Marvel's Luke Cage - Achieving Universality Through Specificity
Over the last two weeks, I’ve spent 13 hours watching Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix. And it was a thoroughly engaging, entertaining 13 hours. Luke Cage is one of Marvel’s “street level superheroes”, fighting against injustice in Harlem, and ultimately teaming up with other heroes like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and the Immortal Iron Fist. In a recent Vanity Fair article about Marvel’s work on diversity, Joanna Robinson describes Luke Cage, saying:
“Of all the comic book heroes to flourish in the Black Lives Matter era, perhaps none is better suited to the movement than Luke – a man who got his powers…after being falsely imprisoned and subjected to horrible experiments while behind bars. That abuse-of-authority motif is mirrored by Cage’s timely gift: incredible strength and invulnerability. As [show-runner Cheo Hadari] Coker put it to riotous applause at Comic-Con this summer, ‘The world is ready for a bulletproof black man.’”[1]
The show has all of the superhero beats that one would expect – an origin story, a reluctant hero triumphing (kind of) over incredible odds, a really interesting cast of supporting characters, and some great action set pieces. But this show is also very concerned with telling a story about a black hero, confronting injustice in his community. There are scenes where characters literally sit and just talk about the history of Harlem and their place in it. Characters talk about what it means to be black in America, and we see injustice played out onscreen in ways that are, necessarily, uncomfortable. But there are these wonderful moments where, as a white viewer, I was given a perspective that is nothing like my own, and it presented me with an opportunity to become curious, to learn more.
I’ve written about this in other blog posts, most notably about Ms. Marvel (the superhero alter-ego of a Pakastani-American Muslim teenager named Kamala Khan) and the character-driven insights into Islam that are so interesting to me. What’s fantastic about these moments in Ms. Marvel, and in Luke Cage, and in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ current run of Black Panther, is that they don’t stop the story to provide an educational moment. They are authentic moments where you get a glimpse into someone else’s experience, and just enough information to allow you to go find out more on your own.
Until this week, I’d thought of it as just a clever way of embedding information into a story. But as I’ve listened to interviews this week with Marvel creators involved with Luke Cage and Black Panther, another unifying idea has emerged, and I find it really fascinating – you achieve universality through specificity.
I first heard the line as part of an interview that Sana Amanat, Marvel’s Director of Content and Character Development, conducted with Roxane Gay, a writer who was recently asked to write “Black Panther: World of Wakanda.” When asked what type of stories she wanted to tell in the new comic book title, Gay responded:
“It’s just another story, but it’s also very specific. And I think that’s important. I think that often times when we talk about representation and how we’re all human, people overlook the fact that this is a specific experience that no one else will have, other than black women. As universal as I hope the appeal is, I am still very much telling a specific story.”[2]
In response, Amanat confirmed Gay’s idea, saying “It’s that line that you can achieve universality through specificity.” I did some research after hearing to try to find out who the line is attributed to. I ultimately couldn’t find a source for it, but I did find that it appears repeatedly in literary criticism, and among writers, directors, actors, and singers. It seems to be an old idea, but I saw it getting applied by a theatre that focuses on telling stories from LGBTQ community. I saw it come up in reference to the television show “Fresh Off the Boat”. I saw it in reference to the writings of Alan Moore, and the songs of Alan Jackson.
To come back to Luke Cage, actor Mahershala Ali (who plays Cornell Stokes, aka Cottonmouth), put the idea this way when asked what he hoped people would take away from watching Marvel’s Luke Cage:
“First, I hope they appreciate all the universal elements of the story, in terms of it touching on justice, and one’s duty to his community... So those aspects of the reluctant hero that I think we all have in us. We all have the capacity to do more than what we’re doing, and it’s about if we’re going to say yes to that. And, being cognizant of the price we might pay for sacrifice, for stepping up…And there’s the reality that we’re pointing the camera on a community that hasn’t had the same space to explore their story in such specific ways, and I think the more personal you get, the more universal…it is.”[3]
What blows me away about “universality through specificity” is the ubiquity of the idea, and the fact that it shows up so often in connection with people who are telling stories of people from marginalized communities. On the one hand, it seems like a truth that applies to any storytelling enterprise. You connect with people on a human level not by trying to tell some grandiose story of an entire group. You connect by portraying the struggles and victories of individuals whose stories resonate within their own community, and more broadly across other groups. The importance of the idea for marginalized or historically under-represented groups is that it’s a way in to the dominant culture. “Universality through specificity” has the potential to create conversation and curiosity, not by speaking for an entire community, but by telling stories about very specific characters that we can relate to.
In this way, Marvel has been making some brilliant moves in the last few years. They have actively sought storytellers like Cheo Hodari Coker and Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay who come from diverse backgrounds and can tell stories from a perspective that a white, male writer might not be able to do. And it’s important to understand what a change this is. Black Panther first appeared in Marvel comics in the 1960s and Luke Cage first appeared in the 1970s, and both books were written for years (with some rare exceptions) by white writers. It’s not to say that a white author can’t create characters that are of a different skin color or background than he or she is. But there’s always a real risk of trying to speak from an experience that you don’t have – and coming off as inauthentic, and at times even as cringe-worthy.
And let’s be clear – this issue of authenticity doesn’t get solved simply by finding writers who have the same racial or ethnic backgrounds as their characters. They have to be good writers, and there are plenty of them. And so Marvel, by hiring diverse, top-notch creators, is telling stories that people are responding to – critically and commercially. They are, in many ways, showing what diversity and inclusion can look like when done right.
I’ve written about representation in the past, and it matters for people to see people like themselves on the page, or on the screen. But when you also bring in diverse talent at the writer’s desk or behind the camera, truth and authenticity and universality can shine through in new and amazing ways.
So I could keep geeking out over Marvel and their commitment to telling stories that reflect the diversity of human experience all day. But at some point, it needs to come back to the work that so many of us have undertaken in the Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) space.
For this idea, it seems rather simple to me. Representation matters. I’ve said it before, and I believe that it makes a difference when a new employee can look at senior leadership in an organization and see someone who looks like them. It creates a palpable impression of what’s possible.
If I take the example of what Marvel is doing and look for parallels in my work, it is truly about inclusion. It’s about creating a culture that actively encourages people to share their perspectives and ideas – their stories. It’s about building an environment where people can be themselves in a way that is as authentic as possible. And it’s about listening to one another with openness and curiosity, eager to learn new things from even our mundane daily interactions.
I had a call yesterday with one of our Regional Presidents, and I asked him what challenges an individual might face if they attempted to relocate from one part of the world to take a senior leadership role in another region, with a very different culture. He talked about “cultural curiosity”, and the need to come into a new place with a heartfelt desire to understand the social, political and cultural fabric of the place in which you’re trying to do business.
And once you adopt that cultural curiosity, where do you go to learn? I think it comes to individuals and their stories and their perspectives. By learning more about one another, we learn about the cultures in which we operate. And that allows us to be more efficient and effective in all that we try to accomplish. It creates the fertile ground for relationships and mutual respect. It is the process, in a different but very real way, of achieving universality through specificity.
[1] “Luke Cage and the Year Marvel Finally Reckoned with Its Black Audience”, www.vanityfair.com, September 29, 2016
[2] Women of Marvel Podcast – Ep. 116, Voices of Marvel with Roxane Gay, October 7, 2016.
[3] Women of Marvel Podcast - Ep. 116.5, Mahershala Ali from Marvel’s Luke Cage, October 12, 2016.
