It’s Just a Comic Book, or, Judo Master has friends who are Asian
The date on the inside of Judo Master No. 96, tells me that it’s a Modern Comics (a Topps imprint) 1978 reprint of a 1967 comic. I probably picked it up in 1978, at the local newspaper/candy/tobacco store, because that was where I got my comics until I became an adult and bought them for inflated prices from skeevy dealers at comics “shows” in the meeting rooms of Holiday Inns or in overfull, slightly tattered comic stores.
I remembered very little about the story, the title just popped into my head one day recently. I had to clean out the office to find it and there it was, looking as fresh as the day I bought it…maybe a little yellower. Judo Master is, along with a few other unfortunate comics, the overlap of two of my passions – comics and martial arts. (The very first book that I paid for by myself out of my allowance was “Teach Yourself Judo.” I was seven years old. I think my little sister has never forgiven me.) I remembered having really enjoyed the translation of each technique Judo Master uses. I remembered very little else, except the casual racism of the superior Caucasian man who not only is better at a Japanese Martial Art than any Japanese, but defeats evil, dismissively titled, Asian foes with their own martial arts.
I haven’t the vaguest clue what the story is, I only have this one volume and I have no interest in “doing the research.” I can tell you this, Rip, the manly, western (he causally makes references to football, baseball and other wholesome American activities,) “Judo Master” is allied with a group of anti-Japanese Japanese on an island…somewhere. Joining them is Suzi (short for Suzikawa, but conveniently American-sounding, as “Susie,”) Rip’s love interest, who wears something similar to a cheongsam, but definitely unrelated to a kimono. Eh, girl’s clothes, who cares what country they are from, it’s all so impenetrable to men, you know.
When they are discovered by The Acrobat and his evil “Jap” henchmen, I couldn’t help but notice that our square-jawed hero is a Master of a Martial Art, while our bad guy is merely an acrobat – clearly no one worth taking seriously. (According to the first page, Rip previously defeated the Red Crusher – guesses as to what country he was from?)
With a masterly series of shimewaza and osotogari, Judo Master defeats his opponent and, in an Arthurian moment, unmasks his opponent with “It’s time we took a peek under that falseface [sic] of yours and see what you really look like!” The Acrobat turns out to be none other than Suzi’s misguided brother!
After Suzi realizes that her brother (who remains nameless) will never care that he was used by the “Imperial warlords,” Rip ends the chapter by comforting Suzi. “Suzi, someday this war will be ancient history! Who knows how things will be changed by then? …But in the meantime…”
What Rip? What in the meantime? There’ll be more “Japs” to kill in the name of freedom, or was that meant to be an overture to Suzi to celebrate his heroic efforts in their island bedroom? We’ll never know, because the story ends there and I never found another issue.
Now, here’s the thing about Judo Master. He’s not racist, right? He has a Japanese girlfriend (okay, with Chinese clothes and a vaguely Chinese and vaguely American nickname, but still,) and he fights with a bunch of Japanese guys…so…? And it’s a WWII-era comic, right, so we have to forgive the propaganda, right? Well…no. Remember the dates above. The original book was published in 1967. I was two. This is *in my lifetime.* This is not a relic from a war-era comic. This is a cheesy recreation of a war-era comic feel. (Many of the comics I read as a young person were similar to this. Just post-Vietnam, it was obvious that comics were flailing to get back that good-guy flair. Lots of Nazis were defeated in comics when I was a kid. It was easier then, we were the clearly the good guys.)
Judo Master isn’t racist – look, he’s got friends who are Asian. He’s got a “Jap” girlfriend. He does Judo. He’s not fetishizing elements of Japanese culture and appropriating them for his own use or anything.
But, hey, this is just a comic, right? We shouldn’t take it so seriously. That’s what readers said in Noah’s discussion of racism in The Priest, and what commenters said in Colin’s comments about the exhaustingly awful use of sexual violence by DC in Flashpoint. Oh, and don’t forget Asians are getting all uppity about Akira. But then, I’m told to take Chester Brown’s Paying For It seriously, because it’s a serious work, with a premise worth discussing.
So, readers, is Judo Master racist? Was it racist in 1978? How about in 1967? 1942?
When do we take racism and sexism in comics seriously, because it’s a serious issue, with consequences worth discussing? When do we look at comics writers, artists and publishers and say, enough with the aggressive cluelessness. Enough racism, enough sexism, enough with the “it’s just a comic book.” If comics are indeed an a form of serious artistic expression, then we have to stop dismissing the bits of it we don’t like, the parts that make us squirmy and uncomfortable. If it’s just entertainment, then let’s stop pretending it’s anything other than pubescent fantasies and utterly banal writing.
“We didn’t mean it that way” Does. Not. Work. If someone is offended at a thing, it is offensive. That feeling cannot be wiped away with “it’s just a….” If anything, that kind of casual denial of offense serves to heighten it. Words and images have meaning – those meanings have consequences. If we acknowledge the power of words and images, the we have to acknowledge the consequences, too.
When will it be time to stand up and recognize the racism, the sexism, the denial and the pathology embedded in the words and images in comics for what it is?
I’d kind of like that moment to be now.
I’d say Judo Master is racist. So was Iron Fist, and the original “Kung Fu” TV series, and more recently the “Last Samurai,” starring the not-at-all Japanese Tom Cruise.
