{"id":2376,"date":"2013-04-04T18:39:03","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T22:39:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/?p=2376"},"modified":"2013-04-04T18:39:03","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T22:39:03","slug":"the-pulps-and-modern-day-stereotyping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/2013\/04\/04\/the-pulps-and-modern-day-stereotyping\/","title":{"rendered":"The pulps and modern-day stereotyping"},"content":{"rendered":"

\""All-StoryAfter a couple of false starts over the years, I finally decided a couple of weeks ago that I needed to read Edgar Rice Burroughs<\/a><\/strong>‘ “Tarzan of the Apes.”<\/p>\n

With the first three books finished quickly, I’m slogging my way through “The Son of Tarzan” at the moment.<\/p>\n

Last year marked the 100th anniversary of the original Tarzan<\/a><\/strong> novel’s publication in All-Story Magazine<\/em> in October 1912. “The Return of Tarzan” was serialized 100 years ago this year in New Story Magazine<\/em>. “The Beasts of Tarzan” was serialized in All-Story Cavalier Weekly<\/em> (All-Story Magazine<\/em>‘s new name) in 1914. The following year, “The Son of Tarzan” appeared in the same magazine, but with a shortened name, All-Story Weekly<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Others have written<\/a> about Burroughs’ use of stereotypes (particularly racial ones), which at the time may have been accepted but today are objectionable to many. In the first three books, the stereotyping usually applied to one or two individuals. But with “The Son of Tarzan,” I’ve found the racial stereotyping excessively blatant and directed toward whole races.<\/p>\n

There’s no need to repeat examples here; they are easy enough to find in the book.<\/p>\n

I can excuse this because, as I mentioned earlier, these stories were written nearly 100 years ago when social beliefs and customs were different. They still cause me to shudder at times, but they reflect their time — just as Mark Twain<\/strong>‘s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” does.<\/p>\n

But similar stereotyping continues today in newly published material.<\/p>\n

While I make exceptions for reprinting vintage stories that might offend present-day sensibilities because they are reflective of the time they were written, the same goes for vintage artwork. But we shouldn’t accept new fiction that is racist (see the scandal<\/a> over “Revealing Eden: Save the Pearls” in Weird Tales<\/a><\/em> from last fall), just as we shouldn’t condone sexist depictions in new artwork.<\/p>\n

\"Modern-day<\/p>\n

Before you become defensive, please note that I’m not singling out any particular writer, artist or publisher. That’s not the purpose of this post.<\/p>\n

The cover images I’ve posted above are just three examples, and I’ve cropped the images to illustrate the point, but not focus on the sources. Though these are cropped images, they accurately reflect the covers they were taken from.<\/p>\n

This has nothing to do with so-called “political correctness.” What I want to do is raise awareness, and \u2014 hopefully \u2014 make everyone think twice about what we are trying to do.<\/p>\n

Isn’t the purpose of reprinting vintage stories from the pulps \u2014 as well as crafting New Pulp stories influenced by the pulp magazines \u2014 to draw new readers into the fold?<\/p>\n

Well, let’s not immediately offend more than half the potential readers out there \u2014 and quite a few of the male ones, too \u2014 by splashing pinups for pubescent minds on covers. That is, unless your goal is to appeal only to teenage boys.<\/p>\n

I have two daughters, and I would love to see them discover some of the fantastic fiction that appeared in the pulp magazines or is being written today. But to be honest, the sexist artwork is a turnoff.<\/p>\n

Just as we wouldn’t publish a cover with blackface characters, why do we persist in publishing covers with scantily clad women?<\/p>\n

It’s not the 1930s anymore. Times have changed, so should we.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a couple of false starts over the years, I finally decided a couple of weeks ago that I needed to read Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ “Tarzan of the Apes.” With the first three books finished quickly, I’m slogging my way through “The Son of Tarzan” at the moment. Last year marked the 100th anniversary of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[4,33,8,29,11],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-2376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-new-pulp","category-opinion","category-pulp-art","category-pulps"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2qgXO-Ck","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2376"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2410,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2376\/revisions\/2410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2376"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/yellowedperils\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=2376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}