SO, UM, WHY’S THIS A PROBLEM?
I told myself that I wasn’t going to take up this topic, but after the sixth post of classless comments (on Facebook) about the new Superman, I realized that my silence helps nothing.
Comic books have always been at the forefront of social change. Stan Lee’s X-Men was a corollary to the movement for civil rights in this country; Professor X and Magneto embodied philosophical likenesses to Dr King and Malcolm X, as mutants sought acceptance in a world not ready for them. DC’s Wonder Woman has long been a beacon for gender equality. In the Killing Joke, a Batman title, writers dove into the difficult subject of sexual violence. And myriad graphic novels take up issues across the spectrum of society, from climate change to war to human migration. That writers and artists have used panels of art to tackle some of the world’s more uncomfortable subjects is nothing new.
And so it is now that DC Comics is embarking upon an effort to make their cast of characters more reflective of the real world. Their hope is to use diversity as a way to relate to readers, old and new. And that is to be commended, because, yes, we live in a world where people are different, unique, and no less deserving of equal representation in art as in politics or anywhere else.
So when I see a bunch of people offering hardened, negative opinions about a fictional character from books that they don’t buy, I cannot help but to view their disdain as nothing more than the exposure of their own propensity for bigoted thoughts. I mean, why can Captain America not be black? Why does it matter who Superman kisses in the pages of books you wouldn’t even know where to buy? And more importantly, why does any of that make you uncomfortable? Are those traits in a comic-book character really so different, so foreign, so obscure, to you that you feel the need to give voice to your objection? If so, then what does that say about your feelings towards the people you actually encounter with those traits in real life?
And if your argument is that these changes will impact children, you should probably know that that argument is flawed. In fact, the largest group of buyers of these books — approximately half — is actually made of men between the ages of 30 and 50. Preteen children are the smallest fraction of buyers, as they gravitated away from this niche market years ago. (I should know. I wrote a business plan on this subject when we started our own indie comic-book line.) And given the way comic books are distributed now, fewer children have access to them than they did a generation ago. (Hell, even I now have to drive 30+ miles to buy single-issue comic books.) So there is a good chance that only children of very engaged adults will ever even touch a single-issue book, and those adults can decide, rather smartly, what they will allow their children to read. (Reading. What a novel idea.)
Our society faces so many hard issues today, and the acceptance of our plurality is definitely one of them. People in this country keep fighting over trivialities like race or religion or sexual orientation or politics, as if these things truly matter more than our the things that truly bind us together. They don’t — and if you don’t see that, then the problem is yours.
As a society, we are made up of all kinds of people. No one of us is endowed with a moral or ethnic or physiological or [so on] superiority over any of our fellows. Period… We need to accept one another; and we deserve to have mature, thoughtful, and honest conversations about who we are, in order for all of us to grow and have better a understanding of the next person. This, so that, when it is announced that Superman is bisexual or Captain America is black, we don’t recoil in disgust, but we all celebrate that one more of our fellows is finding greater acceptance in the world, even if that acceptance, for now, is only in the pages of a comic book.
Diversity opens the door to understanding. Diversity enriches our lives. Diversity makes us greater, stronger, and more adaptable to a changing world. And diversity will always be with us… Remember that.
And remember this, too: the next time any of you want to spout off something innately bigoted, do us both a favor, and unfriend me before you do it. Both of us don’t need to have our days ruined by your limited, ill-informed, and unfortunately dated perspective.
Okay, my rant is done. Thanks.
