A bad allegory

Somebody at Stitch Media Mix pointed out that the oppression mutants face isn’t always rightfully analogous to what actual oppressed minorities go through; no mutant’s ever oppressed for speaking in a minority language (as it is with Irish speakers in Ireland or Breton speakers in France), no mutant’s ever oppressed for being black or nonwhite in general and most of the mutants in the X-Men stories tend to white (and Anglophone in the original language of the stories).

I actually think some mutants would be justifiably feared and hated, if we were to take a page from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures Boom Boom (who has the power to create explosions) would be one of the more ruthless mutants around as she could easily kill somebody by exploding them. But that involves actually thinking through things, realising that there would be characters that people would actually detest or avoid if they ever existed. You’d have to drop the self-pitying aspect of X-Men to realise that some mutants would be rightfully detested.

Not to mention, as there’s hardly ever a writer of colour doing X-Men stories (that’s different from having an artist of colour unless if they write themselves) there’s a tendency to botch characters of colour. The worst offender would be Betsy Braddock, that until recently, was usually in the body of a Japanese woman. The fact that it went from mere surgery to switching bodies with her also makes me realise how badly thought out her transformation into a ninja is. Both Kitty Pryde and Elektra never had to switch bodies when they got ninja training.

Actually and ironically, Kitty Pryde would do the ruthless ninja thing way better than Betsy would’ve ever done. This is where the mutant as oppressed minority allegory not only gets turned on its head, but also turn out to be a crock as most of the mutants there are white and human-passing. I even said that some mutants would be rightfully hated for the things they do, that’s if they use their powers to kill and abuse people at all. Boom Boom could’ve been a serial killer, Kitty Pryde could’ve been a merciless assassin of a ninja.

A big pitfall of white people writing nonwhite people is the risk of stereotyping and othering as well as getting their cultures wrong, which’s essentially and practically the same if an American were to write a non-American character. As I said before about Italian superheroes, an American would risk getting Italian culture wrong and do a stereotype. If an Italian were to do a story with Italian superheroes, there wouldn’t be any stereotypes but rather authentically Italian characters.

That’s the difference between DC’s Helena Bertinelli and Guardiani Italiani, the latter is conceived and authored by actual Italian citizens so they wouldn’t get Italy wrong. But because they were brought up in and never left Italy, they’d know Italian culture better than any American would unless if they stayed in Italy for a time being. To put it this way in the context of Japanese characters in X-Men, Kwannon (whom Betsy swapped bodies with and which was eventually reversed) should’ve killed herself in shame instead of begging somebody to kill her.

There’s something like the honour suicide in Japanese culture, but it gets glossed over in favour of being killed by somebody in X-Men. I could be misremembering things, but that’s one of the ways X-Men writers have mishandled a nonwestern culture and nonwestern mutants. When it comes to Dust, she’s supposed to be Afghan but has been shown speaking Arabic. She should be speaking Dari, which’s one of the languages spoken in Afghanistan. On top of that, she’s a stereotype of a Muslim woman and rightfully criticised by Muslim readers.

The only times some of the X-Men mutants were ever written by a nonwhite person are in the Marvel Voices comics, no doubt it’s good to have a Native person write a story about an existing Native character. But the fact that there’s hardly ever a recurring X-Men writer of colour makes me think it’s quite easy for many white X-Men writers to miss the point of what it’s like to be an oppressed cultural or ethnic minority. To reiterate, no mutant has ever been shamed for speaking a minority language (which’s the fate of Breton and Sami speakers in France and Sweden).

No mutant ever has their culture questioned and shamed by outsiders, when I mean by culture it’s the cultural background they come from which’s an ethnocultural minority (Berbers in Morocco, Fulani in Nigeria, Baka Pygmy in Cameroon). X-Men mutants may have a subculture, but that’s different from being born into a cultural or ethnic minority. There’s a difference between a run of the mill Swede who became a Goth and a Swedish Sami, not that the latter can’t go Goth.

