Prepare for me to be a little hyperbolic with this post because I don't think there is any other way around it when you are talking about generalities. Lately, in the world of Marvel's comic books, people have been in an uproar as the big name characters have been slowly getting replaced with new counterparts. People are in an uproar over this because they feel that these characters are simply there for the sake of diversity and to cater to those SJWs(social justice warriors or people they feel are trying to be too politically and accepting of everyone in an unrealistic and unrelatable way). They feel like they are losing their favorite characters and some long time fans are jumping the ship because of this. I can't really say that I agree.
I admit I don't really read a whole lot of comics, but I do love to watch and read about a lot of comic history. I really don't say that I agree with this because most comic book superheroes are power fantasies for people who don't really have a lot of power, to begin with. Superman is the immigrant who moves to the big cities and cleans up the town with his work. Captain America can be seen as the ultimate expression of growing old and not understanding the world anymore. Iron man can be seen as money not solving all our problems, as he as had problems with alcoholism. The hulk has dealt with abuse as a kid. Spiderman deals with a lot of the problems young adults face, like juggling a social life, getting money, drug abuse, and just dealing with the day to day problems.
They are social justice warriors and that what makes them relatable. The X-men are one of the biggest examples of this. Professor X and Magneto are based on Martian Luther King and Malcolm X respectively. The Xmen themselves are a stand in for any marginalized or a put-down group of people. They live in a world where people don't accept them and it is their literal mission to change that world-view.You can even see this in the movies as there are allusions to the struggles of both homosexual people and the struggles of civil rights groups in the 60s and 70s.
The only legitimate backlash I've actually seen is that their worries that if the sales tank when some of their old fans start to leave and then marvel will flip the other way and completely abandon many of the diverse characters, they are just negating interest in their books both because of this.While I could see that kind of thing happening, I don't think that is gonna be a big of an issue as people think. Comics do that all the time, comics continually add characters and then have massive events to kill off the characters they don't sell or aren't popular. I can only see that happening again. This also ignores the movies, that have versions of those original characters (at least for now) and where most of these companies are making their money at the moment.
I don't think people are fighting against social justice warriors, and I think that term is a little undescriptive of what people are actually having issues with. The aren't against social justice, they are against people they don't feel are genuine and are fake people who simply want to be on the moral or ethical high ground or in essence trying to decry privilege by giving themselves a different form of privilege. Now I think that is a bit of an overgeneralization because at the same time I don't feel like its coming from a place of hate or they are trying to put themselves above others, I think it's the opposite. In this case, I feel that what it is is a massive understanding between the two groups of people. People who feel that everyone is equally oppressed and people who feel they aren't, but want to protect those who are. I don't really feel that there is a clear-cut answer on how to deal with that, but what I would at lease like to see is more accurate descriptions of what people are actually having issues with.
Stay nerdy my beautiful friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment