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Beyond Stereotypes: Understanding Color and Characterization in David Mazzucchelli’s “Asterios Polyp”
This presentation examines the relationship between the use of color and characters’ embodiment of stereotypes in David Mazzucchelli’s “Asterios Polyp.” As Randy Duncan notes in “Image Functions: Shape and Color as Hermeneutic Images in ‘Asterios Polyp,’” colors, and the transitions in their usage over the course of the comic, illustrate the main characters’ psychological evolutions. Characters such as Asterios (a white male university professor who is not as smart as he thinks) and Hana (a shy Asian American woman who does not recognize her own brilliance) embody particular tropes, all of which depend on racial and gender identities. Mazzucchelli reifies the rigidity of these stereotypes by confirming the contrasts between characters through the colors depicting them. Although the typification may appear reductive, the clear boundaries it outlines between characters highlight their different experiences as a result of their identities. Shifts in the colors then show characters’ complexity beyond tropes, thereby emphasizing the distinctions between cultural experiences without limiting the possibility of transgression. Accordingly, this presentation argues that Mazzucchelli both highlights and challenges limitations of the stereotypes through color. As a result, Mazzucchelli’s artwork demonstrates a way in which the medium of comics can visually depict the complexities of identity.
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The prevalent use of stereotypes for Black people in the comics medium has left little room for character and situational diversity. Many attempts to correct this have been made, and yet the problem still persists, with new obstacles being created along the way. This thesis focuses on improving representation of Black people in comics through the increase of Black characters in the created worlds of comics. It also identifies and analyzes the effects of ethnic recasting, cultural dilution, biracialism, and racial ambiguity on the progress in this area. The implementation of these concepts serves as a hindrance to Black representation. Therefore, only through an increase in the number of recognizably Black characters and stories with predominately Black casts will Black stereotypes fade and no longer be the prevailing representation of Black people in comics.
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cIRcle – The University of British Columbia’s Digital Repository
This master’s thesis explores the construction and mutability of the Japanese race and ethnicity in the print comics of Dr. Tezuka Osamu (1928–1989), Japan’s “god of manga” and the creator of such beloved series as Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. By investigating three of Tezuka’s mature, lesser-known works from the 1970s and 80s, I will illustrate how Tezuka’s narratives have been shaped by his consciousness of racial issues and his desire to investigate the changing nature of Japanese identity in the postwar era. Chapter one analyzes Ode to Kirihito (1970–71, 2006 English), and introduces Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection to show the ways in which Tezuka bestializes his ethnically Japanese protagonists and turns them into a distinct class of subaltern. Chapter two examines intersections between race and war narratives using Adolf (1983–85, 1995–96 English), Tezuka’s WWII epic about the Jewish Holocaust. The concept of hybridity is utilized and the case is made that Tezuka ultimately denies his racially mixed characters the benefits of their Japanese identity. Chapter three investigates the manifestation of Japanese masculinity in Gringo (1987–89), one of Tezuka’s final works. In this chapter, Japanese identity, masculinity, and sexual ability are linked to the national sport of sumo wrestling. A discussion of diasporic communities is included in order to discuss how the Japanese race is conceptualized as it moves through different geographical and cultural spaces.
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There have been various critical interpretations of Art Spiegelman’s use of anthropomorphic characters and animal masks in his graphic novel Maus. However, what some critics neglect to discuss are the strict guidelines that Spiegelman adheres to when depicting race. His use of masks to allow his anthropomorphic characters to move through society and manipulate otherwise dangerous circumstances is in keeping with conceptions of the fluidity and arbitrary nature of race; on the other hand, Spiegelman’s use of masks on his human illustrations is for a different purpose all together. The mask, in these instances, becomes a means to “fix” race or to classify human beings in particular categories. In other words, without these contraptions (or costumes) as a means of identification, the reader would be unable to differentiate between people groups. Because Spiegelman’s graphic novel is a visual narrative it is important to look at his illustrations as well as the text to discern what he is saying about the performative aspects of race as well as national identity. This project engages theories of racial formation, Lisa Costello’s notions of “performative memorialization,” the discourse on the triangular nature of racial “passing,” and the history of racial identity to set up a framework by which to discuss Spiegelman’s engagement, and often conflation, of history, memory, and race. Since Spiegelman’s text employs the genre of biography and the medium of the graphic novel it will be important to look at various panels from both volumes to identify the performative aspects of the work. In this way, the purpose of this project is to conclude that both the author and the reader participate in the formation of racial identity in the text because Maus draws from a history that everyone is or should be familiar with. This shared participation works to indict the reader and author and uphold notions that race is not “fixed.” When the construct is presented (through the ascending order of Spiegelman’s anthropomorphic and masked human characters) and then deconstructed, the reader is forced to see the fallacies in such purported disparities and is allowed the opportunity to recognize the flaws within him or herself. Though Spiegelman is responsible for “cracking” the racial metaphor in his text, he works to “crack” the racial myth as well.
