I have a lot of questions about different parts of this title that I don't understand, but I support him.
Marc Tyler Nobleman was supposed to talk to kids about the secret co-creator of Batman, with the aim of inspiring young students in suburban Atlanta’s Forsyth County to research and write.
Then the school district told him he had to cut a key point from his presentation — that the artist he helped rescue from obscurity had a gay son. Rather than acquiesce, he canceled the last of his talks.
First of all thank you for saving a click.
Secondly, Marc Tyler Nobleman is not just a Batman researcher, he is a symbol. What an absolute Chad.
Would he have said the artist had a 'straight' son? Or is it just a son in that case?
Imagine how difficult it is to try to tell people that you are, globally, the pre-eminent batman researcher...
If he's the best, then he's the World's Greatest World's Greatest Detective Detective.
Feels like they're Robin you by not granting it.
These policies are riddled with discrimination and hypocrisy. These extremists need two face reality and put a freeze on them.
Penguin
Penwing
You're quite the joker, aren't you?
...batman researcher?
Comic Book Historian would have been a better title. I thought "batman" might have been referring to an unrelated school or something.
Then the school district told him he had to cut a key point from his presentation — that the artist he helped rescue from obscurity had a gay son. Rather than acquiesce, he canceled the last of his talks.
“We’re long past the point where we should be policing people talking about who they love,” Nobleman said in a telephone interview. “And that’s what I’m hoping will happen in this community.”
They didn't ask him not to "say 'gay'", as the title all but claims. They asked him to participate in the erasure of a relevant gay person from a story he was teaching to children.
I dunno, would he mention the artist had a straight son? Or is it just a son in that case?
It's the son of the artist, right? Did the son have anything to do with Batman? Did the son's sexual orientation have anything to do with Batman?
What else is relevant about the son? Was he an artist? A writer? What did he do for a living? Did he have any relevant health disorders? Food preferences? Did he have any children?
BROADLY SPEAKING, your sexual preferences are the least interesting or relevant things in any conversation, unless we're considering dating each other.
I don't know the history of Batman so maybe it's actually relevant, but my gut says it's just not.
who gives aa shit. telling people what words they can and connote say is the censorship in the extreme.
cannot. for some reason my screen dims when i try to post. won’t post again. for now.
I don't disagree with you at all.
I was responding to someone claiming they were deleting a relevant gay person from history - I was challenging the "relevant" part, that's all.
I personally couldn't care less what this guy put in his presentation.
The son's name is Bruce, his husband's name is Wayne.
Holy crap I've never been so amazed. Yup, 100% relevant.
The son's name was Fred Finger, and he died unmarried in his 40's due to complications from AIDS.
The guy above was joking.
Well it was a good joke.
And that sucks. Fuck AIDS.
My policy has always been that I don't care what you do in your own bedroom unless I'm involved in it, that is. Mainly, I just mean I don't care to know everyone's orientation. It's not something I find relevant in most situations.
Yep, that's my attitude too. Apparently it's unpopular.
What’s your gender identity and sexual orientation?
I identify as tired.
Oh man, I’ve never thought to identify that way. But that’s a good one.
100% stolen from Nanette, a great comedy special/activisty rant by Hannah Gadsby.
Worth a watch even if she's not your cup of tea.
Oh, I remember that. She was pretty great. Gotta see if she has anything new
He should have let himself be fired. Then he could have brought a lawsuit against the school district over the matter. The school district would have had to demonstrate their reason to fire him on the record. If the researcher received damages for wrongful termination, the taxpayers would know it's their money that is being frivolously spent to support someone's homophobic agenda.
Probably couldn't get them for wrongful termination. At-Will employment is a bitch.
But he could likely get unemployment for being terminated without cause, which is a different thing.
he was a one time guest speaker. you don't get to claim unemployment for that. and he chose to cancel, not the school
he was a one time guest speaker
In that case, no reason not to walk.
I knew he'd quit. I was just clarifying that waiting to be fired from a job isn't useful from a "wrongful termination" standpoint because At-Will Employment means "wrongful termination" doesn't really exist in any state except Montana. But if he had been an employee, he would have had grounds to collect unemployment if terminated without cause.
Head of the Batman Research Institute at the Harvard School of Comics.
He was the researcher they needed but not the researcher they deserved.
I am the night... researcher.
Batman researcher? quit? who was paying him in the first place?
Something something something R & D in a big building somewhere downtown
Why was someone from Batman, Turkey even teaching these kids?
