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Greg Capullo (Batman) avoids politics in his work. So, politics found him on Twitter.
- Thread starter Spike Spiegel
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NoblesseOblige
Banned
Geez Louise, if you consider my response to be hostile then you may need to take a breather. It ain't like I'm going around calling people "f---ers" (in fact I don't even curse at people!).
Claude Augario
Member
Calling someone a racist is worse than real racism.
Unless the target is A Black Woman With Opinions, then it's perfectly okay to throw around the R-word all nilly willy.
Unless the target is A Black Woman With Opinions, then it's perfectly okay to throw around the R-word all nilly willy.
Yes, on average this is certainly true. Heck, I am pretty observant in feminist issues but have never experienced the shit like my sis firsthand because I am male.
I simply took offense to the real world statement because you can't go around and imply a bunch of stuff in a discussion. Plus even if you simply take it as "he hasn't experienced racism like she has" that is not a correct argument as to why he can not say that to her.
M0nochromatic
Member
I respect the sentiment of putting escapism first. It's a very vital part of fiction. However, it's nigh impossible for people to seperate their world views from their actions and creations.
I guess nigh impossible is better than impossible but you're the third poster I've encountered who says pretty much this.
What makes you believe this? A school of thought that I'm not aware of? Some expert in the art world?
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Psychology? Conditioning is a real thing, and even if politics aren't at your forethought they're still highly likely to seep into a person's work. Particularly a person who believes themselves to be apolitical by default. You have to work significantly harder and combat your own nature if you want to truly not present any sort of politics.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Name one work that isn't political I some way
Batman and Spawn comics are hella political. There is a certain personality, belief system, morality, ideal they are putting forth as right and true when they make those comics
Batman and Spawn comics are hella political. There is a certain personality, belief system, morality, ideal they are putting forth as right and true when they make those comics
I'm not sure it's about not having any sort of politics at all, it's about not having that be a pillar of what you're writing. Of course your personal politics are always going to creep in but focusing on promoting them or actively attempting to downplay them are two very different approaches.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
When Capullo was drawing Wonder Woman for a Batman issue he made it a point on Twitter to make sure she was strong and not sexualized. And he's had that same thought process for many of the female characters he's drawn when other artist fall for cliches. That's taking a political stance against the norm, especially against artist like Frank Cho who believe artist should have the option to sexualize a female character without criticism.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Accurate. Just stating it is in incredibly difficult for a person to completely divorce themselves from their world views when creating a piece of work - at the very least when its a form of entertainment such as comic books, anyway.
Chie Satonaka
Member
Basically.
maquiladora
Member
She is right though.
eh? The argument isn't that there is no link. Of course in a lot of cases you can make a good case for interpreting a work in that light. Heck I wrote an entire book the last thirty days about mental health. It wasn't primarily political, but of course my political biases would inform me whilst writing in that subject area.
But not every subject is deigned or even fits the political arena. In fact there are lots of examples where no reasonable person would consider drawing any political interpretations.
jordan0386
Member
They both could have dealt with each other better.
On another note, we have to stop begging white people to listen.
You don't think their ancestors were listening to the cries of those Aficans they forced on those ships. You don't think they were listening to the gasping for air of Africans being hanged all over America.
Every white person does not need to be told racism exist. They are white, they know!
Only the power brokers matter. The more brown people you elect into power the more power brown people can have.
/🇺🇸
On another note, we have to stop begging white people to listen.
You don't think their ancestors were listening to the cries of those Aficans they forced on those ships. You don't think they were listening to the gasping for air of Africans being hanged all over America.
Every white person does not need to be told racism exist. They are white, they know!
Only the power brokers matter. The more brown people you elect into power the more power brown people can have.
/🇺🇸
M0nochromatic
Member
It's just how I see how others see things. Our world views cannot help but color our perceptions of reality, and an artist draws from their experiences when creating art. It's not evil or something, it's a part of who people are and it adds something when it becomes a part of their work.
If an artist does have a world view of, not really thinking about their world view, then it can appear as lacking one. In the inverse, if they are hyper self aware and try to scrub anything personal from the art, then that comes through as well. It'll come through as a piece devoid of anything more, which is what a lot of entertainment that's designed by commitee and made for mass market consumption strives to achieve.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Well you responded to a person who said it's nigh impossible to separate their world view from their work by asking why. You seem to already know why. As people we form opinions, they seep into our work whether we mean them to or not. Politics are largely interwoven with opinion. You don't necessarily need to create something with the intention of it being political for it to be political. The person you responded to didn't say all work created is done so with politics in mind.
