#3: The Terms Of Engagement
Hello! And we're back again, with another one of these! Hope you had a lovely week, or as best as can be hoped in these trying times.
The Depressing Situation
The recent ThoughtBubble incident, with how they treated Zainab Akhtar, all for the sake of Frank Miller, has been on my mind a great deal.
It's been the talk of the comics-town for the last few weeks, and understandably so, as Thoughtbubble clearly put Miller and their own potential profits from his presence over the concern, presence, well-being of a Muslim Woman Of Color, and actually living up to their professed ideals and commitment towards inclusion and safety of the marginalized. Worse still, they were willing to kick out Miller, just only by using Akhtar, putting a target on her back, letting her catch a shitload of harassment and hate, putting her in a horrid position, and using that to justify to Miller's crew why they can no longer accept him.
The whole affair is dreadful, albeit all too familiar to many in the thinking that underlies it all. It ended up kickstarting much chatter among the comics community, and the response, while largely supportive of Akhtar, and critical of TB, drew a lot of...takes, shall we say, out into the wild. Now, the right winger dipshits came out in legions to harass and hurt a woman who dared to speak up, with all their typical bad faith vile garbage. But even beyond that, amongst the White Liberal and even Leftist crowds, there was a response I was seeing that struck me. Not because it was surprising in the least, no, but because it felt really illustrative of a kind of Whiteness that is all too common, and all too pervasive.
The rhetoric I was seeing, pretty much all from White folks, ranged from 'Frank Miller's an old man. Is he really a danger? He's not, like, gonna attack someone.' to 'Racist? I dunno. It's complicated. It's complex. It's nuanced. It's not that simple.'. Some even went further to suggest that Miller had 'apologized' for his vile hate-screeds, which he's made plenty of money off of, simply because he'd said he no longer had that book in him at one point in 2018.
Now, let's be clear here:
The first two takes on the situation are incredibly bad-faith, deluded garbage not even in touch with reality. But even beyond that, and this is important:
Frank Miller never apologized. Frank Miller never took actual responsibility for his words, his imagery, his propaganda (which is, in his own words, how he described a work like Holy Terror), his art and work, which was harmful, hurtful, and deeply cruel. It was his violent, bizarrely horny fantasy of murdering a shitload of Brown people, and being proud about butchering Muslims. It was a hateful screed of The American Hero who stood up to these horrible 'foreign' monsters to save The American Empire. It's not exclusive or alone in this sense, as the post-9/11 landscape of media was littered and covered with such narratives, these violent power fantasies, and the active normalization of bigotry and hatred towards Brown folks. But it is, however, in its own class of just how truly vile, how truly monstrous, how heartlessly cruel it is and reads and feels. It feels like the ultimate expression of Frank Miller, in that sense, it's all of his worst excesses and tendencies brought to an extremity, untainted, laid bare. And what was laid bare so clearly was utterly horrific.
It was derided, of course. It became the go-to book to mock and diss Miller, as is to be expected. But the responsibility of an artist such as Frank Miller, a man of such stature as Miller, who wields the power and influence that he does, putting out such work, that was never truly reckoned with. Which is to say: He got away with it.
He never truly faced repercussions for it or any of his hateful screeds beyond the book, which at the time of press, he was nigh-gleeful about, in high-spirits about the possibility of a strong response.
It may be instructive here to take a look at media framing here, which extends beyond Miller himself, and to the press, the endless parade of White men, who cover and present this man and his persona to the public:
Here, in this L.A Times interview from 2007, this is what we're working with:
Now, cut to over a decade later in 2018, past the 2000s period, and you have pieces like this one over at TheGuardian:
Note the framing here. The entire piece is one about how Miller is no longer the person he once was, and how he fell on bad judgements and poor choices and destroyed himself, but is on the mend. It includes quotes and perspective from Miller's once-mentor, Neal Adams, and Miller himself. It is, very much, The American Redemption Story piece, of a man learning the error of his supposed ways, and getting on the path to fixing them. It's a nice story. But that's just it. It's a story. It's not actually redemption. When asked if he has any regrets in regards to Holy Terror, Miller does not just say 'Yes, I do.'.
Because here's the thing:
It's all about Frank Miller.
That's what you'll notice amidst all the rhetoric I mentioned previously. It's the thing you'll notice about even the ComicsHate chuds going after Akhtar. It's what you'll notice even in that Guardian piece, written by a White man, that frames Miller's politics as 'eccentric' when discussing Holy Terror, while mentioning and touching on critics, and how they've branded Miller, this icon of old, who just fell down his own rabbit hole.
