To backtrack for all you non-comic-readers, this will be taking place within Earth-161, or the Ultimate Universe [the standard canon is Earth-616]. This is also the universe in which Spider-Man is black, so things are very, very different.
Captain America is my one of my favourite heroes. As a Canadian, I love the fact that he exists as a character that exemplifies the ideals of a country but does not in fact represent all of its actions. He’s neck and neck with Superman as being comic books’ most wholesome, and the words “boy scout” are used to describe him more than just a little.
The character, as he exists in the Ultimate Universe, is none of the above. Someone on the Marvel subreddit put up an image a few months ago in honour of the Fourth of July, citing it as their “favorite Captain America line.” Blown up, for your viewing convenience, is that image:
Clicking on the image will bring you to a fuller version in which Cap yells the question “SURRENDER??!!” Compare this to the 616 Captain America who stars in the following panels:
I could leave those two images to sum up the difference between the two heroes, but there’s more. Ultimate Cap has an affair with a married woman. Ultimate Cap is a bully. Ultimate Cap has no qualms whatsoever when it comes to killing his foes, and in fact brutally murders Azerbaijani superhuman the Colonel at the climax of Ultimates 2 Vol. 12.
Abdul Al-Rahman had once been a scrawny teenager enraged at the invasion of Iraq by American super-soldiers, who as the Colonel later led a group known as the Liberators in an invasion of DC. After he has been literally disarmed by a shield thrown by the Hulk he is knocked into the fountain of the World War II memorial and impaled by Captain America with his own weapon.
This man who did that has apparently been inducted as President of the United States.
It’s difficult for me to understand how Marvel got away with publishing Ultimates 2. It’s even harder for me to understand how fans were okay with the Living Legend becoming a xenophobic jingoist, and how some even liked it. At the heart of the character is something that the film made abundantly clear: Captain America is a good man.
“Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing: that you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.” -Dr. Abraham Erskine
The fact that the image of Ultimate Captain America pointing at his forehead and slamming an entire nation is cited by more than a few as being their favourite Cap moment is, well, disappointing. Especially when panels like the following, from the Marvel Civil War event, exist:
This past Monday a new show called The New Normal premiered on NBC. I wasn’t able to catch the pilot, though I did make sure to watch a preview to see what it was all about. You can watch the whole thing if you want, but what I want you to see is right near the beginning:
So at around 22 seconds into the trailer we’re shown that Goldie’s good-for-nothing husband has cheated on her, which becomes the catalyst to her drive across America to begin life anew with eight-year-old daughter.
What struck me was what exactly made this summer more heartbreaking than any other. Was it the suicide of Top Gun filmmaker Tony Scott? The passing of puppeteer Jerry Nelson? Moreover, was this summer any more “heartbreaking” than 2009, when Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mays died? Continue reading →
The second post I ever wrote on this blog was about the word “rape,” and since then it has not ceased to be an issue. A number of events have occurred in the past couple of months, and re-reading many of them this week has reminded me what a big deal it can be.
John Seavey, one of the writers on Mightygodking, wrote a response to what happened, titled “From the “How To Be A Decent Human Being” File….” In it he decried Tosh’s response to the woman, and basically lay down that freedom of speech or not, threatening someone sexually is not something you ever do.
I talked to Gordon about this yesterday, and not to turn this into another “Evan and Gordon Talk” post, but I had to add just a little of our conclusion to this one:
[after agreeing that probably no one in the audience actually took Tosh’s words “seriously.”]
EVAN: I mean, I guess we can both be on the level that to at least one member involved, Tosh, it was not a threat.
GORDON: Agreed. You also promised to crap in my bed. [I will not deny this -E.]
EVAN: Valid, but 1/5 of all Gordons don’t have their beds crapped in.
Similar to my first post on the word, there are those out there who believe that this is all a matter of sensitivity. Comedians like Louis C.K. have defended Tosh‘s right to free speech. Others on the internet have taken more creative avenues to back up the “rape joke” that was made [warning for language and content]:
The video, for those who don’t feel like or want to watch it, is a press conference with the character “F-ck Bot 5000.” He answers that rape jokes are off limits, while jokes about “9/11,” “dead babies,” and “making fun of autistic children” are perfectly acceptable. The point being, from what I can tell, that people are being overly sensitive about a particular buzzword, but letting these other topics slide completely.
