(postmodernbarney.com) » Obsidian

A Bit Tone Deaf

Dorian — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 07:01:16 +0000

I haven’t been terribly impressed with Bill Willingham’s run on Justice Society of America to date, mostly because I’ve found the Captain Nazi story uninteresting and interminable and the expansion of the cast into two titles frustrating. But issue 40, which came out last week, was actually surprisingly very good. Yeah, it wraps up the Nazi story with a bit of a deus ex machina and it’s very obviously only meant as a bridge to the cross-over with Justice League, but apart from that it was a good, character-focused look at Obsidian, an under-used character at the best of times, and an angst-free look at that.

There was, however, one note that didn’t quite ring true.

Yeah, it’s just a joke…but it’s a joke about a subject that ruins peoples lives and that ideological doctors are actually pursuing.

So maybe a conservative straight guy who occasionally writes for right-wing blogs isn’t the one who should be making jokes like that, is all I’m saying.

Still, the good thing about this is that this was what was passing for gay humor in 1972 in “liberal” Mad magazine.

Yeah, I’ll take the conservative who means well over the liberal bigot on this subject, any day.

Just Give Him Something To Do, Already!

Dorian — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:56:00 +0000

Hey, check out this cute scene from the most recent issue of Justice Society of America:

It’s the JSA having a pancake breakfast with a bunch of firemen and kids. Only, someone’s missing. Give it a moment’s thought, I’m sure it will occur to you.

That’s right, where’s Obsidian?
What really drove home his absence for me, though, was this panel:

So…firemen hitting on an underage Stargirl is played for laughs, but Obsidian is, yet again, a no show.

Now, setting aside that unfortunate “saving Obsidian from being further molested by other writers” talk before the series launched, and setting aside the creepy symbolism of putting a gay character in the book and then never showing his face and (almost) never having him talk (I think he’s said all of two sentences in nine issues)…Geoff Johns apparently expects us to believe that Obsidian turned down a chance to have breakfast with hunky firemen!

So Johns has no clue how to write gay characters is what I’m getting from that. It’s time to either give him more to do in the book than imitate wallpaper or let other writers use him.

Friday Night Fights

Dorian — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:40:00 +0000

For more, check in with that hep cat Bahlactus.

Nothing quite says “bash back” like pounding on a senior citizen!

The Many Moods of Obsidian

Dorian — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 05:34:00 +0000

Easily Offended

Self Pitying

Threatening Jerk

Geeze, Jen, he’s your brother for cripes sake! Quit hanging off him like that!

Passive Aggressive Manipulator

So, let’s review. Straight Obsidian=emotional basket case prone to violence and aggression and increasing madness leading to eventual attempt to destroy the world. Gay Obsidian=happy, well-adjusted hero.

And Gay Obsidian has been reduced to a glorified security system because certain writers and artists irrationally prefer the unstable lunatic with a sister complex…

Why Jade Had To Die

Dorian — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 05:08:00 +0000

There are two principal charges against Jade. The first, that she deliberately encouraged the worst case of a sister complex in a comic book character since the introduction of Pietro Maximoff.

Hell, Pietro comes off positively well-adjusted in comparison to Todd. On one of Todd’s good days.

First of all, it’s important to realize that Jennie’s parents know that she has a twin brother:

So how does Jennie introduce Todd to her friends?

“Hey, Todd, come over to my family’s house for Thanksgiving. Only, don’t tell my parents that you’re my emotionally repressed brother. It would be so funny to let them think you’re my boyfriend instead. Oh, and really play up the fact that you’re Catholic. My parents love Catholics!”

Which of course, leads to subtextually uncomfortable scenes like this:

Her second, and far more serious crime, is thinking it’s a good idea to dress someone like this:

Okay, we now know that Damon really loves Todd. Because he’s willing to go out with someone who dresses like that for work.

Jealous?

Dorian — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 07:01:00 +0000

Displacing your emotions much, Todd? Which is it, are you jealous of someone taking your sister away from you…or jealous of Jennie spending all that time with a hunk like Brainwave?

Honestly, people were surprised by his outing?

When Todd Met Tas

Dorian — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:40:00 +0000

In Infinity Inc. #35, when the Infinitors met the Global Guardians (featuring Injustice Unlimited as the antagonists and a special appearance by the League of International Batmen), you could cut the testosterone and sexual tension with a knife.

Sadly for all future fan-fic writers, Tas spent most of his time flirting with Nuklon and sparring verbally with Wildcat II, while Todd moped.

