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Lois Lane, Superman's Girlfriend Once Went Black For A Day.
When the world was different and story lines could arch into taboos such as race-switching, the comic book world welcomed "Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane Vol 1 106".
The year was 1970, and Lois Lane is finding it hard to get her story in the ghettos of Metropolis. This area was referenced as "Little Africa".
Now I'm not trying to instigate a conversation about "What's wrong with this story line?". Rather I'd like to hear some discussion on what would happen if a story like this came out today.
With all the recent events happening in the United States, would a story like this be acceptable? Would people show their disdain for this type of creative story line and boycott the publisher? Or would they welcome the controversial story and see it for what it is? An insightful look into how race effects everyday life for some people.
Perhaps our society has grown since the 1970's and this comic wouldn't even put a dent into today's comic book readers, and they would find the story overplayed with films such as, "White Chicks" which has two black male actors portraying white stereotyped wealthy females or "Tropic Thunder" which has a well known white actor playing the role of an actor which is black. (Yes, Robert Downey Jr. played this part.)
Whether you're White, Black, Asian, Spanish, Male or Female this comic book could appeal to you, just to see what the authors thought it would be like for a woman in the 1970's to don the appearance of another race and experience first hand the effect that your skin color plays in everyday life. That same sentence could be said of numerous controversial comic books that have been published over the years, but to hear more about those you will have to check back next week for our weekly blog post!
-RB