Debbie Schlussel completely misses the point of ‘Watchmen’
You’ve probably heard the schoolyard snap: "Yo’mama’s so dumb she failed a Rorschach test." I never thought I’d find a case where it’s actually true, but lo and behold, Arne Starr pointed me to one.
Perhaps you know the old joke: A man goes to a psychologist and says, "Doc, I got a real problem… I can’t stop thinking about sex."
The psychologist says, "Well let’s see what we can find out", and pulls out his ink blots. "What is this a picture of?"
The man looks the picture upside down then turns it around and states, "That’s a man and a woman on a bed making love."
"Uh-huh. And what is this a picture of?"
"Well, that’s a man and a woman on a bicycle making love."
The psychologist tries again with the third ink blot. "What is this a picture of?"
"Obviously, that’s a man and a woman in a volcano making love."
The psychologist states, "Well, yes, you do seem to be obsessed with sex."
"Me? Doctor, you’re the one who keeps showing me the dirty pictures!"
Which brings us to Debbie Schlussel. Debbie is a conservative activist and occassional movie critic and she thinks that if you see Watchmen, you’re "probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being."
She spends the first half of her review saying that the movie isn’t for children (no "kidding", Debbie, that’s why it has an R rating) and bemoans the fact that "plenty of clueless parents brought their young kids and kept them there for the entire almost three hour "experience" at the screening I attended". Now, her article went up on March 4th, so the only way that she could have seen it would have been at some sort of industry screening or press event. I’ve been to a few of them in my day, and I never remember children being present at such events.
She also decries the amounts of sex, violence, brutality, bad language, and other things that make her feel icky.
But most amazingly, she claims to be a great conservative thinker, and yet somehow never connects with the core question of the film. And that core question is this:
How far will you go to save your world?
It’s really a simple question, but it has very complicated answers.
Would you kill a child molester who fed his victim to his dogs? Obvious sexual deviancy, right? What about killing lesbians, then?
Would you break into prison to release a criminal? What if you knew he wasn’t a criminal, but couldn’t prove it?
Would you shoot police officers who were getting in your way of saving the world? How about if they were just preventing you from beating up on crooks?
Would you lie to bring down a presidential candidate, perhaps by accusing him of being a Muslim (like that’s bad in and of itself) in order to save the country? In Debbie’s case, we already know her answer to that question, character assassination is okay— so how about assassinating the President outright? Is that cool? Or assassinating reporters who might bring government misdeeds to light?
Would you kill a person to protect the world? How about killing someone in self-defense?
How about more than one person? How about three? Thirty? Three thousand? Three hundred thousand? Three million people? How many people is it okay to kill in order to protect the world? Would you fly a plane into a building? Would you invade a country? Would you nuke a city?
Who appoints themselves to make these decisions? And who watches over them?
All of these are valid questions brought up, implicitly or explicitly, in Watchmen. And if Ms. Schlussel was a deep thinker, or had any self-awareness at all, some of those questions might occur to her.
But Ms. Schlussel, sadly, can’t see any of that.
All she sees… are dirty pictures.
One more note: Ms. Schlussel goes way overboard in a follow up piece, complete with a Godwin’s Law violation:
Poor Hitler. If only he’d made Mein Kampf into a comic book instead of an actual written screed. Then, the ovens of Auschwitz and the human lampshades would be all the rage and cool of kitsch.
As it happens, I happen to have Hitler’s thoughts on the matter:
Ya know, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with her review if it didn't sound like it was written by a 16-year old girl. The sarcasm is just so extreme. The holier-than-thou, stick-my-fingers-in-my-ears-and-go-lalalalalalala attitude is completely off-putting. She's everything that's wrong with religion.
Was her maiden name Debbie Wertham?
