What would it mean for the greatest superhero of all to be something other than a straight white male?
Good question because, even though I figure I'm pretty gay-positive as these things go (for a white Canadian of Anglo-Irish descent raised Catholic) but there's a part of me that goes "neeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr" at the idea of a homosexual Superman - and I don't know if that's resistance to messing with established characters or homophobia: if Superman wants to marry Jimmy instead of Lois, does that make him less heroic? Culturally, North America is still working on creating heroic narratives for female characters that realistically balance ideas of heroism and physical courage with the "feminine" attributes - I had to stop watching Alias because I couldn't accept that any undercover agent would be quite so fucking weepy - I'm not sure the mainstream is ready to accept the idea of homosexuality in our "heroes". I dunno.
It's an interesting question that I'm not sure anyone has a good answer for because gay characters, particularly in the Superhero genre, have yet to move beyond the level of patishe - the "gay" Batman and Superman analogues in The Authority, for example.
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Date: 2006-06-02 05:24 pm (UTC)Good question because, even though I figure I'm pretty gay-positive as these things go (for a white Canadian of Anglo-Irish descent raised Catholic) but there's a part of me that goes "neeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr" at the idea of a homosexual Superman - and I don't know if that's resistance to messing with established characters or homophobia: if Superman wants to marry Jimmy instead of Lois, does that make him less heroic? Culturally, North America is still working on creating heroic narratives for female characters that realistically balance ideas of heroism and physical courage with the "feminine" attributes - I had to stop watching Alias because I couldn't accept that any undercover agent would be quite so fucking weepy - I'm not sure the mainstream is ready to accept the idea of homosexuality in our "heroes". I dunno.
It's an interesting question that I'm not sure anyone has a good answer for because gay characters, particularly in the Superhero genre, have yet to move beyond the level of patishe - the "gay" Batman and Superman analogues in The Authority, for example.