Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

[Law Dog]

The question is What level of stereotyping are you comfortable with in you game.

 

I don't think that anybody is going to disagree that making a villain called Blood Nazi and making him a sadistic killer is going to offend anybody, but how comfortably would you be in your game with concepts or names that bordered on what some folks would classify as racist/sexist/homophobic/ect?

 

Probably nobody would be too awful offended by an Irish character named "Lucky Lass" with luck manipulation and shamrocks on her green costume, but how comfortable would you be with a Mexican character that could shoot out a slippery substance and called himself Greaser?

 

How about an openly gay villain that was what is called in the homosexual community a queen? Some folks will argue that this is bad since all homosexuals aren't this way, but some are. These same folks might argue that making an African-American, or for that matter a person of African decent, a villain is a bad stereotype.

 

The line I had to draw in my game was a guy who wanted to play a hero called the Klansman. Unlike the Klansman from Kingdom of Heroes, this guy was a Klansman as in Ku Klux . . .

He wore a white outfit that was reminicent of the KKK robes and caried a staff that turned into a flaming cross. I told him no (although wouldn't mind using such a character as one of the warped "heroes" that a hero team have to stop from doing something criminal).

 

So, what goes too far for your campaign and do you conciously censor yourself on matters of race or other social identifiers when designing heroes and villains?

[Yamo]

So, what goes too far for your campaign and do you conciously censor yourself on matters of race or other social identifiers when designing heroes and villains?

 

As a guy with some obvious Italian ancestry, I'd love to play a character like Superguido with various bad taste abilities. Just think about it: Mafia hitman Summons! Pasta-based Entangles! Out-of-control chest hair built as Extra Limbs! Man, it would be a riot.

 

I have a sick sense of humor and no real sacred cows, however.

 

Uh, maybe I'm the wrong guy to ask about this...

 

Anyway, it's only a game. If it amuses you and your players, do it. Who cares if someone in the populace at large might not like it? It's all about your fun, and fun is completely subjective.

[winterhawk]

Re: Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

 

Originally posted by Law Dog

The question is What level of stereotyping are you comfortable with in you game...how comfortable would you be with a Mexican character that could shoot out a slippery substance and called himself Greaser?

 

The line I had to draw in my game was a guy who wanted to play a hero called the Klansman. Unlike the Klansman from Kingdom of Heroes, this guy was a Klansman as in Ku Klux . . .

 

Funny you should cite both of these examples. I have an Italian American villain much like the Mexican example called Greaseball. Greaseball is his 'Mob Nickname'. One of the old Mob Bosses in Chicago (I forget which one) was called "the Whop". I consider it more realism than racism.

 

I played in a campaign many years ago with a really well fleshed out background. The WWII hero team included two members, White Wizard and Scarlet Sleuth. Upon the end of the War, Scarlet Sleuth was revealed as African-American. White Wizard, who of course was a KKK member, went ballistic and two men who had watched each other's back throughout the war were now bitter enemies. Again, I feel its more realism than racism.

 

I guess it all depends on the sensitivity of your group. I happen to be the lone Gentile in a group of Jewish gamers. One of them is quite militant, to the point where he always confronts even the most noble German and Arab characters in the game with animosity. The subject is taken very seriously by him and has actually led to some good sessions where he realizes that he himself sometimes is racist in his leanings.

[Law Dog]

Re: Re: Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

 

Originally posted by winterhawk

Funny you should cite both of these examples.

 

I swear, Winterhawk, I'm beginning to think we may be two alternate personalities. First the "Phillip" story and now this.

[winterhawk]

Re: Re: Re: Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

 

Originally posted by Law Dog

I swear, Winterhawk, I'm beginning to think we may be two alternate personalities. First the "Phillip" story and now this.

