Man I need to fix my tags on this blog, sorry anyone who came here looking for my art and can't get the tags to work... I'll fix that eventually. In the meantime #ripley tag is where a lot of my art goes because. He's the guy
somehow this guy was the most considerate carjacker in all of Baltimore. did he pull a gun on me? yeah. but he let me keep my phone and my wallet, and when he was driving away he rolled down the window and yelled at me "REPORT YOUR CAR STOLEN!" (the cops were confused and laughed when I told them this)
I told my husband @beemovieerotica that's what great about Baltimore, the crime is streamlined here.
the youth today, they have no class. these zoomers don't understand social cues and good manners. it takes a real upstanding citizen to rob your car at gunpoint and then immediately yell at you how to resolve your current dilemma. that's called community building
Unimaginable Utopia vs the believable Colonized World
"Why can't we make Krypton, Superman's home planet, flawed or evil instead of a utopia (as it was traditionally portrayed)?"
Much of the justification for an evil or flawed Krypton is that it "adds depth" or "makes it believable/ interesting" when Krypton isn't a utopia. Because utopias, in a lot of people's minds, are unimaginable. We can imagine aliens, distant planets, magic, superpowers, but utopia without suffering is "ridiculous".
I have been gripped by this Little Joel video on Omelas: How We Talk About Utopia for ages now because I think it succinctly wraps up everything I feel about the topic. Omelas and Krypton are both fictional worlds (in the case of Omelas, explicitly a fiction within the short story fiction where the author herself encourages you to imagine utopia with her as a thought experiment), yet in the demand to make these fantastical worlds more "believable", suffering (regardless of how nonsensical) needs to be added in order to "make sense of the good that exists". The idea of utopia without suffering is unimaginable.
For Krypton, this means any sort of interpretation from "Kryptonians are colonizers now" or "Kryptonians are evil aliens who hate Earth, plot twist!" or "Kryptonians have a class system that punishes progressive thought" or "Kryptonians are racist, sexist, ableist, etc."! Somehow this fictional alien world has to look a lot more like our flawed world in order to be "believable". But that's not the full picture. Many real world societies in themselves are hard to believe, especially in the American mindset.
["From A Native Daughter" by Haunani-Kay Trask excerpts]
People are shocked to learn of societies outside of the West with more broad systems for gender, or that queerness existed at all in indigenous cultures around the world without the influence of white people. Societies outside of a patriarchal or capitalistic system? Is that really possible?
["From A Native Daughter" by Haunani-Kay Trask excerpts]
I'm not here to paint all these cultures as perfect or necessarily enlightened before colonialism set them back. But I am saying that the way many of these societies were built were so unimaginable to colonizers that they had to lie and label these worlds as barbaric or worse-than-they-were as a means of "civilizing them" through colonization. Projecting familiar European structures on them, regardless of accuracy. "These indigenous genderqueer roles are perverse, they must fit our binary two gender system!" And now all of these cultures are set back, and we'll never really know what they'd have looked like had they been allowed to develop and grow without colonizers intervening. Many have bought into the European structures enforced on them. Because that's believable.
(American Missionaries in the 1800s abolishing the genderqueer practices of the MΔhΕ«, from Kumu Hina documentary)
The basic premise of Superman is that he was born on a utopian planet, but sent to Earth as a baby when said planet faced world-wide destruction. He is raised by his adopted American parents and culture. Superman is by all technicalities, an undocumented immigrant.
So why do I think utopia is important to Superman mythos? Isn't there an argument to be made for portraying a refugee allegory when Superman leaves a bigoted Krypton to find safety in a flawed Earth? Because any other alien character in DC's roster could do that. Martian Manhunter used to be written as coming from a utopian Mars, but I personally think that him fleeing from a bigoted one works better for his themes. What makes Superman different? What makes him unique from all these alien migrants?
Because being the Man of Tomorrow, an ideal to strive for, is inherit to the best Superman stories. Part of what makes his rivalry with Lex Luthor so compelling is that Lex Luthor has bought into the flawed Omelas premise. He's been raised to believe that power without stepping on someone else is impossible. So when he sees Superman, he's frustrated that this alien man flaunts power without malice. It's unimaginable to Lex that someone can be powerful and selfless. It's even become a meta discussion for fans that someone as kind as Superman is unbelievable. "Too good to be true".
When you remove utopia from Superman's backstory, this contrast is lost. Superman just becomes an exception from an evil planet. A miraculous white savior, assimilated into American culture to be our hero.