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seaborn.swarmplot#
seaborn. swarmplot ( data = None , * , x = None , y = None , hue = None , order = None , hue_order = None , dodge = False , orient = None , color = None , palette = None , size = 5 , edgecolor = None , linewidth = 0 , hue_norm = None , log_scale = None , native_scale = False , formatter = None , legend = ‘auto’ , warn_thresh = 0.05 , ax = None , ** kwargs ) #
Draw a categorical scatterplot with points adjusted to be non-overlapping.
This function is similar to stripplot() , but the points are adjusted (only along the categorical axis) so that they don’t overlap. This gives a better representation of the distribution of values, but it does not scale well to large numbers of observations. This style of plot is sometimes called a “beeswarm”.
A swarm plot can be drawn on its own, but it is also a good complement to a box or violin plot in cases where you want to show all observations along with some representation of the underlying distribution.
See the tutorial for more information.
By default, this function treats one of the variables as categorical and draws data at ordinal positions (0, 1, … n) on the relevant axis. As of version 0.13.0, this can be disabled by setting native_scale=True .
Parameters : data DataFrame, Series, dict, array, or list of arrays
Dataset for plotting. If x and y are absent, this is interpreted as wide-form. Otherwise it is expected to be long-form.
x, y, hue names of variables in data or vector data
Inputs for plotting long-form data. See examples for interpretation.
order, hue_order lists of strings
Order to plot the categorical levels in; otherwise the levels are inferred from the data objects.
dodge bool
When a hue variable is assigned, setting this to True will separate the swaarms for different hue levels along the categorical axis and narrow the amount of space allotedto each strip. Otherwise, the points for each level will be plotted in the same swarm.
orient “v” | “h” | “x” | “y”
Orientation of the plot (vertical or horizontal). This is usually inferred based on the type of the input variables, but it can be used to resolve ambiguity when both x and y are numeric or when plotting wide-form data.
Changed in version v0.13.0: Added ‘x’/’y’ as options, equivalent to ‘v’/’h’.
color matplotlib color
Single color for the elements in the plot.
palette palette name, list, or dict
Colors to use for the different levels of the hue variable. Should be something that can be interpreted by color_palette() , or a dictionary mapping hue levels to matplotlib colors.
size float
Radius of the markers, in points.
edgecolor matplotlib color, “gray” is special-cased
Color of the lines around each point. If you pass “gray” , the brightness is determined by the color palette used for the body of the points.
linewidth float
Width of the lines that frame the plot elements.
log_scale bool or number, or pair of bools or numbers
Set axis scale(s) to log. A single value sets the data axis for any numeric axes in the plot. A pair of values sets each axis independently. Numeric values are interpreted as the desired base (default 10). When None or False , seaborn defers to the existing Axes scale.
New in version v0.13.0.
native_scale bool
When True, numeric or datetime values on the categorical axis will maintain their original scaling rather than being converted to fixed indices.
New in version v0.13.0.
formatter callable
Function for converting categorical data into strings. Affects both grouping and tick labels.
New in version v0.13.0.
legend “auto”, “brief”, “full”, or False
How to draw the legend. If “brief”, numeric hue and size variables will be represented with a sample of evenly spaced values. If “full”, every group will get an entry in the legend. If “auto”, choose between brief or full representation based on number of levels. If False , no legend data is added and no legend is drawn.
New in version v0.13.0.
ax matplotlib Axes
Axes object to draw the plot onto, otherwise uses the current Axes.
kwargs key, value mappings
Other keyword arguments are passed through to matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter() .
Returns : ax matplotlib Axes
Returns the Axes object with the plot drawn onto it.
A traditional box-and-whisker plot with a similar API.
A combination of boxplot and kernel density estimation.
A scatterplot where one variable is categorical. Can be used in conjunction with other plots to show each observation.
Combine a categorical plot with a FacetGrid .
