same with minority heroes, they are said to not sell as well. Accusations of forced diversity that comic fans just don't want. But again, if true is it because fans don't want diverse heroes or is it comic book creators THINKING fans don't want diverse comics and hobbling the diverse comics thus making fans not want them because they are garbage? Personally I think most comic fans male or female and no matter the race will read a comic book as long as its good........if they know about it.

Which leads into another problem, popular established superheroes tend to be predominately white men. The Superman, the Batman, the Spiderman, the Wolverineman, and so on have been around for many many decades and come from a time when readers were seen as (and possibly were) only white males and the roster was similar. The fact they are white men is not really racist or sexist I don't think but the fact they are such long established and extremely popular characters can certainly create problems for attempts at diversity. Peter Parker is always going to overshadow Miles Morales, Steve Rodgers Nazi or not is going to be seen as the definitive Captain America even though Sam Wilson is fantastic Cap, Batman will always be more popular then Batwoman. When it comes down to it alot of people when making the choice between an established popular character and a less established character will choose the more established character regardless of sex or race but again most of the long established characters are white men.

Marvel has tried to do a work around by replacing old characters with new one like the aforementioned Sam Wilson Captain America, Jane Foster Thor, Amadeus Cho Hulk, Riri Williams Iron Man (though she didn't take the Iron Man name I don't think, just starred in the Iron Man comics). Creates its own problem though by seemingly implying more diverse superheroes can only work by reusing existing superhero concepts, that they cannot stand on their own. To a degree its probably true though as I explained about I don't think its because they are diverse but because they are new trying to compete against established characters. Even white replacements characters I bet take awhile to get popular even using existing properties such as with Green Lantern.

But are superheroes as a concept racist? No but there is racist concepts in the genre. National, racial, cultural, and sexual stereotypes all are used to pad out comics. There is the women in fridge syndrome that treats women like objects to motivate other heroes. The downright racist depictions of some races and cultures. Appalling depictions of homosexuality and rape of all kinds.

Comics have some fucking problems to be certain but I don't think they are automatically racist or whatever. The authors of the linked articles are reaching pretty hard to justify their position that comics are racist liking saying superhuman Steve Rodgers running around normalhuman Sam Wilson is racist. I don't think that has anything to do with race, its fucking superman running around a normal dude, no racial component beyond the obvious fact of their race, thats fucking it. I don't know what else it goes into, like Friendly Guy above I ain't reading all that shit.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

mr friendly guy wrote:
Shroom Man 777 wrote: I didn't read the linked articles because I'm sure what I wrote is better. 8)

(Man a real life equivalent of the Avengers would be Steve Jobs in DARPA armor, working with a vibranium-shield-equpped US Army-recruited BROCK LESNAR... and, I don't know who the heck Thor would be, some HEMA-enthusiast rune-tattooed Scandinavian metal head of worrisome ideology? Hulk can be Jimmy Carter, who did help clean up Three Mile Island! :D )
The first article is ridiculously long and I would rather someone like the OP summarise it. The second one I skim read and it could boil down to white people like heroes to be like themselves, without needing to go along with such rhetoric which made it hard to understand.

BTW - Steve Jobs is Syrian. He was adopted by the Jobs family, but his biological father is Syrian.
My initial draft had Dick Cheney instead of Steve Jobs, but that would've stretched the metaphor too much even though Cheney IS still a war profiteering corporatist...

Hey, Henry Kissinger's also a Jewish refugee... ;)
Simon_Jester wrote:Since then, we've seen superhero fiction used as a tool to explore the effects of racism, alienation, bigotry against various alternative lifestyles, and so on. It is not a uniform tool of oppression.
You know that we're talking about how despite even the noblest origins - heck, the first Rambo was an anti-war meditation on its consequences on the conscripts and how these exploited shits were mistreated by the very power structures they were supposed to patriotically defend... and even the first Dirty Harry movie was sorta cautionary on vigilantism and even Eastwood's American Sniper was actually a cautionary thing... and The Punisher's origins! - ends up being subverted to glorify something they were once or occasionally meant to subvert as you state so well.

We even see this in individuals. Generalissimo Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns was sort of subverting Batman, it wasn't showing him in an entirely good light... but later Miller ended up going full WHORES WHORES WHORES.