Framings are important. Framings matter. And the framing is always about, and obsessed with, the Old Straight Cis White Folks. It's all about them. Their pain.
The Easy Narratives
An artist I love greatly posted on the matter of Miller. They expressed that Frank Miller had, in very trying times, expressed his essence, his very soul, just laid it bare, and that Art should create Dialogue, not Cancellation.
The artist was White, of course. And then several artists, some even absolute legends and titans I respected further, expressed agreement with this sentiment. They, too, were all White folks. (The names/who/when/where don't matter here, as that's not the point of this reflection.)
I didn't find it surprising, especially having surveyed the situation prior. But some did. Some were shocked, as they expected more, or better, from some of these folks. Some just plainly did not understand how or why anyone would be willing to die on the hill of bloody Holy Terror and Frank Miller.
But I have to confess, I did not find it surprising. It made sense.
Because there is a dire disconnect between the terms of engagement people like me signed, and the terms the White voices above signed.
I talked about framing earlier, and it truly is important. Throughout, you'll notice this recurring framing, even coming down to ThoughtBubble and their horrid stratagem, pits Zainab Akhtar directly against Frank Miller publicly, and then uses that.
It's Frank Miller as the eccentric old man who just made some mistakes, and who'd no longer do that, that's one end, and on the opposite end, you have all these Brown people, all the Black folks, all the Muslims, who are mad at Miller, and will not tolerate him, who are then supported by a larger collective.
It's the construction of a binary.
It's Frank Miller vs The Marginalized Mob.
It's Frank Miller and Cancellation.
That's the framing, that is the narrative. And its narrative because it's a convenient narrative. It's a useful story to many White folks.
It's the narrative that lets ThoughtBubble say to Miller's team 'Sorry guys, but you see how it is' waves at Akhtar and Twitter. This framing is, obviously, deeply, deeply harmful, as should be evident from what Akhtar has had to endure. Imagine someone saying 'They're used to it' about intense horrific online harassment like this, and how much they must've had to endure and take, and deal with, to get to such a point. Just imagine that. But that is the reality for many like Akhtar. And all of that...just to exist and get to make and get out comics in this space in a safe way, in a healthy environment. It's the basic ask and requirement almost every average White dude gets to have, but it's such a fight for so many others.
I mention all of this, I lay all this out, because this is the pain, the reality, which most sitting on arm-chairs and considering their fave Frank Miller do not truly do. Because to them Frank Miller is a legend. He's an icon. He's nigh mythic. He made Batman cool. He made Dark Knight. He made Year One. He made Elektra. He did Born Again. He did Man Without Fear. He did Daredevil. He's a massive touchstone for them. He's important to them, and their artistic evolutions, maybe even as people, as his words and works mattered a great deal to them. It's about them. It's about Miller, a man who will always hold a measure of value to them in their hearts.
Frank Miller, the guy who stood up for creator rights and repped and repped for folks back in the day with the power he held? He's now the bad guy?! We're now damning a person for their 'problematic' art?! Who's next then?!
It all becomes a projection game, esp for White folks, as they see Miller as representative in some capacity, and consider works or moments that possess racism or bigotry or poorly considered notions from their own history, which may then be dredged up to damn them.
It's all about Me, Me, Me. It's a position fundamentally rooted in paranoia and fear, with massive projection. It is why White folks love that word so much, and hold it so dear, deploying it so constantly: Cancellation. They're terrified of cancelling.
But what is cancelling? If you asked them, you'd get a vague, ill-defined boogey-man monster of sorts, which involves an online mob, and has them and their fate doomed for good, somehow. That, and that isn't right, and that it's always more complicated.
Now, Twitter may be utter dogshit, just the bloody worst, generating money and content for a corporation, paying only Jack, none of us, driven by rage, and engagement and framing approaches that are by and large incendiary, as the site strips so much of context, as words lose meaning, as nuance is nuked, complexity killed, with bad faith reigning supreme, and people just saying shit. Its algorithm is hot garbage and it's a horrible platform for a great many things.
But to pretend even the most basic shit, stuff that's cut and dry, is 'complex' and 'nuanced', when it's utterly simple, I have to wonder at the privilege of that. A Muslim WoC feels unsafe being in a shared space with Frank Miller, who, by his words and works, by his influence and presence and how he's chosen to weild it, has caused great harm and hurt to her and her community. She brings up that having him in a space built on its rep for being inclusive is ill-fitting. The answer here is clear. Miller's never been to ThoughtBubble before. He doesn't ever need to. End of story.