So if an ai wrote goobledegook, what political conclusions do you draw? Left? right? what?
That isn't the point being expressed at all though. In fact, you seem to just be repeating what I said.
Simply put, I'm saying it doesn't work in all examples. You seem to be saying it does. I'm asking you to draw conclusions from where it would simply be absurd to draw political interpretations.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
That depends on what data you feed the AI. Just like it does for people.
Random mathematic equations?
echoshifting
Banned
It's just more complicated.
A creator with a minority background is going to experience greater pressures to create works that give voice to their experience, either externally or internally.
For example, Christopher Priest, who recently returned to comics, is a Black writer who was well known for racial commentary in his comics back in the day. Sometimes though he just wants to make comics, like Greg Capullo apparently does. In fact when he came back to the industry earlier this year he specifically wanted to work on a non-Black character. Yet in interviews it seemed he could not escape the questions of what exactly his work was going to say about the state of race relations in America, how important his voice is for POC who read comics, etc. Maybe Greg Capullo and Christopher Priest both just want to create comics sometimes, but nobody is ever going to ask Greg Capullo these sorts of questions. He will never have to deal with fans who are disappointed he isn't speaking to an experience they feel they share with him, or want to learn more about. He can just make comics and not have to worry about it.
Here is one interview in which he addresses this, and I think many people in this thread with questions like yours might find this excerpt illuminating:
Just to put this in context, Christopher Priest is an incredible talent behind classic runs at both of the big 2 cape publishers. And he sat on a shelf for a fucking decade because nobody would give him a non-Black character to work with and he doesn't want to be a "Black writer" right now. That's insane. And that's the difference.
As an artist, and a comic book artist to boot, I have to say that yes, the way I draw a character, whether I mean it to or not, will make a statement. I just finished a four issue mini-series, The Gamma Gals this past April, and I thought really long and hard before I even wrote the script about the type of comic I was making (a superhero series about three teenage girls who gain superpowers), and what I wanted to say with it.
While my goal is always to entertain, I also have to be cognizant of how people will receive that entertainment. I have characters that are black (like me!), white, asian, Mexican, disabled, and LGBT (the three leads, actually). I thought about how the portrayal of those characters would be seen by my readers, and especially readers that could possibly be from those groups. Did it bother me that I had to be more sensitive and aware? No. Why would it? It made the creation of the comic more engaging. I feel like my diverse cast of characters are respectful, and I hope that they don't offend. But if they do, I want to be told why, so I can work to improve it.
My job is to portray the worlds I create as best as I can. But that also means I'm going to be representing a lot of people in some way, shape or form. Whether it's a Muslim shopping in the background, or an overweight person fighting crime (one of my heroines struggles with her weight, for example).
As a black man growing up a fan of comics and superheroes (enough to want to actually become a comic book artist himself), I have to say I was always dismayed at the lack of high profile comic book characters I saw in mainstream comics. I couldn't afford many comic books growing up (another factor that drove me to the profession; I subscribed to the philosophy, "If you can't afford comics, make some yourself!"), so most of my exposure to characters like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man, were from cartoons and maybe the occasional Superman/Batman book I saved up for and bought in Walgreen. It wasn't lost on me how incredibly white those series were. From the leads, to the supporting cast.
I've mentioned it a million times on NeoGAF, but in school, I was told by my classmates that I couldn't play Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, or the Flash with them, because they were white, and I was black. I could play the bank robber or gang member. I didn't know who John Stewart was. I didn't know who Black Lightning was. I had no idea Black Panther existed. So I grew up, a child of the 80's, thinking that there were no heroes in my favorite genre of all time that looked like me. That had a profound effect on me growing up. It didn't help that non-superhero themed television reinforced the notion that blacks were often the buffoon, criminal, or incompetent as well. Rarely the lead. Rarely the hero. But there was probably one episode where they'd throw the black sidekick a bone and have him do something heroic while the white leads looked on and cheered.
This also had an effect on the very comics I would create myself. I could show you folders and folders of drawings and comic book pages of characters I created. Over 90% of them were white, and the minorities and women were almost always supporting characters, sidekicks, and love interests. That's the effect the white comic book world had on this young black artist.