 

Great minds think alike

[Supreme]

In general I try to keep things to a minimum, which is to say zero. It can be tough though. Racial stereotypes can be subtle things. They aren't just the characters you see, but the characters you don't see. For example, in comic books I can think of one and only one Asian brick: Sumo from "Stormwatch." Similarly, I have a hard time thinking of any Jewish super-heroes. I know there are a few out there like "Sabra" and whatever alias Kitty Pryde is going by these days. Can anyone think of a Jewish brick?

[winterhawk]

Originally posted by Supreme

For example, in comic books I can think of one and only one Asian brick: Sumo from "Stormwatch."

 

Its Fuji

 

Originally posted by Supreme

Similarly, I have a hard time thinking of any Jewish super-heroes. I know there are a few out there like "Sabra" and whatever alias Kitty Pryde is going by these days. Can anyone think of a Jewish brick?

 

Sabra is a brick.

[Law Dog]

What about Atom Smasher (nee Nuklon), who I know is Jewish and I believe Marathon from Strikeforce: Moritori was also.

 

And, of course, in the hearts of Seigel & Shuster, Superman was, too.

[bcholmes]

Re: Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

Originally posted by Law Dog The question is What level of stereotyping are you comfortable with in you game.

Well, I agree with the sentiment that a lot depends on the group that I'm playing with, what their sensitivities and awarenesses are, and how successfully we're able to walk a line between "wry commentary on images that monopolize our media, including comics" and "not very nuanced rehashing of tired stereotypes".

For example, one of the players in my campaign created a character that's a member of the British super-soldier programme. He also has a Hunted: Iraqi Super-Jihad Warriors. Our group tends to be a bunch of leftist, anti-war types but we've somewhat self-consciously played with the amalgam-stereotype of "evil terrorists/supervillains of mass destruction" in some of our recent games. Too much of that could get uncomfortable for us, but, in small doses, it works.

how comfortably would you be in your game with concepts or names that bordered on what some folks would classify as racist/sexist/homophobic/ect?Probably nobody would be too awful offended by an Irish character named "Lucky Lass" with luck manipulation and shamrocks on her green costume...

Although I've not been above dabbling in stereotypes, motivation is pretty important to me. The question I'd ask is why does a GM or player want to use a stereotyped character? What's being said? What's the point of whatever adventure is using that character?

If it's merely a case of a GM making simple choices, then I'd probably get bored or annoyed with the game. If GMs show evidence of understanding some of the issues and histories of the stereotypes they're working with, I can enjoy the stereotyped characters.

(Tangent: as I write this, I'm suddenly thinking about how much I talked about my current campaign as a "Four Colour" supers campaign. Interestingly, the four colour silver age of comics isn't actually what I enjoy anymore. I want nuanced worldviews in campaigns that I'm a part of. Good heroes versus evil villains is just to dull for me. Give me more Authority and less Justice League).

How about an openly gay villain that was what is called in the homosexual community a queen? Some folks will argue that this is bad since all homosexuals aren't this way, but some are.

Well, here's the thing. I think a lot of fun could be had with a drag queen superhero. You could have the Log Cabin Republicans condeming her for presenting the gay/lesbian community in a bad light. You could have trans activist groups rallying behind her. There may even be a telling incident in which Captain Awesome declines to be at an award ceremony with her. (Is Captain Awesome secretly a 'phobe?). The things that I find fun about those situations is playing with familiarity. There's deliberate send-up of real world dynamics that I'm familiar with. Very familiar with.

On the other hand, none of the people that I know who have that familiarity would ever refer to gays and lesbians as "homosexuals". When a potential GM refers to the "homosexual community", I take that as a hint that perhaps the GM in question doesn't have first-hand awareness of the issues around the representation and isn't likely to be conscious of the boundary between "playing with representation" and "further entrenching tired old images". And if that hint proved correct, I'd probably bow out of the game.

These same folks might argue that making an African-American, or for that matter a person of African decent, a villain is a bad stereotype.

First up, I can see a lot of non-stereotyping ways to use people of colour as villains: how often has the evil genius mastermind been black, for example?

Another intesting point to ask might be, "are all the black people who show up in the campaign villains?" If so, why is that?