Or Batman, Australia (suburb of Melbourne)
Batman researcher?
My man still trying to find out who this mysterious caped crusader is.
Yet another thing I'll never understand about cricket ffs
AKA: World's Greatest Researcher.
He quit researching Batman?
Quit the talk.
Both. He quit the talk AND quit researching Batman. He is now on sabbatical in a trailer near Bend, OR. He has been drinking since yesterday.
Batman researcher
So a comic book enthusiast? Is this dude the real life Comic Book Guy?
"Worst. School talk. Ever."
This is such bullshit.
was he talking about robin
The was talking about robbin'
The world is way more tribalistic than most people realize.
You say or do anything that goes against the tribe you're in, you're going to have a bad time.
That’s pretty much all it is or has ever been. I’m fine with it though. We are what we are.
I’m just happy to be here to play a little music and video games.
My tribe’s music of course. My tribe makes the best music. Of course I feel that way.
I think you have it backwards. People realize tribalism so intrinsically it doesn't even register.
The beauty of the social justice push we've seen from the 70s to today is that it actively tries to counteract the human tribal instinct to create a more fair and inclusive world. Granted, I'm not sure how successful it's been at removing tribalism... it just seems to have redefined the tribes.
Yes, I'm referring to the school or community as the tribe.
Even if they're wrong, since there's more of them than you, they're right.
They can be so right that they all collectively drink poisoned Kool-Aid.
Tribal behavior is simultaneously humankind's greatest strength and its greatest threat.
This is a weird headline. Ok the guy really is a Batman researcher. I'm not sure why it was so important to mention that the Batman co-creator's son was gay though, unless that was somehow relevant to the creation process or his life experience or something.
It's important from a narrative standpoint in telling his own story of researching this; the point of these talks is much less about teaching kids the history of the co-creator of Batman than it is telling the story of the researcher and writer who put that history together. The point is to hopefully inspire a few kids to go down a similar path themselves.
It was presumed, since Bill Finger's only child was a gay man who died thirty years ago, that no heir to his estate existed. The researcher discovering that Bill had a granddaughter would lose its impact without the knowledge that his only child was gay.
Finger died in obscurity in 1974, with artist Bob Kane credited as Batman’s only creator. Finger’s only child was a son, Fred Finger, who was gay and died in 1992 at age 43 of AIDS complications. Bill Finger was presumed to have no living heirs, meaning there was no one to press DC Comics to acknowledge Finger’s work.
But Nobleman discovered Fred Finger had a daughter, Athena Finger. That, he said, is a showcase moment of the presentation he estimates he has given 1,000 times at schools.
“It’s the biggest twist of the story, and it’s usually when I get the most gasps,” Nobleman said. “It’s just a totally record-scratch moment.”
Nobleman’s research helped push DC Comics into reaching a deal with Athena Finger in 2015 to acknowledge her grandfather and Kane as co-creators. That led to the documentary “Batman & Bill,” featuring Nobleman.
Yeah it's a vital component of the story, and any pushback reaks of 'dont say gay'.
The same reason famous women inventors and inventors of color are often singled out to us in gradeschool.
Because history was written almost exclusively by (or at least authored by if they had others write it) heterosexual Caucasian men who largely wrote themselves as the victors of every war, inventor of anything they could take credit for, etc.
A child in that biased vacuum might come to the incorrect conclusion that straight Caucasian men are the best and the brightest rather than the truth: that they're merely the writers of their own historical press releases.
Gay people have invented, authored, and created for all of human history, largely under the guise of being straight lest they be shunned and cast out of halls of power.
That's why it's important to demonstrate to children that creation comes from people who look like and have similar identities to themselves. Imagine being a 13 year old realizing you're gay and remembering that civilization was created largely by straight people who largely also chose to make gay people's lives living hells, if they let them live at all.
yea, though many cultures around the world don't place a high emphasis on these kind of values
Wtf. There was no gay invention of Batman.
The point is the co-creator only had one son who was gay and had died in the 90s, so has no living heir to fight for his recognition. By surprise twist, his gay son had a daughter! That's the whole thing. That's why it's interesting.
Oh god, the humanity, the children!!
Gay people have invented, authored, and created for all of human history, largely under the guise of being straight lest they be shunned and cast out of halls of power.
No the persons comment was very much lumping the creation of Batman under this. Like, yes, the story is cool and very surprising given the circumstances. But that isn't what the person you're replying to is taking issue with.
