Tag Archives: representation

Internet Asks Why The Human Torch Is Black, I Ask Why His Sister Isn’t

As many of you probably already know the cast for the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot was officially announced yesterday. Now as you might expect I have more than a few thoughts on the actors chosen [first in my mind was how the slender, British Jamie Bell was supposed to portray Ben Grimm, tough-as-nails physically imposing fighter pilot raised on the Lower East Side], but what I’m going to be focusing on is the conversation that’s been reignited upon seeing Michael B. Jordan confirmed as Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch.

flameonmichael

See, the actor had signed on to portray the character as far back in October of last year. The internet reacted then as it does now, with many diehard fans inflamed at the idea that a superhero created in 1961 would appear in a movie as a person of a different skin colour. To be honest I was extremely ambivalent about the whole matter, torn between wanting to see more minorities in big roles as well as wanting comic book movies to stay true to their source material.

Now, however, I’m fine with Jordan. I acknowledge that he’s a good fit for Johnny Storm [his enthusiasm and fun-loving nature in Chronicle is evidence of this] and has acting chops to boot [I have not read or heard a single negative thing about Fruitvale Station]. No, what I want to discuss is why he’s the only one who’s Black.

Continue reading

Culture War Correspondence: Minority Representation

EVAN: Gordon’s always been better at the fancy introductions, so I’m going to start by saying that this all began with this image-

See the rest of the image here.

– in which trans women [as well as a few others, I’m sure] tear Joss Whedon apart for answering a question about writing strong female leads with a joke. The problem being, of course, that the joke was trans-exclusionary.

This of course could be expanded into all jokes being trans-inclusionary, at which point Gordon had something to say about the number of trans men and women out there-

GORDON: Current estimates, for the US anyways, are holding at roughly 700,000, give or take, making up just about %0.3 of the population.

As Evan and I discussed in our first reaction to the outcry surrounding Whedon, this places people identifying as transgendered at somewhere above the number of folks hit by lightning and lower than the number of people born with more than five fingers on a hand.

Point being- it’s a very, very small group. Continue reading

My Little Pony Hates Men!”: A Short Look at Gender, Representation, and Cartoons

I’ve never seen an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I hear good things, though, and understand if people do like it [and they do] because Lauren Faust is the mind behind the show, and she was largely responsible for The Powerpuff Girls which I still think is one of the best things Cartoon Network has ever done. But again, I’ve never seen any MLP.

Anyway, bronies, right? My favourite go-to source for words you won’t find in Webster’s, Urban Dictionary defines the term as:

“A name typically given to the male viewers/fans (whether they are straight, gay, bisexual, etc.) of the My Little Pony show or franchise. They typically do not give in to the hype that males aren’t allowed to enjoy things that may be intended for females.”

Which, given that very broad description, sounds fine. A person viewing something that is ostensibly for male viewers only, something like . . . I don’t know . . . Lego Ninjago, is not something I think anyone would have a problem with. Anyway. just keep this reasonably sizable fanbase in mind as we move forward-

My Little Pony: Misandry is Magic

That’s the title of a post on tumblr a friend of mine linked me to two days ago. Two short bits of context, misandry is the flipside of misogyny, being the hatred of men instead, and this was originally posted by someone who went by nomisandryplease. I say “went by” because heading over to his site reveals what is seen below and absolutely nothing more:

nomisandryplease
To get to what exactly this guy was bullied for, and I actually don’t doubt that he was, to some extent, the main point to his post was that MLP is a show that, while enjoyable, ultimately treats males very poorly.  Continue reading

Fame Day: New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Diversity

I really like watching TV, you guys [and girls]. To be more specific, sitcoms in particular are my absolute jam. Their format is one that garners fanbases as rabid as Breaking Bad [okay, maybe not that intense], and just because a piece of art’s main purpose is to make us laugh doesn’t mean that it can’t have just as much of an impact as more humorless fare.

In all seriousness, though, I’m going to be writing about racial representation and how New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, two of my favourite sitcoms, are doing great things in that regard. Continue reading

Shame Day: Johnny Depp and The Lone Ranger

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say too much about this. Really, this feels, to me anyway, like it hardly warrants an explanation.

Johnny Depp, a white actor, playing Tonto, a character traditionally portrayed as being of the Potawatomi tribe, in Disney’s upcoming The Lone Ranger is really dumb. “Dumb” is but one of the many four-letter words I could be using to describe it.

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Really, though, I should let Mr. Depp speak for himself. He’s an actor a lot of people greatly respect given his extensive acting career, and I think that he should be given the opportunity to explain (1) why he took on the role, and (2) why his character appears the way he does. Continue reading

World War Z Doesn’t Take Place In A World I Live In

Newer readers may not know this, but this is actually the third post about World War Z on this blog. I first wrote about the way the film was to deviate from the book back in 2011, while former CWR writer [who I dearly miss] Elisa briefly explored their prevalence in pop culture the year after.

So two days ago I saw the movie, and I’m not going to write the logical continuation of my first post, complaining about how the movie could have been “so much better if only. . .”

What I’m going to write about how I wasn’t in the movie.

I drew this over two years ago for an all-comics weekly publication I used to run.

And no, I don’t mean why wasn’t there a zombified version of me in the movie, because seriously if you guys didn’t know I am deathly terrified of any sort of biting reanimated corpse. What I mean is why, when I watched this movie, weren’t there any dang Asians.

Spoilers follow. Kind mild, kinda not. Continue reading