Yeah, I can really see how problematic and even laughable it would be to be a POC reading these books about superpowered white people's pain.
Playing Devil's Advocate, though, and just speaking through the lens through which I grew up, I think there can be something in the books regarding essentially teaching young white readers the values of tolerance and so forth--like, I wonder if there would be anyway to do a study to see if there were young readers in the 60s onwards who, y'know, growing up white in all white households, for instance, saw Civil Rights issues and immediately thought of X-Men and said, Hey, oppressing people is wrong.
And then I also think it's under-discussed how, in the early 60s, you know, 18 years after the Holocaust, there's this comic about people being abused with the threat of being rounded up and sent to camps and so forth. Like, I'd love to know (in a not-creepy way, I hope) what it was like to read those stories but be the child of survivors.
So I decided to start watching the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon this morning because Saturday, and I was particularly struck by the first episode where Wolverine saves a mixed race family from an exploding vehicle (of course), and then white onlookers report him to the Mutant Registration thingie, and the black father chooses to hide the unconscious Wolvie before the cops show up. I think that storytelling decision 1) visually brings up that specific history of oppression (or maybe not? I see it but would a ten year old say?) while 2) also showing "how far we've come"/how over time prejudices shift, and 3) a way to just inject POCs for the 21st century audience when, yeah, most of the main characters are white.
And I wonder how, as an author, it would work to develop a kid's show with this premise in this historical moment, with all the pressure to on the one hand be popular and sell stuff and on the other make something relevant for fans of the franchise (who DO have buy-in to that discussion of oppression and so forth). Oy.
Sideways, the main baddie in the first ep is a racially ambiguous guy with tan skin, bald head, and mustache, with all-white flunkies.
The second ep is playing right now and one of the plot threads is Warren/Angel not being a formal member of the team because his father is anti-mutant even though his son is a mutant, and will cut him off if he "comes out." Warren therefore has access to tons of money to help mutants while having to bite his tongue on his father's prejudice. Which.
Anyway, so many thinky thoughts, going in circles.
no subject
Playing Devil's Advocate, though, and just speaking through the lens through which I grew up, I think there can be something in the books regarding essentially teaching young white readers the values of tolerance and so forth--like, I wonder if there would be anyway to do a study to see if there were young readers in the 60s onwards who, y'know, growing up white in all white households, for instance, saw Civil Rights issues and immediately thought of X-Men and said, Hey, oppressing people is wrong.
And then I also think it's under-discussed how, in the early 60s, you know, 18 years after the Holocaust, there's this comic about people being abused with the threat of being rounded up and sent to camps and so forth. Like, I'd love to know (in a not-creepy way, I hope) what it was like to read those stories but be the child of survivors.
So I decided to start watching the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon this morning because Saturday, and I was particularly struck by the first episode where Wolverine saves a mixed race family from an exploding vehicle (of course), and then white onlookers report him to the Mutant Registration thingie, and the black father chooses to hide the unconscious Wolvie before the cops show up. I think that storytelling decision 1) visually brings up that specific history of oppression (or maybe not? I see it but would a ten year old say?) while 2) also showing "how far we've come"/how over time prejudices shift, and 3) a way to just inject POCs for the 21st century audience when, yeah, most of the main characters are white.
And I wonder how, as an author, it would work to develop a kid's show with this premise in this historical moment, with all the pressure to on the one hand be popular and sell stuff and on the other make something relevant for fans of the franchise (who DO have buy-in to that discussion of oppression and so forth). Oy.
Sideways, the main baddie in the first ep is a racially ambiguous guy with tan skin, bald head, and mustache, with all-white flunkies.
The second ep is playing right now and one of the plot threads is Warren/Angel not being a formal member of the team because his father is anti-mutant even though his son is a mutant, and will cut him off if he "comes out." Warren therefore has access to tons of money to help mutants while having to bite his tongue on his father's prejudice. Which.
Anyway, so many thinky thoughts, going in circles.