2023 - X-Men 60th Anniversary

[EnigmaticClarity]

I've heard multiple explanations for how "Oriental" fell out of fashion, but not one that makes complete sense. Historically the Occident is the western world and the Orient is the eastern world,, so how a geographical descriptor ended up becoming a slur is puzzling.

The entire notion of "Eastern World" and "Western World" is flawed though - as directions of East and West are relative to your starting point. Asia is only "East" if your starting point is Europe. Asia is the West if our starting point of reference is the United States. And the word Oriental was used perjoratively enough - especially in the western united states - that it became offensive to those it was used to describe and thus fell out of fashion.

This reads like an advantage FOR the continued use of Occident and Orient. So Orient has been all used up by racism. Is the thought is that changing the language for an otherwise-neutral word is going to stop the racist thoughts? SPOILERS--it won't. As long as there is a word to describe people from a specific place that will continue, and changing the language won't make a dent in that.

Asian strikes me as a particularly problematic word to replace Oriental since it blurs multiple races, ethnicities, cultures, and religions just as you outlined. How long before racism taints "Asian" too? Fifty years? Five? The cycles are quickening, so I won't be surprised if racism taints Asian in even LESS than five years given that it was a poor replacement to begin with. And how long before racism fouls the next neutral word as well? Should we just eliminate all words that designate a geographical region to deny racists any possible arsenal for attack?

This topic interests me for multiple reasons--my love of English and my having been a Zen Buddhist for 30+ years being the two primary ones--and I've been completely confused by the entire idea of that word being a slur for 10+ years now. As you pointed out I've also heard people posit it started on the American West Coast and that the UK mostly doesn't view the word that way, and I don't completely get that, either, other than the fact that there are over a million Chinese immigrants living in California.

[EnigmaticClarity]

PantherCult is correct - unlike North and South hemispheres which have an astronomical basis in what the equator is, East and West are relative to a geo-political definition of what is "center". Consequently, people from Asia don't think of themselves as living in or being from "the East" of anything, and certainly not Europe.

Are you sure? How could that be given that they have long referred to the entire West using a similar term that we've used to describe them as East? As far as I've been able to tell the East's way of referring to lands west of them evolved in an extremely similar way that the West's use of East or Orient did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_West_(Taixi)

And there's a functional reason we've gravitated towards East/West instead of North/South--most of Earth's land masses are north of the equator, so when cultures were tied to regions prior to mass transit they tended to refer to distant lands in the direction they lay, which in most cases is east or west of each other. Had Mayan or Aztec cultures become the most technologically advanced and dominant instead of Europe or China and Japan then we may have become more North/South centric instead of East/West since the Americas are laid out more that way.

[EnigmaticClarity]

Not a fan of most of the headsculpts debuted today, across the board. They mentioned Paul Harding did a lot of these - are they all him? If so, it's official - I don't like his style on Marvel Legends. It's almost like Greg Land's art - it's too close to something real for it to feel right on existing characters.

I find Paul Harding's sculpts to be very hit or miss and it is precisely for this reason. Didn't dig the 20th anniversary Hulk face or these new Gambit and Wolverine sculpts. The length of the tongue and the profile of the face on the masked head for the new Venom figure... it's all wrong.

Did he do animated Cyclops? It feels like one of his. I'm a fan of Conan O'Brien, but I don't want my Cyclops to look like him.

Banshee, however, is good. I can't decide on Daredevil. Sometimes I like it, other times I don't.

Agreed, he's hit and miss. But his misses aren't terrible, and his hits are amazing.

[fac]

PantherCult is correct - unlike North and South hemispheres which have an astronomical basis in what the equator is, East and West are relative to a geo-political definition of what is "center". Consequently, people from Asia don't think of themselves as living in or being from "the East" of anything, and certainly not Europe.

Are you sure? How could that be given that they have long referred to the entire West using a similar term that we've used to describe them as East?

Am I sure - not 100%, but I don't think people consider where they live to be either East or West per se - but just because I would refer to some places as West of me doesn't mean I define where I am as East - East is the other direction from me, not where I am. We may use those terms to provide some specificity when talking to others but it is for clarity not definition - "I live on the East Coast" for instance means something to people in the US, but I would only use that as information when talking to someone from the Midwest or West Coast in certain contexts. But if I'm in Cambodia and someone asks me where I'm from I wouldn't say "the Western world" or "the East Coast" as if that means anything - I'd say "the US" and then maybe further specify.

So sure, those from Asia may have thought of Europeans as "Westerners" and those from Europe may have thought of Asian as "Easterners" but in day-to-day descriptions people think they are from a town, or a country, or a continent, not as Easterners or Westerners themselves. So describing a people's race/ethnicity as based on a direction from somewhere else, is putting forefront the "somewhere elses" perspective on how they are defined/classified.

For what it is worth, I agree that some people will sadly turn anything into a derogatory phrase (see "old white guys" at the moment) to denigrate people, but in this case, Asia is a place I can find on a map, "the east" is a direction to head to, not a place, so Asian is more accurate and had no other connotations.

[mattmurdog]

I do think it's super weird that people seem to be ok with learning that someone is Mexican, Cuban or from Brazil. Or that they are Latino or even "Hispanic". But when it comes to ethnicities from Asia, people still ignorantly want to lump everyone as Asian or worse, Oriental. And when corrected they get defensive and try to put up a fight.

Personally I think trying to identify someone whose identity I may not know and calling them Asian, is perfectly acceptable. I am from CA where there are a ton of Asians and have never been called out for it. However, once I know their ethnicity I make the effort to acknowledge it and have no problems correcting others.