There’s a long history of white guys appropriating the talents of non-whites and becoming their betters. And as per my examples, it’s not a problem limited to comics. White guy creators and white guy fans will continue this circle jerk for the foreseeable future … but it’s worth pointing it out every time it happens, if for no other reason than you take another chip out of the armor of white privilege.
Exactly so, Richard. If we want to be participants in a global society, we really do have to keep pointing it out – and pointing out why dismissing it with a handwave of “Oh, it’s just a comic” is not acceptable.
I was privileged to attend a workshop by Jennifer Camper this year in which the devastating power of words and images together was really brought home to me. I can never accept that “it’s just a…” argument again.
Dopey, but not racist is my vote. Nice clean Frank McLaughlin art.
BTW, the Japanese took their martial arts from the Okinawins.
They certainly took some concepts from the Okinawans. Martial Arts worldwide have an awful lot of commonalties, as human bodies are shockingly similar no matter where you go. ^_^
Richard Cook:
“There’s a long history of white guys appropriating the talents of non-whites and becoming their betters.”
Well, Richard, you chose a very unfortunate field to illustrate this point.
Because in judo, yes, white guys appropriated the talents of non-whites and became their betters.
I know this first-hand. My judo teacher was Angelo Parisi, Gold Medal at the 1980 Olympics, a Caucasian Cockney Londoner. In judo as in karate and most Japanese martial arts, Japan is no more than a middleweight; just as Britain is in soccer, in rugby, and in cricket, games it defined.
I also studied karate, at the oldest dojo in the world, the Budokwai. In Kobe, Japan, perhaps? No, in Fulham, London, England.
In an odd judo-like reversal, Richard, you unconsciously seem to be promoting a racist trope: that of the “Magic Asian”, replete with the wisdom of the Orient, instinctive master of those mystical, martial arts.
‘Tain’t so.
And re-reading the story again…no, no racism here at all. And Judo-Master doesn’t kill his enemies, as you state.
By the way, does the comic actually use the word ‘Jap’, as you keep implying?
The Japanese, whether “good” or “bad”, are treated with respect in the extracts you’ve posted. I really don’t get your beef.
And yes, I have a thing against Japanese Imperial Warlords. Those shits killed a lot of Americans.
Reese, the Japanese are treated as adjunct sideshows; local exotic “color” to set off the Caucasian master.
The whole point of having the Judo Master be a Judo Master, the one white surrounded by all these Japanese, is to demonstrate that he is better at their own martial art than they are. That’s not Richard imposing that reading. That’s what the comic is doing. The fact that of course martial arts are not only practiced by Asians and aren’t necessarily exotic is part of the reason that the comic is racist, because it goes out of its way to imply otherwise.
Japan has a very unpleasant history of imperialism and racism itself. But that doesn’t make out history of imperialism and racism any better.
What Noah said…
To expand a little, there are ways to appropriate elements from foreign culturals without insisting on white dominance over the people of that culture. For example, you could just do a story where a white martial artist fights crooks. Like every single episode of Walker: Texas Ranger (I don’t know why that show popped into my head).
I’ve never read this comic, but by modern and past sensibilities alike, these certainly appear to be caricatured depictions of Asians and Asian culture as presented, the sustained reinforcement of which over the span of decades is ultimately a net negative in my book. But despite the zeitgeist of race relations circa the 1960s and 1970s, I’m not quite sure how they could have “done better” given what they had to work with. Consider that it wasn’t until the summer of 1967–the year this comic was made–that the movie You Only Live Twice was released and introduced non-Asian audiences to the concept of the “ninja” for the very first time. Myths and assumptions regarding the martial arts pervaded well into the 1990s with the advent of mixed martial arts, and even then they still persist.
What brought this about? Martial arts comics of the 1960s and especially the 1970s were driven by the consumption of Asian popular culture, most notably kung fu and ninja/samurai movies, by a foreign audience with no other knowledge of Asian culture at all. Fans of this material wanted to be those characters, and this desire has led to decades worth of stories that endure to this day where white guys become ninja and hook up with the Asian ladies…thus defeating the Asian guys both as fighters as well as lovers in the process.
The resulting racism present in these stories–comics, film, television, you name it–is thus driven more by ignorance than the outright malice displayed towards the Nazis and Communists, though it’s easily noted that ignorance is a/the primary cause of racism in the first place. As a member of the manga industry, Erica has firsthand knowledge of this better than most any of us. There is, after all, no shortage of self-professed Japanophiles whose high levels of enthusiasm not only doesn’t correspond to their knowledge level but somehow assures them that their perceptions of Japan and its culture are accurate. How do we deal with such people and the resulting media they create and consume, given that the concluding thought of this piece is that “we didn’t mean it that way”–a statement one typically offers as an apology–is emphatically unacceptable? I’m not completely sure.
The easiest path toward an answer is by asking another question: “what is the endgame here?” Are we looking for the elimination or trivialization of such narratives and characterizations entirely as a result of educating others to our worldviews? I don’t run in the same circles as you guys, but where I come from when people say “it’s just a comic book,” that’s colloquially meant to be interpreted as an equivalent statement to “this is nothing more than pubescent fantasies and utterly banal writing.” That is what comics represent. Is that endgame acceptable, given that it is one where the speaker accepts the abandonment of pretense albeit at the expense of dismissing the notion of comics as a form of serious artistic expression? Or is that position no good because they’re agreeing for the wrong reasons?
