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Women don't age in dredd universe?

Started by Suede1971, 22 August, 2018, 07:16:51 PM

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Blue Cactus

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 24 August, 2018, 10:23:36 AM
Quote from: Tjm86 on 24 August, 2018, 08:06:21 AMI'm willing to be called and corrected on this but isn't it fair to say that Ezquerra's renditions tend toward the more diverse?
(And that so many strips still have the 'loads of bloke Judges and the only woman is a Psi is just deeply irritating.)

This has sporadically bothered me since I was a kid. I always liked it when Mega City judges looked a bit different to each other - men and women, different hair/facial hair, different races etc. As I got a bit older I liked the fact that Megacity 1 seemed to have moved away from some of the discriminatory problems we face today (mutants aside). Judge Dredd the strip paints a fairly bleak future in many ways, but that one factor always felt optimistic to me; a positive element within an otherwise dark vision of the future. But quite often all we see are generic clean-shaven white male judges. I get the idea that Justice Dept is this faceless monolithic system, but that doesn't mean they don't have equal opportunities for whoever actually joins the academy.

I often wonder if this is down to the artist, or if writers will sometimes give instructions on what they want the judges to look like.

SpaceSpinner2000

Wasn't there a megazine story a year or so ago with an older looking Anderson? Sorry for not remembering exactly.
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Jim_Campbell

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Richard

Anderson's age matters to me. One of the major strengths of the Dredd and Dredd-related stories is that time passes in real time; 1977 was 2099 and 2018 is 2140. It's undermined when a woman who should be 60 is depicted as 20. If I was politically correct I would add that it's also ageist and sexist, but luckily I don't give a fuck about all that shit.

Funt Solo

Hershey




In 2102, from prog 166In 2135 (33 years later), prog 1820
   
With apologies to Private Eye's separated at birth section.

Well, she seems to have aged quite appropriately there: from about 18 (give or take a few years either way) to about (a very healthy) 51-ish (assuming a Madonna-style fitness regimen).

I do wonder at people who claim not to notice this sort of thing.  Like claims of colour-blindness (on people's skin pigmentation), I find it difficult to fathom.  Do you also not notice homelessness?  Controversy?  Complexity? 
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

JayzusB.Christ

#35
Quote from: Frank on 24 August, 2018, 05:51:41 PM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 24 August, 2018, 05:10:55 PM
There was a Council of 5 member, can't remember her name (Margaret something-or-other?), who was introduced as a normal-looking middle-aged woman but under a different artist became a hot young babe.  Think she was one of Francisco's people; though she could have come in under Sinfeld.

The Curious Case Of Margaret Stalker



That's the one! She looked much more like a Margaret before she got young.

Also, aren't they all Flint jobs except the McNeil one? She also seems to have gone through the old Beeny melanin saturation process too.
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Richard

Indeed. I have no problem with characters who are not white when we first meet them, eg Giant, Sanchez, Francisco, Shimura. But I do object to white characters spontaneously changing their race at the drop of a hat, eg Beeny and Stalker.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Richard on 24 August, 2018, 11:08:03 PM
But I do object to white characters spontaneously changing their race at the drop of a hat, eg Beeny and Stalker.

When was Beeny not Hispanic ...?
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Frank


Maybe Stalker isn't the best ground upon which to fight that particular battle. We have to accept that Margaret Stalker is an honorary title, passed on from generation to generation - like The Phantom. The position's been filled by at least three completely different women since Tour Of Duty:


Funt Solo

Quote from: Richard on 24 August, 2018, 11:08:03 PM
Indeed. I have no problem with characters who are not white when we first meet them, eg Giant, Sanchez, Francisco, Shimura. But I do object to white characters spontaneously changing their race at the drop of a hat, eg Beeny and Stalker.

In movies (and shows, and plays), of course, you need actors.  So, who cares if Harvey Dent is played by a black actor or a white actor?  Or Nick Fury?  Or Hermione Granger?  Or Kingpin?  Bond?  (A female Doctor Who!)  I could go on.

