Marvel is set to release fifty comic book covers based on the album art of some of hip-hops most influential albums. And by doing so they are creating a false relationship between hip-hop culture and comic book industry. When in fact Marvel comics has been more racist toward the African American community than it wants anyone to believe since I started reading comics at the age of seven.
In October 2015 Marvel will begin releasing a bevy of comics as a part of a reboot of their universe with covers that supposedly pay homage to various hip-hop albums. The problem I and others have with this campaign is the fact the historically Marvel has had only a handful characters of color who have played a prominent role in their universe. Most notably are Storm, Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Blade (despite the fact that this character is the beginning of the Marvel cinematic universe). However, the editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso says “For years, Marvel Comics and hip-hop culture have been engaged in an ongoing dialog,” in an article with BBC News. But I would think that in order to have a dialogue with hip-hop you would have to have a dialogue with black community that spawned one of the most popular forms of American music that has a worldwide audience.
In the 1990s when both hip-hop music and comics enjoyed a veritable heyday with respect to sales (each selling millions of units) and some say a variety of content, there was a cry from the African American community and women for more diversity in its characters. DC Comics responded with a partnership with Milestone Comics headed by such luminaries as the now deceased Dwayne McDuffie, which lead to the animated TV series Static Shock, but even here the characters were relegated to a segregated albeit gentrified section of their DC universe. The Static Shock character was rendered nearly toothless from its original Static superhero persona.
During this same era a superhero team called the X-Men became very popular and also became a Saturday morning animated series. What was interesting about this group of mutants, as they were labeled, was the social commentary that was being made about human differences. Here you have a group of humans born with great gifts and wanting to help and be a part of society yet being shunned and hated by the very people they are trying to help. Sounds familiar? Well it should being that the characters were created in 1960s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Stan Lee later discusses his thoughts concerning their creation, “ … it occurred to me that instead of them just being heroes that everybody admired, what if I made other people fear and suspect and actually hate them … it was a good metaphor for what was happening with the civil rights movement in the country at that time.” So as you read this comic you can see that the philosophies of the two leaders of the mutants, Professor Xavier mirrored those of Dr. King and Magneto’s those of Malcolm X.
Thus, Marvel co-opted African Americans contributions to the Civil Rights movement, without improving the level of diversity in the characters that are an allegory to the plight of African American people in the United States. Thus, they have adopted a narrative without paying appropriate homage to the culture it comes from and even monetizing its struggle without being inclusive of the black community from which hip-hop music and culture was spawned. So when Mr. Alonso speaks of an “on-going dialog” the conversation appears to be more of a monologue.
In 2011 Miles Morales was introduced as the new Spider-Man within the Ultimate Universe. He was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli as a result of seeing the actor Donald Glover sport Spider-Man pajamas on the TV sitcom series Community. There had been previous discussion of such a character in the universe back in 2008 when Barack Obama won his first presidential election. However, despite the overwhelming support for the character, in e-mails disclosed by WikiLeaks, Sony Entertainment and Marvel agreed contractually in 2011 that Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, can neither be Black nor of same-sex orientation. So in the Marvel cinematic universe the hero must appeal to white male Republicans. Now that is surely going to garner viewers from the hip-hop community. Additionally, in 2011 all of the writers and artist deemed as the architects of the Marvel universe were white males. So this legacy of love between Marvel and the black community via hip-hop seems to be fading fast.
It is clear that Marvel’s move to publish these fifty hip-hop covers paying homage to hip-hop music is no more than a marketing scheme to garner black dollars and placate an audience it has in many cases purposely left out of its universe as main characters. This cultural appropriation is symptomatic of institutionalized racism that says to the minority that you don’t contribute anything of substance to society and when you do contribute it isn’t important enough to invite you to the table to share despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Although there are black artists drawing the covers, the leadership of the company, writing the comics, and drawing art for the larger titles is off limits to a diverse group of creators.
BIO
Orlando Taylor is an IT professional in Northern California for Trinchero Family Estates, one of the largest wineries in the country. He has a degree in Mathematics from Truman State University and is originally from St. Louis, Missouri currently residing in Stockton, CA. He has been reading comics since he was seven and wanting to be involved with comics and eventually film and see his own comic stories come alive in various media formats. This prompted him to create stories that are very compelling with characters that are more reflective of the growing diversity in the United States and internationally. He is a partner in a production company called Kuumba Concepts, LLC, that is working on several projects in various media formats. Their YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT7PtSCbaKPl-gV84Yce6Qg, and the website can be reached at www.kuumbaconcepts.com
Kuumba Concepts, LLC
Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area, CA
www.kuumbaconcepts.com
In October 2015 Marvel will begin releasing a bevy of comics as a part of a reboot of their universe with covers that supposedly pay homage to various hip-hop albums. The problem I and others have with this campaign is the fact the historically Marvel has had only a handful characters of color who have played a prominent role in their universe. Most notably are Storm, Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Blade (despite the fact that this character is the beginning of the Marvel cinematic universe). However, the editor-in-chief, Axel Alonso says “For years, Marvel Comics and hip-hop culture have been engaged in an ongoing dialog,” in an article with BBC News. But I would think that in order to have a dialogue with hip-hop you would have to have a dialogue with black community that spawned one of the most popular forms of American music that has a worldwide audience.
