Cartoonist Vishavjit Singh poses as Captain America in New York’s Central Park. (Photo Credit: Fiona Aboud. Source: Sikhtoons)
Vishavjit Singh, the artist behind Sikhtoons, has often opined about adding diversity to America’s pop culture superheros. In October 2012, he wrote an opinion piece for The Seattle Times in which he envisioned a super hero to fight hate crimes, and in a radio interview with National Public Radio in November, he talked about the backlash he received about this vision and of his rendering of Captain America as a Sikh man.
On a recent photo shoot in New York, Vishavjit Singh and photographer Fiona Aboud explored a Sikh version Captain America. See photos and commentary about this project by Vishavjit Singh on Sikhtoons.
Captain America was a Cold War character. IIRC, in the 1960’s ear animated series, one of his foes was the Red Skull which was a thinly veiled reference to all matters Soviet. I take it that even with the recent movie release, the character still sufferes time-boundedness to an era where if “it were not white, it was not right.” Great job veer-ji in applying the needed Harvinder Smack® to the comics industry. I have become vexed and weary of seeing superheros the epitome of Goracity and all the villains looking so coincidentally “diverse”.
Totally wrong. Captain America was created in 1940, a good decade before the Cold War, as a plea for intervention against the Nazis. He fought in World War II, sometimes alongside the Soviets (who were our Allies against Hitler), and with very few exceptions (like the Cold War version you’re probably thinking of – which lasted less than a year and was so out of character that he’s since been retconned into being a racist nut wannabe who basically blackmailed the government into appointing him as Captain America) he’s always been portrayed as an unreconstructed New Deal liberal. His best friend in modern America (Sam Wilson) is a social worker in Harlem, his best friend growing up in the 20s was gay, and he has absolutely no problems working with women or minorities.
And oh – the Red Skull was a NAZI, not a Soviet. It was true in the comics, it was true in the movies, and it was true in the 1960s TV show…which was taken directly from the comic books and depicted both the Skull, and Captain America, as being very firmly based in the 1940s, not the Cold War.
EPIC FAIL.
@Ellid – In using the words “EPIC FAIL”, you have negated whatever moral standing (i.e. duty to be regarded) you possessed previous to the use of the words.
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