Assigning a single numeric variable shows its univariate distribution with points adjusted along on the other axis such that they don’t overlap:
tips = sns.load_dataset("tips") sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill")
Assigning a second variable splits the groups of points to compare categorical levels of that variable:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day")
Show vertically-oriented swarms by swapping the assignment of the categorical and numerical variables:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="day", y="total_bill")
Prior to version 0.12, the levels of the categorical variable had different colors by default. To get the same effect, assign the hue variable explicitly:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day", hue="day", legend=False)
Or you can assign a distinct variable to hue to show a multidimensional relationship:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day", hue="sex")
If the hue variable is numeric, it will be mapped with a quantitative palette by default (note that this was not the case prior to version 0.12):
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day", hue="size")
Use palette to control the color mapping, including forcing a categorical mapping by passing the name of a qualitative palette:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day", hue="size", palette="deep")
By default, the different levels of the hue variable are intermingled in each swarm, but setting dodge=True will split them:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day", hue="sex", dodge=True)
The “orientation” of the plot (defined as the direction along which quantitative relationships are preserved) is usually inferred automatically. But in ambiguous cases, such as when both axis variables are numeric, it can be specified:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="size", orient="h")
/Users/mwaskom/code/seaborn/seaborn/categorical.py:3370: UserWarning: 15.4% of the points cannot be placed; you may want to decrease the size of the markers or use stripplot. warnings.warn(msg, UserWarning) /Users/mwaskom/code/seaborn/seaborn/categorical.py:3370: UserWarning: 17.3% of the points cannot be placed; you may want to decrease the size of the markers or use stripplot. warnings.warn(msg, UserWarning)
When the local density of points is too high, they will be forced to overlap in the “gutters” of each swarm and a warning will be issued. Decreasing the size of the points can help to avoid this problem:
sns.swarmplot(data=tips, x="total_bill", y="size", orient="h", size=3)
By default, the categorical variable will be mapped to discrete indices with a fixed scale (0, 1, …), even when it is numeric:
sns.swarmplot( data=tips.query("size in [2, 3, 5]"), x="total_bill", y="size", orient="h", )
To disable this behavior and use the original scale of the variable, set native_scale=True (notice how this also changes the order of the variables on the y axis):
sns.swarmplot( data=tips.query("size in [2, 3, 5]"), x="total_bill", y="size", orient="h", native_scale=True, )
Further visual customization can be achieved by passing keyword arguments for matplotlib.axes.Axes.scatter() :
sns.swarmplot( data=tips, x="total_bill", y="day", marker="x", linewidth=1, )
To make a plot with multiple facets, it is safer to use catplot() with kind=”swarm” than to work with FacetGrid directly, because catplot() will ensure that the categorical and hue variables are properly synchronized in each facet:
sns.catplot( data=tips, kind="swarm", x="time", y="total_bill", hue="sex", col="day", aspect=.5 )
Amanda Williams
The informal economy sustains. Beyond the constraints of state bureaucracy, streams of income—untaxed, in theory unlimited—flow where needed and required, a self-regulating network feeding, housing, and clothing millions. There are, by design, no advertisements, no backing; word of mouth and ad hoc business acumen is the requisite modus. These enterprises exist within the universe of the elote stands, ice cream trucks, and snowball carts dotting each enclave, unique in their situation within the home. Among this class of entrepreneurs, the gendered order is evident: female vulnerability and socialization dictate, as they do everything. A life or livelihood outdoors has always been safer and more available to men. Among the throngs of enterprising entrepreneurial masses in Black enclaves are women who sell candy and other small goods out of their homes. These women are the subject and source of Amanda Williams’s solo show, her third, at Gagosian, New York, titled CANDYLADYBLACK, a continued meditation in color. Williams approaches and, in her own way, depicts the candy ladies and their consumers in her standard manner, mingling serious intellectual consideration of Black subjects with bright, fresh whimsy, capturing them at their most essential.
Williams is a Cornell-trained architect and a Chicago native. Through her paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, she has managed to commingle these identities, conceptualizing fresh approaches to what has often been dismissed as unworthy of critical or artistic engagement: the makeshift artworks and labor of the working class, Black, female, and informal artists and artistry that exist outside of formal institutions and recognitions. She has work in the collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and elsewhere, and has a permanent monument to Shirley Chisholm, the first Black congresswoman in US history, underway in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, all while serving on the design team for the Obama presidential library in Chicago. Williams repeatedly returns to questions of how space, commercial interests, value, and urbanity intersect with—and antagonize—Black existence. In the series What Black Is This, You Say? (2020–), for example, she provides a cheeky critique of Blackout Tuesday, a viral movement in which Instagram users posted black squares on the application’s pages after police violence in the summer of 2020. Her most praised and provocative project so far, Color(ed) Theory (2014–16), debuted at the Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015: over two years, assisted by her loved ones, Williams repainted eight empty condemned houses in Englewood, Chicago, each in a different, vibrant hue. The colors of the houses were unignorable, inviting examination and jutting out amid otherwise colorless expanses: the slate gray of winter skies, the slushy colors of long untended yards and lots ubiquitous within neglected neighborhoods. Her palette evoked the commodities central to the culture of the city’s South Side: the ubiquitous, staining scarlet of Cheetos, the varied tones of the signature chicken shacks, the regal velvet of Crown Royal bags and personal styling products. Facing what had been dismissed, labeled “condemned,” Williams countered “Why?” and “According to whom?” She emphasized each home’s singularity, reminding us that the delineations between detritus and sculptural wonders are innately racialized, a matter of subjectivity. “When you grow up in a segregated city as I have, like Chicago, you’re conditioned to believe that color and race can never be separated,” she has said. “Racism is my city’s vivid hue.” The logics of architecture and of race converge.
