Comics can easily be seen to offer stereotypes. Comics have always been dominated by the white race until the first black superhero was created. His name was Luke Cage. Cage was depicted as an angry black man who obtained his powers in prison. Of course racism had to be put on Luke Cage. Why couldn’t he have gotten his powers somewhere else rather than prison? The racist view of African Americans in prison is everywhere. If you were to think of a prison inmate, which would come first, the white inmate or the black one? I’ll let you answer that one. Another aspect of racism towards Luke Cage would be his anger. He is known as being very angry and violent. Another typical racist view on African Americans. Honestly, I think it is disgusting how this happens. I grew up with many different racists and thought of everyone equally. It’s a shame that the comics depict racism a lot. The illustrations of these characters are also very racist. African Americans are depicted as looking like monkeys with big ears, lips, and noses. In the comics with black characters, these visual racist remarks are seen. It’s truly disappointing to see comics with racism in them. Very disappointing.
Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
Comments