Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT 2887-2891 (2-6 February 2015)
gprimr1:
Question:
Has it ever been established if Claire had the surgery? I seem to remember her saying she did, but I"m not 100%.
Fig:
--- Quote from: gprimr1 on 06 Feb 2015, 09:31 ---Question:
Has it ever been established if Claire had the surgery? I seem to remember her saying she did, but I"m not 100%.
--- End quote ---
All we know is that she's been on HRT. I don't think this is something we will ever know.
DillyDolly:
--- Quote from: efrumttr on 06 Feb 2015, 08:53 ---
--- Quote from: jheartney on 06 Feb 2015, 08:23 ---
--- Quote from: Technetium on 06 Feb 2015, 08:08 ---That said, I like this comic and a happy ending like this can be nice in a kind of sugary way, I just wish sometimes the comic would approach these issues in a more challenging way.
--- End quote ---
We just had a harrowing story arc with depression, heartbreak, alcoholism and a self-destructive slide into near-death. And you think Jeph should go darker?
--- End quote ---
I think you missed his point competely. Think about it like this: why did Jeph create Claire? Why did he introduce a transgender character into the comic? Just because? If that's the case, then okay. But if Jeph is trying to send a larger message about trans acceptance or to raise awareness of transgender issues (which I at least think it's obvious that he is), then to portray Claire's life as we've seen it so far is more questionable. No, we don't need super dark comics where super bad things happen to Claire. But this is what I was trying to put my finger on in my post yesterday: it's been too easy. It's not representative of what life is like for the majority of transgender people. The question then arises as to whether that's helpful to his larger goals, because if people who don't have any experience with transgender people or the transgender community read this comic, they don't even get a hint of those issues.
--- End quote ---
With that logic, Jeph is also a terrible author for not making Dale get pulled over by cops and treated like differently by a number of the white character, because how dare he include black character and not make a social statement of the injustices of African Americans. And why does he even include robots? They are just machines!
It's a fictional comic set in the future...or at least a different Earth than that of our own. If we can have robot citizens and cybernetic implants, it is easy to believe the society would be more accepting of *human* people. I'm actually happy to see minority characters that are being used for MORE than making political/societal statements.
DillyDolly:
--- Quote from: gprimr1 on 06 Feb 2015, 09:31 ---Question:
Has it ever been established if Claire had the surgery? I seem to remember her saying she did, but I"m not 100%.
--- End quote ---
Here's a better question... Should it matter? Why?
aphanisis81:
--- Quote from: BenRG on 06 Feb 2015, 08:14 ---
--- Quote from: Technetium on 06 Feb 2015, 08:08 ---Has there ever even been a single background character that didn't appear to be accepting of other ethnic groups or gender types?
--- End quote ---
* The clothing store manager who refused to even interview May on the ground that she was an AI and he doesn't give jobs to robots;
* The preacher who upset Momo by loudly declaring that AIs are not people because they have no 'souls'.Oddly enough, when Jeph wants to have discrimination in his comic, he usually parodies it by directing it at AIs (a fictional group that generally will get the reader's sympathy). By doing this, his objective seems to be to pose the question: "If you oppose discrimination against AIs, why do you accept or even support discrimination against [group] in real life?"
I would add that Clinton's protective behaviour implies that, even though it has happened off-panel, transgender people still face some discrimination, violence and exploitation and he is hyper-aware of how vulnerable Claire is to this.
--- End quote ---
WRT the AI discrimination, that seems simply non-comparable to me. AI Rights aren't a real thing and Jeph has never really hinted that they're meant as an allegory for real-world struggles. And even within the comic's diegesis, AI is essentially a manmade phenomenon (mostly courtesy of Hannerdad), a non-organic arrangement of sophisticated circuitry, whereas race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity et al. are engrained human traits.
I don't necessarily think all minority or typically-discriminated-again/non-privileged groups have to experience bigotry in-comic in order for the comic to be believable - I agree with the person who pointed out the thin line between social realism and tokenism - but if those AI incidents are the only counterexamples to Technetium's observation, then I think Technetium is on solid ground.
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