tell us not that monsters exist but that they can be beaten

I've been thinking on superhero comics again.

When I was a teenager I spent so much on comics I had to skip meals to afford them. And, granted, I was a crazy teenager, but that's not just want, that's need. Comics were providing me with something I desperately needed, a mythology that showed me how to fight, and a way out into a world where the battles were won not just already but always. They were hope and courage and escape in one brightly colored bit of paper. And I don't know if, in trying to reinvent themselves for a new audience, DC have realised what it is their audience needed them for.

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I could keep going. And going. Superhero mythology, it does not end. There's layers and layers out there. And I know I've pretty much picked white people (Dick and Roy's complex ethnic identity notwithstanding, and come to think the stuff with Fire that was invisible to me, they all seemed white to me). Everyone's got a different cross section of people they need. People like them, only better at it. People who are making it through.

I look at the bits and pieces I've heard about DC since I stopped reading, or I look at the reasons I stopped reading, and I don't get the feeling the writers understand all this. I don't know what they think we need.

Or maybe I do. A bunch of people are power trip fantasies. A lot of rich white playboy guys. And a lot of the rest, I don't know who they imagine would wear those costumes. They're not there to be any more, just to be looked at.

It's like they've emptied out their world. About all it tells us now is there are monsters. And some of them wear fancy suits.


I don't know though, I stopped reading when it felt like they'd slapped me and my dreams around just one too many times.


But if they're having sales problems, if they can't get people to read any more - if they're blaming something other than the changing media landscape and how people maybe want more out of their stories than flat pretty pictures - maybe they should look at what they're offering, and what it is different people might need. Not just what their monsters are, but different ways to beat them. And stop being them.

Dating

So there's a longish article about Channel 4's newest dating show, which is about people with disabilities going on dates. I don't know why people would want to watch that, but I feel that way about pretty much anything that doesn't feature aliens or spaceships or vampires or ghosts or at the very least swords.

The weirdest bit though was it said Channel 4 claims "70% of people would not consider having sex with someone with a physical disability."
BZUH?

That... surely that can't be right?
(Like, since when do 7 out of 10 people agree about ANYthing?)

I mean, they're ruling out Daniel Jackson and Cameron Mitchell, just for starters. Granted, only in some timelines, but seriously, if you've got the tiniest chance of dating either of them, is an accident really going to put you off? Two of the most beautiful guys in creation?
If so, I do not understand at all.

And then there's the thing, how do you define physical disability?
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I don't know. Actually this topic is making me feel creepy. ( Read more... )

this channel 4 phrasing makes the only aspect of importance the disability.

Maybe that's why they got the 70% answer. Like, if the only thing about a person someone they asked could visualise was their disability, it's a really specialised audience who find that of itself attractive.
Oh dear, depressing, possibility of 70% of people only seeing the disability even when presented with an actual relevant person.

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But still. Every physical disability ever, and 70% say no way?
I seriously cannot understand that.