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Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is a sweet superhero tale where, yes, a group of younger heroes come together to battle an extremist group. But more importantly than that, it's a superhero tale with diversity oozing out of every animated frame.
...
Ms. Marvel, who idolizes Captain Marvel and is inspired by her, instead leads the Secret Warriors movie, showcasing her origin tale, her relationship with her mother and her struggle for acceptance in a culture that is adverse to the creation of the Inhumans -- the latter being people who gain superpowers after getting into contact with a gas substance called Terrigen Mists.What Secret Warriors is doing particularly well is that it isn't shying away from its focus on diversity in any part of its plot. In particular, the storyline aims at a brewing conflict between humans and an extremist group of Inhumans, the latter believing that a war between the two groups is inevitable. Khan ends up stuck in the middle, as an Inhuman herself who doesn't believe the conflict is needed.
Another refreshing carryover from Marvel comics is America Chavez. Her origin story, which sees Chavez's two mothers sacrificing themselves to protect their daughter, remains completely intact and sympathetic. Chavez herself demonstrates herself as a formidable ally, having super strength and the ability to fly. It's a nice start for LGBT representation on the animated side of the Marvel universe for now.
Wasn't Captain Marvel a man?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:22AM (28 children)
Funny, because back in the day when comic pages were full of exactly the kind of diversity character you’re talking about, nobody ever batted an eye. The female Captain Marvel goes back to this era, gaining her powers and eventually taking the mantle of Captain Marcel between the late 70s and early 90s. Not to mention the whole X-men metaphor.
Something has definitely changed about diversity in the last few years, and it’s not that there’s more of it shoe horned into everything. It’s that the long-feared cultural revolution is happening around us, and some people would like you to feel threatened by it.
So let me ask you, the reader: do you feel threatened? Who made you feel that way? The alleged SJW that made this story happen? Or the alt-right reactionary trying to turn your vague anxieties toward white supremacist rage?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:42AM (11 children)
BINGO. Comics and media have always been at the forefront of LGBT representation, both here and abroad. Why do you think little 15 year old me was so completely into Sailor Moon (subbed, not the awful dub?). Because in the early 2000s it was the single most lesbian thing you would ever see outside of an Indigo Girls concert...aaaand my first girlfriend got me into it but yeah. That's why. I had never, ever, anywhere, seen gay women represented like that before. I didn't even know where to look, being rather cut off from popular culture for many reasons...
You're spot on; the amount of "diversity" isn't changing, it's breached the mainstream now and the usual reactionary types are scared shitless.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @07:48AM (6 children)
Right. They're just quivering in their little booties, sobbing mantears of cake frosting and hotsauce, that run down their blubbery incel triple chins.
I mean, there must be one or two of them, right? Never met one of these scared shitless people, but they must be out there, somewhere? Guys?
Come on, quit hiding, we're all here to support you, who's feeling like, super-threatened by all this super-diversity?
Anybody?
I reckon they've all gone to their manly-man bunkers to hug their rifles and cans of spam, because I'm just not hearing a lot of panic-weeping.
But do keep telling yourself how scary you are. I'm sure it makes you feel great.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:03AM (1 child)
He writes and illustrates religious tracts that the faithful hand out to the unsaved
Jacks fear of LGBT people goes back decades
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:49PM
Oh, right.
I guess that's one.
Any others?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:01PM (1 child)
Come on, quit hiding, we're all here to support you, who's feeling like, super-threatened by all this super-diversity? Anybody?
Have you actually read SN before? They post on here all the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:51PM
I've occasionally seen disgust, occasionally anger, once in a while annoyed bafflement.
Can't recall any fear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:39PM
Ah yes, incel, the latest scaretype label that gets flung around by the "diversity" warriors now that they have wrung all meaning out of nazi and racist.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:42PM
They sure as hell seem to be carpet-bombing this place with how much they're frightened...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:37PM (1 child)
The way it was done used to be much more refined though, now it feels downright hamfisted.
This movie for instance have some of the most annoying, downright ditzy, characters Marvel has produced in ages (one of them even started out as a joke character on their website no less!), but gets crammed into everything because "diversity".
