Week 8: Stereotypes and the Ethics of Representation

For this week's comic, I read some of the "March" comics and I really enjoyed the art style within them. I like that they were black and white and I appreciated the wide variety of characters and how they all looked distinctly different. I also found it very easy to follow and read. I especially enjoyed the dynamic page layouts and how a lot of the borders of the frames were broken out of and then when you hit one of those black pages with the high contrast all around. Wonderfully done and super powerful. The way the pages were set up made it even more interesting and intriguing to read because it broke things up and wasn't just the same layout repeated over and over again. They made you want to keep reading (along with the storytelling of course). I think it's hard to talk about stereotypes in comics with this particular set of comics only because it's history and not just something made up so obviously there would be some amount stereotyping. However, when it comes to ethics of representation I think this comic was very respectful and did a great job of representing its characters. I like that the main character was strong but also showed feelings. He wasn't just this big, tough guy would couldn't show emotion like most heroes in comics. I also really liked that there was a mix between past and present and how those pages were handled. I always like to see the back story of the main characters and the struggles they've gone through that make them the character they are in the present time. I think it's important for readers to understand the character fully in order to have the most impactful effect when reading the contents of the story.

 I think this week's topic of stereotypes is a hard topic to comment on sometimes. I think in regards to whether stories need stereotypes in order to be successful is a hard question to answer because we've grown up surrounded by stereotypes. It's hard to imagine something with absolutely zero stereotypes at this point because we're so used to them being around which sounds awful but it's the truth. Ideally, would I like to say nothing needs a stereotype? Of course, but people judge each other whether they do it consciously or subconsciously. So it's hard to tell. I would love to get rid of the really big stereotypes out there when it comes to storylines though. The stereotypical uneducated (basically any person who isn't white), the emotionless "strong man" who's just here to save the world, the passive woman who is only there to aid the strong male lead, the list goes on.