Tumblr and Representation
When it comes to tumblr and representation, it reminds me a lot of that story of the christian woman who asked if the bible was being sold at the book shop in the airport. She got angry when she found out they didn’t sell the bible, but when the guy who worked at the shop asked if she was going to buy the bible, she said she wasn’t. She was just making sure if they sold the bible or not. That’s what tumblr is. Tumblr is that white christian lady who gets angry when the book store doesn’t sell the bible, yet if the bible were offered, they wouldn’t take it. They beg for representation and when it’s being handed to them they completely ignore it in favor of something else. One big example is with Marvel. Everyone on Tumblr was clamoring at Marvel for not giving proper representation in their movies. White guy after white guy has been casted back to back. The women of their universe were pushed to the background and relegated to love interest roles. And with all that clamoring and all that anger, all of you still went out of your way to give them your money, to give them your support, to over analyze every interaction and laud Marvel for their brilliance when really they’re just pushing the same formula down our throats and have been for the past 11 movies. Everyone is so fixated on the lack of representation in Marvel yet completely ignore the representation that is being showed elsewhere. And this is where DC comes in. With the start of the DC Extended Universe, WB, DC, and Zack Snyder have gone out of their way to provide representation within their universe. We will finally get a female led superhero movie. Half of the Justice League is POC. They have a Samoan playing Aquaman, they have Cyborg, they casted a jewish man as the Flash, an Israeli as Wonder Woman, and they will feature John Stewart as the Green Lantern. Wonder Woman is coming out in 2017, and she already made her appearance in Batman v Superman. The Suicide Squad also features Will Smith, Viola Davis, Jay Hernandez, Karen Fukuhara, and so on. DC doesn’t just provide representation in their movies, but in their TV shows too with POC and with LGBTQ as well. The fact that there is more representation in one DC TV show then there is with all of the MCU is astounding. And what’s even more astounding is the fact that Tumblr will go out of their way to completely ignore this representation. We have all of these great shows with great writing. They address issues that minorities deal with, POC and LGBTQ aren’t used as props. They’re not used as their token minority that so many studios feel the obligation to have. They are genuine characters that provide to the story. Now that DC has launched their extended universe with Batman v Superman, it was met with so much negativity. What everyone on here fails to understand is that the negativity isn’t coming from the fans and the casual movie goers, but from the critics who have been outright slandering this movie since they first announced it at Comic Con 3 years ago. These are the very same critics that praised Age of Ultron for its phenomenal story line when in reality, it was met with a lot of backlash from the fans. These are the same critics that praised Joss Whedon for relegating Black Widow into nothing more than a casual romance, just so the Hulk can experience his man pain. These are the same critics that praised Iron Man 3 for it’s fantastic story, when yet again, it was met with so much backlash from the general public. Now ask yourself, are these the critics you’re going to trust. These very same critics that have praised everything you hated about the movie? Batman v Superman isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s not supposed to be family friendly. What it is meant to be is an exploration on humanity. How far will a person go to protect the one’s they love? How much power is too much power? Is there a possibility that the person everyone can trust on can suddenly turn their back on them? This story deals with how people manage loss, destruction, helplessness. There’s nothing funny about that. There’s nothing funny about dealing with the repercussions of death and destruction. The DCEU is something that we need. We will finally be gaining representation that Marvel has denied us over and over again. Think about this the next time you decide to listen to the critics. Think about this the next time you see another photo set or text post on why Marvel is the best and DC sucks.Because agreeing to them is acquiescing to the idea that we don’t deserve representation. That we’ll be perfectly fine with seeing another 15 more movies where it’s the straight white male who’s the hero and the token black character and female character who will be pushed to the side. That’s what you’re agreeing to when you watch those movies. That’s what you’re agreeing to when you slander the ones who are willing to offer you representation.
Don’t ask for representation only to reject it when it’s shown. If you want representation, then support the people who give representation.
This is not to say that one can’t dislike Batman v Superman but just understand that there is a certain level of hypocrisy going on in the tumblr community. One can dislike a movie and a universe while still supporting or at the very least acknowledging what it’s trying to accomplish . However that’s not the case here. Tumblr yells so much about wanting diversity in superhero movies but when the DCEU at least tried to listen and provide some diversity (though they can certainly do better), they were immediately written off.
