Kiana Khansmith
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Ten blogs! Good luck to those still posting!
I just posted my tenth blog. To help out Dr. Wright-Cleveland (and for my own sanity) I'm going to post the subject list here. 1. Romeo and Juliet - first post 2. Five Women 3. Ahab's Wife 4. Moby Dick 5. Changed For Good (ick) 6. Avengers representation post 7. Frozen post 8. Vampire / Mirror post 9. Cabaret post 10. Romeo and Juliet revisted.
“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all.”
— Junot Díaz on race and representation in media (via medievalpoc)
Gus again,
So one of the things that I would like to do in my paper is discuss the impact of failed representation in popular culture (aka why I am arguing that pop culture perpetuates or reflects male privilege. We need diverse books is one of the campaigns that I hold very near and dear to my heart and this submission is one that I think is really important in context of not only my paper but our class.
The OP is speaking specifically of a lack of race representation but in this course we have examined the lack of women or female representation in canonical works. What does it tell audiences (of television, books, clothing even) when there is a lack of diversity or representation?
Hell - vampires might not have a reflection in literal mirrors, but they have more representation in media than other "monsters" like the racially diverse. I do think this is a valid comparison because it has been said that popular culture holds a mirror to society. If this is true, those missing from that reflection MUST be othered and what kinds of beings don't show up in mirrors? Vampires, right? And ignoring the romanticization of vampires and books like Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak saga - vampires are definitely monsters.
This is definitely a perspective to chew on. Lets fight for representation. Lets make sure that POC know that they are NOT monsters. Gus
Inspired by this blog, I have started some research for a field work project for a class on material culture. I am going to different retail stores and counting the Avengers toys, keeping track of how much each Avenger is represented in toys. I gave myself a couple of…
Good grief. 439 notes?! You have quite a following! Interesting stuff. Looking forward to your paper.
No way! The original post is not mine but I will be using it as a reference in my paper.
A different kind of post
Inspired by this blog, I have started some research for a field work project for a class on material culture. I am going to different retail stores and counting the Avengers toys, keeping track of how much each Avenger is represented in toys. I gave myself a couple of ground rules:
I only counted toys. No school supplies, clothes, or anything else that might be official Avengers merchandise.
I only counted toys that had the Avengers logo on them. I didn’t count anything licensed under Iron Man II, non-Avengers related Superhero Squad, or any other Marvel based property.
I’ve visited two Targets, a Wal-Mart, a Toys R Us, and a Disney Store so far. While I am not done visiting stores just yet, here is a visual representation of what I have found so far:
The top graph represents how much screen time each Avenger received in the movie. I found this here. Black Widow is featured the third most of all the Avengers at 33:35. The Avenger just below her, Hulk, didn’t touch 30 minutes.
The bottom graph represents how many toys I found that featured each Avenger. The Avenger with the most toy representation is Iron man at 413 toys. Black Widow is the least represented at 24 toys. It’s not pictured, but Black Widow just beat characters who were not featured in the movie, such as Super Skrull, which equaled 21 toys.
A couple of interesting notes:
I kept track of “action figure/doll” toys vs “prop” toys such as Hulk Hands. There were no instances of Black Widow “prop” toys.
Any time Black Widow is present, she is packaged with other characters. A vast majority of her toys were the LEGO Quinjet, which at around $70 is not the most accessible toy for low income families. She was also present in a “Special Value pack” that included 4 inch figures for every Avenger, Loki, and Nick Fury. These are the only two toys that featured Black Widow.
Starting this fieldwork I expected a deficit of Black Widow. But I didn’t expect something this drastic.
(Gus here)
This kind of thing has made its way into my final paper and so sorry to Dr. Wright-Cleveland if there is a bit of repetition - I'm using this post as a springboard to finalize my thoughts.
So the post in question is addressing an interesting (and depressing) lack of Black Widow merchandise despite her large amount of screen time. (The article linked in the original post has some interesting commentary on her presence in the film, so check it out). Anyway - As per usual I'm off topic.
Black Widow is the character with the third most prominent character in the film, she is THE female superhero, and yet there are no Black Widow toys. Let's even broaden this discussion to BW merch in general. Considering the fact that there is an entire tumblr dedicated to the lack of Black Widow merchandise (including toys but also things like CLOTHING, ugh) it is obvious that there is a demand where we have a lack. One would think that as BW merchandise DOES have the demand, there would be merch. Money talks, and fans are willing to spend it... So??
But the point remains - there is a definite lack of Black Widow merchandise. What does this mean, however? The goal of my final paper is to show how popular culture perpetuates (white) male privilege. Or that it reflects it. Or whatever it decides to grow into. I like to let my papers develop organically. I should also add this data is a little out of date, but I don't have the time to partake in my own toy analysis.
So what do I have to say about this exactly in the context of my paper? How will I support my claims? A couple of things I guess, and I'm not quite sure yet. First: A lack of merchandise featuring Black Widow suggests that she is not an important character or a large part of the film. The lack of merchandise suggests that she is a "throw away character" or the "token woman" in the Avengers rather than an integral character. Yes, she has the third longest screen presence but it may be "just to satisfy those damn feminists who want a girl character," an idea that we think is silly but remember, we are talking about straight white guys.
Second: This "Black Widow isn't important" is an idea that can very easily be translated to the larger picture as "women aren't important." I am writing from a position of privilege as a man (in this case my trans identity does not affect my male privilege) so I can not identify with this specific struggle, HOWEVER I can imagine that as a young woman interested in superheroes (not an uncommon thing these days but ya'll probably already know that) it must be disheartening to see that you are so "unimportant." Even worse is the young girl seeing the Avengers and knowing that she can be a superhero too, and not being able to have BW toys to play with. [insert sad emoticon here]. That excitement, the knowledge that she can be a superhero, taken away because "if there aren't any black widow toys she must not have been important."
I could ramble for ages about how representation matters (Falcon anyone??? Little black boys with a black superhero ???? MELTS MY COLD HEART EVERY TIME !!!) and in fact my thesis is concerning LGBT representation in YA novels, but this is about pop culture and reflecting privilege, so I'll end with this: MAKE SOME DAMN BLACK WIDOW TOYS SO THAT LITTLE GIRLS CAN KNOW THAT THEY ARE IMPORTANT AND CAN BE SUPERHEROES TOO!
-Gus
Gus' introductory post (personal blog for WST)
Bonsoir! Je m'appelle Augusten! You can call me Gus. This is my personal blog for WST at FSU. I'll be using this as a prelude to my contributions on the class blog, WSTatFSU. These posts will be more of a "ramble on paper" (or electronic paper) kind of thing whereas my posts on the main blog will (hopefully) be more refined. Feel free to follow or not. See you on the main blog, Gus
