Designated Sidekick

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Five real ways blogging about comics has changed things in my life

1. I am a marketing lecturer.  I teach marketing.  I now think about the issues of race, gender, portrayals of gender, passive and active gender roles, stereotyping and the rest of the issues I’ve come to see in comics, over in my day job of teaching marketing to students who probably have never thought to question why all the examples in the text are white, middle class scenarios, and why everyone else is invisible.
2.  Recognising I have white privilege (The Invisible Knapsack) and working towards doing something about it, and, in the industry I work in, doing something with it.  Being a white male middle class intellectual with academic cred and long track record of speaking my mind freely because I’m a privileged white boy who sees no reason my voice shouldn’t be heard is a platform.  Marketing could use a good dose of the stuff we’re dealing with in comics, and it may as well be me making the crossover, since if they’ll listen, we can start broadening the mindsets of marketers.

3. Parking the guilt, the anger and the rest of the crap, and just getting on with it.  Somedays, being white and male isn’t all that’s grand.  But for those hours, minutes or few fleeting seconds, they’re nothing to complain about, no reason to say “But white kids have it bad too” or generally be a defensive asshat when called on an issue.  It also means that 24-7, I need to be aware.  I don’t get days off to be privileged if I want to change. I don’t get time out if I’m serious about shifting me from what I was, to where I hope one day to be.  And y’know what?  It’s life.  Cutting back on the privilege, taking steps back, having spaces you can’t access, having place your voice ain’t gonna be heard when you’re used to the opposite is a good start.  I’ll never get it right, because if I want it to stop, it could.
4. Getting  it wrong.  When Alfred says the lines, “Why do we fall Master Bruce?”, I cry.  Because it’s a moment cinema that speaks volumes to me, and those volumes are summed up poorly as “It’s okay if I get it wrong when I try, so long as I’m willing to actually be wrong, be corrected, and try again to do it right the next time”.  I screw up.  Until blogging for DS, working in a field where I am pretty bloody good at my job, I rarely screw up.   I’ve had 50 conference papers accepted from 54 submissions over 10 years (and 20 from 23 in the last two years).  The books and chapters I cowrite are accepted as “first draft, final draft”.  Over here, at DS, I’m in new territory, and in territory where I am far from an expert, and just a guy finding his way in new terrain. (Okay, just a guy with a PhD and a willingness to learn)
5. It’s brought me back to comics.  To be honest, before I started at DS, I was over comics.  Now, I’m back into comics, reading far and wide, looking, learning, seeking out where people are doing it right, and learning how people are doing it wrong, why it’s happening, and how to change.  It’s rekindled the love of the medium, and the burning desire for this medium that I love to be strong, to be successful and to be able to be shared with so many others.

Finally, the best part of this blogging run has been the day in, day out reminders that I don’t get a cookie for doing the right thing.  Checking privilege, being less blind to rest of the world around me, and trying to do something about it has made a difference.

I am eternally grateful to the girl-wonder team from bringing me on squad, letting me have a slice of the G-W space, and not drowning me in Marvel crossovers.

I’m also grateful to the audience I have here at DS, particularly to people who debate, argue, and generally keep the comments thread alive during my routine absences (oh hai day job. IN UR STUDENT CONSULTATION, BLOGGING UR DS).

No, this ain’t a retirement or resignation letter. It’s a realisation as I started tackling teaching introduction to marketing to first years that the world of marketing they get to see is shaped in part by the world I’ve been lucky enough to be shown by Girl-Wonder and the bloggers, commentators and forum posters.

Now, I have to go corrupt the minds of youth.  By semester’s end, they will be able to sing along to late 80s one hit wonders.  I’m not all about the side of good you know.