# Comics  > Image Comics >  James Robinson to Issue Statement on "Airboy" #2 Controversy

## CBR News

As the controversy over the treatment of the transgender community in "Airboy" rises, Robinson took to Twitter to acknowledge the complaints.


_Full article here._

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## gurkle

I'm not fond of the idea that if a comic has hurtful words or even reinforces stereotypes, it's contributing to real-world harm. For one thing, it's not necessarily true (whether art contributes to violence is a long-standing question that doesn't have a clear answer). For another thing, it assumes that the critic is smart enough not to be influenced by these attitudes, but the other readers out there are not. 

It also assumes that even if the characters would realistically say these things or think these things, they shouldn't. That's not a wrong attitude to take per se - some stories use the n-word where it would realistically be used, some don't; it depends on the story - but I think it matters that "Robinson" as he portrays himself would realistically not use any other word but the word he uses here.

Robinson presumably wrote this scene knowing and expecting he'd get this kind of reaction, so I'm not playing a violin for him. I just think a lot of the responses have been based on the idea that only bad people say bad things, or that if a character has a hurtful attitude he should be punished for it or learn a lesson.

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## JayBee

Honestly... I thought the issue was fantastic and the thought of it being a problem never occurred to me.

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## Ragdoll

I totally support the creative team here. But the article says "the comments of the characters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the writers" but fails to mention that this series is a 4th wall breaker and that the characters and the writers are in fact one in the same lol. 
The comic was funny. This reeks of forcing an issue where there is none, like all the phoney outrage against the Age Of Ultron movie.

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## HellHere

I liked #1, and I liked #2 right up until they went over... I honestly don't think they meant to cause offense, and actually think they thought they were being progressive (see the panel about gendering), but when you're using this to highlight that we're in a world that's so awful Airboy thinks the Nazi's have won, and then use it as a device to push him over the edge... it does not come off so well and I can see how people would be hurt by it.

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## Rene Narciso

I didn't read the comic, but it's my impression that writer James Robinson is purposefully writing character "James Robinson" as a bit of a jerk. The character is not supposed to be an example or a role model. We're not supposed to agree with the character's views or words. 

As for Airboy himself, he is supposed to have been transported from some idealized 1940s world, correct? It makes sense that he would be transphobic. Actually, it would have been pretty strange if he weren't. Yes, there were crossdressers and such in the 1930s and 1940s, and it's not impossible that a soldier would have experience with them in some nightclub (Berlin in the pre-Nazi years had a pretty lively gay nightclub scene, for instance) but Airboy is supposed to be an stereotype of the clean-cut old-times hero, right?

I'm supportive of the rights of gay and trans people, but it rings strange when fiction depicts stories that are supposed to be based on the real world and there is this complete acceptance of LGBT people going on, even in time travel/historic scenes. Even in our modern, liberated world, I'd say plenty of men have a degree of transphobia. If you take men of the past, chances are the feeling was much more intense. A realistic story would reflect that. As long as the transphobic folks aren't depicted as heroic for being transphobic (I don't think this is what's happening in this comic), then it's cool with me.

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## JayBee

> I liked #1, and I liked #2 right up until they went over... I honestly don't think they meant to cause offense, and actually think they thought they were being progressive (see the panel about gendering), but when you're using this to highlight that we're in a world that's so awful Airboy thinks the Nazi's have won, and then use it as a device to push him over the edge... it does not come off so well and I can see how people would be hurt by it.


A character who's entire world vanished was drugged and taken to a place where he engaged in sexual activity with a person who's gender identity clearly did not reflect his preference unbeknownst to him for obvious reasons. I think him being pushed over the edge makes perfect sense.

The depiction of people with behavior or viewpoints that are not ideal is not an endorsement of those viewpoints or actions.

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## HellHere

> The depiction of people with behavior or viewpoints that are not ideal is not an endorsement of those viewpoints or actions.


I know, which is why I said that I thought the writers had very different intentions to what actually happened. This is a gross out comic, no one in it is coming off as a particularly together person, and they're obviously not being held up as good examples in either word or deed. 
But trans people get murdered over this, suffer violence from people claiming they lied to them, are treated like perverts and rapists in waiting in today's world and that is something you should take into account when using them as a device like this.

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## JayBee

> I know, which is why I said that I thought the writers had very different intentions to what actually happened. This is a gross out comic, no one in it is coming off as a particularly together person, and they're obviously not being held up as good examples in either word or deed. 
> But trans people get murdered over this, suffer violence from people claiming they lied to them, are treated like perverts and rapists in waiting in today's world and that is something you should take into account when using them as a device like this.


So don't depict certain situations because people people suffer in the real world? Should we avoid showing black or gay characters be harassed because in the real world people get killed over such situations? It's always horrible when something offends or hurts someone, without a doubt, but I don't think censuring depictions of fictional characters or events is the solution.

Edit: That being said, I may just not "get it" and I may not be seeing the gravity of the situation.