(the infamous, xenophobic John Byrne panel)
Nowadays, people want to shake up the formula. It's a trendy twist to make Krypton a planet of colonizers. Or maybe a morally grey one. Or a feudal, classist, and bigoted one.
Superman is no longer a guy from a native utopia who hopes to bring our flawed world into a better tomorrow like the one he came from. He's now just magically the best guy from the shitty planet. Sometimes he's like that because his Kryptonian parents happen to be activists (Absolute Superman). Other times, Superman is good because he was raised by upstanding American citizens. He's not like those other aliens; barbaric, feudal, bigoted. Superman's good because he's assimilated into being an American. And he will spread that American goodness throughout the galaxy to bring them into the American Way- oh wait that's the less progressive line, I mean- "A Better Tomorrow".
Think for a moment about Superman as an immigrant allegory and how that parallels real human experiences for a second. What does it mean to change Superman's home planet to be something "more believable"? To add elements of American/western bigotry into these distant sci-fi worlds? Why make Kryptonians evil colonizers like yourselves? Why make a Superman that disavows his Utopian Kryptonian roots? Why make a Superman that assures us he is more human than alien? It's because our modern imaginations are limited by colonial constructs. New writers think they're twisting the Superman formula, but they manage to bring it backwards to xenophobic directions.
"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting.
This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."
-Those Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula K. Le Guin
I honestly didn't thought it mattered for the character of Superman where he came from. He never saw Krypton, all he has from it is the DNA.
His origins are this
But if the authors insists that Krypton must be "A thing", then yeah, making it evil is really fucked up.
Krypton matters to Supergirl, because unlike Sups she got to live in that society for most of her formative years. But Superman could have been the son of Darkseid, or an artificial being, or the same but raised by actual immigrants (Gods and Monsters Superman), it's just flavor. There is no need for it to mean anything.
Which means that every attempt at making it mean anything is deliberate, unnecessary, and a window into the author's soul.
People will say "Superman was always an immigrant, it's important that he was made by 2 Jewish sons of immigrants" and then turn around and say things like this. And I don't think that's surprising.
If there's anything I've learned from talking to Superman fans, it's that DC's non-committal portrayal of Clark as an immigrant has left his fandom completely unequipped to discuss Superman as a piece of diaspora literature.
By the technicalities of his origin, Superman is a first generation immigrant (because he was born on Krypton) but raised as a second generation immigrant (because he arrived to Earth as a baby and spent his formative years raised in Earth's culture). You can even argue that he is a transracial/transcultural (by sci fi alien standards) adoptee. This is diaspora 101.
"From a world my mind can't remember. A world my soul can never forget."
Over in the real world, there are so many people like Superman. People who have complicated feelings about the culture they didn't get to grow up in. That culture doesn't magically stop mattering to them because they didn't spend their formative years in it. It can haunt them, it can make them question who they are. Maybe they'll learn about that culture and reclaim it. Maybe they'll seek out solidarity with others experiencing that longing and lost. It's so much more than just "that's where your genetic pool comes from". We start to sound like that John Byrne panel when we follow this mindset; "Krypton bred me, but it was Earth that gave me all that I am. All that matters." and it's not reflective of immigrant experiences, it's reflective of xenophobic assimilation. "Where you come from doesn't matter".
Following this logic, Kara/Supergirl is a born and raised first generation immigrant. More informed by that culture. It matters to her, but in a different way. There are also people like Kara irl, because diaspora experiences are vast, generational and complex.
"There is no need for this to mean anything" "Which means that every attempt at making it [Krypton] mean anything is deliberate, unnecessary, and a window into the author's soul." well do we want Superman to represent immigrants or not? Is it necessary or not? Do we want these characters to actually represent something in our souls or not? Because if that matters to us, then let's actually engage with what we want from Superman through those lens.
anyway in the hopes that i can save just one person from living the horror of my 20s: if you have a friend that seems a little too invested in callouts i hope you can get out of there safely
it's so easy to think to yourself "i don't have anything to hide, what do i have to worry about?" but having morals and generally doing your best not to hurt anyone will not save you. you can never be good or pure enough for these people. the target is constantly shifting and if they cannot find dirt on you they will change gears and tighten the circle of acceptable behaviors until you fit their new description of a threat. you are fully disposable to them and they are waiting to take the shot. don't confront them, don't give them the opportunity to darvo you. just hit the bricks π the peace will be worth it
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