Exotic Black People Part Five: Chris Claremont’s biases and the state of American imperialism

I said before that going from the book From Krakow To Krypton, longtime X-Men writer Chris Claremont has admitted that he didn’t find black people particularly relatable (not that he hated them), but it does colour the way he wrote black characters when compounded by his Zionism, holiday in Israel and finding Jewish characters more relatable, that it does reveal a kind of racist bias in his works. In the sense that Jewish characters like Magneto and Kitty Pryde, for all their faults and with the latter being a repeat ingratiate to Professor Xavier, tend to be portrayed more sympathetically and also more sensitively than he would with black characters. It seems when black people do show up in his stories, they fall into three portrayals: exotic black people (Storm), black friend to white people (Storm and Stevie Hunter) and gangsters.

Considering that Cecilia Reyes, an African Caribbean doctor, was created by somebody else (Scott Lobdell), even if Lobdell himself’s not without his own faults it seems antiblack racism is not one of those but my exposure to his stories is very limited, so bear with me here. Given Chris Claremont never found black people particularly relatable, it does make one wonder why he never seemed actually interested in them or experienced with them the way he would with fellow Jews be they American or Israeli. This may not be true for how he portrays other black characters, but based on what I’ve read, it does feel this way at times. I said before that Claremont never seems particularly this exposed to African media, even when the Internet now makes it possible in a way. As in with the Internet, if you use it to upload X-Men fanart and listen to X-Men podcasts, you could also use it to livestream African sermons and the like.

You could also use it to scour for African documents, devotionals and the like, which is exactly what I tend to do with those. I’ve never been to any African country, though I do intend to go to one, but it’s still telling that Chris Claremont never seemed particularly interested in African countries, nor is he extensively exposed to African media in any way, online or not. As he’s never been to any African country, let alone stay there for quite a while like he did in Israel, he’s never particularly exposed to African media given when he was writing the X-Men stories at the time the Internet was in its infancy or something if it did exist at all. As Chris Claremont stayed in Israel for a while, it’s the country that’s going to have any real bearing over his stories. It’s not much of a stretch to even assume that he could’ve been exposed to Israeli media in any way, which would’ve further coloured the way he wrote the X-Men stories.

The fact that Chris Claremont wrote a substantial chunk of the X-Men canon, encompassing related magazines like New Mutants (in-story, they’re pretty much the junior wing of the wider X-Men organisation), Kitty Pryde and Wolverine and a number of Wolverine stories (I think), that his contributions are further reaching than those of Joe Kelly and Scott Lobdell. For every X-Men writer who seems particularly interested in any real African country (or at least has been there for a while) as it is with Joe Kelly towards Maggott/Japheth, there are many more who’re practically indifferent to it. In the case with East Asians and West Asians, and if we restrict it to Chris Claremont’s output, with the exceptions of Karma and Jubilee, they’re almost always portrayed in a kind of antagonistic light.

But then again Jubilee is Asian American and Karma hailed from a former French colony, so westernised Asians will be portrayed more sympathetically than those who’re not. I don’t read much comics so bear with me here again, but it’s kind of telling that there’s a racist streak in Chris Claremont’s stories. It also plays into a wider American sentiment against rising Asian powers that those who’re westernised (the Philippines for instance) will be regarded more favourably than those that aren’t under America’s control (China and at some point, Japan), which also kind of plays into a model minority rhetoric by pitting one against the other in some way. Even as a Pinay, I felt that X-Men stories were pretty iffy. But reading more of those stories makes them even iffier than one realises, especially if you remove those rose-coloured glasses and see the problems for what they really are. This kind of speaks to certain issues I knew before.

I said elsewhere that the Philippines does have a neocolonial relationship with America, especially whenever Philippine cartoonists chose to work for American publishers a lot, over actively supporting the local comics industry in search of money. It’s even worse when you realise that not a lot of Philippine publishing houses bother translating our neighbours’ books into local languages, like would it hurt to translate any of Haruki Murakami’s novels into Tagalog? Filipinos are no stranger to dubbing Japanese programmes into Tagalog, so translating Japanese books into Tagalog would really be more of the same. But we’d rather rely on US imports over personally translating Asian books into our languages, that I feel despite our infatuation with South Korea it’s a distant second to America.

Why? There’s a paucity of Korean books translated into Tagalog. Any Kpop fan that habitually translates Kpop songs into Tagalog should be eligible for translating Korean books into Tagalog, or even Korean comics as one of them could easily be our very own Erika Fuchs. She’s the woman who translated Disney comics into German, and she’s a very lauded translator. Regardless of how one feels about Korean comics or literacy in the Philippines, if you have Kpop fans who translate Korean magazines for personal use, they should be eligible for translating Korean comics into local languages, as Erika Fuchs may not have started out as this familiar with comics at some point but grew to love her job over time.

With America we get the whole package where we don’t just get exposed to America music, but also America television, American cinema, American food, American clothing, American video games, American books, American magazines and also American comic books. Our relationship with our closest Asian neighbours is painfully remote, not even our relationship with South Korea is as close as that of America, which is saying. I don’t think Filipinos are really this extensively exposed to Korean culture this much, despite the common sentiment, since our exposure to Korean culture is largely restricted to Korean programmes, films, food and music, since there are practically not a lot of Philippine publishers translating Korean books and comics for the Philippine market.

