Where is the dividing line, if any, between representation and pandering?

Where is the dividing line, if any, between representation and pandering?

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Representation: subtle
Pandering: blatent

I think it's as simple as that

You dont even need to be subtle. Just dont be a terrible writer

Ideology fucks with your craft

I'm /u/ and a spic, i was cringing nonstop while reading this front cover to back.

Ewing is the only one that can make MAC not cringe af.

Batwoman is going to destroy this, and Iceman, on sales...

>Batwoman is going to destroy this, and Iceman, on sales
Sad that midnighter and apollo endef.

I'd say to compare Ms. Marvel to America.

Kamala's race and religion are integral to her character and story, but her identity doesn't revolve around being a Pakistani Muslim. Her book doesn't shy away from some of the less appealing elements of her religion (strict parents who wouldn't accept a non-Muslim husband, the judgmental attitude of the Muslim community in general), but it also shows positive aspects that can be good for the character.

America is a lesbian and Puerto Rican, and the story makes sure to remind us the time. She randomly throws in references to these quirks just to remind us about them. Her identity revolves around those two quirks, and stereotypes shape her character. The positives and negatives of her sexuality and race aren't really well-explored. (At least in America #1.) They just exist for the sake of it.

If it's written well it's representation.

If it's written like hot garbage it's pandering.

If I like it then it's representation, if I don't it's pandering.

They probably are going to get an ongoing in the next wave of Rebirth.
Either that or an Authority relaunch by Ellis...if he doesn't self destruct with The Wild Storm.

Anything Marvel does: pandering

Anything DC does: representation

this is was Sup Forums believes

>Puerto Rican,
but she isn't Puerto Rican, nobody else even spoke spanish in utopia. She picked all that up after she left.

>but she isn't Puerto Rican, nobody else even spoke spanish in utopia. She picked all that up after she left.
So cultural misappropriation?

Opinion.

Once a bunch of 20 something white people with glasses and gauges start crowing about how great it is, it's pandering.

Representation - Character was created first and then an additional feature (sex, race, sexuality, religion, etc.) is decided.

Pandering - That one feature is the first thing and then the rest of the character is defined by that one thing in order to make them more endearing to those kinds of readers while potentially alienating other readers.

Pandering is when story comes second.

Representation: we don't voluntarily exclude someone from a story based on superficial things like race sex class. If the story allows it we consider it.

Pandering: literally a fucking checklist for what we must include in our books to be considered progressive and thoughtful and caring and oh they'll be sure to buy out shit when they see how we reinforce their echo chamber walls.

You know it seems like a mem, but last week they dropped a trans char in TEC and no one said anything about until now when they asked the writer in an non related interview.

Marvel would have gone to the fucking View to peddle that shit...

If the comic/movie/game/whatever is a huge pile of shit, it's pandering.

If it's good, it's representation.

You're comparing the wrong things. Pandering is just marketing that wants someone else's money.

>Ellis committing to an ongoing for two years
I'm very nervous.

>representative
Here is a character that is cool who is also black
>pandering
Here is a character who is cool because she is black

A character's background can and should be a notable part of what they are. The same way Batman being rich with dead parents is a big part of who he is, a character's race, nationality, etc. should play a role fi/when its relevant. But these things only make up a part of the characters. When people read any charatcer, they do it for the sum of the parts that make them up.

When all your book has to offer is race/sexuality/whatever, then you're not really reading a character. You're reading a fraction of a character. An incomplete character. It's what Bendis does with Miles and what Whatserface is doing with America.

Describe a character without mentioning their race or sex.

If you cannot they only exist to fill a diversity quota

Representation:
-Characters who happen to be minorities
Pandering :
-Constantly pointing out that they're a minority
-Companies constantly shilling their product because "look out main character is a minority! See we're progressive!"

>Constantly pointing out that they're a minority
This can be fine (though played out) if that's what the story is about.

I think "representation" isn't even a valid idea. Art isn't a Republic. Art is the recreation of the world based on the values of the artists. All it shows is what the artists/creators values are and what they believe about the world around them, giving attention and positive exposure to ideas and things they like and vice versa with things they don't like.

So an artist/writer can use the excuse of "representing" some group of people, but honestly all their art/words represents is their own views and what the like. So in the end it's not unfair to question why the specifically choose people's backgrounds or race or interests or hobbies or religions etc. They're not representing those people, they're representing what they belief about those people or want the audience to belief.