I wrote an overly long response to Debbie Schlussel's mess of a review on her sight. Here it is:Debbie, You have made the repeated claim that "Watchmen" is being marketed to children. I don't see it. Where are "The Watchmen" lunch boxes, sleeping bags, board games, jigsaw puzzles, Junior Novelizations or board books?. There aren't any. There are a few collectible action figures, intended for adults, like this one of Silk Spectre: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productI…But there isn't the marketing push that even "Dark Knight" got! (And THAT is another movie I would NOT bring a child to see either!) The few Watchmen "toys" I've seen are priced outside of kid's budgets and not designed to be cute, cuddly or playful. What children's TV shows have been showing commercials for "The Watchmen"? My daughters watch a lot of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel. I can't recall ONE Watchmen commercial there, not even late night.You've said that the PROOF that the movie is being marketed to children is that you SAW several parents bring children to the movie. We can agree that children seeing this movie is a BAD idea. But a few parents having poor judgment isn't the fault of the movie studio or the movie. The movie is after all RATED "R"!Are car manufactures at fault when a parent decides to let their children ride in a car without a child safety seat or without buckling their seat belts at all? At some point, raising children becomes the PERSONAL responsibility of the PARENTS. We can't legislate every aspect of good parenting. Your review calls the characters of Silk Spectre "slutty." I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've read the novel. I never interpreted the characters as "slutty." You say, "tis movie concludes that the rape was a good thing b/c the slutty superhero had a slutty superhero daughter from him;" Seriously? You think that's the viewpoint of the story, writer, director or ANY of the characters? That rape is a good thing?I really don't think the story of "The Watchmen" advocates raping women because their daughters might turn out to be sexy superheroes. I think the rape scene is there to show that The Comedian isn't the "Hero" that the Government describes him to be, but is instead an amoral sociopath.Are you advocating the notion that women who dress provocatively are asking to be raped? That they are deserving of being raped? Are you advocating that victims of rape have a moral obligation to immediately attempt to get an abortion? You claim to have a conservative viewpoint. What is your conservative view? Should a woman who has been raped have the right to choose to have an abortion? Should she have the right to choose to have the child and raise it? Which is the better (more moral) choice?See? Life is full of difficult moral choices. That is part of what the story of the Watchmen is about. It's a Morality Play: People who live by absolute moral codes (like Rorshach); People who have no moral code at all (like the Comedian); People who over intellectualize, until they have no gut sense of right and wrong (like Dr. Manhattan); People who want to do the right thing, but aren't sure what that is (like Owlman); And people who are willing to twist their own moral codes to achieve what they think are necessary ends (like Ozymandias).These are pertinent questions. Did the United States have the moral authority to break international law and our own laws and our own established moral codes by TORTURING people? What if the end was an attempt to maintain peace and order and fight "terrorism"? Do we have the right to become terrorists ourselves in our attempts at fighting terrorism? If our President decides he has the authority to lock up anybody just for suspicion of terrorism, who can stop him? Who watches the watchmen?Yes, "The Watchmen" are NOT your classic funny-book heroes. I don't think it was anybody's intention to set up the characters as "Paragons of Virtue." They are conflicted and sometimes very ugly. Some of them are morally degenerate. They are violent. They dress provocatively or not at all! (Do you think Dr. Manhattan deserves to raped because he runs about naked? Why do you think the character was naked? Was it just to be provocative, to shock you? You mentioned the computer enhanced penis THREE times in your review. Obviously it made an impression.) Debbie, I think you got so caught up in your moral outrage at some parents inappropriately bringing their kids to this movie, that you missed the whole point of the story. And I really don't think it was anyone's intention to make this movie for children OR market it toward them! I think most people can agree, "The Watchmen" isn't a movie intended for children.
It's obvious to me from the tenor and language of the review that this woman fancies herself an Ann Coulter in the making. She's deliberately using inflammatory statements to get people to her blog to gape in horror and shake their fists because it drives her numbers up.Ignore her. If you never heard of her prior to this article (I hadn't), pretend you never did and resist any temptation to engage her on her site or anywhere else. The best way to combat her is to not give her free publicity no matter how loudly she spews her bile.
Good advice, Lane. You don't happen to own a time machine, do you? ;) Oh well. Live and learn.
Ummm, Russ – Laurie wasn't the result of the *attempted* rape.Her parentage says a lot about her mother's sense of self-worth (as does her mother's amusement over the "Tijuana Bible" early in the story.(Something that hit me at some point looking at Laurie's mother in her harlequin glasses and her general attitude was that the whole Silk Spectre/Silk Spectre 2 setup rather reminded me of Arrowette and her mother…)
ok – i got the whole ends justifies the means thing but seriously the movie was ultra-dull. The character development left wanting less even thought I knew nothing about them. The plot was like 6 feet of mud and moved like molassis. I'm sorry this girl was a horrible review writer becuase this movie needs a credible bad review. I should have left after 15min. I wouldve been happier had rodriguez did it – it least it would be genuinly dark. two nipples down down.
Debbie Schlussel is a ziofacist neo con, and a very nanny state one if you listen to she of the multi chins bash on fat chicks. She is NOT a conservative.
You say, "tis movie concludes that the rape was a good thing b/c the slutty superhero had a slutty superhero daughter from him;" Seriously? You think that's the viewpoint of the story, writer, director or ANY of the characters? That rape is a good thing?"I really don't think the story of "The Watchmen" advocates raping women because their daughters might turn out to be sexy superheroes. "Wow, Schlussel should joins some logic challenged self-righteous angry lesbian group. This is not a conservative.And most Hollywood characters are slutty. Why start with easy going pleasant silk spectre?