And even with music, it’s largely restricted to Kpop for most people and not something like Trot, Korean ballads, Korean rap and Korean rock as these do exist. Whereas Filipinos are highly exposed to a wider range of American music (rap, rock, jazz, pop and country), or for another matter American programmes (drama, comedy, reality television, educational programming and animation). Maybe I’m wrong but even then Filipinos are disturbingly distant towards their neighbours, not even as close to South Korea as they are to America. At any point where Philippine publishers could’ve translated Indonesian books into Tagalog, or Philippine television dubbing Indonesian programmes, these don’t happen. Most Filipinos’ exposure to Indonesian culture on our soil is usually just limited to food, Philippine radio stations don’t play this much Indonesian music.

The average Filipino really isn’t this exposed to Asian cultures this much, given how Philippine publishers barely translate Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai books into Tagalog, how Philippine television doesn’t dub Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese and Thai programmes this much and so on. Philippine radio stations may play Kpop, but they don’t play K-Rap, Trot, K-Ballads or K-Rock. Actually the other two (Trot and K-Ballads) are pretty popular in South Korea, though not widely exported to other countries the way Kpop is. I still think the Philippines’s exposure to Asian cultures is pretty shallow compared to America’s, even our exposure to South Korean culture isn’t this deep since we don’t bother translating Korean comics and books into local languages.

Such is the tragedy of American imperialism in the Philippines where despite much closer to Indonesia and Vietnam than we are to the US, we’re more heavily exposed to US culture than we are to both Indonesia and Vietnam. We’re more heavily exposed to American comics than we are to Indonesian and Vietnamese comics, and despite the existence of Japanese programmes dubbed into Tagalog, we don’t do a lot of the same to Japanese comics and books for some reason. Jline Comics is the only Philippine publisher that does this to my knowledge, it wouldn’t hurt for Philippine publishers to professionally translate something like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Saiyuki into Tagalog. But one possible objection is that it’s too extensive to translate multiple volumes of those into Tagalog, as the Philippines is bilingual in Tagalog and English, we could just import translated Japanese comics instead.

But since Philippine dubbers are experienced in dubbing hundreds of episodes from almost any anime into Tagalog, translating Japanese comics into Tagalog would be more of the same thing. I find myself wondering if Filipinos aren’t just remote towards our neighbours, but also suspicious or disdainful of them on some level. Not just China but also Japan at some point for elderly people alive today, even though it shouldn’t be this way. Even if these two have faults, America’s not any better either. America has repeatedly evicted Native Americans off of their lands and have them marginalised in some way, especially through reservations, whereas white Americans (descendants of European immigrants and colonists) needn’t to live in reservations. Even if not all Native Americans live in reservations, it’s not hard to see how and why they’re so marginalised on their own soil.

America is built on stolen land and what was once Native American territory has been made into American cities and towns by European settlers, you have some people suggesting that there were a lot more Native Americans back then. But once European settlers came, their numbers dwindled over time. Not to mention Hawaii was its own country but got subjugated by America and then got made into a US state as the 1950s came to a close, which goes to show you what an imperial hegemon America became. Any country it can’t readily subjugate is ripe for demonisation, which is how it feels around China and also Japan before. This is particularly evident in one X-Men story where the Mandarin decides to sinicise Jubilee even further, but she’s aghast at this or something.

Not to mention the other nonwesternised East Asians in that story are also antagonistic and though I could be wrong about the way the rest of the East Asians are portrayed in other Chris Claremont penned stories, but it does make sense how and why East Asians are generally written the way they are in the X-Men stories. It seems most of the more sympathetic East Asians in the X-Men canon tend to be westernised ones (Galura who’s Philippine, the Vietnamese Karma and Chinese-American Jubilee), but the antagonistic ones are the least westernised (the Mandarin and Matsuo). Also it seems most of the more sympathetic East Asian characters are also female, but the antagonistic ones tend to be male (I don’t read much comics to be honest).

It kind of does play into a sort of fetishisation of East Asian women, made worse by the presence of US air bases in some countries. Which means US soldiers will be out to have dalliances with Philippine, Vietnamese and Korean prostitutes, which sort of explains why DC’s very own Cheshire is portrayed the way she is. Though Chinese men having African women isn’t any better, but when it comes to American soldiers having dalliances with East Asian prostitutes, it kind of furthers or deepens the fetishisation of East Asian women at times. For every AF/WM relationship that’s actually not based around prostitution at all, there are those who come over for the prostitutes and the like. It’s a really insidious form of colonialism where people get trafficked for sex in some way or another, or if people are nothing more than living commodities for white people.

Nothing more than playthings for white people, which I feel makes the sexualised transformation of Betsy Braddock into an Asian woman worse. Early on she didn’t dress this skimpily (by superhero standards), but once she turned East Asian she started flirting with Scott Summers (who’s married to Jean Grey). And she habitually wore a thong leotard, which makes Peach Momoko’s take on her all the more refreshing. Instead of using her to act out fetishistic fantasies of Asian women, this Psylocke comes across as authentically Japanese. She’s not a white woman who got bodyswapped with an East Asian woman, but an actual Japanese woman whose name contains the Chinese character for west (clever one!).

It also helps that Peach Momoko is Japanese herself and would churn out a real Japanese sensibility, but she’s far from the only one out there in Marvel. But there’s something troubling about the Philippines’s sympathy for the west and especially America, where we’re quick to distrust easternisation like Filipinos drawing in a more anime style, but have no issue working for American publishers themselves. Coupled with a more distant relationship with our closest neighbours and it’s pretty shameful that we’re too close to America in ways that are really inappropriate, like the Philippines can’t effectively decolonise itself without letting go of America in some way. I even said before that most Philippine publishers don’t translate our neighbours’ books and comics.

