TheMaster666
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- Aug 17, 2021
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Now I hope this post isn't considered too controversial, and I fully understand if mods feel that it is (I'll try to keep it as civil as possible).
I don't typically make a habit of watching new tv or movies. Hell, my idea of a "modern" tv show is still something between 2000-2010. Most of the stuff I enjoy is from the 60s, 70s, 80s, & 90s.
But the new Mortal Kombat game had some cameo characters from the Amazon Prime superhero cartoon Invincible, an animated series which just came out in 2021 and I think is currently in its second season, or possibly third.
As someone who is moderately familiar with comic book superhero kind of stuff in the past (I was a fan of the Batman Animated Series some years ago. R.I.P. Kevin Conroy 🙁 ), but has long since grown past that, I typically roll my eyes at anything with tights and a cape, but I said, what the hell, and gave it a shot. And by that I mean I just binge-watched the entire first season, which is 8 one-hour-long episodes. (Hey, in my defense, it feels more like an 8 hour movie than a tv show. They always end the episode on some gripping cliffhanger for the main plot and you just keep watching to see how that will progress.)
The premise of the show is basically *Episode 1 Spoilers [not-Superman turns evil and massacres the not-Justice League] Spoiler End*.
Basically, it's kind of like the plot of Injustice: Gods Among Us, but instead of the typical PG-13 level of cartoon violence one would expect of this genre, there are excessive levels of gore, the occasional F-bomb, and a few sexual jokes or innuendos. In short, this program easily could've been the usual PG-13 rating in story and form, but an almost sadistic level of detail to brutally gory executions and bystander casualties elevates the violence to Mortal Kombat levels. (Which is probably why Ed Boon & Co. felt this show would be a good fit for the game.) But while the MK games are self-aware that the violence is over-the-top and therefore taken less seriously, the violence in Invincible is played deadly seriously and dramatically. I'm not kidding. I don't think South Park even reached this level of disturbing, Scott Tenorman notwithstanding.
Which brings me to the first paradox of this series: Who exactly is the target audience? This is certainly made for mature audiences only, yet the genre's typical teen romance drama and cartoonishly outlandish villains of the week are present in spades here--elements that typically are favored by the young teen demographic. In other words, it's too low-brow for the HBO demographic, but too adult for the WB/CW demographic it's otherwise most appealing to.
Nevertheless, I was compelled to stick with the series, and got more hooked the more I watched, so it must've done something right, because I'm not even somebody who even likes superhero stuff.
Anyway, to make a considerably longer story than I intended somewhat briefer, I shall call your attention to two particular characters within this show, namely Amber and William.
They both are peers of the show's main protagonist, young superhero Mark Grayson. They attend his school but are just ordinary people with no super powers.
The problem with these two characters, that I felt just from watching the show, is they distinctly lack any genuine personality or character and come off feeling like they're only there to tick a diversity quota (I'll get back to this later, since I apparently have been proven entirely right on this account.)
Amber is basically Mark's black female lover; while William is his gay friend.
No, I'm not kidding that's pretty much it. They have no personality, no life, and no interests of their own, beyond being the lover or the gay friend to the protagonist.
Now, let me ask you, dear reader, if Amber had not been black, how do you think feminists would approve of such a character?
I don't remember the name, but I'm pretty sure there's a test somewhere on the internet, which posits if a woman exists purely to talk about her relationship with a man, then she fails the test. Now, granted, I don't really give a crap about said test; it's something feminists like to use however. Either way, the point remains the same.
The entire season, we are asked to believe that she and Mark love each other and therefore should be invested in their dating woes. But...why? There is no chemistry, no genuine connection, no reason for them to even really be that invested in the other at all. In the first episode, some stereotypical jock/bully cliche was harassing Amber, so Mark stood up to him by taking a punch for her, before he got his superpowers. She was impressed and gave him her number.
That's it. That's literally the totality of their interactions that might actually endear the one to the other.
Meanwhile, there's another female character at the same high school, who is a white, red-headed girl. She is plainly much more attractive, and the show itself comments on how every heterosexual boy in the school would love to go out with her. Turns out she too is a superhero, and when our protagonist first tries his hand at the whole superhero thing, she is the one to be a friend to guide him through it all, and because both of them know each other's secret identities, they are able to talk more openly and honestly with each other, which allows them to be more personal. She just seems like the more obvious choice for a love interest. I figured once her boyfriend cheated on her (out of the picture), it was only a matter of time before she gets together with the protagonist. But that doesn't happen.
Amber on the other hand sticks with a guy, who from her point of view just stands her up, shows up very late, or cancels dates all the time on her, with flimsy excuses. (She doesn't know his secret identity.) All for a guy she barely knows in the first place, and with she has little in common.
