One of the most common adages on the internet is “don’t read the comments”. While this global network that we’re all currently using [unless you somehow managed to snag a printout of this post] has given us all the ability to share and discuss everything under the sun, the unfortunate truth is that a lot of that conversation amounts to hot garbage. You could scroll down past an article to see what people are saying about it, but chances are that it won’t be a particularly uplifting experience.
As someone who spends much of his time online reading about entertainment there’s a type of comment that I’ve seen crop up time and time again. It’s existence ties directly into a lot of the recent trends in comic books, television, and film, the push towards inclusivity and the people who are actively working to make that happen. A perfect example [of a handful I’ll be referencing throughout this article] is:
“disabled, multiracial trans women with disfiguring facial scars” – posted on “There are more (white) women starring in movies than ever before”
I’ve been compiling these for the past few months, originally with the intent of putting together another “For Your Consideration” and allowing readers to look them over and come to their own conclusions. A general [and accurate] takeaway would be to note them as being typical of inane online comments and move on, but I’d like to spend a little time breaking down the idiocy they represent.
They Perpetuate the Default
The default person, in case you needed to be informed of who generally holds the most power and screentime across the board, is a straight able-bodied cisgendered White man. I’m painfully aware that simply listing those words in successive order like that marks me as being one of the SJWs [my thoughts on that term here], but every one is important to take note of.
Take the following:
“black Asian gay lesbian transgender Spider-man” – posted on “Dear HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: May We Have a Word About ‘Cultural Appropriation’?”
To look at the list and mark it against the checklist of what makes a default human being, in the eyes of at least a few, we have:
- straight ≠ “gay lesbian”
- cisgendered ≠ “transgender”
- White ≠ “black Asian”
Other comments I’ll be including later on will add examples that include disabled people, but the general gist of every one capitalizes on the absurdity of a person who doesn’t match the standard cutout. A straight able-bodied cisgendered White woman? Not a terrible strain of the imagination. Once you start to tick off more items that don’t coincide with the norm, however, things apparently get a lot shakier.
I don’t even think that many of these commenters are aware of the implicit message behind the words they type. By listing these adjectives and identifiers they end up with a person who most of them share absolutely nothing in common with, which exposes the very reason we need diversity at all. Everyone should be able to relate to entertainment, and for too long the industry has catered to an audience that gets smaller every day. Continue reading
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Miley Cyrus Bashing Supergirl Justifies Exactly Why We Need It
I’ll be the first to admit that I could broaden my scope regarding how I engage with current events. It’s much to my chagrin that my primary news sources are Facebook’s trending sidebar and whenever my grandfather changes the channel to CP24, in that order. That said, every now and then one of the comic book news sites I visit daily will offer me a glimpse of what’s happening outside that bubble.
In the case of this topic, I was informed not of what actually happened but of the response to it, days after the fact. The “event” in question took place during Miley Cyrus’s interview with Variety, which as the title would suggest was largely focused on her role on The Voice, Donald Trump, and coming out. To be more specific, it was the following question and answer [and yes, it is in fact related to comics]:
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Posted in comics, feminism, gender, lgbt, media, television
Tagged Andrew Kreisberg, comments, context, criticism, CW, female, feminism, gender, girl, lgbt, male, Miley Cyrus, pansexual, Supergirl, Vanity Fair