It's like militaristic Trekkies that the creatives involved in Trek just shake-my-head at. (Like Kanastrous shitting on milwankers on FB, that was a hoot "turn over your Trekkie badge" :lol: )

Or like, in the future if Stephen Colbert's show ended up becoming used as a non-ironic Tea Party manifesto. :P
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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K. A. Pital wrote:
Ralin wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:Superman was initially created as a Nazi Übermensch villain, and these roots are pretty much impossible to erase.
...What?
You did not know?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reign_of_the_Superman

Telling, as this is a story from 1933.
...You did not know? The character in the story you cite, and the character we now know as "Superman," have absolutely nothing in common, except for the words 'super' and 'man' in the name.

Superman's greatest and most notorious enemy, Lex Luthor, has more in common with the 1933 "Super-Man." At least Lex Luthor is bald and has an exceptionally powerful mind as his sole special ability.

Your argument is as sad and crappy as those who claim that Naziism is a form of communism because Hitler's political party called itself the "National Socialists."
K. A. Pital wrote:
Ralin wrote:
K. A. Pital wrote:(funny that Cap America was a supersoldier created through experiments to fight Nazis...).
Wasn't part of the point of that (and Superman for that matter) specifically that Jewish writers and artists decided to create characters that mocked the concept of a Nazi superman by making literal supermen who fought for justice and democracy and freedom and generally were as anti-Nazi as possible?
Superman was initially created as a Nazi Übermensch villain, and these roots are pretty much impossible to erase. They're organic in the character design. He is a superhuman, a man of action in no ways bound by human law, the ultimate fascist ideal of man.
Is the ultimate fascist ideal of the man a selfless servant of the public who devotes vast amounts of time and energy to defeating those who would violently enslave the public? One who makes no claim to rule or to tell others how to live, except insofar as he protects them from violence and criminality? One who sides with no political action? One who does not demand adulation or even recognition, and in fact actively hides his own identity so that he can go about anonymously doing good in his guise as 'Superman' while still living a normal life as a journalist?

Nietzsche would vomit at the behavior of Clark Kent, 'Superman.'

And in his earliest comics, Superman regularly took on racketeers, large corporations, and the like- organizations that fascists rarely opposed. Throughout his time as a fictional character, his greatest enemy has been the renegade technologist leader of a large, powerful corporation.
On Captain America, I really don't know.
Yes, you really don't. The character of Captain America originated as a sickly American who wanted to fight Naziism by any means possible, even at the risk of his own life through undergoing dangerous experimental medical procedures to make him fit for combat. This origin story never changed. In modern times, the character of Captain America has repeatedly dissented from his own government whenever he felt that this government was behaving in a tyrannical or indecent fashion.

You know nothing, so do not assert that you know something.
Simon wrote:Would you mind providing a precise, clear definition of "fascistic" and explain precisely how the superhero genre fits that definition?

I'm on a George Orwell kick lately, and he was a big fan of the idea that words have meanings. "Fascist" is a word whose abuse he particularly disliked.
I will explain a bit further, but here's some interesting reading on the matter, until I have more time to elaborate on the fascist ideal of man:

https://www.counter-currents.com/2012/1 ... scist-man/
Stas, your argument appears to be that because physical fitness is an ideal revered by fascists, a fictional character of extraordinary physical strength is necessarily fascist. Or that because being 'a man of action' is an ideal revered by fascists, a fictional character that does things is necessarily fascist.

Are you going to argue that because Hitler was a vegetarian, vegetarianism is fascist?

This is why I challenged you to precisely define fascism first, rather than throwing a pile of vaguely related allusions and associations at me.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Superman was made by Jewish refugees or something so in itself he ain't fascist.

But I think certain interpretations of him do become the whole state bootlicker boy scout. Or at least Frank Miller saw it as that and so he said WHORES WHORES WHORES.

Anyway, "superhero" is like Jesus. We see how societies can utterly reverse what they're *supposed* to mean...
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Isn't it a long running issue of the Avengers films that their heroes are inherently superior to others in the same world? The best example being that Black Widow at the end of Winter Soldier basically dares the authorities to arrest her, citing powerful connections. She remains free.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Gandalf wrote:Isn't it a long running issue of the Avengers films that their heroes are inherently superior to others in the same world? The best example being that Black Widow at the end of Winter Soldier basically dares the authorities to arrest her, citing powerful connections. She remains free.
The Netflix heroes are better in this regard. Except Iron Fist. Hilariously enough, if I lived in some Marvel-like universe, by now me and my buddies would've trained DOZENS of lost Western rich kids out to learn martial arts around the world before coming home to FIGHT CRIME. It's gone meta, a friend even trained some American dude who thought Iron Fist was cringey as fuck and like "YOU ARE THE IRON FIST!" and "HARNESS YOUR CHI" and shit became stuff they'd say while training. :lol:
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Wow, that first link, "Figures of Empire: On the Impossibility of Superhero Diversity" was incredibly inaccessibly written. Big blocks of text, lots of metaphor, pauses to put in a full definition from someone else. I do get the impression they're really in love with their own argument, but...