I'm sad to say that I didn't actually realize I was doing this until I was in my early 20's, and I'd have conversations with my then girlfriend, now wife about representation of minorities and women in comics. As a white woman, her perspective was interesting in a lot of ways, especially when I realized how similar the marginalization of women in American entertainment is to the marginalization of minorities. Those conversations eventually gave birth to the germ that would become The Gamma Gals.
Having to consider what my art is saying to its intended audience is one of the best things to happen to my thinking and creative methods. It's opened up my mind creatively, in that I no longer default to "white male protagonist" when I sit down with this hot new idea that popped into my head while reading the news, or a book, or listening to music, or watching television. And then, when I sit down to draw that protagonist, I don't just think "super model attractive with a perfect figure." It's made my art better. It's made the worlds I create more interesting and feel more real. My backdrops aren't populated solely by perfect looking white people anymore. My leads don't always look like they stepped out of GQ or Cosmo. Sure, those characters still exist and appear in my books (as do lots of white people), but they aren't the sole thing any longer.
I'm glad my work can be criticized. I'm glad that, if the message my art is sending upsets people, that they will open their mouths and tell me, so I can better myself. As someone who's had his artwork looked at and critiqued by J. Scott Campbell, Joe Madureira, Humberto Ramos, and countless others, I have a thick skin when it comes to criticism. Getting overly defensive about your work doesn't help you improve. Greg opened himself up to criticism the moment he posted his comment on Twitter. That's how social media works. He clearly wasn't prepared to engage in the discussion, so I have to wonder, why bring it up in the first place? Nothing I post on my Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, etc, are things I have no desire to discuss. If I don't want to be political, I won't post something political. Being apolitical is still a stance, and it's going to open up discussion. Greg did what a lot of people this election cycle did, and tried to toe a middle ground. That's totally in his rights to do, but it's not going to keep people who lean on either side of the issues to stay quiet.
As a huge fan of Greg's work, I have to say I'm incredibly disappointed in his response. I'm not surprised by the response, but disappointed.
I enjoy having these uncomfortable discussions. Maybe it's because I'm one of the people affected by systemic and institutional racism, and how it has shaped my life, self esteem, confidence, and overall psychology. Calling a white person a white person, and pointing out that there is an inherent privilege afforded to that white person by virtue of being white, isn't racist. It's a statement of fact. That's not some kind of aggressive attack against white people. Nor is it calling a white person that benefits from said privilege a racist when pointing it out.
Messofanego
Banned
Resorting to personal insults of a GAFer, but someone else needs to lay off? LOL
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Racist. Lots of white folks out there acting like being called it is akin to being called the N-word. So humorously many refer to racist as 'the R-word'.
lightskintwin
Banned
White people's N-word, or so they believe.
Fallout-NL
Member
Yeah, his response should have been: "you might have a point there."
M0nochromatic
Member
Could I not crack open the AI and see whether it possesses a meaning for it? They're a lot more convienient then humans because of that.
Woh. This really true or are you pulling my leg?
Convenient? On the contrary I think that's another whole can of worms. no?
Edit: I won't lie, I actually would want to be able to crack open ai and see whether it possesses a meaning for it.
M0nochromatic
Member
A computer/ AI is made up of logical commands. Programming. Anything the computer does is done through those systems of code. Of course errors can occur, but it isn't magic. Anything it does is in response to what data is input into it.
So if it outputs 'goobledegook' it only did so because of something that was programmed into it.
Messofanego
Banned
You know, we can get into politics of AI, too. Humans created them, after all. Their biases can be built into the machine. It's been in the news about search algorithms.
"Like all technologies before it, artificial intelligence will reflect the values of its creators. So inclusivity matters — from who designs it to who sits on the company boards and which ethical perspectives are included. Otherwise, we risk constructing machine intelligence that mirrors a narrow and privileged vision of society, with its old, familiar biases and stereotypes."
"Histories of discrimination can live on in digital platforms, and if they go unquestioned, they become part of the logic of everyday algorithmic systems. Another scandal emerged recently when it was revealed that Amazon’s same-day delivery service was unavailable for ZIP codes in predominantly black neighborhoods. The areas overlooked were remarkably similar to those affected by mortgage redlining in the mid-20th century. Amazon promised to redress the gaps, but it reminds us how systemic inequality can haunt machine intelligence.
And then there’s gender discrimination. Last July, computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon University found that women were less likely than men to be shown ads on Google for highly paid jobs. The complexity of how search engines show ads to internet users makes it hard to say why this happened — whether the advertisers preferred showing the ads to men, or the outcome was an unintended consequence of the algorithms involved."