But she's black, and that makes it more PC, so that's all that matters.
The best part is, I only find out now after going online that in the original 2000s comic that this show is based on, Amber was never even black at all, but white. Apparently the show's creator felt that having three white leads was just not okay, so he had to race-swap the existing character. (Casual racism, much?) As far as I can tell, the fans of the original comic not only felt this was bad (as obviously it is) but that the tv version of Amber is way more unlikable than the comic version. (No kidding.)
Me personally, I don't take issue with Amber being black (although I do now that I know she was originally not). The bigger concern is still that there is no real reason for that romance to exist. It's not earned. And the character herself doesn't have her own identity outside of "I'm the hero's lover." She feels one-dimensional, flat, and boring. As opposed to the red-headed superhero girl who has her own character arc. We see the asshole boyfriend who cheated on her and how she reacts to that. We see the spat she has with her well-meaning but authoritarian parents (also a cliche). We see her leave the show's equivalent of the "Teen Titans" to go do her own thing putting out forest fires and helping individuals in agriculture. She has an actual existence outside of her relationship with the main protagonist. Amber does not.
Moving on to the other problem character, the gay friend. (I had to look up his name in the wiki because he's so forgettable outside of "the gay friend.")
If Amber has little personality or character outside of being "the love interest," then this dude has even less character. The only times he appears or has dialogue, it's to remind the audience in some shape or form that he's gay. Most notably is in an episode mid-way through the season when he uses the pretense of visiting a college campus to hook-up with a male college student which it is later revealed he's already had sex with a year ago. And he's still in high school.
Wow, there's so much wrong here, where do I begin?
Statutory rape aside, let's talk about sexual objectification. Since I'm a man for equality, let's turn the tables for a minute, just as we did with Amber if she were white.
If this friend character were not gay but rather straight, and he talked about a female he's aroused by and hopes to have sex with again, specifically describing body parts that turn him on, with the camera zooming in on a closeup of his crush's butt (yes, it did do that) ...
I mean I don't even have to finish and you can see where I'm going with this. It would be totally unacceptable. The character (and the writers/director) would be instantly seen as a creep or a perv, and the feminists would come crusading in to talk about the patriarchy and the sexual objectification of women.
But if men sexually objectify other men, that makes it totally okay now?
It's just a complete double standard. I'm one for consistency. Either it's alright for straight men to objectify women in that manner as well as for gay men to objectify other men; or it's equally slimy and "pervy" for both groups.
Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. I think going as far to talk about specific body parts is a little too far and kind of creepy, but saying, "Oh man, that guy/girl is hot!" in a more general sense is generally acceptable, given the context is appropriate of course.
As you might imagine, this too reeks of PC diversity bullshit, and it's sort of true.
According to the internet, the original comic version of the character was also gay, but not right from the start. He was more like Willow on Buffy. Began without any mention of sexuality, but then there's a gradual arc where he discovers his true sexuality and learns to come out.
That to me sounds like a more believable and interesting character development for a gay character, than just telling the audience "I like men" every other line. Ideally, the character should actually be a human being and not mention being gay unless it actually comes up. Most normal people don't go around bragging about their sexuality. It's literally the only common denominator that every human on the planet is interested in sex. It's hardly unique or a personality. Make a gay friend character compelling by making him talk about real life issues like, concerned about a class/test, or college admissions, or sports, or whatever it is people occupy their time with. And then when dating comes up, he casually and politely remarks, "Oh sorry, I'm not into women," or it's already understood and he's just dating a guy like it's totally normal and so trivial it's not even worth mentioning.
Ah, but you see, that was never the point to create a compelling character who happens to be gay. He was just there to tick a box on the obligatory diversity quota, so that the creator can virtue signal to everyone on Twitter how accepting he is of a group of people that everyone already accepts; how stunning and brave he is, (to borrow a line from South Park), to do the least controversial thing one could do in today's age.
Anyway, I might have given the impression that I was more offended by any of this nonsense than I actually am. It doesn't really bother me all that much at all. And in fact, I rather liked the show, so if you have any interest in a superhero show that defies typical cliches (while following others) and have the stomach for the brutal gore/violence, then I do recommend it. I'll probably see the second season.
But I do think these things are worth noticing and pointing out, because there are certain ridiculous double standards in today's media where traditional heterosexual tensions are increasingly taboo, yet anything sexualizing homosexuality is glorified; and likewise race swapping existing characters is a very stupid trend that needs to die. I don't know how people adopted the absurd notion that "diversity" means different races of people (or gender or any other meaningless trait of birth), when that has never been and isn't the true meaning of the term. Diversity should refer to a difference of thought, opinion, feeling, character, etc. You can have an all white male straight character roster or an all female black lesbian character roster and in theory both can still be extremely diverse. It has nothing to do with those characteristics.