"The superhero is a deceptively simple concept. The reactionary militarism, the thoughtless violence, the binary morality, the unquestioned righteousness, the colonial sociology — all of the superhero genre’s boyish charm reinforces the Western imperialist impulse to control, to order, to rule. "

That's a very reductionist statement, and pretty much ignores just how much of superhero stories involve thinking about violence, criticizing what they do, questioning their righteousness, etc.. It reads to me like a fairly standard, if extremely overly verbose, condemnation by someone with only limited understanding of the genre or characters and focused more on making an ur-narrative of white-dominated comics without fully examining the history or, as some of comments notes, even really mentioning stories and characters that have most addressed the area, just name-dropping some black heroes (and notably, Storm and Luke Cage are missing from the list of heroes he name-drops, as they, despite being two of the biggest black names in comic, don't fit with his thesis on black characters' personalities) and missing how even with comic's definitely flawed and not equal presentations, the struggle for diversity in comics is not new and has only grown with time, in a wide variety of roles not acknowledged by that piece.

In short, it makes an argument for the lack of diversity in comics by erasing the existing diversity in comics.


Now, the second one, 'Superman is a White Boy,' is much better written. I don't agree with it, but the author is drawing a line between power fantasy and whiteness in a fairly clear and understandable fashion. I do think it overlooks how comics not too rarely serve as a subversive take, but it does make a point how even minority heroes like Miles Morales (sidenote- shows a much better understanding of what's actually happening in comics) are reliant on white fans to survive. I think the importance of that is overly played up and it takes a bit of a reductionist take again, but not to the same extreme as the first.

And apparently these are written by the same person? Huh, could've fooled me. In any case, I think there's some interesting individual points in the second but all in all they're painting a fairly wide field with a broad brush and tie the notions of heroism itself (not just the makeup of heroes, but the basics of stuff like 'pulling someone from a car before it explodes') to race in a fairly odd connection.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Because of capital or whatever, they will appeal to the common denominator and in the US, well, that's why we see what we see and that's why inclusion is a work in progress over there. That's how markets work. Representation's good but understandably unless the demographic rapidly changes in composition, they have to cater to majority and so that majority... well, the sooner they get their heads around inclusion and get over their hangups or get past the boundaries of their current palate and try something beyond the McMedia they're accustomed to, the better.

It's the same in my country, not in superhero comics but in media in general. Slow-assedly they're eventually getting used to the idea that there are members outside the majority-demographic, from OTHER parts of the country, who exist and who aren't just OOGA BOOGA mountain jungle people.

In my opinion, and I guess I could say that I work with certain forms of media and I'm around people who are total professionals in the local media scene, like... the symbols we use - heroes, archetypal characters, whatever - are just *vessels* and they take up the characteristics we project upon them. So the racism or progressiveness, insularity or inclusionarity, of superheroes or action heroes or PROFESSIONAL WRESTLERS or whatever, is determined by the consumers and the society around it.

It's up to you and up to all of us to make it better and to avoid getting ourselves into a shitshow. As consumers AND creators and both.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by The Romulan Republic »

The superhero genre is not inherently racist, nor fascistic, although it is, currently and historically, dominated by white men in much the same manner that most mainstream media is. That's something I'd like to see change to a more balanced and equitable arrangement.

Implicite to the genre are the questions of what constitutes a "superior" being, what rights and responsibilities they have, as well as the question of when one is justified in taking the law into their own hands. A fascist would present certain answers to those questions, and the genre lends itself to fascist interpretations if one wishes to take it in that direction (I don't), but they are not the only possible answers and interpretations- what approach a given story takes depends on its author, and one can likewise use the superhero genre to present an anti-racist, anti-fascist message.

I would say that the classic superhero (as typified by Superman and Batman) walks a fine line between a libertarian ideal (that of the heroic individual who acts where a corrupt or ineffective government cannot) and a fascist ideal (the "superior" being who rules by might). Those two, supposedly opposite philosophies actually lie quite close together at times. But I would also say that crossing that line is perhaps the main distinction between a classic superhero and a classic super villain (as typified by, say, Lex Luthor).