Within the last few years, a new Judomaster character has been created, and unlike the original this one’s a Japanese lady. Is that an acceptable improvement, or is this also offensive given that the writers for her are most likely of a similar background as the writers of the comic spotlighted in this post? She does after all wear the exact same skin-tight outfit as this original dude, plus she has a minimal to poor grasp of the English language that on at least one occasion has been spotlighted for comic effect. Plus, she fell in love with a big strong white guy.
Hey Daryl.
When I’ve seen “it’s just a comic” used, it’s been less in the context of, “this is all complete crap and should just be ignored and/or sneered at” (which is a sentiment I have some sympathy for) and more along the lines of, “this is just fun entertainment and you’re reading too much into it.” “It’s just a comic” is used to defend the material, not to denigrate it.
I don’t think you’re quite right to say that it’s ignorance rather than malice. Imperialism/white supremacy is a pretty powerful thing. The blanket assumption of superiority does not require any knowledge of other cultures…that’s kind of the point. The assumption that one doesn’t need to know the specifics in order to know the most important thing (superiority) is pretty directly linked to a national policy of violence and unpleasantness, I’d argue.
It’s interesting to try to think of a cultural product in which this particular meme is reversed. Is there any story anyone can think of where an Asian or black hero comes into a white community, outdoes them at their own game (say, rodeo riding, or country singing, or high finance), defeats the evil white guy and takes away the white girl? You occasionally see parts of it — Trading Places, maybe — but it’s almost always played for laughs…and it never, never ends with the minority guy getting the white girl, even in humor.
And I feel like it’s only fair to people to note that Reese is Alex Buchet. I asked Alex privately not to comment here, and instead he has reverted to full-on troll mode, apparently. I’ve taken steps to try to stop this from happening again. Sorry to everyone for the fuss.
I have never read this comic but it looks to be doing as Richard stated in his post “appropriating the talents of non-whites and becoming their betters”. This will happen as long as whites have control over the industry. Is it because they feel that whites are only able to understand something or enjoy something if it is white dominated?
Noah – Thank you. I am pleased to note that Reese’s comments were largely incoherent to me, and therefore I had no comment. But I appreciate your cleanup efforts.
Daryl – I’ve not read the current Judo Master, so I can’t possibly know if it’s offensive. Her being female is not enough to form any opinion. Is she scantily or provocatively clad? Does her story focus on her needing to be rescued by said big white guy? If those are true, then I’d probably consider it annoying, at the very least. ^_^
If Judo Master was reasonably independent, had an outfit that did not absurdly, unrealistically outline her secondary sexual characteristics (or look like an adaptation of some other country’s “traditional” clothes) and also explain the moves she was making because as I said – that was pretty key for me as a kid – then I might like it. Who knows?
More generally, (i.e., this is not about your comment specifically, Daryl,) the point of this article was meant to get us to question the circumstances under which we dismiss genuine concerns of sexism, racism and the like. I love how comic fans pick a word, a phrase, a concept and respond to that, rather than the concept that it’s time question our own and the comics industry’s motivations in perpetuating and forgiving this kind of BS.
I am apparently crazy for thinking that, by 1978, this was long past appropriate. But I do. It’s time, folks – time we stopped being children playing at being adults.
Word and images are powerful- they do send messages. And MANY of those messages still being sent by comics are women = tits and minorities=we have no idea. It’s ridiculous to excuse this at this point – and I’m not sure why/how anyone does anymore.
Comics are either an art form that consistently and continuously tell women and minorities that they are meaningless ciphers – OR it is banal, pointless and infantile white male fantasy. In which case, we should shut the fuck up and stop talking about it as anything more than wet dreams. This back and forthing of it’s important art when we agree with it, but just a comic book when we don’t want to take responsibility is absurd and pathetic.
I should probably also point out that Marvel and DC have basically shown themselves almost-completely clueless and uncaring about anything approaching understanding the concept of diversity, and so, really, I don’t know why I would expect fans of same to have higher standards…but I do. Comics fans were, when I was a kid at least, the smart kids. I wonder what happened.
Well, I wrote a post way-back-when where I pointed out the rather unflattering portrayal of Asians in mainstream/superhero comics over the decades. But Suat rightly pointed out that there are positive portrayals of Asians in the alt-comics scene, many of which are written and illustrated by Asian creators. It just depends on how much of a taste you have for pretentious autobio comics (kidding!)
But I agree that I don’t see Marvel or DC leading the way toward greater cultural sensitivity. Not that I have much faith in film or television, but at the very least they’re less insular.
Alt-comics is where I look for “real” (if you will) serious diversity. Always. The fact that it does exist in the independent world doesn’t really let the mainstream comics companies off the bubble for being a half a century behind the times.
“And MANY of those messages still being sent by comics are women = tits and minorities=we have no idea. It’s ridiculous to excuse this at this point – and I’m not sure why/how anyone does anymore.”
Very true. That said…as somebody who reads roughly equal quantities of Anglophone / European and East Asian comics, I encounter racism and sexism (amongst other isms) in genre comics from all of those regions all too regularly but its Japanese comics that I encounter those things in most often and most virulently.
If Erica were to apply as critical an eye to Black Lagoon (which I seem to remember her giving positive reviews to), would it hold up any better? And could Noah really convince himself that Gantz is somehow socially progressive? Really?
I presume American mainstream comics fans dismiss these sorts of criticisms (“it’s just a comic!”) because they don’t want to scrutinise something they enjoy in a way that will reduce their enjoyment. That certainly seems to be the case with their weeaboo fanboy counterparts on the manga side of the aisle, whose frequently misogynistic and/or xenophobic and/or paedophilic comics are certainly no better than any number of shitty superhero power fantasies.
