Mermaids

If you believe somebody like Celestial, mermaids are real but they’re not benevolent. They are rather demonic Nephilim beings, fallen angels or at least the daughters of fallen angels where they’ll do anything to cruelly mistreat humans because humans are made in the image of God. Even if there is room for benevolent mermaids in folklore, some people believe them to be sinister entities who can’t be trusted and liked. In some African Pentecostal circles and communities, mermaid spirits are seen as demonic and should never be admired and emulated by people.

She goes on saying that companies like Disney are responsible for making mermaids look innocent and lovable, if it weren’t for the movie The Little Mermaid and its protagonist Ariel. Disney’s even going to release a preschool programme featuring its version of the Little Mermaid, with the entire cast reimagined as African Caribbeans. Admittedly a series that’s mired in African Caribbean folklore and cultures is nice, though one would wonder if it could’ve easily been done featuring human African Caribbean characters by actual African Caribbean talent onboard.

Disney’s capable of co-producing series with actual non-western talent onboard, it’s done the same with Nigeria’s Iwaju and it could easily hired a Jamaican production company to do something set in the Caribbean. Warner Bros is doing the same but with a Mexican production company for a version of Batman set in pre-colonial Mexico, though admittedly it could essentially be no different from the forthcoming Ariel series in that these characters are based on demons but appear so innocent and lovable as to arouse as little controversy as possible. Not saying it’s wrong to like and reimagine superheroes to be nonwhite and nonwestern, though with international effort it could be pulled off real well. This is no different with the new Ariel series in this regard.

I guess it’s going to be hard letting go of Disney in some way, if because many of us grew up with being exposed to it often. Maybe not all of us but when there are a lot of adult Disney fans, people that others personally know that it will be this hard to let go of Disney because of how prevalent and commonplace this is. Similar things can be said of Warner Bros to some extent, whether if it’s the Looney Tunes characters or the DC Comics superheroes. That they all seem so innocuous as to arouse this little controversy makes them all the more deceptive if they’re based on demons.

Comes of think of it this way, if these cartoon characters are based on demons this might account for paraphilias but that would mean people with those kinks are actually demonically possessed. It’s not a plot from the Exorcist but something that happens in the real world, albeit in a form people don’t expect it to be and sometimes it’s so innocent that it’s going to catch people off guard this way. It’s so innocent that a lot more people will have some emotional attachment to those things, it’s like drug withdrawal syndrome in this regard. They can’t easily let go of these things, because it’s like they’re deeply implanted into them.

Breaking up with those must be really hard to do by then, even if they show their real natures and intentions at any point in time. Perhaps it’s real hard to go cold turkey on Disney style mermaids, especially if it’s something that we grew up liking in some way. But if mermaids are demons all the way, then they can’t be trusted and liked anymore.

All-American Alien

I pointed out somewhere why Canada doesn’t seem to have that many well-known patriotic/nationalist superheroes the way America does, characters like Captain Canuck and Northguard have come close but still don’t epitomise Canadiana the way Superman and Captain America do with Americana. While it’s true both Canada and America attract a lot of immigrants, but the American dream is a more salient concept in a way the Canadian equivalent wouldn’t be. The American dream involves making it big elsewhere, especially when moving to America where one would be a small fish in a big lake back in the old world.

Even if one of Superman’s creators is Canadian, he came to live in America eventually. I don’t think there’s ever any well-known Canadian superhero that’s really an alien the way Superman is, I actually I don’t think there’s any in Canadian superhero comics at all and that’s saying. Captain Canuck is more mundane, he’s just a Metis man just as Northguard is Jewish. Superman has been assumed to be Jewish by the way of his creators, but he also epitomises the American dream. He is an immigrant who made it big in the United States, compared to his doomed life in Krypton.

While there certainly are superheroes in Canadian comics who are probably scions of immigrants themselves, yet not a single one of them is stated to be extraterrestrial the way Superman is. Or for another matter, Martian Manhunter and Starfire and both of them are aliens who made America their home as well. Even Marvel’s Carol Danvers is part alien herself, no such equivalent exists in Canadian superhero comics, well not in any way that I know of. There’s really no Canadian Superman to speak of.

That’s not to say there aren’t any Canadian superheroes, but there’s really no well-known Canadian superhero that epitomises Americana and the American dream the way Superman does for America. The Pitiful Human Lizard may be one character closely associated with Toronto, but he himself isn’t that well-known so he’s never going to be a real equivalent to what Spider-Man is to the Bronx even if he inspired the former. There’s no Canadian equivalent to Marvel’s close association with New York, even if Canadians have succeeded in creating a shared universe and even then it took them a long time to do it.

The only other superheroes to be closely associated with any Canadian locale are Fleur de Lys and Kebec, that’s just them and The Pitiful Human Lizard whereas Marvel has a wealth of superheroes associated with New York. Let’s not forget that Gotham is a popular nickname for New York, so in a way Batman is also associated with New York. The main difference between Batman and the Pitiful Human Lizard is that Batman is a globally recognised character, so with both Batman and Marvel in general there’s a tendency to mythologise New York City just as Superman does for the Midwest.

