[Starlord67]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jester

You seem to respond almost entirely in cliché.

I suspect that you know this already but "First World Problems" are what you have when you're living so comfortably (including having the extra income to spend on large numbers of expensive pieces of plastic) that the only things that you have to complain about are absurdly minor annoyances that a less well-off person would never have the luxury of being bothered by.

In your case, this applies because, evidently, it's not good enough that a black superheroine is, and has been for decades, one the most popular and prominent members of her particular group of characters, strong, brave, beautiful and powerful, loved and respected by her peers and desired by numerous powerful and popular male characters (up to and including literal gods like Thor), no, none of that counts for anything because she had a brief career as a child pickpocket and was introduced "barefoot and topless." But neither of these things are in and of themselves unreasonable given Storm's backstory: Africa is an infamously impoverished continent despite its tremendous wealth of natural resources and while many nations are home to well-developed, modern cities, (often orphaned) street children engaged in endeavors of varying degrees of legality are still an issue in many places. Likewise, even in 2020, African women in some regions will still attend traditional ceremonies quite literally barefoot and topless (although it's apparently becoming common for many of the participants to wear sneakers).

But go on, do tell us more about your argumentative technique.

In your words, the genesis of the Storm character is a tale of "negative African stereotypes," involving "worst depictions of native cultures," "antiquated tomes like National Geographic," "cringe-worthy backstory," "other grating elements, "ugly silliness" and "off-putting devices." Token caveats aside, that's a very clear attack on Chris Claremont and other early X-Men writers, particularly given the pretentiously pseudo-academic tone that you're couching it all in.

For a guy who sees himself "as a person of color with a sense for both history and perspective" you're displaying very little awareness of the latter two categories. You've cited Daniel Patrick Moynihan; perhaps you've also heard of his contemporary, Marshall McLuhan, another influential figure in late 1960s/early 1970s public discourse, and his famous observation that "the medium is the message." In the case of Giant-Sized X-Men, what sort of message do you think is being conveyed, in 1975, by the medium of a group of heroes comprised of a Japanese man, a demonic-looking German, a reservation Apache, an ugly, near-midget Canadian, a Soviet collective farmer and a beautiful African woman?



"Accurate cultural depictions" could include such things as eating albinos to gain magic powers, raping virgins/children in the hopes of curing AIDs or lynching alleged "penis-thieves". Rather horrifying, of course, but certainly not bland or boring by any estimation.

But bland and boring is apparently what you want, given your whining about Storm's traumatic childhood and adolescence (which appears to betray an unfamiliarity with one of the recurring themes of the X-Men series as a whole, that being the titular heroes having to endure various hardships prior to finding a spiritual home with the team).

Do you even reed dance, bro?

Congratulations, you own a dictionary.

I'm glad that you're able to acknowledge that your objections are childish.

Don't throw stones from glass houses.

I have no grounds to regard your opinion as honest, if you're not even willing to accept that I am or that I even could be genuinely perturbed by such a tragic and unnecessary loss of life.

The fact is, though, that death was a predictable outcome of "Current Year" racial/sexual insanity, which appears to hold that any existing white fictional character with a bit of name-recognition is fair game for portrayal in a live-action adaption of the material by a non-white (especially black) performer, that women are physically equal to men in all respects, and that films or printed fiction featuring black and/or female characters should be directed/written by directors and writers with the same melanin count/genitalia as the primary characters (something that veteran comic-book scribe Christopher Priest complains has resulted in his being pigeon-holed into the box of "black superhero writer"). These are all obvious influences on your "series of tragically poor decisions" which started with casting Beetz as a sop to the fragile ego of Donald "let me play Spider-Man" Glover.

By any honest liberal assessment, affirmative action isn't good for the soul (or the body either, as experienced by the late, unfortunate Joi Harris), prioritizing as it does the color of your skin rather than the content of your character (or the extent of your experience and skill).

See here (nice backhanded accusation of autism, BTW):

stereotype (n.)

1798, "method of printing from a plate," from French stéréotype (adj.) "printed by means of a solid plate of type," from Greek stereos "solid" (see stereo-) + French type "type" (see type (n.)). Meaning "a stereotype plate" is from 1817. Meaning "image perpetuated without change" is first recorded 1850, from the verb in this sense. Meaning "preconceived and oversimplified notion of characteristics typical of a person or group" is recorded from 1922 (Walter Lippmann, "Public Opinion").

It's kind of like "bigot," appropriately enough. The truer sense of the word is a person who believes himself to occupy an exalted moral position versus his neighbors (cf. the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14) rather than someone who simply bears an unreasoned dislike of someone or something else, so in fact, the sort of people who nowadays are most likely to accuse others of bigotry are in fact bigots themselves according to the uncorrupted meaning of the term.

Have they ever explained why the male members of the Hellfire Club dress like 18th century gentlemen but their female counterparts dress like mid-20th century dominatrices?

I think it's more of a " 17th century prostitute" thing. I'm not sure though. The costumes were lifted straight from an episode of THE AVENGERS from the 60's.
Also didn't women in the Hellfire Club have a more "Subservient" role despite being some of the most powerful members? I think I read that in the Hellfire Club mini series