Mel V. Vargas
for Writing and Rhetoric II
Dear White Comic Book Lover,
Like many other comic lovers, as early as we can remember we knew what a superherowas, and we loved them. They were good-hearted, their abilities far surpassed those of anyordinary human, and they were powerful. We marveled at them. Book after book, movie aftermovie we watched them succeed, fail, and grow. There was always a desire to be like them. Itstarted out small when we were younger, but once we learned how everything could be, howcould we not wish to be heroic?
This idea of being a hero, however, was a very distant fantasy to me, and not for thereasons that it was for you. For a long time I was under the impression that there was only onevery specific way a superhero could look. White, cisgender, straight, and male. That was whatI saw. Superman, Batman, Spiderman. I almost lost my mind when I finally discovered WonderWoman. Yet, even with her in my books, I felt detached from all the stories and adventures. Iwas unlike them in so many ways even without considering superhuman abilities.
I was born in Miami, Florida, surrounded by no one but Hispanic people. My family wasmade up entirely of Cubans, all of them immigrants. I was the first to be born in America. Wespoke sweet and quick Spanish. We ate rice for almost every meal, almost every day. We kissedeveryone on the cheek for our hellos and goodbyes. These things that brought me and myfamily closer together caused me to feel alienated and unwelcome outside of my warmhome. Though comics brought me much joy, they did not help make me feel very included.
I believe that you, WCBL, had a different experience.Perhaps comics made you feel marginalized in that they are not a universally loved art.Maybe you felt that you could not connect with people as easily as others connected over muchmore popular topics like sports. Yet there is a difference with how you and I connectedwith the characters on the page. While you could easily see yourself in the main character, Ialways felt at odds with who I was reading about. I wasn’t able to look at myself in the mirrorand see a hero I loved the way that you may have easily dressed up as them onHalloween.
The lack or complete absence of minorities in any media is called symbolic annihilation—a term coined originally by George Gerbner to name the common omission that happens in media every day. Gaye Tuchman further explored the phenomenon by breaking it up into three parts: to omit, to trivialize, and to condemn (Commun). Now, before writing this letter to you, I was unaware that such an act had a name; however, I knew this pattern well. When you grow up in a place that constantly depicts a very specific kind of person as a hero, you start to internalize self-hatred when you realize that you are nothing like those heroes. In fact, I often found more in common with who they chose to portray as villains than thesuperheroes themselves.
I get how understanding symbolic annihilation and relating to this issue may be difficultif you are not part of the group that it is negatively affecting. Even I, a Hispanic woman, don’tget the worst end of the stick when it comes to proportionate and just representation. In a reportconducted by the School of Communication and Journalism at The Institute for Diversity andEmpowerment at Annenberg, the lack of representation for minorities is clear. In their 2016study of 109 films, 18% of them did not feature any black characters, and a whopping 50% of thefilms had no Asian characters whatsoever (Case et al). Similar numbers were seen across the board when the study also listed their research of broadcasts, cable shows, and streaming services.
You may ask yourself, why does all this matter? Sure, they are just comics, books, shows,etc. Well, yeah, most comics and other media is fiction. This much is true. Nevertheless, it is what influences our everyday lives. This may seem like an overstatement, but consider that when we immerse ourselves in any type of media, be it comics, movies, books, you name it, we become affected by it. It is impossible for media and pop culture to be irrelevant in our lives, even if you consider yourself distant from popular culture and its ties. That being said, the most easily influenced group in society is children. It is easy for them to read a book or see a show and be affected almost instantly.
As I stated before, I noticed from a very young age that I was very aware of the lack ofcharacters that I shared similarities with. It seemed like a small problem before, but as I grew upI noticed what a negative impact it had on not only my self-esteem, but my perception of what Iwas capable of. If there were not main characters like me, could I really be one? Jacorey Palmer, director of the popular “The Young Turks” news channel on YouTube, states that “If you can see it, you can be it” (Palmer and Lilieholm). A simple, but powerful message. Kids need to see thepossibilities they have in order to create, be inspired, and grow. Children of color often go themajority of their childhood seeing nothing but white characters in the spotlight of all the popularbooks and shows targeted at their age group. Though it is still a positive influence to see heroesin their everyday media, there is a much deeper connection to characters and stories if one caneasily visualize themselves as the characters depicted.
Reflective representation is a term I first heard upon watching Jesse Beason’s TED Talk“Why Representation Matters.” He refers to himself several times in his speech, clarifyingthat not only is he a black man, but also gay, and how that greatly affects his ability to feelincluded. Beason then tells a story that, though I have heard several times before, never ceases toimpact me. He talks about how Whoopi Goldberg recalls a time in her youth where she waswatching TV and a black woman appeared on screen. She shouted for her mother to come look.“There’s a black woman on TV and she ain’t no maid,” she exclaimed (Beason). It is thisexperience that Goldberg considers a great turning point in her life and one of the many reasonsshe was able to become an actress. Beason then reveals that the woman who Goldberg had seenon TV was Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek. Beason mentions that this is also the same showthat helped him feel included as a younger black boy who enjoyed mathematics and science(Beason).
