Week 8

Ethics and Representation

 This week i read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I liked the story and i liked how it was three different stories that at the end all tied in together. as separate stories they were all good and had meaning in their own right but putting them all together and making them all one i think elevated it a lot. The type was easy to read and the art style was pleasant to look at. I liked the layout of the book very much. overall i thought it was very interesting how it was done and speaks volumes about stereotypes and how they make people feel.

I think that stereotypes in comics can be useful but should be done tastefully and done so in a way that thats not the only thing about the character. using just stereotypes makes the character not real, everyone is a combination of things. The majority of stereotypes are harmful especially racial stereotypes. In American Born Chinese stereotypes were used to show how harmful they can be to people, one character was a personification of every Chinese stereotype. I think the way they used stereotypes was a good way to show how harmful they can be from their own experience of being Chinese in America.  I don think stereotypes especially racial stereotypes should be heavily used unless to show how harmful they can be. I do not think stereotypes are a necessity when creating a character to a degree. I think when you create a character you should do lots of research to make a real character without making it a walking stereotype, but not strip away the entire culture of your character. Representation is very important and should not be used to hurt people.