Author Archives: Evan

Aaron Sorkin and Flash Boys: The Difficulty with Bringing Asian Heroes to the Big Screen

Asian Superheroes. The perfect intersection of two of my passions: racial diversity, in particular the representation of those who look like me, and the stars of my favourite medium, ie. comic books. It was just earlier today that I picked up the second issue of Silk, which [as briefly mentioned in another post] features Marvel’s newest hero, a Korean-American who received her powers from the same spider that bit Peter Parker.

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Similar to Spider-Man she has enhanced speed, strength, reflexes, and a danger detection system [aka. her self-coined “Silk-Sense”] as well as her very own ability to shangchicreate biological webs from her fingertips. Other favourites from the same publisher include Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung-Fu, an Avenger at the time of this writing. He primarily relies on his master of martial arts, an ability which didn’t keep him from participating in an intergalatic war to save the universe. Another is Amadeus Cho, a teenager who attained the title of “7th Smartest Man in the World” and frequently took down superhuman assailants with only his intelligence and whatever else was available. Yes, at one point one of those superhuman assailants was the Hulk. The Hulk.

amadeus

Each of these heroes is wildly different from the next, but share a few key similarities [besides their belonging to Marvel and being of East Asian descent]. The first is the quality that makes them heroes, the self-sacrificial desire to protect the innocent and defeat those who would do them harm. The second is that I would love to see any and all of them make it to the big screen one day, to fight alongside the White, square-jawed Chrises of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The third is that every one of them is a work of fiction.

Bradley Katsuyama is a real-life currently existing person. He is an Asian-Canadian and has been a doer of objectively heroic actions surrounding the investigation and consequent combating of algorithms that preyed on unwitting investors. While not the intellectual property of a company creating and producing recent years’ largest blockbusters he is the focus of the novel Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt, a film adaptation of which Aaron Sorkin is set to write the screenplay for. Yet at this point Katsuyama is no closer to having his story told than Shang-Chi or any of the rest of them.

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Tumblr and SJWs: The Difference Between Having a Problem and Being One

So roughly two months ago Gordon said I would be “providing some cutting observations on the state of Tumblr”, and I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’ve done enough research to finally tackle this thing. In this case “this thing” refers to “the internet’s conceptions of Tumblr and its users, specifically those who have been deemed ‘social justice warriors'”. It’s going to be a long one, so sit back, buckle up, and do one other thing you would do when riding in a vehicle.

everybodyhatestumblrEverybody Hates Tumblr

I’m not going to pretend I know where you spend your time on the internet, but chances are that you’ve come across the general sentiment that Tumblr is “all that is wrong with the internet” or “a literal cancer” or some other hyperbole. It’s gotten to the point where just invoking the site’s name in relation to anything can be, and usually is, a damning condemnation.

As far as I can tell, there exists a much stronger bias towards it than even 4chan, with the latter being heralded as the primordial ooze that the vast majority of our memes come from, a primal, unadulterated place that has stood true to its roots. That’s a conversation for another time, but the point is that Tumblr has come to carry more negatie connotations than other social networking sites, with a lot of that having to do with it being the homeland of SJWs, or “Social Justice Warriors”-

What Is A Social Justice Warrior? [Wow, Google Image Search Has Not Been Kind To That Search Term]

This YouTube video is a pretty short, funny breakdown of what one is:

If you didn’t feel like watching it, here’s what the dude defines it as, providing three definitions that get more and more easy-to-understand:

  1. a derogatory term for people who advocate for socially marginalized groups
  2. a bad name for feminists
  3. a bad name for women-are-cool people

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Ms. Marvel, #13: A Comic Book Review

msmarvel13Look, I know I was tough on Ms. Marvel last month. It was a so-so issue, a fact that surprised me greatly considering it guest starred the Norse god of trickery. The thing is, even then I wasn’t worried that it was some sort of herald of less-great things to come, and the latest installment of Kamala Khan’s adventures is one of the best yet.

Everything that was missing from the Valentine’s issue is present here. Inhumans? Check. Genuine hero vs. villain throwdowns? Check. An exploration of the life hyphenated-American youth live, AKA the cornerstone of immigrant literature? Ch-ch-ch-check.