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## HellHere

Please show me where I said they shouldn't depict certain things or called for censorship. I was saying that you need to make sure thatl when you do it you hit the right targets (it's obvious that the intended targets of the joke are the protags, but intent is not always outcome). 

And he wasn't showing trans people being harrassed. He was showing a straight person being "duped" (albeit by his friends rather than the trans lady), which is actually something that is used against trans people in some pretty awful ways.

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## JayBee

> Please show me where I said they shouldn't depict certain things or called for censorship. I was saying that you need to make sure thatl when you do it you hit the right targets (it's obvious that the intended targets of the joke are the protags, but intent is not always outcome). 
> 
> And he wasn't showing trans people being harrassed. He was showing a straight person being "duped" (albeit by his friends rather than the trans lady), which is actually something that is used against trans people in some pretty awful ways.


To me, telling a writer to hit the right targets is censoring their story. If you don't mean it that way then I misunderstood you. 

So the issue is that Airboy was put into a situation in which people have held against them in bad ways?

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## TotalSnorefest

Moderator warning here: due to the sensitive nature of this topic, this thread will be monitored extra strictly. Any user leaving transphobic posts, or making dismissive statements about those who feel offended by the content of this comic, will be punished severely.

Civil discussion is encouraged of course, in fact I'd like to praise the exchange above for the mutual respect and introspection on display. Let's keep it that way!  :Smile: 

Many transgender people still face unequal treatment in parts of their lives; CBR will not be one of those places.

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## Iluvitloud1976

Whatever happened to freedom of speech?? If you don't agree with what the writers doing or saying, stop reading it. It's like what happened to Orson Scott Card a few years back on the Superman series. He's a veteran writer who's got his own viewpoints & because some don't agree, they want to excommunicate anyone who feels differently. Seriously, get a grip.

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## JayBee

> Whatever happened to freedom of speech?? If you don't agree with what the writers doing or saying, stop reading it. It's like what happened to Orson Scott Card a few years back on the Superman series. He's a veteran writer who's got his own viewpoints & because some don't agree, they want to excommunicate anyone who feels differently. Seriously, get a grip.


I actually feel like that was a different situation. Orson Scott Card actively spoke against a demographic of people and in doing so he showed off his less than ideal viewpoint where as people are upset about the fictional events in a fictional setting where the characters that have made the controversial actions are not even portrayed in a positive or heroic light.

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## Hi-Fi

Freedom of speech goes both ways. Writers are free to write what they want, people are free to react as they see fit and be vocal about it.

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## HellHere

> To me, telling a writer to hit the right targets is censoring their story. If you don't mean it that way then I misunderstood you. 
> 
> So the issue is that Airboy was put into a situation in which people have held against them in bad ways?


Yes, you are misunderstanding me.

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## See No Evil

If someday i become a professional comic writer, the first thing i will do is cancel my twitter account.

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## FriendRoss

I thought it had a reasonably pro transgender messege when read in context of the actual story and not a tweet, Facebook or tumblr post. James knew and was totally cool with her and her transition.  



I read the headline.  I'd been dragging my feet on reading this series, ifanboy made it the pick of the week.....   So I read the first two issues waiting for the offensive bit, never happened just great comics.   I'll be back for more

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## TheReality

> I'm not fond of the idea that if a comic has hurtful words or even reinforces stereotypes, it's contributing to real-world harm. For one thing, it's not necessarily true (whether art contributes to violence is a long-standing question that doesn't have a clear answer). For another thing, it assumes that the critic is smart enough not to be influenced by these attitudes, but the other readers out there are not. 
> 
> It also assumes that even if the characters would realistically say these things or think these things, they shouldn't. That's not a wrong attitude to take per se - some stories use the n-word where it would realistically be used, some don't; it depends on the story - but I think it matters that "Robinson" as he portrays himself would realistically not use any other word but the word he uses here.
> 
> Robinson presumably wrote this scene knowing and expecting he'd get this kind of reaction, so I'm not playing a violin for him. I just think a lot of the responses have been based on the idea that only bad people say bad things, or that if a character has a hurtful attitude he should be punished for it or learn a lesson.


Agreed. I don't understand the controversy. People say awful, intolerant, racist, small-minded things all the time. And two of the characters seem to reacting negatively to the jerk in red. (Just in the panels I saw.) 

From what I can gather, it looks like they're just acting in character. And perhaps they're not of good character on this issue. People are complex. Maybe all 3 of these guys (who it seems are based on real-life counter-parts) are great people on a lot of things, but on this issue, they're intolerant, uncomfortable, and not particularly progressive. This doesn't read like hate speech for the sake of hate.

I used to casually know a trans woman (she was really the friend of my then-gf). Back when I met her, around 2001 or so, "tranny" was not considered derogatory. It's possible Robinson was unaware that the word has such a stigma.