Then, of course, there’s the whole “legitimate rape” thing. On August 19th Todd Akin, Republican nominee for the state of Missouri Todd, told KTVI-TV that “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Now I’m no Biology major, but I have friends who are, and none of them can back up his claims. His words have, of course, created quite the uproar on the internet. Jezebel compiled a very thorough “Official Guide to Legitimate Rape,” which compiles the ways in which the word and act have been portrayed in past years. I strongly recommend checking it out.
Finally, game designer James Desborough wrote a post this past June entitled “In Defence of Rape.” After admitting that the title is instigative at best, he, and this is a direct quote, states “Rape or attempted rape is a f-cking awesome plot element, one of many.”
Gordon and I talked about this one as well, and the issue is, at the heart of his argument, not wrong. The gist of what he’s saying is [and I quote Gordon] “Look, rape can be an effective and powerful storytelling element, so long as it isn’t trivialized.” And that’s not something I can disagree with.
What I can disagree with is his statement that “I’m not prepared to take spurious claims about ‘rape culture’ etc at face value without something substantive to back them up.” It’s one that he uses to defend his argument, lumping “rape culture” in with the “‘all men are bastards’ argument.” I don’t see what can be more substantive than the gigabytes of rape porn on the internet. I mean, it’s not like it’s hiding or anything. If some weirdo gets off on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo then that’s one instance, but the people creating rape porn for a very large audience is not.
Rape is, as ever, a hotly debated issue. While we can always say that people are being too sensitive, the fact is that it is a very real, legitimate act that happens more than once a minute. It’s not something to be made light of, and especially not something to “jokingly threaten” someone with. It is also not something that can simply be thrown around in speech without strong knowledge of what’s being talked about.
EVAN: So last week I asked people on Facebook what they wanted us to talk about, and the answer that got the most votes was affirmative action. This is a pretty broad topic, but thinking about it in the past couple of days I have at least a few possible directions to go with it. But before we do that, a definition-
“policies that take factors including ‘race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin’ into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group ‘in areas of employment, education, and business’, usually justified as countering the effects of a history of discrimination.”
Though of course, we’re probably more familiar with it in regards to racial or gender quotas for certain businesses.
EVAN: Right, like hiring a minority to make some sort of company quota-
GORDON: Ironically, despite the outcry against this particular aspect of affirmative action, it isn’t actually legal in the US to set quotas for any race.
EVAN: Which I did not know. But it happens, of course.
GORDON: That it does. That quota being typically “100% white.”
EVAN: And Gabe’s childish delight at pulling in someone who wasn’t black [Kelly], like all of the other entries were.
GORDON: It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
EVAN: It’s all good.
GORDON: Let’s get right down to it here- affirmative action is still a contentious practice, but let’s face it, now more than ever it’s demonstrative of inherent bias in the system.
EVAN: As someone who doesn’t keep up with the news as often as he should, the most recent event I can recall that featured this was the rioting that was happening in Paris.
GORDON: Go on…
EVAN: Oh man, I was really hoping you’d remember. But it was a minority group rioting, and the way they solved it all was that employers had to hire people from this group, and pay them regardless of how well/hard they worked.
GORDON: Ergh- it’s France. These are the same people who nearly elected a neo-Nazi to be prime minister, and and have massive racial bigotry issues- just look at their expulsion of the Roma.
I’d hesitate before using them as an example- let’s bring the issue a little closer to home. Take America, for example.
EVAN: Well, your home.
GORDON: We have a workforce completely and utter disproportionate to the population. Even as the white population diminishes, the vast majority of administrative jobs are held by white males.
EVAN: Misrepresentation of an entire population, yeah?
GORDON: Absolutely.
EVAN: So that’s America, but where does affirmative action come into it, are you saying it’s needed?
GORDON: I’m saying that it isn’t working. If affirmative action was meant to end hiring and promotional discrimination on the basis of race and gender, it’s utterly failed, and the proof of that is everywhere around us.
EVAN: Well, you know more about the States than I do, especially with you saying that it’s illegal. Are there any affirmative action movements than you can bring up at all?
GORDON: The only major issue I can recall in the past couple years was a lawsuit brought against Walmart.
EVAN: Go on.
GORDON: Back in 2007, a gender discrimination lawsuit (Walmart v. Dukes) was filed, with a massive number of women citing that despite nearly two-thirds of Walmart employees being women, only a third of management was female- and that’s to say nothing of other charges against Walmart’s routine exploitation of its female employees.
A court (tragically) ruled that the various individuals suing didn’t have quite enough in common to constitute being a “class”, so the case was more or less thrown out.
EVAN: Their sharing a gender not withstanding?
GORDON: Welcome to America.