But the latter has had bad experiences with the majority, made to give up a livelihood important to the entire community or a language held near and dear to them. That’s why X-Men mutants, as they are presented, aren’t a good proxy for what ethnic minorities go through. It’s also telling that there’s not a lot of mutants (as far as I know and recall) who aren’t white, speak minority languages and practise cultural traditions important to their communities.

Maybe not to the same extent, but it’s telling that Kitty Pryde hardly ever speaks Yiddish. There are no mutants who’ve been hounded for speaking Breton, Basque or Occitan and these are legitimate minority languages in France. Mutants who don’t fit ethnic stereotypes do exist, but because most of the X-Men characters are white there’s the risk of falling into stereotypes and misconceptions about their cultures. There are comics that handle multiethnic and multicultural characters better, which helps if they’re written by nonwhites.

X-Men may have popularised multiculturalism in superhero comics but it mishandles both nonwhite characters and what it’s like to be an ethnic minority, as a result the prejudice mutants face isn’t analogous to what ethnic minorities go through. Depending on the ethnicity (and gender), ethnic minorities are either treated as model minorities (put on a pedestal, putting too much pressure on those who internalise those stereotypes), persecuted for transmitting something (COVID for Asian Americans), sexualised, desexualised or treated as more threatening than they really are.

There’s never a model minority moment for some mutants, there’s never a moment where they actually get sexualised or desexualised by the majority. This is what Asians, blacks and brown people go through in the West. There’s a tendency for white people to objectify those of colour, that’s why they stereotype certain ethnicities as good for sex. No mutant has ever been subjected to sexual racism. It’s like if white Australian women head to Indonesia to have sex with Balinese men, they could sexualise and objectify them in ways they’d never do with fellow Australians.

No mutant has ever been subjected to this, even if white women having romantic, marital and sexual relationships with Asian men do exist in the real world. X-Men writers and stories barely ever touched the subject of sexual racism and whenever they address prejudice at all, it’s going to be the tip of the iceberg. Different ethnicities are assigned different stereotypes, though they’re still damaging. Black people are stereotyped as overly athletic, endowed, physical and thuggish. East Asians are seen as feminine, non-athletic and nerdy.

It’s one thing to subvert a stereotype, it’s another to show how damaging these are to those affected by them. X-Men writers don’t examine this facet of racism, but that would go beyond stereotypes of prejudice to realise how bad racist stereotypes can do to people. There’s also the issue of cultural appropriation, that’s appropriating aspects of a certain culture without respect to that culture. X-Men stories tend to co-opt the oppressed minority experience, but they’re hardly written by blacks and Asians. So there’s going to be a lot of stories that miss out what’s like to be an ethnic minority.

There are artists of colour working on the X-Men, but there’s hardly ever a writer of colour. If there ever was a writer of colour working on the X-Men, it would turn the mutants as oppressed minority on its head real badly. Sadly this is only ever attempted outside of the X-Men stories, best exemplified by Kwanza Osajyefo’s Black. Now that’s a superhero comic that examines what it’s really like to be an actual oppressed minority, if given super powers. That’s what X-Men misses out on and why having minority writers matter.

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.

Narrow social circles

I could be projecting in here a bit, but whenever I read up on some superhero fans considering characters who are superhero fans relatable must have a narrow social circle whether offline or online. I’m not part of a superhero fan group on Facebook, but even online it’s telling that they don’t have much of a wide social circle of people who may not always share their fandom for superheroes. That might be me being part of Facebook groups centred on cats, dogs, Christianity, science, Disney, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, sewing and fur but it’s crystal clear to me they don’t have a wider range of social circles.

I get the nagging, irking feeling they mostly socialise with fellow superhero fans at best so their knowledge of people who aren’t into these things is pretty limited. Ironically when it comes to writing, having a wider set of interests and experiences leads to different kinds of characters. To be fair, it’s not wrong to want a character who’s a lot like you, at one point I myself wanted to read up on bookworm characters myself. But when it comes to some geeks, their idea of a relatable character is a fellow geek. Like they’re incapable of relating to anybody else.