Neither Human Lizard nor Fleur de Lys are mythologisations of their respective locales, even if Canadian superheroes can and do work to some extent I don’t think Canada mythologises itself to the same extent America does. Add lack of a recognisable Canadian dream and you’d get why it’s so hard coming up with a well-known patriotic Canadian superhero. This may not always be the case for other countries, even if both Britain and Ireland have the same problem as Canada does but it does explain why America has this strong desire to mythologise itself.

It becomes blatant when it comes to the way Batman’s Gotham approximates New York, how Marvel characters live in a fantastical version of New York and why Superman’s associated with the American heartland while Fleur de Lys just comes from Quebec.

The Elephant In The Room

As I said before in ‘King Crimson’, it’s unfortunately common for Christians to ignore superheroes when it comes to the fight against witchcraft in fiction. They often go for the more obvious offenders, but one wonders if Satan likes it this way since he’s way more deceptive than one realises. If he can appear as an angel of light, he can also appear as a superhero. There are some people who say that characters like Batman, Spider-Man and Superman are all patterned after actual demons, to the point where by appearing as literal do-gooders they have successfully deceived people this way.

It might be possible for Christians to enjoy and create superheroes, I have created some of them myself but with Good Fight Ministries putting out a series on what I knew that it seems God knew how I felt. As if some Christians don’t hold superhero media to the same standard as they do with Harry Potter, like if you object to witchcraft in Harry Potter you should also do the same with X-Men which even has openly demonic heroes in its ranks. Nightcrawler is said to look like a demon, Illyana manipulates magic and sometimes looks demonic herself. If Spider-Man and Batman are said to be inspired by real demons, then it’s not off to assume that Nightcrawler himself is also based on a demon.

That Illyana sometimes looks like what you’d expect the Devil to be says a lot about how Satan will do anything to let our guard down, if because his methods are so unsuspecting that it’s likely why many Christians have ignored superhero media for a long time. Someone has gone on saying that by using fictions to lure in people, demons have successfully gotten unsuspecting folks to worship them. That some superhero writers are either involved in the occult themselves (Grant Morrison, Alan Moore) or are flat-out atheists (Warren Ellis) makes me wonder if there might be more ungodly people in the superhero industry than one realises.

Angelica Zambrano said about how some Ben10 characters are inspired by demons, so much so that it’s not a stretch to think the same thing is likely to be true for many DC and Marvel characters. Even if not all of them look demonic, but when you have eyewitness accounts of demons resembling familiar cartoon characters then it seems the well’s already poisoned. Spider-Man doesn’t look like a demon at first, but his signature hand gesture is the devil’s horns. I even think Spider-Man’s character design is a travesty of actual spiders, admittedly my spider knowledge is weak but I can’t help but wonder if Satan hates God’s creations in a particular way.

That animals can go to Heaven as they never sin, humans go to Heaven from being saved and stuff are what angers Satan a lot so he’ll do anything to corrupt and abuse them, so this is the likeliest and most unexpected reason for the existence of crush videos. Celestial kind of hinted at it at The Master’s Voice, where she goes on saying that some of the people who watch these are actually the rich and famous. The same people who give their lives to the Devil, to the point where as somebody said their lives are actually cursed. Perhaps if these are all true, then it really is a sick world after all.

Botched potentials

When it comes to characters with botched potentials, especially those coming from DC and Marvel, that I feel some of it’s got to with the way the character’s usually portrayed that undermines their potentials to be more than that. I feel when it comes to DC’s Stephanie Brown, some of the problems lie with portraying her as a giddy bimbo regardless of the fact that she sewed an outfit all to her own means writers are way better off portraying her as Batman’s answer to Edna Mode. Edna Mode is this Pixar character who designs outfits for superheroes, considering she knows how to sew she should ought to learn how to sew clothes for everybody else in the Batfamily.

In fact, she should be something of a butt-kicking Edna Mode considering she has trained under Cassandra’s wing for some time now. You might say this makes her into a Mary Sue, but in reality that’s showing something realistic. In the sense that there are things she’s real good at like sewing and things she’s gotten the hang over such as fighting, it’s not that hard if only writers took sewing seriously and she should be to sewing what Barbara is to computers. It’s not even a stretch for her to turn sewing into a business, something she could do by using Batman’s money alone. It’s not that hard for as long as you take sewing seriously.

I guess some of the problems with the way Stephanie’s written is that they kind of forget that there are things she might be really talented at, something that would’ve been remedied had they portrayed as sewing and mending costumes for the entire Bat-family. It’s not that hard really, if they also know how to sew themselves. Then you have characters that could easily go to a darker route, if only writers had the guts to go with that. Something like Marvel’s Kate Pryde becoming the X-Men’s resident assassin/hitwoman which kind of happened in Age of Apocalypse, not so much in the usual continuity even though it’s the most sensible direction to take her to.

She’s killed someone before, so having her kill people on the job would be a logical choice. Especially considering the ability she has, which’s well-suited to it really. If Invisible Woman’s powers actually lend themselves to security (if only they considered this), Kate’s own are perfectly suited to assassination and theft when one thinks about it. I guess if writers did take what’s logical for Kate to go to, it would be much darker than they would’ve wanted, especially when it comes to Age of Apocalypse, perhaps that’s why they shy away from turning her into a full-blown assassin for good in the normal continuity.

