What an animated short could teach comic writers about female “empowerment”

Spoilers for the new Catwoman animated short below.

When DC Comics’ Catwoman #1 hit shelves last month, drawing fire for portraying Catwoman—a.k.a. Selina Kyle—as a sex object, the controversy struck some female readers with broader implications as to whether they were welcome among comic readership. In fact, along with DC’s Red Hood and the Outlaws, Catwoman has become shorthand for “sexism in the comic book industry,” costing the titular character a great deal of her positive potential as a feminist icon and female sales draw.

The capacity for more controversy surrounding the character grew once early word broke that a Catwoman short, attached to the DVD release of Batman: Year One, would show Catwoman stripping in a lounge. Although the character has a history of being sexually confident in comic books, the timing was of course awkward and stood to exacerbate an already ugly situation regarding the superhero.

However, when compared to Catwoman #1, the animated short fares far better in portraying Selina as a fully human character whose sexuality informs her rather than defines her. In the problematic comic book, Selina’s idealized body parts are introduced long before her face is, and to the frustration of several readers, Selina is bluntly shown in the midst of intercourse with Batman in its final pages. Even with strong sexuality as a traditional aspect of Catwoman’s history, the cheesecake approach to Selina’s body and raw sexual content she was used to catalyze quelled no doubts about whether DC Comics would stray from aggressively exploiting female characters as sex props.

The Catwoman short, on the other hand, takes a more adept approach at using her sexuality in a way that advances plot, and even approaches the oft-misused concept of “sexual empowerment” with some sense of understanding. Admittedly, the stripping scene isn’t perfect. Before Catwoman even approaches the pole, a throwaway stripper dances in front of the villain, Rough Cut, for a duration that lingers a little longer than necessary. When Catwoman herself begins stripping, the scene walks a fine line between the legitimacy of her plan to lull Rough Cut into a false sense of security and potentially pointless eroticism. Any viewer could easily argue that Catwoman might have taken down Rough Cut’s men without getting onto the stripping stage herself—or that the writers didn’t need for the scene to take place in a stripper lounge at all. These arguments gain more traction when considering a few shots that are framed in a way that insists attention be paid to Catwoman’s breasts, raising the question of whether we’re seeing how the villain objectifies Catwoman, or if we’ve been invited to objectify her ourselves.

However, before and after Catwoman’s stripping scene, her character is crafted with such strength, smarts and compassion that she is much better realized as a multidimensional woman than her comic book counterpart. After defeating of all of her male antagonists with acrobatics and quick wit—and after the audience is led to believe that Catwoman is seeking self-interested goals by pursuing Rough Cut—Selina frees a group of slave-trafficked girls from his control and gives one of them her own diamonds to offer her stability.

The amount of depth given to Catwoman upon the revelation of her generosity and altruism is exactly the kind of approach that should be taken with the character to counterbalance a sexuality that’s commonly overemphasized with Selina Kyle. Female sexuality in itself, as even some of Catwoman #1’s biggest detractors agree, is not inherently problematic. But when that sexuality outweighs the other aspects of a character that could help reflect the true-to-life emotional breadth and complexities of real women, it becomes needlessly demeaning. Selina has always been written as a sexual creature, but as the Catwoman short proved, the fact that she embraces her sexuality doesn’t necessitate her becoming her sexuality—and DC Comics should consider what the short did right to prove it.

Photos courtesy of DC Comics.

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The word “fat” in the text below is used as a neutral descriptor rather than a pejorative judgment.

Two weeks ago was the debut of DC Comics’ Suicide Squad, the rebirth of an old book that featured the black and heavyset Amanda Waller as a core cast member. Nicknamed “the Wall” both for her indomitable determination and her plus-sized figure, Amanda has become a highly recognizable staple of the DC universe, visibly unique among an overwhelming slew of thin, white female counterparts. Her usual position of power—a government agent supervising drafted supervillains for black ops missions—reaches rare heights for a character so far outside the DC norms of race, gender and body type.

But after this month’s relaunch of DC’s entire line of comics, which is winding back the clock on its superheroes’ saga and bringing cosmetic changes to several of its characters, the modern Amanda Waller has become strikingly thin—and the resulting reaction has predictably crackled with controversy. While choices like this have proven DC’s “diversity”-committed relaunch more nominal than authentic to incensed fans, some readers have defended DC’s decision. And considering rising obesity statistics for real-life African-American women, it’s understandable that apologists don’t want to carelessly encourage biases that brand fatness a predisposed and permanent quality of black females. But while it’s an embarrassment to American economics that black women are particularly affected by poverty, and that poverty so often correlates with obesity, being embarrassed by the idea of big black women themselves is an issue that deserves some serious reevaluation. The traits they’re usually given in media, often construing them as crass, clownish, and forever members of the underclass, are of course problematic stereotypes. But when an established fictional icon like Amanda Waller subverts those stereotypes about people of size and color, it sends the seldom-spoken message that fat women—even fat black women—are still worth a damn.