Without representation to connect to, there is a feeling of alienation that breeds inminority populations. You may have found it easy to visualize yourself as the hero. Whywouldn’t you, when he looks just like you? For me and many other people, it is rare when wecan look at a cover of a comic or a movie poster and feel solidarity and connection.
As a comic artist and reader, it comes as no surprise that an issue like this is very close tomy attention. Much like yourself, I know how important of an artform comics are. They are agreat way for artists and writers to come together and illustrate worlds where anything can be areality. Unfortunately, like the characters they depict, entertainment careers and companies have a similar disproportionate ratio of minorities to white males. Many companies produce and highlight stories about minority characters, and yet have little to no representation within their staff. It’s easy to see this as unproblematic when simply thinking of surface value representation. You may be thinking, if they are sharing and telling stories about minority characters, isn’t it a good thing that they are getting represented? Ask yourself this instead—would you want someone else telling and profiting off of your story?
More often than not the little representation that companies do decide to show is notbeing written and created by minority creatives. Laura Hudson, a writer for Wired Magazine,published an article in 2015 that refers to a textbook example of how companies profit off ofminority culture and stories without allowing them to represent themselves. Hudson writes abouta marketing campaign that Marvel Comics created in which they depicted several rap albumcover inspired art pieces showcasing their most popular superheroes. For example, an illustrationof Iron Man was released where he stood behind broken glass, the same way 50 Cent’s GetRich or Die Tryin album cover has him photographed. Though this image and many others fromthe campaign were created by black artists, Hudson brings up the fact that Marvel was not soinclusive when it came to their employees. She states that “...as the faces on the pages of popularcomic books have steadily grown more diverse, the hiring practices of publishers haven’tnecessarily kept pace” (Hudson).
A problem such as this would be much less concerning to me if it did not spark conflictwhen addressed by the public. Often times companies and creators get defensive when theirmotifs and work are questioned by those who consume it. In her article, Hudson recalls thatwhen questioned by fans about the album cover stunt, a Marvel executive editor wrote: “Whatdoes one have to do with the other, really?” (Hudson).If you are not interested in becoming part of the comic producing industry, I understandhow a subject like this may not have caught your attention. Regardless of past bliss, I imploreyou to consider the disproportionate statistics of the entertainment industry when concerningminority workers. In the Hollywood Diversity Report 2018, conducted by the UCLA College ofSocial Sciences, there are jarring statistics that clearly display the lack of diversity in theentertainment industry. When taking directors into consideration only 1.3 out of every 10 was aperson of color, and of those same 10 directors, only 1 was a woman. Writer representation is nobetter. White writers made up a whole 91.9% of all 2016 movie scripts (Hunt et al). Data such as this can be so disheartening when you think about all the creative voices being silenced. The stories told by white men are being more than heard, celebrated in fact, while the stories of people of color and female creators are close to nonexistent in the industry.
Jacorey Palmer states in his interview with Brett Erlich, “If you elevate more diversevoices, you get more diverse stories in media” (Palmer and Lilieholm). This point is wellsupported when considering a quote by Trotman that Hudson quoted in her article:Diversity is legitimacy. It’s sincerity. It’s truthiness, to borrow a certainexpression...Diverse storytellers mean diverse personal experiences beingbrought to the table, and more honest depictions of those experiences on the pagein fiction. It’s not impossible for a creator to write about an experience they’venever had; that would be a silly thing to say. But Cis Hetero White Male isn’t thedefault mode of human. Experiences influence creativity, and there need to bemore than one set of experiences being reflected on the page (Hudson).
We must agree that telling our own stories and narratives is very crucial to being human.It acts as a way to unify those who share the same struggles and have the same hopes. Inallowing white male voices to tell the stories of all people, we lose realistic takes on minorities’ stories, opinions, cultures, and experiences. Stories lose their richness when voiced by people who do not know what that life is like, or by someone who may not have created that narrative in the first place. You might be able to recall a time in which you shared an experience of yours and felt genuine comfort and joy when someone else was able to relate to you. Perhaps you remember another time when, instead of being bombarded with unsolicited opinions and advice, you were pleased to find that you were being heard rather than spoken at. It is this moment that we all so faithfully seek to connect with others like us. This does not serve as a means to exclude those who do not quite fit into such a group, for this would be counterproductive. It serves as a hopeful reminder that sometimes, instead of contributing to a story or trying to create one, it might be time for us to sit and listen.
I hope that my comics can do what I needed comics to do when I was a young, avidcomic book reader. I hope that they do half of what comics have done for someone like you.
When we pick up a comic, we hope to find a compelling story that takes us on both amental and emotional journey. We hope to connect to the story and characters on a deeper levelso that maybe we can find resolution for our own struggles and everyday inconveniences. I create comics to share my struggles and inner voice with readers who can then communicate with me that they too feel and experience what I have.