Alex Ross Clarifies Statement

Dorian — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 16:26:00 +0000

Blog@Newsarama has the statement and a recap of the situation I discussed in brief here. As I sort of suspected, Ross’ objection wasn’t that Andreyko made Obsidian gay so much as it was that the character was being written in way that was slightly different to the way Roy Thomas wrote the character. Twenty years ago.

So, yeah, fanboy entitlement at work.

Gays In Geek Media: An Update

Dorian — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 04:08:00 +0000

Gamasutra checks in with yet another Bully inspired article on gay characters in video games. It’s largely the same material that has been covered in a variety of places now. What I find most interesting about these articles is the de rigeur quote from a white heterosexual male working in the video game industry who insists that, nope, there’s no sexism, racism or homophobia in our industry. The naivete in which these commentators insist that, no, honestly, your average video game player would have no problem playing a game with a gay lead character is almost charming. If it wasn’t reeking of disingenuousness.

AfterElton looks at the de-gayed character from Heroes. Despite quite deliberate mentions of the character’s sexuality in materials that were released in advance of the show, despite numerous examples of dialogue on the show that are clearly meant to indicate that the character is gay, someone decided that, no, the character must be straight. It was apparently a decision made by someone up the network chain of command, judging by the way people are seeking to avoid taking responsibility for the change.

Should that decision stand, and not be reversed by negative publicity pointing out the blatant homophobia of this change, it would be disappointing, but not surprising. Gay characters tend to be invisible to non-existent in science fiction, despite producers and writers talking a good game about “gender blind” universes, and the popularity of science fiction in the gay community. (Seriously, we all seem to be big geeks for it.) But, at the end of the day, there are no gay characters on Battlestar Galactica, no gay characters on Star Trek (apart from the occasional pandering lesbian tease), no gay characters in Star Wars. Even Captain Jack, on Doctor Who and Torchwood, would be better described as omni-sexual than gay.

Mostly I think I can chalk this up to writers and producers not being willing to challenge the prejudices of their audience. It’s been my experience that the politics of most science-fiction fans ranges from the faux-libertarian to the reactionary. It sounds counter-intuitive, given the air of progressive politics that most sci-fi shows adopt. But when the point of most of the shows is to successfully maintain the status quo, through force, with an almost fetishistic devotion to weaponry and warfare, well…Besides, being a “liberal” or a “progressive” is by no means the same thing as not being homophobic. Some of the most homophobic people I’ve known are quite enthusiastically liberal. Phil Ochs sang Love Me, I’m A Liberal for a reason, after all.

So, Alex Ross made some very stupid statements about Obsidian which have been widely viewed as homophobic. And, well, yeah, they are. There are only two writers who have been using Obsidian in any notable roles. Geoff Johns made him a villain and Marc Andreyko outed him. And since Ross apparently approves of Johns handling of the character the only “molestation” he can be referring to is Andreyko’s use of the character. But the thing is, I seriously doubt that Ross meant to say that making Obsidian gay was bad. Ross always strikes me as a particularly good example of fanboy entitlement at work, played out in spectacular fashion because his work is popular. The root of fanboy entitlement is wanting superhero books to be exactly the same way they were when they started reading comics, and much of Ross’s professional career has been devoted to preserving a particular early-80s attitude in comics. So, my money on what Ross meant was that “Andreyko isn’t writing Obsidian the way Roy Thomas would have, and I disapprove of that.” And it simply never occurred to him that there was another meaning to what he was saying.

Far more bothersome, to me anyway, was DC recently soliciting a Grifter and Midnighter mini-series written by Chuck Dixon. Dixon has in the past made no secret of his disapproval of gay characters in comics, and he’s quite outspokenly conservative. And, despite protestations by his fans, he can’t keep his politics out of his comics work. Look no further than the anti-abortion messages in his Robin run for one example. Despite being quite certain that I will never, under any circumstances, spend money to support this project, I’m almost curious to see how it turns out. I have this half-formed notion of seeing Dixon transform Midnighter into a mincing, limp-wristed, lisping pedophile, but I doubt even DC would allow that sort of nonsense to go through. No, it’ll probably be a more subtle contrast between the macho, manly, rock-solid and God-fearing heterosexual conservatism of Grifter versus the ineffective, effeminate, ineffectual faggoty liberalism of Midnighter. Sort of a “Fox News” approach to comics scripting, if you will.

Links I Like

Dorian — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 08:06:00 +0000

Pal John looks at deservedly forgotten Disney musical Newsies and its anti-Semitic themes.

Nathaniel examines the post-feminist attitudes of Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

Loren finds cause for concern in the portrayal of Obsidian in the Johns/Ross relaunch of Justice Society of America.

Great Cthulhu takes your calls.