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## Synthozoid

It's obvious to me that Robinson is writing himself as an over-the-top, pre-sobriety a-hole on purpose. You are supposed to dislike the character in the book. I'm sure he feels awful that it came across as hurtful to anyone.

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## FanboyStranger

Yeah, I get it, but I also think you have to take the story for what it is.  Maybe the trans-community should be upset, but also, isn't that the point of the comic?  Unlike the DeMatteis reaction to the trans opposition to _JL3001_-- which I should add was Marc responding graciously to criticism and hoping to learn from it-- this isn't a comic book based on corporate superheroes or trying to be something it's not.  This is a book about a mid-life crisis, and it's been one of the saddest, most profound things I've seen a creator who is known for mainstream superhero comics write in a long time.  I'm not saying it couldn't be hurtful to readers, but I think I'd be remise in pointing out that it's the point of the comic.  It's not taking anything lightly, even if it is funny in an "I'm glad it's not me" sense.  It's not a shock comic.  It's about pain and creativity, and how the two often fuel each other.

I get the outrage, but I also think people are missing the point of the work.

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## FanboyStranger

> I know, which is why I said that I thought the writers had very different intentions to what actually happened. This is a gross out comic, no one in it is coming off as a particularly together person, and they're obviously not being held up as good examples in either word or deed. 
> But trans people get murdered over this, suffer violence from people claiming they lied to them, are treated like perverts and rapists in waiting in today's world and that is something you should take into account when using them as a device like this.


I totally sympathize with your points about trans-people being attacked both physically and emotionally by their depictions in media, but I don't think that's what going on in this comic.  I think it's a horrifying depiction of a mid-life crisis and should be judged as such.  It's about a writer who is a mess, and everything presented in the comic should be viewed through that lens.  It's not about gender issues; it's about a man so f^cked up that he can't do the only thing he's good at.  This isn't _Justice League_; it's James Robinson falling apart.  I think we need to grant him the leeway to tell his own story, even if it's offensive at times.

The unspoken part of this, I think, is that readers used to reading Robinson's superhero comics can't quite connect with a psuedo-autobiographical comic from a creator whose work they've enjoyed over the years.  Eddie Campbell or Joe Matt could pull this off, but Robinson can't because he wrote _Starman_ back in the day.  I think the audience needs to consider what the work actually is, and judge the creators by that standard.  There isn't really a message in the comic beyond "I need help!"

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## FanboyStranger

I guess what I'm trying to say (in my usual long-winded way) is that we need to judge _Airboy_ by the standards of _Alec_, _Peepshow_, _Stuck Rubber Baby_, _Seven Miles a Second_, _Paying for It_, _Fun House_, _Persepolis_, or _The Story of My Tits_, etc., not James Robinson's usual work.  This is not _Starman_, and it may be distasteful to you.  It's supposed to be distasteful to you.  It's distasteful to me, but I recognize my own story in a lot of it.  _Airboy_ is an honest attempt by a creator to show his own struggle.  There's a fictional character involved, but the fictional character is not the story, unlike your usual superhero books.  Anyone who reads this book is going to take it as a cautionary tale, not a guidebook on how to live.

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## SuperiorNova

Honestly read the issue and didn't have any issues with it until I saw there was some "controversy" around it, and even then I didn't see a problem. Funny how Airboy makes the best point in regards to even this. This world sucks lol.

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## Anduinel

Robinson's statement:

http://www.glaad.org/blog/writer-jam...n-about-airboy

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## Rene Narciso

Gotta say the apology feels heartfelt.

I'm very much aware of the harassment trans people go through. One trans woman that worked in the same organization than I, and that I knew slightly, committed suicide. So I understand that this is not people "whining", it's a real problem.

However, James Robinson is no Orson Scott Card. He never was. He is an ally. He's writing a comic about assholes being assholes. It's very different from Card stories (not his most famous ones, like Ender's Game, but plenty of the others) where homosexuality is depicted as an unhealthy behaviour that ruins lives and that people must abandon. THAT is hateful work. Robinson is only depicting some less than ideal characters doing and saying stupid things.

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## Ilan Preskovsky

It's a heartfelt apology that was, to my mind, utterly unnecessary. Honestly, I understand that the transgender community are sensitive to how they're seen by others, not to mention being abused by others, but I honestly feel that the only way to see what Robison wrote as being even unintentionally abusive or even disrespectful to this community would be to take these few moments and lines of dialogue completely out of context of the rest of the story. Yes, these scenes are tasteless but so is everything about this comic and, perhaps more importantly, it's really, really, really NOT the transgender characters who come off as jerks in this story. Quite the contrary really. 

So, yes, I understand that the transgender community are sensitive in how they are portrayed in the media but the "controversy" drummed up here seems to come completely from people not actually bothering to read the actual comic. So while I sympathise with their general cause and general sensitivity, I don't have much time for this kind of reaction to a piece of art - any more than I do to similar, out-of-context reactions to works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Watchmen or even Age of Ultron. It just comes across as intellectually lazy and a basic inability to actually READ (or watch) the thing being criticized. Again, I totally understand why transgender readers might be so quick to respond like this - but, honestly, that doesn't make them right.