In your pic example, why choose to call a character "America" and make them Puerto Rican which barely qualifies as American? Puerto Ricans have weird issues with it because some of them want to be a State in the US and some of them want to be their own country. So what does this character represent here?

That America is only defined by it's most fringe minority?

Context has to be taken into account to. If you showed this to someone who has no clue about American culture or politics they may not see the problem. But an audience that IS aware might see the problems and see the pandering to one vocal political faction in America that loves fawning over everything that's not straight or "white" at all.

>of an alien race from a destroyed planet
>has "man" right in the name

Superman is a diversity quota check-boxer. Brilliant logic you've got here, kid.

That's a good metric, I like that.

"Colorblind" liberal fag spotted. Most people would have no problem with describing a person in real life as "that Cuban guy down the street who works on bicycles," but describe a made up character that way and it's pandering? Absolutely retarded.

I'd argue that with America it's not even that she's quirky. It's that the whole setting is quirky, brown, or lesbian. She teams up with women only. She goes to a college named after a Hispanic woman. With a motto by another. The classes are bizarre and specific to feminism or something. The only guy that gets to have a role is Black and Bi. And it ends with a very obvious jab at current events.

Her own relationship felt like he least forcefed pages of the book and that ended quite quick.

Also either writer requested it or the artist put the writer into the first page. Bottom left panel.

Representation simply for the sake of representation IS pandering. Story and characterization are sacrificed in the sole attempt to virtue signal by turning races into mouthpieces for current social politics.

She's not even Puerto Rican. She's from a extra-dimensional utopia of super lesbians created by a magical faggot, who just happens to be an obnoxious Latina stereotype because reasons.

Would it be weird if a character that has spanish as his/her mother tongue but speaks english kept the "¿" and "¡" in his/her dialogue instead of throwing random spanish words like a moron?

Example:

>¡Holy menstruation!

If whitebois on Sup Forums hate it then its representation

Unless that particular sentence is in Spanish, it doesn't look good.

Example:

>And as the old proverb my grandfather used to say goes: ¿acaso amaestramos gatos? Consigue un perro y deja al gato ser gato.

Was that always her origin? That sounds like the kind of stupid shit that gets tacked on in retcons.

>without mentioning their race or sex
But comics are a visual medium.

Miles has literally never met America

When does America collect all of the corpse parts and then bring the alternate version of Hulkling with the timestop powers to 616?

Pandering is shallow, it's direct appeal to a specific audience with absolutely no sense of tact
>here's a hot chick who likes fucking and everything thing you presumably like as well like video games, sci-fi, sport, etc etc

Progressiveness never sells comics well, just keep buying what you like and ignore this shit, we all know that feminists and sjw don't buy shit, let marvel and DC learn it the hard way.

When your goal is "create a representation for ___" and given vast importance over character you've already fucked up.

There should be a twist where when she starts to date Kate Bishop, it turns out she's abusive and beats Kate regularly.

one is just jerking off the character.

Quality of execution. This is amplified though if the shit is front and center, and if the other aspects are atrophied.

MAUS is jewish as fuck and has jewish issues front and center and on every fucking page. But it spends time enriching the characters and story with life details.

Chick tracts are christfag as fuck, but doesn't spend time developing character or putting together a narrative.

Representation is valid as a political concept even in art. It doesn't make it virtuous though.

I think it's weird, unless some of the phrase is spanish. But it's no big deal.

My favored twist would be the creators decides to go full over the top insane parody. Like a drunken frank miller at an islamic jihad mosque.

>Where is the dividing line
Good character. No one can deny this.

this user put it best

I don't understand this cover. Why is she wearing a hat so far down that she can't see?

OH YES I CAN GENTE

That can't be right.

This sounds like shit. Is it?

whether its pandering to me or not

Marvel: "Come and read about this beautiful American (Mexican) woman (man)!"

>It's what Bendis does with Miles
Bendis doesn't do that to Miles, what the fuck are you talking about?
Miles is portrayed as an oreo whose race doesn't matter to anyone but a girl on youtube.

Imagine the cringiest shit you've ever seen. This book makes that look like a baby deer being born.

BatMAN

So Miles is representation huh?

>Miles is cool
Go to bed, Bendis

>Bendis doesn't do that to Miles
Bendis and Marvel do that to Miles all the time. Remember when Luke Cage gave Miles a pep talk about how he represents all black people?