What would this be called, gay-washing? I don't know, I also don't really care. I'm just pointing out what I see.
Yes. I am well aware of the Finger family and have been a long supporter of getting his name on the comics.
The above comment directly links the creation of the character to a son who had nothing to do with the creation.
His son would’ve been his only heir eligible to receive compensation if DC ever made things right, but he died young (from AIDS) and never had any children himself (because he was gay).
Edif: He did have a child! Wow!
Wow!
And this reaction is precisely the reason why the son being gay is a key point of the talk (it's the twist of the story, and Finger's gay son having a daughter who could demand restitution was the only reason DC eventually recognised him as co-creator!), and why removing that fact from the talk wouldn't just be homophobic, but also profoundly stupid (not that being homophobic isn't profoundly stupid already, of course, but this makes it stupidity squared).
Since nobody read the damn thing: it was a key talking point
Finger’s only child was a son, Fred Finger, who was gay and died in 1992 at age 43 of AIDS complications. Bill Finger was presumed to have no living heirs, meaning there was no one to press DC Comics to acknowledge Finger’s work.
But Nobleman discovered Fred Finger had a daughter, Athena Finger. That, he said, is a showcase moment of the presentation he estimates he has given 1,000 times at schools.
“It’s the biggest twist of the story, and it’s usually when I get the most gasps,” Nobleman said. “It’s just a totally record-scratch moment.”
Ok so they didn't think the son had an heir but he actually did, I still am not sure that the son's sexual orientation is that important in a story about Batman to elementary school kids.
The only reason someone would get offended at the mere mention of gay people existing to elementary school kids is that they don't want gay people to exist. Take a look at yourself and ask why this upsets you.
It’s not a story about Batman. It’s a story about the creation of Batman. That’s why it’s important.
And about DC being arses, and Finger's gay son having against all expectations a daughter being the only reason said arses eventually recognised him as co-creator.
Why are straight white people the only people who don't need a plot justification to exist?
Non-straight here: It would be just as weird to mention heterosexual people being straight when it's irrelevant to the conversation, IMO. If you're making a point to mention the person's sexuality, there should be a reason for it.
In this case, it did have that. He was known to be gay, but turned out to have a daughter that no one knew about.
But we absolutely see backlash of the type of "why does he have to be gay" in response to something as simple as two men holding hands, or other things that would never be seen as "making a point to mention someone's sexuality" if that sexuality is straight. I'm generalizing away from this particular example and addressing the idea that anything that isn't cishet is abnormal and requires justification.
They're agreeing with you by saying that no one's sexuality should be forced to be disclosed, much less should it require justification unless absolutely necessary.
This isn't about forcing people to disclose their sexuality. "Why does he have to be gay?" Is almost always an effort to force people not to disclose their sexuality, but it's only ever used when the sexuality being disclosed is non-straight. You have never seen and will never see any reaction at all to a straight cis male character simply using the phrase "my wife" but a cis female character doing exactly the same will elicit a backlash. They'll dress it up as being against unnecessary sexualization, but the only sexualization that's ever unnecessary is queer sexualization. Straight sexualization is never a problem.
I have a lot of questions about different parts of this title that I don't understand, but I support him.
First of all thank you for saving a click. Secondly, Marc Tyler Nobleman is not just a Batman researcher, he is a symbol. What an absolute Chad.
Would he have said the artist had a 'straight' son? Or is it just a son in that case?
Are your panties in a bunch?
Lol, what?
Are yours?
I want the title of “Batman researcher”
Dark Knight Detective
World's Greatest Detective Detective.
Curator of Caped Crusader curiosities
Imagine how difficult it is to try to tell people that you are, globally, the pre-eminent batman researcher...
If he's the best, then he's the World's Greatest World's Greatest Detective Detective.
Feels like they're Robin you by not granting it.
These policies are riddled with discrimination and hypocrisy. These extremists need two face reality and put a freeze on them.
Penguin
Penwing
You're quite the joker, aren't you?
...batman researcher?
Comic Book Historian would have been a better title. I thought "batman" might have been referring to an unrelated school or something.
They didn't ask him not to "say 'gay'", as the title all but claims. They asked him to participate in the erasure of a relevant gay person from a story he was teaching to children.
I dunno, would he mention the artist had a straight son? Or is it just a son in that case?
Wait, was it a relevant person?
