Eight Academically-Related Ideas Inspired from the Phoenix Comicon (PCC)

I attended two days of the Phoenix Comicon, hopeful about getting my Roots DVD signed by LeVar Burton since he was slated to be one of the “guests.” Entering the Comicon surely was like entering another world, a world that represented several worlds, some delightful worlds and some worlds containing more gratuitous “violence” (much toy weaponry being wielded). A Comicon is short for a comic convention, and fans recognize the San Diego Comicon as close to the quintessential comic convention, but the Phoenix event is probably less overwhelming. The mission statement off the San Diego Comicon reads as follows:

Comic-Con International is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture. (Comic-Con International, 2010)

For many, especially academics, it seems like a silly event, but actually the event carried many levels that require serious thought and an opportunity for other types of educational experiences. ¹ I left with much to think about. I list below these ponderings as questions and statements.

1. Why do people use fantasy to work out their hopes and fears?  (I know this has already been answered academically, but it is just so striking to see costumed people and striking to watch how the non-convention bystanders react to them.) What does it mean when children work through life’s issues through fantasy? What does it mean when adults do this?  Is costuming/cosplay² and fandom a way to pretend to be “Other” or an imaginary “Other.”  Or isn’t the “Other” always imaginary?  (Philip Deloria’s book Playing Indian provides insight on this costuming except the costuming he discusses is “suppose to” represent living peoples or allegedly “long-gone” communities.)  This cosplay appears to me to be an upper working class and middle class phenomenon. Looking about I saw Latinos, African Americans, and Native Peoples attending the Comicon as well, but not in the numbers of people phenotypically (but not necessarily) White.  Does Whiteness (as in the form of privilege) add another dimension to cosplay and costuming?

2. How can the Comicon be used to further social issues and show how social issues become elided and invisible as well as part of the built in structure of these fantasy worlds? Certainly present were non-profit role-playing groups raising money for cures for specific diseases, but at the same time homeless people, marginalized on the streets, merged with the costumed zombies and anime characters in a stranger and more troubling than the movies type of way.

3. Why isn’t popular culture(s) more often seriously engaged in academics? Popular culture(s) seem to have such a TREMENDOUS influence for so many people. I watched people of all ages spending money and investing time and effort in connecting with pop culture figures and worlds and a little bit with each other. This included myself. I wanted to purchase someone’s autograph and get a sense of their real life presence so I stood happily at the front of a line for two hours waiting for the famous person to arrive at his signing station. I realized after that experience I really did not know much about LeVar Burton as a person. Even beyond my crazy behavior, it seems that some of the Comicon participants live to attend the Comicon. The PCC facebook page contains such enthusiasm.

4. How will the great impact of Japanese popular culture or Japanese-inspired popular culture and how it is interpreted by U.S. youth shape that group’s future and approaches to life as they become adults?  Many of the younger Comicon attendees cosplayed and costumed in their beloved anime characters including Steampunk, a version of Victorian Science Fiction.  One of the educational panels held at the event was on learning Japanese, for example. Will this section of this generation be friendly to other countries? Or is this a new form of cultural appropriation? Is this the Imaginary Other as mentioned above? Or another possibility, is this a form (though likely watered-down) of global citizenship?

5. On another note, back to Number Two, why does Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), present at the Comicon to sell and sign autographed photos, support Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County and his policies, as well as Arizona's new immigration law?  Another blogger wrote about this at this site: http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2010/05/lou_ferrignos_first_assignment.php . Some background about Joe Arpaio is that news reports describe his creation of jail tent cities, work chain gangs for inmates, and intentional profiling of Latino immigrants. What does this say about linking a version of hyper-masculinity to xenophobia?

6. Back to Number Two again, I did get the impression that LeVar Burton supports Ethnic Studies at every grade level.  (He actually tweeted a comment showing his disgust with the Arizona law banning that area of study.) With his work on Reading Rainbow, I think he really is an example of an interdisciplinary thinker, as well. It will be interesting to see how Reading Rainbow 2.0 contains Ethnic Studies themes.  Additionally, I received some insights into how different people might be interpreting the Ethnic Studies ban at the Comicon, of all places. For example, one person told me she thought the law was just to stop teaching about the "hateful things not about cultural aspects."  

7. How can sequential art be more often used as an Ethnic Studies tool? This book might be helpful: Teaching the Graphic Novel by Stephen E. Tabachnick (2009).

8. I find the sequential art and popular cultural preferences (not to essentialize or boil down specific group preferences to a limited selection) of generations younger and older than myself fascinating because those age groups represent potential students. With my own positionality, I can only glimpse into a different generation and their lives.  For example, in the diary sequential art of graphic designers, painters, and comic artists Sam Spina and Jon Garza (who drew his reaction to Arizona law SB1070 in his diary comic), the use of colloquialisms (including words that I would not use in similar ways), language, and descriptions of interactions and everyday life helped me as an instructor see a little bit into the lives of those in age groups similar to some of my students. I think this can benefit my teaching because I have assigned texts that some students felt alienated from or were not able to relate to even though the text’s subject matter met my objectives to show or exemplify ideas about ethnicity, race, and racism. I would still use that text but find ways to better contextualize it. In one of his pieces of sequential art, Sam Spina discusses painting a “deck” or a skateboard. I was able to link this with a paper titled, “The Indigenization of Hip Hop: The Art of Storytelling” by Asa Kelon Washines from Fort Lewis College at the NAISA Conference (see my last blog entry) about the use of hip hop by Native Youth. Washines pointed out how the decks were a form of “traditional” storytelling for Native Youth.

These eight ideas are a bit all over the place as far as subject matter, reminiscent of the Comicon environment itself, blending different worlds and areas of study together.  Thank you for reading even if the Comicon didn’t interest you!  I think the Comicon shows how different groups of people and generations need to interact more, including socioeconomic classes, age groups, racialized groups, ethnic groups, and fans of different forms of popular culture as well as how real life and understandings of real life merge from and inform fantasy worlds and popular art forms. This particular theme has been a common one appearing across my blogs, actually.

Notes

1.  How-to and informational as well as purely entertainment panels were held over the course of the event. Some of these were lead by youth panelists who were prepared with Power Points and key points for discussions and instruction.  They were sharing their literacy about popular culture(s).

2. “Cosplay” is a new word for me.  The term refers to “costume play” or role-playing in elaborate, often home-designed- and -assembled costumes.

 References

Comic-con International. (2010). Mission Statement. Retrieved from http://www.comic-con.org/