EVAN: Moving on to something I may know a little more about, affirmative action is a term that comes up quite a lot in regards to Native Americans, or what we in Canada refer to as “First Nations.”
GORDON: Shoot-
EVAN: There’re reservations, of course, land that belongs [is given] to said people. I’ve heard many times friends saying that they were 1/16 such and such, and would be able to “claim land.” Also the fact that gambling is legal on such properties, which I still don’t fully understand.
GORDON: The issue of native rights is an entirely different topic- something we oughta cover, but not quite in this post.
EVAN: I’m just saying that I think it ties directly into what we’re discussing. This is all stuff that’s “usually justified as countering the effects of a history of discrimination.”
GORDON: Granted. One could make an argument for lumping together reparations and affirmative action, but affirmative action is really strictly defined as pertaining to admissions- into either a university or the workplace.
How IS that in Canada, anyways? You got management proportionate to your population makeup?
EVAN: I am not sure. Let me check.
Well, I can confidently say that our minority population is 16%, though this excludes First Nations. Taking them into account, they add 4%, making a solid 20% of our population being nonwhite.
GORDON: Okay. So in your experience, is one in five Canadian manages/execs/bosses/administrators/etc. from a minority group?
EVAN: I’d say that in Toronto, at least, you’re as likely to see a white person as a non-white person. Depending on the neighborhood, you may find it difficult to see more than a handful of Caucasians.
GORDON: But in management…
EVAN: Right. I’m not exactly in a lot of offices… So I don’t know if I can comment on that.
GORDON: Gun to your head…
EVAN: I want to say 1/5 are probably minorities. Which matches up with the statistics I mentioned.
GORDON: Ah, good.
EVAN: I’m a little perturbed that you put a gun to my head in this post.
GORDON: Heh…
Before any of the readers jump down my throat, I know am I’m looking at the problem from a white-liberal viewpoint. Simple fact of the matter is, college is expensive (don’t I know it… **** you Evan, and your ridiculously great government benefits), and the small, wealthy majority in US is (overwhelmingly) white. Someone might make an argument for qualifications being required over race, but that’s exactly where affirmative action is SUPPOSED to come in.
It’s meant to help even the playing field, but it just doesn’t- again, look around.
EVAN: Qualifications required over race and affirmative action. Could you explain that further?
GORDON: Imagine you’re an employer. And imagine this we’re not living some depression-era-hellscape where you’re asking that an entry level employee have five to ten years of experience.
EVAN: . . . I’m listening. This is a dreamworld you’re painting.
GORDON: You have to fill a position, and there are two candidates- a white guy with a college degree, and a black guy without one (again, college is ****ing expensive). Who do you give the job to?
EVAN: The qualified one. The white guy.
GORDON: And imagine you need this position filled again the next year. And the next and the next, and you keep getting the same basic candidates. Who do you pick?
EVAN: Obviously whoever can do the job better. But where is affirmative action, like you said, supposed to come in?
GORDON: The people with jobs get money, the people with money send their kids to college, and so on. Affirmative action is meant to make sure that people aren’t discriminated against on the basis of their race, so that two equally qualified people stand an equal chance of getting in.
It’s like trying to back-paddle in the middle of a maelstrom.
EVAN: Ah, I see what you’re getting at. But what about minority scholarships?
GORDON: Even there, there’s an issue. Poor schools don’t get good funding, they tend to produce students who aren’t as prepared as their wealthier peers, and even bright ones who would otherwise school their peers wind up doing worse on tests. Unless you’re exceptionally gifted…
Again, it’s trying to apply a band-aid to an open wound.
EVAN: One more simile, for the road. Our time’s just about wrapped up.
GORDON: It all boils down to this- there is a need for equity and equality in the workplace- a desperate need. But affirmative action is like using a toothpick to fight dragons [emphasis added]- its the wrong tool of the job, and even if it was appropriate for the situation, it’s still not very effective…
EVAN: Join us next week, where hopefully I know more about what we’re talking about, when we discuss-
So this news came out while I was still at camp, so I’m definitely a little behind the times. Ubisoft revealed at E3 in early June that another game in the Assassin’s Creed series would be joining Assassin’s Creed III when it launched this October 30th. The following is a trailer for that game:
The AC franchise has always been ahead of its time in terms of racial representation. Altaïr ibn La’Ahad, a Syrian assassin, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Italian, and Ratohnhaké:ton [Conor Kenway], English/Mohawk are the stars of the first, second, and third games respectively. Each game has given slavish devotion to historical accuracy, but each has also starred a male protagonist. Until now.