Thing is, as intellectually indefensible as that might be, I suspect most of us do the exact same thing to some extent with the stuff we like (be it comics, prose, music, film or whatever) – we might attempt to bury our behaviour under layers of ironic detachment but I’m not sure that makes us any better.
Ian – Great choice, because as it happens, I love Black Lagoon. Can I admit it’s a pandering piece of crap? Absolutely. ^_^
There’s many centuries of artistic precedence for Hiroe’s portrayal of women’s bodies (and clearly a whole lot of artists got into the business back in the day so they could see women naked.) It’s still pandering crap. Revy wears super short cut-offs, for pity’s sake! Have you ever worn those? It’s like being flossed with every movement. Trust me – Hiroe is not giving her “freedom of movement” or whatever lame excuse someone might come up with to explain it away. ^_^ (I’m smiling here to express visually that I am, in fact, smiling as I type this. It’s not an angry rant but a laughing one.)
Something like Black Lagoon is definitely a pubescent fantasy. I love it, but nothing on earth can make me take it seriously. The women are “strong” (i.e, violent and competent, but emotionally broken) the men are the same.
Frankly, I come down on the side of “let’s admit this is pandering, banal, adolescent fantasy already and stop taking any of it even remotely seriously,” about 99 percent of the time with comics.
I have a rule about comics – “Just because you like it, doesn’t mean it’s ‘Good.'” And the corollary, “Just because it’s crap, doesn’t mean you can’t like it.”
What drives me crazy is when people can’t admit that what they like is crap and insist that it’s *Art.*
Oh, and this I could answer, Reese. The word “Jap” appears 7 times in 15 pages of comic, the first instance of which is in the first paragraph on the first page. I just counted.
I’m totally not sure what the artist being alive has anything to do with anything, though. I never suggested he wasn’t.
Ian…I said Gantz was socially progressive? I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that.
I like (the first few volumes of) Gantz, because I think the way it handles genre, ontology, and character is interesting, disturbing,and sometimes sublime. But that’s pretty different than saying it’s socially progressive…because it is of course quite obviously and even intentionally sexist.
The only time I think “it’s only a comic” is when readers are calling for comic creators’ deaths or things like that.
Not sure that art is worth praying for people to die.
Most people say the phrase hoping to disengage argument so that they can ignore criticism. “Leave me alone! :(“
——————–
Erica Friedman says:
If comics are indeed an a form of serious artistic expression, then we have to stop dismissing the bits of it we don’t like, the parts that make us squirmy and uncomfortable. If it’s just entertainment, then let’s stop pretending it’s anything other than pubescent fantasies and utterly banal writing.
——————–
Comics — like any other art form — are capable of being used as “a form of serious artistic expression.” (Heavens, even mime, as Marcel Marceau showed, could rise to the heights of Art.)
But, that doesn’t mean there’s no place for lighter fare; which need not necessarily sink to the level of “pubescent fantasies and utterly banal writing.”
———————
If someone is offended at a thing, it is offensive.
———————
How nice to see things so simply! Therefore, we must never create anything that might offend anyone. Can’t have stories with Nazis in them, because Germans might be offended! No Holy Inquisition or child-abusing priests in fiction, history, or news reporting, because some Catholics will be offended. Let’s erase slavery and how the American Indians were treated from the history books, because…
———————-
Richard Cook says:
…I’d say Judo Master is racist. So was Iron Fist, and the original “Kung Fu” TV series, and more recently the “Last Samurai,” starring the not-at-all Japanese Tom Cruise.
There’s a long history of white guys appropriating the talents of non-whites and becoming their betters. And as per my examples, it’s not a problem limited to comics…
———————-
Don’t remember much about “Iron Fist,” though I bought many issues. Those Gil Kane covers a strong selling-point.
Sure, it would be ideal for a story to star someone from that culture. But there are commercial considerations involved: would an audience be able to relate to someone not from their own culture? (Hopefully modern audiences are less close-minded.) Steve Ditko’s rendering of “Dr. Strange” featured pretty Oriental-looking eyes in his very first story; then he became clearly a Westerner.)
Also, by a story — such as in “Dances with Wolves,” “Avatar,” “Little Big Man,” “The Last Samurai” — having a lead character from our culture, we get to vicariously experience their being introduced to that culture, having its ways explained to them, then learning to admire and respect that “alien” culture.
(Hardly a rare phenomenon: in the days of the British Empire, Englishmen expatriates who saw the appeal of the culture of a colony, and rejected their background and identity for the new one, were said to have “gone native.”)
Look at the way the “other” and their societies are depicted in those movies: admiringly, as a far better alternative to our own, which is routinely harshly criticized. (What a contrast in Malick’s “The New World” when Captain John Smith leaves the idyllic native village to return to the “civilization” of the colony!)
There usually is sanitizing at work — the way Native Americans could delight in torturing captives; the brutal side of the Samurai — and simplified “Noble Savage” and “Wise Oriental” images.
Plus, thanks to our relative lack of knowledge about the cultures, some inadvertent caricaturing as well. One silly example from our own history: the Puritans did not go somberly dressed in all black all the time. The costume department in the 1996 film of “The Crucible” researched that, and had the townspeople dressed in more varied garb. (Yet, you can bet that if someone wishes an audience to easily “read” the characters as Puritans, black will be what they wear.)