Williams’s new exhibition is a return to old fixations, not only conversant with prior works but an impressive, lively expansion of them. Having established her topics—the city of her birth, modernity, urban blight, Black expressivity, architecture as racial implement—she now bounds beyond previously drawn borders. Where the architect had previously concerned herself with exteriors, CANDYLADYBLACK, an expansion of What Black Is This, You Say? peeks inside at some of their potential denizens, equally spectral and systematically disappeared. The Black grandmother, an eponymous, seldom portrayed figure, is all too familiar: those stalwart, unbowed matriarchs, doling out candy hidden in purses and pockets, saccharine in their own right, and typically more object than subject. Here she is revealed as a hustler type, a character with whom we are less familiar. The name also inevitably brings to mind its obverse, the candyman, a more malevolent but equally well-known character.
Sugar was a commodified good of the slave economy, the basis of untold fortunes. Here it is reclaimed by those who have not been the beneficiaries of that system. The selling of goods out of the home blurs and does away with distinctions between public and private, work and pleasure, the sorts of delineations that Williams has repeatedly refuted. CANDYLADYBLACK opposes orderliness, unerring boundaries, and established boundaries, welcoming a messier chromatic seepage. The tone of the pieces is a reenactment of chaos, melding the random and the ordered. What might the architect’s eye make of the absence of lines and symmetry, principal concepts of her training? In this way she seems to refuse the brutal, colorless architecture of the contemporary realm. In this series Williams utilizes nine evocative tones mimicking the artificial, chemically brightened hues of beloved sugar treats. The paintings are delightfully, unnaturally saturated, alluding to the dextrose, sucrose, preservatives, and chemical dyes that constitute popular candies. The greens are iridescent, the color not of actual limes but of lime-flavored gummies, Frooties, Pixy Stix, bubble gum, and chews. Some of these hues traipse at the edge of repellent, a near Day-Glo. They drip and run nearly off the canvas, their formations suggesting the little fingerprints of children and the candy women. These are less colors than flavors, pooling and melting into shapes with lives and tales of their own. They have about them the air of an event, some antic occasioning the parade of pigment, and not only a dazzling sunset brightness but a reminder of the brief wonder of Chicago winters. The viewer is drawn in and invited to match each particular color to her own memory, her own favorite sweet. In this way the paintings recall the Rorschach inkblot tests, challenging each imagination to work of its own volition.
The stickiness of the paintings is atmospheric, enveloping. Williams has provided an alternative color experience that manages to both subvert and submerge, almost haptic in the sensations it induces. There has been much proselytizing regarding recent transformations of childhood: we lament the absence of outdoor play, the stringent, intricate diets, the overall loss of a certain sort of citified infancy. Williams’s retrospective is ruminative, playful, nostalgic, although not chastising or overprecious, considered but not overwrought. She recalls the play, the whimsy, of preadult life by envisioning it and inviting the viewer into her colored world. Slip into that bold magenta, that invigorating orpiment, that seductive puce and shocking pink, and recall the wonders of yore, Williams the chromophile is our guide. Viewing the paintings, I am reminded of Alice’s slip down the rabbit hole, how invigorating it is to be allowed entry into a realm of the artist’s making.
It is a realm increasingly sparse. Chicago’s housing projects have largely been demolished. Summer, once relished for its brevity and singular relief, has now, with climate catastrophe, been extended, as autumn and spring grow warmer. Childhood, like summer, passes too soon. Poor and working-class Black neighborhoods are increasingly imperiled, their homes and landscapes reshaped, their people moved and relocated. Gentrified modernist homes are put up in their stead, both the designs and the populations usually absent of color. Williams’s work and mind remain Colored, almost flagrantly so, urging the culture toward her. In its excesses, the work is also a critique of the austerity of government programs in the face of systemic poverty, of lives governed by having just enough to survive. The world Williams allows is predicated on succor and vibrancy. Her works are equal parts parade, memorial, tribute, and mourning ritual.
Black artists have always responded to the ills of the time—police brutality, white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia—through their creative practices. In the wake of the summer of 2020, what was initially a turn toward the political side of Black art has instead grown into a demand. The artist must express her politics and they must be legible and digestible to the masses. Black artists are rarely presumed to be technically astute stylists or abstractionists. Through this series, Williams manages a narrative without bodies or language, producing an alternative mode of figuration. It is nothing as flat or simplistic as joy that she is relaying, but rather the entire spectrum of Black experience, our youths, homes, lives, elders—here and not. It is as if Williams had looked about, taken stock of the colors and options available, and found them insufficient. With CANDYLADYBLACK she has conceptualized new hues, new spectrums of thought and feeling, and a more dimensional Black collectivity.
