Translator: Jessica Mongilio Reviewer: Denise RQ
So full disclosure guys.
I am definitely wearing my lucky superhero underwear right now,
just so you all know.
I'm also wearing, for those of you in the back,
this is my light up Iron Man T-shirt.
It's the arc reactor, the glowy thing in Iron Man's chest.
And on this foot, I'm wearing one Iron Man sock.
And on this foot, I'm wearing one Captain America sock.
Mostly because I love both characters
so much that I can never decide which one pair of socks to wear.
So I wear one of each to make sure that everybody feels loved.
I don't want to play favorites.
What you can gather from all of this is that I am a huge nerd:
comics, comic book movies, conventions, dressing up.
All things I have proudly done,
and if we're being honest, will probably do again.
But comics are more than that for me.
They're not just entertainment. They're personal.
The characters that I love and interact with
have actually impacted my life in a very real way.
I'll give you an example.
I don't know how many of you have seen the Avengers
so no worries, no spoilers.
But I've seen it 17 times in theaters. Not to brag.
Something happens at the end of the movie that's really traumatizing for Tony Stark.
We then see him in Iron Man 3, which takes place afterwards,
eating lunch with a friend.
Something happens that triggers him.
He starts hyperventilating. His eyes are bulging out of his head.
He sprints out of the restaurant thinking he's been poisoned.
He hasn't been poisoned.
He's just having an anxiety attack.
For someone that's dealt with anxiety, especially here in college,
that was really important for me.
Because seeing a character that I look up to and love so much
go through something so vulnerable and so human,
really normalized the idea of anxiety, and helped make me feel more comfortable.
If Tony Stark can have an anxiety attack and still save the world,
I can still have an anxiety attack and take my test on Friday.
But let's talk about superheroes.
You see probably quite a few faces that you recognize.
Maybe you've seen the movies, the TV shows.
Maybe you've seen people with T-shirts of them
or hats, mugs, or socks.
Maybe you've seen little kids dress up like them for Halloween.
But how many of these characters can you name as quickly on the 1st slide?
How many of them have you seen as Halloween costumes for kids?
How many of them have you seen on T-shirts, or hats, or socks?
As someone who has been looking for Black Widow socks for 2 years,
I can tell you that it's not because I'm not looking hard enough.
It's because they're not made with the same frequency
that the previous characters' merchandise is made.
I think this is just a small hint at a really indicative problem
of representation in comics.
Usually, I bring this up to my friends, and the response that I get is,
"OK, Bria. That's fine.
But I go see superhero movies for explosions and hot dudes in tights."
Same, audience. I do the same thing.
I will tell you
that seeing superhero movies has been really important for me.
There are a lot of really interesting, political examples of comics
that are not just for entertainment.
They've been a place for societal critique and a way for people
that might not normally engage in a political discussion
to be able to approach it in a way that's accessible for them
and interesting to them.
There are a lot of really great examples, but my favorite comes from the X-Men.
You see some pictures from a plot line, that was released in the late 90s,
about something called the Legacy Virus.
It was a virus that was killing off the mutant population at an alarming rate.
Because it was only impacting the mutant population,
the minority group with fewer rights,
no one really cared or acknowledged it as a problem.
It wasn't until the virus mutated and starting impacting non-mutants
that everybody started to acknowledge the Legacy Virus as an issue.
If this sounds familiar to you, you're probably correct in assuming
that it parallels the epidemic of AIDS in the late 80s,
where the homosexual male community was dying at an alarming rate
from HIV/AIDS.
Because they were part of a marginalized community,
no one really paid much attention to it.
It wasn't until people not a part of that community,
the majority group with all the rights, starting getting AIDS
that the government and the president can talk about it, it's an actual problem.
It's not just the X-Men that deal with political issues like this.
It's Iron Man talking about a critique of a hyper-militarized capitalistic society
or our place in the Middle East.
It's Captain America fighting the good fight
between the role of privacy for individual citizens
or a surveillant government keeping us safe from unseen terrorism.
It's Batman, who's trying to dismantle
corrupt police, political, and judicial systems
for a city that he loves.
Comics have been saying something more for a very long time.
The characters that we interact with impact our lives in a very real way
and reconstruct the cultural narratives that we tell ourselves.
