The Four Color Media Monitor

Leave it to the CBC to whine about lack of oh-so precious "diversity" in Marvel's movies. They list a few of the comics that are pandering to SJWs in that regard. But what's really galling is when they arrive at the subject of the Muslim Ms. Marvel:

But in terms of barrier-smashing, nothing comes close to Kamala Khan, a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, a Muslim-American girl from New Jersey. Part of what makes Khan's voice ring true is writer G. Willow Wilson, herself a convert to Islam. She captures the growing pains of a young woman torn between many worlds: her Pakistani parents, her high school friends, not to mention a steep superhero learning curve.

So what will it take to make Ms. Marvel into a movie?

Time and patience, according to Toronto comic artist Valentine De Landro. The illustrator has worked on X-Factor, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four comics. He's encouraged by the risks Marvel is taking, decisions he believes are driven by the company's close relationship to fans.

"It gets very intimate when you start talking with fans: You go to the conventions, hear them on panels … and say 'Hey, when are you bringing in a transgender character into this book?' or 'When can I see someone who looks like myself in this series?'"

How sad this guy doesn't understand that Marvel's long ceased to lead a positive relationship with fans. If they were still leading one, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson would still be married, and Spider-Man's books would certainly be in better shape. So too would the Avengers, and the rock bottom misuse of Scarlet Witch in Bendis' take on Avengers would never have been. And why exactly do LGBT protagonists matter, but not characters from different nationalities like Armenians, Burmese, Ghanians and Portuguese? In fact, why do the "diverse" characters always have to be the numero uno stars - the superheroes in costume - but not co-stars? These are just the kind of subjects that never occur to these naive fools. No less bothersome is how the "fans" are basically whining for would-be representation, but not good writing and art, nor steps that could be taken to ensure long range success in that regard.

And nothing rings "true" about the Muslim Ms. Marvel book if they remain dishonest about the Religion of Peace. It all just rings false. If that's what they want turned into a movie, they can only dream. As the public becomes more distrusting of Islam and its apologists by extension, the chances that a movie making light of serious issues would ever be tried out are close to none, and even the filmmakers may realize that.

But as De Landro discovered when his young daughter started drawing her own characters, there's still a lot of work to be done.

He applauds the Marvel leadership, specifically Sana Amanat, the director of content and character development. A young Muslim woman, Amanat helped develop the current version of Ms. Marvel and is challenging the status quo.

"Why can't we make Captain America black? Oh wait, we can," Amanat said recently, speaking to the online women's magazine Bustle.com.

"We need to find characters who can speak to these newer, emerging audiences that are looking for content that speaks to them. Because you're telling stories, you have a responsibility."

And what audiences would those be? I'm just not sure, but it can't possibly include an audience believing in talented writing, which even she lacks. If he thinks Amanat is commendable, then his arguments fall flat. If characters of selective backgrounds are all she cares about and not talented writing, then her argument fails. Talented writing is what speaks to audiences, not just "diverse" characters.

There are some signs of progress and diversity on the big screen. The new Captain America film introduces Black Panther, an African superhero Marvel recently relaunched with a new series written by acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Who acclaims Coates? Only the most rabid leftists. Adding T'Challa to the movie cast is great, but assigning somebody as tunnelvisioned as Coates to write the books is not. Interestingly, when they turn to Dr. Strange's arrival in movies, this comes up:

But the recent controversy over the new trailer for Doctor Strange suggested there's still hesitation when it comes to displaying diverse characters. In the upcoming Marvel movie Tilda Swinton portrays the Ancient One, a character who was originally Tibetan.

Actor and activist George Takei was among those who blasted Marvel's move.

"They cast Tilda because they believe white audiences want to see white faces," he wrote on Facebook. "Audiences, too, should be aware of how dumb and out of touch the studios think we are."

Here, they have an interesting point. Isn't it ironic that a production company who went out of their way to portray at least one Asgardian as Asian in the Thor movie, and another as black, would take the opposite route with Strange's mentor? At the same time, do they believe, depending on how it's done, that black/Asian/Latino audiences want to see black/Asian/Latino faces even at the expense of established white protagonists by changing their race? They should be able to figure out that's been far from the case for decades. Now, as it turns out, their attempts at "diversity" by changing the mentor character to a woman may not be working, because they took a PC step at the expense of an established character who was of a different racial background.

Some of the commentors on the article understood how time wasting and cheap CBC was being with this article, and one responded:

Ghost in the shell replaced an asian character with a white girl and it's racism.

But pushing marvel to change white characters into anything is not being diverse enough.

Sounds like people are just using SJW tag lines to push white culture out of western society, enough with this. If you want a diverse hero, make one yourself. And make it successful, don't just write overtop of existing heroes to try and keep the same reader base.

And another added:

Well said. Let a white man use anything from attire to art or from music to hair style, from a non-white society and it's 'cultural misappropriation!' Yet it is perfectly fine for a white icon like Spiderman to be replaced with a figure from a different culture. The politically correct 'want their cake and to eat it to.' Enough already! Let these groups start creating their own cultural symbols and history.

Agreed. If they truly have to write up movies with diverse heroes, they should be able to create some of their own. They could even look to those who already were created, like Colleen Wing, Black Lightning, Misty Knight and Sunfire. Why, they could even look to some European comics for examples, like Yoko Tsuno, the Japanese electronics engineer created by Belgian cartoonist Roger LeLoup in 1970. At the time, it was pretty groundbreaking for a European comics adventure to spotlight a girl from a non-white background. Yet all these years, despite being successful with at least 27 stories published to date, I don't think Yoko Tsuno ever had any animated adaptations, unlike Tintin and the Smurfs, which did, and Tintin was once adapted by Steven Spielberg into a film. I'm not saying it'd truly help to turn Yoko into mass merchandise. But if adaptations really matter, then a sci-fi adventure like Yoko Tsuno would surely make an ideal wellspring. Unfortunately, the CBC, in all the narrow viewpoints, has clearly chosen to ignore all the challenging picks out there, this despite there once being a Yoko Tsuno lookalike contest held at one of Canada's conventions.

Someone also noted in the comments that:

Sales of comic books are declining hard, the more they try to push an agenda ontop of that.
[Retailers Complain About Collapsing Marvel And DC Sales]

People don't want to diversity forced down their throats. They just want their favorite classic heroes, mixed up with some new ones, in new situations.

It's a good thing I noticed that item, because it's clear that DC and Marvel's sales alike are flat-lining, no matter what the MSM says, thanks to all the publicity stunts they've pulled for years, but none of that matters to phonies like the CBC. IMO, there's a vital lesson here for retailers, that they shouldn't rely heavily on DC/Marvel anymore, and certainly not if they're run by terrible people with no understanding how to market or format for printing. There's plenty of smaller companies with products that are now far more worth banking on, and that's what store owners should consider.

Labels: bad editors, Europe and Asia, islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, sales