The Differing Terms
But then again, all of this happens, all of this exists, I think, because, to get back to something, the fundamental terms signed by the marginalized differ from many Straight Cis White folks.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Amidst all of this mess, amidst all these framings, how many White folks genuinely considered this:
What would it be like to be a Brown reader who had connections to Frank Miller's work? What would it be like to be a Muslim reader who Miller's work may have meant something to? What would it be like to be both?
That just never really comes up, and that's what is actively erased by the Miller vs Marginalized binary framing.
The notion of the affected in relation to the work isn't as important or centered in these discussions of the problems with creators and their art. What is centered is Whiteness and The White Reader Response, as everything warps around that.
I didn't really read superhero comics until the early 2010's. Frank Miller didn't exist to me as a kid. The only way he existed, when I got into comics, was as Post-Holy Terror Frank Miller. Me, and all my Brown friends, were always aware of Miller's hatred of us, and people who looked like us. We knew his work loathed us, we knew his work loathed Islam, and we read through it, much the same way many BIPOC, but especially Black folks, who want to consume Cosmic Horror, and Lovecraft, its foundation, tend to.
But even as I say that, I think to the generations before me, those who were into comics before Holy Terror, who held some measure or manner of connection to Miller, all those Brown folks, all those Muslim readers, who may have gotten something out of the art and craft of Miller's work, who then saw all that, how truly low this person and their work had sank, and came to terms with that. They made their peace, reckoned with it, and dealt with it, taking what they could from the work, in the end. That isn't my or my peers' precise experience with Miller, but it's been that with many others, and I truly get it.
That is our engagement. To know you're not really welcome, to know there is such vicious bile against you in the artforms you adore, by people who hold such vital standing and influence in them, and to engage anyway.
"Steal joy from those who would deny it to you," as one good friend of mine likes to put it. "Steal gold from the dragon," as another put it to me recently.
That's our Terms Of Engagement. To not be included, to be invisible, and even upon inclusion, to be caricatured, mocked, derided, Othered, or portrayed as objects of White Vision, stripped of any actual humanity, left as but the narrative device White folks have determined for you and your collective kind.
To accept this reality, for it is reality, and to engage anyway. To be able to care about, to invest in, to draw from and take from, to empathize even, from that which is unwilling to see you, and when it does, glares at you for existing at all.
These are not The Terms Of Engagement that many Straight Cis White Folks signed. They largely got a better deal. Their terms are way better. They by and large do not have to deal with works that hate them, that loathe them, and caricature or reduce them, and when they're not doing that, actively exclude them. They are The Norm. They are ever-present, they are ubiquitous. Their priorities and whims and wishes are the world itself, in and out of art.
Racism to them exists more as a concept than it does as reality, which is why it's easy to dismiss the blowback Miller now faces for his own actions.
As I saw, repeatedly, the sheer amount of grace and generosity granted to Miller, all I could think of was "Boy, what I wouldn't give for all these folks to grant even 1% of this to marginalized voices."
White voices, especially White cis male voices, get to fuck up royally, collossally, and get to be okay, they get to walk away mostly fine, which others just do not get to do. That's the thing about Holy Terror, right? Miller got away with it. He got off just fine. He came back to do not one, not even two, but THREE Batman books, all tying into his Dark Knight. He got to re-tell the origin of THE superhero, the ultimate icon of the genre--SUPERMAN. And he got to put the words 'Year One' next to it, working alongside JRJR. He's since had a hand in an Arthuriana reworking centering Nimue, and plenty more.
Miller's been fine. The only thing even remotely a 'consequence' is literally him not getting to attend a con he'd never been to anyway. That's not even a slap on the wrist at this point.
But just...even at that slightest thing, the bristling and bullshit that occured, the White discomfort and rage that ensued, from an inability to actually care about and meaningfully consider the position and situation of the marginalized...it gets me.
'Not everything is about you', I want to say to them. 'Not everything is about you, your interests, your tastes, and your precious art and artists,' I want to tell them. It's about everyone else too, everyone else who isn't like you, who deserve to be heard, who deserve to be respected, who deserve to be included and comfortable, who historically have not been, due to the absolution and 'redemption' granted to men like Miller.
This applies doubly so to an opposite type of White presence I notice a lot now. The Self-Proclaimed Progressive Good White, The One Who Knew All Along, The One Who Was Always Right. It's the kind of dipshit grandstanding jackass who has to stand on a pedestal and look down and condescend to everyone when stuff happens. You'll notice a lot of these folks from the Warren Ellis situation over the last year. The folks who truly care more about how they look, if and how they're right, their validation and vindication, their Rightful Correct Opinions, over actual people and what truly matters and why it matters at all.