(Theorists like Stuart Hall, who wrote about race representation issues, talked a lot in the eighties and nineties about how "substituting a new stereotype" became just as restrictive. When civil rights started promoting images of the "Proud African Warrior" in place of the "Comical Black Houseservant", that new stereotype became just as much a burden, even if it was, in some lights, a "positive" stereotype. Diversity of images is important)

The line I had to draw in my game was a guy who wanted to play a hero called the Klansman. Unlike the Klansman from Kingdom of Heroes, this guy was a Klansman as in Ku Klux . . .

<nod> Without knowing much about context, that sounds like the player was making a choice I wouldn't have been very comfortable with, either.

So, what goes too far for your campaign and do you conciously censor yourself on matters of race or other social identifiers when designing heroes and villains?

In my books, "too far" is "my players aren't comfortable". Also, in my books "too far" is "I have far too little awareness of the meanings behind these stereotypes." There are things I steer away from, but I don't call that "censoring".

[Law Dog]

I can definitely see where being overly sensitive to PC can cause as many problems as being blantantly racist. In fact, since somebody found seasbaby's superfriends site yesterday ( http://www.seanbaby.com/ ), you can see how by trying to include some diversity, they actually made a mockery of their newly created heroes. Black Vulcan (in the long standing tradition of putting Black before the name of an African-America hero), Apache Chief (was he really a chief?), Samurai (I wasn't aware the wind powers and invisibility were samurai powers, always though of that more along the lines of mystical ninjas), and El Dorado (did he have a Midas touch that he never revealed?), on top of being poorly named, they were insulting. Of course all the characters were pretty stupid on the show.

What is pretty amusing is the original core group was pretty diverse. They had two white, New Jersey males (Batman & Robin), A Kryptonian raised in Kansas (Supes may have looked Caucasian, but he is an alien), A half-Atlantian from Atlantis (Fishman) and Wonder Woman was a clay statue imbued with life and raise in a quasi-Greek fashion on Paradise Island. We're not just talking racially diverse, we're talking species and culturally diverse.

[Acroyear]

Since my group is composed of great ethnic and theological variety... we're positively evil when it comes to goofing on racial stereotypes. Sometimes it's good to let off some steam in game.

 

In one golden age campaign we had a kung fu master chef (with an Uncle Sam style striped chef hat) named "Chop Chop." Yes, he was asian and used cleavers, too. Played by... a chinese guy. Hey, Chop Chop! "I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!"

 

We had a rampaging Moses (yes, that Moses) played by a jewish fellow. Anyone even remotely egyptian seeming or german saw his wrath...and everyone not jewish second (remember, Moses was the guy who made his tribe cast out their wives and children if they weren't 100% jewish at one time).

 

We had an electricity controlling mutant hassidic (sp? way off, I'm sure) jewish rabbi once... In fact, I only recall the electricty part because his name was Killawatt (sic).

 

We had a human torch style guy named "the Flamer" who was quite a bit femme. "I'll never tell" he would sometimes say.

 

I once played a Blaxploitation version of Superman named "Star Brother." (one of his disads was Hassled: 14- by The Man). He had a Beppo, too... an energy monkey/Gleek named Star Simian. He was a funk junky and talked like the old Luke Cage.

 

The hispanic fellow in our group played a gnome named Francisco Espana... and wore a sombrero (complete with dingle-balls). He was a short thief and rather similar to Cheech Marin.

 

Mostly when religion comes up, there is either atheist, catholic, or buddhist types. And that only comes up when you face demons or whatnot.

 

It's mostly parody, though. Making fun of stereotypes we've either lived with or been accused of having. They never really last long, just when the campaign takes a humorous turn for a while. Typically, it only works when you don't have a Captain Whitebread around and, of course, group comfort levels. We're kind of beyond taboos...