I guess why some writers don’t bother taking characters to where they’d logically go’s that either they’re held back by preconceptions of what they should be even when they can like with Stephanie Brown, or that the logical conclusion’s the more undesirable one like with Kate Pryde. There are also things that are beyond the writers’ knowledge, I guess it’s too much for some writers to know a thing or two about sewing when they don’t. Maybe that’s why they never bothered having Stephanie own her sewing skills to the point where she’d even make costumes for people and even turn it into a business with Batman’s funding.

Even if that’s the most sensible direction to take her to.

The Gary Stu

As what somebody else said on Quora.com, there might be more Canon Gary Stus than there are Mary Sues. Comes to think of it, I know somebody who writes stories featuring an idealised version of himself who’s not only the CEO of a company but also dates various idealised women in every story he appears in. There might be a lot more Gary Stus in romance novels than one would realise, in the sense that they’re idealised in a way the female protagonist (the heroine in question) aren’t. There might be more Gary Stus than one realises, though they’re not that commonly criticised by people nor are they recognised as such.

When it comes to the nature of writing literature, it’s really not uncommon for people to base characters and stories after what they encounter and experience. So a good number of stories and the like take on an autobiographical tone because of that, so while Gary Stus and Mary Sues are author surrogates but not all author surrogates are Mary Sues and Gary Stus. There’s a difference between Cathy Guisewite’s Cathy and well whatever Gary Stu I can try thinking of, one is a pretty ordinary human being and the other’s a power fantasy or wish fulfillment combined with author surrogate.

Returning to that author’s protagonist, he’s a Gary Stu in the formal sense of the word because he’s an idealised version of his author. Much like his author, he tends to dress a lot like him and do things the author did and wish they did. He has a habit of dating rather idealised women, ranging from priestesses to goddesses without any real loyalty to them. His author even made another Gary Stu who, to put it politely, courts a Goth girl. He is sympathetic to Goths, but when he writes a story where he dates a Goth girl one would wonder if he does fetishise and objectify them more than he’d care to admit.

Even if he didn’t, it feels like he’s putting his fantasies to print. Since much of his work’s self-published, he literally puts his fantasies to print. Now that’s one Suethor in a way Dante Alighieri wasn’t and may never be, for one thing even if he created a character based off of somebody he knew he never went this far to create a story centred on their romance the way the other guy did. That’s where the similarities end, even if Dante did come close he never went this far to create such a character. I personally feel not a lot of people criticise Gary Stus, because if they did they’ll be criticised real badly for it.

In the case with romance novels and their ilk, if somebody points out the average romance hero is a Gary Stu or something similar some will react real badly and accuse you of slut-shaming them or something. Because romance novels are so often derided by people, that some romance readers get real defensive of them. So defensive that they’d overreact real badly to any criticism, maybe that’s why they’re not that commonly brought up. For every academic study, there’s going to be think pieces written in defence of them. That’s not true for all of them, but enough to constitute a common sentiment or consensus of sorts.

Okay, that’s not true for all romance readers and writers. But when it comes to Gary Stus, they could be more common than one realises. It’s just that not a lot of people realise or call them out for being Gary Stus, even if they qualify on some level. I know one person who has a habit of writing self-inserts paired with various women, I say that because he blatantly bases the former after himself. To the point where his romance stories take on a more masturbatory tone, since they risk coming off as his personal fantasies getting printed in some form or another. This does make me think there might be men who do get their personal fantasies published in some form or another.

These are either sexual fantasies of some sort or power fantasies, though in the case with some authors it’s pretty much both at the same time. This leads to the creation of a pernicious sort of Gary Stu, a character a Stuthor would live vicariously through. He’s the character who beds the women his author wishes they did, he’s the one who leads the life they wanted to and he’s super cool. In fairness, this isn’t just confined to self-published fiction. If you believe some 4Channers, DC’s Tim Drake is suspected of being a Gary Stu himself. The fact that he was created as a blatant fan surrogate makes it easier for him to be the Mary Sue Batman’s commonly accused of being.

If you don’t believe them, until recently, Tim Drake attracted women and girls for almost no reason other than the way he is, he’s a big geek and a huge fan of Batman. Mary Sues are oftentimes fan surrogates in fanfiction, so he pretty much fits the bill in a way Batman would never do. Or at least not to the same extent he does and that’s saying. He was portrayed as so clever for simply knowing who Batman really is, it’s like if somebody wrote a story where a character knew who Eminem is and gets called smart for doing that. It’s a blatant form of pandering that congratulates somebody for their fannish affections.

I guess you won’t see that many people admitting these characters are Gary Stus, if because they themselves were pandered to a lot in some form or another. Even if there are fans who rightfully suspect some characters are Gary Stus, sadly the label Gary Stu’s used to bash a character they don’t like. Something like Damian Wayne for instance, or what others suspect it’s more common to bash a male character for being black or POC in general. Easier to be a racist than to realise this male character’s a Mary Sue all along. Even if there are male characters who really are Mary Sues, not many will admit this in some form or another.