For all their imperfections, to smugly dismiss these as “racist” is to equate these works with the murderous, hate-filled rhetoric and attitudes Ku Klux Klan and such. Can we have a little nuance, please?
Mike, that last paragraph is confused. “Racist” doesn’t necessarily mean Ku Klux Klan. It can mean…well, something like this, which presents other cultures in an ignorant and demeaning way. You don’t have to call for racial genocide or actually lynch people to be a racist.
This is one of the problems with racial discussions in this country. There’s this assumption that only the KKK or Nazis are racist; only people who are evil and black-hearted are racist. But lots of people who are perfectly pleasant in other respects can say racist things, or take part in racist institutions. Comics like this, which show white people as superior and minorities as misguided or as needing the protection of white people, are congruent with attitudes that have really unpleasant real world effects (such as, for example, invading other countries, and/or maintaining global hegemony.) Pointing that out is not a sign of lack of nuance. Assuming that only the KKK is racist is.
@Erica
“Frankly, I come down on the side of “let’s admit this is pandering, banal, adolescent fantasy already and stop taking any of it even remotely seriously,” about 99 percent of the time with comics.
I have a rule about comics – “Just because you like it, doesn’t mean it’s ‘Good.’” And the corollary, “Just because it’s crap, doesn’t mean you can’t like it.” ”
Thanks for clarifying – I am 100% in agreement with you.
“What drives me crazy is when people can’t admit that what they like is crap and insist that it’s *Art.*”
Indeed. Although I guess there *are* examples of works that have genuine artistic or cultural merit even as they offend in terms of race or gender portrayals or whatever. For example, I don’t have a problem with lauding Hergé, Tezuka, Goscinny & Uderzo, Eisner and the like for their artistic abilities and / or influence on the medium despite understanding that their portrayals of black people are problematic to say the least.
@Noah
“Ian…I said Gantz was socially progressive? I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that.”
I wasn’t saying you did. What I was getting at is that Japanese genre comics are certainly no less problematic than their American equivalents and the fact that most of us here (myself included) don’t much like superhero comics doesn’t make them inherently more politically dubious than some of the comics we *do* enjoy.
It’s just very easy to fall into the trap of condemning the other person’s knuckle-dragging entertainment as offensive, worthless, rubbish whilst overlooking the same failings in our own guilty pleasures.
You know, this blog actually dings manga for various sins with some frequency. Here’s me on the uncomfortable racism and fascism in Lady Snowblood for example. And I published this essay about the uncomfortable way gay men are presented in yaoi. There’s other examples on the site too; we’re hardly rah-rah manga all the time.
IHowever, one should not overlook the fact that superhero comics really, really, really suck, are amazingly insular, and are generally getting worse. Manga at least acknowledges that women exist and has some base level of professionalism. American mainstream comics are just embarrassing for the most part.
Mike – > For all their imperfections, to smugly dismiss these as “racist” is to equate these works with the murderous, hate-filled rhetoric and attitudes Ku Klux Klan and such. Can we have a little nuance, please?
Saying that something is racist – and we should be aware of it’s effect on people and what message it is sending – is in no way the same as equating it with activities of any hate group. I thought that was clear, as I’m asking us to discuss things *more* openly and reasonably. It seems to me that my discussion was quite nuanced and you just took a flying leap with your presumption of equivalence between things I did not connect.
IOW, Mike – you’re arguing about something I never said. If anything I am requesting nuanced conversation in this article. How interesting that you’re using cognitive dissonance to imply I made the opposite point.
Ian – I’m pretty sure I wasn’t making any connection with American comics=racist and Japanese=awesome. And I don’t recall Noah making that connection, either.
Another fun piece of typical cognitive dissonance in fandom is taking a specific and presuming the general. Mike did that, and your admonition is a little like that. I say we have to stop pretending racism/sexism in comics is not an issue and you admonished us to not generalize that all American comics are eveil. You’re right of course, and I didn’t.
I think, quite honestly, that critical commentary here is constipated with the need to be smart and make a point. Commenters work really hard on finding things to say, because we know we’ll be seen as intelligent. What I see about have the time is people getting their panties in a bunch over a word, a sentence, an example and, when those don’t present themselves, they willfully misinterpret or generalize to be able to make a comment about how we shouldn’t generalize.
It’s not just this post – almost all the commenting here follows this pattern. In fact, almost all commenting all across the internet. Is it *that* important to be seen as smart? Can’t people just learn to nod and agree sometimes?
Nah, forget that. It’ll never work. ^_^
“I think, quite honestly, that critical commentary here is constipated with the need to be smart and make a point.”
Well (to meta on meta, and epitomize the thing I am saying also) all discourse occurs in a social context, so sure, people are seeking status as well as truth. That’s surely true of the original post as well, though, right? I mean, at least, it’s true for me when I write. People who don’t have any interest in the social status offered by writing (in some community or other) usually don’t bother writing. (Unless you’re doing work-for-hire writing, which is a little different.)
Race is really highly charged. If you write about it there’s going to be disagreement…
“Ian – I’m pretty sure I wasn’t making any connection with American comics=racist and Japanese=awesome. And I don’t recall Noah making that connection, either.”
Yeah, my response was a bit muddy in both intent and implementation (in my defence, the first one *was* written at about three in the morning GMT…).
