Everyone is bad in SCALPED, but 90% of them are Indians. It's fundamentally false to portray a whole society as bad. The Sopranos didn't do that, and it's the gold standard Aaron is aiming for. Who says a noir comic can't portray a substantial number of people as decent and wholesome--like the friends and families of the Sopranos clan?
CRIMINAL and other comics may present white people as bad, but there are several hundred other comics to balance them out. To give the public a range of views of white folks. No one's looking at CRIMINAL rather than SUPERMAN, BATMAN, or SPIDER-MAN to understand whites.
There's no counterbalance in the market to SCALPED. It's the sole representation of Indians most comics readers will get. To me that implies a social or ethical burden to get it right, not to do what you please.
Otherwise, you're just doing what a thousand creators have done before you: stereotyping Indians as criminals, thugs, and lowlifes because you feel like it. Because savage Indians have sold ever since Wild West shows and Western movies became popular. Because you want to earn fame and fortune by exploiting people.
Let's reiterate this point. Aaron isn't just doing his own thing. Indians in outer space or in a life raft would be his own thing--a creative vision that was uniquely his own. In SCALPED he's doing the same old thing: portraying Indians as modern-day savages. As people wallowing in their own poverty, filth, and despair. That isn't new or creative, it's old and offensive.
Why SCALPED "works"
Take a step back and ask why Aaron set a noir comic on a crime-ridden reservation. And why this is getting praise rather than scorn from critics.
Would you buy a blood-drenched crime comic set in a quaint English village with tea cozies? At a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas? At the Strawberry Fields Forever daycare center? I'm guessing not.
But you have little or no problem believing in crime and corruption on the rez. Why is that? Because you associate Indians (like Italians before them) with crime and corruption. Because this feels natural and "right" to you and other readers.
To sum it up, Aaron is using negative stereotypes, you're buying them, and you're perpetuating them by praising SCALPED. Do you disagree? Because I don't see any way around this point.
You mentioned other minorities. I suspect any comic that portrayed 90% of blacks, Latinos, or Asians as miscreants would get the same criticism. And rightly so. The only comic that wouldn't deserve this criticism is a white noir comic like CRIMINAL. Again, because there are alternatives to it but not to black, Latino, or Asian noir comics.
Rights and wrongs
Whether he intends to or not, Aaron is helping to shape the public's perception of Indians. He'll do more if SCALPED becomes a TV show. He can take responsibility for this or he can deny it, but he's still doing it.
To me that's the issue here. Not his freedom to do whatever he wants, but the effects of that freedom on others. Not his rights, but his responsibilities.
I'm sure the makers of minstrel shows, Birth of a Nation, and old Westerns said they were pursuing their artistic vision too. Does that mean it was okay for them to stereotype blacks and Indians? Most people today would say no. These things were perfectly legal, but they weren't right.
If you ask me, the right to be free of racism and stereotyping is just as important as the right to express oneself. That's why we criticize things even when they're legal, widespread, even "traditional." So school X has the right to choose an Indian mascot. Band Y has the right to dress up as Indians and dance. Store Z has the right to sell "drunk Indian" t-shirts. And we have the right to say these things are wrong.
For more on the subject, see "Cool" Moments in SCALPED and SCALPED = Comic of the Year? For more on the subject in general, see Comic Books Featuring Indians.
Below: A fairly standard scene in a SCALPED comic: whores, a gunman, and dead bodies in a pool of blood.
5 comments:
"Everyone is bad in SCALPED, but 90% of them are Indians."
Actually the best characters in the comic are Indians while the very worst are White characters; besides you admitted you hadn't read all of the comics.
"Who says a noir comic can't portray a substantial number of people as decent and wholesome"
For starters other than the fact that the best characters in the comic are Indians (such as officer falls down) the material that Aaron was influenced by such as Ellroy's books typicall portrays every character in a negative light.
"CRIMINAL and other comics may present white people as bad, but there are several hundred other comics to balance them out. To give the public a range of views of white folks. No one's looking at CRIMINAL rather than SUPERMAN, BATMAN, or SPIDER-MAN to understand whites."
