| Beyond Human Or Machinery - The X-Men's Karima Shapandar. |
[Jun. 22nd, 2009|01:35 pm] |
I look for paper mirrors quite a bit - though what's fun is that I can be rather flexible in finding them. I suppose I see a lot of myself in quite a diverse selection of characters. One of the factors that appeal to me in terms of a paper mirror is cultural identity. I identify as West-Indian (ethnically, I'm Indo-Guyanese) - but as a Hindu and a brown person and someone with East Indian ancestors, I find myself drawn to East Indian characters as well. Unfortunately, within Western media, there's a very real and very large lack of Indian characters (and many of them are, unfortunately, very stereotypical in presentation and tone).
That's why I am thrilled with the ongoing dynamic use and inclusion of Karima Shapandar; also known by her X-Men alias Omega Sentinel. A quick primer; Karima Shapandar is an Omega-Prime Sentinel (human beings fitted with nannites so that they become mindless Sentinels) whose original personality and mind were restored to her via the combined efforts of Magneto and Professor Xavier. Previously a detective-inspector in her native Mumbai, she’s now an associate of the X-Men (having been an X-Man, a member of Excalibur, a brainwashed member of the Marauders, and a temporary member of the Acolytes).
Chris Claremont had this to say when asked about her creation and usage;
"I liked the idea of her. The notion... of someone being transformed into a wholly mechanical being and what effects that has on sense of self, sense of soul? She’s an outcast from both human and mutant society, yet bound by her own personal sense of honor to try to protect both. Callisto’s (another character in the Excalibur series) one kind of 'monster,' Karima’s another. They both have their measure of prejudice to overcome."
I adore her narrative; it directly deals with body politics while bringing racist politics and sexist politics along for the ride. One of my favourite aspects of her journey (specifically in Excalibur) is that she was logically going back and forth between aberration and enjoyment in terms of her new status, which cleanly and elegantly lands itself into a clear goal (vocalized in X-Men Vol 2). This is really the most organic way that this could have ended up, because Karima’s consistently demonstrated both a sense of conviction and assertiveness. She’s a police officer. She clearly takes pride in her status and appears to be emotionally tied to her practice of her ethics – clearly upset when she feels she has done something so wrong in a previous life to deserve her new form, but actively engages in psychological healing by working towards a sense of justice and peace. The act of working towards providing justice and peace – by protecting people – would lead her to recognize the great use of her new abilities. Karima can’t undo the past; this has happened and all she can do is heal. And instead of passively falling into despair, she finds solace and healing in taking action – it is very much the practice of Metta (a primarily-recognized-as-Buddhist concept, but is critical in Hinduism (including Shaktism, which Karima seems to practice); actively healing one’s self by acting in the beneficial needs and interests of others.
Subsequently, this leads to an excellent sexist subversion and creates a wonderfully empowering character. Karima may be a victim, but she never actively victimizes herself. Her agency, once in question, is now never in question – while initially there was internal conflict as to what she is, it never became a defeat. That was never a question. Instead, she is active in saving, protecting and fighting for herself and for others. Karima, as a character, while introduced as the love interest of a man, has already overshadowed him and become a notable, fleshed-out character in her own right (and even in her introduction, she was portrayed as an active agent in her life). She was introduced as a person of skill, duty and reliability. And that characterization has continued as such, while she overcame the position of love interest (and as a foil for two older men; as mentioned later). This woman is no Bollywood swooning Indian woman, she is a well-developed character that both relishes her cultural identity and pushes past the stereotypical depictions of it.
For the most part, Karima’s managed to escape being oversexualized and objectified in rendering. Brett Booth, despite a rather unimpressive design, rendered her in a dynamic active manner. Aaron Lopresti rendered her in a wonderful manner (there’s a reason he went on to produce some of the most empowering and respectful Wonder Woman art in the past 10 years) despite a rather odd design; she had clear muscle definition, flat footwear an her posture was not geared towards male gaze T&A shots (though there was at least one odd waist view with ass-boobs view). Chris Bachalo, while not recognizing the muscle definition, managed to portray her with dynamic posture that avoided T&A shots (even when she was nude). Humberto Ramos, unfortunately, did focus on T&A shots but thankfully never got very far due to the full-body coverage of her Bachalo!Design (though we did get some infantilized hairstyles and giant breast shots). Scot Eaton may have had one or two super-curvy-look-ass shots, but they’ve generally been a rarity and never to the point of suspending belief.
