Last edited by Electricmastro; 09-15-2019 at 10:06 AM.
Here is a question, what examples of "political correctness" have you noticed and what do you think is wrong with examples?
Also what is the difference between say political correctness and social commentary? Because social commentary has been part of comics since the 70s.
Here is my problem, a lot of the people who complain about "political correctness" are these Anti SJW types who just seem to complain, rather put forward an actual creative vision, it seems like they just reproduce what was done in the past, rather then trying to create something new. I would rather see something new rather then just reproducing story beats from the past.
I myself think creators should be allowed some freedom to experiment and if someone does not like what they are doing, can just not read it.
Last edited by The Overlord; 09-15-2019 at 12:08 PM.
True, but I think DC backed from that in the 50s and 60s and unless we count the Cold War stuff as social commentary, its was not super prevalent in the Silver Age in Marvel, I would say the 70s is when we see it in full force and has always stayed since then. I think if you take social commentary out comics at this point, they would become more dull, not more exciting, because its good write a story with an actual point to it, rather then just a bunch of explosions. Good art can entertain and inform.
When it's not doing the following: championing whatever contemporary political talking points as implicitly equally applicable to everyone, while hypocritically contradicting that by indulging in "sticking it" to some "acceptable target" demographic the creator resents for whatever reason, even sometimes going so far as to try and handwave or justify the exception.
Last edited by Ragged Maw; 09-15-2019 at 04:07 PM.
There have always been SJW comics.
1940's
William Moulton Marston's Wonder Woman: Just the very premise of it is political, especially then.
Kirby and Simon's Captain America: I would say, printing an image of Cap punching out Hitler during a time when most American's wanted no part of WW2. is a brazen political statement.
1950's
The comics code authority was blanked piece of politicalized censorship plastered over the industry. Everything published under it was political.
1960's
Black Panther: Literally everything about his existence was political. it's one thing to have a black superhero in modern times, it's another thing to publish a black superhero at the height of the Civil Rights movement when death threats, were even more serious than they are today.
Xmen: along the same lines as of Black Panther. Blatant Civil Rights statement.
1970's
Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams Green Arrow/Green Lantern. Nakedly political.
1980's
One word, Watchman
1990's
Xmen: literally did a story about AIDS
I would ask anyone who is anti-SJW to show me when this apolitical time period in comics was.
Last edited by mathew101281; 09-15-2019 at 04:25 PM.
I wouldn't say that was politically incorrect. I would say it was grossly, disgustingly racist.
Yeah, what is your point? Are you arguing that is good or bad?
I am not missing characters like the original very stereotypical of ''Whitewash Jones'' and I am kinda glad they repurposed him to be a normal character, rather than a total stereotype:
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Washi...es_(Earth-616)
What they did with Jones was a vast improvement.
This why I am warry of these complaints about political correctness, is ''political incorrect'' storytelling always better? What makes storytelling politically correct or politically incorrect and what makes one better or worse than the other? Personally I think there is some stuff from the past, that is best left in the past.
It's obviously bad. I was just adding onto the discussion in regards to how political/social depictions of people were done at that time.
Speaking of which, it's interesting really. It's like artists like Jack Kirby were drawing racists like Hitler getting punched with one hand, while drawing minstrel-esque stereotypes with the other.
And more than 20 years later, Kirby would draw the more respectable Gabe Jones and Black Panther, evidently having learned that it's best not to draw black people with stereotypical faces.
Last edited by Electricmastro; 09-16-2019 at 01:49 AM.
To answer the OP: imo never that's your answer.
Political Correctness to me anyway comes across as a tick boxing exercise to seem modern so there is no really reason for it other than its more modern and edgy.
Not to say all representations match this, Black Panther is an example which doesn't however a prime example would be the MCU Spider and the cast there. I recently read that a large amount of Americans over estimate the amount of population being black (the figure I read was 7% was accurate) and that could be the same for other minorities.
So the question is why do we have political correctness at all, the answer is because a number of minorities are being ignored or not used however we have to be careful not to overuse them as well. I have four issues with political correctness
One I find it disgusting when it is done as a publicity stunt or a tick boxing exercise and the SJW scream that they were right, they could always see it and it its brilliant and about dam time - examples I think are true Bobby Drake from X-Men, Alex from Supergirl, and William from Arrow to name a few.
Two the creative theft afterwards this is more to do with fanfiction than the actual work however the minority in question can't be changed (this applies mostly to religion, politics and sexual orientation) however as soon as it is said it is written in stone and can't be changed however those characters who are white, straight, male, Christian can decided to turn, transition, convert and everything is peachy and then I get lecture about equality.
Three - the advertising - to me you know its political correctness when they say that this show or this book is going to deal with this instead of the adventures of falcon or black panther or luke cage or storm and they tell you about it almost a year before hand. Example Alex from Supergirl
Normalizing - This is another word that I despise much like priveilige - it seems that the goal of political correctness is to normalize anything that is a minority but here is the problem they don't tell you what is normal why I have an answer maybe its not the answer but its an answer, it changes for everyone there is no such thing as normal its a pipedream it doesn't exist.
I think Spike-X comment
Not only is it wrong but it is regressive not progressive, representation should be creative and telling a story and let people judge it for what it is, some will like it, some will hate it and some just wont give a ****When it pisses off as many whiny, entitled StraightWhiteDudes as possible.
Having a book whose goal is to piss off entitled Straight White Dudes which makes up the majority of the population isn't the greatest business move, I think we need a culture shift fast move away from trying to piss people off to educating those that are prepared to listen so they can educate the next generation.
Truth is the best policy
Whoa, you need to update your statistics. According to the last census, 17% of the population is African-American and 60% white.
However, as at January this year, 50% of all children in the United States under 15 is a minority. https://www.brookings.edu/research/l...-census-shows/. White people below the age of 15 are already a minority. So the MCU Spider-man movies are quite reflective of what's happening in the US now (i.e assuming the kids in the movies are actually teenagers). While this isn't obviously the case across the United States, it's fast becoming a reality across the country.
That being said, I actually agree that race-bending some characters isn't the way to go but in accurately the US population going forward, it might actually be necessary. The call for accurate representation isn't just a "sjw" thing, its fast becoming the economic reality that businesses are just waking up too. There's a reason why movies like Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians and even Wonder Woman (to a lesser extent) cleaned out at the box office.
Political correctness at its heart, is not criticising people for being female/gay/black/short/fat/disabled or whatever. It's a shame that a few people in the 80s took it to the extreme of avoiding ever using words like "black" or "fat", but the intention is good, and the outcome has been broadly good since then. The world is much more tolerant than it was back then.
It's a shame that some people feel the need to see progress as a bad thing.