The Poor Representation of Alinta/Bolt as an Aboriginal Australian
I read Teen Titan Academy recently, the main reason being Alinta. There are not many Australian characters in comics so as an Aussie I was so excited to see her. There’s a lot that can be said about the comic series itself, but generally I’ve seen people love Alinta. I mean what's not to love?
She’s a speedster with below the knee amputations, she’s confident, brave, strong. Amanda Waller even called her one of the fastest metahuman on the planet.
Reading through the series, I loved Alinta too. She is truly an incredible character with so much unused potential. However, despite my love for this character she is not perfect. Another aspect of Alinta’s character is she is an Aboriginal Australian, an aspect which is poorly portrayed and utilised.
There are very few Australian characters in mainstream comics, less of which are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders. DC Comics and specifically Teen Titans as a title are incredibly popular in the comic community. Having a character like Alinta could have been a fantastic opportunity to spread awareness of Indigenous Australians to an audience that are primarily non-Australians.
So, here I am, writing out the poor representation of Alinta aka Bolt as an Aboriginal Australian.
This is not to attack the writers or anyone else who worked on this series, but just to bring awareness to this issue which I find important.
DISCLAIMER: I am not an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. My information is based on research I have done, conversations I have had with Kaurna people and elders, and generally things I have learnt throughout my life in Australia. If information is wrong I would appreciate being informed of it. I will talk a lot about generalisation and the harm it does for Indigenous Australian, however I will need to generalise myself a fair bit as Alinta does not have a defined mob.
Quick history lesson. (CW: colonisation and it's effects) When Australia was colonised by the British they claimed control over the country through an idea called “terra nullius”, meaning land belonging to nobody. This was and still is incorrect. For more than 60,000 years people had lived in Australia, in many defined nations, and over 250 unique languages. Upon arrival colonisation lead to years of genocide and displacement. Indigenous people were classified as fauna and fauna which enabled people to consistently harm them. The most well known events being the Stolen Generation in which children were kidnapped from their families, moved across the country, and abused in every way in “homes” designed to “eradicate the Aboriginal and Torre Strait Islanders” by removing them from their family and culture. This only officially ended approximately 60 years ago. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander still suffer many lasting effects from this history, including lower average lifespan, higher incarceration, higher poverty rates, and more. While apologises have been made, events organised, and the Native Title act established, there is still a long way to go.
Australia always was and always will be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land.
I encourage you to read more about not only this history but also pre-colonialism history if given the chance.
While reading the comics the thing that stood out to me most was how Alinta spoke. The Teen Titan Academy run was written by Tim Sheridan with an addition suicide squad tie in being written by Robbie Thompson. Throughout all these comics Thompson's writing of Alinta’s dialogue was better in my opinion as she talks like an Australian. Sheridan’s dialogue for her, for some reason, has her use no conjunctions.
For any other character this would typically not be an issue. However, Alinta grew up in the Australian outback. From an Aussie perspective, the lack of conjunctions made her speech feel clunky and off-putting. Not every Australian talked like a true blue Aussie of course. There are many factors that go into an Australian accent and dialect, for example your family, where you live, etc. Someone who lived in the middle of Sydney their whole life might use a lot less slang terms or conjunctions as someone living in a country town.
Alinta is shown to have lived in Oodnadatta, South Australia. This town has a population of less than 200 and is about as middle of nowhere as you can get. This makes how she speaks feel really off.
It’s not like Sheridan can’t write accents either, as in later issues Captain Boomerang appears and speaks with a very obvious Aussie accent.
The way English is spoken in Australia is defined as Standard Australian English (AusE). This is based on how words are pronounced and how the average Australian speaks. However, this is not the only English spoken in Australia as Aboriginal English (AbE) is also widely spoken in Aboriginal groups. It’s important to note AbE is not a branch of AusE but that both dialects evolved from English on their own. So okay, Alinta doesn’t use AusE, that's fine, but she also doesn’t use AbE.
The only example I could find of her using AbE is when she called her friend and roommate “Tidda”. This means sister or close female friend. It is described as “...a word that carries deep meaning and resonates with sisterhood, friendship, and kinship.” She calls Summer this a few times, one of which being when they just become friends.