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## Billy Batson

> I guess what I'm trying to say (in my usual long-winded way) is that we need to judge _Airboy_ by the standards of _Alec_, _Peepshow_, _Stuck Rubber Baby_, _Seven Miles a Second_, _Paying for It_, _Fun House_, _Persepolis_, or _The Story of My Tits_, etc., not James Robinson's usual work.  This is not _Starman_, and it may be distasteful to you.  It's supposed to be distasteful to you.  It's distasteful to me, but I recognize my own story in a lot of it.  _Airboy_ is an honest attempt by a creator to show his own struggle.  There's a fictional character involved, but the fictional character is not the story, unlike your usual superhero books.  Anyone who reads this book is going to take it as a cautionary tale, not a guidebook on how to live.


*Airboy isn't as good as those autobio works but the art's nice.*

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## Joker

I read the offending panels online, but I didn't really understand the controversy. This one felt a little too eager to be offended.

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## Ragdoll

Seeing as I don;t think it needed an apology, I found it very heartfelt. I like to consider myself very liberal and progressive, and if someone tells me they identify as female, they're a girl to me. But I still don't think I could bring myself to have sex with a transgendered girl without it freaking me out. The fact that the character has no issues seeing her as a woman and making sweet bathroom stall mouth love to her makes him far more tolerant than I am IMO. If this is as autobiographical as he claims it to be, it means the writer is admitting that he never saw anything gay about hooking up at Chicks With Dicks bars in his glory days. That seemed bold to me, so I was shocked when I saw the internet controversy claiming the issue was offensive. If anything, it made me more open minded. Maybe now I would one day be able to look past that and get on his level where I could be romantically attracted to a self-identified woman. The comic made it seem like this is something everyone does, and that I am a prude for not already having done it, too.

Sorry if that is an ignorant thing to say, I'm not always completely caught up on how PC the world expects me to be year by year, it changes so quickly it is hard to keep up with. I know most older people don't even realize the word "trannie" is considered a bad word to use, they grew up with it and still haven't gotten the memo that it is the transgender N word now. 

If I was in his shoes, I guess I would make the same apology. What else are you supposed to say. "Nope, you're wrong. I didn't actually offend you, you imagined it".

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## Joker

The thing ends with him stating that he didn't have a problem with the transgendered woman. I don't know why anyone's upset about that scene. I think that's a pretty trans positive scene, even if you didn't like the word used in it. 

I also think it's dangerous to start censoring art, let alone censor it because you didn't like something in it. This wasn't a hate piece.  It's all book burning at the end of the day, and that never made anything better or anyone smarter.

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## RJT

I didn't find the scene offensive, either. But I'm also a straight white American male born into the body of a straight white American male. I've grown up witnessing tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of positive portrayals of straight white American men. I don't know how offensive I would find jokes at my expense if there had only been a positive portrayal of a straight white American man in a few issues of Batgirl, or one arc of Sandman. I can't imagine--and won't pretend to be able to--how the scene in Airboy would make me feel if I were transgendered. So what I'll probably do is refrain from comparing the possibly valid complaints of a still misunderstood and disenfranchised minority group to book burning or censorship and try and do what James Robinson and JM deMatteis have done and listen to those complaints with an open mind and try and learn something from them.

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## Rene Narciso

> Seeing as I don;t think it needed an apology, I found it very heartfelt. I like to consider myself very liberal and progressive, and if someone tells me they identify as female, they're a girl to me. But I still don't think I could bring myself to have sex with a transgendered girl without it freaking me out. The fact that the character has no issues seeing her as a woman and making sweet bathroom stall mouth love to her makes him far more tolerant than I am IMO.


I think the main complaint is about the Airboy character, as he is shown to be freaking out completely when he discovers he is having sex with a trans woman, and how this is essentialy the "trans panic" defense that murderers have used in the past to justify killing trans people. I dunno, we gotta be honest, a lot of men in this situation would freak out at least a little. It isn't like the comic is showing Airboy getting violent after his discovery, is it? But I understand how the scene may be uncomfortable to trans people.

Also, I read complaints about the "Robinson" and "Hinkle" characters because they seem to need to be wasted to bring themselves to have sex with the trans women, and that they complain among themselves about being "reluctantly" attracted to the trans women. So it's another uncomfortable situation with straight guys in real life complaining about trans women being "too attractive" to them, and "forcing" them to doubt their own sexual orientations on account of that attraction.

And also the ever-present trope of trans people being depicted as sluts and exotic hookers, I guess.

So yeah, I understand the discomfort with the scene. But it's a strange situation, because there are a lot of other straight guys that would not use the word tranny or anything, and would be respectful to trans women, but would not want to have any sort of sexual contact. So are the protagonists more progressive than normal? Less progressive? I dunno. Complicated.

