Were they written by Hudlin? If so, it’s because of him.
Doesn’t Wolverine get with Storm in one of the timelines? Of course, I guess that could be an example of jungle fever winning out over prejudice.
Likes to slap 'em.
Let’s be honest, here… Who wouldn’t like to get it on with Storm?
In this context “Japs” can be taken to mean “The war-criminal Imperial Japanese Gov’t of WWII”, just like we sometimes use “Nazis” to refer to the “War Criminal WWII Germans”. No one has problems with “Nazis, I hate those guys”, so in this context there’s no racist overtones behind “Japs”.
Do you have any evidence that, at any point in history, the word “Jap” was understood to refer specifically to the Imperial government of Japan, and not the Japanese people in general? Do you think this headline is referring to members of the Tojo government living in California?
The difference there is that “Nazi” was the actual name of the criminal government of Germany during WWII.
I think it’s safer to say that when two countries are at war, they tend to stereotype the other, and they aren’t all that concerned with the other’s feelings.
Naah. Sorry, but no,* even if *it only referred to the government (and others have shown this isn’t true) just the representation of the personification of that entity is still racist, with the slant eyes and buck teeth. Not unusual for its time, sure, but racist all the same.
Have you seen how we portrayed the Nazi leadership, with them looking like monkeys or pigs?
I’ve seen plenty of evidence that anti-Asian prejudice in the WWII era was much more common than anti-German racism. The anti-German sentiments were much more political and nationalist in nature than the alienization of Japanese based on physical features. So it’s reasonable to assume racism is a bigger component of anti-Japanese war propoganda.
The problem with all these arguments is determining which of the superheros actually is more likely to be racist, i.e., harbor racist sentiments. We don’t know that Superman authorized the usage of his image on the Slap-a-Jap cover. And we don’t see him speaking in a bubble, just the headlines written on a sheet of paper without attribution. I think it might be difficult to find actual racist acts and words from the ultimate Boy Scout. On the other hand, we have the actual words and deeds of Tarzan that demonstrated his acceptance and practice of racism in regards to African tribesman.
From WWII? Not really, I recall that sort of thing from WWI (Destroy This Mad Brute! is a particular favourite) but from WWII? I mean, look here: two of these are caricatures (Hitler’s isn’t even very unflattering) whereas Tojo (I’m assuming that’s supposed to be Tojo) is just unabashedly racist.
He’s shown personally operating the press that’s printing that propaganda. That seems like a pretty close equivalent to saying it himself, to me.
Half of the Sherlock Holmes books were out and out racist if you read between the lines!
Speaks of a different era I suppose, though…
The cover is clearly not a photograph. Even if Superman actually did hand crank an improbable printing press of that nature, I find it difficult to believe it was actually producing Slap-a-Jap posters. Those could have been drawn in on the cover and the press could have been printing Ovaltine advertisements in real life. It’s well known that Action Comics presented docu-dramas, stories based on Superman’s actual adventures, but often with many details and even key plot points altered and sometimes entirely fictionalized for dramatic effect. Also there are a lot of questions about why Superman was not more active in WWII and I suspect any cooperation with the government on the home front was part of an agreement regarding a tax debt and his citizenship status.
I simply find it difficult to believe that Superman, an alien himself, would hold in his heart feelings of racial animosity, or accept the nature of the perceived petty differences of a different species based on superficial characteristics.
They wanted a photograph, but the real Superman wouldn’t pose?
Cite?
The little guy’s name was Tonga.
Toby was the bloodhound.
The Five Orange Pips.
Yeah, I thought that was it, but I didn’t bother to check (and wasn’t sure of the number of pips, either).
Goebbels as a monkey and others:
Hitler as a gorrila, and theres a cartoon with all the axis leader, where indeed, Tojo looks pretty bad, but so do the others.