Addressing the Cultural Politics of Black Male Superhero Identity in Graphic Narratives
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Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 5-22-2017 Canvases of Representation: Addressing the Cultural Politics of Black Male Superhero Identity in Graphic Narratives Danielle L. Cochran Illinois State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Cochran, Danielle L., "Canvases of Representation: Addressing the Cultural Politics of Black Male Superhero Identity in Graphic Narratives" (2017). Theses and Dissertations. 731. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/731 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CANVASES OF REPRESENTATION: ADDRESSING THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF BLACK MALE SUPERHERO IDENTITY IN GRAPHIC NARRATIVES Danielle L. Cochran 201 Pages Canvases of Representation: Addressing the Cultural Politics of Black Male Superheroes Identity in Graphic Narratives is an analytical literary mixtape dedicated to Black male superheroes Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Black Lightning. Cochran draws out how superheroes play a role in the socio-political, identity, and cultural representations Black identity. The work argues that what is not just the symbolic/cultural destruction of the Black image in popular culture but how such representations provide a template for how the Black body is actively managed, controlled, surveilled, and contained in the material world. Examining these figures through the blended genres of Afrofuturism, film, and hip-hip as well, this research explores how Black creators have begun to dis-articulate fictional representations and develop a collective catharsis more “authentic” to the complex Black experience. KEYWORDS: Graphic narratives; Cultural studies; African-American studies; Black Panther; Luke Cage; Black Lightning; African-American pedagogy; African-American literature CANVASES OF REPRESENTATION: ADDRESSING THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF BLACK MALE SUPERHERO IDENTITY IN GRAPHIC NARRATIVES DANIELLE L. COCHRAN A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY 2017 Copyright 2017 Danielle L. Cochran CANVASES OF REPRESENTATION: ADDRESSING THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF BLACK MALE SUPERHERO IDENTITY IN GRAPHIC NARRATIVES DANIELLE L. COCHRAN COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Chair Christopher Breu Paul Ugor ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thank you to God. Just thank you and all the ancestors who have sacrificed and paved the way for me to be in this situation and contribute to the large body of Black aesthetic work. Thank you to the Brass and Cochran family for your love and support! It is because of your prayers, wise council, and service in love I was able to finish this process! Thank you to the multiple faculty and staff (inside and outside) of the English department at Illinois State University for your kindness and support! Thank you to Dr. Christopher Breu and Dr. Paul Ugor. Thank you for always having time for me, pushing my ideas, and supporting my content! Thank you to Dr. Pamela Hoff for providing a space to process my Blackness in this fraught environment and reminding me of the mighty stock from which we come! Thank you to Dr. Nancy D. Tolson who took an easily-distracted lost Black poet as an undergraduate and made him focus on the beauty of our culture and being Black and intelligent in a space that often renders us invisible. Thank you for seeing me… Thank you to Professor Ricardo Cortez Cruz for mentoring me through several stages of my academic career. It has been a wild ride. It is because of your belief in my gifts and ideas that they have come to manifest. You made hip-hop an academic possibility with your course work and you taught me responsibility and follow through. Thank you for continuing to encourage me… Thank you to my beautiful wife, Elise Marissa Cochran, for being a supportive and inspiring presence throughout this whole doctoral process and since you’ve came into my life. I could not have done this without your love and motivation. You are my orange moon and I shine because you shine. 