Aveline de Grandpré is an African/French assassin, the only black female video game character I can think of besides Rochelle of Left 4 Dead 2, and from what I can tell a complete and total badass. This is a huge step on Ubisoft’s part, and I’m both impressed and proud that they’ve made this choice. Especially when the reception was so expected.
Clicking on the image to the left will bring up comments on the video I posted. Choice comments are:
Yup, [I know] AC isnt so realistic, but a women?
okay a female is reasonable but seriously y does she have to be black! wtf
looks like i’m not alone on this lol. so many people think i’m racist or something lol
It may seem like this is only to be expected from the video game community, often [and accurately] thought to be both extremely racist and sexist. It was only earlier this year that fans of the book series The Hunger Games took to the internet to express their disgust that Rue, a character in the novel, was portrayed by a black actress in the film.
The image on the right is one of many incredibly offensive tweets about the casting. Jezebel reported on the phenomenon early this year, but it seems that it’s not the only Hunger Games related news that the site has to write about this year.
While the role of Panem-ian heartthrob Finick Odair has already been given to Sam Claflin, months earlier a campaign was started to give it to biracial actor Jesse Williams. This was, again, met with some pretty intense criticism. From racists. Unfortunately a lot of the negative/ignorant comments on this messageboard have been deleted, though Jezebel’s write-up on the situation can be read here. The campaign tumblr is still out there, though it now also discusses racial casting, which I definitely don’t have a problem with.
Suffice to say, the world still has a ways to go before we, in North America, anyway, can simply start accepting that not everyone out there is white, and therefore not everyone who appears in art, either electronic or literary, is either. These comments I posted may just be an example of the “loud minority,” but if female or nonwhite protagonists are really a big deal, maybe we should be loud as well.
I think Aveline de Grandpré is an amazing addition to an already stellar video game series. I think it is fantastic that she’s black and that she is a woman, and I think that you should too.
Culture War Reporters 
People Are Upset About Aveline de Grandpré [What Else Is New?]
So this news came out while I was still at camp, so I’m definitely a little behind the times. Ubisoft revealed at E3 in early June that another game in the Assassin’s Creed series would be joining Assassin’s Creed III when it launched this October 30th. The following is a trailer for that game:
The AC franchise has always been ahead of its time in terms of racial representation. Altaïr ibn La’Ahad, a Syrian assassin, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Italian, and Ratohnhaké:ton [Conor Kenway], English/Mohawk are the stars of the first, second, and third games respectively. Each game has given slavish devotion to historical accuracy, but each has also starred a male protagonist. Until now.
Aveline de Grandpré is an African/French assassin, the only black female video game character I can think of besides Rochelle of Left 4 Dead 2, and from what I can tell a complete and total badass. This is a huge step on Ubisoft’s part, and I’m both impressed and proud that they’ve made this choice. Especially when the reception was so expected.
It may seem like this is only to be expected from the video game community, often [and accurately] thought to be both extremely racist and sexist. It was only earlier this year that fans of the book series The Hunger Games took to the internet to express their disgust that Rue, a character in the novel, was portrayed by a black actress in the film.
While the role of Panem-ian heartthrob Finick Odair has already been given to Sam Claflin, months earlier a campaign was started to give it to biracial actor Jesse Williams. This was, again, met with some pretty intense criticism. From racists. Unfortunately a lot of the negative/ignorant comments on this messageboard have been deleted, though Jezebel’s write-up on the situation can be read here. The campaign tumblr is still out there, though it now also discusses racial casting, which I definitely don’t have a problem with.
Suffice to say, the world still has a ways to go before we, in North America, anyway, can simply start accepting that not everyone out there is white, and therefore not everyone who appears in art, either electronic or literary, is either. These comments I posted may just be an example of the “loud minority,” but if female or nonwhite protagonists are really a big deal, maybe we should be loud as well.
I think Aveline de Grandpré is an amazing addition to an already stellar video game series. I think it is fantastic that she’s black and that she is a woman, and I think that you should too.
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Posted in internet, literature, race, video games
Tagged Altaïr ibn La'Ahad, Assassin's Creed III, Assassin's Creed III: Liberation, Aveline de Grandpré, biracial, black, comments, Conor Kenway, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, female, Finick Odair, Jesse Williams, Jezebel, Left 4 Dead 2, literature, nonwhite, race, racism, racists, Ratohnhaké:ton, representation, Rochelle, Rue, Sam Claflin, sexism, sexist, The Hunger Games, Ubisoft, video games