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Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

This is a serious mic-drop line that had my jaw hanging open:

> In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.

Super heroes capes and masks as inspired by KKK hoods? I don't think it was probably intentional/conscious in the minds of those who originated it, and I don't think Moore necessarily means it was either... but it's definitely an interesting cultural collective unconsciousness sort of lineage.

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Superman was created by two Jewish guys who would have been quite unpopular with the Klan. His costume was inspired by circus strongmen, not the Night Riders.

Art can be inspired by or a reference to something without being an endorsement or homage to it.

Can be unconscious/unintentional connections too.

But I think Moore's real point is simply that the Birth of the Nation does some of the same things as later superhero movies, with the KKK as the superheroes. They also happen to wear uniforms that are strikingly similar as it happens...

But it doesn't mean Siegel and Shuster were consciously -- or even unconsciously -- inspired by Birth of a Nation and the KKK. It might mean that there is a connection/commonalities in the reasons both forms were so popular.

Birth of a Nation was released in 1915. It was enormously popular, it was not some fringe thing, it was a mainstream popular success which generally did not have it's politics questioned in the mainstream, although there were protests by Black people. According to wikipedia, "It presented the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as a heroic force." Heroic, eh?

Superman's first apperance was in 1938.

There's a difference between the KKK being represented as heroic in BoaN and the KKK being the origin of all super heroes, though. Moore is slandering the genre, or at least attempting to, by association, and that association is absolutely not deserved.

Every culture has heroes, and every culture tells tales of impossible heroics. It would be more accurate to call Achilles the first superhero, or Beowulf, or Gilgamesh. All of these characters are larger than life, and all of them are morally flawed.

American racists had racist, American heroes. That doesn't mean that Captain America is devoid of commentary about the nation's role in today's world. And if Moore had watched Civil War, for example, I think even he would be forced to agree.

The original Superman also wasn't raised as a corn fed All-American from Iowa with good moral farming parents. He was supposed to come from an orphanage. One must wonder why the former origin story turned out to be much more appealing.

Right, because the Jewish creators of many of the most famous super heroes were all about the White Christian supremacists.

It's been said by academics and by Moore elsewhere that Batman's look and method of operating seems to resemble the KKK.

Everything can look like KKK if you really, desperately want to make it into a race issue.

Far from academic, but this is the first thing that came to my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l1PMVvfjDM

So does captain underpants. Let’s just ignore the much more likelier option that Batman operates exactly like you’d expect a billionaire vigilante too and he almost never kills...

I must have missed the issue where Batman leaves a burning cross on Mr Freeze's yard.

Alan Moore is a great writer, and he's also a self-important kook. There's no connection between the KKK and comic book heroes.

Right, the man sure knows how to turn a phrase! One of the best ever.

He's not saying there is a connection.

He's saying that there are so many white heroes and the whole culture of the "super men" in comics, that they might as well have been the "Birth of a Nation".

Nothing kooky about it.

>I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race.

It is kooky, and ironic, to imply that people dream of racial genocide solely because of the color of their skin.

What? What are you talking about, where did Moore or anyone in this thread do that?

If you are trying to suggest that the movie Birth of the Nation glorifying the KKK, or the KKK itself, have nothing to do with white supremacy and racial genocide... then we're just done here.

Master race != racial genocide. Master race could even have pity or compassion for the lesser race. The key differentiation is not that of genocide vs not genocide, is of imagining a superior set of people, vs not doing it.

Super heroes are described as that superior set of people, more advanced than mere humans (stronger, smarter, genetically advanced in many cases, and more relevant to boot). Heck, even the name superhero/supermen etc alludes to Nietchtze's and the Nazis' Ubermench.

They are also predominantly white, with good looks and physique.

That's the very definition of a super race...

Just saying it isn't so isn't an argument.

To be fair, Moore didn't really flesh out the argument either. But I definitely find it enticing. if you don't, that's fine.

If you try hard enough you can attribute anything to racism and half our country is ignorant enough to believe it.

Masking goes back a long way to Athenian theatre and religion

I'd point to that right alongside the recent obsession with bacon as a subtle anti-Jewish anti-Muslim sentiment. Certainly plenty of folks do just like the taste of the stuff, but I think often those folks are along for the ride on the coattails of a dog-whistle.

If you're someone whose faith commands that you not go near swine of any sort, a catalog with several pages of bacon-themed products might start to feel like it was written with someone else in mind...

Why can't a BLT just be a BLT? Seems like a reach.

Pretty positive the person you are replying to is being sarcastic and/or trolling, and agrees with you.

Or just a clever marketing campaign by the pork industry...

Bacon is delicious. Nobody is forcing you to eat any.

That's why I'm always leery of ordering shrimp cocktail when having dinner with my Jewish friends.

- signed, the world's most passive aggressive dinner companion

Sorry to break the bad news, but Carly Simon was probably singing about someone else...

While bacon-mania certainly has some corporate/big-farm backing, and at least a small amount of being a pushback (like some pro-steak sentiments) to being demonised by some for your choice of food preference, I find it more than a bit of a stretch to suggest there is any antireligion thing going on aside from those few for who everything is a chance to be anti-[insert-religion-or-other-thing-here] that they jump at enthusiastically.

Most Americans probably don't even know that practicing Jews don't eat bacon. If anything, snarky bacon memes seem to be directed at vegans.

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