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## Joker

> I didn't find the scene offensive, either. But I'm also a straight white American male born into the body of a straight white American male. I've grown up witnessing tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of positive portrayals of straight white American men. I don't know how offensive I would find jokes at my expense if there had only been a positive portrayal of a straight white American man in a few issues of Batgirl, or one arc of Sandman. I can't imagine--and won't pretend to be able to--how the scene in Airboy would make me feel if I were transgendered. So what I'll probably do is refrain from comparing the possibly valid complaints of a still misunderstood and disenfranchised minority group to book burning or censorship and try and do what James Robinson and JM deMatteis have done and listen to those complaints with an open mind and try and learn something from them.


This is all really well said. I agree with shutting up and listening, and I'm not trying to negate the possibly very valid complaints or concerns. But this wasn't done as a hate piece, or intended to belittle anyone. Yet there were cries demanding that Image pull the issue, which I think is a step too far. I think context and intent matter, and I think that was ignored in favor of putting a comic book on blast for using an apparently harmful term.

By this standard, Southern Bastards' racist characters shouldn't speak accurately, because the words they'd use would be offensive.  Is that really a line that we're interested in stepping over? 

I applaud Robinson for listening, and apologizing, even if I'm not entirely sure he needed to. It was clearly the right thing to do.

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## Turn the Page

Robinson seemed pretty sincere and legit in his statement, he didn't mean any harm. This book definitely isn't for everybody, but I think Robinson handled the backlash really well seeing as he could have pulled a Remender "Hobo PIss" incident.

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## RJT

> This is all really well said. I agree with shutting up and listening, and I'm not trying to negate the possibly very valid complaints or concerns. But this wasn't done as a hate piece, or intended to belittle anyone. Yet there were cries demanding that Image pull the issue, which I think is a step too far. I think context and intent matter, and I think that was ignored in favor of putting a comic book on blast for using an apparently harmful term.
> 
> By this standard, Southern Bastards' racist characters shouldn't speak accurately, because the words they'd use would be offensive.  Is that really a line that we're interested in stepping over? 
> 
> I applaud Robinson for listening, and apologizing, even if I'm not entirely sure he needed to. It was clearly the right thing to do.


Have there been complaints about the characters/language in Southern Bastards? I haven't heard of any, but if there has been I would like to think we should listen to those complaints as well. I don't know why listening to other points of view is a line we need to take care about crossing.

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## ian0delond

> Also, I read complaints about the "Robinson" and "Hinkle" characters because they seem to need to be wasted to bring themselves to have sex with the trans women, and that they complain among themselves about being "reluctantly" attracted to the trans women. So it's another uncomfortable situation with straight guys in real life complaining about trans women being "too attractive" to them, and "forcing" them to doubt their own sexual orientations on account of that attraction.


They also need to be wasted to have sex with a cis gender woman believing the first issue.


Airboy does not even understand why men does not wear suits. Why the building are not decorative. Those even lead him to think Nazi won the war. That Robinson and Hinkle are evil stooges.
Everything existing in the ordinary world of everyone in a city such as San Francisco are hostile to him.

Robinson lies to Airboy about something even contemporary people can freak out about.
And yes he is pissed off when he discovers it.

But there is nothing here that apologies murder. Airboy is not mad about transgender people. He is never disrespectful about her, he even keeps calling her a lady when he screams at Robinson.
He is mad at Robinson to lie to him and behaving like a degenerate (I don't want to offense anyone, but some one who f people and take drug because it is just one of those days is not the mid 30's archetype Airboy would define as a respectable man).

I am actually angry against the Mary Sue article. Not because I am a white straight cis man that don't care about other people problems. But because reading those they seem to be immature responses to problematic that are not the one treated in the actual story. Then those responses don't look to solve the problems they dig out but are looking to avoiding them. I am not okay with people doing that under the appearance of any form of journalism.
I am especially thinking about the "the trans panic". As I said before trans panic is not the problem here. But it justify the to book to be especially abusive against trans gender minority. Then by digging out it, it makes an amalgame between Airboy's reaction with murder. Then conclude the article with a reminder about the suicide rate of this minority. I feel like the treatment of her case concluding to an abusive and deadly dangerous book is fallacious.

Murder and suicide leading abuses are never the point of the book. Those are what the complainer thought with her own reading of the book. Treating what her experience of the book and what the book is as one thing is wrong. Dangerously wrong, because such behavior are cause of miscommunication actually leading to real and serious prejudices.

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## Rene Narciso

> Murder and suicide leading abuses are never the point of the book. Those are what the complainer thought with her own reading of the book. Treating what her experience of the book and what the book is as one thing is wrong. Dangerously wrong, because such behavior are cause of miscommunication actually leading to real and serious prejudices.