Case in point is Tim Drake from DC Comics, he’s considered to be the everyman of the Batman comics but I’m quite suspicious of him. Most young men aren’t gymnasts/acrobats and street thugs, but most young men aren’t comics fans and born into rich families either. I have two younger brothers, while they’re technically geeks neither of them are big Batman fans so this has coloured my suspicion of him. Tim Drake is some regards rather above average, so he’s really not an everyman.

I remember how somebody in a Spider-Man forum pointed out that Spider-Man himself isn’t much of an everyman but rather a reflection of superhero readers, that if true then for most of the part (perhaps exempting the newspaper comics he appears in) he may not be that relatable to most people. I can say many of the same things about Kitty Pryde, where she’s commonly considered to be one of the more normal X-Men around even though ironically she’s one of the farthest from what others call a normie.

The blogger Kalinara pointed out that she panders a lot to a narrow audience, so much so that explains why she never became a big icon the way Wolverine is. It does make one wonder who’d be more relatable to a wider audience, that’s if most adults don’t regularly read comic books. Not to mention that there are more people who own dogs (regardless of how you feel about them, it’s a fact) which gets reflected with some comics characters (Captain Haddock, Charlie Brown, Dilbert, Obelix, Batman, Superman, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck).

If dragons are supposed to be reptiles, then not a lot of people own reptiles themselves and when real life Jewish people like Michelle Hanson and Jon Bernthal own dogs themselves this makes Kitty Pryde a minority within a minority. This goes back to my point that these people have rather narrow social circles, in that they mostly socialise with fellow superhero fans and not with anybody else who share other interests with. If true, it does have damning implications for them.

What is mainstream?

Shawn James is a writer who I’ve been following for some time now, yet remains ignorant of what more people actually read. In his post Denial of a Comic Book Fan, he says that the likes of Bone (despite selling a million copies) is obscure and has a tiny cult following. While that might be true to some extent, but some of the things he likes also has a tiny cult following that’s if you compare them to the likes of Peanuts and Garfield. Both of them are licensing juggernauts, so much so there’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to and an academic study about Garfield merchandise.

Both Peanuts and Garfield have sold hundreds of millions of trade paperback books, which means there’s a good chance that people have read them far more than they would with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is also true for the newspaper versions, especially since people have bought and read newspapers that there’s a chance they stumbled across Garfield and Peanuts thought TMNT did have a newspaper comic strip before. I’m neither a fan nor hater of Garfield, but Garfield is a merchandising monster. There were Garfield telephones, there’s a Garfield clothing line for children in the Philippines and Garfield branded bandages (I’ve seen them in the mall before).

Garfield has made a lot of bank for Jim Davis ever since he formed Paws Inc and got the rights to the Garfield comic strip, so he’s much richer than both Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman (TMNT creators). So far, there’s hardly ever a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle trade paperback that made it to the New York Times bestseller list the way Garfield did several times before. This means Garfield has far more readers than TMNT does, not to mention Garfield also has a cartoon series and several children’s books in his name and image.

If we were to compare these comics to fashion brands, TMNT would be like Supreme and Garfield is like Old Navy. The latter is bought by many more people, the former has a cult following. If it’s music, TMNT is like The Ramones and Garfield’s more like say Cher for instance. The conclusion would be the same, TMNT is prominent enough to warrant merchandising but when it comes to book sales it pales in comparison to Garfield and Peanuts. From my experience, there are more Peanuts readers than there are TMNT readers (including my late grandaunt).

There are more Calvin and Hobbes readers from my experience than there are TMNT readers, which one’s the cult comic book and which one’s more mainstream? Calvin and Hobbes doesn’t even have much merchandise, if because its creator doesn’t allow it but it does have a readership, fanbase and casual readers to boot. But the comparison of TMNT to Garfield is more cutting, especially that the latter rivals the former in merchandise and popularity that there’s a Wikipedia page for it.

Garfield has been licensed for a wide variety of merchandise, ranging from slot machines to dictionaries and children’s books. The same can be said of Peanuts where I even saw a Peanuts children’s book in a grocery store before, there are even Peanuts themed salt and pepper shakers. I even got a Peanuts themed fabric from a fabric store before. That’s how bankable and profitable both Peanuts and Garfield are so much so they made their creators very rich.