I don't typically make a habit of watching new tv or movies. Hell, my idea of a "modern" tv show is still something between 2000-2010. Most of the stuff I enjoy is from the 60s, 70s, 80s, & 90s.
But the new Mortal Kombat game had some cameo characters from the Amazon Prime superhero cartoon Invincible, an animated series which just came out in 2021 and I think is currently in its second season, or possibly third.
As someone who is moderately familiar with comic book superhero kind of stuff in the past (I was a fan of the Batman Animated Series some years ago. R.I.P. Kevin Conroy 🙁 ), but has long since grown past that, I typically roll my eyes at anything with tights and a cape, but I said, what the hell, and gave it a shot. And by that I mean I just binge-watched the entire first season, which is 8 one-hour-long episodes. (Hey, in my defense, it feels more like an 8 hour movie than a tv show. They always end the episode on some gripping cliffhanger for the main plot and you just keep watching to see how that will progress.)
The premise of the show is basically *Episode 1 Spoilers [not-Superman turns evil and massacres the not-Justice League] Spoiler End*.
Basically, it's kind of like the plot of Injustice: Gods Among Us, but instead of the typical PG-13 level of cartoon violence one would expect of this genre, there are excessive levels of gore, the occasional F-bomb, and a few sexual jokes or innuendos. In short, this program easily could've been the usual PG-13 rating in story and form, but an almost sadistic level of detail to brutally gory executions and bystander casualties elevates the violence to Mortal Kombat levels. (Which is probably why Ed Boon & Co. felt this show would be a good fit for the game.) But while the MK games are self-aware that the violence is over-the-top and therefore taken less seriously, the violence in Invincible is played deadly seriously and dramatically. I'm not kidding. I don't think South Park even reached this level of disturbing, Scott Tenorman notwithstanding.
Which brings me to the first paradox of this series: Who exactly is the target audience? This is certainly made for mature audiences only, yet the genre's typical teen romance drama and cartoonishly outlandish villains of the week are present in spades here--elements that typically are favored by the young teen demographic. In other words, it's too low-brow for the HBO demographic, but too adult for the WB/CW demographic it's otherwise most appealing to.
Nevertheless, I was compelled to stick with the series, and got more hooked the more I watched, so it must've done something right, because I'm not even somebody who even likes superhero stuff.
Anyway, to make a considerably longer story than I intended somewhat briefer, I shall call your attention to two particular characters within this show, namely Amber and William.
They both are peers of the show's main protagonist, young superhero Mark Grayson. They attend his school but are just ordinary people with no super powers.
The problem with these two characters, that I felt just from watching the show, is they distinctly lack any genuine personality or character and come off feeling like they're only there to tick a diversity quota (I'll get back to this later, since I apparently have been proven entirely right on this account.)
Amber is basically Mark's black female lover; while William is his gay friend.
No, I'm not kidding that's pretty much it. They have no personality, no life, and no interests of their own, beyond being the lover or the gay friend to the protagonist.
Now, let me ask you, dear reader, if Amber had not been black, how do you think feminists would approve of such a character?
I don't remember the name, but I'm pretty sure there's a test somewhere on the internet, which posits if a woman exists purely to talk about her relationship with a man, then she fails the test. Now, granted, I don't really give a crap about said test; it's something feminists like to use however. Either way, the point remains the same.
The entire season, we are asked to believe that she and Mark love each other and therefore should be invested in their dating woes. But...why? There is no chemistry, no genuine connection, no reason for them to even really be that invested in the other at all. In the first episode, some stereotypical jock/bully cliche was harassing Amber, so Mark stood up to him by taking a punch for her, before he got his superpowers. She was impressed and gave him her number.
That's it. That's literally the totality of their interactions that might actually endear the one to the other.
Meanwhile, there's another female character at the same high school, who is a white, red-headed girl. She is plainly much more attractive, and the show itself comments on how every heterosexual boy in the school would love to go out with her. Turns out she too is a superhero, and when our protagonist first tries his hand at the whole superhero thing, she is the one to be a friend to guide him through it all, and because both of them know each other's secret identities, they are able to talk more openly and honestly with each other, which allows them to be more personal. She just seems like the more obvious choice for a love interest. I figured once her boyfriend cheated on her (out of the picture), it was only a matter of time before she gets together with the protagonist. But that doesn't happen.
Amber on the other hand sticks with a guy, who from her point of view just stands her up, shows up very late, or cancels dates all the time on her, with flimsy excuses. (She doesn't know his secret identity.) All for a guy she barely knows in the first place, and with she has little in common.
But she's black, and that makes it more PC, so that's all that matters.