Which means the Philippines’s relationship with the east is painfully and embarrassingly remote, compared to our inappropriately close relationship with America and the rest of the west. Not that there’s anything wrong with liking western countries, but when the Philippines is rather distant towards its closest neighbours it’s not a good sign really. Actually I don’t think the Philippines is close to the rest of the global east (which in my view includes Africa) either, given how most Filipinos are still far more exposed to western media than they are to East Asian and African media. It’s not something I like in the Philippines but it’s vanishingly rare for Filipinos to be this extensively exposed to nonwestern media, I could not be the only one here.

Even if something like the Bumilangit comics canon isn’t entirely resolved of other problems, at least offers a more authentically Indonesian sensibility and it’s proof that it’s possible to sustain a local big name comics publisher for long, something the Philippines barely even does with its own superheroes and our very own Bayan Knights didn’t last long. Philippine cartoonists would rather work for American publishers and get a higher payrate, over actively supporting our own superheroes which hints at the inappropriate persistence of American colonialism in the Philippines. And since it’s been speculated that Israel itself is an agent of western imperialism, it kind of does play into how certain ethnicities are portrayed.

Those that are westernised are highly favoured (Israeli Jews, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese) and those that aren’t are highly demonised (Chinese, Arabs, even the Japanese at some point), biases that are very much reinforced in the X-Men canon from time to time that gets inculcated onto America’s allies. It may not even be the X-Men comics that do the trick, but any other American story would do and it will turn out the same for as long as it helps reinforce these biases onto others. It’s worth noting that there’s nary a Palestinian X-Man, even though the Arrakkians serve as proxies for Palestinians. But when writers almost always side with Zionism, in which a good chunk of the X-Men canon owes itself to through Chris Claremont, it’s probably why there’ll never be a sympathetically prominent Palestinian mutant at all.

The sort of Palestinian characters who do get to appear in X-Men stories in any capacity are more likely to be Israeli Jews, something like Gabrielle Haller and her son with Professor Xavier, David Haller. As he appeared in the earlier stories, he was like Professor Xavier’s skinny teenaged son who got possessed by an evil Arab hellbent on killing Israelis. Outside of the X-Men and part of the larger Marvel canon is the Israeli Sabra/Ruth Bat Seraph, again one would wonder why Marvel Comics never had a prominently sympathetic Palestinian character in any way. Sympathetic Egyptians and Lebanese maybe, but not a single sympathetic Palestinian. That would run counter to the stronger bias towards Israeli Jews and Jews in general.

And whenever Sabra does appear with another character called Arabian Knight, she’s almost always portrayed as a sort of heroine against him. Like you have to side more with the Jews than with the Arabs, even those at their worst like Magneto and Kitty Pryde at times will still be portrayed more sympathetically, than is afforded to nonwhite, non-Jewish characters like John Proudstar. It’s like both of them are ungrateful towards Professor Xavier, but only Kitty Pryde’s spared from the consequences of her actions that befell John Proudstar. The fact that Claremont’s so biased towards her that it feels really racist when you realise why she barely ever faces the consequences of her own disdain towards Professor Xavier the way it did for him, which is really racist.

It’s like he sides with her more than the Native American guy, even though they’re more resentful towards Xavier and Kitty has fought with him like three times to my knowledge. It kind of communicates a certain message that you can get away with that attitude for as long as you’re of the right ethnicity and culture, like anybody who’s not a western white person will almost always face the consequences of the same actions that their white, western counterparts do often. It’s not a good message and when compounded by other iffy portrayals of nonwestern and/or nonwhite people, it’s as if despite X-Men writers and especially Chris Claremont embracing multiculturalism, it’s mostly on paper and not in action.

Most of the people making up the classic New Mutants lineup are white westerners (British Rahne Sinclair, white Americans Doug Ramsey and Sam Guthrie, white Brazilian Amara Aquila and white Russian Illyana Rasputin in my opinion, and then another white American like Tabitha Smith), given there are only a few nonwhite or nonwestern members of that subgroup (Native American Dani Moonstar, Vietnamese Karma and Afro-Brazilian Sunspot). It’s like despite attempts to portray Japanese culture and Japanese characters, X-Men writers and especially Chris Claremont seem far more biased towards white westerners above everybody else.

And when compounded by the paucity of sympathetic Palestinian Arab characters like there is for Israeli Jews like Sabra, it’s not hard to see that Chris Claremont and the overall Marvel canon seem far more biased towards white Jews than they would towards Palestinians. It’s kind of telling that the most prominent Muslim characters in Marvel Comics aren’t Palestinians themselves, be it Pakistani American Kamala Khan, Lebanese American Fadi Fadlalah and Turkish American Nakia Bahadir, which still sends a certain message that it’s okay to be Muslim and/or West Asian for as long as they are westernised in one way or another. It’s not just that all three of them are from their countries’ diasporas.