Shawn James really has to get real with the kinds of comics that most people actually read, chances are it’s going to be Peanuts and Garfield. He’s aware of Peanuts, but Garfield’s a good rival to Peanuts when it comes to comic strip merchandising. That’s why I bring these two up together, they make a lot of money and they’re very prominent comics brands. Whatever merchandise TMNT has sold pales in comparison to the monstrous amount of merchandise that Garfield has been licensed to.

It’s not that I hate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I’ve watched the cartoon and read the comics before but if you compare TMNT to Garfield the latter’s a real monster when it comes to book sales and merchandising. There are even two Garfield collectors who are the subjects of news reports, which means Garfield’s a big moneymaker for Jim Davis and then Viacom. (Viacom also owns TMNT by the way.) This is not a matter of whether if I hate TMNT, but rather me stating facts about Garfield and Garfield even spawned a fad of sorts (Garfield Stuck On You).

Garfield’s still around entertaining people of all ages, same with Peanuts and as I said before both of them are licensing and merchandising monsters. The amount of merchandise associated with The Flash pales in comparison to what’s found for Peanuts, more people have read Peanuts than they would with The Flash and you’d have to be under a rock to fail to realise how popular and bankable Peanuts is and can get. There are several Peanuts movies made, The Flash hasn’t appeared in a lot of movies the way Batman and Superman did.

Peanuts has made Charles Schulz a multimillionaire of sorts, Peanuts is a pop star like Madonna and The Flash is a cult musician or band not unlike Glenn Danzig of The Misfits. (The Flash programme also doesn’t do well at ratings and has had declining ratings for some time now, which means The Flash is practically and essentially a cult programme.) Peanuts is prominent enough to have its own hotel, just as Garfield had his own restaurant. They’re not just mainstream, they’re the top earning comic strip brands.

The Flash may have merchandise, but both the programme and the character are cult figures not unlike what Bauhaus is to the Goth subculture. There aren’t a lot of Bauhaus albums sold in the millions the way it happened for The Cure, this makes The Cure more mainstream than Bauhaus and I’m not even a big fan of The Cure (but I don’t hate them either). The Cure gets airplay in radios from my personal experience, there’s another person who knows The Cure and my father had a Cure t-shirt before.

To put it this way, while Flash merchandise does exist it’s not in large quantities the way you get with Garfield and Peanuts. Not a single Flash TPB has sold in the millions the way Garfield did, this proves my point that The Flash is a cult figure through and through. If the US has a population of 330 million plus people and The Flash has gone down to 700-750 thousand viewers then not a lot of people have watched The Flash. The Flash may not be that obscure, but The Flash is a cult property compared to Peanuts and Garfield.

The Flash would be more like Love and Rockets (the band, not the comic book) because it only had one hit, just one album that sold well and fell into obscurity and low sales again. Garfield may not reach the same highs it did before, but he’s very prominent enough to still rake in a lot of merchandise that he still makes a lot of bank for his owners. The Flash isn’t mainstream and will never be as popular as Calvin and Hobbes (despite not having a lot of merchandise), Peanuts and Garfield are. That’s a hard fact.

So by this definition, much of what DC and Marvel publish tends to have a cult following. There aren’t a lot of casual X-Men readers the way there is for Garfield and Peanuts, perhaps harmed by that X-Men comics are either sold in niche stores or have TPBs that aren’t as affordable as Peanuts are (from personal experience). There’s not a lot of casual Avengers readers the way you do with say Cathy, Dilbert and Broomhilda either. Cathy appeared in television specials and Dilbert got his own animated telly series.

I said before in an earlier blog post that a lot of geek brands tend to be cult brands in that they have a usually limited but devoted fan following, so much of what DC and Marvel make falls straight into this. They may sell colouring books and children’s books, but when it comes to the actual comics themselves they don’t have a lot of casual readers the way you do with Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts. These two are mainstream, the latter is a licensing and merchandising juggernaut that spawned a lot of specials and a couple of music albums.

