Author: Martha Thomases

Martha Thomases: Batman and Reality

Bob left a message on my phone last Friday. “I’m glad you aren’t DC’s publicity manager today,” he said.

Me, too.

After the Columbine shootings in the 1990s, we got calls at DC because the killers wore trench coats and so did John Constantine. This time, the alleged gunman actually said he was the Joker.

Most likely, if I were still the publicity manager at DC I would have received a zillion phone calls on Friday. And, most likely, I wouldn’t have been allowed to say anything. I would have told the media to call Warner Bros. corporate communications VP and let that person sweat it. Since I’m no longer on the payroll, let me show you what I would say if I got one of those phone calls and could speak freely.

Reporter: Does DC Comics have anything to say about the Batman massacre?

Me: This tragedy has nothing to do with DC Comics or the Batman.

Reporter: The shooter said he was the Joker. He died his hair orange.

Me: The Joker has green hair.

Reporter: Doesn’t the violence in Batman glorify killing and inspire acts such as this?

Me: For more than 50 years and scores of writers and artists, Batman has been an outspoken opponent of guns. Insane people will find inspiration where there is none. Son of Sam took orders from his dog, but no one blames the dog. I think it was Lenny Bruce who said, you can take any page of the Sears catalog, and someone will whack off to it.

Reporter: What’s a Sears catalog?

As usual, the mainstream culture misses the point. Batman isn’t the problem. Batman fans are not the problem. Guns are the problem.

Yes, I know the right to bear arms is guaranteed in the Second Amendment. You know what’s guaranteed in the First Amendment? The right to free expression. In the wake of Friday’s horror, theater chains didn’t ban guns in their places of business but instead banned costumes. Maybe the costumes they should ban include loaded weapons and Kevlar?

(Side note: I cannot imagine getting dressed up in a costume to go to the movies. I don’t even really understand why people get dressed up in costumes to go to go to comics conventions. There’s Halloween, and St. Marks Place, and, for me, that’s enough room for funny outfits. Also, the 1980s.)

It is true that the alleged shooter had unfettered access to comic books, graphic novels, fantasy films, video games and hair dye. He also had unfettered access to weapons and ammunition. Opinions may vary, but I think it’s pretty cut-and-dried about which contributed more directly to the massacre.

If there is a graphic novel that should be attracting media attention, it’s My Friend Dahmer  by Derf Backderf, published by Abrams ComicArts imprint. The author, with a grace and elegance that awed me, shows how easily society ignores and humiliates misfits, some of whom grow up to do horrible rings.

If you don’t have it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

What Makes Martha Thomases Ridiculously Happy?

I’m writing this just back from the dentist, from which a friend had to pick me up because the dentist gave me drugs. I couldn’t be trusted to get myself home, even though that involved taking an elevator to the building entrance and getting a cab. And my dentist may have had a point. When my friend came to pick me up, I talked her into buying shoes with blue sequins on them.

So this will be a little bit scattered. However, you, the reader, are probably online to see The Dark Knight Rises, so we most likely share a mental state. Let’s not take ourselves too seriously.

• As I mentioned last week, I missed the San Diego Comic Con. Once again, it seems I didn’t miss a lot, at least about comics. I realize that IMDB might not be an impartial editor of Comic Con news, but this makes it look to me like the geeks that were out were television and movie geeks, not comics fans. Or, to channel earlier cons, these are not the nerds I was looking for.

• I find the only time I can concentrate on a real book is when I’m away from home, or I’m in the middle of a good mystery. When I read at home, in my living room, in the comfy chair, I’m always looking at the clock, or the computer, or the phone rings, and I can’t get a good reading rhythm happening. I can read comics, but sometimes I want more than that. As a result, I now have a stack of graphic novels next to my sack of pamphlets next to my stack of knitting books. Waiting, with maximum anticipation, are Dotter of her Father’s Eye by Mary Talbot and Bryan Talbot, Economix: How Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work) by Michael Goodwin and Dan E. Burr, and Darkroom: A Memoir in Black & White by Lila Quintero Weaver. I feel very highfalutin’. These are much classier than the vampire books in my Kindle.

• Batman and Spider-Man are heroes. Our troops are heroes. But you know who else are heroes? Garbage collectors. I can think of nothing braver than picking up other people’s rotting refuse when it’s over 100 degrees outside. The smell alone can kill a man where he stands. Lifting bag after bag of the stuff, all day, every day, is a superhuman feat.