The Gary Stu could be a far more common occurrence than one realises, it’s just easier to bash women’s self inserts than to do the same with men’s own if because men are already catered to in some form or another. For every character that’s rightfully suspected of being a Mary Sue, there are those who get bashed or accused of being one despite contrary evidence. At some point, I thought it was unfair to call Rey a Mary Sue if because she’s recently introduced to the Star Wars world. She’s a blank slate compared to longstanding favourites like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa.

I also don’t think it’s fair to call Carol Danvers a Mary Sue, if because she was treated as a punching bag before. I guess they only call her that because they’re threatened by the way she’s currently portrayed, similar things could be said of Rey because for all her faults she wasn’t seen in a skimpy outfit the way Leia was. Methinks certain fans are threatened by female characters if they portrayed as empowered in a way that’s emasculating for them, whether if they will admit it or not. If this is true, this explains the backlash to Rey and Carol Danvers.

It’s not that they can’t appreciate idealised female characters, but that they only like them if they don’t emasculate them. This explains the difference between Carol Danvers and Alita, or for another matter the difference between Rey and that woman from Underworld. To make matters worse, the word Mary Sue’s used to bash black female characters even though there are others that are more deserving of this. If men in general are already pandered to in some form or another, then the same can be said of white women to some extent. They got their Olicity ship made canon, that’s one example of pandering to some white women at that.

I have a nagging feeling that Patty Spivot would be less of a Mary Sue if she was portrayed as big into gambling, gossiping, reading romance novels and dating gigolos because even if she’s intelligent she’s still human because of the things she enjoys and does. Actually this Patty Spivot would be more relatable, far more relatable than the Patty Spivot we got. If because there are more women who are like this Patty, than the other one when you consider this. But that involves realising what a Mary Sue she really is, for all their habit of bashing Iris West.

Even then, I think for every character that’s rightfully suspected of being a Mary Sue there are those accused of being one.

In-Jokes

When it comes to fan-pandering, I feel if you pander hard a lot, it will mostly or only consist of things diehard fans will be into and get. It’s like the thing with Dick Grayson, the fact that he became one of DC’s few male sex symbols because of his butt that later on you’d get many in-jokes about it. So much so that in one story where no matter what disguise he uses, he can be recognised by his butt alone for some reason. (Rao help if there’s a man in DC Comics who could best him in having a shapely backside.) I feel this is one kind of fan pandering, especially if it’s something only a handful will ever get because they got what they wanted.

Arguably until recently, DC and Marvel have been pandering real hard to a certain audience. So hard that a good chunk of the stories they publish are full of references and in-jokes only certain people will get, so much so that anybody who isn’t a big fan will feel left out because DC and Marvel doesn’t pander to those people anymore. Well until now that is to some extent, especially with the DC Comics aimed at younger readers such as The Oracle Code. I don’t think Nightwing appeals to me as a reader, especially someone who’s a casual reader at that. Like I feel all this talk about his sex symbol’s only something a few people will ever get.

It’s not helped by that both statistically and anecdotally, not a lot of people regularly read comics let alone DC and Marvel ones at that. I’d say that newspaper cartoon strips are more popular, not just because they’re published in a more accessible and affordable format but that they’re very light on the lore side of things. So these are the things that are easy on casual readers, as opposed to DC and Marvel which have gotten heavy on lore. One example of heavy fan-pandering would be Arrow, wherein the relationship between Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak. As somebody who just watched a few clips of this and am not so big on Felicity Smoak, it does feel like pandering where it went from fanfiction to canon.

Well canon to the programme that is, but even then it’s really a form of fan pandering when these fans wanted that relationship to be canon that the showrunners granted their wishes and it came into being. You might say that Felicity Smoak has become a famous character because of it, but since one of my relatives has just recently heard of Harley Quinn and is evidently not big on superheroes in any way so if Harley Quinn isn’t well known to other people so is Felicity Smoak. It’s still fan pandering either way, especially if it’s something that only has a cult following and that audience only knows what it gets what it wants.

The constant validation these fans seek and that they get rewarded for it is really pandering, the most sophisticated form of fan pandering I’ve ever encountered in the whole of geekdom. Anybody who’s a normal person, a real normal person, will not get this in any way. I don’t get it myself, despite reading comics since childhood. But then again I’m a casual reader, so these are things only a diehard reader will get. Likewise I don’t watch that much stuff, owing to my devotion to radio and streaming music, that I feel when it comes to Olicity it’s really a good example of fan pandering in action.

These are things only somebody who’s into something will ever get and know in any form, most people from my experience don’t watch Arrow so they wouldn’t care about it in any way. My father watches aeroplanes and boxing matches, not Arrow and it’s something he wouldn’t and will never get either. It’s fan pandering if you make their wishes come true, pander to their every whim and cater to their in-jokes. Fan pandering is fan pandering, whatever the context it takes on and may be. I feel as I get less involved in fandom, the more blatant fandom pandering is and gets. It’s not necessarily wrong to be a fan of something, or anything else in general. But fan pandering gets real irksome if it’s something that’s rather unpopular in real life.

Something like superhero comics, which doesn’t have the highest sales in recent days. Neither did Arrow, which often had low ratings. So it could be argued and said that they’re rather unpopular, not necessarily so unpopular as to be entirely unheard of, but more unpopular than say FIFA and The Voice and that’s saying. So there’s the big risk of fan pandering, especially if the audience is so small and loyal that it’s going to turn off anybody else.

