I’ve already admitted that some of my questions were phrased poorly. I tried to keep them from being offensive. It’s why I dislike trying to carry on some conversations in text: there’s no nuance, no inflection, no body language to read. All you get is the letters and whatever the reader reads into them.
How should the questions have been asked? How do you feel they should have been phrased? From the some of your responses, it sounds like you’ve been upset by my questions and their admittedly poor wording. I truly apologize if that’s the case. Maybe you feel this was a foolish thread for me to start. That’s perfectly okay. I’ve thought the same thing, but after I hit “Send,” there it was.
I’m not against this. Really, I’m not. It just seems to be happening so quickly, and the rules, from someone not on the inside, seem to change even more quickly, and usually with no explanation as to why or what it means, or how a person is supposed to know what they are. I also know it’s been around from the beginning. It’s just, with the floodgates open, how is a person supposed to not get swept away?
I’m not against inclusion. With the people I’ve known and know, it would be ludicrous, irresponsible and unfeeling to exclude anyone. If people treat me decently, I’ll gladly give them the same respect. The people who infuriate me the most are those who close their minds to options. What a horrifically boring world this would be if everyone was the same.
I really do believe it’s about how representation is handled. For example, Jon Kent… Not many people were fond of the idea that the title of “Superman” is now being carried by a bisexual kid. For a little over 80 years, people loved Superman not only because of how cool he is but because of his standards and values and just how traditional he is. He has that true American value (But is obviously for the world too. That’s why he saves everybody). Clearly, a lot of things have changed drastically and still are to try and fit this confusing era of what people want. What I know is that the oldtimers, the Millenials, and
a small portion of gen z are not happy with this Superman change, because we’re used to the Superman that we grew up with and made us fall in love with the character in the first place. I’m Gen Z (Not very proud of it lol), and I can tell you that after this generation hits a certain amount of years for when the next generation pops in, this is where Jon Kent’s popularity goes up. Why? because this is going to be the Superman that they’ll know and grow up with.
Back to the first part where I say “I really do believe it’s about how representation is handled”. We mainly see Superman as Clark Kent, the OG Superman we’re used to, right? To give that “Superman” title to somebody else that is not like the one we know and is very different causes problems. Some of us know that superheroes (except for films/tv) are sort of on a decline and I don’t know why. I will admit I’ve been a bit slow on reading these newer comics from DC, except for major events and some other titles. Change is hard for everyone and to change a lifelong character or title like “Robin” and suddenly have him come out or give “Superman” to a bisexual kid, I sort of understand why some people have lost interest. I’m not trying to offend anyone or minimize and knock down certain groups, but I have spoken to a lot of people who agree and read some sources online and I feel bad for DC. DC is still doing well, they’re making money, but if they continue to keep these changes up, sadly they’re gonna lose more readers. I feel that the solution for this is to create new characters that fit in with today’s times. Leave the veteran characters alone and create a new generation of heroes and villains that future generations will be happy with, so that way we don’t have to hear different groups of readers say that “There’s not enough representation” vs. the other side who say “Stop making these drastic changes to our characters” and that way nobody has to feel this disappointment (both young and old) or feeling left out of anything.
2020 and the first half of 2021 were probably the best time I’ve ever had being a DC fan. We got Fandome, Stargirl and Superman & Lois, and Swamp Thing. We got the Snydercut and a lot of great titles from DC, but the moment Robin came out as gay, and Superman was replaced by Jon as the core “Man of Steel” and all these other changes to the JL and other various parts of the DCU, I started to slowly not look much into comics (on DC’s end) and only look at titles that involve the OG’s and major events, and a lot of people too. WW84 film is a good example of losing an audience. The movie obviously contained a lot of political themes and you can definitely tell what side Patty Jenkins was on and bothered a lot of people and turned them off from watching WW84 (besides the fact that it didn’t have the same magic as the first film). When you bring politics and social issues to the table, things start to go sideways, because you place this line that divides everybody and it puts them in a position to choose sides. People say “Never bring politics to the dinner table”. You know what happens if you do, so what’s so different with entertainment? WW84 is not the first time this happened. This sort of action and decision-making has taken place many, many times in the past.
