Gay Bashing

[gryphonk]

I now finished reading two articles, both about the same topic: the attitude of the writer's community toward gays.

The first, Who Cares About The Death of a Gay Superhero Anyway?, is by Perry Moore. It's a list of gay and lesbian super-heroes in comic books, and how they're treated. The main argument of the article is that gay super-heroes get

Comments

[gryphonk]

On a side note, it's a sad, sad day when Word recognises Dumbledore.

[shiffer]

Word has a name dictionary. Dumbledore gets used in print more then most biblical names. But if it makes you feel better, LJ spellchecker still flags it.

[avgboojie]

Two more or less connected points

[_standback_]

That's from 1990? My.

I confess I'm not entirely clear on whether you appreciated Card's article or not. I can say, though, that Card touches on some basic issues I've given a lot of thought to. LDS is not very different, in this regard, from Orthodox Judaism, and I've long believed that homosexuality is one of the thorniest issues that Orthodoxy, as a faith, must face.

Your paragraph about Card's views failing the test are a bit tricky to contend with, because Card (and modern Orthodoxy) basically need to speak on two levels: the level that they believe, i.e. their religious faith, and what they believe other people should/shouldn't believe, i.e. their acceptence of their faith as not obligating those who do not believe in it. I think that's the difference Card's trying to show here, and mostly he's talking about gays within the LDS community. He's saying it's his opinion that homosexuality is bad, that he respects the opinion of those who disagree, but that he sees the opinion that homosexuality is all right as flatly

And now that I've read the other article too-

[_standback_]

It's true there aren't many positive gay role-models in popular comics. But you've got to take into consideration that we haven't really had any new A-List heros in comics in about the last 30 years. And everyone who isn't A-List, in comics, tends to lead a pretty unpleasant life, often ended gruesomely and quite promptly.

Certainly there's room to establish more stable supporting characters, and some of those can be gay. But there's a distinct tendency for writers to go, "Oh, a well liked, seemingly stable supporting character! Won't everyone be distressed if we do something to HIM!" Again, doesn't account for complete discrimination, but it has to be borne in mind, and the variety among the gay characters actually sounds substantial.

I'm afraid underhand attempts like heroes from Watchmen (where all the heroes are tragic and screwed up) and snipes at Card which clearly don't belong on the list don't win me much sympathy either. :-/

[themoniker]

Ziv makes a good point about no enduring recent superheroes, and because any diversity you'll get is found in the crop of new heroes, the comic industry's ham-fisted attempts at inclusivity keep stumbling into their sensationalist tendencies. Witness the state of female comics characters, as documented in Gail Simone's site with the self-summarizing title, Women in Refrigerators.

[avgboojie]

Here's someone else's recent post that has reminded me of this discussion, so I link.

The mirror argument

[madsamrackham]

Have you ever thought about the opposite? Have you ever thought about which traits automatically make one a candidate for homosexuality (no, I mean besides the man-sex. Sheesh) in the eyes of the critics and the viewers?

Why, after all, was it so surprising that Dumbledore is gay, even to the gay community? Because Rowling did not care to mark him as gay by inserting easily identifiable gay-like characteristics when building his character. Jim Hanson, on the other hand, was probably surprised to find out that Statler and Waldorf are under suspicion of being gay, just because they're two guys who like to hang out together, know each other well and have a developed sense of humor.

The reason that this argument is not a rehash of your argument but is indeed the mirror argument to it, is that those easily identifiable qualities are often positive, like Seinfeld complaining about being mistaken for gay just because he's "white, well-groomed and tidy