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Kevin Brown
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Joined: May 31 2005
Location: United States
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 8:47am | IP Logged | 1
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Makes me glad that I was able to track down a copy of the American Nostalgia Library version of the collection. NOT an easy thing to do and it's no longer reasonably priced.
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Andy Mokler
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Joined: January 20 2006
Location: United States
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 9:21am | IP Logged | 2
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wrote:
| Stereotypes do not equal racism. Limited representation + stereotype equals racism. When the primary representation of black women on film and TV was the "Mammy" stereotype, would you not consider that problematic? |
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I wouldn't consider it equitable. Apu does not represent the primary representation of Indians in tv and film and forcing the Simpsons to essentially get rid of character isn't progress. Being offended by a cartoon character that isn't any more offensive than any of the white stereotypes that are being illustrated is looking for a reason to be offended.
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Jabari Lamar
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Joined: October 18 2017
Location: United States
Posts: 351
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 10:28am | IP Logged | 3
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I have the first vol. of the Shazam! archives in which one story has Billy disguising himself by rubbing coal all over his face and speaking in stereotypical Black dialect (I'm at work right now, so don't have it in front of me, but I recall him saying something like "Is I gon' see my mammy, sho' nuff?"). That was printed in 1999, but I think all those archives are currently out of print as when I look them up on Amazon, all the copies are either used or extremely expensive new ones.
Now, for those who can't guess by my name, I am Black (and Captain Marvel is one of my favorite superheroes). I was a teenager when I got that book and read that story. I thought it was funny. Not "funny" as in amusing but funny at how blatantly racist it was and that it was put in a comic all those years ago. I understood the context of the times back then, I'd seen old WWII ads where Superman encourages you to "Slap a Jap!". So I wasn't offended that it was included in the hardcover. It is what it is.
I've also heard about and seen images of Billy with Steamboat, and yeah that's a racist AF character. But friends and I have discussed over the years how we kind of would like to bring him back into the modern era, updated, to redeem him, sort of like how Roger Stern revamped a similar offensive Black character, Whitewash Jones of the Young Allies (Bucky's friends in WWII).
I've always wanted to read that classic Monster Society of Evil story, so when I read about this yesterday, I was disappointed but not surprised (as someone mentioned, this book was announced and then canceled several years ago for the same reason, I guess some new execs got involved and didn't know about the previous attempt and were trying again). But then I looked online and found this collection on Amazon, so I've ordered it and will get it tomorrow:
https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Marvel-Monster-Society-Evil/d p/1537553135/
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: April 20 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 10:55am | IP Logged | 4
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But friends and I have discussed over the years how we kind of would like to bring him back into the modern era, updated, to redeem him, sort of like how Roger Stern revamped a similar offensive Black character, Whitewash Jones of the Young Allies (Bucky's friends in WWII).
———
Darwyn Cooke attempted a similar thing with Ebony White in his revival of THE SPIRIT.
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Jabari Lamar
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: October 18 2017
Location: United States
Posts: 351
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 11:14am | IP Logged | 5
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We envisioned the modern "Steamboat" (a nickname he got because of his big feet) as a basketball phenom, ala Kobe Bryant (at the time). Straight out of high school he entered the NBA draft and got picked by Fawcett City's local team. Billy meets him when he goes to interview him for the radio, and some adventure happens whereupon Steamboat discovers Billy's secret identity, but vows to keep it a secret and the two become friends. Although Steamboat's a few years older, he and Billy bond over the fact that they're both still very young guys who nevertheless have to deal with adult responsibilities (Billy living on his own, and working at a radio station, Steamboat dealing with the new pressures of fame).
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Michael Roberts
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: April 20 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 14813
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 11:17am | IP Logged | 6
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Apu does not represent the primary representation of Indians in tv and film
———
For most of the 90s and for the first few years of the 00s, he kind of was.