But that both Pakistan and Lebanon were former European colonies (British and French respectively), with Turkey being a West Asian country that’s in close geographical and cultural proximity to Europe. There’s nary a sympathetic Palestinian American among them, not even Palestinian Christians are portrayed much at all in American comics. Perhaps outside of Joe Sacco’s journalistic forays into Palestine, which they likely do appear, Palestinian Christians are vanishingly rare in the American comics canon. And Palestinian Christians are very much ignored in most western media, like this might tarnish the perception of Israel as the Christians’ favourite country. This is even more ironic that not only does Israel persecute Palestinian Christians, but that it’s rarely mentioned as one of those countries that persecute Christians at all.

The ones that do get mentioned are ironically the same countries that have very substantial Christian populations compared to Israel, namely these are Vietnam, Indonesia, China, Nigeria, Mexico and Uganda. Even if they have their own issues, they’re actually less hostile to Christianity than one realises. Uganda not only has Christian YouTube channels and radio stations, but also a newspaper called New Vision that even publishes devotionals online. Same thing goes for Nigeria’s Nigerian Times and Elanhub, in addition to having its own Christian radio stations and YouTube channels. There are even Christian websites coming from Nigeria, Indonesia and Vietnam, just as Indonesia has its own version of Radio Maria (a Christian radio network) and Vietnam even has Christian YouTube channels.

Even China has a sizable number of Christian websites, despite taking a few of them down. Unfortunately it’s easier to side with Israel for all its faults, than to see the good in these countries due to the Halo effect both Israel and Jews have in the Zionist mindset. And there’s a tendency for some Protestants to view Jews as honourary Protestants, which only deepens people’s suspicions of Christianity as linked to colonialism, especially if/when there’s no regard and respect for Christian traditions and denominations that have a longer history in countries like Vietnam, China and the Philippines, namely Catholicism. But others don’t see Catholicism as Christian, so it’s like Jews get a pass for being Protestant-like.

It’s not hard to see how and why a Zionist bias is prominent in not only some Christian circles, but also western circles as a whole and why it kind of drives a wedge between people really. Whether if it’s Zionism in Chris Claremont’s stories, the overall trend of Zionism in the wider Marvel canon and also Zionism in western culture, one gets the impression that Jews are the model minority to end all model minorities. The ones that can readily assimilate into white, Protestant cultures in a way not even those from white, Catholic cultures can’t aspire to (something like Ireland and Italy), which communicates a message that invalidates those cultures and countries.

Jews are the model minority’s model minority, which would make the Romani the original ‘bad’ minority. The former is stereotyped as high-achieving and amenable to white, Protestant cultures, the other will always be the scapegoat and the outsider. Both of them come from other places, with Jewish people that’s like twice because although a few Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Levant, most of them are more directly descended from Judacised Turkic, Iranian, Greek and Slavic populations between West Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Conveniently where the Khazar Khaganate would’ve been, whose own people were speculated to have converted to Judaism en masse to avoid taking sides.

There are studies that are conflicted over whether or not Ashkenazic Jews are even descended from them, even if they’re not wholly descended from them as they’re also descended from Judacised Slavs, Greeks and Iranians, but if Palestinians are said to be directly descended from the Israelites in some studies, even if Palestinians could really be Arabicised Jews in some regards (in the sense of being directly descended from the Israelites) but to most people, being Arab and Jewish are fundamentally incompatible concepts. Like to be Arab is to be Muslim and to be Jewish is to be westernised on some level, even if the possibility that Palestinians are directly descended from the ancient Israelites confounds these assumptions.

It seems in the world of Marvel and also in Chris Claremont’s contributions to the X-Men canon, an Arab can be a prominent character but never a Palestinian Arab. A Muslim can be a hero for as long as they’re not Palestinian, as if the Zionists that may be try to bury any memory and positive mention of Palestine at all. Not to mention a Palestinian can’t even be a Christian, despite Palestine/Israel housing the world’s oldest continuous Christian community. It’s not hard to see how western media’s greater bias towards both Israel and Jews make it harder to see Palestinians as people, let alone as practising Christians because that would surprise and upend one’s ideas about them.

So a Palestinian will never be a character in Marvel Comics, much less a heroic one or even an X-Man at that. If Marvel has Israeli Jewish characters like David Haller and Sabra, why not a Palestinian? But it’s never going to happen anyways, perhaps other than the coded residents of Arrakko. And even then mutants having to have their own ethnostate’s right there in Chris Claremont’s writings, who spent enough time to Israel to have both Magneto and Charles Xavier do the same thing. There’s also no mistaking that he would’ve been this exposed to Israeli media, in lieu of a more sophisticated Internet back in the 1980s and 1990s as this was a thing before.

And even in the early to mid 2000s, though the Internet and broadband connections were there, livestreaming had yet to emerge. And even then Chris Claremont’s still more biased towards Israel and western cultures, at least generally less antagonistic towards the former two than he is towards East Asia and especially both China and Japan (again, I don’t read comics much). His biases inevitably colour the way people are portrayed in his stories, his own inability to relate to black people or East Asians for another matter often results in dodgy portrayals, his greater bias towards Kitty Pryde has rendered her immune to the fallout of her own actions, despite being the same as what John Proudstar did.

David Haller was a poor Jewish boy (since he’s older now) who got possessed by an Arab, as if Arabs are out to corrupt Jewish minors at any point. And how Betsy Braddock came to look Asian, she actually got body-swapped with an Asian assassin with criminal ties, as like if being easternised makes you suspicious on some level. It’s no surprise that such portrayals of certain nonwestern cultures and peoples serve to drive a wedge between people, like how Philippine cartoonists kind of look down on their countrymen doing the manga style but have no shame working for American publishing houses. Even if it sounds like a stretch, it does inculcate certain ideas of what people ought to be and ally themselves with.