The colourist for the Scot Eaton-rendered issues and the Humberto Ramos-rendered issues did, unfortunately, lighten her skin – but never to the point of her original design. I’m frankly very happy that the colourists who worked with Lopresti and Bachalo did make and keep her skin as rather dark; as Colorism is still and issue and it’s incredibly frustrating to see a lack of respect towards the replication of brown skin. I will note that she has not been as much of a victim of this as DC’s Vixen or X-Factor’s Monet, but this is still a very problematic and racist trend. I’m hoping that future appearances restore her skin colour to being as dark as Excalibur-appearances.
While I’ve noted her rendering above; I believe special distinction should be made for her designs (in which there have been primarily 2 specific silhouettes). While her first consistent design (designed by Aaron Lopresti) is rather distinctive, I don’t feel it’s necessarily in a beneficial way. While the outfit itself was rather odd (the strongest visual cue being her silver boots, otherwise it was a rather strange design), the feature to stand out, though, is her hairstyle. While Cliff Richards rendered it in a more natural-appearing manner, it’s just one of the most anachronistic hairstyle choices I’ve seen in that it resembles the movement of dreadlocks (despite it being straight strands of hair). One can see the problem in terms of misidentity – combine a hairstyle that (in silhouette if not texture) is culturally associated with people who are black with a genre that is known for portraying black people as white people with darker skin, and you have a visual coding that leads to blackness. This wouldn’t be a problem if she were a well-fleshed out, breaking-stereotypes black character – but she’s not. She’s most likely of an Indian ethnic group (one of hundreds, if not thousands), and while the Western world doesn't have a lot of hairstyles that are indicative of South Asian hair-that-isn't-imported-from-the-West, choosing hair that has a silhouette as such reads as unintentionally irresponsible when considering visual communication & visual shortcuts. Granted, this could have gone so much worse - he could have gone out of his way to have her wear a full-fledged sari and give her a bindi (despite the, you know, whole not married thing) so this design, showcasing her ease of movement, isn't terrible (and again, he rendered her rather wonderfully, flat footwear, athletic poses and body, etc.). It's just a rather strange choice in terms of what her primary character traits are (cyborg sentinel, cop, Indian, visually-coded as female).
The Bachalo design, however, is something I find as incredibly dynamic and successful - it still manages to give her full body coverage, is meaningfully visually differentiated from the rest of the team (how many X-Men have a combination of white and red and black as their primary colours? None, because that's pretty much Alpha Flight's thing and at this point I'd almost like to see her just join Alpha Flight because she'd visually fit right in). I'm very happy he had went with full body coverage where in this instance, a great number of pencillers would have gone with a close-to-naked design and justified it in story with 'She's a cyborg, who cares what she wears!'. It speaks well of the design when (again, as noted above), other artists have tried to render her in a sexually objectified manner and had trouble successfully doing so via her full-body design. While I would have preferred wavy hair (as pure straight hair like hers is something of a huge rarity in Indian ethnicities), this still isn't bad per say (the hair itself seems pretty thick as is, which is nice). The design is easily recognizable from a distance but doesn't fall apart when up close. It's definitely a rather successful design, so much that I would love to see Aaron Lopresti render her in this design (his rendering is absurdly good, I'm just not a fan of his outfit and character designs as much).