• You, constant reader, probably don’t get press releases in your e-mail every day. I do. I’ve also sent out press releases. There are some companies that send me something every day. There are some companies that send me something several times a day, every day. I’ve been the publicist whose client demands a long list of media outlets pitched so I understand the pressure they’re under, but it’s ridiculous. I’m not going to write two or three stories a day, every day, about the same company. I’m going to follow up on a press release that seems like it’s about something in which I’ve expressed interest. Most likely, a carefully written pitch letter, one that references my interests, would work the best. I’m taking this knowledge to my next clients.

• The photo above is swiped from The Beat. It makes me ridiculously happy.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

Martha Thomases: Las Vegas vs. San Diego

While the rest of the pop culture community prepares for Comic-Con International in San Diego, I’m in Las Vegas. Since I don’t gamble, it has been an interesting sociological experience for me. And also, the spa at my hotel is awesome.

I have been to Vegas four times now, and to SDCC about fifteen times. The two share more than one might think. Both are really crowded at all hours. Both mostly take place indoors, but if you need to go outside, you probably won’t get rained on. There’s a lot of noise about every little thing, so that you lose all sense of proportion.

And both count on dazzling you with enough glitz and glamor that you won’t notice how much you’re being hustled.

Still, I’m having a great time on The Strip, and I never need to go to Comic-Con again. What’s the difference?

Although things have improved somewhat in recent years, the city of San Diego doesn’t feel welcoming to me. I went once for a library convention, and that was much more pleasant. As a Comic-Con visitor, I feel like the city regards me as a pig, a beast to tolerate because I spend money. The convention brings in celebrities, whom I’m sure are treated well (if only because they have people on the payroll to guarantee it), but me? I’m the rube paying $4 for a bottle of water.

The water in my Vegas hotel room mini-bar is $8. And I don’t drink it. But you know what? A lovely woman comes by twice a day to ask if I want anything. She is thrilled when I have a request for her, even if it’s just for more free shampoo.

At Comic-Con, I have to stand in line for hours to see a panel, which I may not get to see because thousands of other people want to see the same panel. In Vegas, if the hot new Batman slot machine is being used, there are more around the corner, or down the street.

At Comic-Con, if I don’t make a dinner reservation by five, I can forget about eating anyplace where I can sit down. In Vegas, there are world-class restaurants (many outposts of places I love in New York) stacked up on top of each other.

I was a little afraid to come to Vegas as an older, single woman, afraid I would feel unattractive and unworthy. The hotel at which I’m staying, the Cosmopolitan, goes out of its way to make women feel welcome. Everyone who works there is super-friendly and helpful. In San Diego, there are, instead, lots of jokes about how unsexy geeks can be. True, lots of those jokes come from us geeks. I don’t think that kind of self-hatred would be funny anyplace else.

My friend Pennie used to live here, back in the days when the Mob were the new guys in town. She says that there is a tradition of service here because the populace knows that’s how they keep their jobs. San Diego, on the other hand, is a city with more than just a hospitality industry. I don’t mean to say that San Diego is rude (because, as a New Yorker, how would I know?), but they don’t make me feel like my needs are a priority.

There has been talk for years of moving Comic-Con to Las Vegas. I don’t think it would work. This city is too expensive. It would be a lovely idea, however, to move Las Vegas to Comic-Con.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

 

Martha Thomases and Seth and Ted and Flash

Pop culture can be a funny thing. I don’t mean “Ha ha” funny, although that is also sometimes true. I mean funny as in a head-shaking “Ain’t that a bitch,” kind of way.

For example, yesterday I went to see Ted. I didn’t want to, but it was the Number One box office hit this weekend and my son, the genius, is doing a blog on the subject, and he was in town for the Del Close Marathon. It’s not a very good movie, in my opinion, but I’m not a huge fan of Seth McFarlane. He’s okay, and I will always support him because his work points out the blistering hypocrisy of our shared alma mater . And I like fart jokes more than the average little old Jewish lady.

Still, I found myself tearing up. Did the film have unexpected emotional depth? No. What it had was a million references to Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon is a terrible movie I saw in 1980 when it was released, with co-columnist Denny O’Neil. It was so deliberately and hilariously bad that I dragged my husband to see it immediately. We own it in at least two different formats. I got him a signed photo of Melody Anderson for an anniversary present. Over the years, we found more opportunities to exclaim “Not the bore worms!” than you would think could credibly arise.

