Comic Book Analysis

I chose this comic book cover because it showed many stereotypes that we have discussed in class. It shows the powerful, white male, it also shows the white female being portrayed as a damsel in distress while being attacked by a minority race. All of these topics we have discussed in class and seen in other readings and videos.
On the cover it shows a white female who is tied up and held captive by members of the “yellow” race. She looks very scared and helpless. She is surrounded by men who have been holding her captive. This is similar to what we have seen in the video Ethnic Notions. In the video the white women were being chased by black males and they are running from the men. In some cases the females would jump off cliffs to escape these males because they felt that it was a better alternative than being caught by the men. There was never an image of black females being chased or being scared because they were not seen as feminine or helpless like the white women were.
Also on the front cover of the comic book is a picture of a white male coming in to save the day for the white female. It shows him fighting off many other men all by himself. He is coming through the ceiling with a gun that appears to be very powerful and is portrayed in a way that makes him look very dominant. There is also another white male in the background who appears to be very well built and is fighting off the yellow Gestapo as well. This shows the white male as being dominant and almost super hero like compared to the yellow race. They yellow race appears to be very weak and troubled that the white man is there. The fact that the one white man can fight off the whole Gestapo shows the dominance that the white male has over the yellow race.
I feel that the repetition of these comic book covers being printed during this time helped to develop such stereotypes. With people seeing these kinds of images on a daily basis, they cannot help but start to think it these ways. The fact that they show the white woman as being helpless and the white male dominating definitely played a part in the way we think about the genders today.