Latino Character >ay ese, ese, ese, hermano ese, how chu doin mayne?
Native American character >Hello White Man, I am Runs-Quietly-At-Night-To-Avoid-Bears-And-Other-Predators. Do you need me to use my spirit powers, that I obviously have, in order to be saved from your problems?
Why does this always happen? The less commonly represented group is always defined by their race, as if they have no other interests aside from their identity. The more we see characters who don't look like us, the more we see them as people, not as archetypes. Lets talk about non stereotypical characters!
Over doing quirks Here’s an example Jaime Reyes in his own comic (V1) >”Look, I may have Mexican roots, but I’m still a dork at heart. You wanna go get a drink before going on an adventure , Paco? Jaime Reyes in Young Justice Season 2 >”Amigo! We gotta stop Reach and the villains! Dios mios you’re gonna be the death of me , Bart”
Jonathan Gutierrez
This character has always interested me since he can create illusions and heal people and turn into a flock of crows. In essence, hes basically the ultimate support character, but because of his dumb ass costume hes become one of the many forgotten D Listers out there. Any artists out there want to give him a redesign so he looks less like a "I was designed by a white guy who has never met a Native person before" character. Maybe make him look more like The Spector or a plague doctor or something? You know, keep the crow theme and black and yellow colour scheme, but jazz it up a little. This guy needs to show up more, he could totally work in modern comics with a new look.
The guy in the OP is Black Crow from Marvel comics. Appeared in some Captain America comics in the 80s and was actually supposed to become a temporary replacement for him like John Walker, but those plans fell through. The guy in my picture is the Navajo Mythological hero Monster Slayer, one of the legendary hero twins. Black Crow might have been based on him since they share some vague similarities. In the OP is what white people think native heroes look like, in the second picture, is what Navajo heroes look like according to Navajo themselves. The differences should be apparent.
Christopher Hill
People write what they know. If the writer doesn't happen to belong in the group he writes about and if he doesn't have knowledge about it, he might not be able to write a story involving an accurate representation of that group/culture. A writer in such a situation would be limited by what he knows about the character's cultural background. So basically stereotypes. Those stereotypes may be correct, or incorrect, or funny, or offensive.
Or let's say the writer wants to avoid embarrassing stereotypes, and he writes the character without referencing any cultural themes at all. Let's say he writes the character exactly the same way as he would write a character belonging to his own ethnic group. Problem is, that's not considered an acceptable thing today because it's seen as erasing the unique parts of that group/culture. Also, I think writing other groups as if they were your own group may have even been what originally started the whole social justice movement that we have today (look up an event that's called "Racefail '09" and decade-old LJ discussions on how to write "The Other").
If you want to write about foreign cultures or ethnicities, someone's gonna find some stupid reason to get upset about it. But they'll also get upset if you don't involve those groups in the story. It's a catch-22. If you care about hurt feelings, IMO it's better to stick to your own group and avoid portraying cultures you're not familiar with. The "not enough [X] representation" debates are usually less messy and heated than "[X] was portrayed offensively" controversies.
Nolan Ward
Saw some ghost hunting show and in one neighborhood the hosts ran into some native american kids, and the hosts instantly thought that they obviously had spiritual powers and could see ghosts and communicate with spirits.
Jaxon Davis
Plenty of Magic Negroes to go around too.
Xavier Clark
There's this thing called "research" writers do. Believe it or not, you actually get a better picture if you ask people about their life experiences.
Kevin Anderson
Oh fuck off, you act like doing proper research isn't an option.
Ian Roberts
He was conceieved as this kind of stereotype, but has since been retooled to a regular guy who attributes his powers as coming from his religion but is just the vigilante of his reservoir.
> " Listen up, colonizers! I am a proud native american womxn of color! I am brown, incredibly proud and protective of my culture and traditions, which are superior to your eurocentric bullshit! So if you create a character for your story, it has to be 100% truthful to my lived experiences, but also completely flattering and positive and needs to be superior to you! "
Which leads to:
> "Hey why is [minority] always such a stereotype? We're just like you guys, you know? Go to the same schools and hangouts watch the same television shows. We're never portrayed as just regular, first world modern people. Why can't people like us be into Star Wars or drinking coffee at Starbucks?"
Haven't seen the first tbqf. I mean there's also weird stereotypes in that modern native americans all still look brown with long black hair. Some look entirely white while their siblings and cousins look less so.
William Green
As a hispanic, these stereotypes are so annoying to watch. When they do it for the brownie points or "diversity" I completely turn off. I don't care about race in what I watch but more good character. I also find it quite funny that it's only mexicans getting represented and never any other hispanic race.
