Raced Body in Design and Visual Culture
Since the dawn of our civilization, people have been trying to identify themselves and the purpose of their existence. Our ancestors’ eagerness to examine and repeat the structure of the universe in the scale of human communication made them unite into tribes and families. Such a process is impossible without applying a list of criteria, which make people somehow connected, either by same origins or territory. However, if there is such a process as unity, there should somewhere be a concept of separation. Derived from the human wish to dominate over others, racism and other kinds of discrimination occurred.
The concept, which seems to have something in common with what is called historical injustice, nowadays is one of the most controversial issues. The question of racial representation has become one of the most significant because popular culture is what definitely influences the masses and their perception of one or the other concept. Popular culture has always been the first to know about society’s issues and demands. Therefore, every single significant process of any epoch can be examined through its representation in the popular culture of their time. Talking about nowadays, modern popular culture displays the social flairs and attitude towards racial issues, as well as provides people with a pattern to follow.
Historical Context of Raced Body Representation in Popular Culture
When talking about defining racism of past times, it is interesting to consider the fact that through years, discrimination and racism have become an integral part of human relations. Those, who nowadays are called racial or ethnic minorities, have been underestimated. What is now considers American racial discrimination first occurred on the edge of the 15th and 16th century. Definitely, it can be called American only according to the territory, as the oppressors were of European origins. These first acts of abusing the rights and beliefs of American native tribes is definitely connected to European exploration of the Northern America. The centuries-long confrontation between white immigrants and Native Americans has found its reflection in culture almost immediately. Nowadays we can objectively judge myth as a category of the 16th-century popular culture. Examples of folklore made by European population definitely differ from what we can derive from Native Americans’ myths (Jones, 1988). Further in history, with the appearance of Indian reservations, popular culture responded with the wave of reservation-concerned topics.
One of the most integral aspects of American racial issues is relationships and attitude to Afro-American ethnic groups. Historical conflict considers the obvious opposition of white Americans, most of which were definitely of European origin, and Africans, forcibly transported to North America as the workforce. The root of enslavement definitely hides in the economic issues of early colonial American farming. The agriculture required a lot of manpower (as for the middle of 17th century the level of maintenance was actually low), transported from overseas. Therefore, during less than 200 years, the number of Afro-American immigrants almost reached five hundred (Eltis and Richardson, 2008). Taking into the account that Afro-American workers settled in the territories of Northern America and created families or even some kind of communities, the American population mixed with growing number of this race. With the abolition of slavery in the year 1865, essential groups of American settlers ought to reconcile and create the conditions for their equal existence. However, it was actually until the 20th century, when the issue occurred on the state level. All over the United States people got involved in the conversation whether ethnical minorities receive required ‘equal’ treatment. At the same time, the invention and integration of television as an opportunity for information to spread globally made popular culture more widespread. In these terms, films representing the racial Afro-American issues became an important part of racially concerned popular culture. One of the significant examples of such movies is ‘Mississippi Burning’, which tells a story about civil rights workers, who were murdered in the second part of the 20th century (Ebert, 1988).
The above-mentioned ethnical groups are not the only examples of racial discrimination in America. The Native Americans, Afro-Americans, Asians and Latino-Americans have all been underestimated by dominant American race in different periods. In fact, ethnical representative groups are present in American population almost directly respond to the number of ‘discrimination branches’. Additionally, the above-mentioned aspects were to approve the connection between acts of discrimination and their reflection in popular culture. Through the centuries, the way popular culture displays racial issues changes, but the meaning of it remains the same: to inform people about an issue the way they will definitely digest it.
Comics as a Category of Popular Culture
Popular culture itself is quite a controversial concept. It exists as a set of popular phenomena, which are common in masses. Popular culture is definitely an almost unlimited unstable number of images, attitudes, patterns of perception and ideas, which are close to superior masses of people. When the term was firstly identified, it referred to the improperly educated, unsophisticated people usually of low or middle income. Therefore, this term existed as an opposite to ‘official culture’, crated for a specific circle of sophisticated educated audience. With the development of the phenomenon, the term ‘popular culture’ also lost its negative connotation and nowadays represents the category of concepts, which are ‘mainstream’.
Popular culture is usually divided into some categories, including entertainment, sports, news, politics, fashion, technology, and slang (Klosterman, 2009). All of these categories are almost equally common nowadays; however, the category of entertainment is the most relevant in terms of the modern stressful world. Frankly speaking, entertainment is the phenomenon, which influences people subconsciously. However, the influence of films, music, and television has become the integral parts of nowadays life and their impact is more obvious now.
Comics as a composition of images, which replay a story, became widespread in the middle of the previous century. The origins of such a way to transmit information almost reach the time of cave paintings. However, as a category of popular culture comics occurred in the first half of the 19th century in Europe. Up to the beginning of the 20th century, cartoon stripes were the closest thing to modern comics as today society knows them. In the year 1938, Superman as the main character appeared in American comics. This initiated the most popular vector of Comics’ evolution, which is a tendency of Superhero Comics.
Comics are an important part of popular culture, as it collects the features of different kinds of arts; therefore, comics are more useful and relevant. Firstly, comics tell stories, which make them close to literature. In these terms, comics can transfer important ideas and thoughts in words, so that they are extremely clear. Secondly, these stories are designed as pictures, which are bright and attractive. This feature of comics for make them interesting and available even for children. Respectively, the design of comics is entertaining while their content can be enlightening.