And of course, the superhero genre has examples of stories explicitly telling an anti-bigotry message, including much of the X-men to take the most obvious example.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Zixinus »

The thing about superhero stories is that they are made to be personifications, symbolization and metaphors of problems and anxieties and so on of modern world personafied by costumed villains doing the nightmares of average people. Evil scientists, ruthless corporations, military corruption, ruthless and sadistic criminals, etc. Name a villain and you can find someone's perspective of the wrong they represent somewhere in popular conciousness.
Then there are heroes, who are often empowered by things that the popular consciousness finds positive like willpower, technology, militarism even (Captain America) or even oddly enough humble characteristics (Superman is a humble farm boy who went into the big city, he a common good man gifted with powers). Then they beat up the villains.

Of course you can read all sorts of implications behind that.They are deliberately dramatic oversimplifications for the catharsis of good values over evil values. It is very easy to read whatever you want in that, just like you can read insane stuff into any children's stories and such. Let's remember that there is a serious book out there that seriously argued that comic books were trying to seduce children to homosexuality. And was taken seriously.

It's very easy to read a lot of things into it, especially as how different characters and settings and so on have been taken by so many different authors over what is now more than a century of comic-making, with some characters being around nearly that long. This is not even getting to the executive meddling and other top-managed artistic decisions that created immense messes.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Simon_Jester »

See, Orwell had some lovely comments about this too. In particular about how toxic it is, when we start analyzing fiction in such a way that we can call a work anything. As in, when the same work can be called "anarcho-libertarian" by one person and "fascist" by another. Given that those two ideologies are in intense conflict with one another on nearly every detail, someone is using a word wrong there. Maybe both people.
Gandalf wrote:Isn't it a long running issue of the Avengers films that their heroes are inherently superior to others in the same world? The best example being that Black Widow at the end of Winter Soldier basically dares the authorities to arrest her, citing powerful connections. She remains free.
The thing is, she does this after committing a massively anti-authoritarian act, exposing a vast international conspiracy dating all the way back to the literal Nazis, or rather to the group of Nazis that got kicked out of the Nazis for being too Nazi and mad-science.

She's not a fascist, she's an anarchist who's friends with the Incredible Hulk. There's a difference.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Simon_Jester wrote:The thing is, she does this after committing a massively anti-authoritarian act, exposing a vast international conspiracy dating all the way back to the literal Nazis, or rather to the group of Nazis that got kicked out of the Nazis for being too Nazi and mad-science.

She's not a fascist, she's an anarchist who's friends with the Incredible Hulk. There's a difference.
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That's not anarchism. That's a superior class of people, immune to the law because of their specialness. It's the SHIELD/Avengers' world, we just live in it and hope that their next wacky project doesn't kill everyone. I guess it was all fine, as not long after Stark builds/flees from/destroys Ultron, he is apparently put in charge of the superhero police.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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Simon_Jester wrote:See, Orwell had some lovely comments about this too. In particular about how toxic it is, when we start analyzing fiction in such a way that we can call a work anything. As in, when the same work can be called "anarcho-libertarian" by one person and "fascist" by another. Given that those two ideologies are in intense conflict with one another on nearly every detail, someone is using a word wrong there. Maybe both people.
I personally think superhero tales are communist-fascist-Muslim-Jew-atheist propaganda myself. :wink: :P
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

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I realized something that bugs me. It assumes that violence and macho militarism is an inherently white trait. He says that Jon Stewart should use his ring to make better housing. That's a temporary solution. It wouldn't address the poverty factor or the institutionalized racism. In the comics he seems to take offense that Cap scuttled the helicarriers and said he should have gotten involved in the political process....when the terrorists of hydra were about to KILL 20 MILLION PEOPLE.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Actually Oliver Queen - Green Arrow - has the exact same criticism for the superheroes ANYWAY! :D

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Image

Y'think the comics that subvert things or address deeper social issues came outta nowhere? They came out precisely because some people actually wanted to do something different with the genre, and one wonders why they thought that in the first place ;)
Darth Yan wrote:It assumes that violence and macho militarism is an inherently white trait.
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Re: So apparently superheroes are racist

Post by Darth Yan »

That's kinda racist in itself. There's a lot of racism but all communities have problems. The problem with James Lamb is that he assumes "if you don't agree with me you aren't really black." That's...shockingly arrogant
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