Superheroes, sports and bodybuilding

This isn’t always the case for all superhero media, as there are some cartoonists who base them after actual athletes, but it did show up at some point. Especially when it comes to superhero comics having adverts featuring the late bodybuilder Charles Atlas, so much so that the writer Grant Morrison based Flex Metallo after him. When it comes to portraying superheroes (and supervillains), actors would have to work out a lot to play the part. Some would go so far to bulk up, even if they don’t always like it. Well in the case of Christian Bale for the film American Psycho, prior to portraying Batman, he had to work out a lot to play Patrick Bates.

He didn’t like the experience but had to anyways, which sets the tone for subsequent portrayals such as Batman in due time. Then again, there are actors with prior athletic experience which makes it easier to portray superheroes at all as with one of the Superman actors in the 1990s. I suppose these actors are the really lucky ones, not only do they have the genes for muscle building but also have enough athletic skill and talent to easily pull off superhero activities like lifting and running real fast.

In all honesty, Usain Bolt could be a better Barry Allen than Grant Gustin is if because he’s the real world’s fastest man. But he would also get a lot of flack for being black, far more than what Gustin got which is saying. Even if he’s not as fast as the Flash is, being a sprinter and full of fast-twitch muscles he’ll be faster than most people are. Same thing would happen if Barry Allen were played by Su Bingtian, who’s also a real sprinter and thus faster than Gustin will ever be. I guess this will unsettle certain people a lot.

As for Batman, in some portrayals he’s portrayed as really burly even though early on and even in the earliest live action productions he wasn’t that bulky, and still isn’t when portrayed by Robert Pattinson in The Batman. Nonetheless, there’s a tendency for some cartoonists to portray him as really burly compared to other Bat characters, though to be fair Nightwing has also been portrayed as burly at some point. But I still have no idea why would Batman be portrayed as really burly.

Reasons I will not get about Batman’s portrayals in any way, I also think it gets funnier when you realise that Nightwing does acrobatics a lot and judging by this video clip he could (or ought to have) big biceps as well. But when making Batman burly becomes a commonplace practice, regardless of what else he does which wouldn’t give him much time for bodybuilding in any way. It’s not that he lacks genetics for developing such muscles, I pretty much have no idea why he’s portrayed as this burly in some portrayals.

Moving on from that, I think more superhero cartoonists need to take more cues from actual sports. Maybe they already do to some extent, but when some cartoonists habitually base characters after bodybuilders in physique it’s about time they actually vary the physiques. Well to an extent, when it comes to fitting the characters’ skills to actual bodies indulging in sports.

Why do people racebend?

It bears repeating because I think a good number of people racebend is either they want to see themselves represented in the media they consume or want something else represented as it gets tiring to see the same old stereotype or portrayal again. There are non-racebent characters that may qualify but they’re either too obscure and unpopular to ever register in their minds or that some of them are demeaning portrayals and stereotypes. In the case with Disney’s Pocahontas, this is a gross distortion of an actual person’s history.

If you believe the Mattaponi people and their oral traditions, Pocahontas was raped, traumatised and poisoned to death. Some even compare this to what happened to JonBenet Ramsey, if this is true then it’s not a good idea to age up an otherwise underaged child even if she lived long ago. Pocahontas was believed to be about 12 when she encountered John Smith, she never saved him and in three to four years time, she married Kocoum and had a family with him. Then she got kidnapped and abused, to the point where she got depressed and needed both her sister and brother in law to console her.

It’s quite unfortunate to see that she’s better remembered as a cartoon character rather than as an actual victim of repeated assault, even worse that Disney did the research and had Native people playing the characters only to create a blatant lie about her life. That makes reimagining Poison Ivy to be Native American less offensive than this, if because one involves glamourising the trauma the real Pocahontas went through. Poison Ivy’s not a fictionalised portrayal of a real person, plus Native American representation is utterly lacking in the Batman comics.

Funny enough, I see Tim Drake as part Native American because it’s interesting to explore that angle and similarly there’s not enough Native Americans living in Gotham (and Metropolis). Even though a good number of indigenous people actually live in cities, this doesn’t get represented in the media. Even then, I think racebending two existing white characters may be preferable to a bastardised portrayal of a real person in this light. It’s not perfect representation, but it’s better than having a real culture or person misrepresented.

Supposing if somebody at DC has the audacity to racebend Felicity Smoak by making her Anglo-Indian in both the movie and comic book, you might say that DC would be better off making original Indian characters. This would be fine and dandy if only these people patronised comics and fictions as made by actual Indians, some of these aren’t hard to find online (go check out Arvind Gupta’s collection at Archive.org). It seems unless if they actually read Indian comics and watched Indian programmes, their complaints about making original Indian characters ring hollow.

Especially when these original Indian characters are either really obscure (Celsius, the original Hyena), whitewashed (Jinx from Teen Titans) or offensive stereotypes. Like I said, this makes racebending one of the more doable, though less than ideal ways of creating more representation where there was none. I don’t think there’s ever an Indian Arrow character, there’s no Indian Arrow actor/actress either. Turning Felicity Anglo-Indian may not be the most ideal way to bring in Indian representation.