Not that Adam Glass, the writer responsible for Amanda’s new look, has addressed the social implications of his choice in any depth so far. When pressed by Bleeding Cool for comment, Glass merely said that the new Amanda was defined more by her personality than her size, and that this version of her is a younger one at the start of her career. This kind of excuse would have been appropriate for a character like Clark Kent’s editor-in-chief Perry White, who’d been drawn with extra fat on and off before the relaunch and seems deliberately toned up for his de-aged look. But because Perry hasn’t been consistently depicted as fat over the years, he’s never been any kind of real symbol for size diversity in the DC universe. Amanda Waller, on the other hand, has been fat since her introduction in the ‘80s, and took on special significance as one of the few overweight characters in all of mainstream comics. And because youth and thinness don’t necessarily go hand in hand, Adam Glass’s age-based excuse for Amanda’s reinterpretation has left offended readers unsatisfied. In any case, some artistic interpretations of Amanda before the relaunch could have easily passed for younger takes on the character with her weight preserved.

But even if Glass hadn’t given a statement, there would have been plenty of excuses made by fans to fill the void, as comment threads on Bleeding Cool and Comics Alliance prove. Some readers have expressed understanding after assuming that this new Amanda Waller is based on Angela Bassett, the slim actress who played the character in summer’s Green Lantern movie. Aside from the fact that DC and Glass haven’t confirmed this, the premise that a film’s reinterpretation of a character would necessitate a comic book match to avoid confusion is iffy at best, especially given that Green Lantern underperformed financially and critically. That logic would parallel turning Batgirl, the redheaded daughter of Batman’s ally Commissioner Gordon, into the blonde niece of Batman’s butler—for the sake of 1997’s panned Batman and Robin movie. On the other hand, Gary Oldman’s brown-haired Commissioner Gordon of the successful new Batman films didn’t dissuade DC from making the comic book character a pronounced ginger post-relaunch. And DC likely won’t be turning Perry White black after Laurence Fishburne plays him in 2013’s Man of Steel, no matter how poorly or prolifically it creates revenue. All in all, DC has a choice in the matter of what its characters look like, whether or not a related film makes deviations from source material.

Another misplaced assumption made in the aftermath of Suicide Squad’s release is that Amanda’s younger, skinnier iteration lays the groundwork for a gradual weight gain in the future, which is highly improbable. It’s doubtful DC would obligate itself to the extra hassle of coordinating subtle shifts in Amanda’s artistic design, considering the several creative teams sure to handle the character on both Suicide Squad and crossover events—ostensibly over an indeterminable amount of time. One of the central advantages DC sought in relaunching its line was the opportunity to revel in its characters’ younger years. Not only does “comic book time” already progress at an imperceptible rate under normal circumstances—allowing the lifespan of its heroes’ adventures to stretch on indefinitely—but DC has expressed pointed interest in exploring the earlier days of its cast of characters for the long haul. Aging its fictional community, DC has found, is bad for business, which means the lightweight version of Amanda isn’t going away anytime soon, if ever.

Besides, seeing as DC promised to prioritize diversity as a core facet of its relaunch, an underrepresented group should not have to wait its turn to be acknowledged at the end of an unspecified timeline, or at whim—especially if it was already better represented before a relaunch hyped as more diversity-oriented. Prior to her debut in the new Suicide Squad, Amanda was a refreshingly matter-of-fact woman of size whose value was immeasurable considering the idealized bodies almost always favored in comics. Despite a supposed dedication to varying the kinds of characters in its books, DC has failed once again to understand the seriousness or complexities of its commitment.

Not your mama’s big fat mama

But the conversation about how Amanda fits into that commitment has continued without DC, as fans have debated whether her original figure sustained a “fat black mama” stereotype often assigned to African-American women. Although the concept has been referenced by post-relaunch apologists to express valid worry over racial generalizations, the pre-relaunch Amanda lacks key attributes that would truly qualify her for the caricature.

The recycled image of the fat black mama is a direct result of the “mammy,” a false icon created by white southerners in the antebellum period that designated black women suitable only as domestic servants. The mammy was indeed overweight, despite the fact that slaves were of course not fed well. But unlike Amanda, the mammy found pleasure in subservience, harboring no desire for empowerment or self-sufficiency. Although few apologists would argue that Amanda ever echoed the slave archetype per se, it’s interesting to note how much this icon has in common with the modern “mama” they believe she still reflects. Like the old stereotype, the more recent mammy commonly remains fat, black, and limited to a career of housework. This pattern has been reinforced over time, with stay-at-home TV characters such as Theresa Merritt in That’s My Mama, Mabel Thomas in What’s Happening, Nell Harper in Gimme a Break, or Ella Payne in Tyler Perry’s House of Payne—making it clear that even as the mammy archetype evolved, her place in society did not. And yet DC Comics’ sole fat and black female character has held top-tier federal roles throughout her existence, making high-impact decisions with international ramifications on a regular basis. Further, Amanda has never exhibited the maternal authority of the mammy; her own power was instead earned through a keen intellect and hard-nosed perseverance that demanded respect of the professional variety over the familial kind.

Tyler Perry as Madea.

Another aspect of the fat black mama caricature defied by Amanda is that of the “sassy” buffoon. Nowadays, this role is most popularly fulfilled by Tyler Perry as Madea, a recurring film character used for comedy due to her uncultured, obnoxious and loudmouthed demeanor. Madea’s cartoonish belligerence channels the pushy personality of Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind, one of Hollywood’s original mammies, and epitomizes the roles big black women often play when used as comic fodder.