Given the prevalence for whitewashing (Ghost In The Shell) or just painting people (Peter Sellers in The Party), it seems reasonable that some affirmative action is a step in the right direction.  Redress.

So, is an artist's depiction of a character a similar thing?  Can an artist re-imagine a character's race without us getting all in a tizzy?  (Not that I'm sure that's ever consciously happened in 2000AD).

See, I wouldn't mind if Dredd was depicted as black, say.  As long as he doesn't get depicted as being 18 years old, because that seems silly (unless you're telling a story set in his past). 
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Richard on 24 August, 2018, 11:08:03 PM
But I do object to white characters spontaneously changing their race at the drop of a hat, eg Beeny...

That tends to happen if you put your brain into the body of a hawt latino (then impregnate yourself with your own mixed-race offspring).

Richard

Beeny was always Hispanic, but in her first few stories she looked white -- just like plenty of other Hispanics, including her own mother.

Hermione Granger happened to be played by a white actress in the films, but in the theatre she was played by a black actress, which is fine because (1) it's a different medium and (2) the novels never said what race she was (as the author herself pointed out). I would have a different opinion if half way through the film franchise they had replaced Emma Watson with a black actress, because that would have been silly.

McMahon depicted Dredd as black in 1977, but nobody noticed at the time and he didn't tell anyone, so the other artists drew him as white because no-one told them not to. That was accidental. If the editors or management had known that Dredd was black in the first episode, and had ordered the artists to make him white, then that would be racist, but that's not what happened. Is it different if you purposefully take a white character and make him black? (Dr Who doesn't count because Timelord.) (I'm not accusing Tharg of that btw, I'm speaking generally.) There's lots of enthusiastic speculation about Idris Elba playing James Bond at the moment, but how would people feel if they remade Shaft but cast a white actor as the title character?

TordelBack

#42
Quote from: Richard on 25 August, 2018, 01:17:14 AMThere's lots of enthusiastic speculation about Idris Elba playing James Bond at the moment, but how would people feel if they remade Shaft but cast a white actor as the title character?

Bond's essential ethnicity is British (more specifically Scottish if we follow the later books), which is a different thing now than it was in 1952 when Fleming created him: in 2018 you can't get much more British than Idris Elba. 

The technological, social and geopolitical setting of the 21st C stories is utterly different to that of the originals, and so is the racial makeup of the Secret Service. One can't, for example, really believe that Daniel Craig's Bond served as a Naval Commander in WII and resembles Hoagy Carmicheal, but he's still Bond.  Times change, as long as Bond is a British Secret Agent I'm not sure skin colour is remotely relevant.

Shaft on the other hand is rooted in the blaxploitation genre, the original film deals with explicitly racial themes, plus being a black private dick who gets all the chicks is literally right there in the theme song: I don't recall Shirley Bassey or Duran Duran ever specifically extolling Bond's whiteness.   (Leaving aside the continuing dominance of white male heroes in cinema, the Rock aside, which is probably the real issue about a white recasting).


EDIT: Perhaps hypocritically, I would have a problem with a female Bond - I think being a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" probably is integral to the character.

Funt Solo

#43
Quote from: Richard on 25 August, 2018, 01:17:14 AM
There's lots of enthusiastic speculation about Idris Elba playing James Bond at the moment, but how would people feel if they remade Shaft but cast a white actor as the title character?

As Tordelback said, they're not equatable.  There's also the issue of the historical context of whitewashing.

So, more representation of traditionally under-represented groups (affirmative action) is a positive force designed to redress an imbalance.  Redress: having Bond be black.  Not redress: making Shaft white.

I don't think Dredd's being white is integral to the character.  So why not depict him as black?
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Greg M.

Quote from: Funt Solo on 25 August, 2018, 02:18:40 AM
I don't think Dredd's being white is integral to the character.  So why not depict him as black?

In another medium, fair enough, no problem with that at all. In a rebooted alternate-timeline comic - well, it'd seem a bit contrived and pointless, but all right. Kill him off and make Judge Giant the star of the strip? Go for it. But if you're looking for the regular Joe to spontaneously undergo a Lois Lane "I am Curious (Black!)" style transformation...nah, I'll pass.