[Law Dog]

Originally posted by Acroyear

 

It's mostly parody, though. Making fun of stereotypes we've either lived with or been accused of having. They never really last long, just when the campaign takes a humorous turn for a while. Typically, it only works when you don't have a Captain Whitebread around and, of course, group comfort levels. We're kind of beyond taboos...

 

Thanks for all that campaign goodness, Acroyear. I'm wondering do you ever fear that the campaign will accidentally tip too far into humor when such characters arrive ala The Savage Dragon (which I know somebody will disagree with, but to me, that comic is just one overly long joke) or past that into the land of The Tick?

[Law Dog]

Let me share some of my ventures into what may be considered getting close to the line by some (and perhaps snickered at by many as being rather timid).

 

One of my 70's villains was Kung-Fu Smith. The name is a blantent swipe at Black Belt Jones http://us.imdb.com/Title?0071221 which stared Jim Kelly who was also in Enter the Dragon. It was classic Blaxploitation. He was basically an African-American martial artist with an attitude. His partner was Disco Pirate (who was Caucausian) and had an odd mixure of Disco and Pirate accoutrements including his vibrocutlass. Needless to say, both were basically street level villains.

 

I have a Chinese villain from the 80's named the Collective. Duplication with shrinking and a multipower to simulate some very interesting effects(He falls apart into a hundred little martial artists).

 

I have a group of Mormon based villains named after verses in the Book of Mormon. I stole the idea from Bill Willingham who had a televangelist create a team of "heroes" in the Elementals universe based on the same same concept using the Bible. This one fit in really well with the "Avatar" concept that my game was based around with extra-dimensional Patrons choosing human representatives.

 

I had a group of college students in an accident at a physics lab gain powers and call themselves rather tongue-in-cheekly "The Misfits of Physics". I don't remember them all, but one of them could cause matter to disassociate along it's molecular faults. I called her Cleavage, and of course, she had a large chest. The only other team memeber I can remember is Steadfast, who could cause matter to come to rest in relation to other matter.

 

Well, those are my faux pas.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by Law Dog What is pretty amusing is the original core group was pretty diverse. They had two white, New Jersey males (Batman & Robin), A Kryptonian raised in Kansas (Supes may have looked Caucasian, but he is an alien), A half-Atlantian from Atlantis (Fishman) and Wonder Woman was a clay statue imbued with life and raise in a quasi-Greek fashion on Paradise Island. We're not just talking racially diverse, we're talking species and culturally diverse.

I guess my take on this is that even if the original super-friends come from different places, they all pretty much espoused the same beliefs. Which is why, I think, those superfriends weren't diverse at all.

They didn't really have differences of opinions on anything. They were, in essence, completely homogeneous in terms of values and beliefs. I mean, was there anything about Wonder Woman that came out on the show that had anything to do with her having a Greek background?

Now, I'll also say that Apache Chief and Black Vulcan didn't really help matters, except to make non-white heroes visible. It was never as if their different ethnic background ever played any role in any of the stories. And they were pretty much stage dressing, in terms of actually doing anything.

[Acroyear]

Originally posted by Law Dog

Thanks for all that campaign goodness, Acroyear. I'm wondering do you ever fear that the campaign will accidentally tip too far into humor when such characters arrive ala The Savage Dragon (which I know somebody will disagree with, but to me, that comic is just one overly long joke) or past that into the land of The Tick?

 

Well, we've had the same game world since, like, '82 so we just all kind of start swaying, really, as we need it. Humor, dead serious, downright bloodthirsty, four color... depends on the team make-up at the time and the mood everyone is in.

 

It's never really been a concern that I know of. We have characters fall, die, deal with long running gags (usually because of something odd that happens and the media won't drop it)... I mean, we once had a big fat guy in tights with beer powers... had one guy that literally attempted to eat (and sometimes succeeded) enemies he had defeated.

 

We're atypical in that our games run for a long time. Many gamers today seem to rarely even reach a single year with a campaign. So rather than just changing games/campaigns... we sway as needed. I mean, it's the same Martian Manhunter who craved Oreos & fought intergalactic planet fashion consultants as stands off against world threats today.

