Comic Books, By Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, And Frank Millar

According to hooks, “while superficially appearing to present a portrait of racial social equality, mass media actually work to reinforce assumptions that black folks should always be cast in supporting roles in relation to white characters.” Throughout the years, black and white characters were presented in the same frame, but with different lights. While they worked together, the subtle ideas of subordination and subservience of black people were being sent to the public. This fixed representation is nothing more than a racist stereotype, an

The representation of diverse people and experiences in comics is important to expand the thoughts and minds of readers. Yang and Wilson, the minds behind American Born Chinese and Ms. Marvel, use the medium of comic books and graphic novels to help bring a new sense of belonging and acceptance to marginalized people. They do this by applying a “millennial mindset” to their respective stories. What this means is that the characters they have created, whether they are based off real people or are fiction, address the problems of race, religion, or sexuality that we are facing today. These characters also act to threaten the current atmosphere of the comic book industry. Typical comic book characters and superheroes, before now, were mostly white and from a typical American background. Heroes that were women were generally over-sexualized and unrealistic. These two authors hope to challenge the current status quo of the comic book industry by creating characters whose background is much different than previous superheroes.

Superheroes such as Miles Morales, Kenan Kong, and Jaime Reyes taking the title of Spiderman, Super-Man, and Blue Beetle all have one thing in common; they epitomize an underrepresented ethnic and racial community. Axel Alonso, the creator of the half-Hispanic, half-black Spider-Man (Miles Morales), explains, “Miles is but one face in a diverse landscape of heroes that includes Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel), Sam Wilson (Captain America) and Amadeus Cho (the Hulk), and offers readers of all creeds and colors a chance to see their own reflection” (Moreno, 2016, para. 10). Just like the creation of Batwoman, Miles Morales’ creation is due to the fact that creators wanted to be able to reach every member of their audience. However, “often lost in the intersection between superheroes and science fiction is the place race occupies in the genre, and when it is addressed, the discussion frequently turns to framing the genre as racially biased,” (Nama, 2008, p. 134). For these reasons, many comic book creators refrain from addressing these issues, since it may lead to them being accused of conforming to a stereotype. Even so, “the audience for comics is a truly multicultural one; in fact, it is more ethnically diverse than are the heroes the young people read about” (Brown, 1999, p.

In David Carr’s essay, “On Covers of Many Magazines, a Full Racial Palette is Still Rare,” the author states his opinion/analysis of the magazine industry and the, small amount of diversity that is involved with it at this time, but he believes that it could be on the rise. In this essay Carr takes his opinion, explains it, and also supports it with many statistics and quotes from people involved in the industry. He supports his argument with many rhetorical devices and successfully proves his point.

Comprehensive Annenberg Report on Diversity in Entertainment, showed one-third of females with a script were 33.5 percent, in spite fact that woman represented about half of Americans population. The percentage of characters with dialogue who were non-white was just 28.3 percent, which is roughly 40 percent of America’s

Let’s face it. Almost all Jewish characters we see on screen are written by Jewish writers. We like seeing ourselves represented, and we love writing about ourselves. It’s the same with every minority: Asians write about other Asians, African-Americans write about African-Americans. But the reverse rarely happens. When was the last time you watched a film or TV show that centred around a minority and the writers and creative team weren’t comprised of people from the minority? Shows about African-Americans written by White people? A story about a Gay couple written by a Straight dude? I don’t think so, minorities write about minorities and majorities write about majorities.

Television and film is a huge part of American culture. As the “face” of America changes, it is expected for our media to reflect it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Since the beginning of film, minorities have been misrepresented and underrepresented. While there has been a significant increase in minority actors since the beginning of film, there is still a huge underrepresentation present in American television and film. Our media needs to reflect out diverse country. This topic is always important and relevant because race, gender, and sexuality, in general, have been issues throughout the growth of television and film. Even today, minorities are subject to

During the process of producing a television series, the demand for the producers to introduce their characters with only their highlighted traits make it impossible for viewers to gain a deep understanding of the community that the characters represent. One of the stereotypic traits that is usually seen on movies and television shows is societal difference that each race is placed into. Michael Omi in his article In Living Color: Race and American Culture stated that “in contemporary television and film, there is a tendency to present and equate racial minority groups and individuals with specific social problems” (546). There are many films and television shows found today that ground racial minorities into a specific social problems that are related to the color of their skin. It can be inferred from the current popular culture that this stereotype still persists.

I have chosen the issue of “miss/underrepresentation of minorities in American television and film.” As America has changed over the years to become much more accepting and inclusive, American media seems to be a bit behind. There are countless instances in which characters from a book or graphic novel has been white-washed once they make it to the big screen. Some may argue these choices are made because the actor is very strong at their craft or they are a star and will bring in the big bucks in theaters. While this may be true, it completely discredits not only the original art and meaning of the work but also the community of talented non-white artist in America. I want to delve deep into the reason this can be happening in a generally

In many ways, the black community is greatly underrepresented. This previous February (Black History Month), the movie Black Panther was released. The movie is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) featuring an almost all black cast consisting of Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Daniel Kaluuya, and Danai Gurira. In the MCU alone this film had already become so much more than just a film, the evidence of this statement is that it already holds the record for advance tickets sold. This shows how many people care about or have possibly felt left out as a child due to underrepresentation of black people as superheroes. Of the three picture given, the second photo of the black boy posing

In 2014, growth has been made but there are new hindrances that stand in the way of Black representation. One problem is in the use of ethnic recasting, make normally white characters and casting them as people of color, which works in theory but has downsides in practice. Another is a form is representation that is not truly representation. Now, instead of creating stories that have black heroes, many stories have biracial characters. Others have characters whose race is not easily clear, or purposefully left undefinable. These characters are then called a

Over the years we have seen more representation of people of color as a whole and sexualities as well. This is especially true with black representation. There has been a lot of shows and movies that are being shown in mainstream media such as Girls Trip. There is even the fact that you are seeing more black dolls now then I have when I was a little girl. While yes there have been many black characters and even shows with an all-black cast what I am talking about is seeing black representation in the mainstream media that has been dominated for years by those who are white.

In a study of 414 films and television series, only 33 percent of all characters were women, and only 28 percent were of racial minority status (Associated Press). Casting diversely in entertainment has been an issue for years and has recently spawned many controversies such as the 2016 Oscar Controversy where an outrage occurred due to a lack of minority Oscar winners. Many cultures and races fell underrepresented and cast aside by film and television. The entertainment industry should cast more diverse actors because it increases viewership, provides a broader perspective, and creates a more realistic setting.

Everyone should be able to find a character that they can identify with and/or look up to in a book. Not being able to find a character who has the same color skin, or the same sexual preference, or the same disabilities as the reader is disappointing for the reader. No one should feel as if they do not belong, and not having that representation plays into that feeling. Darnell Hunt, the director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, told the Huffington Post that “the more TV you watch, the more media you consume, the more likely it is that media ― almost like radiation ― builds up. And the accumulated effect is to make you feel that what you’re seeing is somewhat normal” (Boboltz).

BOOM! POW! ZAP! When these phrases are heard or read, comics are most likely the things that come to mind. Made popular by television and the selling of comics in general, franchises like DC Comics have risen to the top in modern day popular culture.