I agree with you. The book is sort of crass. Satires involving sex almost always are. But I don't think there is any hatred against trans people involved. I was just saying that those were the problems people perceived. Myself, I don't think those are big problems. I also think the link between Airboy's reaction and trans panic being used to justify murder is very, very thin.

Also, Robinson's apology was a class act.

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## Joker

> Have there been complaints about the characters/language in Southern Bastards? I haven't heard of any, but if there has been I would like to think we should listen to those complaints as well. I don't know why listening to other points of view is a line we need to take care about crossing.


That's not what I said, or meant, but I think I'm done talking about this issue.

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## RJT

> That's not what I said, or meant, but I think I'm done talking about this issue.


What did you mean then?

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## Zeitgeist

Gail Simone just tweeted out about this issue:




> It panders to the worst people, the only people who find this funny are bigots, and they eat this stuff up. Is that who you want as readers?


Isn't that kind of reaction a skewing of the narrative though? The characters/comic isn't intended to pander to bigots, nor are their negative actions meant to be seen in a positive or rewarding light.

Can creators no longer hold a mirror up to society, warts and all?

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## Joker

> What did you mean then?


I'm bowing out of this one. It's a more in depth and delicate conversation that I want to have online over a word in a comic book. 

I think a lot of the backlash is overblown and I think Robinson is a class act for stopping, listening, and apologizing for offending anyone. That's all I've got at this point.

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## Ilan Preskovsky

> Gail Simone just tweeted out about this issue:
> 
> 
> 
> Isn't that kind of reaction a skewing of the narrative though? The characters/comic isn't intended to pander to bigots, nor are their negative actions meant to be seen in a positive or rewarding light.
> 
> Can creators no longer hold a mirror up to society, warts and all?


I agree. I expect more of Simone than this sort of knee jerk, overly "politically correct" response. Comedy in particular has to be allowed room to stretch, to occasionally even offend for it to be at all effective. Jerry Seinfeld was complaining about this particular thing recently and, from what I've read, he's hardly the only one. 

But what's really irritating is how this totally misrepresents what Robinson was doing here. He was not, in any shape or form, poking fun at any of the transsexual characters that appeared in these scenes. The butt of the joke was clearly and I do mean CLEARLY the Robinson and Heinkel characters and the unenlightened use of the word "tranny" was clearly just a reflection of this particular point. As for Airboy himself being grossed out by getting a BJ from a transsexual, again, this is clearly a reflection of his obviously old-fashioned point of view. More than that, while I'm all for respecting anyone from the LGBT community as people and, of course, for respecting their proclaimed sexual identity or persuasion, I don't quite understand why there's anything wrong with a straight man being, shall we say, turned off by having some sort of sexual encounter with a person that HE still sees as a man. Sexual persuasion is a large continuity and while it's reasonable to say that some straight men might be perfectly OK with having sex with a transgendered woman but that doesn't mean that all are - or, for that matter, if we are to respect the sexual persuasion of all people, should be expected to. Hell, the comic pretty much explicitly shows this in the different ways that Robinson and Airboy react to their situations.

But most of all, I'm just sickened by the idea that writers. artists and comedians aren't allowed to tackle subjects like sexuality and prejudice because a bunch of people who apparently seemingly didn't even bother to try and understand what they're actually saying, might get offended by something that very clearly IS NOT THERE and is so obviously not intended as harmful. 

"Political correctness" is thrown around a lot as a dirty word and, more often than not, it's done so by people with whom I fundamentally disagree (members of the far-right), but this is a pretty clear case of political correctness running amok and hurting, rather than helping society. Really, we are only a hop, skip and jump away from real censorship here - and anyone who gives a crap about art being able to, as you say, "hold a mirror to society, warts and all" should understand just how dangerous such a path so obviously is.

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## RJT

As I said up thread, I'm not going to pretend I understand enough about transgenderism to know why this scene was offensive to some people in that community. 
But I take with issue with the claim that this is in any way "dangerous" to art. There was a time when blackface was an acceptable form of comedy. Eventually public mores changed to the point that that kind of comedy was no longer acceptable and while I'm sure there were a share of people making similar claims at the time, the truth is that it not only did it not damage comedy, in fact the comedy artform got better. It got smarter. I'm not saying there is a causal link, but it is evidence that eliminating an offensive stereotype (several, actually...I'm sure someone has compiled a list of groups you can't make jokes about) doesn't really do any long term damage to the artform.

I have to believe that art exists as a form of communication between artist and audience. If there is something that is so offensive that it prevents them being able to communicate with a portion with their audience I don't think there is anything wrong with examining how integral the offensive portion is to the overall work. Someone earlier mentioned Southern Bastards and given the theme of the book the offensive language is probably necessary enough that Aaron and Latour might feel it's worth it to potentially alienate a portion of their audience. Robinson might not feel the same way about the transgender jokes in Airboy.

Also, transgender individuals have human brains, so you can probably stop trying to explain to them why the scene wasn't offensive. They understand the context of the scene and still found it offensive.

