The New Statesman's one-sided attack on Comicsgate
Over a month ago, the New Statesman wrote up their own attack on the Comicsgate campaign, using the rather cliched defense comic books were always bastions of liberalism, without admitting there was a time when leftists weren't so extreme as to uphold evil ideologies and drown out all entertainment value. Starting with their exploitation of Stan Lee's old op-eds:
And isn't that fascinating a UK writer's willing to acknowledge there's those who'd rather Fleming's master spy should remain as he was created, but doesn't seem to respect the same when dealing with US-based creations. All because they're corporate-owned, I guess. And on Agent 007 again, there's propagandists who believe his racial background should be changed, and even think he should be played by a transvestite! It's also worth noting Lee defended keeping Peter Parker white and straight, and even the movie studio and Marvel themselves took this very position. Something I'm sure the New Statesman's writer isn't happy about, and he certainly didn't mention it.
And if the writer's against negative depictions of Islam and its advocation of jihadism, then I don't see the point of stressing Marvel's escapist brand wasn't neutral. Does he even know Simon was right-wing?
And isn't that clever how he tries to hijack Star Wars for comparing the Jedi to a violent movement that contradicts its name perfectly. Nor is their any consideration for Doctor Who's loss of audience ratings, because viewers now see the show as too PC for their tastes (a pregnant man shows up?!? Oh, that's the cleverest I've heard all day. The brief 1989 TV series based on the Alien Nation film may have done that already anyway). As this op-ed on where the series is going notes, heavy-handed politics have been flooding virtually all aspects of entertainment lately at the expense of any entertainment value, and come to think of it, even educational value, which they decidedly lack.
I may not care for most of the mainstream superhero stories Van Sciver worked on, but I wonder if people like the NS propagandist ever read the X-Men and GL books he illustrated, and have since decided they regret it because of his politics. Well then, they've learned a big irony: even some of the creators themselves were never on their side. Why, they probably even think the same about Frank Miller, after he published Holy Terror several years ago.
Following news of his death, one of Lee’s old columns went viral. “Racism and bigotry are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today,” he wrote in a “Stan’s Soapbox” from December 1968. “But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them – to reveal them for the insidious evil they really are.” The combination of high-mindedness and chummy slang (snoot!) was typical of a man with no allergy to corn. Lee lived long enough to make the same point in a video message last year: “Those stories have room for everyone, regardless of their race, gender or colour of their skin. The only things we don’t have room for are hate, intolerance and bigotry.”And, as the writer of this junk makes clear with what's to come, he considers all Comicsgate supporters to reflect all those negatives.
Shortly before Lee died, comic book artist Ethan Van Sciver announced he was stepping down as the de facto head of the movement known as Comicsgate; though he quickly changed his mind. According to Van Sciver, Comicsgate is “a consumer-led revolt against what is clearly a left-wing dominance in the comic book industry”. Instead, it advocates “escapist, apolitical entertainment”.Yup, and we're supposed to buy all these hoary cliches at face value. No mention of Mark Waid's meddling with Richard Meyer's contract at Antarctic Press, nor any of Elizabeth Breitweiser's own problems with vile cybertrolls attacking her as much as her husband Mitch, all because they're working on a crowdfunded project called Red Rooster. Nor any mention of the attacks on Alterna's publisher because he doesn't want to alienate customers of any stripe. Nor even that most of the creators are leftists who see such campaigns as representing "right-wing", and are apparently so selfish and entitled, they want to drag the world down with them.
In reality, Comicsgaters use the standard harassment toolkit, including “doxxing” (publishing private information about an individual online) and orchestrated abuse, to bully creators, especially young women, who have the audacity to promote diversity and social awareness in superhero comic books. Scratch the surface of their concern for narrative consistency, and pure bigotry seeps out. In a clear echo of the video game equivalent, Gamergate, Comicsgate has earned the contempt of most comic book creators. “Stop being brownshirts,” wrote veteran artist Bill Sienkiewicz on Facebook. “Stop being goddamned ugly dicks.”
The Comicsgate argument is nonsense from root to branch. Reactionary James Bond fans can at least make the case that Ian Fleming intended his snobbish macho imperialist to be a white man for ever, but anyone decrying political content in modern comic books is suffering from acute cultural amnesia. As a Jewish child of the 1920s who hit his creative stride in the early 1960s, Stan Lee’s liberal inclinations aligned with the mood of the times. He shook up superhero comics by orienting them towards underdogs and outcasts, including Spider-Man, a working-class nerd, and the X-Men, whose stories used anti-mutant prejudice as a flexible metaphor for racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia. Even as a not particularly woke child in the 1980s, I got the message that you shouldn’t stigmatise anyone for being different, even if that person has blue skin and a forked tail. Bullies, bigots and fanatics were always on the wrong side.Hmm, depending how you view this, Eugene "Flash" Thompson could prove otherwise. Why, so could the Sandman after he reformed in the mid-80s (and teamed with Silver Sable for a time). Or even the later Thunderbolts after several of the members there mostly went straight in the late 90s. When fictional villains reform, that throws a wrench into the works of these leftist propagandists who want to claim these classic creations as their domain only. Also, I'm not sure why a magazine that once caused a scandal with "kosher conspiracy" articles thinks they're fit to speak about anti-semitism.
