User blog:Nausiated/Race and Racism in Marvel Comics - From World War II to 9/11

So I've been spending the past few months going through a number of old Timely Comics from the 1940's and been updating profiles and what not.. And it's absolutely fascinating -- from a historical context -- the issues of race and (potentially) full out racism in the comics from this era.

As a whole, Marvel Comics -- since the 1960's -- has been much on the side of civil rights. Racial and cultural diversity, are viewed with respect. No one group is discriminated against in a Marvel Comics, unless for narrative, and usually the perpetrators are the villains of the tale.

But the 1940s were an interesting time. By the standards today, a lot of issues, namely characters such as Whitewash Jones are considered offensive. But in a historical context, that sort of thing was common place. It's interesting to note, that in the majority of cases, the writers of the time weren't really racist, just down right ignorant of other cultures.

I would have to say that the only time I've read anything downright racist is reading anything involving the Japanese during World War II. Historically, post Pearl Harbor, you can understand how many Americans were completely outraged by those attacks, and it comes out in these writings. America stood idly by during the war until the Japanese came out and attacked. It was a shock to the greater public. I think the only time in recent history America has been hit in the same way was on 9/11. Much in the same was as in the early 1940s with the Japanese, the early 2000's saw a lot of villains cropping out of the woodwork that were Muslim extremists or Middle Eastern Terrorists.

But there is an interesting difference between the two eras that I find fascinating because as they are similar they were also vastly different in one regard: After Pearl Harbor, the depiction of Japanese characters was that they were all seen as evil (at least until after the surrender of Japan at the close of World War II), versus the early 2000's after September 11th. Sure Captain America was going out and beating up terrorists, but Marvel also took some great pains to point out that not every Middle Eastern person, or Muslim was a radical extremist. Whereas outrage and ignorance ignited the downright mockery of the Japanese in World War II, I think 9/11 outraged Americans in a similar fashion -- however, we are living in a time where multiculturalism is more of a commonality. Certainly there were those who wanted to paint Muslims with the same brush, but I think that it also opened up a -- somewhat morbid -- fascination with the Middle East. The cultural melting pot of American society had created a a mixed culture in which the Middle East was no longer seen as the place where boogie men like the Ayatollah and Saddam Hussein lived -- a place where CNN showed night vision images of bombings and so on -- but as a culturally diverse region of the world that fascinated us.

So instead of creating characters like Joe American Arab Smasher, the writers at Marvel made a distinction between extremists and the region in which they came. There are diverse and popular Muslim characters in the Marvel Universe, whereas trailing back to the 1940s, Japanese characters were mockeries and racial stereotypes.

I think from a historical context America is no stranger to home grown terrorism. People like Timmothy McVeigh, and wacko cults like the Dividians from Waco, Texas -- Hell, the KKK -- are parts of the dark sides of American society -- which for the most part were either non-existent or down right ignored in American society of the 1940s (remember this is a good 25-30 years before the height of the civil rights movement).

Anyhow... It's all very fascinating. As a Canadian, I find it fascinating anyway. Which, for those of you who are not really too up with Canadian history -- despite the "All Canadians are nice" stereotype we have our dark underbellies. Much like American colonists, our ancestors pretty much swallowed up the land from the native population and shuffled them off to reservations and so on.. The British and the French battled it out for supremacy.. the Brits won.. And we've discriminated one culture and another. Some of the more shameful parts of our past that we don't like to bring up overly much. Refusing Jewish refugees before Canada entered World War II being the most recent one in history. And we have had our local terrorist organizations. The French sovereignty movement with groups like the FLQ in the 60's and 70's. Radial extremism between Sikh and Hindu Canadians. We have our Neo-Nazi groups, and had our share of crazy religious nuts in the mix as well.

I'm rambling... Anyhow... For those who are interested in the subject, I kind of started a topic on the subject of race and racism in Marvel Comics over the years (Race and Racism in Marvel Comics) It's an on going article I plan on expanding (most of it has been written with stuff I recall off the top of my head). If anyone wants to add onto it, I also wanted to have a list of comics that have racial themes, be they examples of ignorance, flat out racism, and civil rights championing. Feel free to add to it if you will -- so long as you can keep the narrative subjective, and are able to explain things from a historical standpoint.