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## Ilan Preskovsky

> As I said up thread, I'm not going to pretend I understand enough about transgenderism to know why this scene was offensive to some people in that community. 
> But I take with issue with the claim that this is in any way "dangerous" to art. There was a time when blackface was an acceptable form of comedy. Eventually public mores changed to the point that that kind of comedy was no longer acceptable and while I'm sure there were a share of people making similar claims at the time, the truth is that it not only did it not damage comedy, in fact the comedy artform got better. It got smarter. I'm not saying there is a causal link, but it is evidence that eliminating an offensive stereotype (several, actually...I'm sure someone has compiled a list of groups you can't make jokes about) doesn't really do any long term damage to the artform.
> 
> I have to believe that art exists as a form of communication between artist and audience. If there is something that is so offensive that it prevents them being able to communicate with a portion with their audience I don't think there is anything wrong with examining how integral the offensive portion is to the overall work. Someone earlier mentioned Southern Bastards and given the theme of the book the offensive language is probably necessary enough that Aaron and Latour might feel it's worth it to potentially alienate a portion of their audience. Robinson might not feel the same way about the transgender jokes in Airboy.
> 
> Also, transgender individuals have human brains, so you can probably stop trying to explain to them why the scene wasn't offensive. They understand the context of the scene and still found it offensive.


Of course, they have "human brains". As I said in a post before, I understand why they might be offended but that doesn't make them right. To put it this way, it is very, very clear that because of the prejudices against them transgender individuals are incredibly sensitive to how they are portrayed by other people and in the media. This is very, very understandable. However, because their whole transgendered identity is such a sensitive issue to them - and, again, it's easy to understand why - it's inevitable that they will see offense in something that was neither meant to be offensive nor can it actually be construed as offensive if you actually take a step back and actually look at the "offending material" in context and without that raw nerve exposed, it is pretty clearly nothing of the sort.

Now, of course, you might say that because transgenders are, at this point in time, so sensitive to how they're portrayed, artists and writers need to be extra careful not to do anything that might conceivably or inconceivably offend them. But is this really fair on the artist? Because of personal experiences - be it dealing with gender identity, a death in the family or previous traumatic events - different people will react very differently to different works of art; some very, very badly. However - and this is the point - if any given artist is supposed to back away from anything that might potentially, possibly, maybe offend someone then their work will invariably suffer tremendously by overly vigilant self-censorship or worse, overly vigilant censorship from others. And again, this becomes especially fatal a flaw when dealing with works that are supposed to be funny. 

As for the black face comparison, it is an interesting one. But there is, I think a line between something that is as purposely malicious as "black face" and, say, making fun of black people in a way that many beloved comedians do. For another example, as a Jew, I am very sensitive to anti-semitism but I understand that there is a huge difference between, say, the ranting and ravings of Mel Gibson (or, sadly at this point it seems, Roger Waters) and those lame Jewish jokes that Trevor Noah made on Twitter that caused a huge controversy for some unknown reason or, for that matter, South Park making fun of its Jewish characters. Context and intent are crucial in these matters and I'm sorry but I do think that the inevitable extremely high sensitivity of some of these transgender readers meant that they were unable to really see the context and intent of what James Robinson was doing. I hope this doesn't come across as patronizing towards transgendered people but the point is simply that people don't always react logically and are often influences by their own biases, insecurities, sensitivities and situations.

But trying to take into consideration all these different variables about all the different potential consumers are the piece of art is not the responsibility of the artist. Yes, an artist should be conscious of the repercussions of their art, while staying true to their own conscience, but there are limits to how much we can expect from them before such trains of thought lead to an utter paralysis in their ability to actually express what they want to express. Again, especially in the case of comedy, which is so reliant on pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable.

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## RJT

When Sonia Sotomayor had her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, senators asked her how being Latino would affect her judgment or rulings. Samuel Alito was not asked how being a white man affected his judgment or rulings. Because often being white is considered the default, without any inherent identity bias.

I mention this because the idea that something can be objectively offensive or inoffensive is false. The idea that a transgender identity affects one ability to see things objectively, but one's cisgender identity does not, is likewise false.

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## gurkle

> When Sonia Sotomayor had her confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, senators asked her how being Latino would affect her judgment or rulings. Samuel Alito was not asked how being a white man affected his judgment or rulings. Because often being white is considered the default, without any inherent identity bias.
> 
> I mention this because the idea that something can be objectively offensive or inoffensive is false. The idea that a transgender identity affects one ability to see things objectively, but one's cisgender identity does not, is likewise false.


This is all true (and not that long ago, being Italian-American would have gotten Alito the same kind of questions Sotomayor got; now his identity group has _become_ "white"). Everyone's biased. But what's also false is the idea that something is offensive or artistically unnecessary because a member of a group objects to it, or even several members.