And isn't that fascinating a UK writer's willing to acknowledge there's those who'd rather Fleming's master spy should remain as he was created, but doesn't seem to respect the same when dealing with US-based creations. All because they're corporate-owned, I guess. And on Agent 007 again, there's propagandists who believe his racial background should be changed, and even think he should be played by a transvestite! It's also worth noting Lee defended keeping Peter Parker white and straight, and even the movie studio and Marvel themselves took this very position. Something I'm sure the New Statesman's writer isn't happy about, and he certainly didn't mention it.
It’s true that superheroes sometimes behaved in ways that would trigger disciplinary proceedings at a left-leaning arts college. Nonetheless, progressive politics were baked in from the start. What are the X-Men if not Social Justice Warriors? And isn’t almost every superhero a virtue-signaller? Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1941 for the express purpose of punching Nazis. Marvel’s brand of escapism was never politically neutral.What, is that supposed to imply they took an approach considered...right wing? Because whenever Wolverine took lives of criminal vermin, that could be thought right-leaning in a way. And if he thinks the X-Men are SJWs, does that mean he believes they should campaign for censorship of the arts, and undermining women's status by forcing them to accept male transsexuals into bathrooms reserved for the fairer sex, and sports like marathons, all at the expense of biological women's dignity and scholarship awards? What kind of justice is that, if not something that only belittles and harms real women? Even lesbians and feminists have found themselves victimized as a result.
And if the writer's against negative depictions of Islam and its advocation of jihadism, then I don't see the point of stressing Marvel's escapist brand wasn't neutral. Does he even know Simon was right-wing?
Most of the foundational texts of geek culture were the product of this kind of mid-century liberalism. Star Trek was an ecumenical fantasy that produced the first interracial kiss in the history of American television. Alt-right opponents of The Last Jedi somehow failed to notice that George Lucas’s Empire was always thinly veiled fascism, which basically makes the Rebel Alliance antifa. The conservative backlash against the new “politically correct” Doctor Who ignores the fact that the Doctor is an ambassador for empathy whose first enemies were genocidal cyborg Nazis.What is this supposed to mean? That conservatives were always against interracial affairs? Baloney. Also, what this doesn't make clear is that, even before ST featured the first interracial kiss between a white and black, TV shows like Hawaiian Eye and the Wild, Wild West featured the first interracial kisses between a white and a Polynesian in the former, and a white and an Asian in the latter. For some reason, Asians aren't considered worthy of mention in this regard, it would seem.
And isn't that clever how he tries to hijack Star Wars for comparing the Jedi to a violent movement that contradicts its name perfectly. Nor is their any consideration for Doctor Who's loss of audience ratings, because viewers now see the show as too PC for their tastes (a pregnant man shows up?!? Oh, that's the cleverest I've heard all day. The brief 1989 TV series based on the Alien Nation film may have done that already anyway). As this op-ed on where the series is going notes, heavy-handed politics have been flooding virtually all aspects of entertainment lately at the expense of any entertainment value, and come to think of it, even educational value, which they decidedly lack.
This history matters because Comicsgaters and their fellow travellers want to rewrite it to imply that there was once a screw-your-feelings pre-PC Eden before people who weren’t straight white men came along and ruined pop culture. That fallacy is unwittingly mirrored by some young people on the left, who act as if diversity and social justice were recent inventions.Well if you look at some of the early Silver Age DC books, that could imply a scenario where it wasn't overtly political. How comes those never seem to count? And the writer fails to ponder that Lee himself took anti-communist positions in his old writings, before today's social justice advocates ruined even that. During the Silver/Bronze Ages, Captain America fought commies, and Black Widow, as a dissident, also fought them at times. So too did Daredevil, whom Natasha Romanoff sometimes teamed up with in that era. But interesting he should mention leftists who, in a manner of speaking, invented the recent problems with social justice that resulted in more censorship not seen since Fredric Wertham pushed for it in the 50s. Also, I'd suggest some of the recent SJWs, contrary to what the writer's implying, are white men, possibly male feminists, who've brought down the industry as we know it.