See that's kinda bullshit, because nobody has ever researched a lot of the stereotypes white people are subjected to in media and we eat that shit up.
"Evil old white man billionaire", "Techbro", "Helpless Dad", "Socially awkward around other races guy" "The secret racist""
You think Kenya Barris stopped by the Appalachain mountains or the Rust Belt before working on Blackish or did he just know people were going to eat up that dunking on rednecks and posh upper middle class would work for his audience?
Asher Kelly
I mean real pure blooded Injuns still look that way, every native I know is brown and dark haired, the whiter looking ones tend to look so due to mixed blood.
Brayden Davis
How you redesign him depends heavily on what direction you want to take. Swapping the bare skin for a black body suit and adding a gold belt would get you a perfectly serviceable, if bland, superhero costume, but if you wanted to play up the magical stuff it wouldn't work as well. I personally think the helmet is a very weak point of the design and would need to be redesigned or removed. The feather mantle cape is the best part and shouldn't be touched.
Easton Brooks
CHA KO TAY
Justin Phillips
See this is why we need to pump life back into and reinvent Apache Chief. It’s not like Atom Smasher is doing anything lately, and The Atom rarely (if ever) goes giant. Is Giganta good or evil these days?
You can do research on the culture your trying to represent you know? I mean, some cultures dont mind being portrayed as silly as long as they're heroic. Look at the whole Speedy Gonzales situation. Not to mention, like half the characters in Overwatch are ethnic stereotypes but are loved by people in that region. Reaper is popular with Mexicans despite being a villain. Same with Sombra. Doomfist was designed to be a member of of a particular tribe in Nigeria and people of that tribe say hes accurate, and hes the main villain of the series. As long you you portray them accurately and not a mishmash of different groups, you'll be winning over that particular group, people not in that group dont matter.
Cameron Green
>"Evil old white man billionaire", "Techbro", "Helpless Dad", "Socially awkward around other races guy" "The secret racist"" How are all of those not accurate? I'm not saying that all white guys are those things, but I've met pretty much all of those.
Chase Reed
Marvel's revamp of Red Wolf has potential, but no one really wants anything to do with him. Hes a cowboy from the Cowboy Dimension and he can talk to wolves. For some reason all I can think of is Blade Wolf from Metal gear Revengeance.
Something that people overlook is that cultures are often highly granular, and what might be authentic for one part of the culture might not apply to another part.
Grayson Lewis
My question is is how "researched" are these stereotypes in our media. What is the standard of nuance that minority show runners, comic makers, etc. have to do before they introduce a white character or some slice of "white" culture compared to the opposite.
Just to bring up Black-ish again, the second I see Nicole Sullivan or the characters or the co-workers at the ad agency show up, I already know what they're here to do: show how incredibly smart and different and correct Dre and Bow (and to an extend, black people are) and how clueless and spineless the neighbors are with their children and "the issues of the day", and how tone deaf and useless and snobbish Dre's white peers are.
I don't know, I just think it's funny the hand wringing we do on getting a few certain ethnic groups correct, but when it comes to white people, we get them. open book, nothing we write or have them do will be incorrect.
Nolan Price
> he gets 5 different stereotypes for his race instead of 1 or 2.
lucky
Gabriel Diaz
Someone please post the sequence where he destroys Bullseye with words and also with his hands.
Juan Ramirez
You forgot hippie/stoner, school shooter edgelord, ditzy blonde, evil brit, football captain, nerd+neckbeard (covered by techbro), "Karen" as stand-in for entitled white suburban moms, fundie-christians and there are many, many more, since a good chunk of american media sanitzed itself to be as white as possible: since nearly every role was filled with whites, there's an entire spectrum to choose from.
> Evil white old billionaire Evolved from European nobility. Good chunk inspired by southern oil barons, Ford, even today NRA and co. would rather sell more guns than protect children. > Techbro Evolution from the nerd archetype, but more useful. >Helpless Dad Evolved from the idea that "traditionally" man didn't care for their kids in America and the household was a woman's job. Good chunk of men need to continue to be babied by their partners in order to at least a bit of housework to this day, too. Every insipid comedian goes for "men from mars, women from venus", "my wife is a nag" and "politics! everyone's an idiot" shtick. > socially awkward around other races guy/secret racist Look into a mirror and you might see him, pal
Charles Anderson
You say that like it’s a good thing
Jeremiah Long
He showed up recently in the Avengers as a reserve member. Hopefully it leads to something bigger down the road