One of the most initially appealing factors for me was the fact that Karima was a practicing Hindu – and as seen here, she maybe a practicing Shaktist (in that the first deity she cried out to was Maadevi). I don’t really have a strong body of characters to which I can actually source as actively identifying as Hindu; my mind tends to go to the (now sadly defunct) Virgin Comics for sourcing Hindu stories (and while it was a great treat; there were some problematic issues – in ‘India Authentic’, the tales involving the goddesses often involved misogynistic tropes (of particular annoyance was Mahasaraswati’s tale), and Devi (while super-awesome) didn’t exactly source the female Hindu or Vedic goddesses (bar Mahadevi), losing a wonderful opportunity to create new interpretations of said goddesses). Otherwise, I tend to draw a blank – and while there are a number of characters inspired by the Hindu pantheon, there aren’t really many known worshippers. Furthermore, as noted above, Karima seems to specifically be a Shaktist (though that’s presumption on my part, in that she hasn’t identified as one per say). This is such a wonderful piece of identity to see; in that Hinduism as a religion tends to not even be portrayed (often the concepts and deities exist, but the worshippers not so much). And when it is portrayed, it’s done so rather clumsily (for a good comparison of the misconception towards Hinduism, check out this article about karma – and then apply the level of misunderstanding to Hinduism & Vedic practice as a whole). While Karima isn’t a perfect example of a practicing-Hindu character (that trait seems to have disappeared entirely during the Mike Carey usage), that fact that it’s an integral factor in her own character arc as well as a source of strength for her was great to see. I really, really hope we see more of her as a practicing Hindu – it’s already clearly established that she’s not fanatical, so consistent-but-not-overbearing-usage of her religious beliefs would be great to see.
One of the interesting notes about Karima’s role in the X-narratives is that she plays a direct foil to both Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto (outside of him being a villain primarily) in a relatively equal manner (as opposed to leaning one way or the other too much). Only a few characters have done as such; Gabrielle Haller, the New Mutants (primarily Dani, Sam, Roberto, Rahne, Amara, Illyana, Doug, and Xian), and possibly Rogue (I hesitate to put Ororo in here; in that despite her getting along with him rather well while he was Headmaster, his subsequent actions in X-Men Vol 2 1-3, and murder of Jean in Planet X probably wiped out the majority of goodwill Ororo had towards him – Rogue is a ‘possibly’, because she was much closer to Magneto than Storm and has also had considerable interaction with Charles). When looking at this list, one can tell very quickly that Karima has a very specific position; different from any of these people – she’s not someone who was a student of theirs (formally, or even for a long period informally), and she was never a romantic interest of either of them. Rather, she’s an adult who has similar training (via her background as a police officer) who was forced into the conflict of mutants VS humans by both her ideological standing and her new status as a living being – which was entirely due to the combined; efforts of both the Professor and Magneto. She’s literally living proof of their potential to bring harmony through co-operation, but this does not rob her of her own personhood; which is notable in that while she’s actively thankful to both of them, she still questions their thinking in a productive manner. Rather than being someone to solely learn from them, Karima actively contributes to both of them – helping them come to new conclusions. Furthermore, she’s an active ally of theirs – rather than support, she’s a front liner (potentially for both of them). It’s an interesting parallel to Rogue, even – one character who’s lived a major part of her life seeking their (potentially failing) help, and one character who’s spent minimal time with them and received an almost total solution (that comparison also makes you feel very, very bad for Rogue). Karima could very, very easily fall into the role of wide-eyed-learn-from-the-white-men ethnic girl (and there have been moments where it’s been close to appearing that way), she has instead been treated as their colleague and friend – someone to respect, care for (when necessary), not infantilize, and recognize as having her own unique body of knowledge which is equally important as theirs. In this manner, Karima herself can be seen as a living example of the X-Dream - even one step further, in that she was forced into a position that should have her killing mutants, but instead works for her own salvation and the salvation of others. There was no question in her human mind that mutants are people, and for a Sentinel to believe this - even if she has a human consciousness - is incredibly poetic.
And poetic contemporary X-Men whom have lasted as long as she has - what with X-world revamps every few months or so - are a rarity. She's managed to stay in use because a number of writers found this gem of a character and worked with her; meaningfully adding her experience and the audiences by including her. She's by far one of my favourite X-characters of all time, and she's only been in published books a handful of times. Karima, rather than draining from the X-mythos like a leech, adds to it in a significant way - by being the sum parts of her heritage and ethics, and adding more. I hope to see her for some time in the future, as a character that may grow in a pace that defies our hectic world. She's definitely a modern-day positive role-model; someone who practices her ethical stance without preaching it to us in a condescending manner. Here's hoping to her growth and beneficial usage as a character, worthy of Maadevi herself. |
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