To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that either of you had made a specific connection – just responding to this piece in the context of Noah’s (admittedly fun) hyperbole with regard to the tights and capes brigade and suggesting (badly, it would appear) that it’s kind of interesting to consider how we – all of us – manage to enjoy works that contain elements we find offensive when it suits us to do so and not when it doesn’t.
That and, I guess, a bit of confusion on my part not as to what makes Judo Master bad but, rather, as to what makes it so bad it’s worth singling out over a bajillion similarly shitty comics from around America and beyond?
“Another fun piece of typical cognitive dissonance in fandom is taking a specific and presuming the general.”
I’m not sure what fandom you’re associating me with. I have no horse in this race; certainly no more interest in reading – or defending – Judo Master than you do.
“It’s not just this post – almost all the commenting here follows this pattern. In fact, almost all commenting all across the internet. Is it *that* important to be seen as smart? Can’t people just learn to nod and agree sometimes?”
Leaving comments reading “I agree – good job!”, or words to that effect, doesn’t tend to lend itself to a lot of stimulating conversations. There are already more than enough self-congratulatory blogs with a cliquish feel and tremendously dull comments sections. HU is one of the few I visit in the expectation that the comments have at least a 50/50 chance of being more enlightening – or at least more entertaining – than the actual content.
I don’t leave blog comments much in general (either here or elsewhere) but if I do it’s because I have something I want to add, something I want clarified or a counterpoint to make. Not sure how much point there would be in commenting at all otherwise.
Still, apologies if I’ve managed to offend you – I wasn’t *trying* to piss in your cornflakes but I’ll allow that my aim could be better…
Noah – Disagreement is sure to be had. So far there has been remarkably little overt disagreement with the things I did say, but there has been an interesting variety of response to things I *didn’t* say.
I’m not sure I think about being seen as smart. I’m arrogant enough to just assume that I’m smart and move on from there. ^_^
Ian – No offense at all! That’s why I keep making these smiley face things (^_^)/ – in hopes that it will communicate that I am smiling (and enjoying myself immensely) as we communicate.
Text is incredibly awkward. I’ve noticed that fast readers, especially, often read responses as fast as possible, and so “hear” then as tense, terse and slightly frantic replies, even when that may not have been intended. My guess is that we’d have a fabulous discussion about this over a meal. You haven’t actually disagreed with me at all, and that makes for the best conversation partners. ^_^
“HU is one of the few I visit in the expectation that the comments have at least a 50/50 chance of being more enlightening – or at least more entertaining – than the actual content.”
Aw, that makes me happy. Thanks!
Y’know… after reading this article and the subsequent comments, I’m left wondering…. So what? So a comic is racist… So what? Doesn’t the author/artist have the freedom to make a comic racist or not? I’m still kinda wondering what the real issue we’re talking about is. If it’s racist what are you saying we should do about it? Or are you guys just making purely academic arguments for the sake of making arguments. Anyhoo… Hopefully somebody’s still around to clear this up for me. ^__^
Ichigo69 – There was a bit in the article where I talk about that – what’s happening is when people try to discuss the racism, sexism, homophobia embedded in comics, we’re “shush”ed by people with the line, “Don’t take it seriously, it’s just a comic.”
The so what part is we need to stop doing that and take these discussions seriously. As I keep saying words and pictures have an effect and when comics as an art for keep saying women are nothing more than secondary sexual characteristics and minorities are strange and we don’t understand “them” at all, then telling us to “not take it seriously” is missing the point completely.
Its time for the comics industry to be held responsible for those messages.
The two comments that I reject utterly when I say this is racist/homphobic/sexist/etc is “it’s just a comic” and “it’s not for you.” They are ridiculous sentences and need to be banned for all intelligent discourse on comics.
Ichigo, I think that’s a good question. I’m not really into censorship, which means that yes, people can create racist comics if they want, and people can read racist comics if they want.
However…the fact that people deny that the comics are racist indicates that they are uncomfortable reading/praising comics that are racist. That suggests that if you raised awareness of the ways these things are racist or sexist, people might be less willing to support them. In fact, this has happened over time in various cases. Criticism (pushed by other changes in society of course) has led to the rejection (for the most part) of blackface caricature, the increased presence of minorities on television and in film, etc. etc.
In a broader sense, race and gender are important lines along which our society operates. You think about them for the same reason you think about anything that makes up a big part of our lives — to understand it better, to figure out what you think, to share insights with others, etc.
Late entry, but had to share this, it was too relevant. ^_^
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-06-03/
@Erica and @Noah
Okay, I think I get what you guys are trying to say now. I appreciate the explanations ^__^ And yeah, I think I agree with you. Also, another thing I’m seeing is that w/ the 4chan culture(ry, you get people saying, “yeah, it /is/ racist and/or sexist. I guess you people aren’t open minded enough to accept racism and sexism, are you?” which is some sort of logical fallacy (can’t think of the name atm). Anyhoo, I think the comment about better conversation and not just brushing it off is good. Cheers! ^__^
I’m not sure if it’s a logical fallacy…but I think it’s a pretty thorough moral fallacy to argue that one is being open-minded by accepting racism or sexism. Why not be open-minded enough to accept ritual disembowelment for traffic violations?
And Erica…you know Scott Adams has been spouting sexist twaddle all over the internet, right? Catastrophic embarrassing meltdown on his part. Haven’t followed the whole thing, but the bits I’ve seen have been pretty amazing.
And Christ, Dilbert is an ugly strip.