The comics that tend to have a casual readership are either bestselling comics or newspaper comic strips, this makes both of them more mainstream than the average DC and Marvel comic book. Not to mention, Peanuts and Garfield even have box office movies that they’re just as bankable as X-Men and Avengers and possibly more so. They even have the advantage of people actually reading the comics en masse, that’s if they sell in the hundreds of millions that gives them the upper hand over Avengers and X-Men.

The real comics mainstream isn’t what most comics fan think of, that’s if you bring up what sells a lot in the millions and is read by a lot of casual readers then there’s a good chance that there are more people who’ve read Garfield and Peanuts than they do with X-Men and Avengers as not a single X-Men and Avengers TPB ever made it to the bestsellers list the way Garfield did several times over. A casual readership isn’t just key to a brand’s success, it’s also a sign of how mainstream the property is.

X-Men might be mainstream to some extent, but when it comes to the comics themselves they’re not big sellers compared to Peanuts and Garfield. In terms of casual readers, Peanuts and Garfield has plenty of those whereas X-Men doesn’t have as much despite having a box office movie series and hit television programmes. So in some regards, Peanuts and Garfield are more mainstream than X-Men is when it comes to not only having a box office movie or two but also the number of people actually reading the comics.

I do think a good number of comics fans are myopic, pardon if it sounds ableist in that they are unaware of the comics that many more people actually read and what they read differs from what they enjoy. It’s like talking a lot of music only that kind of music tends to be niche and not that popular with a lot of people the way The Platters, Cher, Elvis Presley and Taylor Swift do for them. It already exists for music listeners, but it can be applicable to comic book readers when it comes to them being ignorant of what most people read.

It’s not that many people don’t read comics at all, but the comics they’re into differs from what the fanatics enjoy. It could be Dog Man and Babymouse it could also be Cathy, The Wizard of Id, Peanuts, Garfield and Doonesbury. I still think what I’m saying matters when it comes to the kinds of comics casual readers gravitate to and it’s not always in line with what comics fanatics are into. The comics fanatics gravitate towards what DC and Marvel do, with a heaping of Image, Fantagraphics and Dark Horse. The casual readers go for newspaper favourites and bestsellers like Dog Man and Calvin and Hobbes.

This isn’t always the case but it does make sense when it comes to what’s actually popular with the masses and it’s not always what nerds want and are into.

Africans in Disney media

I do agree with one writer on the New Republic that it’s easier to forget that there are people, different countries and cultures in Africa, where it’s easy to forget that the likes of Ghana and its people ever existed. Not all travel books and media are like this, some do mention African countries in depth and some do delve into their very cultures. But it’s easier to either generalise Africa and Africans or make up a country in Africa instead of doing research about an existing one.

That is the state of Wakanda in Marvel comics, since being bought by Disney, while Kenya, Egypt, Kenyans and Egyptians aren’t necessarily nonexistent in Marvel (though there’s also a Nigerian there as well in the form of Idie Okonkwo) I suspect that there are probably more stories set in Wakanda than there are those in actual African countries that while it’s not necessarily wrong to write and read up on Wakanda, there’s the danger of ignoring actual African countries and cultures.

Over at Disney’s Duckburg proper we have Flintheart Glomgold who comes from South Africa (an actual African country) and who’s the second richest duck after Scrooge McDuck. He’s similar to Scrooge and has gotten into fights with him as well as taking on disguises to fool each other, but I do think it’s kind of refreshing to have a Disney character who actually comes from a real African country instead of simply coming from the continent or a made up country like Wakanda.

I have a nagging feeling that his creator Carl Barks probably knew something about South Africa, the fact that he and Don Rosa collect National Geographic magazines make them rather well-informed (to some extent) about the country that gives them an advantage over those who don’t know much about an African country. As for Storm, Cheryl Lynn Eaton has pointed out that not only is she an inaccessible ideal for black women but she’s been written by white people for so long that there’s something off about her.