This buffoonery stems from popular notions of fat black women as too hateful, too proud, and too confrontational to be seen as fully human in media—a reputation that colors them not just prone to anger, but to unjustifiable and unending anger (especially when compounded with the finger-snapping, neck-rolling, pouty-mouthed stereotype of black women in general). However, Amanda Waller has never been written in this style of “sassy”—a descriptor oddly reserved for black women more often than not—but rather as a leader legitimately perturbed by challenges to her authority or threats to national security. And while earlier takes on Amanda showed outbursts of hers that were mostly job-related, the modern Amanda has more often been written with extraordinary poise, and enough of it to inspire similar interpretations outside of comics (such as the overweight versions of the character in the highly popular Justice League Unlimited and Young Justice cartoons, and the full-figured live action version on Smallville played by Pam Grier). All in all, entertainment has largely portrayed fat black women as lacking either power or composure; the pre-reluanch Amanda lacked neither.

A fat chance at fat-positive

But despite DC getting most aspects of Amanda “right” considering the stereotyping that preceded her, the company could have arguably done a bit more to subvert the mammy image from the start. Because the mammy was conceived as overweight in order to de-sexualize black women according to typical standards of beauty, and was usually depicted as old and homely to achieve the same ends, early drawings of Amanda with the same characteristics held her back from reaching her progressive potential. However, Amanda’s image gradually shifted to consistently having younger and traditionally feminine features well before DC’s relaunch, better distancing her from mammy comparisons regarding sexuality.

Still, although Amanda was married at one point and conceived kids—meaning she presumably remained a woman with carnal needs afterward—she’s led a generally sexless life in DC continuity. Some readers may have found this aspect of the character refreshing, due to the common hyper-sexualization of women in comics, but the fact that DC’s only prominent fat character hasn’t had a love life to speak of regurgitates tired conceptions of overweight women already abundant in entertainment—namely that they’re less likely to have many sexual or romantic opportunities. Occasionally, entertainment surprises like the TV programs Roseanne or Mike and Molly counter those conceptions, but tend to stay drops in the bucket.

Amanda receiving a completely unwanted kiss (which she wipes off afterward) in the Superman/Batman: Public Enemies movie.

Admittedly, it would be easy to hand-wave Amanda’s nearly nonexistent romances on several story-driven grounds: she’s often in high-stakes government positions and wouldn’t have the time or the mindset for dating; she’s sometimes portrayed as a villain, while heroes are more likely to have relationships readers can root for; she doesn’t have a solo book warranting the “screen time” for courtship subplots; etc. But whether due to circumstance or coincidence, Amanda has been an addition to a wealth of instances in which fat characters are relegated to the sidelines of sexuality—likely coming from a pop culture consensus that altogether, we’re not comfortable with fat people making love or finding it. Fortunately, simple allusions to a sex life off the clock or showing a “morning after” panel every once in a while would have made this an easy fix on DC’s part, however occasionally done. Unfortunately, thinning Amanda down has cut off any opportunity to further innovate her as a fat-positive character, despite the relaunch being touted by DC as a new frontier for underrepresented populations.

But some readers reacting to Amanda’s change see it not as a diversity issue and more of a health matter, insisting that her obesity was unacceptable and promoted a self-destructive lifestyle. Unfortunately, their stance overlooks the stark difference between endorsing obesity and recognizing size diversity. Especially with genetics or metabolism factoring into why some have extra fat in the first place, DC’s acknowledgement that fat people exist is the farthest cry from glorifying overeating or living in a sedentary manner. Additionally, some interpretations of Amanda portrayed her as slim enough to be merely overweight rather than obese. But DC’s decision to retool Amanda as definitively thin wipes out the entire spectrum of larger body sizes used to depict the character; now, she doesn’t have the option of even looking slightly overweight. Regardless of whether obesity-preoccupied apologists recognize it or not, fat can be tied to identity as much as it is to health, as evidenced by fat acceptance organizations, fat-positive philosophies, and everyday discrimination that affects individuals’ sense of self. Getting rid of Amanda’s fat isn’t as simple as erasing her health issues; in the skinny-centric DC universe, it also means erasing people.

Moreover, asserting that an obese character doesn’t belong in comics implies that worth is determined by size. This attitude echoes the kind of message sent to those with excess weight issues, and contributes to a culture that mocks, bullies, and shames them relentlessly. And because society pressures overweight people to consider themselves “less than,” Amanda Waller stood out as a confident anomaly—unencumbered by stereotypically low self-esteem—and offered simple dignity and representation for those her size.

To be fair, genuine concerns about how black women are treated in entertainment are valid to voice. There’s nothing wrong with wanting fit black female icons in DC comics, but they need not be mutually exclusive with Amanda’s former body type. Certainly, DC has few black women with much prominence thus far, and the fact that a fat one had been front and center cannot be entirely separated from the problems that kind of image has caused for African-American females. However, the importance of a fat black woman who is the intellectual equal (and even superior) of surrounding white characters cannot be stressed enough. Again, DC would still do well to continue building up its cast of thin black females, first and foremost out of an earnest interest in diversity; and should Amanda’s original form return, a bigger presence of fit black heroines would curb accusations of overemphasizing fatness in African-American ladies. Obviously, there’s room for both kinds of size to be appreciated in the DC universe.