It's the son of the artist, right? Did the son have anything to do with Batman? Did the son's sexual orientation have anything to do with Batman?
What else is relevant about the son? Was he an artist? A writer? What did he do for a living? Did he have any relevant health disorders? Food preferences? Did he have any children?
BROADLY SPEAKING, your sexual preferences are the least interesting or relevant things in any conversation, unless we're considering dating each other.
I don't know the history of Batman so maybe it's actually relevant, but my gut says it's just not.
who gives aa shit. telling people what words they can and connote say is the censorship in the extreme.
cannot. for some reason my screen dims when i try to post. won’t post again. for now.
I don't disagree with you at all.
I was responding to someone claiming they were deleting a relevant gay person from history - I was challenging the "relevant" part, that's all.
I personally couldn't care less what this guy put in his presentation.
The son's name is Bruce, his husband's name is Wayne.
Holy crap I've never been so amazed. Yup, 100% relevant.
The son's name was Fred Finger, and he died unmarried in his 40's due to complications from AIDS.
The guy above was joking.
Well it was a good joke.
And that sucks. Fuck AIDS.
My policy has always been that I don't care what you do in your own bedroom unless I'm involved in it, that is. Mainly, I just mean I don't care to know everyone's orientation. It's not something I find relevant in most situations.
Yep, that's my attitude too. Apparently it's unpopular.
What’s your gender identity and sexual orientation?
I identify as tired.
Oh man, I’ve never thought to identify that way. But that’s a good one.
100% stolen from Nanette, a great comedy special/activisty rant by Hannah Gadsby.
Worth a watch even if she's not your cup of tea.
Oh, I remember that. She was pretty great. Gotta see if she has anything new
He should have let himself be fired. Then he could have brought a lawsuit against the school district over the matter. The school district would have had to demonstrate their reason to fire him on the record. If the researcher received damages for wrongful termination, the taxpayers would know it's their money that is being frivolously spent to support someone's homophobic agenda.
Probably couldn't get them for wrongful termination. At-Will employment is a bitch.
But he could likely get unemployment for being terminated without cause, which is a different thing.
he was a one time guest speaker. you don't get to claim unemployment for that. and he chose to cancel, not the school
In that case, no reason not to walk.
I knew he'd quit. I was just clarifying that waiting to be fired from a job isn't useful from a "wrongful termination" standpoint because At-Will Employment means "wrongful termination" doesn't really exist in any state except Montana. But if he had been an employee, he would have had grounds to collect unemployment if terminated without cause.
a….batman researcher? 🤣
Head of the Batman Research Institute at the Harvard School of Comics.
He was the researcher they needed but not the researcher they deserved.
I am the night... researcher.
Batman researcher? quit? who was paying him in the first place?
Something something something R & D in a big building somewhere downtown
Why was someone from Batman, Turkey even teaching these kids?
Or Batman, Australia (suburb of Melbourne)
Batman researcher?
My man still trying to find out who this mysterious caped crusader is.
Yet another thing I'll never understand about cricket ffs
AKA: World's Greatest Researcher.
He quit researching Batman?
Quit the talk.
Both. He quit the talk AND quit researching Batman. He is now on sabbatical in a trailer near Bend, OR. He has been drinking since yesterday.
So a comic book enthusiast? Is this dude the real life Comic Book Guy?
"Worst. School talk. Ever."
This is such bullshit.
was he talking about robin
The was talking about robbin'
The world is way more tribalistic than most people realize.
You say or do anything that goes against the tribe you're in, you're going to have a bad time.
That’s pretty much all it is or has ever been. I’m fine with it though. We are what we are.
I’m just happy to be here to play a little music and video games.
My tribe’s music of course. My tribe makes the best music. Of course I feel that way.
I think you have it backwards. People realize tribalism so intrinsically it doesn't even register.
The beauty of the social justice push we've seen from the 70s to today is that it actively tries to counteract the human tribal instinct to create a more fair and inclusive world. Granted, I'm not sure how successful it's been at removing tribalism... it just seems to have redefined the tribes.
Yes, I'm referring to the school or community as the tribe.
Even if they're wrong, since there's more of them than you, they're right.
They can be so right that they all collectively drink poisoned Kool-Aid.
Tribal behavior is simultaneously humankind's greatest strength and its greatest threat.
This is a weird headline. Ok the guy really is a Batman researcher. I'm not sure why it was so important to mention that the Batman co-creator's son was gay though, unless that was somehow relevant to the creation process or his life experience or something.
