OK, bear with me here, a point is coming. :) I finally got around to watching The Amazing Race Canada tonight and I was just flabergasted that of 9 teams chosen to compete, 5 were from Ontario and there wasn't a single team chosen from the 4 Atlantic provinces, the 3 Northern Territories, or for that matter Saskatchewan, (although the Prairies had a couple of representatives). Obviously this irritated me or I wouldn't be spouting off, but it also got me thinking about comic character diversity/representation and just how important it may or may not be.
In general, my opinion has always been that if creators are going to come up with new characters for the big 2, all other things being equal, they should probably go for diversity. Since there are lots of cases where other things are not equal, I never thought there should be a moratorium on new white male characters, but it seems like a good general idea to strive for.
Things get a little trickier when a popular character is being killed off, retired, etc. and then has a replacement stepping forward. I don't agree with characters being killed off to make way for some diversity quota, but if the decision's been made to kill a character or the story calls for it, again, I think it's a good idea to go for the diversity option, all other things being equal. Ted Kord was a bad character to kill but Jaime Reyes adds to the DCU. Meanwhile, to me, Kyle Rayner represents a huge missed opportunity in that he was just another white guy stepping into Hal's shoes. (I often wonder if they'd added an ethnic component to Kyle, (and if they hadn't crapped all over Hal on his way out), would Kyle have been used in the JL cartoon and would Green Lantern Rebirth have happened?) The big question is, does making the replacement a different race, gender, etc create more backlash than replacing the character with another white male, and if so, does this extra backlash exceed extra interest created by the increased diversity? My knee jerk reaction is that it wouldn't even increase the backlash, but hey, I could be wrong.
The situation the AR Canada actually brought to mind however was in the case of a company wide reboot, like say, the DCnU. Should DC have taken the opportunity to increase diversity with their reboot? I guess DC would probably say that they did in that their initial releases included 3 and a 1/2 black protagonists, multiple female leads, an hispanic headliner, some diversity in the Justice League's founders, some LGBT characters including one series lead, and a slightly wider range of genres then they'd been publishing immediately prior. However, it doesn't seem like much effort to diversify when the bulk of their promotion went into their key properties which stayed as white bread as ever. Should they have diversified some of these key properties if they were rebooting anyway?
The AR Canada situation has given me a couple of new filters when considering this idea. The Amazing Race left out whole sections of the country, yet despite the complaints, I'm not convinced that anyone that actually likes the race will boycott it over not having a local representative. (Heck, they're more likely to boycott it over it not leaving the country.) Furthermore, other than immediate friends and family, I can't imagine anyone that wasn't inclined to watch the race that would watch it just because someone from their area was competing. I guess that just leaves the people at the margins, the people who only partially enjoy it; would having a local team to root for keep them watching a show that they're iffy about?
So, if one was to draw the parallels with the DCnU, are there people who otherwise would be reading American mainstream comics who aren't because of a lack of diversity? My guess would be no, or if so, not many. On the flip side, "standard attrition" is a major issue for comics; I suspect this is where the iffy consumers come in. Could greater diversity of characters help with reader retention? I think the idea's quite simplistic, but could it really hurt to make sure everyone has a decent "home team" to root for?
The other major point is whether or not the stories would be more interesting with a greater diversity of viewpoints? I'm inclined to say yes but YMMV. I can say that I'd have enjoyed the AR Canada more with a couple of wise cracking Newfies or disgruntled NBers in the mix. :)
Replies
I think the more diversity you can have, the better. Te new Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, is a great example. He's both African-American, and considerably younger than Peter Parker, so both the younger set and the African-American community can look at him and say "someone just like me is a hero". The trick is to make sure the quality is there so people will want to come back every month.
Also a team of Newfs would be cool for AR, but depending what part of the province, they may well need to be subtitled!
Also, it's not just editorial ticking a box, but the writer is presumably very engaged with presenting the character with some level of truth and fairness. Bendis has a stake in doing Miles well, in that his own children would find slim pickings for heroes that look like them amongst Marvel's heroes.
Miles is part Hispanic as well as African-American by the way, so he ticks two boxes at a stroke!
Bendis also made Luke Cage pretty central to his MU before blue-eyed Aryan poster boy Steve Rogers came back from the dead.
