4 Unfair Assumptions About Comic Book Readers
1. Only White Guys Are Upset
Frankly, the assumption that minorities must support these decisions one hundred percent is its own form of racism. The idea that anyone who stands against the current status quo must be a white man who is afraid of not being the center of attention is naive and insulting. It’s binary, black and white thinking that doesn’t account for any gray areas. As I hinted before, I am not white, and there are a lot of causes and movements that I fully support, yet I do not want to be bullied into taking a side on a complex issue by a comic book I picked up to escape from the real world. Do we assume that every black guy’s favorite character must be either Black Panther, Falcon, or Luke Cage?
There is a mentality that pop culture has been straight white male centric for decades and now it’s time to counteract that, but the object is not to have the pendulum swing completely in the other direction - the goal is for the pendulum to be in the middle. Demonizing the white male viewpoint does not heal the wounds of oppression, it just causes new wounds. Perhaps those who would’ve been fence sitters were pushed into feeling targeted by these recent decisions and have their own sense of marginalization. And being told “oh, boo hoo, cry your white tears, we’ve been dealing with this way worse for much longer” does little to build cooperation and further fans the flames of the Us vs. Them mentality that has infected not just pop culture but culture at large.
There have been all sorts of successful diverse superhero characters since the 60s and they were able to gain popularity without stealing the spotlight from others. It seems like editorial believes that the only way a minority character can succeed in the current climate is by having it inherit the title of an already established white hero. Some would say that being in the shadow of a white hero is detrimental to the new character. Sam Wilson was perfectly fine as the Falcon, but upon becoming Captain America he transforms into the Cap who is black. He is no longer a hero in his own right but the black version of another. If original minority characters were able to find success in the 20th century, shouldn’t they be able to find an audience in 2016? How about minority readers who feel pandered to with these new creations? Those of us who feel that Marvel and DC care less about actual diversity and more about making non-white dollars?
The bottom line is, reducing the other side of the argument to a strawman is wrong. To reiterate, actual bigots: real, honest-to-goodness readers who hate non-straight, non-whites and don’t want them to have comics are bad. They’re bad for the industry as a whole. But assuming anyone who doesn’t like what’s happening lately is some white supremacist crusader is dismissive as saying anyone who is in favor of these changes is a SJW feminazi, foaming at the mouth for the end of the white man. Without civility in these discussions there will be more division when really we should all be agreeing that at the end of the day, everyone just wants good comics to read.