Mondays… Right?
No, I can’t end it there. I am supposed to have so much more to say on a Monday start to the week. Only, this week we are doing our college Comicon and it has been very up and down. I didn’t get the turnout for my first event that I quite wanted, but I am really proud to see the effort the school is putting into the event. On the other hand, I’m not sure a college is the right environment for some aspects of this. Last week my students in my Game Studies class were playing D&D. This is a game more commonly associated with 3AM, and that type of binging and atmosphere is reflective of the game itself. I think that people take more chances when they are comfortable and D&D has always been about that kind of role play and exploration. I created a classroom environment where that was okay. However, I don’t know that the entire school is that space, so when we talk about inviting people to cosplay we have to start thinking about how we are crossing worlds in the way that Venkman crossed the streams. You’re not supposed to do that. But maybe it will work… maybe.
My panel was focused on black masculinity in super heroes. My co-presentor was a psych professor I’ve known basically since I moved to the Grand Canyon State. We flowed off each other easily and were able to get the small group to have real discussion about their ideas. We talked about, among other things, how the black heroes we love (Black Panther, Black Lightning, Luke Cage, The Falcon etc.) were created and developed by white writers and how that created a disconnect between the audience and the author. I think about that all the time. It is hard not to think about it once you realize that Falcon’s history was once retconned to make him a criminal who fell under the spell of the Red Skull and was molded into a sleeper agent to ruin Captain America. Yeah, the first African-American Super Hero was slaved to a Nazi in an effort to destroy the symbol of America. That’s low key insidious.
More to say about that tomorrow.