Frankly, it’s too easy to mock the kind of men who are stirred to rage by a cartoon called She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. But now that toxic fandom overlaps with white nationalism it is important to reassert the simple fact that it’s a culture war fought on a false prospectus. The apolitical past that the Comicsgaters long for never existed. As the rediscovered “Stan’s Soapbox” demonstrates, reactionary fans were always the bad guys, richly deserving a punch on the snoot. Perhaps this is why they are so furious about the characters that shaped their childhoods being “taken away” from them. They know that those characters were never really on their side.And this is nothing more than a villification of the core fanbases, or anybody the writer disagrees with. Put another way, if you support conservative politics or even the anti-commie positions Lee himself supported, you're not allowed to be a fan, and didn't deserve those classic creations. In truth, what the jerk thinks is that these characters should never have been conceived in the first place. And he thinks no woman could ever be dismayed by the new take on She-Ra, not even the original voice actress, or that some of DC's offerings weren't apolitical in any regard, and worst, that any and all of the original Marvel fans were all filthy creatures who should be assaulted. Ugh, what a sad state of affairs have we.
I may not care for most of the mainstream superhero stories Van Sciver worked on, but I wonder if people like the NS propagandist ever read the X-Men and GL books he illustrated, and have since decided they regret it because of his politics. Well then, they've learned a big irony: even some of the creators themselves were never on their side. Why, they probably even think the same about Frank Miller, after he published Holy Terror several years ago.
Labels: Captain America, censorship issues, Daredevil, dc comics, indie publishers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics, Spider-Man, X-Men
The problem is that a lot of dodos on both sides of the political fence haven't realized that today's left and right values and objectives are very different from the left and right a couple decades ago.
Posted by
Anonymous |
1:40 PM
Here's something interesting: https://bwspotlight.com/2018/12/27/vertigos-potential-blasphemy/
Now Vertigo and other imprints like it have pushed the envelope in a lot of things before, but this is a whole another level of blasphemy right here.
Then again, this isn't the first time Christ has been depicted in a more, "comical", depiction than usual:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Christ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Best_Friends
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Young_Men
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrachrist!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Christ_Superstar
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6913708/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/MontyPythonsLifeOfBrian
Posted by
Anonymous |
4:34 PM
"today's left and right values and objectives are very different from the left and right a couple decades ago."
The Left and Right fundamentally haven't changed. What has changed is which groups are dominant in it. 30 years ago, sjws did not dominate liberal parties . 30 years ago, evangelical Christians dominated the Right. Today, the people who were considered fringe or radical on the Left (The New Left)are considered mainstream, identity based redistribution of resources from oppressors groups to victim groups is fashionable. Nationalists and White separatists are enjoying a small increase in interest because of all the rhetoric on the Left about Western Civilization being evil because of white people, capitalism and Christianity.
The Left are people who fundamentally want to chang- no, i mean replace western civilization, (or any dominant culture) with values influenced by Modernism.
and the Right is full of people who want to preserve certain things. People on the Right are traditionalists. Those on the far Right want to go back to a homogeneous societies where there is less identity based conflict over resources.
Posted by
Saber Tooth Tiger Mike |
10:17 PM
Hmm, doesn't feel like it from what I've seen in the news Mike.
Posted by
Anonymous |
8:47 AM
"What is this supposed to mean? That conservatives were always against interracial affairs? ... TV shows like Hawaiian Eye and the Wild, Wild West featured the first interracial kisses between a white and a Polynesian in the former, and a white and an Asian in the latter. For some reason, Asians aren't considered worthy of mention in this regard, it would seem."
In the US, there was a strong taboo and many laws against black-white marriage. There was some prejudice against other inter-racial relationships, but it was never as intense. Asian-Caucasian marriage used to be illegal in some states, and there was a lot of bigotry directed at Chinese and Japanese, but attraction and romances between Asian and Caucasian, especially between white men and Asian women, were a staple of books and movies long before the 1960s (Han Suyin, Terry and the Pirates, the Fu Manchu books, Bird of Paradise, The World of Suzie Wong...). The KKK was not as likely to intervene, and you were nowhere near as likely to get lynched as a black man who dated a white woman would be in the South.
American Conservatives often had inter-racial affairs, but they were for a long time against inter-racial marriages.
"Nor is their any consideration for Doctor Who's loss of audience ratings, because viewers now see the show as too PC for their tastes"
The Doctor's ratings this season have dropped from the high of the season premiere, as is often the case, but are still higher than they were last season, before the new female regeneration of the Doctor was introduced. More people are watching her than were watching the last one.
"Because whenever Wolverine took lives of criminal vermin, that could be thought right-leaning in a way."
Dont think the right deserves this kind of calumny. Can't claim to have read every Wolverine story, so I stand to be corrected, but certainly in the Claremont years he took lives only out of necessity, in combat and kill-or-be-killed situations, or when he was out of his right mind. He was not an executioner or a murderer. Or a Punisher.
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:07 PM
Cyber Mouth Thai Girl Mike said:
"30 years ago, evangelical Christians dominated the Right."