Likewise, concern about how health issues are addressed in media is also justified. For example, Marvel’s ban on its heroes smoking could have potentially positive effects on younger readers, and was a morally sound choice to enforce. But the difference between banning something like smoking in comics and erasing obesity in them is that cigarettes aren’t as commonly tied to identity—or the issues of self-worth, social punishment, or systematic prejudice that come with it. It’s true that the health risks of obesity shouldn’t be ignored, but neither should the persons living with it.

Unsurprisingly, people either unaffected by size discrimination or unconcerned with diversity have labeled this controversy a frivolous matter. But to a company that announced itself concerned with diversity, the Amanda Waller outcry should be taken extremely seriously. Over the past month, DC’s relaunch has seen several missteps when it comes to social awareness, leaving angry fans to pick up the slack by expressing how the publisher should and must improve. With a dying industry that can’t afford to keep dividing its supporters forever, DC needs to take the burden off of readers in recognizing the full meaning of the diversity it seeks to reflect, and when it comes to issues like Amanda’s weight, finally begin to pull its own.

Photos courtesy of DC Comics, Warner Premiere, The Tyler Perry Company, and Ferris State University.

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After six years, Ashton’s serial cheating has destroyed his and Moore’s marriage.

The ultimate cougar pairing, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, are supposedly getting a divorce. The newest addition to Two and a Half Men has been allegedly cheating on Demi several times, but the most recent incident on a boys trip to San Diego was the straw that broke the camel’s back. On September 24, Kutcher and Moore’s six-year-anniversary, Ashton celebrated with 23-year-old Sara Leal in his Hard Rock Hotel room.

Ashton revealed to Leal that he and Demi were separated and the marriage was over. Like every typical Hollywood homewrecker, Leal is planning to sell her story for $250,000, and is in the process of meeting with lawyers already.

Ashton’s serial cheating has come to the public’s notice before. Last year, Kutcher reportedly met Brittney Jones at the most romantic of settings—a Hollywood bowling alley. After giving him her number, they met up a few days later. He proceeded to bring her back to his and Demi’s home and had sex with her on the couch.

Classy.

According to the RadarOnline.com, Brittney was told by Kutcher then that they had an “open marriage” and that threesomes are not uncommon.

Weird, Demi wasn’t told about the tryst…. You’d figure she would want to join in since it really gets her going, right?

So maybe this was the line he fed Sara Leal, considering it has worked in the past. In the meantime, Demi has been doing what most scorned A-listers do when they find out about infidelity: tweeting about it. She quoted Greek philosopher, Epictetus, stating “When we are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.” Earlier, she had posted a picture of her bare back, with a caption: “remember….you’ve got your own back.”

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Has Adam Sandler Become Incapable of Creating a Good Movie?

If it seems like it’s been about ten years since Adam Sandler was involved with a decent film, that is because it has. Remember the string of movies that Adam Sandler starred in during the late 1990s? Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer, and even Little Nicky were all legitimately hilarious films that propelled the star into the Hollywood A-List.

Since the year 2000 though, his track record is much shabbier. Forgettable films such as ’50 First Dates,’ ‘Click,’ ‘Funny People,’  ‘Mr. Deeds’ and ‘Grown Ups’ mark his repertoire. ‘Spanglish’ serves as the lone bright spot for Sandler during this time, I think. Of course, the quality of these movies are, at the end of the day, determined by  one’s personal opinion. Apparently however,  Sandler’s latest movie has managed to unite all opinions into one unanimous consensus: “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star” is a terrible, terrible movie.

This weekend at the box office, the movie earned a measly 1.5 million dollars. The apprehension in regards to actually paying money to see the film probably came from Rotten Tomatoes, where the film earned a 0 % approval rating on the ‘tomatometer.’ I’m not sure how many other films have received this dubious honor, but the only one I know of is “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” so yeah….

For those that are interested, Bucky Larson stars Nick Swardson and Christina Ricci (I know right?).  Here is the official movie plot info from Sony:

“Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star is a new comedy starring Nick Swardson, Christina Ricci, Don Johnson, and Stephen Dorff. Bucky (Swardson) is a small town grocery bagger, going nowhere in life – until he discovers that his conservative parents were once adult film stars! Armed with the belief that he has found his destiny, Bucky packs up and heads out to LA, hoping to follow in his parents’ footsteps. — (C) Sony Pictures”

This article is now over because I G2g… Seeing Bucky Larson…BBL.

That afternoon, a story in The New York Times confirmed rumors that TeenNick, a division of Nickelodeon, was going to rebroadcast the shows that many of our circa 1990’s sleepovers revolved around. TeenNick’s decision was prompted by a dedicated group of interns that had tallied the number of Facebook fan groups and pages (containing nine million followers) and presented these findings to Nickelodeon. Combined with the viral YouTube videos of the old shows and blogs urging Nickelodeon to bring back the hits, the evidence was undeniable. The twentysomething contingent had a case of early on-set nostalgia, and Nickelodeon was well-positioned to capitalize on it.

