Girl Powder

August 2, 2018 7:12 PM

It can be argued that Amka’s story doesn’t completely avoid potentially problematic stereotypes. Her transformation from a normal Inuk teenager into a magical shape-shifter is reminiscent of what Michael A. Sheyahshe, in his 2008 book Native Americans in Comic Books, calls the stereotype of the “instant shaman.” This stereotype, writes Sheyahshe, imagines all Indigenous peoples as inherently magical, while ignoring the fact that, within real Indigenous cultures, becoming a shaman “requires a lifetime of knowledge, learning, and practice.”

Anna F. Peppard on How Marvel Created Its New Inuk Superhero
posted by Rumple (22 comments total)

That's kind of the whole point of superheroes. Steve Rodgers didn't spend the lifetime training that real Olympic-level athletes spend to do the kind of stuff he does.

I would be very surprised if there haven't always been Inuk teens who fantasize about being able to fly or do magic stuff without first spending a lifetime becoming a legit shaman.
posted by straight at 7:25 PM on August 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

That's kind of the whole point of superheroes. Steve Rodgers didn't spend the lifetime training that real Olympic-level athletes spend to do the kind of stuff he does.

Yeah but there's no cultural baggage with that. Being a shaman has a specific cultural role and history in Inuit and First Nation culture (as the article mentions). I'm all for diversity but her culture absolutely needs to be a part of her character. I think it is possible to explore that in an interesting way. How do members of her community relate to her now that she has these powers? How do elders feel about this? How does this shape her faith (if she even has one)? Is the teen helping her community or is she off on an adventure with some kind of super group? Is she going to defend seal hunting? Is she going to fight against climate change? How about the suicides endemic in First Nations communities? Or you could do some variation of the "With Great Powers comes Great Responsibility" but with a cultural dimension. In anycase, I hope Marvel does good by this hero as minority representation does make a difference to ignored people.
posted by Ashwagandha at 7:56 PM on August 2, 2018 [13 favorites]

I've never heard of the "instant shaman" trend before, so it was interesting to read more about it. Apparently Marvel chose magic because the Champions did not have a magic user, and used Inuit mythology to build the character. But definitely don't confuse her with an actual shaman. They tend to have several responsibilities that don't necessarily involve "magic" at all, and also require an apprenticeship.
posted by Brocktoon at 8:04 PM on August 2, 2018

Though he had magical elements, Forge was a great take on native superheroes.
posted by Apocryphon at 8:24 PM on August 2, 2018

That's kind of the whole point of superheroes. Steve Rodgers didn't spend the lifetime training that real Olympic-level athletes spend to do the kind of stuff he does.

No, but it's worth noting that in the comics, Steve constantly trained his ass off after the serum. Part of the framing behind it (at least for the last few decades) was that science gave him a chance at what nature did not. This is one of the few points (imho) where the film falls short. Since basically forever, the standard "check in with Steve" moment has been "Cap/Steve is in the gym...again!"

I don't know if that approach would mitigate the stereotype in play with Amka, though?
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:42 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

There have been several Marvel First Nations' magical heroes - specifically Shaman (Michael Twoyoungmen) and his daughter Elizabeth (Talisman). Neither of them trained in traditional roles, in fact they both had rejected their tribe's spiritual teachings.
In fact, Marvel's Alpha Flight had a lot to do with Canadian First Nations' mythology, or at least John Byrne's research.
posted by Docrailgun at 8:45 PM on August 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

Off-the-top-of-my-head workaround:

Amka is living in the present, struggling against the despair of the modern world and her community is struggling. She has drama with a mentor figure, steals a sacred object of some time, and promptly has a near-death experience.

She wakes in a dream world / mythic past in which shamanic traditions are vibrant and flourishing. She spends a whole life --to make up for this theft -- studying, working, practicing, and listening to elders in this world, becomes an elder herself, dies, and wakes by the side of her snowmobile or whatever it was that knocked her unconscious and proceeds to kick some ass on the poachers or whoever it is are the antagonists in the modern day. She struggles to bring what she learned into a fractured and dark modern age.

OK, I'll go read the article.
posted by Rinku at 8:54 PM on August 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

Ha, the Picardflute solution! I love it.
posted by sixswitch at 9:27 PM on August 2, 2018 [10 favorites]

I read the article, and I found it a worthwhile read. But really, the bit about her transformation reminded me more than a little of Peter Parker's thing. I've never consumed much of either comic, but bitten by a radioactive spider, get super powers, and injured in a quasi-supernatural explosion, get super powers somehow rhymes to me a bit.
posted by hippybear at 9:31 PM on August 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yeah but there's no cultural baggage with that

This is not true.
posted by aramaic at 10:03 PM on August 2, 2018

Please elaborate, aramaic. To a casual observer like myself, the way superheroes skip a lifetime of training hard while still gaining enormous physical abilities has no obvious cultural baggage, unlike the "instant shaman" trope. I'm curious to hear your reasoning.
posted by jklaiho at 11:27 PM on August 2, 2018

But she's not a shaman, she's just a kid with magical powers given by some mythical figure. That doesn't make her an "instant shaman" any more than Luke Cage getting powers from a science experiment makes him an "instant scientist."
posted by straight at 1:06 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

To a casual observer like myself, the way superheroes skip a lifetime of training hard while still gaining enormous physical abilities has no obvious cultural baggage, unlike the "instant shaman" trope. I'm curious to hear your reasoning.