Except there are also a great deal of positive portrayals of Indians; the Tony Hillerman novels and the films adaptions of them for example and so on. Anyone trying to understand a group of people by reading a comic is a moron anyway.
"Otherwise, you're just doing what a thousand creators have done before you: stereotyping Indians as criminals, thugs, and lowlifes because you feel like it."
So it's perfectly okay to cast whites as criminals but Indians have to be portrayed as perfect? Besides compared to crime shows about White criminals don't have nearly as many positive characters as Scalped.
"In SCALPED he's doing the same old thing: portraying Indians as modern-day savages."
If so then why are the very worst characters white? Why is the US governmetn and the BIA portrayed as corrupt? Shouldn't they be the good guys beating down the 'savages'?
"As people wallowing in their own poverty, filth, and despair."
Then do you also think that Tony Hillerman is a bigot? After all his books show Indians in povery using drugs and so on.
"Because you associate Indians (like Italians before them) with crime and corruption. Because this feels natural and "right" to you and other readers."
Then by that logic do you also think that crime stories set in Los Angeles perpetuates stereotyping?
"The only comic that wouldn't deserve this criticism is a white noir comic like CRIMINAL. Again, because there are alternatives to it but not to black, Latino, or Asian noir comics."
Actually there's a great deal of fiction portraying Whites as criminals, Goodfellas, Brotherhood, the Departed.
I was wondering when "Scalped" would get another mention. I thought you'd be happy to "kick the butt" of anyone who defended "Scalped" on your blog? After you failed to respond to the comments from myself and others in the "Cool Moments in Scalped" blog, I assumed you were having some difficulty lacing up your butt-kicking shoes.
Instead, you seemed to have gone the route of staying quiet on the subject for a while before re-using the same old arguments against the book, perhaps hoping enough time will have passed for everyone to have forgotten the gaping holes exposed in their logic.
You continue to recycle the same points, that involving Natives in a crime story makes people think all Natives are "filthy" and "savage". Only, I don't see any other reviewer or reader, or Aaron himself, calling the Natives in the book "filthy" or "savage". The only person I'm seeing who sees a comic about Natives, and instantly jumps to the adjectives "filthy" and "savage" is you, Rob.
And that's the problem. I don't know if it's all the time you've spent on this blog - which undoubtedly pursues many a worthy cause - but it seems like you're tuned to just see RACISM~! and STEREOTYPING~! in everything. You're chasing ghosts, and it must suck the life out of Native-themed fiction when judging the story on its actual merits comes second place to this obsessively racialised reading of everything, this fetishisation of racist intent. If you once branded Scalped "grief porn", then your skewed reading of it could surely be called "racism porn".
Everything has to be about "deep down, white readers secretly hate Indians." We can't appreciate a comic for its masterful slow-boil plotting or brilliant character study. No, we don't know it, but in fact it's because we want to see all Indians as corrupt, and so we buy into a Native crime comic to feed our sick fantasy! Ummm... no.
Unlike you, I don't presume to speak for all "Scalped" readers, but I personally enjoy the book because it's a well-written story, because the characters are compelling. I don't see Red Crow as "the greedy Indian" or "the savage Indian". I see him as an anti-hero, a tragic figure, a nuanced character in his own right. I'm past the color of his skin. If you're still hung up on that, if you can't get past the characters being Indians and can view them only as Indians, that is on you, not Jason Aaron, not the readers.
Oh, and by the way, being a Brit myself, I can say there has been many a grim, bleak, violent crime story about English towns and communities rife with corruption. Check out "Red Riding", just for a start. Painting all of England as being quaint villages where everyone wears tea cozies is venturing on.... dare I say it... a stereotype?
Part of me really wants to strongly recommend you check out "Scalped #35", which just came out this week. It's a standalone story, easy to follow. Not a single crime in the entire issue, it's about an old married couple living on the outskirts of the Rez, and the husband's struggle to acknowledge he's too old to tend the land and care for his ailing wife alone, and overcome his pride and accept government aid. These are characters who deal with a difficult situation with honesty and dignity, and we are not meant to look down on them or pity them, never mind be disgusted by them or view them as lowlifes. If anything, the story becomes out the triumph of independence over giving in to the easy path. I think it's a really positive story about Native characters.
