Tue Oct 7, 2008 7:46AM6 comments ›
Tue Oct 7, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Smoke Gets In Your Brain, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer
Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette / Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death. / Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate / That you hate to make him wait, / but you just gotta have another cigarette. – Merle Travis
I was getting ready to leave the office and walk over to NBC, where I planned to tape a reply to someone who had accused Batman of being in league with the Big Tobacco. It seems that in one panel Batman is standing on a roof, and in the background, on another roof, there was a billboard with a fragment of what might have been a cigarette ad visible. Our accuser said that putting Batman proximate to a cigarette image amounted to Batman – and his creators – endorsing tobacco products and advocating their use to children.
Well, no. Had I kept my rendezvous with the microphones and cameras, I would have probably observed that we agreed that smoking was bad and none of our characters ever actually smoked – Bruce Wayne abandoned his pipe early in his career – and, in fact, we had just done a pro bono anti-smoking ad for the American Heart Association. I might have taken my screed just a bit further and argued that we had always presented Batman’s turf as a realistic American city and – sorry! – urban areas are full of cigarette ads.
I didn’t have to do any of that. At the last moment, cooler heads prevailed and said that if I went on the air, our accuser would answer my answer and prolong the story’s life, whereas if we simply ignored it, the story would not survive into the next news cycle, which is exactly what happened.
One might ask why I allowed the billboard to appear in the first place. For the sake of realism? Or did I just miss it when I edited the artwork? Or did I see it and decide it wasn’t worth the hassle of a change? Humbling answer to all of the above: I don’t remember.
But this pretty inconsequential incident does raise another question: Where do the obligations of good citizenship and moral behavior end and the obligations to storytelling begin? Some kinds of people smoke and drink and take drugs and they’re not all hideous monsters, and some kids are influenced by what they experience through the media. I’ve heard recovering alcoholics say that the movie images of glamorous, witty sophisticates swilling booze prompted them to emulate the swillers and led, eventually, to badly damaged lives. But people do drink, and in a fictional world that mirrors the real one, shouldn’t drinkers – and smokers and druggies – be presented? Or does the potential harm of these behaviors outweigh aesthetic and narrative considerations?
Sometimes, the coexistence of storytelling and responsible citizenship is painfully troubled, and sometimes I’m glad I no longer sit in an editor’s chair.
RECOMMENDED READING: The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World, By Matthew Stewart.
Dennis O'Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and The Shadow– among others – as well as many novels, stories and articles. The Question: Epitaph For A Hero, reprinting the third six issues of his classic series with artists Denys Cowan and Rick Magyar, will be on sale any minute now, and his novelization of the movie The Dark Knight is on sale right now. He’ll be taking another shot at the ol’ Bat in an upcoming story-arc, too.
Artwork by Kim Roberson, from Underworld.
Jump to comments (6)
More News from ComicMix
- Naruto Ramps Up Schedule12 minutes ago, 0 comments
- 20th Recruits 'X-Men: First Class'about an hour ago, 0 comments
- Stan Lee Receives National Medal of Arts Award3 hours ago, 0 comments
- Zuda Adds Print to Web5 hours ago, 0 comments
- 'Captain America' Scribes Announced6 hours ago, 1 comment
- 'Lipstick Jungle' Not Dead Yet8 hours ago, 0 comments
- 'Hancock 2' Charged with Bringing Sony Profit9 hours ago, 2 comments
- 'House of Night' Book Series Hollywood Bound10 hours ago, 0 comments
- 'Eli Stone''s Marc Guggenheim on the Season so Far12 hours ago, 0 comments
- Is America Ready for 'Nutty Professor 3'?20 hours ago, 0 comments
Comments (6)
Chompa (8:34 AM on Tue Oct 7, 2008)
I believe there is a line between romanticizing booze/smoking/drugs and depicting it in a realistic manner. These things are a part of society and recognizing them is not the same as endorsing them. In fact, I'd say that most comics actually do more than their share to depict them as problems.
Andrew Bergstrom (8:41 AM on Tue Oct 7, 2008)
I recall a very powerful and controversial storyline penned by Mr. O'Neil in the '60's involving the dynamic green duo and GA's protoge 'Speedy' (who attempted to keep up with his name.) It was landmark in its time, and marked a definite shift in storytelling at DC to comment on the world as it was. If the question is "Does Art reflect Life", or even should it, then YES! I applaud Dennis' embracing this menace and giving it to the attention he did, and especially the way he did it. If that accuser had only seen the cover GL/GA #85 there would have been even more controversy than the Batman standing in partial view of a cigarette bilboard...
Vinnie Bartilucci (9:48 AM on Tue Oct 7, 2008)
I love hearing from people who are serial complainers. Nothing is funnier than real life. The best way to deal with these people is to shine a light on them. let them say their piece in the spotlight, with nobody shouting them down or telling us why they're stupid, just let them do it themselves. That way they can't fall back on the old "They don't want you to know this" trick.
Every time I hear about PETA doing another one of their publicity stunts, I get goose bumps, because I know it's going to be insane. last week, they wrote to Ben and Jerry's and asked them to stop using cow's milk (milking cows is cruelty, don't you know) in their products and starts using human milk. They were met with a polite murring (I actually went a looked up the noun form of "demur"), when they should have been met with outright laughter and pointing. Radio personalities Opie and Anthony had exactly the right response - they found a woman willing to donate, and made a batch of vanilla mother's milk ice cream. And predictably, is was foul.
In this modern 24-hour news cycle world, every damn crazy with a letter head is propped up and presented as a legitimate expert, followed by five minutes of ACTUAL experts who discuss the "issue", but secretly must be questioning whether or not the paycheck is worth it. Need I mention the psychiatrist group who got their fifteen minutes by protesting the use of the word "Madman" to describe doomsday?
I gotta say, Terry Ricolta has a LOT to answer for.
Martha Thomases (10:57 AM on Tue Oct 7, 2008)
The politician in question was Mark Green, an opportunist of the worst sort. The fact that we agree on many issues does not in any way make me feel more kindly towards him. I was thrilled at the occasion to vote against him when he ran for mayor.
mike weber (3:16 AM on Wed Oct 8, 2008)
News story from Reuters:
U.S. official says online drug videos threaten teens (Reuters)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The director of the White House war on drugs said on Monday that Internet videos that show people getting high pose a dangerous threat to teenagers by encouraging them to use drugs and alcohol.
{snip}
Walters advised parents to check the browser history on their teens' computer. Also, since the videos are posted on sites where teens meet other Internet users, Walters said parents should look at text messages and incoming and outgoing phone numbers on their teens' cell phones.
"Nobody's talking about censorship over the Internet here, what we're talking about is legitimate parental supervision," he said.
I think they wrote "Walters" when they meant "Wertham"...
Read the full Article
Mike Gold (1:37 PM on Wed Oct 8, 2008)
It is our obligation as storytellers to tell the story. If we want to make moral judgments, fine, as long as they're part of the story. If the purpose is to create morality plays, fine, as long as the story works.
It is not our OBLIGATION to censor society's actions. We should not alter reality just to suck up to the tenor of the times. If your kid is so shallow that he starts shooting up heroin after reading The Man With The Golden Arm (one of my favorite novels), the problem isn't Nelson Algren's... although it might be the way you raised him. That book was published in 1949. How many junkies did it create? Green Arrow's Speedy shot smack (odd choice of drugs, Denny, for a guy named Speedy). Did that first-rate morality play turn any readers into junkies?
Give me a break.
Great column, Denny.