143! Last, but not least, this scholarship is for my daughter Emma Corryn as an example that with faith, dedication, and hard work you can follow and achieve anything that you believe in! D. L. C. i CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i CONTENTS ii CHAPTER I: (CULTURAL) POLITICS AS USUAL 1 Scholastic Sankofa 1 The Set-Up 3 Comics, Power, Respect is the Key to Life 9 Words Paint Pictures 11 Made –Not- In Our Image 15 So What’s The Fuss? 23 Black Is, Black Aint… 29 The Blueprint 31 CHAPTER II: CAPES AND CURRICULUM: BLACK PEDAGOGICAL SUPERHEROISM 36 One in a Million Questions (The Introduction) 36 The Structure (Course Content) 44 Dig, If You Will, The Picture (Demographic and Logistics of the Internship) 50 Scenario 1: Hustling for Classroom Quotas 53 Scenario 2: Black (Angry) Lit 56 Scenario 3: The Checkout (Engaging in non-White literature with White students) 62 Scenario 4: Reverse Racism 66 As We Proceed (Further Investigations) 68 #TheAcademicClapBack (Conclusion) 70 ii CHAPTER III: SURFACE RACE RELATIONS: THE BODY POLITICS OF 74 BLACK PANTHER 74 Commodified Colonized Intellect from the Jump 79 Same Ol’ Song: Marvel Premiere featuring Black Panther 85 Opening Doors to Difficult Conversations in Graphic Narratives 94 Conduits for Commodification 98 Power to the People: The Conflict of the Black Panther Character and Symbolism 103 Conclusion: With Great Power… 107 CHAPTER IV: “SWEET SIGNYFYIN(G) CHRISTMAS”: UNCHAINING LUKE CAGE 110 “It’s About to Get Ugly!” The Problematic Luke Cage 113 Out of Satire – A Fool is Born! 117 The Death of a Damn Fool 130 A Hero Not For Hire, But To Inspire 135 Hoodie and Hopes 140 The Outro 144 CHAPTER V: JUST “US” LEAGUE: RACIALIZED EXCLUSION IN THE RECRUITMENT OF BLACK LIGHTNING INTO THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA 149 Here We Are Now, Entertain Us… 154 More Than Meets the Eye 163 (Not) All in the Same Gang 170 CHAPTER VI: I, TOO, AM AMERICA (Conclusion) 174 Where Do We Go 183 REFERENCES 189 iii FIGURES Figure Page 1.1. John Stewart’s first appearance in DC Comics’ Green Lantern/Arrow #87 17 1.2. Will Eisner’s character, Ebony White. 24 3.1. Black Panther arrives on the scene in Fantastic Four #52. 79 3.2. Black Panther is seen looming over the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #52. 80 3.3. Cover art for Marvel Premiere #51. 85 3.4. Black Panther battles Windeagle in Marvel Premiere #51. 86 3.5. Cover art for Marvel Premiere #52. 87 3.6. Cover art for Marvel Premiere #53. 89 3.7. Black Panther defeats Soul Strangler in Marvel Premiere #53. 92 3.8. The covers of the Jungle Action featuring Black Panther #19, 20, 22 & 24. 93 3.9. Green Lantern/ Green Arrow #76, Green Lantern is challenged on race. 95 3.10. The Soul Strangler from the Marvel Premiere series. 105 4.1. The cover for Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (Marvel, 1972). 113 4.2. Luke Cage (left), Tyroc (center), and Buck Wild (right). 121 4.3. Buck Wild’s “groovy rant” from Icon #13(DC Comics, 1994). 125 4.4. Mike Colter as Luke Cage (Den of Geeks, 2016). 136 4.5: Luke Cage breaks out the experimental chamber. 140 4.6. Luke Cage pays homage to his original costume. 141 4.7. Luke Cage sees his reflection in the car and insults himself. 141 4.8. Picture of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie that would become symbolic of racial protest. 142 4.9. Luke Cage’s hoodie as costume/symbol (iMDB, 2016). 144 iv 5.1. Cover art for Black Lightning’s guest appearance in Justice League of America #173. 154 5.2. The JLA surveying Black Lightning stopping crime in JLA #173. 155 5.3. The Flash and Green Lantern have a conflict over Black Lightning in JLA #173. 155 5.4. Superman PSA on discrimination from 1949. 159 5.5. Black Lightning rejects the JLA invitation the first time n in JLA #173. 161 5.6. Black Lightning rejects the JLA invitation again in JLA #174. 170 6.1. Black protesters march in the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968. 176 6.2. Black Kirby and Tan Lee’s Kid Code: Channel Zero (2014). 182 6.3. Cover art for Black #1 by Kwanza Osajyefo (2016). 183 v CHAPTER I: (CULTURAL) POLITICS AS USUAL [T]hink of how these cultures have used the body—as if it was, and it often was, the only cultural capital we had. We have worked on ourselves as the canvases of representation. Stuart Hall, “What is this ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture” In general, mainstream groups hold the ability to define reality through the tools of education, mass media, and social institutions. When children are taught by parents, the mast media, and schools that LGBTs are sick or deviant, when people of color are portrayed as dangerous and unintelligent, and when women are stereotyped as the weaker sex and less capable in leadership positions, a system of hierarchy and access to privilege and power is established in our society. Derald Wing Sue The worst injury is feeling you don’t belong so much to you— Claudine Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric Scholastic Sankofa Before we begin this intellectual exodus, I want to quickly shout out the texts that were instrumental in providing the jump off point to lay my literary analytical flow.