Bendis created a black character because he wanted to pander to his black kids. That was the priority for him. Nothing more.

I think most of Sup Forums come closer to a good conclusion but not quite.

Representation can make the story revolve around whatever cultural, sexual, racial and religious background the main character belongs. It gives us the experience of being one of them through the eyes of the protagonist. Sometimes those characteristics don't impact that much the story and character. But ignoring that a black person, or a muslim person, or a gay person all have different problems isn't a solution.

Representation is writing a character as a person who lives through their own situation.

But pandering is when it's masturbatory. Pandering is when it's so disingenous, unrealistic, and not to the point of being an escapist fantasy but much more. It's when they fetishize the background of the character for the sake of trying to connect with people in similar situations. It's an exaggerated caricature in order to please shallow fans who don't care about what other things surround the character. Not their stories, not their personal situations, but only comfort and no conflicts.

Pandering is taking the humanity and the depth away of a character and making them live the fantasies of the fans and the authors. It's writing a skin of a character in order to please a crowd who never really cared for anything but themselves.

He barely does. Granted I haven't read Miles besides a couple of issues after Secret Wars because destroying the Ultimate Universe killed my interest for anything Marvel related.
But until Luke Cage, Miles' race in-story wasn't a big deal, doesn't matter how much Bendis shills him as a black savior outside of the comics.
Miles is barely pandering. He's too vanilla to be pandering.

It's a Beyonce reference apparently

Well all ethnic people know each other, right?

Not a Sup Forums example, but I recently beat Watch Dogs 2 and while it was ultimately disappointing (but enjoyable), I thought it did a good job of handling diversity. It doesn't ignore the fact that Marcus (protagonist) is black, but neither does it go out of its way to point it out. Marcus acts and talks like a hip black guy, his race IS pointed out, but only when it's with something relevant, like his poor neighborhood or how there aren't a lot of black people working in good tech jobs in upper crust areas.

That might set off warning flags for you, but I should also point out that there is no blame assigned to these things. Not even the main antagonist corporation, Blume, is accused of acting to keep minorities down. When Marcus and Horatio, another black guy, talk about how little blacks there are at Horatio's tech job, they don't start putting down white guys and they even start poking fun at it a bit ("Man if somebody sees us together they're gonna think we plottin'!" "We are plottin'!"), but ultimately they end that conversation on how they're glad to be doing their part for representation, not bitching about how they're being kept down or whatever. A bald white guy is a dick to Horatio and is suspicious of him, but not because of race. It's because he thinks Horatio is a fake, and he's right.

There's also an autistic guy and a black trans woman in the game, but so little attention is devoted to those aspects that they're nothing but footnotes to their character. The trans woman mentions her "surgeries" in passing, and she kinda looks like a trans, but that's literally it. Autistic guy acts a little weird, but if it weren't for his audio log I honestly wouldn't have known.

That's how I think it should be handled. Not ignored, but neither an object of focus. You definitely shouldn't put "brown queer stronggirl" or whatever in the character description.

Original as in the only one? Because in her introduction she didn't have an origin. She was just there. None of this stuff was ever implied about her before. She originally was a flying brick but once Gillen got a hold of her she got teleporty shit and was deemed to be from an AU space lesbian universe because Wiccan wasn't enough of a shitty mary sue bitch already

>But until Luke Cage, Miles' race in-story wasn't a big deal
Two issues before that was a girl on social media in story going "Spider-man is black now this changes everything!"

Heck, when Miles first shows up one of the people that sees him jumping around goes "Told you Spider-man was black.:

It's Bendis. He's not subtle.

The difference is in good writing.

Looking at characters like Kamala Khan or pre-Secret Wars Miles Morales or Virgil Hawkins, or Jaime Reyes, their identities are inextricably TIED to their heritage and their racial or religious culture. Their books are absolutely dripping with it, and they would feel poorer if those elements were removed. These elements informed and enriched the characters, they weren't just cheaply trotted out.

It's a matter of showing not telling in writing. When America keeps TELLING us "I'm latina I'm gay CARE ABOUT ME" it feels cheap.

...

Are you being sarcastic?

I can't tell.

Representation is when the status serves the story.
Pandering is when the story serves the status.

Just tell good stories and the majority of your audience will let you flirt with that "pandering" line. This is why Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel and Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle are cool and why Riri Williams or Val Zod Superman are disliked.