Evangelical Christians have become more, not less political in the past 30 years; they play more of a role in right-wing politics now than they did then. Trump is described as a godless man who God has chosen to serve His ends, using Biblical analogies; he won the evangelical vote because he promised to choose their candidates for the Supreme Court, and that helped win him the election.
And he also said:
"The Left are people who..want to...replace western civilization... with values influenced by Modernism. People on the Right are traditionalists. Those on the far Right want to go back to a homogeneous societies where there is less identity based conflict over resources."
Modernism is a product of western civilisation! Here is where you find the fundamental change in the Right. The right used to be traditionalist; now the loudest mouths on the far right want radical change that goes against the Constitution and fundamental American values. Past homogenous societies are a myth; people look back to when one group dominated over others, and think that was a homogenous society because the dominated stayed dominated. Anglo-Saxon or Aryan White Eden never existed; Natives were here first, Blacks were dragged over here soon after, and America was always a refuge for dissenters. If it had existed, there would never have been a Civil War or a Klan.
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:11 PM
Modernism is a product of high living standards.
Most poor people are traditionalists around the world.
It is not universally accepted.
"people look back to when one group dominated over others, and think that was a homogeneous
The only thing you proved with your rant is that diversity is our greatest weakness.
Dissent means that various groups will fight for power instead of doing what is best for everyone.
The Nation of Islam is not looking out for the general welfare of the American people, they only care about "their people". Instead of one society, we are have many societies, some with diametrically apposed values. The only thing that keeps these societies from going to war with each other is the U.S.' material wealth. Unfortunately, there isn't enough resources for us to all live like the Kardashians and muse on the unimportance of money, gender, race, and buy organic.
Posted by
Saber Tooth Tiger Mike |
4:22 PM
Anonymous Communist "America was always a refuge for dissenters"
They you go with your historical revisionism. Just because you want the past to align with your progressive values does it mean it did.
America was never a country founded on alms or welfare relief
Neither was Canada or any European country.'
Posted by
Saber Tooth Tiger Mike |
4:53 AM
Yeah, it was where all the pilgrims were exiled after the UK couldn't take them anymore.
Posted by
Anonymous |
10:04 AM
<<"Dissent means that various groups will fight for power instead of doing what is best for everyone.">>
The only thing to do is abolish dissent. We would have to suspend the constitution and get rid of democracy and impose gun control to prevent people from rebelling, but it is a small price to pay for a truly homogenous society, and a genuinely strong and charismatic leader would be willing to pay that price to perpetuate his reign for the good of all. Democracy is after all our greatest weakness, because it cannot exist without dissent.
Of course, if we got rid of dissent, some of the first people to go would be the alt-white types - the ironic hipster dude white separatists, supremacists and nationalists - and the white militia groups and the right wing fight clubs. They only exist and blog because America tolerates dissent.
<< "America was always a refuge for dissenters" They you go with your historical revisionism….America was never a country founded on alms or welfare relief Neither was Canada or any European country.'>>
Alms, tithing and charity for the poor are religious obligations that go way back in European society, brought to America with the first colonists, but what does that have to do with dissent? Dissenters - people who did not believe in the entrenched state religion of their homelands - came to America to worship in freedom. The American revolution was a dissent against the king.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:47 PM
I know one guy who doesn't think the revolution was a good idea, nor that America should've gotten involved in both World Wars: http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/
Posted by
Anonymous |
2:47 PM
Anonymous Communist "Alms, tithing and charity for the poor are religious obligations that go way back in European society, brought to America with the first colonists, but what does that have to do with dissent?"
Emigration based on need is charity or alms. America has a tradition of accepting immigrants who could be put to work. America does not have a tradition of accepting immigrants out of pity or as reparations for some past injustice. Countries that accept immigrants out of pity or charity will have Europe's problem with immigration, where there are more immigrants than jobs for them.
Posted by
Saber Tooth Tiger Mike |
3:07 PM
So? Just have Europe transfer some of its natives to other parts of the world that desperately needs able-bodied workers.
Posted by
Anonymous |
5:43 PM
Whatever happened to “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”?
American immigration policy has never been restricted to just bringing over workers. Even after the open door policies of the years before the First World War ended, other policies were at work. Family reunification was important; immigrants could bring over their aged parents, for example. America took in displaced people and refugees since at least the years after World War II, including some ‘hard cases’ who were incapable of earning a living for themselves. Generosity towards those in need has always been a defining characteristic, if not of America, then of what Americans would like see America as being. Sure, there was bigotry, and it was reflected in immigration policy; but as bad as it could be it was never as bad or as ugly as cyber mike’s comments above suggest. He or she just sounds like cheap Soviet-era propaganda about the evil and inhumanity of the capitalist system.
Posted by
Anonymous |
3:12 PM