I’d also add that these same writers know little about African countries, let alone travel to one which would explain why she’s presented as so exotic and other in some of the earlier stories. She’s worshiped as a goddess, even though many Kenyans are Christians (plenty of them are practising, spiritual Christians even) and would be suspicious of paganism and witchcraft. My cousin said that she should’ve been a self-exiled Zulu, but I think if a Kenyan wrote her she’d turn out differently.

I do think the presence of actual Africans is needed to create stories that are actually about Africans and the countries and cultures they live in, Marvel’s already doing this to some extent with Black Panther but I do think Disney having more actual Africans working for them would do a lot when it comes to portraying African countries and characters in a more believable light.

The problem with Storm (and X-Men)

As Cheryl Lynn Eaton said, until recently Storm has been written by white people for such a long time that one of the ways to circumvent this is to portray Storm as having been brought up by white people. My opinions is that either Storm has to be written by a black person, somebody (regardless of ethnicity) who’s interested in Kenya or somebody who’s been to Kenya. I feel as if Storm (and to some extent, Idie Okonkwo) have been written through a white American lens for so long that it’s about time to be written by an African or at least somebody who’s been to an African country before.

That might already be done to some extent, but I do think this is the representation that’s lacking in X-Men and superhero stories that it’s about time to do something about it. It’s already been done to Black Panther, another African superhero and to a few others to some degree but what makes X-Men problematic is that the tendency to use mutant bigotry as a metaphor for racism doesn’t work well if most of the characters (both villain and hero) are white and the writers themselves are white that we’re missing out what a black or Asian American perspective would be like.

By contrast, Kwanza Osajyefo and Milestone Comics writers have a better approach to this by not just having more non-stereotypical and authentic portrayals of black characters but because they’re also black themselves so they can approach things from a perspective that X-Men stories fail to articulate. Marvel’s already doing this by hiring more people of colour to work on characters like themselves but I also think X-Men, despite the brand’s popularity, has aged rather badly when it comes to using mutants as a metaphor for racism.

Maybe not necessarily outdated but it doesn’t hold up well when it comes to the real racism that blacks and Asian Americans face that more writers of colour are needed to do something that white X-Men writers fail to address properly. Marvel’s already doing it to some extent, but I feel X-Men really needs to be thematically revamped to better examine what it would be like if black people have powers but for now Osajyefo’s Black and Sweetheart fill in the gap.

A treatment of race

When it comes to the portrayal of prejudice towards races in comics, it’s not always handled right especially if it’s done by those in the majority ethnicity that whatever attempts at addressing prejudice towards those of different ethnicities falls short and risk being insincere, more insincere than what they’ve intended to. Such is the problem of X-Men where the writers do try to address racial prejudice but it doesn’t work not just because most mutants presented there are white and that the writers themselves are white (until recently with Marvel Voices correcting this) but because whenever nonwhite mutants show up, some of them get mishandled in many ways.

The writer Cheryl Lynn Eaton has said that Storm does come off as unattainable to black women especially in that she has naturally straight light hair whereas black women genetically and naturally have curly hair, even among albino blacks that’s pretty much the same way save for hair colour. The only way black women would ever have straight hair is through heat straightening, chemical relaxers and stuff. I also suspect the way Storm is portrayed, until recently, is that she’s usually portrayed as something other and not in a way that reflects on and expands on the culture she comes from, which is Kenya. She’s been described as a witch but then again witchcraft’s reviled in many African countries and cultures, though for some reason she’s never been hated for a witch in Kenya.

My cousin even said that she should’ve been a self-exiled Zulu, especially if her tribe/community distrusts her so much. Eaton has also pointed out that Storm has been written by white people for such a long time that it risks running into either stereotypes about African countries (the idea that African countries are pagan is outdated since nowadays thanks to colonialism many Africans are much likelier to be Christian and several of them are practising Christians even) or that she’s pretty much an unattainable ideal. Not like other black women seems to something that Eaton has noted about her. Not that Storm lacks black female fans, but I think she comes off as a very abstracted idea of what an African woman would be like.

