Writer Marc Bernardin ponders some comic-book formulas. For starters, “Stephen Strange + Asian vacation = Dr. Strange,” and “Luke Cage + ghetto = Power Man.”
There are, apparently, no black heroes not from the Hood and no Native American heroes not born on a reservation. While those locales can be defining elements, they’re not exclusive. John Proudstar couldn’t have been from Santa Fe? Luke Cage couldn’t have been raised in the rural south? He couldn’t have been the child of freedom riders? Sure, you get your odd men out like Black Panther, ruler of an African Kingdom, or Storm, goddess of the African plains, or Blade (wait…a vampire hunter from the ghetto), every now and again, but they’re the exceptions, not the rules.
And, jeez, try finding an Asian character not adept in the martial arts (I’ll give you Jubilee, find another one). Maybe that’s not entirely fair. I’ve been combing through the Marvel Universe and pretty much every character is “an expert in various forms of martial arts.”
Maybe the get-rich scheme inside the Marvel world is to open a friggin’ dojo. In the hood.
Related: Bernardin and Adam Freeman talk about The Highwaymen
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:01 am
I can’t take this seriously when the guy cites more people that are the exception and not the rule. It’s like he’s proving his own point wrong. And I have to say, off the top of my head I can’t think of more “ghetto” black heroes than I can “sans ghetto”.
He also cites examples of “Asians” being stereotyped by having them all know martial arts, but then goes on to invalidate that claim by acknowledging that a bulk of the comic community does, indeed, practice martial arts. Not to mention his own stereotyping by using Asian to describe people-who-are-normally-associated-with-martial-arts. Believe it or not, Asia extends past China, Korea, and Japan!
People are so hellbent on screaming racism that they’re literally making stuff up now.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:22 am
“I can’t take this seriously when the guy cites more people that are the exception and not the rule. It’s like he’s proving his own point wrong.”
I don’t see that at all. He cites Black Panther, Storm and Jubilee as exceptions — though as Ken Lowery points out in the comments, Storm grew up as a thief on the streets of Cairo, which surely would put her in the “ghetto” category.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:38 am
Yes, but he doesn’t mention names of any other character to support his claim outside of Luke Cage and offhand I can think of a few that are the so-called “exception”: Bill Foster, Michael Holt, John Stewart, Bishop (I guess that’s grey area since he grew up in a mutant concentration camp. I would not consider it a ghetto, but some may argue the point), Black Panther (who he noted), Storm (being a thief=/=ghetto), Black Racer, Blade (born in London, though born in a brothel. more grey area), Brother Voodoo, Karen Beecher, Victor Stone, Monica Rambeau, James Rhoes.
I’m not saying that no black characters come from ghettos, but I have a hard time being convinced by an article that can only cite one example. He states it as if its a well-known fact without any proof to back-up his claim.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Most days, I’m glad not to be taken seriously.
But Brother Voodoo? You can hold up that dude and try and disprove anything…
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
I’m with Joshua. Mr. Terrific, Steel, and other characters aren’t from the ghetto. There’s definitely a tendency to put Black characters in low class origins, but it’s not universal.
Luke Cage was created to capitalize on the Blaxploitation movie trend at the time. His origins were consistent with the kinds of stories those movies told.
The point of the article isn’t a bad one, but the whole thing would have benefited from more research. It could have been fleshed out a lot more.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Bringing up Brother Voodoo is like dropping Hitler into an argument — whoever does so, automatically loses.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Steel’s DC origin involves him going from the ghetto to the military and right back to the ghetto.
Black Racer is a paralyzed black man who, yes, lives in the ghetto.
Storm was a thief in the slums of Egypt. I don’t see how that isn’t a ghetto.
Isn’t John Stewart from Detroit? Growing up black and in Detroit in the 60s/70s suggests ghetto to me, but I’ll let that one slide due to unfamiliarity.
Jim Rhodes was black and in Vietnam. It doesn’t immediately mean ghetto, but a lot of lower class blacks got to go to war.
August 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I think that we’re getting side tracked by specifics.
Most black characters in comic books come from ghettos.
Most asian characters are associated with martial arts.
I think we can all roughly agree on that. The point was that these stereotypes are still being published 40 years after they should have lost significance.
For example, how many mainstream male asian actors aren’t martial artists in North America?
How many Asian women in modern media are more than the ‘exotic temptress’?
In x-men 2, kelly hu had 2 lines!
How many black characters are still linked to the ghetto?
The ideas have gotten better, but the roles largely haven’t changed all that much.
Yes there are exceptions, but just to pick at them just muddles the water. The point I believe is that we should be moving forward on some of these things and not allowing ourselves to be stuck just doing the same old things year after year.
The call is for evolution of the idea. It’s 2007.
If not now, when?
AE.
August 22nd, 2007 at 7:25 pm
“Jim Rhodes was black and in Vietnam. It doesn’t immediately mean ghetto, but a lot of lower class blacks got to go to war.”
If you’re going to make such huge generalisations, then *everyone* is from the ghetto. Yes, he was in Vietnam. So was the Punisher.
Steel grew up in Washington DC, which is where my Dad taught Jr High school in the 70s. It isn’t all ghetto. And yes, Steel went “back to the ghetto” once he started fighting crime. So do Spider-Man, Batman, Daredevil, and tons of other heroes. It doesn’t say anything about his character or his race that he happens to go to the high crime areas to fight crime.
What do you guys want them to do? Get rid of Luke Cage and John Stewart? These characters “still being published 40 years after they should have lost significance” because they’re *good* characters. They’ve grown to be more than those origins. So yes, they’re products of their time, but that doesn’t mean there’s something horrible about the fact that they still exist.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Yeah, the humor was not lost on me when he accused a company of perpetuating stereotypical cliches while making huge generalizations about someone based on their race and where they live.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:12 pm
So which martial arts do Karma, Sunfire, Dr. Light, etc. practice again?
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:44 am
A large number of the black males in Vietnam were from the ghetto. They couldn’t get jobs in the main workforce due to the times, and the Army was the lesser of two evils.
It isn’t a huge generalization to say, “X was in Y, where lots of people of X’s race where from (place). Therefore, X may have been from (place).”
And if you’d read my post (“It doesn’t immediately mean ghetto, but a lot of lower class blacks got to go to war.”) you’d see that I wasn’t saying that Rhodey was from the ghetto, just that it wouldn’t be surprising if he was.