Poll applied the "Page 99 Test" to his new book, Aquaman and the War against Oceans: Comics Activism and Allegory in the Anthropocene, and reported the following:
Turning to page 99 of my book, readers discover an idea central to my project: how humanism is a form of violence inextricable from other forms of violence, including racism, genderism, and ableism. Moreover, this page asks if empathy, as theorized by ecofeminists, can help dissolve these linked structures of hate. The middle paragraph of page 99 reads:Follow Ryan Poll on Twitter.Ecofeminist scholar Greta Gaard defines ecofeminism as “an evolving praxis” that centers on “entangled empathy.” Entangled empathy is an intersectional paradigm and praxis that recognizes the inextricable connections between “human justice, interspecies justice, and human-environment justice.” In contrast, empathy as policed and practiced by Humanism only extends to others recognized as Humans. This narrow form of empathy not only excludes nearly all nonhuman animals (with exceptions for select species enfolded into the Human everyday, like dogs), but moreover, such empathy also excludes most humans. Humanism excludes individuals not raced as white, not gendered as masculine, and not able-bodied.Page 99 exemplifies my project in numerous ways. First and foremost, the page illustrates how I read popular culture in relation to critical theory in surprising, unexpected ways. I am certain that if someone randomly picked up my book on Aquaman, they would not expect a detailed discussion of ecofeminism and a critique of humanism! As this page encapsulates, popular culture is a form of critical thinking and engaged readers must learn to swim with the critical currents of popular culture, and at times, learn to swim against such currents. As Fredric Jameson teaches and as my book practices, interpretation is a political act.
In particular, page 99 is part of a chapter that centers on Mera, Aquaman’s intimate partner and a superhero in her own right. This chapter charts how Mera, in the comics, experiences myriad forms of patriarchy when she ventures from the ocean to the surface world. As I argue, when Mera enters what may be called the Kingdom of Humans, she enters a Kingdom of Patriarchy in which women are devalued, degraded, and open to gratuitous forms of violence. Mera, I argue, develops a feminist imagination while on the surface world, and moreover, she inspires alternative reading practices than those practiced by patriarchy, such as ecofeminism, which is discussed on page 99. As I argue, Mera’s experience of systemic and everyday patriarchy in the comic books reflects the treatment of women within the corporate structure of DC Comics, and moreover, anticipates the treatment of Amber Heard, who played Mera in the 2018 blockbuster Aquaman, on social media.
Overall, my book argues that the characters in Aquaman, including Mera and Black Manta, one of the few African American supervillains in mainstream comics, are accessible figures for understanding the centrality of oceans to the modern world, and how these same characters can be used to narrate how ecological justice is inextricable from social justice.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