The baggage comes in the aspect that power isn't a substitute for training, and as many experts will point out, the most dangerous person is the amateur who knows just enough to be dangerous. Furthermore, depending on what, exactly, the person has become an "instant expert" in can carry further baggage, depending on the makeup of a particular field.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:07 AM on August 3, 2018

I personally would really prefer a story about an older woman who trained and studied her whole life to become really powerful. Maybe it's because I'm not a teenager any more.
posted by stillnocturnal at 3:28 AM on August 3, 2018 [7 favorites]

But she's not a shaman,

She doesn't need to literally instantly become a shaman in order for the trope (or stereotype) to be invoked. The trope centers around the idea that indigenous people are mystical figures who have a special connection to the spiritual world - which is tied into the idea that they're mythical, i.e. relics. Like the "magic negro," who is also not always literally magic, they often dispense advise to the (white) protagonist.

It collapses the reality of an indigenous culture/community into a one-sided stereotype. The article discusses how Amka is different, but she doesn't entirely escape the stereotype and so it's worth mentioning in a critical (but mostly positive!) look at her story.

The baggage comes in the aspect that power isn't a substitute for training, and as many experts will point out, the most dangerous person is the amateur who knows just enough to be dangerous.

This isn't the same type of "cultural baggage" as a racial stereotype.

Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that people are trying to draw this equivalence.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:33 AM on August 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

Jeff Lemire created a new Cree superhero for DC a few years ago for his short Justice League run. Equinox is a 16-year old girl with powers that change with the seasons. The linked article talks about some of the consultation he did with First Nations communities. Unfortunately not much seems to have been done with the character since her debut.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 4:52 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Point of order: the (Canadian) Inuit do not generally prefer or use "First Nations". They are their own people.
posted by bonehead at 8:21 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

The thing that sucks about the Magic Negro (which is the same thing that sucks about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl) is that he's not the protagonist. He's not even a person, he's just a plot device in some white dude's story.

But Amka is a protagonist in a genre where the whole entire point of the genre is the fantasy of having power that you not only didn't work for, but couldn't work for.

In the Marvel Universe, Zeus is real. Thor is real. The Christian Devil is real. Gilgamesh, Bast, Lilith, and Mikaboshi are all real. If other kids can dream about having the strength of Hercules or smacking Satan with Thor's hammer, it seems wrong to object to Inuk kids having comics about a teenager being filled with the power of Silla and turning into a giant wolf.
posted by straight at 9:31 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

> I've never heard of the "instant shaman" trend before...

I don't know anything about the current trend (and I read the article) but this remark gave me an instant flashback to the 80s when new-age bookstores were rampant and there were thousands of (totally appropriationist) texts on, basically, how to instantly become a shaman.
posted by ardgedee at 9:53 AM on August 3, 2018

If other kids can dream about having the strength of Hercules or smacking Satan with Thor's hammer, it seems wrong to object to Inuk kids having comics about a teenager being filled with the power of Silla and turning into a giant wolf.

Yeah, but those white male kids who can dream about Thor and Hercules ALSO get to dream about being smart and building an Iron Man suit, and also get to dream about joining the military and becoming Captain America, and also getting regenerative powers and an adamantium-coated skeleton, also getting regenerative powers and a dark sense of humor, inventing a serum to become the Hulk, getting bitten by a radioactive spider, studying mystical arts (appropriating them from another culture, just to ring that bell again), becoming a secret agent archer, being able to turn into metal, getting psychic powers, shooting lasers with their eyes, and jesus I haven't even hit all the MOVIE people yet, and etc and etc and etc and etc and etc and etc and etc and etc and etc...

It will absolutely continue to be fair to worry about reinforcing stereotypes with each minority character for as long as minority characters make up such a vanishingly small percentage of the line-up. The solution here is not to fix this one character, nor to get rid of her, you're right as far as that goes. The solution is to have lots more folks kinda like her and kinda different from her and just fucking not white not male COME ON MARVEL WTF.

FTA: saying he’d received feedback from comic-store retailers that readers “were turning their noses up” at diversity and “didn’t want female characters out there.”

Surprise, you've hosted exclusively white male fantasy fodder for years, so white males who are used to having exclusively their fantasies served are the ones coming into your stores!
posted by solotoro at 10:34 AM on August 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I thought'd be nice to have some actual Inuit response rather than speculate on it. I found this much:

"She'a a really amazing teenage girl, that cares a lot about her community [and] the environment. [She is] an activist, and a bit of a troublemaker," said Nyla Inuuksuk, who was the consultant on the character.

Herself Inuk, Innuksuk was brought into the project to help Jim Zub from Marvel create the character.

Having worked as a consultant on several other projects, Innuksuk says this one was unique because she was brought in before the character was even created.

"We started on the very ground level, so before we even discussed look or anything like that, we just talked about what community she could be from, which we decided would be Pangnirtung," said Innuksuk.[...]

Innuksuk says that she's already seeing the impact that a character like Snowguard can have on the youth.

"I think that for young people growing up in the north, to have something like this, to have a character that's … a young, strong woman who's battling the bad guys, and helping protect her community, it does have an impact," said Innuksuk.

In fact, Innuksuk spoke to a teacher from Pangnirtung shortly after the first issue was released, and his students were so excited to see an Inuk character that they wanted to know more about the character.

"He sent over a bunch of drawings and letters [the students] had written to me because they were so excited to have a character from their community," said Innuksuk.

"They wanted to know things like if she could drive snowmobile … or if she liked eating seal meat."

posted by Zed at 10:35 AM on August 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

it seems wrong to object to Inuk kids having comics about a teenager being filled with the power of Silla and turning into a giant wolf

It seems strange to simplify and flatten the article's discussion of this trope into an objection. I mean, it also brings up reasons to see the spiritual aspects of Amka's story as positive.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:42 PM on August 3, 2018