Comics Addicts On Minorities

With a newly revised web site, The Comic Addiction has a great essay up involving superheroes and minorities. They talk about everything from race, gender and, of course, sexual orientation. While the whole essay is worth reading, here's the section dealing on characters who deal with homosexuality in this conservative industry.

Racism and sexism have been fought both in the real world and in the comic books, and now with significant work done combating those ills, the comic book publishers seem to be turning their attention to combating homophobia, for example within the X-Men universe is the introduction of the first openly gay superhero Jean-Paul Beaubier or Northstar. It is important to realise that the publication of Alpha Flight #106, the issue that dealt with Northstar's sexuality in 1992, was published when similar social issues were being discussed in American Government such as same sex marriage and adoption by homosexual couples. In the issue Jean-Paul Beaubier was seen to state 'Do not presume to lecture me on the hardships homosexuals must bare...For while I am not inclined to discuss my sexuality with people for whom it is none of their business - I am gay!' (Lobdell, 1992)[17]. However, some people have suggested that Northstar's 'coming-out' was nothing more than a publicity stunt and that the character has revealed nothing further about his sexual orientation, with some even suggesting that due to the unpopularity of Alpha Flight #106 Northstar was purposely left out of the revival of Alpha Flight in the late 1990s (VerBeek, 2000)[18] although in recent years he has been a part of the X-Men, adding authenticity perhaps to the suggestion that the X-Men is an allegory for homosexuals.

Marvel Comics were not the only company to try and diversify their line up and modernise the depiction of the American superhero, as DC Comics and their sister companies have ensured that several of their best selling series feature homosexual characters, including The Authority, which features a superhero couple, Apollo and Midnighter, whom also happen to be lovers. The superheroes, who marry and adopt a child in the course of the series (Andrew Miller, 2003)[19] and are psychically are based on the characters of Batman and Superman, were created so that children would realise that it does not matter if their idols are straight or gay and therefore teach them tolerance (McGinty, 2000)[20]. However, this trend, and the creation of Northstar as a homosexual superhero is still rare one with suggestions that it will remain this way as long as the majority of comic books are purchased by straight, white males (An Wazir, 2002)[21].

There have even been suggestions, created originally by a controversial 1954 book by American psychiatrist Dr Frederick Wertham entitled The Seduction of the Innocent, that Batman and Robin were created as an aspiration couple for homosexuals. Wertham suggests that the superheroes 'live in sumptuous quarters, with beautiful flowers in a large vase and have a butler, Alfred. Batman is sometimes shown in a dressing gown... the young boy sometimes worries about his partner. It is like a wish dream of two homosexuals living together' (Wertham, 1954)[22].

Even Wonder Woman has not escaped the suggestion that her comic book contains homosexual undertones, with the belief that an island of Amazon women promotes lesbianism. Dr Wertham also pointed to an often-quoted issue of Wonder Woman that suggests that the women of Paradise Island 'took pleasure in each other' (Hutchinson, 2002)[23].

To read the whole essay, head over to The Comic Addiction.

Goblin
Posted to Superheroes, editorial on 4 August 2008 · Comments (3)
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