Hero Me Not: The Containment of the Most Powerful Black, Female Superhero by Chesya Burke (review)

Reviewed by: Hero Me Not: The Containment of the Most Powerful Black, Female Superhero by Chesya Burke Ravynn K. Stringfield (bio) Chesya Burke. Hero Me Not: The Containment of the Most Powerful Black, Female Superhero. Rutgers University Press, 2023. 172 pp, 150, 30. 95. In Hero Me Not: The Containment of the Most Powerful Black, Female Superhero, English and Africana Studies professor Chesya Burke investigates how stereotypes and controlling images of Black women place significant limitations and burdens on one of comics media's most recognizable Black superheroines: Ororo Munroe, better known as Storm of X-Men fame. The book begins with a set of guiding questions: "Why is it so necessary for Black women to be oppressed in order for other groups to be empowered? Is there a Black woman character that is strong and powerful enough to End Page 91 overcome this containment and oppression? " (9). Burke sets the stage for her analysis by providing examples from fantasy media of Black women being beholden to the whims of their white writers. For instance, she uses the character Tara Mae Thornton from the television show True Blood as a case study in how Black women are made to conform to the ideal of the Strong Black Woman but then are quickly disempowered. According to Burke, Tara is contained by both vampirism and the desires of her creators (7–8). Drawing on the frameworks and methods of Black feminist thought and context analysis, Burke's book is organized into three larger sections: 1. Foundational work on stereotypes and Black feminism (chapter 2) ; 2. Justification and legitimization of the use of comics as objects of inquiry in academic study (chapter 3) ; and 3. Analysis of Storm in select comics (chapter 4) and in the live action films (chapter 5). Burke's second chapter looks at the history of superheroes and stereotypes. She argues that "superheroes are. . . the imaginary ideal reflections of society" (13). The remainder of the chapter specifically investigates controlling images as a particular example of stereotypes that have a profound effect on Black women, following the work of Black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins. Collins describes controlling images as insidious because the stereotypes they are built on begin to justify the conditions of oppression, "making racism, sexism, poverty and other forms of social injustice appear to be natural, normal, and inevitable parts of everyday life. "1 Of those controlling images, the one she is most concerned with is that of the Negro Spiritual Woman, an original concept that combines the Strong Black Woman and the Magical Negro but differs from the Magical Negro in one important way: the use of sexuality. Burke argues that the creation of Storm as a character was the result of a combination of these stereotypes, as well as the Jezebel, to create a new type of Black woman in media who offers the guidance of the Magical Negro and the supposed resilience of the Strong Black Woman but retains the sexuality of the Jezebel. Burke uses character examples from films such as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, Children of Men, and Beasts of the Southern Wild to establish the trope. In her examination of film, Burke asks whether comics as a form can offer more freedom to Black women in fantasy. Chapter 3 examines how controlling images of Black women and girls function in comics. Burke argues that Black women traditionally hold a limited number of roles in comics—quiet queen, dominant diva, scandalous sojourner—and ultimately concludes that the damage created by these limited images of Black people can be as important as physical harm (53). Burke writes: "Comic books placed Black bodies in the place of white ones to express a false sense of racial equality, without having the characters challenge the status quo. This infusion of Blackness into the mostly white supernatural comic book world did two things: maintained the status quo and white domination over it; and often played on long held ideas of controlling images" (48). End Page 92 Burke's analysis of Storm in comics is preceded by a short history of the character. The analysis showcases how Storm's character reflected and revised stereotypes over. . .