It's important from a narrative standpoint in telling his own story of researching this; the point of these talks is much less about teaching kids the history of the co-creator of Batman than it is telling the story of the researcher and writer who put that history together. The point is to hopefully inspire a few kids to go down a similar path themselves.
It was presumed, since Bill Finger's only child was a gay man who died thirty years ago, that no heir to his estate existed. The researcher discovering that Bill had a granddaughter would lose its impact without the knowledge that his only child was gay.
Yeah it's a vital component of the story, and any pushback reaks of 'dont say gay'.
The same reason famous women inventors and inventors of color are often singled out to us in gradeschool.
Because history was written almost exclusively by (or at least authored by if they had others write it) heterosexual Caucasian men who largely wrote themselves as the victors of every war, inventor of anything they could take credit for, etc.
A child in that biased vacuum might come to the incorrect conclusion that straight Caucasian men are the best and the brightest rather than the truth: that they're merely the writers of their own historical press releases.
Gay people have invented, authored, and created for all of human history, largely under the guise of being straight lest they be shunned and cast out of halls of power.
That's why it's important to demonstrate to children that creation comes from people who look like and have similar identities to themselves. Imagine being a 13 year old realizing you're gay and remembering that civilization was created largely by straight people who largely also chose to make gay people's lives living hells, if they let them live at all.
yea, though many cultures around the world don't place a high emphasis on these kind of values
Wtf. There was no gay invention of Batman.
The point is the co-creator only had one son who was gay and had died in the 90s, so has no living heir to fight for his recognition. By surprise twist, his gay son had a daughter! That's the whole thing. That's why it's interesting.
Oh god, the humanity, the children!!
No the persons comment was very much lumping the creation of Batman under this. Like, yes, the story is cool and very surprising given the circumstances. But that isn't what the person you're replying to is taking issue with.
What would this be called, gay-washing? I don't know, I also don't really care. I'm just pointing out what I see.
Yes. I am well aware of the Finger family and have been a long supporter of getting his name on the comics.
The above comment directly links the creation of the character to a son who had nothing to do with the creation.
His son would’ve been his only heir eligible to receive compensation if DC ever made things right, but he died young (from AIDS) and never had any children himself (because he was gay).
Edif: He did have a child! Wow!
And this reaction is precisely the reason why the son being gay is a key point of the talk (it's the twist of the story, and Finger's gay son having a daughter who could demand restitution was the only reason DC eventually recognised him as co-creator!), and why removing that fact from the talk wouldn't just be homophobic, but also profoundly stupid (not that being homophobic isn't profoundly stupid already, of course, but this makes it stupidity squared).
Since nobody read the damn thing: it was a key talking point
Ok so they didn't think the son had an heir but he actually did, I still am not sure that the son's sexual orientation is that important in a story about Batman to elementary school kids.
The only reason someone would get offended at the mere mention of gay people existing to elementary school kids is that they don't want gay people to exist. Take a look at yourself and ask why this upsets you.
It’s not a story about Batman. It’s a story about the creation of Batman. That’s why it’s important.
And about DC being arses, and Finger's gay son having against all expectations a daughter being the only reason said arses eventually recognised him as co-creator.
Why are straight white people the only people who don't need a plot justification to exist?
Non-straight here: It would be just as weird to mention heterosexual people being straight when it's irrelevant to the conversation, IMO. If you're making a point to mention the person's sexuality, there should be a reason for it.
In this case, it did have that. He was known to be gay, but turned out to have a daughter that no one knew about.
But we absolutely see backlash of the type of "why does he have to be gay" in response to something as simple as two men holding hands, or other things that would never be seen as "making a point to mention someone's sexuality" if that sexuality is straight. I'm generalizing away from this particular example and addressing the idea that anything that isn't cishet is abnormal and requires justification.
They're agreeing with you by saying that no one's sexuality should be forced to be disclosed, much less should it require justification unless absolutely necessary.
This isn't about forcing people to disclose their sexuality. "Why does he have to be gay?" Is almost always an effort to force people not to disclose their sexuality, but it's only ever used when the sexuality being disclosed is non-straight. You have never seen and will never see any reaction at all to a straight cis male character simply using the phrase "my wife" but a cis female character doing exactly the same will elicit a backlash. They'll dress it up as being against unnecessary sexualization, but the only sexualization that's ever unnecessary is queer sexualization. Straight sexualization is never a problem.