I had a couple of other points buzzing around in my head, that I was going to save for my follow-up to your response. But seeing that it appears that you are once again reluctant to enter into a debate on the subject, I might as well bring them up now.
First, in response to Stephen, some valid points raised once again. Well said on your repear mention of both the worst characters being white, and the positive portrayal of a Native American found in Franklin Falls Down. Particularly important is your highlighting of a core misgiving in Schmidt's entire line of argument as regards to "Scalped": the frankly bizarre assumption that someone reads a comic specifically to "understand" a race.
Let's get into this a bit more. Rob says that people are more likely to look at "Superman", "Batman" or "Spider-Man" "to understand whites" than "Criminal". Now, there are many reasons people might want to read superhero fiction, but never before have I heard that people read about superheroes to understand what white folks are like.
Do you not see what a patently ridiculous scenario you're setting up here, Rob? Are you seriously suggesting there's someone out there going, "Oh em gee, I just read Sin City, and there were lots of white criminals in there, so this must mean all white people are bad! Oh wait, here's a Justice League of America comic.... oh wow, white people aren't bad - they have SUPERPOWERS!" Then they grab Scalped, and say, "Oh boy, this comic has lots of Native American criminals in it, so this must mean all Native people are bad! Oh wait, are there any other comics with Indians in themm here....oh no, there isn't, so not only are all Natives filthy and disgusting corrupt savages, but they don't even have SUPERPOWERS like white folks do! Losers! DUUUUR!"
Not everybody reads comics like you do, Rob. Not everybody reads fiction with only race in mind. "The Sopranos" is so much more than "the show about Italian-Americans," and viewing it only through that prism sorely limits it. Though on the subject of "The Sopranos", you talk about how balanced it is, how there are plenty of "nice Italians" in it, but just about everybody in the show, even the law-abiding ones, are portrayed as self-serving, deeply flawed individuals. But that isn't meant as a comment on them as Italian-Americans, just on human nature in general. Same goes for "Scalped".
I also find it highly ironic that your blog is peppered with entries bemoaning the lack of roles available for Native American actors in film and TV, yet you are so vehemently opposed to the "Scalped" TV show that when you talked about it you were already saying you might want to protest and stop it from getting made.
"Scalped" is a TV show that would, by its very nature, require a large ensemble cast made up mostly of Native actors and actresses, all playing modern roles rather than being perenially stuck in Westerns. With a strong enough performance, the actor playing Bad Horse or Red Crow could very well be looking at Golden Globe or Emmy nomination, and the whole Native ensemble could gain attention and acclaim, helping elevate more Native actors into stardom the way "The Wire" has produced a new generation of hot African-American actors like Idris Elba, Michael K. Williams, Lance Reddick and Clarke Peters.
But you don't want that. Because "Scalped" doesn't meet your own lofty standards, because it's not the kind of genre your rosy vision of what Indian fiction should be, then you'd just rather all these actors did nothing.
Continued...
Have you seen "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"? Good film. In it, Scarlett Johannsen plays this girl who dreams of falling in love with the perfect partner and living happily ever after in a storybook romance. But when the perfect lover does come along, and she really should be happy, instead she seeks out flaws and reasons to be unhappy, so she can have an excuse to abandon the love and seek out something even better, something even more idealised. For her, she's more in love with the idea of falling in love, than interested in actually falling in love. It is more romantic for her to bemoan the lack of love in her life than acknowledge it's right there in front of her.
I can see some parallels with your situation. One of the most critically acclaimed comics on the market is set on an Indian reservation. Red Crow, hailed as one of the best characters of the last decade, is an Indian. Native American characters are given stories with enough weight and drama to rival those of any white character in comics elsewhere. It would seem this is the kind of story you've demanded from comics for so long. But it's not good enough. You can't allow yourself to be happy with it, you need to find ways for it to be subpar, so you can continue the romantic quest for stereotype-free comics.
For some reason the concluding part of my lengthy post is invisible unless you go into this comments page. Maybe another post will nudge it on, that's usually the solution for "disappearing posts" on forums. Feel free to delete this bump if this works, Rob.
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