Actually, we have alluded to this prospect for the last few months now in Afronerd-a President of color should equate to more (and better) minority representation in our media. This supposition makes perfect sense and yet there are no guarantees when it comes to Hollywood's quest for the almighty dollar. But it does seem really hard to have a Black president with a continuation of a mostly Anglo image landscape. I say this as The Bachelor enters its 13th season with yet another "ideal" White protagonist. The same can be said for the female iteration of the show, The Bachelorette. And you can also place your bets that in both respective shows those same lead players will not end up with paramours of color. But Fox News did report on this discrepancy by way of the pulp world, check out this excerpt:
Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen, a former Spider-Man author for Marvel, says, "I think part of that is that there hasn't been a breakout character that transcends race the way actors Will Smith and Eddie Murphy have, or the 'Cosby Show' did, or, frankly, Barack Obama has.
"The characters in comics are often too ethnic for a white audience and too embarrassing for a black one."
Adds Craft: "I don't think that the black superheroes of the past were all that interesting. Since most of the creators were white, they based their characters on their perception of black men and women. They definitely were not built to stand the test of time."
Political correctness has also been an impediment. "I think that their creators tried hard not to offend blacks and made many of them too perfect," Craft said. "Many were army heroes or Olympic athletes who were fighting a noble cause. They had no character deficiencies or internal conflicts that are usually needed to make a story interesting."
Before Obama won the presidency, blacks were largely implausible as superheroes, Craft said.
"I think that there is a perception of black people that America is comfortable with, and I'm not sure the hero role was it," he said. "We can be athletes and rappers, but not Superman. Thor saved the universe, Captain America saved the country, Spider-Man saved the city, but Luke Cage saved 125th Street (in Harlem) between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards."
Spike, a 30-year-old black, female comic artist and the creator of the series "Templar, Arizona," says, "This may have something to do with not only the original audience for superhero books, but the interpretation of the superhero as an unattainable ideal with the broadest appeal. That usually means appealing to society's default perspective, and for decades, especially during the conception of the original pantheon of superheroes, that perspective was unquestionably white and male."
Robert J. Walker is the creator of Delete, one of the only black female superheroes in comics, and "O+Men," a group of characters who are all HIV-positive. Formerly employed by Marvel and DC Comics, he focuses now on addressing social issues through his comics.
"I used to gripe all the time about the lack of ethnic characters at Marvel and DC," he said. "Most people working there were Caucasian. I don't think it was a racist thing. It was just an understanding that, you know, black girls aren't really the target audience for comics, so black girl superheroes weren't really going to be major characters.
"Even black artists there didn't really have the power to push black superheroes."
The dearth of black superheroes in mainstream, big-market comics has driven independent authors and artists to create and market their own through self-publishing and online. It's also resulted in an online Museum of Black Superheroes, which spotlights lesser-known characters and addresses the historical roadblocks that have kept many of these heroes in the shadows of their more famous peers.
For more of the Fox piece, click on the link below:
Captain Obama ... Is It Time for a Black Comic Book Superhero?
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