Yeah Noah- I’ve seen it. I have pretty much no opinion about it, because I can see the validity of both sides and kind of don’t agree with either.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…“Racist” doesn’t necessarily mean Ku Klux Klan. It can mean…well, something like this, which presents other cultures in an ignorant and demeaning way. You don’t have to call for racial genocide or actually lynch people to be a racist.
This is one of the problems with racial discussions in this country. There’s this assumption that only the KKK or Nazis are racist; only people who are evil and black-hearted are racist…
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Indeed so! But, because there is in this country the “assumption that only the KKK or Nazis are racist,” I feel — as I’ve argued elsewhere — that the “R-Bomb” should be reserved for the more egregious examples. That less-inflammatory, non-demonizing terms such as “racial prejudice,” “negative stereotyping,” etc., be used for the milder examples.
Because what happens is the “currency is devalued”; if we hear a cross-burning Klansman and a little old lady who crosses to the other side of the street because she’s nervous about the group of black youths heading her way both described as “racist,” (or if a hopelessly unenlightened older man who holds a door open for a woman and a religious fundamentalist who maintains it’s the Will of God that women should stay in the home and be submissive caretakers of their husband and children are both condemned as “sexist”), isn’t it the tendency of Joe Average to then think, “Well, EVERYTHING is ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’! So I’ll stop giving a shit about all that…”?
As was said on another thread:
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Anja Flower says:
…Yeah, as an American Jew who actually faces serious discrimination and bigotry on other fronts, I have precious little patience for people who squawk “antisemitism!” the moment someone makes a bitter comment about the occupation of Palestine. The conservajews at ADL, AIPAC etc. stretch the word “antisemitism” in a manner analogous to how radical feminists stretch the term “rape.” “Cultural rape,” “symbolic rape of women’s bodies and lives…” It’s almost like they’ve got a vested interest in distorting the terminology to the point where it doesn’t mean anything. …
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Comics like this, which show white people as superior and minorities as misguided or as needing the protection of white people, are congruent with attitudes that have really unpleasant real world effects (such as, for example, invading other countries, and/or maintaining global hegemony.)…
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Certainly! “Take up the white man’s burden,” and all that.
Kipling’s poem — still painfully timely in its attitudes — at http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/922/ .
Well, that’s a tactical difference basically, then.
The problem is that restricting racism to the KKK really fails to take into account what racism is. It makes it a personal sin rather than a systemic problem. And that allows all sorts of systemic racism to flourish while people tell themselves they’re not racists because they don’t burn crosses on their lawn. I don’t think that’s healthy for our society, and I think it’s actually one of the main ways racism is excused.
It strikes me that there is a notable difference between this case and the Priest case ~ this is a comic where they are all people.
It seems like a kind of bottomline requirement for it to be racism is that they are all actually people. Otherwise its more speciesism. And if its the kind of predatory quasi-corporate species living off the life substance of people, it gets a bit hard to see why we shouldn’t treat them as the bad guys.
Bruce, the thing is, there aren’t real aliens. Sci-fi is always metaphorical. That doesn’t mean it’s not about real stuff though…what else is there to write about, after all? We’ve only got the one reality.
Sci-fi stories of species genocide often plug into real anxieties and histories of race. Starship Troopers links its bugs to the Chinese. And Priest goes out of its way to link its vampires to Native Americans. The fact that the enemies are vicious, terrifying caricatures — well, Jews were often said to drink blood. Why shouldn’t we treat them as the bad guys?
And if you’re answer is that the vampires in Priest *really* drink blood…they don’t really drink blood anymore than Jews did. What’s the point of the story? Why set up this enemy that needs to be exterminated, and why put them in the position of Native Americans?
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Mike Hunter says:
…because there is in this country the “assumption that only the KKK or Nazis are racist,” I feel — as I’ve argued elsewhere — that the “R-Bomb” should be reserved for the more egregious examples. That less-inflammatory, non-demonizing terms such as “racial prejudice,” “negative stereotyping,” etc., be used for the milder examples.
Because what happens is the “currency is devalued”; if we hear a cross-burning Klansman and a little old lady who crosses to the other side of the street because she’s nervous about the group of black youths heading her way both described as “racist,” (or if a hopelessly unenlightened older man who holds a door open for a woman and a religious fundamentalist who maintains it’s the Will of God that women should stay in the home and be submissive caretakers of their husband and children are both condemned as “sexist”), isn’t it the tendency of Joe Average to then think, “Well, EVERYTHING is ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’! So I’ll stop giving a shit about all that…”?
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Well, that’s a tactical difference basically, then.
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Sure!
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The problem is that restricting racism to the KKK really fails to take into account what racism is. It makes it a personal sin rather than a systemic problem. And that allows all sorts of systemic racism to flourish while people tell themselves they’re not racists because they don’t burn crosses on their lawn. I don’t think that’s healthy for our society, and I think it’s actually one of the main ways racism is excused.
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Yes; though can’t racial prejudice be both “a personal sin” and “a systemic problem”? With the GOP’s massively successful “Southern strategy,” I don’t think Republican party strategists were themselves necessarily particularly racist. Yet, they saw how personal attitudes in the South could be exploited for their political gain.
Vice versa, the first European explorers of Africa had many admiring things to say about the people they encountered there. But, when the slave trade became a highly profitable endeavor, those same Africans were then described as sub-human, either childlike or vicious; thus creating racism among the masses, in order to excuse treating Africans like property.
