The Depiction of African American villains in SHIP.

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GeekyPornCritic

I have read a lot of SHIP stories from various authors over the past six months. I have read stories by Centurion, Don Ship, Steven Bell, and many other writers on this forum and Danger Babe Central's free story site. All of these stories share the same depiction of African American villains and these are the only or majority of African Americans in these stories. All of these characters are urban/hip-hop gang members and urban/ hip-hop pimps. They speak in slang from hip hop culture. The descriptions of the clothing are sagging pants, brown boots, chains, t-shirts, and open buttoned shirts.

First, I need to make one thing clear. I am not accusing these authors of being racist. They are free to express their art how they visualize it in their minds. Of course there are African Americans fit this stereotype just like there are people from every race who fits a stereotype. Now that is out of the way.

Why do so many authors create the stereotypical African American character and villain in their stories? Why aren't there other African American villains with different lifestyles, cultures, and personalities? I have read White, Asian, and Hispanic villains who are gang members, politicians, ninjas, assassins, mad scientists, super villains with powers, pimps,international terrorist, geeks, obsessive fans, etc. The wide variety of non-black villains show a diverse world for other races.

I wonder if the lack of culturally diverse African American villains is due to authors not having many black friends or neighbors. They may have only been expose to stereotypical African Americans in real life and TV. I can understand if this is the case as my folks are not common in certain cities in the United States. The majority of African Americans live in the South.

The reason for stories to only stereotypical African American villains is to please the female audience. Most women who date black men prefer this stereotype and find this type of man very sexually attractive. As a non-stereotypical black man, I have seen this all of my life. These women will date men from races and cultures. They do not find it attractive for a black man to life a different lifestyle or culture. For example, they think the sophisticated white guy name Jeff to be an attractive guy, but the sophisticated black name Mark to be a turn off. She would find Mark attractive if he was more urban. I have been told by women that I would be attractive if I was white or Hispanic. However, my lifestyle of being educated, classy, and sophisticated is a major turn off. Are these writers trying to please their female readers?

Finally, I cannot think of any popular African American villains from mainstream comics. I am not considering any characters with racial changes. I am only considering the original version and race of the characters. Comics started at a time when it was not wise to create a black villain. That time has passed, and an original villain can be created.
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Femina
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Villains in general are a fairly stereotypical bunch. Excluding actual SUPERvillains who tend to warrant the effort in fleshing out, when people write 'street level thug' type villains they fall into only a few categories the most popular being a fairly despicable and amoral coward whose confidence is entirely centered upon their power in the situation... be they white ghetto trash or hip hop gangster I suspect the origin of their depiction is from a similar inspirational thought process. One doesn't always have the time or energy to flesh out henchmen or thugs and often when you do it can distract from what you actually wanted to draw attention to anyway... You want to avoid stereotypes in your main characters and even use them to challenge stereotypes, but stereotypes aren't always useless tools for filling out a universe where it comes to characters that don't have the screen time or narrative impact enough to warrant effort in fleshing out...

I'm not sure what ethical questions can or should be asked here, that's all just my opinion on why it happens at all.
Dazzle1
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If you go to literotica, you might see a more varied potrayal of African American villains

But as an observation it seems that African Hispanic males are the least represented groups in amateur erotica.
bushwackerbob
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For me,I just like to enjoy the stories, I just do not think about the background of the villain all that much no matter the race or color of their skin. I imagine that it is not a goal of most SHP writers to break down stereotypes for villains. Another thought on this is on the subject of educated African Americans versus less educated/less sophisticated African Americans, would you not agree that in the real world the overwhelming majority of the crimes that superheroines encounter are perpetrated by less sophisticated African American males and not the more educated African Americans? If you agree with that statement, then SHP authors may be playing into stereotypes but they are also providing the readers with the most realistic and probable scenario that the superheroine would encounter.
GeekyPornCritic

Dazzle1 wrote:
4 years ago
If you go to literotica, you might see a more varied potrayal of African American villains

But as an observation it seems that African Hispanic males are the least represented groups in amateur erotica.
I haven't found a lot of original SHIP stories at Literotica. Ladyjane's Scarlett Dove and Victory series had a few African American villains, but they are thugs in a gang. All of her super villains and millionaire villains are white.
GeekyPornCritic

I know some of you follow Mr. X on Twitter and may have seen his tweet that simply want certain types of people to be quiet on racial topics. I just want to make one thing clear again. I am NOT accusing anyone of racism. I also NOT baiting anyone into a trap.