In American comics, even if there are white, western bad guys they’re still going to be portrayed more sympathetically than is afforded for their nonwestern, nonwhite counterparts, which affects how America’s allies see others as. This may not be the case anymore but it does influence people’s mindsets and sensibilities on a subconscious level, like if Americans have a habit of inculcating their culture onto Filipinos over Filipinos learning to develop stronger ties to their neighbours, then Filipinos will become more biased towards their cultures. Even if they sympathise with their neighbours on some level, they’ll still sympathise more with anything western still.

It’s pretty evidently problematic that due to years of American inculcation that most Filipinos aren’t this particularly close to their neighbours, even though this should make good logistical sense. They begin to absorb and internalise American ideas and mindsets, resulting in a worldview no different from their American counterparts. This also includes parallel attitudes towards Chinese, Arabs, British and so on, even if this isn’t how these people see themselves as. Or for another matter, how Europeans would see Arabs and Chinese as. If you keep presenting Arabs and Chinese as a threat to American hegemony, they will see them in this light. If you habitually erase Palestinians in your stories, people wouldn’t know they existed.

Let alone in a more humanising light as it is in Joe Sacco’s own comics, ditto the existence of Palestinian Christians. And unfortunately given the nature of American hegemony in the Philippines and the like, it makes it harder to see these biases as what they really are, instead of finding out Chinese and Arab made media to better understand where they’re coming from and see a different side to them. Or for another matter, Vietnamese, Ugandan, Nigerian and Indonesian made media, but the problem will be the same for as America and Israel both want to earn people’s graces. For as long as America continues to tarnish their reputations, it makes harder to understand and learn how they see themselves as. Even for all their faults, countries like Indonesia and Vietnam aren’t this hostile to Christians.

Israel might be more hostile to Christians than one realises, especially if these are Palestinian Christians at that, which go unnoticed in most Christian media. When coupled with poor media literacy, it’s not hard to see things in a biased manner. Unfortunately even researchers are biased towards something, making it harder to evaluate things objectively and are human in a way. So media literacy comes in handy when it comes to evaluating such media, which should also extend to something like the X-Men canon. Media literacy is really helpful in understanding one’s biases towards something and how it colours their work, such as how Chris Claremont’s Zionist bias coloured his tenure on the X-Men magazine series and its ilk like New Mutants.

Unconscious or not, it colours the way they see and expect things to be. No wonder why it’s so hard to see the Zionist bias and racism in the X-Men stories without realising it later on, well as it is for me, but it’s increasingly obvious how different certain people are portrayed compared to others. And why these media influence people’s perceptions and assumptions of something.

American Imperialism, Disney Style

There’s a book called ‘How to Read Donald Duck’ and it does examine how the Carl Barks stories espouse a form of colonialism, especially whenever ‘exotic’ locales are concerned where they are often exoticised and othered in ways they wouldn’t be when left to their own. It’s like how the Africans in the Carl Barks stories are portrayed in a demeaning, primitive manner and a cursory glance at African countries in those days show that there is room for modern technology. There are newspapers, radio stations, television channels and book publishers in African countries after all, then comes the Internet and it’s no different really.

I myself have perused African newspapers and radio stations, I still do to this day but for the purpose of worshipping God. Disney, as an American multinational corporation, has multiple branches almost anywhere in the world. It has many divisions dedicated to different media in whatever permutation they appear in, it even has a series of radio stations called Radio Disney and they’re still a thing in Latin America, including Ariel Dorfman’s native Chile (just type emisoras.cl/disney). Disney comics used to be a big thing in both the Americas and are still a thing in places like Brazil and Europe.

The Disney comics are a major focus of Dorfman’s thesis, though if he wrote this book this time he would’ve certainly included Radio Disney and critiqued it the same way. It’s not hard to say that even when Disney has improved itself when it comes to portraying foreign countries and culture, there’s still the potential for othering in ways it never intended to. Looking at one of its purchases like Marvel, it’s not hard to think some of Dorfman’s arguments could also be applied to characters like Black Panther and Storm to a frightening extent.

Because a chunk of Dorfman’s thesis is dedicated to the global north’s impression of global south countries, it’s not hard for one to come to the same conclusion considering Marvel has done the same thing. It’s like how someone has pointed out the problems with the way Marvel named its Vietnamese characters, it’s not that China didn’t influence Southeast Asia at all (it did to varying degrees depending on the country). But that their names are kind of strange and strangely spelt to anybody familiar with Vietnamese, sort of like how one came to this conclusion concerning Karma.

She has the ability to influence and possess people’s minds but what’s not brought up is that Marvel missed an opportunity to celebrate the Year of the Cat, it’s a thing in the Vietnamese zodiac and one that replaces the Year of the Rabbit for some reason, just so it could have a variant cover of Karma hanging out with cats. But this makes you wonder if most Marvel writers actually knew about Vietnam and Vietnamese culture in specific to do this, the best this writer did is to change her name into something realistically Vietnamese (it turned out in-story it’s a big mispronunciation of her real name).

Similar things can be said about Sha Shan Nguyen, who is a Spider-Man character by the way, one wonders why nobody bothered renaming her to San Sang since it sounds close enough (in my opinion as I’ve just started learning Vietnamese). Then we get to Storm or Ororo Munroe, who’s pretty much Marvel’s most famous Kenyan. But also one who’s hardly like actual Kenyans, especially if you actually know Kenya in some way. She doesn’t speak Swahili, Luo or Gikuyu to any degree, she doesn’t even celebrate Boxing Day (which happens every 26 December).