[Zaratustra]

What is pretty amusing is the original core group was pretty diverse. They had two white, New Jersey males (Batman & Robin), A Kryptonian raised in Kansas (Supes may have looked Caucasian, but he is an alien), A half-Atlantian from Atlantis (Fishman) and Wonder Woman was a clay statue imbued with life and raise in a quasi-Greek fashion on Paradise Island. We're not just talking racially diverse, we're talking species and culturally diverse.

 

And all of them as white as the driven snow.

 

It is a well-known fact that only US Caucasian heroes can be actually aliens or elementals or Earth born angels or whatever; All foreign or minority heroes must be expressions of that country or minority. Or -other- country, depending on the writer (Champions Universe has a Brazilian hero called EL DORADO? Isn't that Colombian last I checked?)

[Acroyear]

Some ramblings...

 

Greeks aren't necessarily considered "white" to many people (ala Wonder Woman). She is colored as such, though... more mass appeal. $ always wins.

 

Martian Manhunter usually takes the roles of a white guy...

 

One must also consider the era in which these characters were created. Old money in the US in the 1930's? Not going to be asian or black. Kind of hard to be "old money" now and not be of caucasian persuasion (it's often said Batman must be catholic, too... no one else could carry such guilt around).

 

Aquaman should be more pale, imo, needing less pigment in his skin to protect him from the sun... but, at least in more modern tales, he was once outcast for his looks as a cursed infant.

 

Superman, too, comes from a race (again, more modern stories) that covers itself more from the elements (for a long, long time) and, again, is probably going to be a more "pale" species (and who knows what they really look like under our kind of lighting... their sun is RED). His flesh likely adjusted to its current hue in response to exposure to our light since an infant.

 

As for cultural characters... most other countries have much deeper and ancient cultures than the US which, in comparison, is pretty young, and has less a sense of ancient legends and such. It does compare to China. Also, other countries, on average, can fairly be said to be a little less diverse... Of the US angle, most of them seem all the more silly... Paul Bunyan & Johnny Appleseed?

 

I once had a tall tale based character... the strength of Paul Bunyan, the whirlwind riding of Pecos Bill, etc... he had a big blue Harley he called "Babe"

 

Even UK supers very often tend to have a basis in their legends and lore... druids, knights, wizards, dragons...

 

Why the US bent to most characters? Well, that's where they are made. Who buys em? Same folks. It's proven time and time again that many non-white characters don't sell very well. I tend to chalk that up to the unusual need for the long story arcs in which, say, a black character must delve deep into what it means to BE black. You don't see white folks doing that (in fact, I know a black guy who stopped buying Cage as soon as that started up... he thought it was ridiculous). That alienates readers... it might have a message, but it's not what you buy superhero comics for. Interesting now and then "what about the black skins, Green Lantern, man?!" but lengthy story arcs hurt... But they do it. Cage did. John Stewart did in Mosaic. Etc.

 

In Japan, most of their heroes are japense (or aliens posing as japanese). Etc. Can't fault them for that. It would be like faulting China for producing most of their music in their own language.

[Kevin Scrivner]

Ethnic stereotyping was never an issue in my campaigns. Most of us were white and Protestant, even the trio of brothers who had Native American grandparents. Group members occasionally ran an Indian mystic character, lots of martial artists with faux Asian names (but the characters themselves weren't necessarily Asian), and I once ran a character who was a black former coal miner with seismic powers. Since most of my players were combat monsters and power gamers, they never bothered to explore the man or woman behind the cowl, so racial or ethnic angst never came up. Even if the character had been non-Caucasian it wouldn't have mattered.

 

That said, I think the inability to have villains of color itself is racist. People of all races and cultures have their saints and sinners, their geniuses and dummies. If we're really interested in diversity, why not have a nasty henchman who happens to be black as well as the shining Icon-variety black Superman? What would a pulp campaign be without Fu Manchu? After all, he's an equal opportunity employer and the fiend who created supervillainy. You wouldn't consider a GM anti-Romanian because he used Dracula as a villain. Why is a Chinese mastermind wrong?