My friends’ response to the news was alarming, but understandable. In college, our downtime included hours spent watching the GAS channel (short for Nickelodeon Games and Sports for kids), cheering for the Silver Monkeys on Legends of the Hidden Temple and betting on which contestant would make it to the top of the Agrocrag first as they competed on the show Guts. As our Senior year closed in on us, as we wrote our theses, scheduled job interviews, hunted online for apartments in New York City, polished our resumes and began trying to figure out how to actually put our degrees to use, our insistency and consistency of following our childhood shows and movies took on a new sense of urgency. They were our lifeline to a simpler time. As we trecked to Woodbury Commons to buy our first suits, we draped ourselves in the security blanket that we constructed out of our childhood shows. The world beyond graduation was unknown, but the obstacles on Guts would always remain the same, and so we watched it over, and over, and over.

Young adulthood has been a tumultuous time for every generation. Our grandparents fought wars before we had taken our first Intro to Psychology lecture in college. Our parents graduated in the midst of the first oil crisis, shifting roles of gender and race, and predominant pessimism towards government and big business. And what of us?

Generation Y — or is it Generation “i” ? — grew up amongst prosperity, optimism, and free-flowing information. At least those of us who grew up in the upper middle class suburbs were coddled, scheduled, and tutored. We were told to pursue our dreams and provided with a platform to actually follow them (if we could ever figure them out). Not surprisingly, as a result, Generation Y graduated college expecting not only six figure salaries, stable jobs and fulfilling lifestyles, but that the transition into adulthood would be as padded and comfortable as the sweatsuits we had lounged around in at our parents’ house over winter break.

Wrong. And so we became what is now referred to as the “Peter Pan Generation.” We live with our parents longer, and we are educated deep into our adulthoods. We are still on our parents’ health care plan, many of us are still seeing pediatricians, and a lot of us are financially supported by our parents, at least to some extent. In this constant state of child-like comforts, it makes sense for us to cling to cultural references from the 90’s. Thus leading to early on-set nostalgia, or as some might call it, regression.

I recently bought an iPhone case at a street fair that looks like a cassette tape. Its irony made me laugh, and in a way, having it in my bag reminds me that I am tied to a younger self that used to record songs off the radio station that I played on my boombox in order to make mix tapes for friends and crushes. In those days, I had to plan out when the song I wanted to record was most likely to be played on the radio, and sit patiently by my stereo waiting to hit the record button. Things happened more slowly then. They took more time. You could digest them better. 

So, what might appear to the world as Generation Y’s regression, is also a necessity in today’s rapidly changing landscape. The cassette grounds me in my past, allowing time to stand still for a few nanoseconds each day. It is a constant struggle to maintain pace with the bombardment of social, political and economic media newsbytes while simultaneously applying them to an established, meaningful context.

The speed at which information is available to us, and the responsibility we have to utilize it to create economic and intellectual returns is an incredibly daunting task. One could argue that due to the pace at which we acquire knowledge about everything, Generation Y has been given the ability to qctually grow up faster than our parents and grandparents. But developmentally, perhaps we just aren’t ready for the responsibility that comes with the availability of all that information. The result is a need to hold on to our childhoods even more. A certain subliminal pressure arises as a result of our ever-changing landscape, and the assumption that we will be the first to not only adapt to that change, but to figure out how to make it into a profitable iPhone app.

There is a sense of comforting procrastination in watching these shows. They offer not only a chance to zone out, but to go one step further than that – to zone out in 1995 – a blissfully ignorant state of pre-teen, pre-recession, pre-anxiety state of mind. This practice can be healthy up to a certain level. If we utilize those 25 minutes of giggling at Stick Stickly’s googely eyes and Doug’s Quailman antics to rejuvenate and refocus on tasks at hand when we return from 1995, there is no harm in a little regression. But for some, the trip back can become paralyzing. If the interlude becomes the sonata, and life becomes more about chasing what’s behind us rather than in front of us, we become the lazy, apathetic generation of our parents’ worst nightmares.

It’s difficult not to grasp for a piece of the past, especially in the light of the summer’s economic, apocalyptic news. And as the walls of the economy begin tumbling down around us, and as our parents urging to get a job is now desperate rather than encouraging, we will surely continue to grab on to the things we can find comfort in: Melissa Joan Hart’s wispy bangs and high top Doc Martens, Kenan & Kel’s “Welcome to Goodburger” skit, or the opening tune to Doug that we can still hum every note of. All of which we can watch on our cassette cover-clad iPhones while taking a lunch break at our desk and trying to figure out what we are supposed to do next.

The acclaimed director dismisses the ethnicity of a Latino hero

Ben Affleck’s upcoming directorial project, Argo, began shooting last week, and with the arrival of the film’s production has come virtually no dissent regarding his choice to whitewash the lead role. Seeing as Argo is based on the true story of Antonio Mendez, a Latino former CIA agent who made a daring bid to rescue American embassy workers from Iran in the ’70s, Affleck’s casting of himself in the Mendez role is yet another example of a “race-lift” that marginalizes actors of color. And infinitely more offensive than whitewashing characters of fiction, which is already frustratingly commonplace in American moviemaking, Argo boldly rewrites historical fact to put a white hero in place of an existing minority.