"Take a small example from last year: Users discovered that Google’s photo app, which applies automatic labels to pictures in digital photo albums, was classifying images of black people as gorillas. Google apologized; it was unintentional.
But similar errors have emerged in Nikon’s camera software, which misread images of Asian people as blinking, and in Hewlett-Packard’s web camera software, which had difficulty recognizing people with dark skin tones.
This is fundamentally a data problem. Algorithms learn by being fed certain images, often chosen by engineers, and the system builds a model of the world based on those images. If a system is trained on photos of people who are overwhelmingly white, it will have a harder time recognizing nonwhite faces.
A very serious example was revealed in an investigation published last month by ProPublica. It found that widely used software that assessed the risk of recidivism in criminals was twice as likely to mistakenly flag black defendants as being at a higher risk of committing future crimes. It was also twice as likely to incorrectly flag white defendants as low risk."
New York Times: Artificial Intelligence's White Guy Problem
So you think it is reasonable to draw political commentary from a computer that outputted:
1231239u092095234-20394u09u
Yeah. I think we're just going to agree to disagree. Your definition of what fits the political arena or subject area, or what even constitutes political commentary is different to mine.
She's right, but she's right in a 'but children in Africa' kind of way when someone is discussing restaurants. There's nothing wrong with taking on a relatively neutral stance, unless you're an activist (in which case it's an if you're not with us you're against us paradigm), which she seems to be, and he said in his comics at least he did not wish to be. So two sides talking about something else from their own viewpoint. Of course then he did take on a political stance, and got beaten at the game by someone who was actually right in the first place. I guess he noticed he got baited and then deleted his tweets. Lesson learned as always, don't react to anything on Twitter, especially anything requiring a considered position. He done goofed up but seems like water under the bridge.
Yes you can get into the politics of ai. But that isn't the point being expressed. The point isn't to say that art or ai can't have a political angle. Like your examples of AI, and in many art examples, you can obviously draw political interpretations.
The point I'm disagreeing with is that art has to always be political. In fact Art of even ai or even math it seems can't escape politics according to various posters.
MHWilliams
Member
That's nowhere near a specific work of art or entertainment, let alone one that tells a narrative, which shows just how far a field this discussion is.
Oh Art has to be what you declare it is now?
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Oh my god you need to learn when to fold. You're so off topic and obtuse that I feel like I'm in the cringe thread.
I've never heard people calling it the R-word, and if it is being used, I find that dumb.
With that said, in person (at work, school etc) it really is one of the worst things a white person can be accused of, and it's pretty much indefensible once the charge has been levied against you. It can ruin your career and if the internet mob gets involved, it can put your well being at risk.
I'm not saying ignore racism or racist people, but I also don't think it's constructive to use the term for everything and everyone these days. It really does have a negative effect on people's lives and explains why many people get so upset about being a racist when they don't feel like it has any basis (let's not deny that there are plenty of baseless accusations/name calling that occurs these days, especially in the internet age).
You're actually cringing?
Fine. I have no wish to explore this any further. Apologies. Carry on as you were.
lightskintwin
Banned
The term "racist" has lost all it's meaning. I will agree it's used way too much in labeling people rather than it being used on the actual act.
echoshifting
Banned
Where are the white people whose lives are being ruined because they were accused of racism that was not actually malicious racism? Show me.
It's actually not that hard to recover from a simple mistake. White people should be less afraid of having racism pointed out to them/us. It's not a venomous snake. It's a learning experience. Unless you're being malicious, in which case your downfall is almost certainly deserved.
SuperStiltzkin
Member
Well much like the n-word it shouldn't be tossed about so freely as it does these days and it's also a shitty ass thing to be called. Case in point, Greg himself throwing it out there.
Randy Monk
Member
Note to self: Never respond to Matt Hawkins
lightskintwin
Banned
It's not like the N-word. Quit making this false equivalency. And in this specific thread, we have a successful white male on his professional twitter calling a Black woman a racist all because she suggested that he chooses to be "apolitical" due to him being a White male. Do you not see the disconnect with him just tossing that term around.
MHWilliams
Member
If you are calling it art, then it carries the creator's viewpoint and perspective. The "political" everyone keeps talking about is the artist's perspective in relation to societal norms.
Either it's not art, or it is and it expresses a viewpoint. I don't really care which side of that equation you fall on.
Ha he did the Spawn KKK issue
Makes me look at it in a different light now
why? spawn is fucking terrible
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