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Re: Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

 

Originally posted by bcholmes

Interestingly, the four colour silver age of comics isn't actually what I enjoy anymore. I want nuanced worldviews in campaigns that I'm a part of. Good heroes versus evil villains is just to dull for me. Give me more Authority and less Justice League).

Subtlety is not something I associate with the Authority. It was a just a left wing Justice League with the gore amped up to ten. And the ass rapings. My God, the ass rapings! What was it up to by the end? One per issue?

 

The Authority was totally black and white. It's just the bad guys were Bill Clinton, governments, etc in addition to the usual suspects.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by Law Dog

What is pretty amusing is the original core group was pretty diverse. They had two white, New Jersey males (Batman & Robin), A Kryptonian raised in Kansas (Supes may have looked Caucasian, but he is an alien), A half-Atlantian from Atlantis (Fishman) and Wonder Woman was a clay statue imbued with life and raise in a quasi-Greek fashion on Paradise Island. We're not just talking racially diverse, we're talking species and culturally diverse.

The Justice League of America: It's OK to be an alien, provided you're a white alien.

[Acroyear]

Originally posted by Doug McCrae

The Justice League of America: It's OK to be an alien, provided you're a white alien.

 

...unless you're martian. Then being white means you're evil

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by Kevin Scrivner

That said, I think the inability to have villains of color itself is racist. People of all races and cultures have their saints and sinners, their geniuses and dummies. If we're really interested in diversity, why not have a nasty henchman who happens to be black as well as the shining Icon-variety black Superman? What would a pulp campaign be without Fu Manchu? After all, he's an equal opportunity employer and the fiend who created supervillainy. You wouldn't consider a GM anti-Romanian because he used Dracula as a villain. Why is a Chinese mastermind wrong?

In the comic books, I think asians tend to be bad guys - Yellow Claw, Mandarin - while blacks are good guys. Some of it goes back to the Yellow Peril concept. The WW2 Golden Age comics were completely racist towards the Japanese. Japs got worse treatment than Germans, I think, presumably because of Pearl Harbour.

[dbsousa]

Originally posted by Supreme

Can anyone think of a Jewish brick?

Isn't the Thing Jewish? I heard on NPR that they retconned him, and started playing up the Golem imagery...

[bcholmes]

Re: Re: Re: Ethnic stereotyping in heroes and villains

Originally posted by Doug McCrae Subtlety is not something I associate with the Authority. It was a just a left wing Justice League with the gore amped up to ten.

I don't think they were subtle, per se. I thought that the book gave us shadings of goodness and evilness that the Justice League lacked. I thought, for example, that The Authority dabbled in some pretty interesting moral quandaries. What does it mean when extremely powerful superheroes start setting foreign policy? What is the difference between evil maniacal super villains and evil maniacal world leaders? Who watches the watchers? How far is one willing to go to make the world a better place, and what if the world resents you for doing so?

When The Authority used the same tools as politicians to win over public perception (e.g. TV appearances, magazine articles, etc.), was there something slightly scary about that? Was it a good thing or a bad thing that one of the solutions to dealing with the evil supervillain-creating geneticists was to give him a job? Had they gone too far with their willingness to kill their enemies?

I thought that the book had a very interesting treatment of all these questions.

And the ass rapings. My God, the ass rapings! What was it up to by the end? One per issue?

<laugh> Yeah, it was a bit much at times.

[Armitage]

Originally posted by dbsousa

Isn't the Thing Jewish? I heard on NPR that they retconned him, and started playing up the Golem imagery...

 

Yes. In FF#56 (485) they revealed that the Thing was raised Jewish but lost his faith as a child after his brother died.

 

And in response to the question that inspired this, Doc Samson is Jewish, as is Sasquatch from Alpha Flight.