Disney is another great example of getting involved in politics and social issues. Disney was just simply meant to create magic, take us on adventures, and just forget this crazy world for a day or a few hours and just not think of anything that’s upsets or divides us. The moment Disney got involved with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, people acted up in protest and everything that has Disney’s name on it has just been a mess. I can say that this has been the worst 2 months Disney has had since they got involved in “Politics”. They’ve been on a painfully long streak of bad luck with…
The “Don’t Say Gay” Bill protesting
Animators mad at Disney for Turning Red going straight to D+ (less money)
Fire broke out at a Little Mermaid attraction
Specifically Disney-themed hand sanitizers are recalled for being containing cancer-causing chemicals.
Child Predators working for Disney (Still more to be discovered)
Texas wants nothing to do with Disney
Minnie Mouse has something “hiding down there” conspiracy
People who’ve recently honeymooned at Disney getting food poisoning (50+ cases) and some Disney Hotels broken into
The company is called out for racism
The Parental TV Council getting on Disney’s back about allowing mature content.
Disney being protested by Christians
The list keeps going. The point is that don’t place yourself in a position where you have to change certain qualities of characters, shows, themes where you know that there’s going to be a group where they protest it and then another group will come in and protest something else and it’ll just keep going and at the end your losing a lot of customers or audiences. The best course of action is to be fair with everyone, leave the old characters and original ideas be, and create new content that makes the other groups happy. You need to divide the number of content and place them in their respective areas that you know that group will be happy with, instead of just changing everything than how it originally was. Because if you just go one direction, you’re gonna lose your long-time fans and the ones willing to spend money on your content, because they’re feeling forgotten.
I probably went a bit off-topic for this lol. But it really does revolve around how representation and equality are handled by companies. I’m probably going to be told to take this down, but keep in mind is not to offend anyone or judge. Entertainment is a form of expression its art, whether it’s film/tv, comics, literature, and so forth, I get it you’re going to express yourself the way you want. But if you’re a big named brand like Disney or WB/DC, whatever, you need to be more careful on how you approach these types of sensitive situations, because somebody is always going to say something that’ll get the attention of others and start a new problem. Thats my take. Too long, I’m sorry.
I do hope everyone realizes that Clark has not been replaced. You can go buy brand new Superman comics starring Clark Kent, and if you think Death of Justice League will lead to Clark leaving shelves for any notable amount of time I have a bridge to sell you, they compared it to the death of superman, the time between the start of the Death of Superman arc and the end of the Reign of the Supermen arc is less than a year. All that has happened is Jon Kent has taken over one of Superman’s two ongoing comic books.
Anyways complaining about legacy characters in DC Comics is laughable and always has been because I don’t see anyone complaining about Hal Jordan and Barry Allen replacing Alan and Jay. Get over it, it happens, they’ve been doing this since 1956, they’ve just never done it for Superman. Or well, they’ve never done it long term because there is still the Reign of the Supermen that had four different all new characters take over the four different Superman titles for several months. DC is doing exactly the same thing they’ve always done, it’s just now they’re doing it with people besides straight white men.
I definitely agree with you on the "Don’t f*** with my Supes/Bats etc. crowd. However, as you say, if it’s done right, there isn’t near so much pushback.
As I’ve admitted various times in the few days I’ve been on this board, I’m egregiously behind in my reading - from any publisher - so I’m mainly seeing a lot of this representation from the outside and experiencing other outside reactions to it. I’m sure once I get around to digging into it, it’ll make more sense to me, within that context, but some of my questions still persist, but I won’t repeat them, because as has been pointed out, some of these characters are newly minted, both from an introduction standpoint as well as a representative one.
As has been directed toward me for starting this, “If you get too squicked about it, put the book down and move on to something else.” I don’t foresee myself quitting comics (I’ve been at it far too long and have invested way too much time and far too many dollars at it), and I have put down books and moved on, but eventually came back to them when my tastes changed (Hellblazer was too weird for me for a while - now I revel in the weird).