That last point is what truly made me love this comic, because the rest of the Khans get some quality pagetime after being out of the spotlight for so long. Take the following panel-

notdecent

It takes place after we see Kamala training in the Inhuman version of the X-Men’s Danger Room, and while seeing Medusa worry about her subject [she is queen of the Inhumans, after all] is intriguing all I could think of was: “older Pakistani people would probably not be down with the skin-tight leggings she has on.” Lo and behold we have her ammi chiding her for her indecency. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S4E14 “And the Cupcake Captives”: A TV Review

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At long last there appears to be an overlap between one of my favourite superheroes [Spider-Man] and one of my least favourite TV shows [this one], in a way that has the former redeem the latter in its own way. In the fifth issue of Superior Spider-Man supervillain Massacre approaches the manager of a big business, offering to kill a large number of people while wearing a shirt bearing her competitor’s logo. Here’s a splash page of him making his offer:

massacre

Which is all to say that Caroline freaking out about their brand being tarnished by a criminal wearing their shirt is actually fairly reasonable. Associations are created by everything from getting a particularly messy stomach bug while eating a certain type of cuisine for the first time to seeing a billboard crush three NYC tourists to death on the news. What I do want to focus on, however, is what the man in question did.

It turns out that the guy, Richard Griffin, AKA “Beer Belly Gym Shorts”, kidnapped three women and kept them trapped in his apartment for months. Now I don’t know if you remember the last few times crimes like this have been uncovered by the law, but it is always incredibly disturbing. There is a large amount of rape, is what I’m saying. The episode veers very far away from any implications that this guy was guilty of such acts, but still expects us to think that him wearing their shirt is a big deal. It’s a very fine like that the show traverses, and its success is up in the air as far as I’m concerned. Continue reading

BURAAQ: Two Brothers, A Superhero, And the Truth About Islam

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Kamil and Adil Imtiaz.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to connect with Adil Imtiaz, one half of the two sibling team responsible for the comic book BURAAQ, which stars a Muslim superhero. While he was the illustrator starting out he shared, and continues to share, creative responsibilities with his brother Kamil, and was more than happy to talk to me a little bit more about how this project came to be and why.

Ms. Marvel, as you may have guessed, came up in conversation, and I ended up learning a few things about Islam that I didn’t originally know.
Throughout our talk it was clear that this character and all he presents is a passion for Adil, and that he believes it can, and has done, good things for Muslim youth.

After thanking him for finding the time to speak with me about his work we got right down to questions and answers, the latter of which he was very ready to provide.

Evan: Now I can’t wait to get into talking about BURAAQ, but before we get there would you like to say a few words about yourself?

Adil: Adil Imtiaz is my name. I’m an IT professional, just so you know. And I came here from Pakistan back in 1990; me and my  brother and my family. So we’re here with our families and that’s pretty much it as far as my background is concerned.

Evan: Would you say that your interest in comic books began at a very young age?

Adil: Absolutely. Even in Pakistan as kids, my brother and I used to have a stack of comic books by our bedside. Every night we used to read Marvel, DC, superhero stories. We were, and still are, fascinated with sci-fi and superhero stories and characters.

And movies, of course. Hollywood as you can see is all about superhero films. And we used to draw comics and superhero characters as kids. I got sidetracked when I had to focus on higher education, pursuing a career. I had to put it on the back burner so to speak.

buraaqpreview

Evan: In the PDF I was given to review you and your brother’s mission was very clearly stated, and I’m just going to reiterate it for all my readers:

  • To provide a clean, fun (halal) and positive entertainment media alternative for our Muslim youth.
  • Reconnect our Muslim youth to Islam and make them feel proud to be a Muslim.
  • Enable interfaith dialogue and increase positive Islamic awareness.
  • Our principles are based on the Quran, Islamic values, and the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

How long this been in the works? It seems particularly relevant now given recent events in North Carolina [with what I’m going to call a hate crime]-

Adil: Well, no, actually. This is something, the idea was born back in 2009 actually. Especially after 9/11 things changed in the US. And in the media, traditionally, Arabs and Muslims have been portrayed in a negative light in Hollywood, but after 9/11 things really picked up steam; a bunch of crazy people around the world who claim to be Muslims and other agencies at play, not to get into politics…

Sammy Sheik as Mustafa in American Sniper.

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2 Broke Girls, S4E13 “And the Great Unwashed”: A TV Review

greatunwashed

Between the two titular characters [pun never intended] it should be plainly apparent to you all by now that Caroline is my favourite. Even if Max wasn’t as unfunny and abrasive as I personally find her the former heiress to the Channing fortune is still brimming with just the right amount of optimism and grim awareness about the reality of life to charm anyone. That being said she’s hasn’t received a lot of character work this season and I actually believe the show has been poorer for it.

“And the Great Unwashed” is all about Caroline trying to figure out who she is, or rather, who she wants to be. That sounds deep, I realize, especially for an episode of 2 Broke Girls, but stay with me. Is she a waitress? If she is, what does that mean for the one-time rich girl? Continue reading