"Who's the Asian guy over there?"
"Oh you mean, Bob? BTW he's Chinese"

Just to tie this back to the original toy discussion... we are not 100% sure of Psylocke's ethnicity. Not to mention she's also a fictional character and from a fictional Eastern region. I think referring to her as being Asian is fine. No different than saying someone is Latino or Black. Saying she doesn't look Asian enough however, can get sticky. Because I don't think people ever say someone doesn't look Hispanic enough for example. Because what does that even mean? There would definitely be some stereotypical undertones. Which can also be unconscious subtle racism.

If you want to criticize that she doesn't look like the source material or how Jim lee drew her then that's perfectly acceptable and valid. In this case, that is true with this new head sculpt. I do like it quite a bit, just not my mind's eye of her.

[Last Archer]

I don't think Banshee looks Irish enough. There I said it, I'm not sorry. His hair isn't red enough and he looks too sober.

I think I'm a little disappointed with fang. In the original appearance in the comics he's about the same size as Wolverine This looks to be the same size as Cyclops.

Outback Rogue's thighs are gonna need a little black paint to fix those boot tops though.

[100ptsofarticulation]

Wow.

[PurpleLantern]

Outback Rogue with just alternate hands seems a bit stingy considering no BAF piece. Maybe not considering the plastic used for the poofy hair. I dunno.

[TheMadcapLaughs]

Did a quick edit of Outback Rogue in MS Paint. I put the leg cuts of the leotard higher up and the tops of her boots lower down. I feel it better captures the artwork of the era this way. Considering that this is a figure that only has a single unique part on a completely generic body with an uncomplicated deco, I doubt a little more black paint would have broke the budget.

[secondwhiteline]

I do think it's super weird that people seem to be ok with learning that someone is Mexican, Cuban or from Brazil. Or that they are Latino or even "Hispanic". But when it comes to ethnicities from Asia, people still ignorantly want to lump everyone as Asian or worse, Oriental. And when corrected they get defensive and try to put up a fight.

Personally I think trying to identify someone whose identity I may not know and calling them Asian, is perfectly acceptable. I am from CA where there are a ton of Asians and have never been called out for it. However, once I know their ethnicity I make the effort to acknowledge it and have no problems correcting others.

"Who's the Asian guy over there?"
"Oh you mean, Bob? BTW he's Chinese"

Just to tie this back to the original toy discussion... we are not 100% sure of Psylocke's ethnicity. Not to mention she's also a fictional character and from a fictional Eastern region. I think referring to her as being Asian is fine. No different than saying someone is Latino or Black. Saying she doesn't look Asian enough however, can get sticky. Because I don't think people ever say someone doesn't look Hispanic enough for example. Because what does that even mean? There would definitely be some stereotypical undertones. Which can also be unconscious subtle racism.

If you want to criticize that she doesn't look like the source material or how Jim lee drew her then that's perfectly acceptable and valid. In this case, that is true with this new head sculpt. I do like it quite a bit, just not my mind's eye of her.

Uh, Kwannon, the character whose body Betsy Braddock inhabits as Psylocke (which is just a mess of an idea and let's ignore all of that right now), is canonically Japanese. I think it's fair, when artists have typically drawn her with facial features common in people of Japanese ancestry, to criticize her figure not really capturing those physical characteristics very well. The effort comes across as laziness at best and whitewashing at worst.

But I also don't have a ton of era-specific X-Men knowledge, so I have no idea if this is supposed to be Betsy? Psylocke's whole deal is just so confusing.

[tetragene]

I still don't understand why they didn't re-use the Scarlet Witch/Enchantress upper torso since Rogue's hair will severely limit head articulation anyway. And if they were going to just paint it on the Shrek upper torso... why is the bustier so high? It just seems very cobbled together & I'm not sure what reference material they were using considering the hair is very un-80s for Rogue as well. I hope when they get to Outback Psylocke they don't go the "painted details" route over some specific sculpted parts.

[blackcomicnerd]

When Psylocke was wearing this costume, Betsy was inhabiting Kwannon's body. A white, British, woman was inhabiting the body of a Japanese woman for decades. Comic books can be weird.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

[JPC]

Rogue looks like this because they once again used a top hit on a Google search:



Another one-off variant cover design that does not reflect the actual look of what people think when they say they want "Outback Rogue" by an artist who has never even drawn an X-Men comic (I don't think - and not knocking JSC - love his art).

They even put this art on the box. Which, why isn't she a one-off Retro card release? That would make more sense.

[TheSameIdiot]

Has no one mentioned the fact that Jubilee looks like a bobblehead?

I hope when they get to Outback Psylocke they don't go the "painted details" route over some specific sculpted parts.

I don't know how they'd even do that. She has to be a unique sculpt.

[yojoebro82]

Rogue looks like this because they once again used a top hit on a Google search:



Another one-off variant cover design that does not reflect the actual look of what people think when they say they want "Outback Rogue" by an artist who has never even drawn an X-Men comic (I don't think - and not knocking JSC - love his art).

Exactly. The head looks great if you are shooting for the ONE time she was drawn this way on ONE variant cover that was only available on the JSC online store. But it's not representative of the actual era she's supposed to be from.

And unfortunately, even with the flat, unpainted hair, the head is the best thing about this figure. It's a complete and total cop out from the neck down. Painted-on details, zero accessories, they just didn't want to put in the effort (And when I say something like this, I'm referring to the fact that HASBRO the company, didn't want to budget for the talented sculptors to allow them to do it as well as they are capable of doing. It's not a knock on the artists).