Well, If You Hold A Gun To My Head...?

Edited September 18*

Kelly Thompson wrote a recent article regarding the Batwoman situation where its writers Williams and Blackman left due to editorial issues.  She spoke about how no matter how upset readers have been about DC's decisions from this change of writers, to its announcement that its characters would not get to be happy, DC and Dan Didio have learned that we won't actually stop reading.  We can throw a fit, posts memes, write blogs, scream and shout, but it doesn't stop us from picking up another issue and certainly not enough numbers to make it matter. 

She went on to say that you can't blame the readers because the readers don't want to punish characters like Batwoman because of something that has nothing to do with her.  After all, it has taken a very long time for readers to have an openly gay hero let alone a female hero, have their own title book.  Do you protest the changes by not buying the comic anymore and thereby risk losing that comic book?

Its an interesting question and it made me think about the whole idea of minorities as characters in media as a whole.


Being Jewish, I have seen people of the same religion depicted certain ways on television and in movies and even in comic books.  For the most part, I could not and did not relate to those portrayals.  Yes, I was happy to see them because it made me feel like people noticed Jews existed, though I'll be honest here, I grew up not really feeling ignored either.  I was not a child who felt left out at the 'Christmas' pageant because there was no Chanukah song.  I was happy to be singing happy songs with my friends and cutting out snowflakes.  I went to the mall and spoke to the cheap animatronic reindeer at the mall and yeah, I think I sat on Santa's lap probably and I watched Charlie Brown's Christmas special and all the other ones.  And after all that, I lit the candles of the menorah and said my prayers and we had our gifts and we ate whatever greasy food was prepared for dinner.  I didn't feel left out or excluded all that often.  I was fairly comfortable with my Judaism and how we celebrated the holidays and yeah, I wished we decorated more like my non-Jewish friends, but only because it was pretty, not because I wanted to celebrate Christmas.

Having said that, I will say that the Jewish families I saw in media seemed rather… well… pointless or not really characters to relate to.  Let me explain that.

yeah.... I know no one like these people.

See, the Jews were generally stereotypes: So over the top Jewish with their New Yawk accents they might as well have worn a bagel as a yarmulke (and generally portrayed as the old Jews who were someone's grandparents or neighbors) and worn woven lox shirts, they used more as a joke or to help with a punchline than to be fully developed characters - maybe sometimes they were there to help teach a lesson to the non-Jewish people.  An example of that is Fran Fine from "The Nanny" and her family which was a definite caricature of that type of Jew.  The other portrayal was the ultra orthodox, the Hasidic, which more people recognize as those Jews with the long beards and wearing all black.  Again, they are presented to teach the non-Jewish characters about Judaism and about people being different and respecting another way of life.  The other side of that are the Jews who might as well not be Jewish except they have a sort of Jewish last name.  The best example of this is Monica and Ross Geller from Friends.  Even Willow Rosenberg from Buffy, who was a great character...  But what was the point of saying she was Jewish?  Especially when seeing what happened to her character.  There is no point to these people being called Jewish except to have them act a certain way… maybe a certain 'Jewish' way, of course that can just be interchanged with being 'A New Yorker'.  Maybe it is a claim of diversity in cast but these characters never celebrate a Jewish holiday except maybe Chanukah and probably because that's the only holiday most non-Jews know exists and only because they see blue and white things on a shelf among the Christmas ornaments during the holidays at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  These characters talk about eating bacon and having milkshakes and hamburgers (not Kosher) and basically live as a non-Jew.  Also, almost all the Jews in whatever media scenario are Ashkenazi (meaning descended from Central or Eastern Europe instead of being Sephardim which are Jews descended from the Middle East). 

This is a great overview in TV Tropes: Here

None of these people represented me.  A Jewish girl who grew up in New Jersey (I don't have a Joisey accent) with an Ashkenazi mother and a Sephardic father (we followed mostly Sephardic traditions), who were not well to do upper class, who didn't have doctors and lawyers everywhere in the family tree and who lived a sort of normal life style while celebrating the holidays and traditions of our ancestors. 