I’ve yet to go to African countries myself but it seems Storm’s been portrayed as this wholly other yet unattainable to many black women that makes you wonder about the way she’s written until recently. My understanding of various African cultures is that witchcraft and polytheism are reviled and marginalised, those who seemingly practise witchcraft get shunned. While it’s true not all Africans are practising Christians (many are practically culturally Christian), it’s also true that Christianity’s one of the biggest religions in Africa that should affect the way Storm’s seen and treated in her native Kenya. If Storm’s pretty much an uninformed Westerner’s idea of what an African woman’s like, Dust’s what an uninformed Westerner’s idea of what a nonwhite Muslim woman’s like.

The character of Dust, according to two works, is a byproduct of Orientalism in that those in the Middle East and Muslim majority countries tend to be very othered and portrayed in ways that belittle or marginalise them in the face of a Christian majority West (Europe and the Americas). Sometimes idealised, sometimes uninformed but still. The fact that she was shown speaking in Arabic (to make it worse, just one word) makes you wonder just how unfamiliar they are with both Islam and those in Muslim-majority places and countries like say Afghanistan and Iran. (Admittedly, I have greater familiarity with Iran, Turkey and Morocco than I do with Afghanistan.)

But it’s telling that the way Dust’s portrayed feels like a generalisation and misinterpretation of both the Middle East and Islam, not all Muslim women wear the hijab (there are those who don’t, whether if they live in Turkey or are Tuareg themselves). Perhaps the biggest mishap X-Men writers have ever done to a nonwhite character and the one later writers are addressing is that this character, Kwannon, was used as a plot device for another character (Betsy Braddock) to get a new body from. Not only is Japan presented stereotypically, as in the land of ninjas and conflated with China but also misinterpreted in that if Kwannon (in Betsy’s body) were to feel ashamed and dishonoured she should’ve killed herself.

Japan’s a society built on shame and honour, so if some Japanese feel like they’re ashamed and have dishonoured their community they’d kill themselves. Currently, it’s been addressed but it does get worse when an editor has masqueraded as a Japanese man that it reeks of apologia if not done right. Now if there’s any superhero story that has addressed race the right way or at least is more informed about it, it would be Black by Kwanza Osajyefo. It does address something where if only a handful of black people have superpowers, they’d be the bigger target for abuse and hatred than they would if they’re white.

Considering that blacks are already seen as both nonhuman (compared to apes) and superhuman, the story deconstructs the stereotypes in a way many X-Men writers would never do. If you’re black, while you may not always be the target of hatred you’re still going to be marginalised and othered if you live in a nonblack society white or not. This is where Osajyefo’s Black and Sweetheart make sense, especially if blacks are seen as superhuman they’d be seen as not worthy of empathy and understanding.

In the case with bodybuilding, blacks are seen as doing it easy even if they did hard work and in some cases do steroids that it feels like that’s discrediting all the hard work they’ve done to attain such a body. When it comes to treating those of other ethnicities, unless if that writer’s ever informed and familiar with them (as with anthropologists, expatriates and travellers) there’s going to be the risk of stereotyping and othering as well as a gross misunderstanding of foreign cultures that sometimes penetrates their works as with the case of Storm and Dust.

It doesn’t help that X-Men writers tend to co-opt the experiences of those who’re ethnically othered and marginalised that any attempts of understanding racism come off as insincere, naive and uninformed than if they actually came from that ethnicity. Later writers are getting better at this, but I still think X-Men’s attempts at addressing prejudice can come off as clumsy that’s if they keep treating mutants as a metaphor for racial prejudice instead of examining the real thing as with Black.

In need of a makeover

Caitlin Snow:

I’m of the opinion that she’s rather lame and kind of sucks as a character that she needs to be reinvented to have different powers and be a witch. That’s my opinion but I felt like she kind of sucks so to do something with her would need drastic reinventions of sorts. My take on her’s that she’s a nasty witch who enjoys attacking people and especially children, she uses dogs to attack people and turn herself into one. Her ice powers are magical in nature but she can also stop time and can throw knives (pardon if this is a Jojo reference). (I swear to Rao she sucks more than Iris West does.) Caitlin Snow sucks and needs to be reinvented to be more interesting.

