DC at SDCC: Provocative (Grant Morrison in a Dress) is Good? (Final Part, Saturday)

[turtlefu]

This is it! The final part of this massive clusterfuck! But first, legality!
 

Maybe they'll get around to the black guy... eventually

 

DC’s New 52 Panel (Saturday Morning)

Winick says that with Batwing, he’s trying to mix superheroes with real-world issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He called Africa “a very politicized and ravaged country”.

“Now THERE’s that white privilege I was talking about! Good job we have mighty whitey to tell us how horrible of a “COUNTRY” Africa is! I get a huge feeling Winick is going to use this book as his mouthpiece for his opinions on the politics and culture of Africa, which he will grossly misunderstand and possibly turn into a "look at those SAVAGES" situation.”

DiDio made a list of heroines in starring roles. He says DC has the best percentage of females in starring roles.

“DC, DIVERSITY IS NOT ABOUT NUMBERS. Why don’t you guys GET THAT!? Also, I call bullshit on that anyway. Besides, Marvel is employing far more female creators (Deconnick, Immomen, Rios, Liu, etc.)”

Morrison says that Cass still exists in the DCU.

“Yay Cass!”          

The same Batgirl fan from the panel who asked about heroines on covers asked this panel why there weren’t more female creators in DC. DiDio says, GET THIS, they hire the best writers and artists they can! And the audience applauds! Morrison mocks her by saying he looks great in a dress, then turns around and encourages the female fans to submit work to DC.

“So, DiDio implies that the female talent out they isn’t good enough for DC, and then Morrison mocks a justifiably upset fan. Then he turns around and saves face by encouraging the female fans to submit their work. Presumably to be told that they aren’t good enough for the wealth of talent that DC only employs, like the kind that puts out Cry for Justice or the Rise of Arsenal.”

DC’s The Dark and The Edge Panel (Saturday Afternoon)

Lemire says Animal Man’s main character is actually Maxine, Buddy’s daughter. She gets her own powers.

“Which is interesting, but I can’t help but feel it takes away from the “everyman” qualities Buddy was supposed to have”

Cornell SPECIFICALLY calls Horsewoman a “diversity character, to state it crudely”, and compares her to the Man with No Name [Clint Eastwood’s Western Character]

“Good Job Cornell, you just took away the good feelings I had for you. Turns out his wheelchair user was just there for diversity cred!”

Cornell says Apollo and Midnighter are still gay, but they meet for the first time in the first issue, and their romance is slow. He also says that if he changes anything he won’t expect to come out of the “Gays in Comics” Panel alive.

“Okay, I do like the idea that they don’t immediately jump down each other’s pants, like they did originally. But apparently Cornell feels like the only thing wrong with changing their sexualities would be the negative fan reaction? Uh, you shouldn’t change their sexualities because that would homophobic, not because you fear how the fans would react.”

This one is the worst. DC replies to the negative fan reaction towards Harley’s new costume by saying “Provocative is good”, but says that Harley still has the same personality.

“REALLY DC, why is PROVOCATIVE only good for your FEMALE heroes, so you can dress them is as objectifying clothes as possible, but your male heroes wearing briefs on the outside is SO BAD it needed to be changed IMMEDIATELY.”

“Oh and just to add, included were some pages from an unknown book showing a gratuitous scene with strippers. I think it was either from Blackhawks, Suicide Squad, or Sgt. Rock.”

Comments

[darkknightjrk]

I honestly think Winick's in a catch 22 with talking about the setting. You focus too much on the superhero side, people will bitch that you're ignoring or making light of the problems in Africa--you focus more on Africa's problems, people will bitch that you're making it look like the people of Africa are savages and can't take care of themselves. There's literally no way to win there.

[whitesycamore]

I think that is maybe part of what he means when he says that Africa is 'politicised.'

[greenmask]

Please don't use "bitch" to mean "complain pettily". Gendered slurs aren't welcome on scans daily. Thank you.

[darkknightjrk]

Alright, fair enough. My apologies. I'll try to refrain in the future.

[greenmask]

It's appreciated.

[jaybee3]

It doesn't help though when he refers to the whole contingent of Africa as a "country" as if every single country/region has the same problems, issues, even types of people.

[darkknightjrk]

Which, as someone mentioned, could easily be a slip of his tongue or a typo on the transcriber's side of things. Considering he's said that he's consulting different members of academia to get his facts on Africa right, I think it shows that he at least cares.

[jaybee3]

Maybe. Hopefully when the book does come out he doesn't represent the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" as interchangeable with any other African country.

I was probably looking for faults. This whole reboot is just making me more and more cynical.

[whitesycamore]

Well, Winick is a very politicised and ravaged writer. :P

[whitesycamore]

Winick does know that Africa is a continent. He can be ham fisted and soapbox-y, but he does try to be factually accurate from what I can tell.

[turtlefu]

There is a way to win. It's called being a good writer. Many writers, like Grant and Greg Rucka, don't have any problem with trivializing minorities or turning it preachy.

[darkknightjrk]

That's, of course, assuming that Winick is going to suck when you haven't even read it. Also, how has Morrison and Rucka, of all people, trivialized minorities?

