Quote:vorticity wrote:Good analogy, there. ^^
Of course it's all political. And of course my argument is made entirely of strawmen. If you want to get to the tower of racial equality, you must defeat all the strawmen. In some way, the U.S. is still fighting its Civil War 150 years later, because people are still making up lies about it and going on TV. The strawmen are everywhere, and are only made out of straw if you're looking at them. Don't blink.
I do get what you're saying -- that mainstream culture and politics doesn't have to apply in a fictional world. But it does. Kirk made out with green-skinned babes all the time, but when he kissed Uhura, it was a watershed moment for television. And while I don't know that much about American comics, I do know that they're for-profit ventures. And the kind of comics that will be bought depends a lot on what the characters look like. Just as the TV and movies people watch depend on the race of the characters. Sure, they could make a black Batman, but would people actually buy them?
The same applies to a new character made from wholecloth. Though a new character is still a better idea. It's hard to imagine a black man in the role of Bruce Wayne without compromising the gritty realism of the Batman setting. Unless we're talking about Silver Age Batman, in which case I'll bite. But the more powerful artistic statement would be new heroes overcoming new challenges. Both in villains and the challenges that minorities face every day.
Yes, it's completely ridiculous that real world politics has to be considered in a world of supervillains and superheroes. Completely ridiculous that it does.
You also have a point about watershed moments... except only partially, in this particular case. There are already major comic book characters of every race, religion, and gender identity out there. We've got a black Green Lantern, and do people complain about him on account of race? Some might... but he sells, well enough to cross from comics to cartoons, and well enough to be generally accepted. I'd argue that that particular watershed, as far as comics go, has already been crossed- and the people who buy comic books, in general, have no real problems with the idea of black heroes.
I think how well a black Batman would sell, again, depends on the quality of the attempt. If it was written well, I suspect it'd still start slow... then pick up as reviewers read it, said 'Hey, this is actually pretty good!', and spread the word. Once you got over the initial hump, then the bar would go down for future issues/story arcs/lines, until it became an accepted part of fans' personal canons. The biggest obstacles would most likely be fans' resistance to change, followed by the 'diversity for diversity's sake' problem everybody else has been touching on. If the thing were done respectfully, thoughtfully, and with the writing chops a good Batman tale needs, I think it could be one of the greats.
(On a side note, it might be best to take disliked characters, retool them into something worth reading, and add the race-lift into that. Take Azrael, for example- you could retool Knightfall, cut out the insanity, and tone down the conflict with Wayne, and you'd come out of it with a subtler, more interesting story. Make the guy black as part of that, and you get a 'black Batman' who's a net boon to the franchise.)
My point was more about the quality of the discussion than anything
else. Bringing up topical political issues- from a particular
ideological position like that, no less- tends to decrease the amount of
thoughtful discourse going on, and I think this issue deserves a better
class of discussion than that. I'm just going to go over here now,
keep paying attention to people's
personality and talent only, and leave the Straw Tower of Political
Babel alone, 'cause you can't fight strawmen. Even trying grants them
legitimacy, and that only makes them stronger.
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.
I've been writing a bit.