Kitty Pryde:

She’s pretty lame and annoying for a different reason because she’s essentially and practically a Mary Sue where I think the only way to make her less of a Mary Sue is to make her more ruthless which I think she does show signs of it to some extent. Actually she makes more sense as an assassin and the only way to keep her as she is without changing her too much. She was portrayed as one in Age of Apocalypse, which I think’s the most logical direction she has ever taken and I think turning her into an assassin’s the only way to make her any less of a Mary Sue.

Tigra:

As what somebody else said, the real problem with her’s really the way she’s usually drawn and why some people are tempted to include more animal traits. She’s usually presented as a woman in body paint, which hurts considering she’s supposed to be part tiger so she should look the part and there are some stories where she got turned into a cat, which makes one wonder why her design’s so humanoid that making her look more bestial’s the only way she can live up to that namesake. I also think she makes sense as a professional hunter, given she’s shown to hunt herself but it’s also a path not taken by writers for some reason even if it fits her like a glove.

Why X-Men don’t work as an oppressed minority

When it comes to presenting minorities in a comic book, the key’s to present them in a nonstereotypical and more human, even relatable manner but I feel when it comes to X-Men using mutants as a metaphor for minorities it falls apart if because most of the mutants in X-Men are so human-passing that it doesn’t make sense most of the time and it doesn’t help that the less human-passing mutants are in the minority or marginalised in some fashion.

If anything, human-passing mutants would and should be readily assimilated into human society and be widely accepted, whereas their less human-passing counterparts bear the worst prejudice against them. This is like promoting a black superhero team but where most of the characters are so light-skinned that it’s alienating to black readers who aren’t light-skinned and colourism’s already a big deal in the black community, where in some cases it’s entwinned with white-passing racism.

The more white-passing a black person is, the more they’ll be readily accepted and assimilated hence the brown paper bag test. Wouldn’t the same apply to mutants? It probably does to a certain extent but not so well-done even if there are other stories like 2000AD that probably have no shame in presenting non-human passing mutants as the majority.

Actually I feel comics made by ethnic minorities are better off, if because they already bear the brunt of prejudice so it comes more naturally to them when handling the subject matter at all. It’s handled much better, if because they’ve experienced prejudice from not passing as white so it’s more realistic and believable this way.

That’s not to say non-minority authors can’t write convincing minority characters but there needs sincere interest in and empathy for those characters where I feel that’s where the X-Men writers are missing. If you’re albino and black, you’re definitely not going to fit in easily because you stand out so much that you easily get singled out and picked on. That’s what a minority experience is like.

That’s a perspective lacking in most X-Men comics, if because I get the feeling that they’re written by well-intentioned but otherwise privileged white people who barely experience real racism. Let’s also put powers into consideration where the shapeshifter Mystique has the ability to turn herself into a regular human, the illusion-casting as done by other mutants and those who already look different and can’t shapeshift nor cast illusions can’t fit in easily.

That’s taking things into consideration with regards to who can easily assimilate into human society, especially those that already look human can integrate easily but those who stand out (deformities especially) can’t blend it so well. That’s already the case in reality where people with deformities and skin conditions already stand out from the crowd, can’t blend in well and get all sorts of flack.

Primer on Rahne Sinclair

Bear in mind that DC and Marvel are no stranger to female werewolves, DC did have one in House of Mystery (another comic book of theirs) and Marvel’s got the recurring female werewolf in Rahne Sinclair. The latter’s shy and conflicted, brought up in a tough household and save for the 1990s and early 2000s, she usually sports short hair.

(One might wonder if giving her long hair’s an attempt at giving her a tail or if she may’ve simply outgrew it.)

Rahne Sinclair might not be the only female werewolf around but since female werewolves are rare in fiction, she might possibly be some of the more prominent werewolves around. (Somebody else pointed out the near-lack of female werewolves, let alone in a non-stereotypical fashion in one thesis called ‘Hairy Thuggish Women’.)

This kind of makes Rahne the exception to the rule, unless if there are others who don’t fit the bill.