She’s a character who’s pretty much a white person’s idea of an exotic black woman, not so much an actual Kenyan woman which explains why she’s so oddly divorced from Kenyan culture. Also both Disney comics (especially when written by Carl Barks) and Marvel Comics sometimes have stories taking place in made-up Latin American countries, which further exoticises Latin America. It’s kind of shockingly recent for Disney to place its stories in actual Latin American countries, be it Mexico for Coco or Colombia for Encanto. But every now and then it falls back on exotic, made-up countries.

Recently we have Wish, which takes place in an island called Rosas. Though I think it would’ve worked just the same if it was actually set in Spain, despite having never watched the film myself. One would only wonder why does Black Panther have to come from Wakanda when he could’ve come from Cameroon and be Bamileke himself, the very people who even associate leopards with royalty and where fons/chiefs are said to become leopards themselves. Black Panther being an actual Cameroonian wouldn’t hurt really.

Cameroon even has websites which you can peruse such as Camerounweb, Actu Cameroun and more in addition to Radio Balafon (radio.co.cm/radio-balafon/). Or for another matter, Madripoor when it comes to the X-Men stories when Singapore could’ve sufficed. Using actual Latin American, Asian and African countries would have a major advantage, since you could actually look up on them and go there if you’re willing to. You could even peruse their websites, it’s not that hard really since I’ve done this before. If you could use the Internet to find X-Men fanfics, you could do the same with Senegalese websites.

I could go on saying that even when Carl Barks has been proven to be a good writer on most counts, when it comes to portrayals of nonwestern and nonwhite cultures it leaves much to be desired. The Africans in his stories tend to be stereotypical primitives, even when it was written there were actual Africans editing and publishing newspapers, writing for newspapers and using the radio themselves. There are even libraries in African countries, many of which have survived to the present day. Or how Donald and gang have a habit of going to made-up countries, when actual ones could’ve sufficed.

I feel we could’ve gotten stories where Donald and Uncle Scrooge would go to Afghanistan instead of Unsteadystan, though one would only wonder if even when the Internet wasn’t there yet in its present form Barks himself may have been more ignored than one realises and just as prone to Orientalism as his contemporaries at Marvel. So both Disney and Marvel act as agents of American media imperialism, both of them impart an American perspective of things onto non-Americans. Regardless of how suspicious their portrayals of foreigners are, they remain popular to the present day.

Because of the way Disney expanded and acquired brands like Marvel and Lucasfilm, we have an even more potential form of American imperialism as delivered by this company. We don’t just have Disney fabrics, comics, books and toys but also Radio Disney, Disney ships and Disney bridal wear. Even when Disney bothered to improve its portrayal of foreign, often non-western cultures but sometimes it still leaves much to be desired. In some properties like the Marvel stories, Wakanda takes priority over Cameroon and likewise Madripoor over Singapore.

The potential for exoticising, othering foreign regions is there and the precipice will always be there in some form, sometimes it’s so unavoidable that it’s easy to come up with Madripoor, Unsteadystan, Wakanda, Latveria, Rosas, Inca-Blinca, Aztecland and Kumandra than to actually set them in Singapore, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Slovenia, the Canary Islands, Peru, Mexico and Cambodia. It’s always the veneer of exoticism that others actual geopolitical regions, instead of the reality of such places as they actually are. A lot of it seems to come from an insincere interest.

Like trying to be interested in something foreign, but not actually committing to it in any way. I have done this before with China and it’s only now that I’ve gotten actually interested in it (with God’s help), it seems with some Marvel and Disney writers they want something foreign but can’t commit to it in any way. So Doctor Doom comes from Latveria, but not Slovenia (which actually exists by the way). A Yugoslavian Doctor Doom wouldn’t hurt, so would a Cameroonian Black Panther. Or Raya actually coming from Cambodia, but as one said these don’t have any messy real-world baggage.

I guess if Wish was actually set in Spain, one would have to deal with the messy complications of colonisation. After all it was Spain that colonised parts of Africa (Equatorial Guinea and part of Morocco), it was Spain that enslaved many Africans and have them forcibly going to its colonies to do work there. Likewise with Raya not coming from Cambodia, you’d have to deal with America having waged war there. Ethiopia could qualify but to my knowledge, it doesn’t have a tradition of associating leopards with royalty the way Cameroonian Bamilekes do.

Or for another matter, the messy reality of Singapore having seceded from Malaysia and the messy legacy of British colonialism in both countries. It seems with Disney over the years and whatever permutation it appears in, whatever company it has acquired there’s always the precipice of exoticism and othering. Geopolitical regions like Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and southern Europe find themselves exoticised by Disney, real countries could’ve sufficed but you have to deal with the ugly geopolitical reality we live in.

At best, Disney and its vassal companies promote an American way of looking at things. Rather othering and exclusive at that concerning foreign countries at all.

Decolonisation

The act of decolonising oneself or distancing oneself from both the coloniser and colonisation/colonialism, so far in fairly recent memory various Asian and African countries have tried decolonising themselves to varying degrees of success. Though it would make more steps to severely limit westernisation, it may not always be extreme but more than what we’re currently doing. Something like minimising the amount of Western loanwords and seeking more influence from non-Western nations are good places to start, though I feel this is more sincere if done by those whose people were colonised.

