4401

“Not here to ban anything”

Other than things they find morally wrong that is. The nupuritans strike again.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/article/dc-comics-cancels-batgirl-joker-variant-at-artists-request

Comic Book Code 2015

4402

Well, if the artist himself felt like he wanted to pull it, then that’s kind of his call. The weird thing was this statement by DC though:

Regardless if fans like Rafael Albuquerque’s homage to Alan Moore’s THE KILLING JOKE graphic novel from 25 years ago, or find it inconsistent with the current tonality of the Batgirl books - threats of violence and harassment are wrong and have no place in comics or society.

Wait, what? Comics are dominated by violence. We’ve had things like Bane break Batman’s spine, or Magneto rip all of Wolverine’s bones out of his body. Or, hell, the comic that this cover was supposed to be paying Homage to, where batgirl gets shot and paralyzed by the Joker.

That just seems like a pretty weird statement on DC’s part.

4403

And of course the almost obligatory, overcompensating, GG-like backlash:

“Ill talk more about it tomorrow but I was never threatened. just to make it clear.” Stewart stated, “Something to clarify, because DCs statement was a little unclear. @rafaalbuquerque [the cover artist] did not get threats. People OBJECTING to the cover did.”

So once again we have people raising well-mannered objections to the direction that their hobby (in this case a comic book) is going, and the reaction is death threats.

4404

The author themselves even came out and said they had not received threats, but rather the people who had criticized the cover who had. DC pulled the cover because they were disgusted by those threats. So the takeaway is that had GG not come up and lost their collective shit, the cover would have stayed. DC decided that if those mouth breathing imbeciles were those who wanted the cover that way, then they didn’t want those people supporting them.

So good job GG, you accomplished something. You made DC change the cover by being repulsive.

4405

I just realized that I must have misread the DC statement. I’m thinking now that they’re saying threats of violence against real people/artists/fans is what has no place in comics, not that threats of violence in comics have no place in comics.

That statement makes much more sense.

4406

Still confused as to what the word “ban” means, eh?

4407

Here is the thing, I even thought the cover itself was fairly evocative. I don’t care much for comics, and find there is plenty of problems in comic culture, but I certainly would never have called for that specific cover to be pulled. Hell I don’t even think most of the people complaining about that cover were complaining about the actual art, per se. Just how it didn’t fit the character, and how were that Batman instead it would have been grit and grim determination. Instead they get the frightened ‘damsel in distress’ type cover.

So it was more of a ‘come on, really?’ than ‘you are terrible people for making this’ type reaction. So I might have just rolled my eyes otherwise. It would have been a small nothing, and DC probably wouldn’t have responded, or at least not that quickly and decisively.

4408

women legs vs man arms,
curious vy violance

i rolled my eyes,
the cover was asesiné

i am to scared to ask,
about the joke/jack

skillfully executed
blank ink d/blots, white and red

4409

The last thing I want in the morning before I’ve had my coffee is to be shamed about how white I am by a starbucks drinking middle class white hipster man-child, yelling out his Prius window.

4410

Speaking of which: Why White People Freak Out When They’re Called Out About Race.

4411

I see the strawman of “being ashamed of being white” is alive and well.

4412

Fascinating article, thank you for sharing!

4413

There are a lot of valid points in this discussion (although I would say the title is more click-bait than the meat of the article). Although I would point out that there are also elements I think are troublesome.

I think it’s important to acknowledge the perspective of the person you’re talking to, and use that to contextualize what they’re saying… but this isn’t something that only white people need to do to minority groups. This is something that any person should do to any other person, in any conversation. It improves the whole experience, for everyone involved, and makes it much more productive. I think that a lot of people (not necessarily the woman being interviewed here, but more commonly young students who have only a superficial understanding of any of this stuff) tend to throw out terms like “check your privilege” when they in fact do NOT mean to increase the communication and empathy between groups, but instead are using it as a term to mean “shut up” that they think is somehow automatically justified in certain environments. They don’t really understand what the real ideas are, and merely know it’s “a cool thing to say”, and so they parrot it in an inappropriate way.

Likewise, the notion of “tone-policing” comes up here. The idea that a black person would be angry about having to deal with racism constantly throughout their lives is reasonable. The fact that it may come out in their tone is also reasonable, even expected. But as I pointed out with LMN8R, this isn’t generally the most EFFECTIVE way to go about it.

Taking an agressive tone doesn’t invalidate ones’ points, or their experience. But, the reality of the situation is that the same kind of emotional element to the human experience that generates that tone in the minds of the victims of racism applies to the white people they are trying to communicate it to. The white people, despite living a more racially privileged existence, are not some kind of emotionless robots. If they are shouted at emotionally, all but the most disciplined are going to react in kind.