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 02 2018, @05:32PM
I haven't watched TV or movies in like 14 years, so I'll have to take your word for it, but given the glimpses I've seen here and there you're almost certainly right. What a mess. No one's got any damn subtlety any longer, no one knows how to write a complex character in the mainstream. I've been percolating an idea for a sort of love letter to the JRPG that feels like "5 parts Xenogears, 2 parts Shin Megami Tensei, and a dash of Sailor Moon" that has one lesbian, one bisexual woman, and one transwoman in it. And those aspects of their character have very little impact on the actual plot at all aside from driving one weird transformation (the transwoman can fuse with her daughter, who's a sort of "negative ghost" due to never having actually existed), the possibility of losing the lesbian off your team if you don't separate her from the woman she's in love with for a while, and said lesbian and bi woman eventually pairing up and both of them gaining massive power boosts and some crazy dual techs from it. It's possible to do diversity right, but not for the sake of diversity; it needs to be for character development.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:39PM (1 child)
Do not dismiss that a sizable group of people are annoyed not by the message but by the hamfisted way it gets rammed into every "conversation" where it previously had no place.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 03 2018, @03:11PM
Oh, it bugs me too, but what can we do? And those people are free not to consume this media, the same way I choose not to.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 02 2018, @01:59AM (3 children)
Nope, afraid not. I'm neither Republican nor conservative and I've been reading comics since around X-Men Giant-Size #1when the second team of X-Men were introduced (In a big box from my uncle not fresh off the press. I could read early but not that early.). And you know what? I never had issue with what they put in comics until after 2K. The problem is not minority protagonists. The problem is putting agenda ahead of good storytelling, with a side of being insulting, self-righteous, antagonistic pricks about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:42PM (2 children)
Watch out, that spotlight shining will earn you a CoC smackdown.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:38PM (1 child)
Somehow I doubt it [github.com].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 03 2018, @02:37PM
Touche.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @04:27AM
I never liked comic books, but cam across this a few years ago as discussed on redit:
http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=spiderwomans_ass [thebestpageintheuniverse.net]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:40AM (2 children)
Yes and no
I'm a lot more comfortable with telling a new friend that I'm schizoaffective than I am with telling them that I'm bisexual
One of my very best friends is an out bisexual and I haven't even told him
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:34PM (1 child)
I've never looked you up on google, but assuming you're using your real name, etc. Posting it here, is about as public as it gets. Though, I guess new friends shouldn't be so creepy as to be searching to see who you are on the internet? Or am I one of the few who still think that's creepy?
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday October 03 2018, @07:31PM
-gton.
He was a registered sex offender who did time in Walla Walla starting in 2005, then went on to steal a car while wearing homemade body armor and a helmet with metal plates duct taped to it, lead the Lakewood Police on a high-speed chase, crashed the car then opened fire on the cops.
Despite that he died in 2012, the police still think I'm him.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:01PM (6 children)
Exactly.
Yes.
No, "diversity" became a double think style codeword for overt discrimination; The very thing it claims to be against. Telling the most diverse, tolerant and equal civilization in human history that they're racists and sexists and it's therefore fine to discriminate against them is obnoxious. I don't think I have a reactionary response, I'm just going to continue enjoying my "white privilege" and "toxic masculinity" while ignoring "diversity" and telling anyone who has a problem with myself or my family to "fuck off"! Do you think this is an unreasonable position to hold?
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday October 02 2018, @03:56PM (5 children)
I think your position is a lot more reasonable than the position of most people like you on the internet. Probably because most people on the internet are trolls crafting reactionary arguments to stir up shit.
I'm actually quite glad to see anyone, even someone positioned on the other side from me, expressing an opinion that doesn't seem carefully crafted to piss off as many people as possible.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @06:25PM (4 children)
My position is one of self-interested disinterest, I will not open my wallet to support the kind of discrimination I have always taken a principled stand against. I suspect this is the majority position, even among those who are annoyed that every fictional character and franchise in popular culture is being hijacked and reimagined through an SJW lens. We've long had black, female and gay characters in fiction and few cared - but it was never so politicized as it is now. Neither of us have to pick a side. Alienating the majority audience by appealing to ever more disparate minority groups is a losing strategy. A recent survey on the declining NFL ratings could be an interesting insight into the commercial viability of intersectional identity politics. [surveymonkey.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:04PM (3 children)
I am not seeing what you see about the NFL. Kneeling is a protest, so the extent to which it harms business is probably desirable to kneelers. It doesn’t tell us anything about running a successful business...other than “avoid controversies you can’t personally resolve”.