I have a desire for the Philippines to be more de-westernised big time, not just with Korean and Japanese influences but also with added Chinese, Indonesian and Vietnamese influences since I don’t like how westernised this country is. But I also think it’s possible there are others in various ex-colonies who feel similarly, I guess the goal of decolonisation is to distance oneself from the coloniser as much as possible and to ally oneself with those who aren’t that colonised. I might be wrong about this one, but even then the desire for decolonisation stems from wanting to distance oneself from the coloniser. Well, as much as they can do about it.

I do think what I do want is incredibly feasible, given the nature of diplomatic relations and the like. Due to diplomatic relations between South Korea and the Philippines, Korean influence has made its way through people’s dishes, televisions and radios. Something similar could happen big time between Vietnam and the Philippines, it might be the beginning but it’s the beginning of something interesting. At least to me, that is. Whatever means needed to decolonise oneself, whether if it’s reclaiming lost traditions and customs or allying oneself with a less westernised country, all of this is feasible to distance oneself from the coloniser.

Colonial mentality

I personally think for all their suspicions about Japanese comics, AKA manga, influencing Philippine comics the fact that some of these people work for Western publishers for so long that they still have a form of colonial mentality. Instead of loyalty to Japan, it’s loyalty to America. They can’t let go of America in any way, not just because it offers them more money but it’s something so oddly sacrosanct and familiar that’s why they can’t criticise it in any way. That’s not to say I’m against Western cultures in any way, I feel Filipinos get too loyal to anything Western.

Anything that’s Western or Western-adjacent, they’ll flock to it in one way or another. With the exception of South Korean culture, we have a habit of slavishly following whatever that’s Western due to colonisation. If you wanted me to be honest, I actually think the Philippines would benefit a lot from real decolonisation and allying a lot more with Asian countries. It already is done to some extent, though I think more work’s needed to dewesternise us more than what we’re getting.

It’s not necessarily wrong to like Western stuff, it’s just that if people were call out others for colonial mentality just because they like imitating manga they should take a look in the mirror whenever they imitate American superhero cartoonists.

Whites writing nonwhites and the like

There are websites and media dedicated to men writing female characters and these run into stereotypes and cliches like a never-ending focus on their breasts (I even read a story where a woman’s breasts bounce like jelly when hit by something), not so much about their hobbies and the like if there’s any at all. They’re also highly unrelatable to actual women, like why on earth would a female detective bother posing as a nude model to catch a criminal? Couldn’t she just have done it with her clothes on all the time? Not to mention some of the women who do willingly pose in the nude for art are artists themselves.

There’s no way a woman involved in law enforcement would bother posing in the nude in the name of art to catch a criminal, it’s so implausible and impossible that it’s unrealistic to begin with. Things like those compounded with the tendency to portray female characters in demeaning situations and roles does show a sexist portrait, they don’t come off as characters people will identify with and relate to. I guess in order to come up with something like whites writing nonwhites and the like, it would be more extensive and more damning when it comes to nonwhite women. I think I said this before.

Characters like Storm and Cheshire are nonwhite women evidently written by white people and play into white people’s ideas of what nonwhite, nonwestern women are like. In the case with Storm, as initially presented in Giant Sized X-Men, she was shown nude and worshipped as a goddess in Kenya which plays into colonialist ideas about Africa. Ironically due to colonialism, at this point Kenya has a majority Christian population and suspicious of paganism (and immodesty) so Storm as presented wouldn’t fare well there. Likewise Cheshire is Vietnamese and shown to have a habit of seducing people.

But the fact that there were Vietnamese women being prostituted during the Vietnam War and Cheshire was created not too long after has tainted and coloured the way she’s portrayed, even today some Southeast Asian countries like the Philippines and Thailand attract sex tourists a lot and where American soldiers father children with poor Asian women. So she’s going to be more sexualised than the other DC female Asian characters are, let’s not also forget that she has a child with the white Roy Harper out of wedlock. It does humanise her, but in light of her being a temptress and that there are mixed race children who are born out of wedlock between Southeast Asian women and American men has tainted this.

It does seem romantic and cute, but it’s not as rosy and romantic when bringing up the reality of American soldiers fathering children to Southeast Asian prostitutes. When you factor in colonialism, these take on a different, perhaps more uncomfortable tone. It’s not a nice association, especially when you have sex tourists around hanging out in the Global South in search of exotic sex. It’s not just the women that get this, female sex tourists would go to Indonesia and Jamaica for the same reason. Historically, it was Italy and Greece for northern European women so romance novels featuring Italian and Greek heroes take on a fetishistic tone this way.

These characters can be divorced from such an association, but they were initially created by an unconciously colonialist mindset. They’re exotic others who look and act the way they do because they’re conceived by white minds when coming up with a global south woman at all, it may not be true for all global south female characters. For every Lady Shiva and Shuri, there’s a Cheshire and a Storm playing up colonialist ideas of global south women. Especially when it comes to sexual objectification and exploitation in light of prostitution and colonialism.

Separated from Africa

When it comes to whether or not African Americans (as well as their Caribbean and South American counterparts, anybody in the African diaspora) do cultural appropriation when they take various African customs and garments, the other problem would be that African Americans and their ilk have been rooted out of their ties to various African communities against their will during the Atlantic Slave Trade. Their ties have been obscured over time, even if they continue practising some traditions and customs upon arriving in the Americas.

