Stock up on the brain bleach
Jul. 15th, 2010 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailySo, um. Here's a thing.
As near as I can figure, this is from what started out as a magazine called Rampaging Hulk, later shortened to The Hulk!, that Marvel published in the late Seventies. This particular selection is from a story called "A Very Personal Hell," from issue #23, published in 1980, and was written by Jim Shooter and drawn by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala.
In it, Bruce is on the run following a botched attempt to steal some information that might give him a clue how to reverse his transformations into the Hulk. He checks into a YMCA to spend the night, and, uh...
Perhaps a word of explanation here. This was right around the time of the smash success of the Incredible Hulk TV series, the whole reason for the Rampaging Hulk magazine's existence in the first place, as Marvel tried to use the series' popularity to capture an upscale market. In that vein, then-editor Shooter apparently decided the magazine would be a good showcase for more "grim-n-gritty" storytelling; less Silver Surfer, more Starsky and Hutch. In that vein, he decided to make his first story for the magazine especially hard-hitting and realistic.
So. Bruce at the Y.
It caused quite a commotion at the time: Comic Book Resources reports that the story "lit comics fans on fire...It was all over The Comics Journal for months." Shooter's reported reaction? "If I offended rapists, I'm GLAD." Yeah. Another one for the "no lessons were learned" file.
As near as I can figure, this is from what started out as a magazine called Rampaging Hulk, later shortened to The Hulk!, that Marvel published in the late Seventies. This particular selection is from a story called "A Very Personal Hell," from issue #23, published in 1980, and was written by Jim Shooter and drawn by John Buscema and Alfredo Alcala.
In it, Bruce is on the run following a botched attempt to steal some information that might give him a clue how to reverse his transformations into the Hulk. He checks into a YMCA to spend the night, and, uh...
Perhaps a word of explanation here. This was right around the time of the smash success of the Incredible Hulk TV series, the whole reason for the Rampaging Hulk magazine's existence in the first place, as Marvel tried to use the series' popularity to capture an upscale market. In that vein, then-editor Shooter apparently decided the magazine would be a good showcase for more "grim-n-gritty" storytelling; less Silver Surfer, more Starsky and Hutch. In that vein, he decided to make his first story for the magazine especially hard-hitting and realistic.
So. Bruce at the Y.
It caused quite a commotion at the time: Comic Book Resources reports that the story "lit comics fans on fire...It was all over The Comics Journal for months." Shooter's reported reaction? "If I offended rapists, I'm GLAD." Yeah. Another one for the "no lessons were learned" file.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 05:16 pm (UTC)I think the problem I have with these kinds of debates is people like to act like this stuff never happens. It does. And yes here they are portraying gays in a bad light. But as you said rape is a backstory of a lot of female characters. How many times does it come up for males? Has it ever been a woman?
Why do people get upset when minorities are portrayed badly as if they never do anything bad? And I don't just mean this case. Before when people were getting upset about Black Manta killing people. It was bad because he's black. Because black people never commit murder? Would it be better if it were a white man?
Should any person that commits a crime in a comic be a straight white man? I would say no. Because as many people say, that means straight white man is the default.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 07:10 pm (UTC)Because when that negative portrayal isn't balanced by positive portrayals, the negative portrayal is presented as the norm, implying that minorities never do anything good.
As people have already pointed out, this comic was published at a time when homophobia was much more common and gays were much more discriminated against than they are now (that's not to say that there is no homophobia and that gays aren't discriminated against now, but at the time it was much worse).
In that context, the comic doesn't show two rapists who happen to be gay, it shows two men who are rapists because they are gay. That's pretty damn offensive.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 07:17 pm (UTC)It has come up for males a few times. One of the most notorious is Devin Grayson writing Nightwing raped by Tarantula...but then backpedalling and claiming it was "non-consensual" as if that was diferent from rape. Many people still argue that it wasn't rape because men can't be raped by women, or that Dick didn't really refuse *enough* for it to be rape.
Should any person that commits a crime in a comic be a straight white man? I would say no.
Definitely not. I think the goal is to for everyone to be like the straight, white cisgendered men who can get up to anything good or bad without any hint that they're supposed to be representing anything universal about their identity. For a the feeling that any character has the same chance of redemption and resurrection. Being stuck as a role model is in its own way just as confining as never being allowed to be the role model, really.
Like in this comic, it's presenting what are probably the only gay people in the 'verse at that moment. Sure there are men that rape other men. The trouble is that most gay men *don't* rape other men, yet they're constantly having to deal with the association of gay with sexual predators. That's a specific stereotype for gay men. So if the only time you have a gay character is to go for one of the most recognizable negative stereotypes, that's a problem.
Minorities should ideally be free to be just as good or bad as anyone else--awesome heroes and supervillains and everything in between. But as of now the way they get portrayed either way is going to be more under a microscope. I was thinking about one of my favorite gay characters ever (not in a comic) and he was sort of part bad guy, part good guy, all around awesome and not really any stereotype you could think of.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-16 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-17 02:30 am (UTC)A lot of other things happen in real life that never make it into the pages of such comics.
For example, sometimes gay dudes make passes at straight dudes because they don't realize that the object of their interest is straight. When they find out differently, their response is not attempted rape.
So, yeah. It's relevant to look at context. We don't see any gay characters in this fictional environment other than a couple of guys who think that rape is the logical response to rejection. Meanwhile, there's straight guys all over the place who get tons of "screen" time. They have a multitude of things to do and they react in a multitude of different ways.
It matters. Just saying, "Well, this happened IRL to somebody I know" is a cheap-ass defense for this kind of crap.