The best part is, I only find out now after going online that in the original 2000s comic that this show is based on, Amber was never even black at all, but white. Apparently the show's creator felt that having three white leads was just not okay, so he had to race-swap the existing character. (Casual racism, much?) As far as I can tell, the fans of the original comic not only felt this was bad (as obviously it is) but that the tv version of Amber is way more unlikable than the comic version. (No kidding.)
Me personally, I don't take issue with Amber being black (although I do now that I know she was originally not). The bigger concern is still that there is no real reason for that romance to exist. It's not earned. And the character herself doesn't have her own identity outside of "I'm the hero's lover." She feels one-dimensional, flat, and boring. As opposed to the red-headed superhero girl who has her own character arc. We see the asshole boyfriend who cheated on her and how she reacts to that. We see the spat she has with her well-meaning but authoritarian parents (also a cliche). We see her leave the show's equivalent of the "Teen Titans" to go do her own thing putting out forest fires and helping individuals in agriculture. She has an actual existence outside of her relationship with the main protagonist. Amber does not.
Moving on to the other problem character, the gay friend. (I had to look up his name in the wiki because he's so forgettable outside of "the gay friend.")
If Amber has little personality or character outside of being "the love interest," then this dude has even less character. The only times he appears or has dialogue, it's to remind the audience in some shape or form that he's gay. Most notably is in an episode mid-way through the season when he uses the pretense of visiting a college campus to hook-up with a male college student which it is later revealed he's already had sex with a year ago. And he's still in high school.
Wow, there's so much wrong here, where do I begin?
Statutory rape aside, let's talk about sexual objectification. Since I'm a man for equality, let's turn the tables for a minute, just as we did with Amber if she were white.
If this friend character were not gay but rather straight, and he talked about a female he's aroused by and hopes to have sex with again, specifically describing body parts that turn him on, with the camera zooming in on a closeup of his crush's butt (yes, it did do that) ...
I mean I don't even have to finish and you can see where I'm going with this. It would be totally unacceptable. The character (and the writers/director) would be instantly seen as a creep or a perv, and the feminists would come crusading in to talk about the patriarchy and the sexual objectification of women.
But if men sexually objectify other men, that makes it totally okay now?
It's just a complete double standard. I'm one for consistency. Either it's alright for straight men to objectify women in that manner as well as for gay men to objectify other men; or it's equally slimy and "pervy" for both groups.
Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. I think going as far to talk about specific body parts is a little too far and kind of creepy, but saying, "Oh man, that guy/girl is hot!" in a more general sense is generally acceptable, given the context is appropriate of course.
As you might imagine, this too reeks of PC diversity bullshit, and it's sort of true.
According to the internet, the original comic version of the character was also gay, but not right from the start. He was more like Willow on Buffy. Began without any mention of sexuality, but then there's a gradual arc where he discovers his true sexuality and learns to come out.
That to me sounds like a more believable and interesting character development for a gay character, than just telling the audience "I like men" every other line. Ideally, the character should actually be a human being and not mention being gay unless it actually comes up. Most normal people don't go around bragging about their sexuality. It's literally the only common denominator that every human on the planet is interested in sex. It's hardly unique or a personality. Make a gay friend character compelling by making him talk about real life issues like, concerned about a class/test, or college admissions, or sports, or whatever it is people occupy their time with. And then when dating comes up, he casually and politely remarks, "Oh sorry, I'm not into women," or it's already understood and he's just dating a guy like it's totally normal and so trivial it's not even worth mentioning.
Ah, but you see, that was never the point to create a compelling character who happens to be gay. He was just there to tick a box on the obligatory diversity quota, so that the creator can virtue signal to everyone on Twitter how accepting he is of a group of people that everyone already accepts; how stunning and brave he is, (to borrow a line from South Park), to do the least controversial thing one could do in today's age.
Anyway, I might have given the impression that I was more offended by any of this nonsense than I actually am. It doesn't really bother me all that much at all. And in fact, I rather liked the show, so if you have any interest in a superhero show that defies typical cliches (while following others) and have the stomach for the brutal gore/violence, then I do recommend it. I'll probably see the second season.
But I do think these things are worth noticing and pointing out, because there are certain ridiculous double standards in today's media where traditional heterosexual tensions are increasingly taboo, yet anything sexualizing homosexuality is glorified; and likewise race swapping existing characters is a very stupid trend that needs to die. I don't know how people adopted the absurd notion that "diversity" means different races of people (or gender or any other meaningless trait of birth), when that has never been and isn't the true meaning of the term. Diversity should refer to a difference of thought, opinion, feeling, character, etc. You can have an all white male straight character roster or an all female black lesbian character roster and in theory both can still be extremely diverse. It has nothing to do with those characteristics.
"An elegant response, from a more civilized age" -Ben Kenobi