We find each other through shared interests. I met my husband because we both admired Paul Krassner. We laughed at a lot of the same things. He wasn’t into comics, but we found common ground in our appreciation of R. Crumb and Gilbert Shelton’s Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Our tastes weren’t the same, but I was not surprised when he liked Scott McCloud’s Zot! at least as much as I did.

What really bonded us, however, was seeing Pinocchio together at the Annecy Animation Festival. It was 1979, our first trip to Europe together. Annecy is a lovely little town in the French Alps. We were staying in a room in a charming small hotel that, when we went to take a nap with the window open, filled with cats.

Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnson were guests of the festival, and we got to hang out with them. I hadn’t seen Pinocchio since I was a child, and couldn’t remember the way it ended at all (too frightening). Watching it with John, seeing what a perfect film it was, made me love him even more.

Love is about a lot of things, but if you can’t share pleasure, there’s not much point to it.

Thank you, Seth McFarlane, for reminding me of those fun times. And also, the Ryan Reynolds cameo. That was great.

Saturday: Marc Alan Fishman Flames On!

Martha Thomases: Health Care For Super-Heroes

The Supreme Court finally ruled on the Affordable Care Act. Hallelujah!  They went my way!

Now I don’t have to worry about that chance the court might strike down the individual mandate, which would mean my premiums would have gone up – in New York, if one is self-employed, one pays gigantic premiums. My worrying didn’t make the difference, however, so let’s consider something really important.

Can super-heroes get health insurance?

Barry Allen was already working for the police department when the lightning bolt caused those chemicals to drench him and made him The Flash. Usually, public employees get good insurance. He should be okay. We can only hope that Tea Party pressure hasn’t weakened his union’s negotiating power and force public workers to take a worse policy.

Bruce Wayne not only has enough money to pay any medical bills he might have out-of-pocket, but he also has Alfred on staff, who, in addition to his butler skills, also seems to be something of a battlefield surgeon.

Reed Richards is a doctor. Presumably, he can take care of many of his colleagues. Those he can’t might be cared for by Dr. Strange, or Dr. Mid-Nite.

But what about the others?

Once you’re bitten by a radioactive spider as a teenager, you have a pre-existing condition. And, as a self-employed person in New York (at least when he started freelancing at the Daily Bugle), Peter Parker probably got a policy with a high deductible, if he got a policy at all. Here’s hoping that radiation didn’t cause cancer along with a spider sense.

Can test pilots get insurance at all? Even if he wasn’t a Green Lantern, is Hal Jordan the kind of guy who could get a policy?

Among those without powers, masks or capes, there might be circumstances that make it difficult to get a coverage. It seems that just living in certain areas invites life-threatening accidents. I know that living in the New York area means I pay higher rates, so I guess most of the Marvel Universe does as well. Metropolis, Gotham, Coast City et al. are probably no bargain either.

Who pays for those over-worked emergency rooms, especially after an alien attack?

If ever there were places that could use single-payer health insurance, it’s the DC and Marvel Universes.

And me.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman Renders His Verdict

 

Martha Thomases: Heroes and Big Hair

For no reasons that are indefensible intellectually, I went to see Rock of Ages the other day. I like Alec Baldwin, okay?  It’s loud and it’s fun, and while hair metal was never my genre, I kind of like the power ballads that dominate the soundtrack.

The main plot is almost identical to Get Crazy,  one of the greatest movies ever made. A sincere rock club on the Sunset Strip (in this case, The Bourbon Room), run by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand, is in the rapacious site of greedy real estate developers. Our heroes must put on a show that will sell enough tickets to raise money and thwart the evil plans. Meanwhile, a sweet young girl (Julianne Hough) from the heartland comes to Los Angeles with dreams of rock stardom, and falls in love with a boy with similar dreams (Diego Benota).

Mixed up in all this is Tom Cruise as Axl Rose, Malin Ackerman as a Rolling Stone reporter, Mary J. Blige in not enough scenes, and Paul Giamatti as Cruise’s manager.

Will the sincere and noble rockers triumph over the skeevy politicians and music executives who want to replace The Bourbon Room’s metal with malls and boy-bands? What do you think?