Grace and Awareness
It's because I think about this shit that I'm also incredibly grateful to work like this beautiful, resonant piece of writing on Shelfdust by Adam Karenina Sherif.
People care a lot that folks like Miller get 'another chance', but people don't extend such similar interest towards many others. Christopher Priest feels important in this context, given his place in history. Priest was and is the first African-American Editor in mainstream comics. A man who left comics, because all comics would offer him to work on is Black characters, and nothing else, when he just wanted to be treated fairly, and granted the basic freedom to write anything anyone he liked, which all his fellow White men get without even having to think about it. It's just a privilege they have and hold, many of them never knowing, never realizing, that it is one.
Priest's work is flawed, to be sure, but so is the work of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, and plenty more. But the industry afforded all of them, those British Invasion folks, far more grace, far more generosity and faith and trust, than has ever been granted to folks like Priest and his ilk.
It's why I appreciated Adam's writing so much, as it reckoned with the handling and treatment of women, which reflect a very poor perspective that Priest has shared in interviews in recent years, while also granting the work grace and generosity and giving it the same respect and dignity that has been historically granted to and for so many icons, which so rarely is afforded to the marginalized.
There's an idea and ideal of standard, of merit, of quality that you have to establish and constantly live up to, a certain reputation, far beyond that of any White voice, to even get the basic dignity many automatically do. It's years of effort and work. And that's how it feels when you look at Priest's ouvre, seeing how he got Deathstroke after ages of being away.
But I also mention it because as I saw many well-meaning folks say things like 'Akhtar is an excellent editor and creator, while Frank Miller is a hack who hasn't done anything good in years' and some version of that. And I get that. That impulse to underline and emphasize how much Akhtar matters, what her work means, why it is so important and vital and the future, while Miller represents regressive impulses that need to be buried, I get all of that.
But also, a part of me thought 'What if she wasn't The Future, what if she wasn't the brilliant and astonishing creator, curator, and editor that she clearly is? Would she still be heard?' and more terrifyingly 'What if Miller wasn't the derided hack figure that he is now? What if he was someone clearly much more 'respectable' if you will?' Holy Terror is transparently terrible, but what if it wasn't as cut and dry, what if it was wrapped in state-of-the-art artwork, coloring, and held a level of 'prestige'? Which is to say, what if it was every bit as fucking evil, but not as transparently 'bad' in its supposed quality, and what if Akhtar's work wasn't held to be as good as it was?
The notion scared me. Especially because it extended beyond this one issue, to be pervasive of so much. It spoke to a reality that felt, again, all too familiar.
The bringing in of qualitative judgements to illustrate and discuss a problem far beyond any such things muddles things, I think, in this sense. Because I shudder to think of how much worse someone else, another WoC, who does not have or hold Akhtar's reputation, would have it if they spoke up. If so many are already willing to bend over backwards for Frank Miller and the transparently dreadful Holy Terror of all things in the year of our lord 2021, I shudder to think of how many more would join them in the name of Art and Expression and Artistic Freedom and Art Should Promote Dialogue schpiels if the work was deemed 'great'.
Artistic value and worth to the industry, qualitative assessments being essential in situations about basic morality, basic decency, consideration and empathy, is, how I suspect, you get the recent debacle with Brandom Graham's return and normalization via the Al Gofa anthology Kickstarter.
You should care about people, their pain, their hurt, their experiences, their comfort and discomfort, regardless of how their work is valued. That's just basic human decency.
Not doing so gets you...well:
The moment you place art over actual people, you've fucked up, I think. It doesn't matter how bloody good that art is. People matter more than Pictures.
Links
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Kelly Kanayama is one of the best critics out there, period. Her recent piece over at Shelfdust on the handling and treatment of Asian women, and Asian culture, as it pertains to the American Comics Industry, is one hell of a read. It's raw, it's powerful, and it is affecting work. If you dig this, know that she's also currently writing a whole ass book on Garth Ennis' work, which you can support over here on her Patreon, with her work in general.
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Zach Rabiroff's Superman essay is, quite simply, one of the best pieces of writing on Superman ever, I think is fair to say? It's incredible. It's moving. It's beautiful. It's amazing, you should read it, and you should tell him it is if you happen to find him, even as he denies it.
That's it for this week! As always, feel free to respond and reply, and let me know what you think. Was I off anywhere? Did I miss something or not consider something? Is this approach and the newsletter so far working for you? What isn't working for you? Happy to hear all thoughts.
Next Time: Movies! Movies at last! Television! Oh ho! Television! And what's this?? Manga?!