April 23rd, 2008
#105- Reverting To (Stereo)Type
It irks me that the only way to convey Colossus’ heritage is through horrible lingual stereotypes. Part of it is Marvel’s general attempts at “ethnifying” their characters–Nightcrawler speaks German, and Gambit pisses off real Cajuns by speaking nothing like them. And Colossus is just as bad–as much as I love the character, he speaks Soviet-era Russian, primarily, despite the fact that it’s no longer accurate for him to do so.
It’s not that big a deal, I guess–just a pet peeve of mine.
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April 23rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I know he’s the goddamned batman, but if nightwing got out of the mansion (going by your bat-pedophile indicators) he should be able to take Bruce in a fight and hence not get clobbered like that. Unless you’re going with Bruce kicking him to the curb for being too old, in which case he wouldn’t have made that comment with nightwings face in piggy-ville. But you normally don’t make glaring errors of continuity, so I’m looking forward to hearing how this one is gonna be resolved.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:21 pm
It’s not a continuity error, he had the drop on him.
And Nightwing, good as he is, so can not take Bruce in a fight.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Colossus just reminds me of James Gandolfini in that gay Charlie Sheen movie Terminal Velocity.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
The problem I feel with the “etnifying” is that if its not there, most people who know the character due to that characteristic, will feel the character isnt itself. So I guess its a tricky spot.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Diego–I agree completely. It’s a necessary evil, I think.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:16 am
If he grew up in Soviet-era Russia, why wouldn’t he still speak it? Unless due to time compression he’s been retconned into having gown up in post-Soviet Russia.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Colossus is easily one of my favorite characters of all time. Also, something interesting to note is that (at least in the novels), he grew up as a farm laborer in a smallish village, pre-involved with the X-men. It’s worth noting that in remote locations Russia, soviet-era language is still spoken frequently. Perhaps this could explain the lovable accent?
Or, you know, they need to make even the commies feel comfortable to fill their Political Correctness Quota.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:21 am
@Poe: Actually, I suppose there may be some traces left–even allowing for time compression, he’d still likely have been a teenager when the USSR disbanded.
Still though–he’s been in America, hanging with the X-Men for how long? You’d think some of his colloquialisms would have dropped off in favor of a common language with his peers.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Y’know what irks me, is the underreprisentation of Canadians through linguistic stereotypes. Shouldn’t the word “ay?” be in every word bubble that Alpha Flight utters?
And when’s the last time Wolverine called someboddy a “hoser”?