With Comics being items of major interest and entertainment, especially during the latter half of the 20th century, they tend to have a large effect on the thoughts and perceptions of their readers. That being, the images, icons and even beliefs introduced into the comics were introduced to the minds, and often integrated into the readers’ own beliefs. However, comics are often influenced by the world and the events surrounding the creation of them. Because of this, the latter half of the 20th century produced comics filled with racist stereotypes, providing mass exposure and belief of them.
Being the last half of the 20th century, and multiple wars against Asian nations, Korea, Vietnam and most notoriously the attack on Pearl Harbor, American comics, especially Marvel contained massive amounts of racist comments and depictions of Asian stereotypes. Recently in the Wang center at Stony Brook University, an exhibit highlighting Asian stereotypes within Marvel comics was on display. Upon visiting this exhibit, and taking time to read about each stereotype found in the comics, I realized that despite not being at war with Asians for decades, and having them integrated into our culture for over a century now, many of these stereotypes still exist and are prevalent.
An example of these stereotypes still being prevalent, the Brain describes and depicts an Asian person who carries extreme intelligence and excels at all things educational, however they lack in popularity and physical prowess. This is still a very typical view of Chinese and Japanese students in America. They are viewed as geniuses in the areas of math and science and anything other than an A+ is an “Asian F”.
WRT 102.22: Science & Society 