As for how long we’ve had diverse characters in fiction, you are technically correct only because you leave out how many. There are vastly more and diverse characters in English-language fiction now than ever before, and these characters are in more central roles than ever before.
Any quality issues with these new characters are probably just growing pains. There is a lot about representation that has little to do with story quality that authors want to accomplish right now. I can see how writing a character specifically to represent one ethnic group alienated others, especially any ethnic groups that are not accustomed to characters that explicitly represent someone else. Some would say “welcome to the not-being-represented club”.
I suspect it will pass. Once each community feels better represented by the mainstream, representation will naturally become less of a storytelling goal. Whether things ever go back to “normal” depends on what “normal” means to everyone. If your normal requires that you be exclusively pandered to as the majority identity, you will be sorely disappointed and your frustration will only contribute to the things you love devolving into identity politics.
If however your normal just requires a level of quality and relevance, then as long as you don’t let yourself be distracted by identity politics, things will get better. Give minority writers time and identity will become less important than identity-specific themes, and everyone will get better at exploring those themes.
But if you’re an asshole about it, you will get kicked out. And if every straight writer is an asshole about it, you’ll have to get used to all romance being queer. When that happens...well we can all look forward to a new counter movement of straight people shoe-horning straight romance where it doesn’t serve the story because nobody will give them the representation they desire.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @08:51PM (2 children)
That they're in a no win situation which they could have avoided.
While the receipts will say welcome to bankruptcy protection and the media blames Russia [theverge.com] despite corroborating data. [cosmicbooknews.com]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday October 02 2018, @09:39PM (1 child)
The NFL is in a no win situation: yes.
They (the organization) could have avoided it: no.
Players are protesting something outside the NFL's control. The NFL itself doesn't care and can't really address police brutality. Meanwhile, comic book companies are trying to reach different demographics, a social issue that they are uniquely situated to address. The two may be related politically, but they are not comparable as business decisions. Especially because the players aren't making business decisions and aren't likely to face market consequences even if NFL viewership goes down.
Those that avoid the NFL because of Trump are doing it because of Trump. Not because of SJWs. Which I think is pretty indicative of the whole situation we're talking about: certain people want to stoke white rage in order to bolster their own goals, and without those people, we'd all be more likely to criticize things based on their own merits instead of the identities of the people involved.
As for The Last Jedi...from my perspective, that movie's biggest problem was pacing and that has nothing to do with social issues. The whole casino world subplot was pointlessly pointless, and I get the sense that it's only there to set up future movies. But what do you expect? They're just following the MCU forever-series formula, which until now at least has been pretty much entirely about white men in costumes.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 02 2018, @10:09PM
To be fair, they've been doing this since the seventies but the difference was that those titled sold.
They are making business decisions, even if they don't know it. The NFL could have exercised "editorial" control over the narrative from the outset.
I agree with you but there were social issues on display, not least the Asian girl bringing The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the pointless subplot you mentioned.
A movie that plays to universal human archetypes instead of deconstructionist dogma. A movie that honors the characters in the mythos. If the director wanted to "subvert expectations", he should have killed his protagonist. Obviously too much to expect, just as me bothering with any further Star Wars outings is too much for Disney to expect.
(Score: 1) by Blymie on Tuesday October 02 2018, @11:40PM
People get upset about revisionist history. In this case, it may not be (I haven't looked into your historical statements), but the thought of such things, and the external appearance to the OP, apparently causes the same distress many feel -- when history is changed to help with the current political climate.
Do you know how many horror/drama tales are written around regime changes happening in countries, and after the "past" is changed because it is inconvenient for the current regime? History books changed, books burned, lies told about the past, the list goes on an on. So yes, when people change "what was", and pretend it was actually something different -- it can greatly annoy people. It can even scare people.
Because the most evil and totalitarian regimes in the history of this world, have changed history too. You never change history. You leave it as it was. You move forward.
I don't get why people can't simply invent new stories. What's the point of taking what someone fondly recalls as a child, and changing it entirely? One feels cheated! I'd feel the same way, if Wonder Woman became Wonder Man -- I have fond memories of those comics, and of that TV show from the 70s/80s. It was the same with the Ghostbusters... all I saw was people all excited it was an all-female cast?!
Make your own movie! Its own premise!