In the 1990s when both hip-hop music and comics enjoyed a veritable heyday with respect to sales (each selling millions of units) and some say a variety of content, there was a cry from the African American community and women for more diversity in its characters. DC Comics responded with a partnership with Milestone Comics headed by such luminaries as the now deceased Dwayne McDuffie, which lead to the animated TV series Static Shock, but even here the characters were relegated to a segregated albeit gentrified section of their DC universe. The Static Shock character was rendered nearly toothless from its original Static superhero persona.During this same era a superhero team called the X-Men became very popular and also became a Saturday morning animated series. What was interesting about this group of mutants, as they were labeled, was the social commentary that was being made about human differences. Here you have a group of humans born with great gifts and wanting to help and be a part of society yet being shunned and hated by the very people they are trying to help. Sounds familiar? Well it should being that the characters were created in 1960s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Stan Lee later discusses his thoughts concerning their creation, “ … it occurred to me that instead of them just being heroes that everybody admired, what if I made other people fear and suspect and actually hate them … it was a good metaphor for what was happening with the civil rights movement in the country at that time.” So as you read this comic you can see that the philosophies of the two leaders of the mutants, Professor Xavier mirrored those of Dr. King and Magneto’s those of Malcolm X.
Thus, Marvel co-opted African Americans contributions to the Civil Rights movement, without improving the level of diversity in the characters that are an allegory to the plight of African American people in the United States. Thus, they have adopted a narrative without paying appropriate homage to the culture it comes from and even monetizing its struggle without being inclusive of the black community from which hip-hop music and culture was spawned. So when Mr. Alonso speaks of an “on-going dialog” the conversation appears to be more of a monologue.
In 2011 Miles Morales was introduced as the new Spider-Man within the Ultimate Universe. He was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli as a result of seeing the actor Donald Glover sport Spider-Man pajamas on the TV sitcom series Community. There had been previous discussion of such a character in the universe back in 2008 when Barack Obama won his first presidential election. However, despite the overwhelming support for the character, in e-mails disclosed by WikiLeaks, Sony Entertainment and Marvel agreed contractually in 2011 that Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, can neither be Black nor of same-sex orientation. So in the Marvel cinematic universe the hero must appeal to white male Republicans. Now that is surely going to garner viewers from the hip-hop community. Additionally, in 2011 all of the writers and artist deemed as the architects of the Marvel universe were white males. So this legacy of love between Marvel and the black community via hip-hop seems to be fading fast.
It is clear that Marvel’s move to publish these fifty hip-hop covers paying homage to hip-hop music is no more than a marketing scheme to garner black dollars and placate an audience it has in many cases purposely left out of its universe as main characters. This cultural appropriation is symptomatic of institutionalized racism that says to the minority that you don’t contribute anything of substance to society and when you do contribute it isn’t important enough to invite you to the table to share despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Although there are black artists drawing the covers, the leadership of the company, writing the comics, and drawing art for the larger titles is off limits to a diverse group of creators.
BIO
Orlando Taylor is an IT professional in Northern California for Trinchero Family Estates, one of the largest wineries in the country. He has a degree in Mathematics from Truman State University and is originally from St. Louis, Missouri currently residing in Stockton, CA. He has been reading comics since he was seven and wanting to be involved with comics and eventually film and see his own comic stories come alive in various media formats. This prompted him to create stories that are very compelling with characters that are more reflective of the growing diversity in the United States and internationally. He is a partner in a production company called Kuumba Concepts, LLC, that is working on several projects in various media formats. Their YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT7PtSCbaKPl-gV84Yce6Qg, and the website can be reached at www.kuumbaconcepts.com
Kuumba Concepts, LLC
Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area, CA
www.kuumbaconcepts.com
Substantively I agree whole heartedly. As a long time Stan Lee fan, I've always seen him as a fairly sympathetic figure to the social, racial, economic issues of the day. That being said, it does not surprise me that Sony has put some contractual road blocks in place to keep Marvel from being too progressive. I believe Marvel could do better, but I'm happy about what they have and are doing. After all this is the country where people got pissed at a breakfast cereal for showing a mixed race family.
ReplyDeleteNothing about the covers screams cultural appropriation in the first place. Honestly a lot of the stuff in this article is copy and paste from what i've read elsewhere. Its a flimsy argument that has nothing to back it up.
ReplyDeleteThe you do not know the definition of cultural appropriation so let me help you out - "the adoption or use of elements of one culture by a member or members of a different culture.Cultural appropriation may eventually lead to the imitating group being seen as the new face of said cultural practices." The the "copy and paste" of sited information happens a LOT in in Op Ed pieces to show you citing information as well as giving places where people can read what you have that backs up ones opinion. So I take offense to your assertion that I am plagiarizing someone's work without proper acknowledgment. Others have comment on this topic but I have not seen to the depth and specific I elicit here. So if it is so "flimsy" where is the information as you to "back it up."
DeleteConsidering that everybody screams "Cultural Appropriation", again there's nothing about the covers that supports it. The covers are an homage to those classic hip-hop covers. Far as my information on backing it up, well here you go: http://www.movietrailerreviews.net/index.php/2015/07/16/editorial/marvels-hip-hop-covers-are-not-cultural-appropriation/
ReplyDeleteThat's opinion not facts. And there are many other people including blacks artist who agree with me both black and white. So I am good and the piece stands as it is and is solid and full gem for thought. I am not going to discuss it further with you because I know what I know and I am informed by facts and the experiences of black people in this country and the black artists relationships with the major comic publishers...period.
DeleteThe world doesn't need a black spiderman anymore than they need a white Luke Cage.
ReplyDelete