I think Bendis does do it to Miles a bit more than you think. He doesn't have much of a personality other than "is Black-Hispanic" and "gets yelled at by his parents and grandmother." Bendis did nothing to develop him after he picked the race and macguffin of a venom blast power.

He's the definition of an incomplete character created for racial pandering. I want to like him! I want Loveness or Pak or even Hickman to write him again because there's so much great potential there being undercooked and wasted because Bendis considered his job finished when he chose a non-white lead.

He's doing the same damn thing with Riri.

No, that was legit a sound reasoned argument you put out there.

Oh. Thanks.

not to mention America is pretty much a total mary sue.

This comic represents me.
This comic panders to them.

When you read the cover intro it tells you the jumping off point for the comic. Who that character is, very basic backstory, what their powers are and rundown of their current arc.

Going from the America page. What does it tell you? she was in YA and Ultimates, She's on her own (2 boxes just to get this across) Shes from some other dimension, her parents are dead. She wants to be a super hero (Considering what she's already accomplished this is kinda stupid) She can do portals and has super strength.

Oh and she's queer and brown.

Just to point out, her being a lesbian has nothing to do with the comic. Her being brown has nothing to do with the comic.

If its X-men, do they tell you that Iceman(why) or Northstar is gay? No.
Do they tell you that FalCap or John Stewart is black? No.

The only reason is to grab attention because muh stronk diverse characters.

If they make a character and then slowly introduce that they're gay that fine as long as they're a proper charcter. But considering they're telling you that one of the defining traits of America is that she's gay, then thats tokenism.
What he said

Exactly. if they make their character not built around their fucking quirk then it works and they actually can develop

I'm amazed that no one has ever touched on the existential and metaphysical implications of Wiccan creating an entire universe so he could have a sassy Latina faghag.

Instead of people telling us she's great, why can't they show us why she's so amazing?
I'm a scrub so I only know Kate, Miles, Loki and Storm. But why should I care what they think about her?

Underrated post

I think this America Chavez's book is the logical conclusion for the cape comics as a power fantasy. If it was possible to make the common man a super hero, giving him super qualities and ideal image to search for (aka superman), it's a question of time till people like sjw's start using it for their minorities.

Are we even allowed to read this if we're white?

bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-39142260

>representation
DC
>pandering
Marvel

/thread

>/threading your own post
>while being wrong
>the wrong in this case being the denial of DC pandering

Except it's a power fantasy that needs to make money to survive. This won't.

The only conclusion this'll be is a cancellation.

behind this.

The people who actually BUY comics won't buy this.

At least I hope they won't.

representation is where the persons heritage is a minor character detail, or its an accurate review of both the positive and negative sterotypes of that demographic. Pandering is creating flat, boring characters who start and end with "They are black"

This.

>Rhodey
>I'm Tony's best friend and armed to the fucking teeth with the best weapons around.

>America
>I fucking love munching carpet so goddamn much, aayyyy gringo fuck whitey am I right?

Representation:[Race/Religion/Sex/Gender/Orientation] Makes up part of the whole of the character
Pandering: [Race/Religion/Sex/Gender/Orientation] is the entirety of the character.

Ewing should have killed her off when he had the chance.

>even they think this issue is bullshit and comes off as pandering
AHAHAHAHAHAH

>missing the entire point
Its the Plinkett Test you idiots.

>all their art/words represents is their own views and what the like
The fuck are you talking about? You can't understand an author's views just from the fiction they write because many authors do (and should) deliberately write characters they don't agree with, but think would be interesting to explore. And sure, sometimes these characters are cast in a blatantly negative light, but oftentimes (and what is the mark of a truly skilled writer) they are looked at from a more neutral standpoint, so that an audience can infer their own ideas on what might make that character right or wrong. In that way, the character ends up a lot more layered and interesting, too.

So yeah, authors can deliberately write things that don't necessarily line up with their beliefs and views and if they're a good author, their characters end up with more moral complexity than just "this character does X thing so they're super bad forever" because of it.

So why would marvel approve this getting published?

Because of Brevoorts "Le anger equals le sells!" meme.

The presence of Carol Danvers in the cover.

Considering that there's a lot of gay/minority characters Sup Forums does like, there's clearly a right and wrong way to do it.

There is. Just make a good character. Nobody outside of Tumblr cares about a character's sexuality first and foremost.