But that’s preferable to creating a stereotypical Indian character, it would like expecting Native American women to identify with Disney’s Pocahontas when in reality she’s a massive distortion of the real character in question. Making Tim Drake Native American would actually be less offensive in this regard, if because Native American representation is lacking in Batman comics and there aren’t a lot of geeky Native American characters either. Same with making Poison Ivy Native American.

To return to the topic of Felicity Smoak, would Oliciters identify with Felicity Smoak more if she were portrayed as more stereotypically feminine (obsessed with fashion and makeup, doesn’t know how to use computers and read romance novels)? I suspect there are people who do want an original character of colour to identify with, the problem is they get confronted with stereotypes that racebending existing white characters is the viable alternative.

Native American women don’t identify with Disney’s Pocahontas because she’s a massive distortion of not only a real person, but also perpetuates misconceptions about indigenous women that even contributes to the phenomenon of MMIW. I doubt anybody would identify with a Felicity Smoak who’s portrayed as money-obsessed, fashion-obsessed and ditzy. Nobody wants a distortion of what white women are like, so it’s wise to avoid doing the same to indigenous women or anybody else really.

Now that’s something Oliciters need to consider if Felicity becomes Anglo-Indian. Perhaps outside of Indian media, Felicity Smoak being an Anglo-Indian seamstress is something you don’t see it often in Western media. Even if fashion houses have a habit of outsourcing production to South Asian countries like India, even if Asian American women do work in the garment industry Asian seamstresses are pretty underrepresented in Western media.

It seems the most commonly encountered portrayals of Asian women in Western media are either submissive, seductive, involved in STEM or martial arts but not somebody involved in dressmaking even though studies about Asian women in the garment industry aren’t that hard to find online. Now that’s the representation that’s necessary if because we really don’t get to encounter them often in fiction, one would be lucky to stumble upon PDF documents about Chinese American seamstresses.

But you’d be really unlucky to find these same characters in fictional stories, if because many writers tend to be bound by stereotypes about Asian women. I could also say the same things about black seamstresses where outside of black literatures, you don’t see them that often in fictions by nonblack writers. They do exist in the real world, but they’re unheard of in fiction. Turning Felicity into an Anglo-Indian seamstress provides representation in a way an Ashkenazi Felicity doesn’t.

You might say that Jewish seamstresses are also underrepresented, but if you wanted me to be honest despite being the daughter of somebody who knows coding and having never left the Philippines I’m not that technologically proficient beyond using a PC (and that’s about it). But I do know how to sew, I first got into it when I was in high school and didn’t do it often until I was in my early twenties. Felicity Smoak, as presented in Arrow, is a character I can’t immediately identify with in any way.

I think the only people she ever struck a big chord with are either massive geeks who like geeky characters, technology connoisseurs and people who like looking at a shirtless Stephen Amell (evidenced by that she also does the same thing too). Pardon if it sounds too cynical and harsh, but it’s clear with the latter that they hate Laurel Lance (who seemed to be Oliver’s original girlfriend and was based on his comics girlfriend Black Canary). If because they want Oliver/Stephen for themselves.

Now if Felicity Smoak were to be reimagined as a timid Indian woman who turns into a hyena and wants her parents to find a partner for her, you might say this Felicity lacks agency because she wants her family to find a husband for her even though that ironically shows more agency than merely having the guy you have a crush on fall in love with you. That would be more feminist this way, well as feminist as it gets as arranged marriages are still popular in India.

It would be white feminism in action, in the sense that Oliciters and especially white Oliciters would impose their cultural values onto Indians (decried as inferior) without knowing or taking into account that arranged marriages make up the majority of marriages in India. It seems Felicity Smoak would only be feminist, if she were measured by white Western standards instead of being evaluated by Indian standards. At best it’s misguided, at worst it’s patronising. It seems white Oliciters would start acting and sounding exactly like Alt-Righters here.

While not all forms of fan racebending are made equally, in some cases it creates even more stereotypes as it is with making Tim Drake Asian American, it does open up a room of possibilities to what else the characters can be. Sometimes there’s even official racebending by actual DC staff, take Batwheels for instance, Mr Freeze was made black there. A rather unexpected choice in some regards, but it does count as an official instance of racebending by DC itself. Don’t be surprised if DC has the audacity to make Felicity Smoak Indian or Valentina Vostok Yakut, they’ve done this before and they will do it again.

Just Like Me

At this point, there’s greater demand for ethnic and disabled representation than ever before. When the live action remake of the Little Mermaid film came, while there is racist backlash there is also video evidence of children responding positively to it. Comes to think of it, even if it didn’t revolve around racial representation I still think there are people who waiting to see themselves represented. Characters they aspire to be and relate to.

Or at least something that’s refreshingly not a tired stereotype, but it’s still telling when it comes to seeing oneself or others represented. When it comes to popular media, while nonfiction’s full of accounts of sailors (especially male sailors) as well as farmers and their cats they’re nonexistent in fiction. Now that’s the kind of representation I’d like to see, if because it’s new and different and that we don’t see sailors that and farmers often with cats in pop culture.