This is especially true when it comes to kids,
who are watching superhero movies, not just for costumes or merchandise
but for heroes and role models and people to model their behavior after.
It can be really hard for a kid to look up on the screen
and see someone they want to be like if no one on the screen looks like them.
There's science behind this too.
If you've ever taken an Intro to Psychology course,
you've probably learned about Social Cognitive Theory.
It's a learning theory proposed by Bandura,
that talks about how we learn.
If we watch someone perform a behavior, we're going to try to replicate it.
It has three main parts: identification, outcome expectation, and self-efficacy.
Identification goes back to the first part where I see Tony Stark.
He's funny. He's sarcastic. He has attractive friends. He's smart.
He deals with anxiety.
All things that I have experienced in some capacity in my life.
I identify with him, and I pay attention to him.
That brings us to the second part of Social Cognitive Theory:
outcome expectations.
If I'm paying attention to Tony Stark, I'm looking for one of two things
that come from his behavior: punishment or reward.
If we see Tony, like we do in Iron Man 2, drinking himself to death,
pushing away his friends, spiraling into an emotional void of nothingness,
that behavior is punished in the film.
So I'm not going to want to replicate it, because I don't want to be punished.
But if we see Tony Stark reaching out to his friends, asking for help,
fighting for his life, or fighting for what he believes in,
that behavior is rewarded.
So I'm going to want to do that.
In every superhero movie, we know how the formula goes.
The hero struggles, but then, they pull themselves back up.
They save the day. They get the girl.
They beat up the bad guy. They win.
That reward is important, because it emphasizes
that this behavior is something that you want to replicate.
This brings us to the third part of Social Cognitive Theory:
self-efficacy, which is the belief that you can do the thing.
If I look at Tony Stark, and I identify with him, and I'm paying attention to him,
and then I see he can fight through the anxiety on the hard days,
or he can stand up for what he believes in.
As long as I believe that I am able to do that as well, then I'm going to try.
This is where representation is key.
When kids or 21 year old college women are watching comic book movies
and looking for what to replicate, having someone to identify with is key.
If you're looking at the screen for someone to learn from,
and you don't see anyone to identify with, you're not going to learn those behaviors,
and you're not going to feel like you have a place
or the ability to be a hero, like everyone else.
It's important to acknowledge the progress that still needs to be made,
but it's also important to acknowledge the progress that already has been made.
We're seeing a lot of progress and diversity coming through in comics,
as opposed to in the movies.
In terms of racial diversity in the comics,
we're starting to see characters like Spiderman
who is now a biracial boy named Miles Morales.
Captain America, the literal embodiment of patriotism in the USA today
is now a black man.
Characters that have classically been considered very powerful
and masculine and god-like, like Thor, who is now a woman in comics.
When we think of Ms. Marvel, who is still feminine and powerful.
She's also Muslim, so we're starting to see some religious diversity as well.
We're starting to see more bisexual and gay characters.
Some married gay couples as well.
We have Deadpool, who is pansexual in the comics and in the movie.
I hear laughs. Some of you know who Deadpool is.
Being pansexual is part of an identity that not many people have heard of yet.
This is bringing visibility to a community that might not have normally had a voice.
That brings us to what I think is one of the most interesting aspects
of representation in comics, which is ability.
When you think of superheroes, you probably think of strength and power.
When you think of disabilities, you might not think of it that way.
The character you see standing next to my boyfriend, Tony Stark,
is Blue Ear; he's in the blue and white.
Blue Ear was a character created because of a boy who was a huge comic book fan.
He was hearing impaired, so he had to wear blue hearing aids.
He stopped wearing them, and he told his mom,
"Heroes don't have blue ears."
The folks at Marvel took it upon themselves
to create this character, aptly named Blue Ear,
who is a superhero, does fight crime, but he is hearing impaired.
He wears hearing aids and uses that as an asset,
as opposed to a weakness.
It's stories like these that are so powerful.
It's stories like these I want to see more of
in the comics that we're reading and in the movies that we're watching.
If we have heroes on print and on screen that are representing everyone
and fighting for what they believe in,
then everyone feels like they have a chance to be a hero too.
Thanks.
(Applause)