White Tiger Thoughts....

[hypno]

So i have been reading the White Tiger comic and ive noticed something. I am very sensitive to latinos portayed in comics. For one lately it seems like any hispanic superhero has to be a woman, im starting to suspect its because of the popularity of latin pop stars like Jennifer Lopez or Shakira (she did start her carrear in latin america). I think

Comments

[anonymous]

Claremont had Nightcrawler go around calling people "Leibchen" in every other issue. Aside from the retarded stereotype thingy, he also spelled it wrong. "Liebchen" means "darling". "Leibchen", which he wrote, means "bodice".

[daemonnoire]

Random English Tidbit You Never Wanted to Know:

The term for sprinkling your speech with terms from your native language is called "codeswitching." And in general is only used between two members of the same background. In writing, codeswitching is often used as a shortcut for annoying things like character development.

[anonymous]

So it's kind of a more sophisticated version of how Tony Isabella's Black Lightning used to disguise his identity by wearing a fake afro and talked more "street" to obscure his real identity. (Coincidentally, his civilian last name is "Pierce".)

[herozero]

Dude! I hear you on that one. I think that the people working on Blue Beetle are doing a much better job of this.

[goggle_kid]

When a white creator handles a non-white character it's always a kinda delicate situations. In fact I recall a couple of years ago when Marvel was first introducing Araña a complaint I found semi-frequently on message boards was that she didn't come across as "hispanic" enough, presumably because I guess she didn't use enough enough Mexican slang for their tastes. Also in recent years some Latino male superheroes have shown up such as the new Blue Beetle and Rockslide from New X-Men.

I actually like the current White Tiger series though it's far from the greatest book on shelves right now.

[zenlari]

Rockslide's latino!?

I must say I like the Artwork for White Tiger and I've always been a fan of Tamora's writing. (There's a special place in my heart for her, she was some of the first fantasy I read.) However, I would like to point out that many of recent introductions of Latino characters have been women. Also, Marvel has a way of hyping up their new Latina characters, (I'm still recoiling from the horrible hype of Arana,) whereas DC would let the Blue Beetle slip into the night without much fanfare. This may be why some people had issues with Arana not being "Latina" enough, because Marvel hyped it up as "look at our shiny new wall crawling Latina, buy our book...buuuuuy it."

[goggle_kid]

Whoops... I goofed. Rockslide's actually Italian. The fact his civilian name is "Santo" threw me off.

I'm honestly not sure if there is a right or wrong way to handle the launch title of an ethnic character. Marvel's press releases all seemed kinda gleefully oblivious to the fact that they were in fact admitting they'd gone some 60+ years without launching a book with a Latino lead. DC meanwhile seemed to think that they didn't need to hype a book at all.

I think both Araña and Blue Beetle III are perfectly fine characters who I hope don't slip through the cracks or get used as cannon fodder come next Crisis/Civil War.

[zenlari]

I can see Arana going that way, the problem is she had so much potential and it got fuddled by this secret society story that made as much sense as Bill O'Riely and Jesse Jackson in the same room together.
Blue Beetle's story is kinda cool but I'm so done with him right now, I was really excited about the directions these characters could've headed potentially but they've kinda jumped the shark for me.