[turtlefu]

Sorry, that was a typo, I mean Grant and Greg DON'T trivilize minorities.

You know, the way that Winick does, and has a repeated history of doing. Winick has the magic ability to turn EVERYTHING into a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE in the most in-organic way possible. I cringe at his Green Arrow and Green Lantern runs.

[shadowpsykie]

at times i can see that, but i personally loved his green arrow and liked his green lantern run.... was some of it "very special episode-y" yes, but his heart i think is in the right place... i don't think he trivializes them... trivialized implies to not think very much about them. Winnick actually cares about the political issues he discusses... he might not be eloquent about it. but his aim is not to trivialize

[marco]

I mostly agree. On the onehand, if he played down the "dangerous, politicized, ravaged" side a bit, I honestly wouldn't mind. As far as a majority of (mainstream) American media goes, Africa is usually (almost always) so war-torn and impoverished and corrupt and- it's just a shitty continent obviously! But to me, that's totally ignoring the good parts.

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing a writer focusing on the nice parts of Africa for once. I only feel a bit comfortable saying that because everybody always wants to show how terrible things in Africa are, so you know that story will get told. But I don't see anyone telling stories that, even if they aren't fluffy and nice (and modernized), don't have so much dipping into how horrible it is. There is no calm slice of life for Africa, I guess.

[greenmask]

At the very least African media provides some!

Which is expectable, obviously, but if you're hankering for some fiction about any part of Africa that doesn't feature child soldiers, that's maybe where to look. A lot of Nollywood productions are in English, if that helps.

[greenmask]

(That's not to imply that other countries shouldn't give the place a break too, because they most certainly should)

[marco]

Oh, haha, definitely.

I happen to catch random movies that come from different parts of Africa (and the Ethiopian restaurant we frequent generally has a movie or some music videos on), but I don't think I've ever come across anything on here~.

Thanks for the link!
(I just think it's sad that for us to use Africa so much in media, Africa doesn't come out looking so good 98% of the time.)

[greenmask]

I agree, so much. I happened to catch a Nigerian movie by chance one day and I got kind of addicted - I couldn't guess what was going to happen in the story and there were a couple of really righteous moral smackdowns, which was great! But it also made me realise that the only knowledge I had of any part of Africa other than South Africa came from a) the news (bad) b) 'starving children' adverts (terrible), and c) folk tale compilations. And for such a huge piece of the world, that's a tiny amount! NO GOOD.

Also my interest in Nollywood led to seeing an exhibition of the Ife bronzes, which were some of the most beautiful sculptures I have ever seen in my life. If more people saw those.. the world could only get better.

[marco]

They're like that right, like, "ugh! What's gonna happen!" So great that you can't foresee it, but for me, it just gets me all anxious. But yeah, I didn't even realize until a couple of years ago how sad things were w/Africa and media portrayal. (A little before the time I started frequenting Racialicious and took my racial and ethnic studies class.)

That's just the part that makes me a little sad and wary. It's less that I know the writer (Winick in this case) won't tell a good story, but I'd just be disappointed if a writer I loved ended up telling the same story that everyone else has been saying. (Because seriously, I get it now America. Africa is a sad country with starving children everywhere and little modern technology and child soldiers everywhere and war and horrible stuff. ...And nothing ever bad happens here.)

Ohh, I am very curious! I will have to look those up now!

[greenmask]

If you ever get a chance to see the bronzes IRL, TAKE IT. For real. Photos don't do them justice.

[feyandstrange]

Here's an idea or three: start with making him not "Batman of an ENTIRE FUCKING CONTINENT", and then send him to Addis Ababa and Casablanca and Capetown and Mombasa and other major centers of civilization and crime, instead of the second poorest country in the world still reeling from war and tribal conflict? And maybe have some Batpersons in those other cities? The African Council of Batman Inc would be awesome. Instead we have cliche and ignorance.

[darkknightjrk]

Well, you're assuming that he's not going to explore the other countries in Africa and that there aren't any other superheroes in Africa. Hell, in those first appearences of Batwing in Batman Inc. had him teaming up with two superheroes in Africa.

[feyandstrange]

I am assuming that if there is a Batman of Paris or of all of France, and a Batman of Gotham, that a solitary Bat can usefully cover about one major metropolitan area plus its suburbs, with occasional visits outside their own turf to track things that occurred in their turf. Since Kinshasa has a population greater than that of London and IIRC more geographic area, and that's not counting Brazzaville across the river in Rep Congo, I would assume that the DR Congo alone (or the two Congos) is plenty for one Batman, especially considering that one can't as speedily move around on Africa's roads and runways as one can in the USA or even Southeast Asia.

I'm glad to hear that other African-continent heroes exist and get mentioned, but that doesn't really cut it. The USA has tons of superheroes and Batman still mostly handles the Gotham area.

[marco]

This. I think this is what most people are missing and what would fix things (to a point, anyway).
(Some people are making it sound like there's only places in Africa that are ravaged or something or, ironically enough, like there's a lack of countries to use from the continent.)