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Michael Sommerville
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: April 12 2010
Location: Canada
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 11:56am | IP Logged | 7
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Shocking, different people with different life experiences see this issue differently. Maybe people should not judge a person's character because they do not follow the same line of thinking. When a discussion includes the terms, political correctness, white privilege, SJW and veiled name calling, it means no one is looking to have a real interaction. If you can not leave a "reasonable" discussion without the possibility to agree to disagree, not be offended or make judgements on a person's character you are part of the problems with society today and will not help with the solutions.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: February 12 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4535
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 12:08pm | IP Logged | 8
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This might be hard to believe but I have seen maybe two entire episodes of The Simspons (as it's own show, saw a lot of them on the old Tracy Ullman Show). I've been exposed to clips here and there of The Simpsons, and have e-editions of three Radioactive Man comics, but that's it. I barely know who Apu is. So maybe this opinion will be 'clean': reading the argument here I'm thinking the best point is that because he's one of so few having him be a caricature can be actually harmful, magnified by repeats. They faced a choice to either phase out the stereotyped aspect and make him fuller in other ways, or funny for not stereotyped aspects, or just drop it and it sounds like they dropped it. That would be an opportunity lost I would think. Maybe I have a Roy Thomas feeling that almost no character can't be made genuinely interesting? So a refurbished Steamboat would be positive to me!
There really was a big-footed (or big nosed) sidekick convnetion in old comics and comic-strips. '50s Japanese comics and cartoons by Osamu tezuka have a lot of them, and Reiji Matsumoto, even in the midst of the most straight drama (it can be quite jarring). It's something that got dropped in U.S. super character comics outside of Joe Staton/Martin Pasko Plastic Man in Adventure Comics in the '70s-early '80s. The boy sidekick or female knock-off sidekick was another convention that also was phased out over time (first female superhero in comic books by date as far as I can tell was Bulltgirl, just a knock-off Bulletman).
That paperback collection of Monster Society on Amazon looks great! You can 'look inside' a few pages. There were a couple of collections with Smithsonian in their titles in the '80s that also reproduced the color pages from the actual comics, one had a long run of Sheldon Mayer's Scribbly which i really enjoyed (and the first parody superhero in The Red Tomato, Scribbly's Mom with a pot on her head and red longjohns, kind of like Forbush Man). I hope they still have this book later on, right now I'm lackus fundus extremus. :^(
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Bob Simko
Byrne Robotics Security
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Joined: April 16 2004
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 1:12pm | IP Logged | 9
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The story itself is a pretty impressive undertaking for the time...it’s a
groundbreaking epic, for sure from a comic book historical perspective.
The racial stereotypes are pretty strong...but also typical of 1943,
especially the Japanese ones. But again, reflective of the time and
situation the world was in...as well as general ignorance. It’s definitely
a history lesson.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Joined: April 30 2004
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | 10
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The Monster Society book was first solicited nine years ago, and then cancelled with no explanation given. The popular theory was that it was due to the offensive stereotypes. I was really surprised to see them put it back on the schedule earlier this year. Is the institutional memory of DC really that short?
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Jabari Lamar
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Joined: October 18 2017
Location: United States
Posts: 351
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | 11
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I definitely recall the offensive content being publicly cited as the reason for the collection being canceled the first time around. So yeah, that was my guess, some new execs or marketing people somewhere didn't know about the last time they planned to print it, saw that there was an upcoming Shazam movie and just started working on getting various old material together to capitalize on the film (a few months ago they finally collected the Roy Thomas Shazam miniseries from 1987). So they solicited and then someone else came along and said, hold up, we can't print that!
Edited by Jabari Lamar on August 02 2018 at 3:47pm
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Mitch Denoyer
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Joined: September 21 2006
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| Posted: August 02 2018 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | 12
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I was watching an episode of The Andy Griffith show on Netflix the other day. It was one of the first dozen or so. Opie and a group of his friends were in adorable cowboy gear having a holsome exchange with Andy. To close the scene, Opie turned to his pals and exclaimed “Hey fellas, let’s go hunt Indians!” I gasped. To my 21st century ears he may as well have said, “Hey fellas, let’s go hunt Jews!” Though I was offended, it did serve to remind me that the early 60’s wasn’t “the good old days” for every American.
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