This is true. Even those without that heavy an accent tend to have some pretty unique slang. Gotta say though, I'd gain more enjoyment puzzling out what one of the teams is saying rather than listening to one of the drama teams whine their way through another challenge. Ah well, hopefully they'll work a lot of the kinks out with season 2.
I think it's interesting that Marvel was able to make Luke Cage so much more prominent without really changing anything intrinsic with the character. This was a character who was C list at best that suddenly became A list because a big name creator decided to take some time with him. Of course, the big question is whether he will remain A list without Bendis pushing him. (Also, I suppose an argument could be made that he never became A list because he didn't receive his own title.) Nonetheless, he seems to have gone from being a token black character to a viable property.
Another question this brings to mind is whether the top spots in the big 2 really are all taken or if there really is room for the right character, handled by strong creative teams, to slide in. The idea that Captain America's return to prominence has pushed Cage aside kind of implies there isn't...
Back at DC, it seems to me that even deciding against changing any of their big name characters during the reboot, they have two older African-American characters that could benefit greatly from a push and they seem to be just leaving them on the shelf. I'm assuming Black Lightning isn't being spotlighted due to some back office conflict between DC management and Tony Isabella, however, I don't understand why Cyborg isn't being used more. Why did they bother making him a member of the Justice League when he's hardly featured and he doesn't even get a backup feature?
I don't think that's really much a part of his character though. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that added way after the fact in a hand wave gesture that hasn't really affected much of anything since then? I mean, I don't think a character should be dominated by their ethnicity but it should factor into the pie a little. Other than Winnick's initial story, has it had any bearing on the character at all?
I think one thing that helped moved Luke Cage up from C-list to B-list (sorry to disagree, but an A-lister would be starring in his own ongoing, imo) was shedding the 70s costume. That and the obvious addition to the Avengers as they surpassed the X-Men in popularity, and as you said, being pushed by Bendis.
Black Lightning was part of the JLA when written by Brad Metzler (circa 2006-2008), who considered a "hot" writer after Identity Crisis, so that's probably when he was last part of what may be considered an A-list book. I don't think anything has recently cropped up recently with Tony Isabella, and I think Black Lightning was a co-star of DC Universe Presents for a bit just before it was cancelled. Isabella will pop up anywhere to proclaim he has been mistreated by DC over BL, but I think he has had the same story for years. I saw him on a message board recently - maybe Heidi MacDonald's blog - having a hissy fit because someone referred to Trevor Von Eeden as BL's co-creator. To me, unless Isabella has the artistic talent to bring a concept to life on the comics page, the artist who can and does is the co-creator. Isabella disagrees with this and states he is the sole creator. Ahem. Sorry for veering off topic.
As for Kyle, I wasn't reading comics when he debuted. I tried a few issues of GL when he headlined but didn't find him terribly interesting. Never noticed his Mexican or Mexican-Irish heritage, but it wouldn't stop me if I did know. Again, if it had been played up, there's something anyone that is Hispanic could identify with, so wht not?
Just to veer off topic a bit more: I always found it a bit much that Earth was one of the many worlds in Sector 2814, but all of the GLs were not just Earthlings, they were all Americans - Hal, Guy, John, Kyle, heck, even Charlie Vicker too. I think they missed a great chance to have a Canadian GL, or one from South America, or Asia, etc.
John Dunbar said:
But it seems like all GLs from all sectors come from one specific planet. All the ones from 1417 seem to be Korugarians or from 2813 are Xudarians. I think it is because the GL always seems to die on or near than planet and the ring finds the closest suitable replacement.
Comics that show GLs from Earth in the future are more diversified. The one from The Last Days of Animal Man is a whale.
OR I could just say: U-S-A! U-S-A!.
OR Don't worry about it considering how many of them end up going crazy.
Border Mutt said:
I don't think there was an actual cause and effect there. Luke remained quite prominent after Cap's return. He did eventually leave the Avengers for the Thunderbolts (characters leave those teams all of the time). In the eyes of comics readers that might be a demotion, but in the MU that would be a promotion since he was running them.
It looks like Tony Isabella and DC are finally reconciling and Black Lightning might be getting more prominent soon.
Here's an article about it, (and Isabella's reply), at the Beat:
Dogs and Cats living together
FWIW, Cyborg's title premiered this week.