James Robinson to Issue Statement on "Airboy" #2 Controversy

[HellHere]

To me, telling a writer to hit the right targets is censoring their story. If you don't mean it that way then I misunderstood you.

So the issue is that Airboy was put into a situation in which people have held against them in bad ways?

Yes, you are misunderstanding me.

[See No Evil]

If someday i become a professional comic writer, the first thing i will do is cancel my twitter account.

[FriendRoss]

I thought it had a reasonably pro transgender messege when read in context of the actual story and not a tweet, Facebook or tumblr post. James knew and was totally cool with her and her transition.



I read the headline. I'd been dragging my feet on reading this series, ifanboy made it the pick of the week..... So I read the first two issues waiting for the offensive bit, never happened just great comics. I'll be back for more

[TheReality]

I'm not fond of the idea that if a comic has hurtful words or even reinforces stereotypes, it's contributing to real-world harm. For one thing, it's not necessarily true (whether art contributes to violence is a long-standing question that doesn't have a clear answer). For another thing, it assumes that the critic is smart enough not to be influenced by these attitudes, but the other readers out there are not.

It also assumes that even if the characters would realistically say these things or think these things, they shouldn't. That's not a wrong attitude to take per se - some stories use the n-word where it would realistically be used, some don't; it depends on the story - but I think it matters that "Robinson" as he portrays himself would realistically not use any other word but the word he uses here.

Robinson presumably wrote this scene knowing and expecting he'd get this kind of reaction, so I'm not playing a violin for him. I just think a lot of the responses have been based on the idea that only bad people say bad things, or that if a character has a hurtful attitude he should be punished for it or learn a lesson.

Agreed. I don't understand the controversy. People say awful, intolerant, racist, small-minded things all the time. And two of the characters seem to reacting negatively to the jerk in red. (Just in the panels I saw.)

From what I can gather, it looks like they're just acting in character. And perhaps they're not of good character on this issue. People are complex. Maybe all 3 of these guys (who it seems are based on real-life counter-parts) are great people on a lot of things, but on this issue, they're intolerant, uncomfortable, and not particularly progressive. This doesn't read like hate speech for the sake of hate.

I used to casually know a trans woman (she was really the friend of my then-gf). Back when I met her, around 2001 or so, "tranny" was not considered derogatory. It's possible Robinson was unaware that the word has such a stigma.

[Synthozoid]

It's obvious to me that Robinson is writing himself as an over-the-top, pre-sobriety a-hole on purpose. You are supposed to dislike the character in the book. I'm sure he feels awful that it came across as hurtful to anyone.

[FanboyStranger]

Yeah, I get it, but I also think you have to take the story for what it is. Maybe the trans-community should be upset, but also, isn't that the point of the comic? Unlike the DeMatteis reaction to the trans opposition to JL3001-- which I should add was Marc responding graciously to criticism and hoping to learn from it-- this isn't a comic book based on corporate superheroes or trying to be something it's not. This is a book about a mid-life crisis, and it's been one of the saddest, most profound things I've seen a creator who is known for mainstream superhero comics write in a long time. I'm not saying it couldn't be hurtful to readers, but I think I'd be remise in pointing out that it's the point of the comic. It's not taking anything lightly, even if it is funny in an "I'm glad it's not me" sense. It's not a shock comic. It's about pain and creativity, and how the two often fuel each other.

I get the outrage, but I also think people are missing the point of the work.

[FanboyStranger]

I know, which is why I said that I thought the writers had very different intentions to what actually happened. This is a gross out comic, no one in it is coming off as a particularly together person, and they're obviously not being held up as good examples in either word or deed.
But trans people get murdered over this, suffer violence from people claiming they lied to them, are treated like perverts and rapists in waiting in today's world and that is something you should take into account when using them as a device like this.

I totally sympathize with your points about trans-people being attacked both physically and emotionally by their depictions in media, but I don't think that's what going on in this comic. I think it's a horrifying depiction of a mid-life crisis and should be judged as such. It's about a writer who is a mess, and everything presented in the comic should be viewed through that lens. It's not about gender issues; it's about a man so f^cked up that he can't do the only thing he's good at. This isn't Justice League; it's James Robinson falling apart. I think we need to grant him the leeway to tell his own story, even if it's offensive at times.

The unspoken part of this, I think, is that readers used to reading Robinson's superhero comics can't quite connect with a psuedo-autobiographical comic from a creator whose work they've enjoyed over the years. Eddie Campbell or Joe Matt could pull this off, but Robinson can't because he wrote Starman back in the day. I think the audience needs to consider what the work actually is, and judge the creators by that standard. There isn't really a message in the comic beyond "I need help!"