Teen Titan Academy #1 and #3
This could be used to show the two have a very deep bond with each other but aside from Alinta telling her how she lost her legs, and they don’t have many meaningful interactions. Which is very unfortunate because they could have been a very cute duo.
Aside from calling Summer Tidda, Alinta doesn’t use any other word, phrases, or even speak grammatically with AbE. Even more common words such as calling something “deadly” meaning something cool.
She also uses the term “nation” (which is not incorrect per say) to refer to her family group instead of what is more commonly used “mob”. This brings me to my next point.
I can not tell if Alinta is supposed to have a connection to her culture or not. Ignoring the way she is represented and just thinking about the writer's intentions it is almost impossible to tell.
Starting with evidence against having a connection Amanda Waller consistently brings up that she helped Alinta after her parents abandoned her, however says it often in a way implying she did her a favour taking her from her county.
Not once does Alinta reject this idea, only speaking out to Waller when she says she owns Alinta. This is an incredible problematic because of Australian history with the stolen generation. The idea that removing Aboriginal children from their families, mob, Country, nation, and culture was saving them, helping them, was a great and honourable thing for them to do. The fact that Alinta doesn’t speak out against Waller words makes it seems like Alinta was disconnected from her culture. Maybe her parents isolated her so she was not able to have a connection to Country or her Mob. That would make sense why she doesn’t speak out.
Except other times, Sheridan seems to try to show she does have a connection to her mob. When training she comments that she “...didn’t leave my home…” implying despite what her parents put her through she still views Oodanatta as a home she is connected to.
Alinta refers to her mob as “good people” implying she was connected to them. But again in the breath says her family is not good. This goes against Aboriginal ways of family connections. In Western Cultures you have your parents, their siblings are your aunts and uncles, their children your cousins, etc etc. Aboriginal kinship has your parents and their siblings are your mums and dads, what would be our aunts and uncles children are your siblings. Your Aunts and Uncles are members of your wider community.
I mentioned generalisation and how it is negative for Aboriginal communities, I should explain why. Generalisation has been used to erase Aboriginal cultures. By defining everyone as just one group it erases their Lore, language, history, Protocols, practices, knowledge, their very Identity. I apologised for having to generalise throughout this as my main issue with Alinta’s representation is she does not have a defined mob. She has been generalised as just Aboriginal, not even that, as just Indigenous. Whether it is from lack of caring or wanting to not be restricted to one group that is just wrong to do.
Looking at the Map of Indigenous Australia by AIATSIS, Oodnadatta is located in the Arabana nation. This is also known as Ngarabana meaning land of mound springs, Arabana meaning Sturt Desert Pea, a flower that grows in the desert. This Country has Native Title over 69000 km of their land and unfortunately their language is at a steep decline with only 31 speakers in 2021 down from 250 speakers in 2004. I would have loved to make this post basing Alinta off the Arabana people but even her living in that Country doesn’t mean they are her mob. The displacement caused by the Stolen Generation caused many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to be separated from the Country meaning she may not even know who her mob is.
So much more can be said about this but I’m already at 1500+ words.
Any way Sheridan could have gone about making her character, being a girl connected to her culture or not, would have added so much more to her. How is she handling not only losing her legs and parents but also going across the world and being completely disconnected from her Country? Does she know the language? Does she know her mob? Does she want to reconnect with them? Has she already reconnected?
Alinta being Aboriginal is completely removable from her character. Her ethnicity could be replaced with any other one across the world, and it would not affect her character. Why make an Aboriginal charter and show such little care for her, you don’t make her Aboriginal. She feels like a diversity points character, which is crazy because how her disability is written doesn’t feel like it's to hit a quota.
I understand Teen Titans Academy had a lot of new characters made and minor characters re-introduced to comics. But that doesn’t excuse the poor representation of her Aboriginality.
As I’ve said Alinta is an incredible character with so much unused potential. I hope she comes back in comics, in more than just an image. She is not a lost cause in terms of accurately and respectfully portraying her as an Aboriginal Australian. If that is going to happen however, the writers need to care enough about her to actually research and talk to Aboriginal people.
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