Racebending, an online activism group seeking equality in entertainment, has been the most vocal about the Affleck’s bizarre choice so far, while most of the remaining buzz surrounding his film has been positive. This is no doubt due to Affleck’s skyrocketing reputation as an up-and-coming director; his first major motion picture, Gone Baby Gone, was a critical hit if not a box office smash, and his follow-up, The Town, made an impressive splash with ticket sales and cleaned up exceptionally well with critics. Argo‘s Oscar-conducive content and high-caliber cast are almost surefire ingredients for a popular and profitable success, which could set a new precedent for legitimizing whitewashing practices in Hollywood.

As Racebending points out, Argo will not be the first film to turn real people of color white for artistic purposes. Examples include 21, based on the true story of an Asian MIT blackjack team but using white leads, and Extraordinary Measures, based on an Asian doctor who cured Pompe’s disease but starring Harrison Ford in the role. Yet although these films already reek of audacious white centrism, some small comfort could be found in the fact that neither had both the critical and profitable punch to make them long-term mainstays in pop culture. 21 made $81 million, but was panned. Extraordinary Measures won even fewer critics over and made next to nothing. Affleck’s The Town, however, both generated $92 million and enough merit to make it an early Oscar contender. If his Argo project follows suit, it will firmly reestablish a lack of accountability for Hollywood producers that choose to race-bend real historical figures, and doubly brand whitewashing as “acceptable” a practice as always.

Photo courtesy of People.com

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Woody Harrelson brings a queer overload to the summer comedy

It’s been a little over a month since the silly, sex-spiced rom-com Friends With Benefits hit theaters, making a modest splash at the box office but a more successful impression among critics. Benefits probably deserves most of the kudos it’s gotten, considering the entertaining balance it establishes between its two charismatic leads, as well as between its comedy and drama. But the movie’s seesaw finesse disappears completely whenever Woody Harrelson is on screen as Tommy, a supporting character whose sexuality aggressively defines his personality.

To give Benefits some credit, Tommy isn’t exactly a stereotype; aside from a nauseating scene in which he repeatedly propositions a straight man, Tommy actually defies the usual clichés with his love for sports, a wardrobe no different than that of his hetero brethren, and an understanding of women earned from hard-earned insight instead of an intrinsic intimacy with his feminine side. But Harrelson’s role still becomes archetype-ish overkill even without the stereotypes—by nature of being a giddily gay character that talks an awful lot about being giddily gay. Throughout Friends With Benefits, Tommy brings up his sexuality when sex both is and isn’t the topic of conversation, so much so that his every scene, with the exception of the film’s climax, includes dialogue reminding the audience of his quest for queer satisfaction. While this thankfully means the film’s sole gay character is the only one making the gay jokes, it becomes a bit tiresome when all Tommy makes is gay jokes.

Because Harrelson’s Tommy is gay-positive—written as out, proud, and happy and healthy in his lifestyle—Benefits’ treatment of homosexuality hasn’t set off any PC sirens amongst the masses. But the film’s approach to portraying gays still warrants caution, due to the fact that its overabundance of attention to the subject makes Tommy an “other” compared to his straight, more dignified counterparts who are silent on the matter of sexual preference. The movie’s heterosexual leads, Jamie (Mila Kunis) and Dylan (Justin Timberlake), spend the film’s entire duration talking about sex without ever talking about their sexuality. Because their sexual preference is a matter-of-fact given, there’s never dialogue set aside for them to over-announce, or to even simply announce, their straightness. Harrelson, on the other hand, has a mouthful of man-love to make a ruckus about near-always, rendering him more “homo” than human, and unfortunately fairly one-dimensional because of it.

Friends With Benefits is hardly the first film to overdo it when it comes to giving a minority character a minority-centric mindset. Although ignoring the sexual orientation, race, ability, class, size, and so on of a role can often smack of inauthentic fantasy, giving those characteristics too much weight can perpetuate the idea that the identities of minority groups are limited to what makes them minorities. Just as if paralyzed characters talked about nothing but their wheelchairs, or black characters went on about their curly hair, Tommy revisiting his preference for men ad nauseam carries an overreaching redundancy that confines his character to caricature, and nothing more.

It’s official: Derek Jeter and Minka Kelly have split up.

The pair had been dating for three years now and it seemed to just about everyone that the 31-year-old actress and 37-year-old Yankees superstar were very much in love and ready to settle down, maybe have a few gorgeous children with extreme amounts of talent. The baseball/somewhat obscure television world was rocked when reps confirmed the story to Page Six.

While the public is shocked, sources close to the couple have told the Post that it was at least six weeks coming. Even though Kelly was in company with Jeter’s family cheering him on when he became Mr. 3000 with his homerun hit on July 9, there was still some tension between the two.

According to one source, “They separated a couple of weeks ago. This has been hard. Like any relationship, breaking up is not easy. They were often apart because of work. They never lived together and were never formally engaged. She’s shooting in Miami and lives in LA, but she’s barely ever there.”