Getting aspects of various African cultures may one of their attempts at distancing themselves from Westernisation and colonialism, if you wanted me to be honest I do something similar with Chinese and Indian cultures because I despise what the Spaniards did to us Filipinos. African Americans taking something from actual African cultures may be no different, in fact it should be telling that compared to continental black Africans they are Westernised far longer and earlier.

As with anybody else, African Americans and the like have developed their own cultures but when it comes to reclaiming ties to Africa through adopting customs and the like that’s their way of de-Westernising themselves.

Rule Britannia?

Recently, Queen Elizabeth II has died. Britain could have a new monarch in Prince Charles, soon to become King Charles if time passes enough. She has lived a long life enough to witness various changes in her lifetime ranging from many African colonies becoming republics between the 1950s and 1960s to the death of Princess Diana and Brexit (Britain going away from the European Union). I’m not sure if Charles would ever make Britain return to the European Union, if he ever wills it at all.

But with Barbados now a republic and Jamaica planning on becoming one, it seems some of the Commonwealth countries are renouncing their ties to the United Kingdom. The more they do it, the more they escape from the Queen’s rule. While Queen Elizabeth may’ve lived long enough to witness Barbados become a republic, the rest of Barbardos’s republican days will be overseen by Prince Charles and later on his own two sons. Not to mention there’s some controversy over the wars and violence that happened during Queen Elizabeth’s rule.

Not just the three cod wars with Iceland, but also violence perpetuated against Kenyans during the Mau Mau uprising. She’s no saint, given the colonial violence aimed at Kenyans and their ilk. Perhaps it’s probably a good thing for Caribbean and African countries to cut ties to Britain, given how negatively impacted they are by her rule and how they fought for self-sovereignty. Of course, that doesn’t stop some from having positive opinions of their coloniser.

But the British Empire, like all other European empires, became a shadow of its former self once other countries like Ireland, Nigeria and Kenya fought for their independence and become republics. Perhaps it’s a good thing to lay the empire to rest.

A white Westerner’s idea

When it comes to Cheryl Lynn Eaton’s opinion of Storm, she says that the character seems to be written by white people for such a long time that she should’ve been written as more comfortable around whites or something like that. To go a little further with that, I’d say that Storm (at least in the earlier stories, it could’ve changed for the better) comes off as a white Westerner’s idea of an African woman. Not that she’s a bad character, there are certainly African Marvel characters that are now written by actual Africans.

But the thing about Storm is that she’s written by white Westerners for so long that she does come off as a white Westerner’s idea of an African, but she’s not the only one in comics to appear this way. Carl Barks, for all his storytelling talents, isn’t immune to portraying black Africans as primitive and vaguely tribal. So these characters as well as Storm are pretty much a white Westerner’s idea of an African character, othered in some way although Storm (at least in more recent portrayals) is a step up from this depiction.

She was even seen playing her favourite tunes on a device before, so that’s an improvement from all those primitive tribal African portrayals before. Admittedly, this isn’t unique to Western comics as Japanese comics (manga) can be prone to this to some extent. Whether if it’s portraying Africa as a whole country, primitive Africans again or depicting it as super poor and war-torn (regardless of the fact that some African countries are on their way to being first world).

It might be possible to portray Africans as anything other than those stereotypes, but it has to be a sincere interest in and experience with Africans. Otherwise, these portrayals would feel insincere and inauthentic if it weren’t for any real interactions with and interest in Africans. Well, that’s the vibe I get though with Storm and Black Panther there’s a drive or desire to portray African superheroes even if the portrayals may’ve been stereotypical at some point or another.

But I do think it does matter in creating more authentic and sincere takes on African cultures and peoples, especially when it comes to moving away from stereotypical and unrealistic portrayals of them. It does get complicated if some of those attempting to portray Africans end up with rather stereotypical portrayals or unrelatable portrayals, that it seems a mistake can lead to nasty assumptions about them as a people. It might not even be true for a lot of them.

In the same way portraying Africans as primitive leaves out Africans who are into the latest technologies and fashions, portraying Africans as into something like say hunting leaves out Africans who are into other things. Some of which might not align with rather colonialist ideas of them, or if they are only doable if they align well with colonialist ideals of them. That’s disregarding the things they do, which wouldn’t align well with colonialist ideas of them.

Better portrayals can be done, it’s been done before but that involves a lot of undoing in order to get authentic, sincere portrayals of them.

Dingoes, wild or not

If one were to be around Aboriginal communities, several of them do own dingoes even if their attitudes aren’t always positive (depending on community and individual) and weirdly enough, the word dingo actually came from a certain language’s word for owned dog (warrigal being the dingo proper). It also seems parsimonious that the apparent separation between dog and dingo’s more of a colonialist Western thing.

In that these dogs don’t fit Western standards. (They did the same thing when visiting Japan.)

Though I won’t doubt if some dogs are wilder than others, it’s also partly due to socialisation. If owned dogs spend a lot of their time outside left to their own devices with their own owners not wanting to literally always deal with their crap, then they could act somewhat wilder. Maybe to some extent but that’s still saying. This might not even be true for all Westerners.

There are likely some Europeans that still keep their dogs outside for long, most likely in the countryside for better or worse. (Conversely speaking, there are non-Westerners who do spoil their dogs a lot and keep them inside longer.) That Aboriginals owned dingoes and still do makes me think the idea of them as really wild animals is basically a colonialist invention.