And don’t worry about the long post. I tend to get on a roll sometimes and end up going, “Heck, I sure had a lot to say about that.”
Hey there! Hope y’all don’t mind me poking my head in on this one.
I can see that this line of questioning comes from a place of genuine curiosity and isn’t at all carrying intention to be hurtful. I agree that it can be difficult to word things when there’s a lot of unfamiliar ground to cover, so I’d like to assure you it’s alright to present these things respectfully!
I’d like to start here and go backwards:
Admittedly, I’m a bit confused what you mean here by “rules” (and if you feel like clarifying, go right ahead). I’m assuming you might be referring to the way people identify and express their gender/sexuality, and that “how a person is supposed to know what they are” might be referring to you, as the third party, trying to determine how to respectfully approach a person about those topics. I won’t delve too far into it without further clarification on that paragraph to avoid any potential miscommunication on both ends.
Regardless though, there are plenty of resources online that would be useful for educating yourself on matters like these if you fear you can’t approach the topic without sounding disrespectful. The Trevor Project is a great one – there’s plenty of articles/resources there that explain the basics!
(Small piece of advice – try saying it without the quotations. Nonbinary is just a regular ol’ adjective, and throwing the bunny ears around it tends to cast an air of illegitimacy/othering. I do know this is likely not your intention, but just as a heads-up.)
Anyway, the thing about it being “news” is because … well, it is! There’s a particular demographic kept in mind when writing articles related to comic/entertainment media, and in these cases, it’s for people like me – someone in the LGBTQ+ community – and other allies who read it and go “Woohoo, neat!”
(Not joking. I do say that pretty much every time.)
Using the royal “we” here to address those of us in the LGBTQ+ community, we want to see things like this announced because it’s eye-catching and informative; same reason why anyone tunes into the news or reads trending articles. News like this keeps us in the loop of what’s relevant to our interests and brings new readers in who also want to see their own lifestyle reflected in a really cool comic character. A lot of the time there are also some backstory tidbits provided within those articles about why the creator chose to portray this character as x-identity/sexuality – sometimes even because they, themselves, have lived that experience and want to bring more dimension to the characters they’re writing. It’s a personal choice, but also just a matter of pointing to us and saying “I see you, this is for you.”
So not every news article or big announcement about a character’s identity/sexuality is necessarily meant to be a “coming out” of sorts (because that’s more of an actual in-character written thing, where the character themself will choose a time to officially come out, if they’re not already out … it’s their prerogative). More so it’s just a way for creators and writers to introduce that aspect of the character to the world, because while it may not affect their hero duties …
… it does affect their day-to-day life, even if they’re fictional, because that is how it works for us, too.
For all intents and purposes, let’s nip that and say “gender” instead (because yes, there is a crucial difference).
Largely this is done because up until the point where the character either personally comes out as bisexual, or is announced out-of-character as such, they’re sadly presumed to be straight, because that is what registers as the “default” in many peoples’ minds. This can be backed by any number of different-gendered canonical love interests in any given character’s storyline.
Yes, they can still be interested in those people once they’ve come out – but the whole point of coming out, especially in entertainment media, is to get a chance to openly explore the love and relationship between two people of the same gender for that instant.
I mean, usually there’s nothing really all that intentional behind pairing up two characters of the same gender other than to say “hey, these people are romantically interested in one another and that’s gonna become relevant to the story in either a minor or major way”, same way you would with any F/M couple.
But in other cases, yeah sure, it’s more so purposeful to show you how a character might be coming to terms with their own sexuality through exploration, education, and patience with themself (woohoo, character growth!); it’s something new to them (and likely to you as a reader who is unfamiliar with these notions, and whom might not be able to relate to them at all). They might get paired with someone of the same gender to show how that specific experience gets played out in both parties, and how those two people can take those steps and grow together while also falling in love.