Kelly is currently shooting a TV remake of “Charlie’s Angels”, so understandably the long-distance relationship must be hard. Another source elaborated, saying, “He’s under a lot of pressure with the Yankees, is married to the team, and she’s working hard on a big TV show.”

Both Derek and Minka have been very mature about the whole thing. Though this is obviously recent news, there has so far been no bitter feelings splashed among tabloids or even any remarks passed to reporters. Any drama would further add to the stressful lives of both parties. After all, how could the Yankees have crushed the Athletics 22-9 on the 25th if Jeter was worried about bad press instead of getting his head in the game? And Kelly has been focusing on “Charlie’s Angels”, keeping close ties to her co-stars and a low profile in Florida. The rest of Hollywood should probably take note: this is what a breakup typically should be like when you respect the other person.

In other news, mass quantities of  women everywhere are suddenly extremely interested in baseball.

More Faster Sports

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Pressly Was Driving, Drunk!

I only know Jaime Pressly from her classic role in “Joe Dirt” where she plays a hot, white trash love interest. From the constant barrage of advertisements that ran when it released, I also know that she was a cast member from the show “My Name is Earl” where she played a character defined by Wikipedia as “unsophisticated trailer trash.” There was also “Not Another Teen Movie” where she played a hot, white trash esque cheerleader.

In January, she was arrested in California for driving with a BAC of 2.0. The legal limit is .8.  Today,  she pleaded no contest in court, and earned herself three years of informal probation, enrollment in an alcohol education class, and a breathalyzer lock on her car. She probably has like 4 cars though so that lock shouldn’t be an issue. Perhaps, the arrest was a publicity stunt in order to obtain more white trash roles. The economy is rough.

This was her mugshot/perfect head-shot for future WT roles.

photos courtesy of behindblondiepark.com and WENN.com

Thinking over three reactions to an article on the Barbara Gordon controversy

About a month ago, I wrote an op-ed on DC Comics’ decision to super-glue the severed spinal cord of a paralyzed character and have her skipping on two legs again. Long story short, I was pretty pissed about it. Although the superhero in question meant a lot to fans as the able-bodied, fearless feminist Batgirl, I drew more significance from her after her retirement as plain old Barbara Gordon, during which the Joker shot her through the spine (the bastard). The fact that DC decided to “cripple the bitch”—yeah, someone actually said that—and crystallize it as canon was obviously a misogynistic low, but what the company decided to do next brought with it some redemptive highs: Ever since 1989, DC has poured massive effort into crafting the former Batgirl into the exceptionally capable Oracle, a woman who’s basically run the DC universe (or DCU) from a wheelchair as an information broker and professional badass. But because DC’s path to better representation of people with disabilities has always been more  “Stairmaster” than “escalator,” Oracle has carried a disproportionately high burden of social significance on that controversial back of hers, and I suppose it was inevitable that sooner or later, something had to give.

With DC returning Barbara Gordon’s body to near-mint condition starting with Batgirl #1 next month, written by Gail Simone, I thought it crucial my op-ed galvanize an effort against DC’s choice, and soon. Once the article was published on Bleeding Cool, it seemed effective at recruiting the choir I was preaching to, but my critique of DC invited its own backlash of criticisms—some of which I should have seen coming, some of which had no business being real:

“I’m pretty sure this was written by the weirdo with e [sic] disability fetish…”

…Okay…

“I’m amazed that somebody would spend that amount of time to write such inanity. Or [sic] we supposed to believe that given a cure someone with a disability, yes a frickin disability, would turn it down because of some bizarre sense of community to fellow cripples? If so, please take your time out of the day to send messages to various medical researchers whose work is clearly the removal of such hindrances in peoples lives and tell them to stop, cause you’re doing bad bad things…”

Kinda lost me at “cripples,” dude.

“A handicap is a problem to be overcome… And personally, if I was crippled I wouldn’t want to read about a cripple, I’d want to read about people who can do things I can’t…”

Point was more that people aren’t problems to be overcome. And again with the “cripple.” What year is this?

It would be misleading to tell you these were the only kinds of comments I got, and equally misleading to tell you they were few and far between. But putting aside those commentators suffering from Keep Spidey White Syndrome—an unfortunate condition that causes everyday people to use demeaning and ignorant language to legitimize their arguments—there were some more level-headed expressions of disagreement put out there. Most often, they could be attributed to one of these three categories:

1)   It’s kind of sadistic to want Barbara in that chair.

2)   Be patient. It’s a reboot. DC will put Barbara back in her role with a disability eventually.

3)   Leave Gail Simone alone. It wasn’t her choice to heal Barbara; it was her bosses’.

So now that we’ve designated a kids’ table…

Confronting my sadism

It never occurred to me that demanding the presence of characters with disabilities would ever be equated with enjoying the pain and difficulty that comes from living with them. You’d think this’d just be a straw man, but I actually received more than one quip either explicitly or implicitly accusing me of sadism, and I guess behind that crude and charged terminology could have been a genuine concern at play: Why keep Oracle disabled? If she were real, wouldn’t you want her to live an easier life?

