Representation of race and gender matters.
W
hen the words
“coming of age story” get tossed around, it’s easy to imagine what the typical plot would be. For the boys, coming of age stories usually involve a grueling, but life-changing journey, taught in class with books like The Outsiders and Lord of the Flies. The girls, however, were treated to some story about a quinceañera where she really wanted to dance with this boy and had to figure out how to get her dad to agree to the dance. I don’t remember the name of this film and everyone in my middle school Spanish class ignored most of the movie. For a long time, I had to live my life with that quinceañera movie being the only coming of age story I ever saw with a non-caucasian female as the titular character. As a young Hispanic girl, that’s insulting. I didn’t become aware of a short cyberpunk comic called The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys until months after the first issue’s publication, but when I did, it wasn’t long before I got my hands on the six-issue miniseries. Written by Shaun Simon and former lead singer of My Chemical Romance Gerard Way, and with art by Becky Cloonan, the comic follows an unnamed 15-year old girl of nondescript ethnicity as she learns how to live in a war-torn desert on the outskirts of a industrial city. Eventually, she learns of a risky way to help
fix the war between the desert and the city, a method that can only be done by her and her alone. She has no parents. Her friends are few and far between. Her actions are, at their core, selfless. Best of all, though, is that she has no love interest and never “gives it all up” or “settles down” for a boy just because he tells her to. Sounds great? It gets better. There are two subplots in the story, completely unrelated to the girl. One of them follows a man who works for the corporate mastermind behind the city and the same-sex relationship he’s trying to hide from them. Eventually, the relationship is violently broken up by the corporation, but more on the grounds that the relationship itself was the problem, not the fact that it was with someone of the same sex. Despite the violence behind the move, and despite that it sends the man into a terrible rage over the loss of his lover, the fact that his lover wasn’t killed for his same-sex relationship was surprisingly refreshing. The other subplot follows the struggles of two poor prostitutes, again in a samesex relationship, as they try to escape the city to go live together in the desert. Their relationship is extremely difficult, but they are a very loving couple, even as one falls incredibly ill. To say that I was giddy to read the comic is an understatement. The lack
of representation of any girl that wasn’t white and who didn’t follow the tired predictable path of falling in love with a boy hit me hard, though I didn’t realize how hard it had hit me until I finished reading the Killjoys comic. Even with Disney’s Mulan, she still falls for a man in the end, which kind of defeats the purpose of an independent woman of color. Seeing a young girl, uncaring of the identity others pushed on her, rise above the odds and selflessly save hundreds between the desert and the city was something I needed to see, and it’s something I want others to see as well. Furthermore, as a person who identifies as bisexual, the presentation of several same-sex couples as being normal human people was relieving and endearing, again more things I needed and want everyone to see. The entire story, published by Dark Horse Comics, first ran in June of 2013 and released its final issue on Jan. 1, 2014. The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys can be purchased at local comic book stores or from the Dark Horse website. Comics may not be everybody’s thing, but stories always will be. All I wanted as a child was a diverse story with characters that represented real people rather than the typical white boy everybody seems to want to talk about. Years later, this comic gave me what I wanted. To that, I say and will continue to say: Killjoys, make some noise!
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