Re: Stereotypes in comic books

Posted by SCTreeguy on 2007/4/4 23:15:09

I think the electricity thing is somehow tied to our afros...

When I was in the Ethnic Studies Master's Program at S.F.State,I wrote a paper on Black/African American stereotypes in comicbooks. If you want to read it for ideas or reference, I can dig out a hardcopy,scan it and e-mail it to you... (no copying it...not that you would...). It covers the basic male and female characterizations of Blacks in U.S. pop-culture. For example: The Mammy- asexual, nurturer, non-threatening; Jezebel- permiscuous, coniving, mysterious; The Pick-A-Ninny- comic relief, stupid, lazy, worthless; Uncle Tom- loyal, disposible, strong, self-sacrificing; The Buck- strong, dangerous, criminal, savage and loves white women...there's more, but I don't want to ramble...

A line from a some movie sums it up pretty good:
"They like fried-chicken, but their d!cks are normal like ours."

Oh yeah, stereotypes are popular charaterizations because they are reality based, observations (often misconceptions)that are used by an external group to define another group. The dilemma is that definitions should ideally originate from within the group, but how can anyone outside the group fairly and accurately depict just representations of a group of which s/he is not a member? Can a comicbook created by a striaght, white male about a lesbian, black female ever be anything but stereotypical? I dunno...

Aside from all that, I pretty sure all that stuff they say about Canadians is true...eh? (don't get bend, I was joking...kinda).