According to the fact that comics can include an exciting appearance and meaningful texts, this category is definitely proven to be called a part of popular culture. Nevertheless, comics have an impressive influence on people, especially on children’s perception of the world. In these terms, the representation of racial issues in comics is of higher importance. The way different races and ethnic groups are shown in American comics also gives an opportunity to judge what raced-connected processes take place in the modern world and how they reflect on customers demand. What is also of high importance when talking about comics’ relevance is that plots of comics often become a base for other kinds of popular culture (movies, for example). In these terms, the way comics represent racial issues set the tone for the future of the issue’s perception among masses.
Raced Body in Marvel and DC Comics
According to Diamond Comics Distributors (2015), the largest company, which distributes English-speaking comics, Marvel and DC Comics are two the most popular and successful comics companies. As statistics show, Marvel and DC together have more than 60% of the comics’ trade market (Diamondcomics.com, 2016). Additionally, these two companies actively work to promote their comics among larger audiences. For that aim, they are involved in producing movies, cartoons and television shows. Derived from all mentioned above, it is obvious that the role of raced body in comics is generally represented by Marvel and DC Comics.
Raced Body in Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics has been designing, producing and distributing comics since their first appearance as Timely at the end of 1930th. Later, before being named ‘Marvel’, the company also operated as Atlas. Nevertheless, all of these three stages were definitely successful as one of the most popular plots and characters, such as X-men and Avengers happen to be their product. However, more than 70 years of creating comics could not do without somehow concerning the issues of racial differences.
There are two main ways to represent raced body in comics; racial minorities can be represented in either antagonists or protagonists. The first option of character portrayal (as antagonists) surely has a negative connotation. Placing racial minorities in positions of anti-heroes can happen as a response to some outer factors. When talking about Marvel, after the tragedy of September 11th, there appeared a tendency to put Muslims and other representatives of Islam into the position of ‘global evil’. For instance, numbers 1 to 3 from Captain America, Vol.4, published in 2002, refer to the terrorists’ attack on World Trade Centre and place them as the enemies. However, similar characters appear in X-Men series (Dust, who appears wearing traditional Muslim apparel burqa).
On the other side, Marvel offers a variety of protagonists with different racial background. The most significant Afro-American of the Marvel Universe, for example, is Nick Fury. His most considerable achievement is the successful operation of more than twenty projects concerning S.H.I.E.L.D, Avengers, X-Men, Ultimates, Mutants and other special troops of powerful creatures. One of his vitally important defining features, among others, is tactical leadership. Taking into the account that his physical extra power occurred because of Super Soldier Serum, his natural flair for commanding and exceptional organizational skills derive from his personality. Therefore, the personality of Nick Fury helps to create a positive image of Afro-Americans.
Raced in DC Comics
Raced in DC Comics is represented more from the perspective of antagonists. What is more, Asians and Native Americans are shown as a mindless mass of unskilled warriors, which are easy to conquer. For example, in the Superman series it is easy to find moments, when the protagonist allows himself carelessness. Even though his main value is considered to be human life, he does not suffer before dropping a giant block on a bunch of enemy soldiers. In the other series, Superman tries to hide from a Native American detective. In order to help him, other Native Americans provide him with facial make-up and traditional clothing. Still, this is not enough to disguise a tall young white man under the outfit of a Native American shaman. However, Indian pathfinders this time are not clever enough to identify Superman under the mask.
The same tendency to underestimate ethnical minorities is seen in the series about Aquaman and Superwoman. Except, their abuse almost limits by words and kicks, but not murders. In these series, the main attention is paid to Japan, who seemed to be American enemy number one after the World War II and Japanese economical miracle. Again, according to the culture-historical conditions, such an attitude is quite reasonable. What is definitely unreasonable is the number of further stereotypes, applied to the characters which represent ethnical minorities.
Racially different people also occur on the pages of DC Comics. For example, the first Afro-American superhero was Green Lantern of DC Comics. Except for Green Lantern, such superheroes as Black Lightning and Cyborg appear to be of racial minorities. The most considerable about the role of these superheroes is that they integrate the world of almost only ‘white’ heroes and villains and balance it in order to replay the racial structure of the modern world.
Conclusion
Talking about modern popular culture, it is important to admit that it displays the social flairs and attitudes towards racial issues, as well as provide people with a pattern to follow. Comics as a category of popular culture obtains an opportunity of strong impact on society, as they can unite the attractiveness of the design as well the clear meaning of the text. Raced body and its representation in Marvel comics offers some villains to be caught only because of their origins etc. Therefore, when considering the difference between raced representation in Marvel and DC, the conclusion is obvious: Marvel Comics abuses the country by personalizing it; at the same time, DC Comics emphasizes some negative creatures by giving them some specific ethnical boundaries. However, protagonists are also represented by racial minorities. Through centuries, the role of racial minority groups has grown. Accordingly to the process of ethnical minorities growing, it is important to say that the improvement and integration of representatives of different racial minorities and their place in modern society.
References
Eltis, D. and Richardson, D. (2008). Extending the frontiers. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.
Jones, S. (1988). The Gun and the Bow. Myths of White Men and Indians. L'Homme, 28(106), pp.138-155.
Ebert, R. (1988). Mississippi Burning Movie Review (1988) | Roger Ebert. [online] Rogerebert.com. Available at: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mississippi-burning-1988 [Accessed 3 Mar. 2016].
Klosterman, C. (2009). Eating the dinosaur. New York: Scribner.
Diamondcomics.com, (2016). Diamond Announces Top Products for October 2015. [online] Available at: http://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1/1/3/597?articleID=159807 [Accessed 3 Mar. 2016].