Communicating in a cooler and more level-headed manner is not something that I think we should somehow stop worrying about. It’s an important skill, and as such, I think that things like saying you can’t comment or criticize someone’s communication tactics is incorrect. And along that line, I think it’s important to impress this upon students, and teach them how to make cool, logical arguments and presentations of their experiences. Not because it will make their points more true, but because it will make them more convincing.

4414

While I can agree with parts of that there is so much that is just bullshit there. It is so inclusive it is offensive.

4415

I linked it, warts and all, as it demonstrates a few points and covers the story end to end, even when not in my favour.

  1. People started actively campaigning to change/ban the cover, for political reasons. The hashtag originated here.

  2. #ChangeTheCover hashtag promoted to change the cover to something acceptable to the complainants. The gist of it seems to be, although The Joker is a murderous psychopath., they object to him being portrayed as a murderous psychopath, because, trigger

  3. <insert twitterstorm/identity politics flamewar here>

  4. Artist asks it to be pulled due to said flame war. Lots of backtracking by the team, after all, if it wasn’t then calls for them to be fired will be incoming.

  5. Cover has now been changed. Tumblr is happy and is now searching for something else that offends them.

  6. is the backlash to be expected against any identity politics issues on social media. Some write long pieces on what they believe, others flame away on twitter. Much the same is underway over Clarkson and Top Gear at the moment, 2 polarised sides, both in disagreement, both spamming social media and flaming each other.

4416

This is where you fall down as usual. A call to change something is not in any way a ban. A ban is handed down by authority. A campaign to change the cover of a comic book is consumers in action. As for this specific case, the cover references a particularly dark and disturbing bit of fiction… the intent of the cover is surely to disturb people who know the backstory. That kind of art has real value in my mind, but I can see how some people would prefer it were not on the cover of a mainstream comic book.

That said, the decision to run or not run the cover is totally up to DC. In this case they seemed much more concerned by the unhealthy backlash, and sensitive to the concerns of the artist. Good for them.

4417

The Joker should be disturbing IMO. I can see the damsel in distress complaints though, so I understand why folks were upset as well.

It was also a variant cover, so folks could choose which one they wanted.

I can see why they didn’t print it, but I can see why some folks are upset about them not printing it. The harassment is rightfully being denounced, and the folks harassing over a comic cover should be ashamed.

4418

Let’s talk a moment about why there are so many white male characters in video games.

They’re safe.

They’re generic.

Nobody gets upset when they’re evil, dumb, abused, goofy, tortured, or blown into gibs.

Case in point - Guybrush Threepwood. Guy made his living being a bumbling shortsighted simpleton. It’s safe farcical comedy with some slapstick violence.

Now, let’s make Guybrush a woman. Even better, a black muslim woman pirate. Now what? Now, every line of dialogue, every joke, every shaming for being an idiot or verbal abuse is under a social microscope. This is a risk you cannot take in 21st century media, you’ll get destroyed.

Women and minorities in games are treated as representative of the entire population, and therefore have to be nothing but strong, competent leaders who only display positive character development and cannot have weakness or incompetence in their core characterization. So you can’t cast anybody but derpy honky as the lovable bumbling hero.

Also, you can shoot the shit out of white guys and nobody flinches. Germans especially. What happens if you set your game in africa, and all the zombies are black because the zombie outbreak is in that part of the continent? Well, you get your shit pushed in like Resident Evil 5 did about being racist.

Only Mel Brooks can get away with Jew jokes in hollywood, you see.

Fuck identity politics. It’s utterly limiting to telling a creative and interesting story that involves anything other than token representatives of ethnicity or gender that aren’t cast in minor “safe” roles. Show me examples where this is untrue, and I’ll be glad you did.

4419

I define it in this context as “prevent from publication”, if you want to define it as legislation or rulings by authority so be it, change my use of the word for one acceptable in your dictionary.

4420

Well, I think that part of that isn’t that Batgirl was a damsel in distress… but rather, that she was a popular and strong character, who was really messed up by the Joker, because the Joker is one of the most sadistic/psychopathic supervillains in the DC universe.

Although, Barbara Gordon then went on to become Oracle as a result of this event, who became one of the most popular disabled comic characters in history. And then eventually rebuilt herself, cured her paralysis, and became Batgirl again.

A define it in this context as “prevent from publication”, if you want to define it as legislation or rulings by authority so be it, change my use of the word for one acceptable in your dictionary.

I will generally favor speech over silence, but I think that Soapy’s point here is that some of these people were merely expressing their opinions about this artwork. I understand where you’re coming from, in that your suggestion is that even if we find something offensive, that we shouldn’t call for it to not exist… but there’s a fine line too, in that it’s certainly legitimate for consumers of products to speak with their wallets. And in that light, any criticism of any consumer product could potentially be viewed as “preventing from publication”.

I mean, DC wants to sell a comic… the cover art is offensive to potential consumers. People generally don’t buy things that are offensive to them. Thus, merely by stating that they are offended, they are exerting a force to change the cover… but they aren’t invoking some kind of totalitarian power over DC.