For another matter, witches with dogs since an association did exist in early modern Europe before and you still have people believing in this. There’s even a newsreport of a Ghanaian witch doctor who used dogs to attack a footballer like Cristiano Ronaldo, which goes to show you how certain people are this underrepresented in pop culture. So underrepresented they might as well not exist, if at all. Then there are other depictions.

Just as there are some black people who don’t feel flattered by depictions of them in a stereotypical fashion since it doesn’t represent them truthfully and authentically, I don’t feel flattered by depictions of certain characters for a similar reason. When it comes to Felicity Smoak, despite her popularity she doesn’t really represent me in any way.

I do know my way around computers, but I’m not that proficient in high tech. Felicity’s habit of babbling comes off as annoying and artificial, so artificial that a robot character would be more human and organic than she’ll ever be. And that’s my two pennies. It seems this character’s popularity lies with either tech geeks or cynically fangirls who lust after Stephen Amell, so much so they despise attempts at pairing his character off with someone else.

Someone else who isn’t like them, but that would mean they get really jealous. Then comes a a matter of cultural authenticity, where people aching for representation don’t get their cultures properly represented and respected. It could be cultural appropriation, especially if that culture or country’s portrayed as a conduit for a white character to explore but not somebody belonging to that culture or country.

That’s the case with Wolverine, Betsy Braddock and Kate Pryde in relation to Japan, but the equivalent doesn’t exist for actual Japanese mutants like Sunfire, Surge and Kwannon let alone outside of their relationships with white people. For another matter, I don’t think there are stories about Jubilee hanging out in a Chinatown eating Chinese foods daily and stuff.

For another matter, we don’t see Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain eat Chinese food that often either despite being Chinese Amerians themselves. Perhaps this is made more embarrassing by the fact that I’m of partial Chinese descent and I actually study Chinese characters, while not a single Chinese DC or Marvel character does this.

In fact, you could make Lady Shiva and Cassandra Cain Swedish and it wouldn’t change much because their ties to China and Chinese culture are already shaky. They’re fine characters in their own right, but if you’re going to represent Chinese culture do it truthfully and authentically. Well any nonwhite non-Western culture in general.

I guess when it comes to representation, certain characters get overrepresented. In this case, we get no shortage of technically competent white blond people like Felicity Smoak, Barry Allen, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Chloe Sullivan, Patty Spivot and The Question. But not a single Asian seamstress or tailor, let alone one outside of Asian media and fiction.

The closest international equivalent would be nonfiction studies on Asian sewers working in Western countries, even then there really is a serious underrepresentation of Asians working in the garment and fashion industry in pop culture. What we usually get in pop culture is either the martial artist or the STEM type, but not a seamstress, footballer or rugby player.

Despite the existence of Son Heung-Min and him playing for both Tottenham Hotspur and the South Korean national football team, I don’t think we see Asian footballers that often in Western comics even though they exist in the real world. It could be a narrow point of reference to put it generously, but even then it’s telling which people get represented and which don’t.

There’s also no room for Asian rugby players and coaches in Western comics either, even though the half-Japanese Eddie Jones is a thing. To the point where people like him don’t even exist at all, which makes you wonder about gets represented and who doesn’t. There are people who’re dying to see themselves represented; but usually it’s either stereotypical, nonexistent or inauthentic.

There’s no shortage of Asian STEM geeks and martial artists in pop culture, there’s however a serious paucity of Asian footballers, rugby players, tailors and seamstresses in that same place. Not to mention, Asian cultures aren’t always authentically represented and respected in relation to Asian characters themselves. Japanese culture is explored through Wolverine and Kate Pryde, not through Sunfire and Surge.

Representation’s very much needed, but there are some areas waiting to be improved on. Especially if certain people aren’t represented at all.

Racebending characters

From what I’ve come to realise, while racebending characters isn’t inherently wrong in and of itself there are cases where it’s pulled off well. I actually saw one interesting racebent take on Frozen where it took place in Australia and reimagines the characters as Australian Aboriginals, it even went so far to give Elsa different powers. Not that snow and ice don’t exist at all in Australia, but if it did it’s only in just a few places. Much of Australia is desert and it’s also prone to bushfires, so it’s more sensible and actually cleverer to give Elsa fire powers instead.

This is good because it takes geography and culture into account, while an aboriginal cryokinetic Elsa could still work it wouldn’t be that practical considering that Australia’s mostly made up of desert and this prone to bushfires. (Though it makes one wonder why nobody bothered creating an Icelandic character with volcanic powers, since Iceland has a lot of volcanoes.) In the case with the live action iteration of Namor, as far as I know about him in the comics, he’s a white guy who’s tied to Atlantis. His live action incarnation is played by an indigenous Mexican man so the lore around him has changed.

It’s gone from Greek to Mayan, I’ve yet to watch it myself but it’s a good way to reimagine the character as that involves taking the actor’s culture into consideration. Racebending can work well if one take’s the character’s newfound ethnicity into consideration, but that involves putting a lot more thought into it than just simply changing the character’s appearance and worse playing into stereotypes. This is what happened to Marvel’s Betsy Braddock that there was a story that dictated her to look Asian, then came another writer who made it into a story about her swapping bodies with an Asian woman.

