INSIGHTS
INSIGHTS
Insights: Research and Findings
Chapter 2
A Content-Analysis of Race, Gender, and Class in American Comic Books
The article “A Content-Analysis of Race, Gender, and Class in American Comic Books,” by Matthew Facciani et. al., describes how the portrayal of these elements in comic books affect society. Although the article specifically speaks about comics, through further application, it provides a valuable perspective on the potential effects that graphic novels can have on society as well.
Race & Class
“A Content-Analysis of Race, Gender, and Class in American Comic Books” found that most of the protagonists and antagonists in the works they analyzed consisted of mostly White characters. Reflective of this, minorities were less likely to be in a leading character in a story, and were instead, seen as secondary characters portrayed in stereotypical roles and in a lower economic status. In detail, the study determined that 85% of total characters were male, 86% of total characters were White, 79% of the protagonists were White male and 75% were White male antagonists. Reinforcing the biased representation of minorities in the industry, 37% of minorities were of low economic status compared to 13% of White characters portrayed in the same vein.
Image by MayanTimeGod on DeviantArt
Gender
Image by MayanTimeGod on DeviantArt
In terms of gender, the study revealed that women were often hypersexualized. Authors and illustrators alike put more weight on the appearance of female characters, rather than their achievements, promoting them as secondary characters who serve as means that further bolster the abilities and credibilities of the main, male character. The “damsel in distress” trope, a woman who is needed to be rescued by a male character acting as the “savior” and “hero,” serves as the perfect example for this. These portrayals further reinforce gender norms for women in American society, which is harmful for all audiences as themes of sexism can affect perception and treatment of oneself (self-esteem) and of others. Appropriately summarizing this point, both our team and the researchers find that graphic novels is a medium that could help “[develop] an understanding of the harm sexism in the media causes... [serving as a] useful avenue to pursue from a social justice standpoint.”
10
Beyond the Page: A Summary
The overrepresentation of White individuals in comic books may be due to the dominance of White authors in the industry as well as their need to appeal to their target audience of White males. Our research shows a disproportionate amount of published White authors in relation to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) authors. As illustrated on Map 1, the White authors dominate the map, illustrated in pink. Map 1 analyzes how many books are published given the authors country of origin and their ethnicity. This map helps support our argument and gives us an insight on the imbalance of representation in the graphic novel industry. While we acknowledge there are flaws in our dataset, and it is not all inclusive of the entire graphic novel industry, this map illustrates the dominance of White authors in our dataset.
Map 1 – Number of Graphic Novels Published by Author and Ethnicity
Map 1 – Number of Graphic Novels Published by Author and Ethnicity
The size of the pie charts correlate to how many books in the data set are published with authors originating from that country. The color of the dot refers to the ethnicity of the author. As we can see, the majority of books are from authors originating from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Furthermore, of the authors from those three countries, 87.5% are White. That is, 176 of the 201 graphic novels published of authors from those three countries are White. This might help explain why White characters are often written as protagonists, since as we can see there is such a predominantly White author-base.
​
Supporting the map visualization, Visualizations 2 and 3 offer additional perspectives.
Visualization 2 – Number of Graphic Novels Published by Author Ethnicity
Examining Viz. 2, we can observe an obvious dominance of White authors in the industry. In comparison to Viz. 2, we see the distribution of the amount of novels published by marginalized authors from Viz. 3 below. As exhibited by Viz. 4 with the addition of White authors onto the staggered bar graph, there is an overwhelming number of works by White authors compared to authors that belong to traditionally marginalized groups. The “Unknown” in all visualizations describes that the dataset did not have information on those few authors' ethnicity. These visualizations shed light on how graphic novels can serve as a means in which to put forth a narrative that champions Western ideals, specifically in regards to race, class, and gender as discussed by Facciani et. al. The Map and these three additional visualizations help to explain how White characters and Western ideals are continually being accepted and even encouraged.
Visualization 3 – Number of Graphic Novels Published by Author Ethnicity
(Excluding White Authors)
Visualization 4 – Ethnicity of Author Based on the Year Novel was Published
Shifting our attention to Viz. 4, we can see how over the years where there is available data, the amount of books published from year to year not only increases, but also more and more White authors are being published. In Viz. 4, the “Null” group describes that there were multiple authors, so the book was not categorized under one ethnicity, while the “Unknown” group remains the same among all three visualizations. These three visualizations also help support the challenges that minority groups face in regards to unequal access resources and opportunities to create, publish, and market their work. As observed, we see a significant increase in the number of graphic novels published by White authors, which serves as a direct reflection of the growing number of White authors, over the years.
​
In this respect, White authors have more power than BIPOC authors in the graphic novel industry; whether individual White authors intend to or not, the messages and themes they convey contribute to the silencing of other relevant voices and narratives. With White characters dominating the graphic novel scene, their stories, and culture are the ones being taught and told through these narratives. While there are graphic novels created by BIPOC, and stories about BIPOC, the lack of representation within the industry silences their stories and their narratives, because they are simply not being told on the scale that White stories are. The graphic novel industry thus allows opportunities for White authors to flourish because of how abundant their stories are. Viz. 4 is reflective of these recent successes as the number of White authors has only increased; without appropriate action, we believe that this will continue to lead to more inequality for marginalized authors.