This is an honest discussion about content in SHIP erotica. Writers create their characters to fit their images. Every writer has a reason why a character is fat, skinny, white, black, smart, dumb, etc. Sometimes the reason is they just liked that version of the character or they believe those demographics work best with their character.
bushwackerbob wrote:
4 years ago
For me,I just like to enjoy the stories, I just do not think about the background of the villain all that much no matter the race or color of their skin. I imagine that it is not a goal of most SHP writers to break down stereotypes for villains. Another thought on this is on the subject of educated African Americans versus less educated/less sophisticated African Americans, would you not agree that in the real world the overwhelming majority of the crimes that superheroines encounter are perpetrated by less sophisticated African American males and not the more educated African Americans? If you agree with that statement, then SHP authors may be playing into stereotypes but they are also providing the readers with the most realistic and probable scenario that the superheroine would encounter.
There's only one problem with your point. While it is true superheroines in SHIP only encounter less sophisticated African American males as villains, they also face less sophisticated villains of all races. Some writers describe some white villains as "rednecks" or "hillbillies". However, superheroines encounter rich men from all other races, and super villains from all other races.

It is unrealistic to encounter any super villain in reality. The lack of black super villains has nothing to do with realism.

There are also shady black businessmen. A local black doctor from my town was arrested for giving illegal prescriptions. It would be realistic to encounter a shady black politician or businessman.
Dazzle1
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GeekyPornCritic wrote:
4 years ago
Dazzle1 wrote:
4 years ago
If you go to literotica, you might see a more varied potrayal of African American villains

But as an observation it seems that African Hispanic males are the least represented groups in amateur erotica.
I haven't found a lot of original SHIP stories at Literotica. Ladyjane's Scarlett Dove and Victory series had a few African American villains, but they are thugs in a gang. All of her super villains and millionaire villains are white.
I was going beyond SHIP is my post. But unless it is a writer who specializes in interracial. Black males are underepresnted in literotica which is I would guess is the largest amateur erotica site
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I try to have a diverse group of villains, but I do write a lot of black pimps and gang members. I do have books with white bikers as the villains, Asian evil scentist (stereotyplical?) and Asian pimps. Hispanic pimps and gang members. As well as minority members of the heroines alter ego's board of directors.

Most of my arch villains are white (Russian Mafiya, American Mafia, dirty businessmen, etc). And I'm trying ot add more minorities to my super heroine corps, too. You know, blondes, brunettes, AND redheads. LOL Joking.

But real, everyday blacks, Asian, Latinos are good honest people, so don't show up any more than good average white men in my stories. They are just not pertinant to the story. It's all about the Good GIrls fighting the Bad Guys (sometime Bad Girls).
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Abductorenmadrid
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Whilst not a superheroine per se I have a female African American character who has been thrust into a pivotal role by chance, circumstance and a sequence of unfortunate events. She has had no training for the role she's been forced to fill but she's smart and has at least got some skills to back her up. I wanted the fact that she isn't a superheroine but forced to become something she is not (as realistically as possible) to make the reader consider her the hero for this part of my series.

I suspect the reason you tend to get stereotype characters is because they are both easy to conjure up in the authors mind and are easy for the reader to visualise in their head (thanks to TV imagery). It is a bit of a vicious cycle I guess that the more you see something as normal (gang member types) the more you write, which is read, which is perpetuated more... etc etc.
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exxxidor456
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It's a good question, and something us writers should keep in mind.

I've included stereotypical black pimp characters in a couple of my Sue Storm stories over the years. I think my idea was to involve the Invisible Woman in an interracial sexual scenario that was very far removed from her normal life, and the pimp just seemed to fit. But I suppose it's lazy writing to fall back on stereotypical characters like that, and it's something I'll give more thought to in future.
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batgirl1969
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If you are interested in amazing and realistic interracial scenario writing, I suggest viewing some of the work on Blacked.com the depictions of african american men and the white girls they fuck senseless are very realistic and present both parties to the audience in real world scenarios, yes some have black men portrayed as thugs or such but there is a market for that too. The sophisticated black CEO or company owner is very well represented, and I LOVE that, most of the african american men I know and hang out with are either military, govt workers or business owners and never act like that(sometimes except in bed!!..but not with me!)
I like when the main villains are educated very evil logistical geniuses regardless of race...their henchmen? well they can be either!!
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exxxidor456
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Ah yes, I've seen some good stuff at Blacked.com. :)

I think I just like contrasts, and it appeals to me to have a classy and respectable heroine like Sue Storm teamed up with street level criminals. So far outside of her normal experience.
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