For all of X-Men’s anti-racist posturing, it feels really pretentious considering that the way the nonwhite characters and cultures are portrayed are evidently conceived by white writers. Whether if it’s Storm’s backstory steeped in colonialism or the orientalist reasoning of making Betsy Braddock Asian, though the latter was undone but it does make wonder why it took so long for it to be undone. For another matter, Batman fandom’s tendency to make Tim Drake Asian plays into Asian stereotypes.

Model minority, emasculated and nerdy. Cassandra Cain’s already something of a stereotype and reeks of being written by a white writer for so long that making Tim Asian worsens an existing problem (well he’s half Asian, half black in the Titans programme). I actually think a Native American Tim Drake would be more interesting to explore, since there’s not a single indigenous person who inhabits Gotham. Native Americans do live in cities in addition to reservations, so an indigenous Tim Drake living in Gotham’s closer to reality than one realises.

As for another DC character, Valentina Vostok, she’s Russian but I thought she’d be more interesting if she were Yakut. The Yakut are one of the ethnic minorities in Russia and indigenous to Siberia, but that involves realising that part of Russia’s based on stolen land since Siberia didn’t get conquered until the early modern era. The only prose mention of them outside of Russia, that’s other than the Internet, would be Farley Mowat’s The Siberians and even then it’s nonfiction. Okay Yakut representation in Russian media wouldn’t be any better either, but they’re practically nonexistent in Western media.

A Yakut Valentina Vostok sheds light on a demographic little known in the West, it’s also something Russian superhero publisher Bubble Comics have yet to it that if DC were to make Valentina Yakut it would make a big wave because it’s something we’ve never seen it before in superhero comics. That’s why making Valentina Vostok Yakut matter in a big way her white counterpart wouldn’t and will never do, we already have a glut of well-known white Russian superheroes like Natalia Romanova and Piotr Rasputin. It would be refreshing to see an indigenous Siberian for once.

Indigenous characters are pretty underrepresented in superhero comics, indigenous characters outside of America are even more underrepresented. At this point, to my knowledge, DC just has one Australian Aboriginal character in the form of Thylacine and no indigenous Siberian to date. Making Tora Olafsdotter Sami would be interesting, since the Sami people are a pastoralist culture native to Norway, Finland and Sweden. Why haven’t anybody ever attempted this angle, since it’s something neat to explore if there’s ever a Sami superhero at all? This proves my point that DC’s really short on indigenous non-Americans.

Then again the Sami don’t look that different from non-Sami Scandinavians and it’s not uncommon for them to intermarry each other, so making Tora Sami is like making Barry Allen Irish American. It doesn’t change the way they look, though it would change their respective cultural backgrounds. Irish Americans were subjected to ugly anti-Catholic prejudice upon their arrival to the New World from a famine stricken Ireland. Sami people are subjected to an ugly prejudice that involves not only stripping them of their practices but also their languages.

Then again with Barry Allen’s creator being Italian American, him being tardy and having guilt over his mum’s death one would only wonder if he’s essentially a crypto-Italian as Italians are stereotyped for being tardy. That and Catholic guilt if he were an Irish American it wouldn’t be a big stretch considering the stereotypes minus tardiness, though it’s not considered by many writers and fans considering they stereotype Italians as swarthy and Irish as red-haired. Even though, he got Italian stereotypes written on his head that if he ever has any Italian relatives it’s not a stretch really.

Well there goes the expected stereotypes, which is the tricky part of changing a character’s ethnicity. Helena Wayne gave way to Helena Bertinelli, but if you believe those in the Italian diaspora like Ragnell the latter’s a stereotype. Making Barry Allen Irish American would make him stereotypical in one way, in that it plays into the Irish cop stereotype as he’s a forensic scientist. But then again there’s not a lot of blond Irish and Irish American characters, well to my knowledge, so there’s hope for an Irish American Barry Allen. Well that involves actually knowing about Ireland and the Irish diaspora.

To make a racebent character actually work, sometimes you’d have to consider the characters’ cultures into consideration. Otherwise you’d get a careless mistake like with Betsy Braddock for a long time, so it’s not something you could simply change the character’s appearance and call it a day. But also digging deeper into their cultural backgrounds, what are their community’s customs are like and the like. That’s what Marvel did to Namor once he got played by an indigenous Mexican actor that they changed the lore to accommodate him.

Likewise with making Tim Drake indigenous, you’d have to confront the thorny problem of stolen indigenous land. In this case Gotham is built on stolen land, the very land some of Tim Drake’s ancestors inhabited since immemorial but went lost over time. Surely an indigenous Tim Drake who knows computers and bojutsu is a novel character, but it does make one wonder why aren’t there more indigenous characters living in Gotham? Other than Man of Bats and his sidekick, there’s not a single indigenous Bat character let alone with any real staying power the way Cassandra Cain does.

Tim Drake has any real longevity, so making him indigenous opens up a door of possibilities never done with Man of Bats. This is probably similar with Namor, except that he’s around longer in comics and he’s being introduced in a big way by being played by an indigenous Mexican actor. Changing the character’s lore for the film as a way to accommodate the character is one of the few instances of racebending that involves considering the characters’ cultures a lot. No doubt changing the characters’ ethnicities would upset people.

But in an era where multicultural representation is much needed and desired, where actors get cast as the characters they play sometimes considering the actors’ cultures is where they racebend the characters at all.