So what does this have to do with the Batwoman comic?  I'll tell you…

Should we be happy with whatever representation of minority we get? 

As a minority, should I just be happy that there are Jewish characters like Kitty Pryde and Joel Fleishman (Northern Exposure) and shut up and support them no matter what?  Should I keep watching the shows and keep buying the comic just because there is a minority that represents me?  Even if I'm not happy with the portrayal?  Is it my responsibility to support these characters regardless of my feelings of the company behind them or the way they behave?

I'm not a lesbian, but I can see how having a gay lead character with a monthly title would be something I would be happy about.  I'm happy as a woman that a female super hero has her own title when there are so few of them - and fewer written well.  But when the company that makes that comic is doing things that I don't like, am I obligated to continue supporting that title simply to hold on to the fact that it is a character that somehow represents me or ideas I support?  Should I go out an buy Wonder Woman comics, even though I'm angered by how they changed the history of the Amazons from peace loving, strong women to rapists and murders of sailors just because it is still a female comic lead? 

This isn't just an issue in comics.  I know there are many complaints about movies and television shows that lack minorities and the response back is usually that those films don't bring in the numbers to make them viable.  I look at a movie like Blade (featuring a black superhero) and that did pretty respectable numbers… the later ones didn't fair as well, but part of that was poor story and Wesley Snipes apparently being high most of the time in the third one.  Does that mean that when a movie like "Because I Said So" comes out and the family is (supposedly) Jewish, I have to go pay money to go watch it?  Is every African American supposed to go see every Tyler Perry film because it has people of color?  Are we supposed to put money towards anything that has a minority in it just because it does?  Are we beholden to this?  The companies may interpret our refusal to do so as a reflection on the minority cast and characters, when in fact, the product just might suck - or the readers/viewers are unhappy with the company or people involved in the production.  A perfect example would be 'Ender's Game' written by the vocally anti-gay rights Orson Scott Card.  People are planning on boycotting it simply because of him - and may do so of his writing run on Superman.  Granted, neither 'Ender's Game' or Superman are dealing with minority characters but if the movie bombs it won't be because it was a Sci-fi film. 

But back to my point…

If we are unhappy with how a story is going or how the company is handling things, are we obligated to suck it up and say, "Well, at least we got a lesbian character as comic book title".  I don't know the answer to that question honestly.  Each of us have to decide how we handle it. But I do know that I, like others, are held hostage by the situation.  If people decided to stop buying Batwoman, DC would probably not respond by changing their actions or policies, rather, they would discontinue the comic voicing drops in sales as the reason.  Then all the readers lose out.  Its the same way movie companies don't put effort into having more minorities in their movies as leads because they can claim they won't get a return on the investment (One company used the failed movie Sucker Punch where women were lead characters as a reason that female character lead movies weren't getting green lit: "Because they weren't viable" This of course is completely ignoring the success of The Hunger Games which featured a strong female lead character).  Yeah, if you stick a gun to my head like that, I might suck up a lot to not lose something that represents my interest, just so it exists. 

If there were more good, well written LGBT characters, female characters, people of color, and/or different nationalities out there in the media, this obviously wouldn't be a discussion to worry about.  Losing a comic book like Batwoman might be sad, but there would be other characters and sources to turn to in her place.  But looking around, we all know that isn't the case. There is a limit to those types of characters in all media, especially strong, well written and well rounded ones.

So what are we to do?

The only answer I can think of to the situation is for those of us that aren't being represented, is to get into the industries: The changes have to come from within.  When you yell at the companies making these decisions, you hit the wall, but when you are in those companies, its easier to put cracks in that wall and knock it down.  Or we just wait for a regime change which has happened and will happen.  Times change and attitudes change and so while we may not get the characters we want now, perhaps in the future it will happen. 

Till then I will be stuck with what I can get and left to feel grateful there is a minority in any media format around me while trying not to wince too much…  Oy...

* Here is a link to a very interesting overview of the current DC situation which is rather clear and concise on what is going on there.