[FanboyStranger]

I guess what I'm trying to say (in my usual long-winded way) is that we need to judge Airboy by the standards of Alec, Peepshow, Stuck Rubber Baby, Seven Miles a Second, Paying for It, Fun House, Persepolis, or The Story of My ****, etc., not James Robinson's usual work. This is not Starman, and it may be distasteful to you. It's supposed to be distasteful to you. It's distasteful to me, but I recognize my own story in a lot of it. Airboy is an honest attempt by a creator to show his own struggle. There's a fictional character involved, but the fictional character is not the story, unlike your usual superhero books. Anyone who reads this book is going to take it as a cautionary tale, not a guidebook on how to live.

[SuperiorNova]

Honestly read the issue and didn't have any issues with it until I saw there was some "controversy" around it, and even then I didn't see a problem. Funny how Airboy makes the best point in regards to even this. This world sucks lol.

[Anduinel]

Robinson's statement:

http://www.glaad.org/blog/writer-jam...n-about-airboy

[Rene Narciso]

Gotta say the apology feels heartfelt.

I'm very much aware of the harassment trans people go through. One trans woman that worked in the same organization than I, and that I knew slightly, committed suicide. So I understand that this is not people "whining", it's a real problem.

However, James Robinson is no Orson Scott Card. He never was. He is an ally. He's writing a comic about assholes being assholes. It's very different from Card stories (not his most famous ones, like Ender's Game, but plenty of the others) where homosexuality is depicted as an unhealthy behaviour that ruins lives and that people must abandon. THAT is hateful work. Robinson is only depicting some less than ideal characters doing and saying stupid things.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

It's a heartfelt apology that was, to my mind, utterly unnecessary. Honestly, I understand that the transgender community are sensitive to how they're seen by others, not to mention being abused by others, but I honestly feel that the only way to see what Robison wrote as being even unintentionally abusive or even disrespectful to this community would be to take these few moments and lines of dialogue completely out of context of the rest of the story. Yes, these scenes are tasteless but so is everything about this comic and, perhaps more importantly, it's really, really, really NOT the transgender characters who come off as jerks in this story. Quite the contrary really.

So, yes, I understand that the transgender community are sensitive in how they are portrayed in the media but the "controversy" drummed up here seems to come completely from people not actually bothering to read the actual comic. So while I sympathise with their general cause and general sensitivity, I don't have much time for this kind of reaction to a piece of art - any more than I do to similar, out-of-context reactions to works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Watchmen or even Age of Ultron. It just comes across as intellectually lazy and a basic inability to actually READ (or watch) the thing being criticized. Again, I totally understand why transgender readers might be so quick to respond like this - but, honestly, that doesn't make them right.

[Billy Batson]

I guess what I'm trying to say (in my usual long-winded way) is that we need to judge Airboy by the standards of Alec, Peepshow, Stuck Rubber Baby, Seven Miles a Second, Paying for It, Fun House, Persepolis, or The Story of My ****, etc., not James Robinson's usual work. This is not Starman, and it may be distasteful to you. It's supposed to be distasteful to you. It's distasteful to me, but I recognize my own story in a lot of it. Airboy is an honest attempt by a creator to show his own struggle. There's a fictional character involved, but the fictional character is not the story, unlike your usual superhero books. Anyone who reads this book is going to take it as a cautionary tale, not a guidebook on how to live.

Airboy isn't as good as those autobio works but the art's nice.

[Joker]

I read the offending panels online, but I didn't really understand the controversy. This one felt a little too eager to be offended.

[Ragdoll]

Seeing as I don;t think it needed an apology, I found it very heartfelt. I like to consider myself very liberal and progressive, and if someone tells me they identify as female, they're a girl to me. But I still don't think I could bring myself to have sex with a transgendered girl without it freaking me out. The fact that the character has no issues seeing her as a woman and making sweet bathroom stall mouth love to her makes him far more tolerant than I am IMO. If this is as autobiographical as he claims it to be, it means the writer is admitting that he never saw anything gay about hooking up at Chicks With Dicks bars in his glory days. That seemed bold to me, so I was shocked when I saw the internet controversy claiming the issue was offensive. If anything, it made me more open minded. Maybe now I would one day be able to look past that and get on his level where I could be romantically attracted to a self-identified woman. The comic made it seem like this is something everyone does, and that I am a prude for not already having done it, too.

Sorry if that is an ignorant thing to say, I'm not always completely caught up on how PC the world expects me to be year by year, it changes so quickly it is hard to keep up with. I know most older people don't even realize the word "trannie" is considered a bad word to use, they grew up with it and still haven't gotten the memo that it is the transgender N word now.

If I was in his shoes, I guess I would make the same apology. What else are you supposed to say. "Nope, you're wrong. I didn't actually offend you, you imagined it".