Let's say there's a World War II story where the American soldiers use the word "Jap" constantly. And let's say a Japanese-American reader can't enjoy the book because of this. If I start lecturing this person that she shouldn't be offended, I'm being a jerk. Because I don't understand the pain it brings to hear that word, or the fact that in the WWII context, it was used to dehumanize Japanese-Americans.

But when the conversation shifts from whether the reader is right to be offended to whether the word is artistically necessary - then it's a different issue. Because obviously that is the way soldiers talked back then, and any nicer word would be a lie. And it wouldn't even necessarily make it better: _Gone With the Wind_, the movie, eliminated all uses of the n-word, but all it did was make the Old South seem even more sanitized.

Now, the artistic necessity argument isn't as clear-cut with _Airboy_. The scene itself can be criticized for being kind of an old comedy cliche, and maybe the book would be better off without it, but it's still arguably true that the characters' attitudes are the attitudes many people have in real life. And a lot of the criticism has ignored this and gone straight to attacking the book for using that word, even though that's the word real-life jerks use all the time. 

Also while I agree that creators should be mindful of their audience, part of the point of these online attacks is that they may not represent the audience at all. Artists tend to think that if their material is bad or offensive, the audience will reject it - so a stand-up comedian judges material by whether the audience laughs, not by what bloggers think. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach, but I think we're too quick to assume online that a room full of people, or thousands of comic buyers, are so unenlightened or hateful that they don't understand the nuances. Blackface jokes, after all, have been considered corny and old-fashioned since the '30s at least - audiences often reject racist material before they even reject racism.

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## RJT

> This is all true (and not that long ago, being Italian-American would have gotten Alito the same kind of questions Sotomayor got; now his identity group has _become_ "white"). Everyone's biased. But what's also false is the idea that something is offensive or artistically unnecessary because a member of a group objects to it, or even several members.
> 
> Let's say there's a World War II story where the American soldiers use the word "Jap" constantly. And let's say a Japanese-American reader can't enjoy the book because of this. If I start lecturing this person that she shouldn't be offended, I'm being a jerk. Because I don't understand the pain it brings to hear that word, or the fact that in the WWII context, it was used to dehumanize Japanese-Americans.
> 
> But when the conversation shifts from whether the reader is right to be offended to whether the word is artistically necessary - then it's a different issue. Because obviously that is the way soldiers talked back then, and any nicer word would be a lie. And it wouldn't even necessarily make it better: _Gone With the Wind_, the movie, eliminated all uses of the n-word, but all it did was make the Old South seem even more sanitized.
> 
> Now, the artistic necessity argument isn't as clear-cut with _Airboy_. The scene itself can be criticized for being kind of an old comedy cliche, and maybe the book would be better off without it, but it's still arguably true that the characters' attitudes are the attitudes many people have in real life. And a lot of the criticism has ignored this and gone straight to attacking the book for using that word, even though that's the word real-life jerks use all the time. 
> 
> Also while I agree that creators should be mindful of their audience, part of the point of these online attacks is that they may not represent the audience at all. Artists tend to think that if their material is bad or offensive, the audience will reject it - so a stand-up comedian judges material by whether the audience laughs, not by what bloggers think. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach, but I think we're too quick to assume online that a room full of people, or thousands of comic buyers, are so unenlightened or hateful that they don't understand the nuances. Blackface jokes, after all, have been considered corny and old-fashioned since the '30s at least - audiences often reject racist material before they even reject racism.


I agree with almost all of this--I earlier addressed the artistic necessity idea when discussing racist language in Southern Bastards and how Aaron and Latour would likely not react  the same way b/c of the overall themes of the book. I'm guessing Robinson doesn't feel the same about the scene in Airboy; he probably could've used a different event to send Airboy over the edge. Thàt doesn't mean he had to. He has every right to put whatever over-the-top joke he wanted to there. It seems, though, that he was caught off guard by the reaction. It's up to every creator to decide for themselves how much to factor in the criticisms of their work.

My main objection is people telling trans people they are wrong to be offended or that they are unable to be objective because they are trans.

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## See No Evil

> Gail Simone just tweeted out about this issue:
> 
> Isn't that kind of reaction a skewing of the narrative though? The characters/comic isn't intended to pander to bigots, nor are their negative actions meant to be seen in a positive or rewarding light.
> 
> Can creators no longer hold a mirror up to society, warts and all?





> I agree. I expect more of Simone than this sort of knee jerk, overly "politically correct" response.


This is exactly the kind of response i would expect from Gail Simone.

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## Braun Rodman

isn't this comic a satire...like a painfully obvious satire?

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## Zeitgeist

> This is exactly the kind of response i would expect from Gail Simone.


Ah, I didn't know she had a reputation or something.

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## RJT

> isn't this comic a satire...like a painfully obvious satire?


Transgender people aren't Martians. You guys can stop trying to explain it them like they've just arrived on the planet. They get that it's satirical, but they still find it offensive.

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