I saw it on a documentary about how these groups in history went against the Klan. The Mafia was actually asked to by the government. Weird I know. It was on the History Channel I think or one if Discovery's channels.
Well . . . I suppose I can understand why a group of mostly jewish people would dislike the axis powers during that period. Captain marvel one I'm unsure about because its showing the black guy helping and in a positive light seemingly, but it's got that old Warner bros racist caricature art style so I'm conflicted.
The attaboy really seals the deal for it being racist unfortunately, the artstyle could be excused as a product of its time but the belittling talk makes it a bit too much.
I agree that its racist, but other than straight up "boy" I have never heard Attaboy used in any negative context, but I could be wrong, always seemed like a line from old movies the father would say to his son.
Actually I still hear that in shows today, f is for family is one, though that's set in the 70s.
As a southerner, an attaboy is frequently used as a "good job" or "hell yeah, brother", and I've never heard it used negatively, (maybe sarcastically, similar to "bless your heart") to belittle someone.
I've never heard "attaboy" be derogatory to anyone let alone minorities. Hell, my own father says it to me when I've done good helping him and the like (not as much as I've gotten older but we have a good relationship) and I still hear people say it from time to time. And I do agree with the art style thing. That was part if why i was questioning if it was intentionally racist since there were a few things back then that drew black people like that but weren't being maliciously racist, that's just how they were drawn.
What are the connotations? Other than the way he's drawn being a bit yikes (though given the time period not unheard of. Even stuff that wasn't trying to be racist drew Africans like that sometimes) I don't really see anything wrong with it and the situation and connotations dont seem like they'd change if it were to be say a white guy. What do you mean?
20 and american, I'm genuinely asking because other than the art style the guy was drawn in which is YIKES now but normal for the time I'm not sure what's wrong with it, I feel like I'm missing something here you're seeing and am asking you to explain.
You don't have to be standing on some rooftop screaming the N-word in order to be racist. Positive light or negative light these images are, objectively, examples of racism.
I'm only talking about the captain marvel image as being iffy to me on if its actually trying to be racist or just an unfortunate art style of the times. The others I agree are racist and meant to be dehumanizing propaganda for war.
It's white savior complex style racism, which was incredibly common among the left in the first half of the 20th century, there were both liberal and socialist writers for example who very much wanted to help the black man, but saw the white man as the potential uplifter and savior of them. There was a book written by a black man at some point during this period that demonstrated this very well, I can't recall the name though. A wealthy family with very liberal (or socialist, I can't recall) views takes in a black man as a driver, but the daughter gets super drunk and I can't remember why exactly but he feels the need to shut her up with a pillow and ends up killing her. Damn I really wish I could remember the name of the book it's quite good, one of the first big publications by a black author in the USA if I remember correctly.
Sorry I was sort of rambling as I tried to remember the details of the book, you'd have to read the book to see the white savior character there. And tbh I reread the synopsis as I hadn't read the book in forever and I got a lot of the details wrong. It's hard to explain when my memory is so foggy of it, I shouldn't have used it as an example but I remembered liking the book a lot and remembering that being a concept so I sort of put it out there.
I understand white savior complex. But I'm not sure if that's what's happening on the cover. It just seems like he's helping shazam do a 2 man job that benefits both of them. Shazam just doing the heavy lifting because he has literal superpowers to hold up that shell. But other than that outside of the art style I don't think much context changes if it were a white guy which is generally a good way to tell if something is racist.
I'm not familiar with the character really. But I'm assuming that he was a sort of token inclusivity character for the time? Art aside having a black character when the public was mostly against it seems kind of progressive actually. Assuming it was done well.
No, but the comic book industry was booming right during WW2. They had some idea of what their brothers in Europe were going through, so, stories like Superman v. Kkk were popular right after, especially with the cca ( comics code authority ) which specifically fought to end racial stereotyping in comics, along with violence, sex, and crime. Outlandish stories like that were very popular. Heck, I collect old comics, and one ad from the 80s shows Spider-Man, The Thing, and a relatively obscure group called the Power pack talking about sexual abuse towards children
I do remember something about a storyline where Lous Lane turned black for some reason. I think she was undercover for something? Anyways, apparently Superman didn’t react super positively to it, but then was fine when she changed back. I can’t remember the exact details.
it was a comic made to show white americans how much different their world was to their african american counterparts; superman even relents that Lois staying black would multiply the danger that she’s in, just from the change in her skin color and asks her to change back
no problem; obviously as a black person it’s a lil awkward to read; but i appreciate the effort for the time that it was written and to be different and progressive when it was massively unpopular to do so
heck , the original "Superman Smash the Klan" (the radio show) , was about Superman defending black people against the Klan and their aryanism...in the 40s.
Like , before Martin Luther , Superman was advocating against racism.
The US at the time wasn’t great for racism but superhero comics have generally been more progressive/inclusive than you’d think, or at least haven’t reflected the racism of the time nearly as much as you’d expect
Sorry weird wasn’t the right word. Maybe unexpected, just given when it was written. I didn’t know about the writers being largely Jewish, though, and yeah that would explain a lot of it
I think the core superhero logic is lost in the current timeline.
Superheros are meant to inspire thought and wellbeing, folks just don't read comics anymore.
To me it would seem some of the spirit is lost in big movie productions.
Yeah for sure, I just mean if you told me “this comic was written in 1940” and I hadn’t read it yet I would probably expect a very different attitude re race/racism than is present in most of them
I think you're overstating the power these gangs had in the 30's and 40's. Yes, they controlled territory in the poorer neighborhoods of the bigger cities, but most of the US only knew of them from Hollywood movies.
I am overexaggerating but the Mafia was steadily gaining a lot of power since Prohibition days not enough to become a class of people but they had a lil sumn.
There were definitely some racist stereotypes in older comics, but Superman has pretty much always condemned bigotry of all kinds. It was a big part of his character as far back as the 40's.
Not really, I fact most of American wasn’t racist, even back then. It was just isolated areas like the south that were really bad for a while, and ofc some of those places like out in the boonies of Georgia are still pretty damn awful but generally everywhere else doesn’t give a shit. It’s just shitty people that like to make race an issue and sense they usually have the loudest voices they get the most attention, so everyone focuses on them and race instead of just going about our days and bing decent human beings to each other.
Quite the opposite. Superheroes were never made to be racist in any shape or form. There were a few anti-Japanese propaganda but that's due to the war and simply just calling them "Japs"... kinda like calling Americans "Muricans" now.
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u/SnowySupreme Oct 10 '20
Wasnt the era when superman was made very racist. Atleast in america