Of course I would, and no one’s pretending having a disability doesn’t suck sometimes, a lot of the time, or even all of the time. Considering the inconveniences, condescension, medical costs, odd looks from strangers, and the inaccessibility of certain physical or social aspects of community, yeah, I would definitely pull out my inner Jesus and go on a miracle-working rampage, if I could. But as long as cures aren’t available for countless disabilities affecting people’s entire lives, I think we’d better accept and understand the ones that are sticking around for a while. And, you know, the people living with them.

Because ignoring the existence of those with disabilities in order for “normal” people to feel better–or in the case of this Batgirl thing, more entertained–is inflicting pain on one party for another’s sense of pleasure and… Wait, what’s the definition of sadism again?

Another part of my article that really didn’t take with its more devout naysayers was my association of ability with identity. For some reason, despite the incredible amount of discrimination that people with disabilities have to face as a group on a regular and often daily basis, many of my detractors just couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that disability can sharply influence a person’s idea of self, personality, and pride (or lack thereof)—which could explain why someone with a disability might like to see someone who reflects them in their media.

So in honor of the critics who weren’t grasping the identity argument, here’s the Batgirl controversy wrapped up in more familiar package: race. Imagine, instead of seeing a proportionate percentage of people who look like you on your TV, that only one actor of your skin color has a regular role on any show. Everyone else, on every other program, on every other station, shares another skin color. Every time you change the channel, see a commercial, peek at the extras in the background, they’re all the same race. A little weird, right?

Take it a step further. There are occasionally guest appearances of people with your skin color, but their skin tone is almost always changed to the majority’s sooner or later. The one character who looks like you is portrayed positively, but remains isolated—and at the back of your mind, you understand that chances are slim this character will look like you forever. Then, one day, the inevitable does happen—and the reason, you’re told, is that this character is more accessible to everyone else this way. Besides, this character used to look like everyone else (Why keep Oracle a racial minority? If she were real, wouldn’t you want her to live an easier life?).

The analogy’s not perfect, but the overlap’s still there. Characters with disabilities show up extremely rarely in entertainment, and especially in comics. Until now, readers with disabilities have only had Oracle as the one reliable, prominent character in DC Comics who resembles them. Other characters have been disabled, but usually healed in some way involving advanced technology, magic, or continuity tweaks returning them back to “normal.” And now even Oracle has joined the overwhelming mass of able-bodied heroes that already over-represent their real-life counterparts. The logic being that Barbara was able-bodied 20 years ago, and apparently, that’s her “truest” version.

The reboot theory

The second big objection I usually get about the article is that it’s moot, given that DC’s reboot is bringing everyone back to their earlier days, and Barbara is logically being reverted to her pre-paralysis state (even the famous comic book junkie Kevin Smith made this mistake). Except that’s it’s not a reboot; it’s a relaunch. The difference may seem subtle at first, but it becomes more glaring the more you investigate what it means.

A reboot would imply that everything in the DCU is starting from scratch, or something close to it. And by that nature, surely Barbara Gordon will be disabled again at some unspecified time in the future (read: when writers feel like it). Aside from the fact that “probably” isn’t good enough for a group that’s been systematically marginalized in pop culture—and neither is an indefinite waiting period, for that matter—there’s another huge error about this way of thinking: once the relaunch starts, Barbara will have already been Oracle.

The relaunch, when broken down, basically means a reshuffling of character histories, not a restart. So instead of getting a de-aged Barbara too young to be paralyzed just yet, DC is actually tweaking her story so that she was recently shot and temporarily disabled, operating for a short period as Oracle, and now returning to her role as Batgirl. In other words, DC has repositioned Barbara to make Oracle a part of her past, and never again a part of her future.

Letting Gail Simone be

Even people who agreed with my op-ed had a tough time swallowing the parts that criticized Gail Simone, DC’s kick-ass writer extraordinaire. When Newsarama writer Jill Pantozzi called out DC for failing to live up to its promise of diversity after Barbara was announced as able-bodied again, Simone stepped forward  and told her side of the story, arguing why the new and healed Barbara could be a good thing for comics.

And here’s the thing: she nailed it. Simone is known for not only being an exceptional writer, but also a wonderful person, and she came off no less true to her reputation during her interview with Pantozzi. Her points were compelling and her sentiment sincere, leaving very little to be said in rebuttal once the interview was over.

So naturally, my own article—and the campaign it was supposed to support—would have been a joke if I hadn’t addressed Simone’s extremely sound arguments. If I was going to raise any hell about why healing Barbara was an unethical move on DC’s part, I had to address every aspect of Simone’s well-articulated points, or the op-ed would have hit the ground dying. Because Simone occupied so much of my article, several readers misunderstood my words to mean I was out for her blood—or at least blamed her more than I did DC’s higher-ups. In truth, Simone’s well-intentioned explanations were the only justifications offered by DC at the time, in any capacity, and ignoring them for the sake of “sparing Gail” would have been a shot in my own foot.

Besides, as amazing as Simone is, she didn’t have to take on Batgirl. But because she chose to, I’m sure she understands the responsibilities that come with her controversial decision, and the sadistic wheelchair fetishists out there who were bound to come her way.

Photo courtesy of DC Comics/Barbara’s Not Broken

Join Barbara’s Not Broken to take a stand against DC’s decision.

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