And while pairing a character with someone of a different gender – let’s say a man with a woman – doesn’t invalidate their bisexuality, it’s also not really providing the reader with that “new perspective” the creator wants to give you. Yes, that man can fall in love with a woman, and he will still be valid bisexual. But we’ve also seen the typical F/M relationship get played out many-a-time. Not all F/M relationships are the same of course, but it just doesn’t hurt to cast light on a type of relationship many readers aren’t used to seeing.
And on that note, I respectfully add that at the end of the day, these are honestly just our lives. Plain and simple. It feels good to see someone have a similar experience/lifestyle to me in a comic. Sometimes we want to talk about that a lot or make a huge deal about it. It’s the whole reason why Pride exists as a concept; we are proud to see, and be the target demographic of, such things like this in the entertainment industry. It normalizes our existence and helps us get through the day.
It especially makes me happy to see comics taking this turn more openly over the past few years. I can’t tell you what simply having a fictional character be revealed as canonically LGBTQ+ has done for me in the past!
Doesn’t matter if it is “done right” or not. A huge part about being LGBTQ in today’s world is hiding in the closet and choosing whether to come out the closet. That applies to people of almost every country in the world. It’s hard to even describe how to do it ‘right’ because coming out the closet for a lot of people is a pop-up experience for others. And a decent amount of your questions imply you kinda would rather them stay in the closet. Either you need to do some deep digging or you are trying to confirm a bias you already have.
I really can’t think of a single one of the classics who have been benched for a “diverse” character. Maybe Hal Jordan? And he’s not so much benched as out of the spotlight. There have been lots of GLs for decades - it’s baked into the concept.
Other than that - Superman, Batman, WW - all still there. Aquaman is sharing the spotlight I guess but he’s far from gone. Is anyone going to quit reading DC comics because they also feature non-SWM characters alongside the classics? I mean, people can buy or not buy whatever they want, but if you’re “losing interest” because there are gay people in the comics, you’re kinda telling on yourself.
Likewise, the notion that featuring or spotlighting gay or POC characters is political - how? LGBTQ+ people exist in real life - is their existence political? Heteronormativity is a cognitive bias. Having Jon Kent (who is a new character, relatively speaking, and one with little or no established sexual orientation) be bisexual isn’t any more “political” than having him be straight. Again, some projection going on there.
WW84 wasn’t a dud because it was political. (I don’t even remember it being political but I’ll take others’ word for it). WW84 was just not a good movie.
This might need some clarification as well. I read this as “Does it affect their abilities to save someone from a burning building? (or any other hero duties)” and staticshocks seems to have read it as “Does it affect their everyday life?”?
I agree that WW84 was not a good film as I said in my post, “Besides the fact that it didn’t have the same magic as the first film”, but keep in mind somebody who worked behind the scenes of the film confirmed that Maxwell Lord (the villain of WW84), was partly inspired by former President Trump, which somewhat depicted Trump as a villain or bad president. When the film was released a couple of years ago, people noticed certain things about the character, then was confirmed not long after, which turned many people off from watching the movie. That’s an example of involving politics in entertainment. Many of us watch movies to forget about our problems or things that can upset us, so when you notice these sort of things running around in a movie that we pay to enjoy, that’s where it becomes a waste of time and unenjoyable.
I didn’t see any parallels between Lord and *rump, and I’m as anti-*rump as anyone. Max Lord has always had a used car salesman vibe - the movie clearly leaned into that in a way I didn’t find altogether convincing, but it seemed relatively consistent with the source material.
Marvel’s Kingpin storyline over the last few years, by comparison, is a clear reference to 45.
Superhero comics have been political since 1938. The very idea of a superhero is political. A populist figure with the power to enact social change unilaterally is inevitably political. And it just happens that the creators of Superman set a tone by being progressive with their politics.
I figured some of you were gonna have answers for these, but let’s admit it… Disney’s been going through a lot of sh*t since this they got involved with this bill. It might all be coincidental, but it looks a lot like bad luck for getting involved. Just my personal opinion.
Boba Fett is a great example lol. I do hope though that the rumor of Dave Filoni redoing the sequel trilogy is true, even though I liked The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
