Okay…
Hopefully this doesn’t come off as insensitive or controversial or anything, because I definitely don’t mean it to be. I’m just asking a question that’s been bugging me a while, and I truly want to understand.
I understand that comics were originally made primarily by young white men (with very few exceptions), and whether intentional or not, they were targeted toward a young white male audience. One would argue that, while strides are being made, to a great extent, they still are.
I understand that it’s important for some readers to see characters that look like them. It’s an empowerment situation, kind of like Whoopi Goldberg’s decision to work with Gene Roddenberry.
Where my question truly comes in, I guess, has to do with the “orientation” type stuff that’s become such a big deal these days. I’ll admit up front that I’m at least getting “old.” I don’t understand all the splintering that’s happened with sexuality of late.
How important is it for us to know the preferences of the characters? Does it affect their ability to perform the duties they’ve set out to perform? Or is it mainly just that it might make the person they’re most concerned with endangering different than the historic traditional? And another: For those characters who’ve been tagged “bisexual,” why is it the only people they’re partnered with happen to be their own sex? Or is it all just like the Whoopi thing: it helps to know there are people like me?
I’ve probably worded this ALL wrong, and I’m afraid it will be taken as a criticism of “non-binary identification,” which is not what I’m intending here. I’m not looking for a flame war here, which is against the board’s guidelines anyhow; like I said, I’m just trying to wrap my brain around it all…
And as always, if this is an inappropriate topic, I’ll gladly take it down.
Here goes…