More of the tactical thinking: If the continuing (and morally righteous) struggles against racism and sexism are not to “extremify” themselves into fringe-dom, it’s self-defeating to come across all holier-than-thou, to treat a sports team’s caricatured American Indian mascot as if it were as outrageous as the Sand creek Massacre. “Pick your battles”; otherwise the relatively mildly prejudiced masses, fed up of being grouped along with church-bombiing Klansmen, will equate all arguments against racism as condemnation by snooty ultra-PC types, and shut off whatever they have to say.
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Erica says:
Late entry, but had to share this, it was too relevant. ^_^
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-06-03/
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Yeah, I saw that in yesterday’s paper, and thought the same thing. On-target comment at the site: “Often, it’s not so much an inability to ‘debate’ as it’s people’s terrible reading comprehension. We are a nation of functional illiterates.”
More on your other remarks later…
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Noah Berlatsky says:
I’m not sure if it’s a logical fallacy…but I think it’s a pretty thorough moral fallacy to argue that one is being open-minded by accepting racism or sexism. Why not be open-minded enough to accept ritual disembowelment for traffic violations?
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So, simply having prejudiced attitudes (the minimum requirement to be guilty of the above) is as heinous as ripping someone’s innards out?
And, “accepting”? Do we have a frickin’ choice about having to put up with all the evils and injustices that are out there? And does throwing a fit every time some mild example shows up do anything against the larger problems, more destructive versions?
In yesterday’s “Tallahassee Democrat,” a reader wrote in:
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Thanks to all the men who passed my frightened, 85-year-old mother on Capital Circle Northwest and let two women push her Town Car off the road. Maybe you were afraid of her cane.
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Tsk! Surely most those offenders deserved to be characterized as jerks. But, wouldn’t it have also undoubtedly been sexist, ageist, and ableist (she uses a cane!) to have assumed she couldn’t push her car out of the way by herself?
MIke, you should go over to the thread on Domingos’ post where we’re talking about Crumb’s use of racist iconography. I think you’d be on Jeet’s side, and he could use the backup.
‘Bruce, the thing is, there aren’t real aliens. Sci-fi is always metaphorical.’
… except when we accept arguments based upon your interpretation of the metaphor, as opposed to the explicit content, who gets to decide which interpretation to use? for instance, having a small class of vampires who know what is really going on and a large cohort of drones fits the bloodsucking corporation metaphor much better than the first nations metaphor, and if its racist to fight against the blood sucking tools of mega corporations, I’m a racist beyond hope of redemption.
‘Why set up this enemy that needs to be exterminated, and why put them in the position of Native Americans?’
… because an existential fight has inherent drama if the audience identifies with the side you are presenting, and movies lost the ability to make that assumption in an existential fight of peninsular west asian settlers against the american first nations a while back, because its racist.
by contrast, judo master is not, ‘they have taken an old cowboys fighting injuns movie and swapped out the injuns for vampires, because you can’t do that with injuns no more, therefore the vampires are injuns therefore this vampire movie is racist against america’s first nations’. no metaphorical leap of some, but limited, imagination is required: he’s actually western, going around being superior to all thems who are actually asians.
Mike – You make some really good points. I was falling into lazy speech/writing patterns based on articles elsewhere and not double-checking my own degrees. Thank you.
There aren’t real extraterrestrials (yet) but I think intolerance and prejudice are likely to be instantly transferable to them when/if they arrive, based on many years of Us vs Them in scifi. I’ll admit, the idea distresses me that *we* might fall into those same patterns, because we have not learned any real lessons about acceptance and understanding.
And while it’s true that there are no real extraterrestrials (that we know about) we already have cyborgs – humans who have artificial limbs and organs. I honestly wonder how long before “fully human” people begin to reject them. When their human flesh is less than 50% of their total weight? I’m not kidding, either. I fully believe that after this current era’s Gay “rights” insanity, the next us vs them will be Cyborg “rights” as more wars and better science gives us more and more partially flesh/partially machine humans.
Bruce, you figure out which interpretation to use by arguing back and forth and reading the text (or film or whatever.) Vampires are placed on reservations; they’re inserted into the role of Indians in the Searcher narrative. That seems pretty clear to me. You can argue against it if you’d like, but so far you’re counter seems to mostly be “well, they’re not *really* Indians.” But racist stereotypes of Indians aren’t really Indians either. That’s what makes them racist rather than accurate.
I agree that genocide is good drama. The reason it’s good drama has to do with historical fantasies about us and them…fantasies which are still current, for that matter (see “Clash of Civilizations.”) You claim these fantasies are just good fun and make for stimulating genre product. I say they have consequences and are tied to narratives which effect the way we actually behave in the world. Do you really think we can’t tell good stories without fantasies of genocide? I guess we could agree to disagree on that point, but I certainly don’t find your arguments so far especially convincing.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
MIke, you should go over to the thread on Domingos’ post where we’re talking about Crumb’s use of racist iconography. I think you’d be on Jeet’s side, and he could use the backup.
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“This is a job for…Racism-Defending Man!” But, seriously, he seems to be doing fine on his own…
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Some people say that comics drawings of the story heroes raping schoolgirls make readers want to rape IRL schoolgirls less because they can satisfy those urges with drawings instead.
Anybody say comics drawings of the stopry heroes being racist to nonwhites make readers want to be racist to IRL nonwhites less because they can satisfy those urges with drawings instead>?