The acting is broad and fun. My only quibble with the casting is that Diego Benota looks a lot like Jonathan Groff, only he’s not, and that was distracting. I’m sure he’s a lovely human being in his own right.

And yet, as I watched it, I found myself getting irked. “That’s not historically accurate,” I would think, and then I’d remember that it’s a movie based on a Broadway jukebox musical. It’s like complaining that F Troop isn’t historically accurate.

I wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1987. I was in New York. Not only that, but I had a three-year-old child, so I didn’t spend a lot of time in rock clubs. Still, my memory of popular music of that time includes a lot that wasn’t metal. The biggest album for most people was Michael Jackson’s Bad. The biggest albums for me were Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love and Warren Zevon’s Sentimental Hygiene.

From this movie, you wouldn’t know there was any hip-hop. You wouldn’t even know there was any punk, even though the black leather and studs that denote authenticity among the rockers owe nearly as much to punk as they do to rockabilly. I don’t know what it’s like in L.A. these days, but you can see every one of those outfits today on St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan.

The other place you can see all these fashions is superhero comics. For some reason, the big hair, the fringe, even the shoulder pads live on at DC and Marvel. I guess once your creative vision of women is limited to bitch, naif, and slut, your visual imagination is similarly locked in the past.

The difference is that in Rock of Ages, they know they’re being camp. It’s funny, and they expect the audience to be in on it. For those of us who are superhero fans, the joke is on us.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Martha Thomases: Chicks ‘n’ Pixs

This week’s column is about two things:

1) Video games, about which I know almost nothing, and

2) Sexism in pop culture, about which I know far too much.

My son, the genius, recently sent me a link to a Kickstarter project he supports, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, which will create a series of videos discussing the way women are portrayed in video games. Always delighted to encourage research and intelligent discussion on a subject dear to my heart, I was pleased to contribute (and also, extremely proud of myself for raising such a mensch). The project had already greatly exceeded its initial fundraising goals, but I wanted to be there in solidarity.

If you click the link, you’ll notice that the woman behind the project, Anita Sarkeesian, is articulate, well-informed, and calm. She talks reasonably about her goals, her opinions, and her research. If she rages hysterically in private (and I know I certainly do), you can’t tell from her public face.

She certainly sounds more calm that Val and I did in our somewhat similar critique on women in comics here.

And yet, she inspires a veritable tsunami of rage in people who disagree with her. On YouTube and online forums, men don’t just object to her point of view, but to her very existence. A group even hacked her Wikipedia page in an attempt to dehumanize her.

I’m not talking about the men who say, “But men aren’t portrayed accurately either in video games!” I disagree (men are presented as stereotypes, true, but in much more varied stereotypes), but that is a reasonable level of discourse. I’m talking about the men who say she’s ugly, or she just needs to get laid, or that she is nothing but a stupid female body part.

It’s ridiculous and it’s revealing of the poverty of our discourse. Nobody is forcing any gamer to watch these videos. Nobody is threatening to take away their precious sexist video games. Someone is simply responding to these games with honesty and intelligence. If you don’t like it, don’t listen.

When I was in high school I wrote an editorial about what was then a newly resurgent feminist movement. I took the radical position that calling women “chicks” or “tomatoes” made as much sense as calling men “cocks” or “zucchinis.” In response, I received more than 200 anonymous notes calling me a lesbian, a girl who, in what I’m sure they thought was a clever turn of phrase, “just wanted to be on top.” I didn’t even know what lesbians were, and after someone told me, I still couldn’t figure out what they did (I was a very naïve 16 year old). They didn’t want to refute my argument – they wanted to shut me up.

You can see how well that worked.

“But Martha,” you say. “It’s just video games. It’s just comics. It’s just movies. What difference does it make?” The difference is that the way we talk about women in our society is terrible, and it isn’t limited to popular culture. It affects our political landscape and that limits what we can do for each other. If we describe women as only those-who-are-different-from-men and not as individual humans, we miss out on a lot of talent.

We don’t have talent to spare.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman Fires Back!

 

Martha Thomases: Prometheus and the Comic Bookworm

In a seasonal confluence, the movie Prometheus opens today, just as Book Expo America (BEA) ends. In 1979, I saw the first Alien at a screening in Los Angeles at the American Booksellers Association convention, the precursor to BEA.

ABA (as it was known) is the professional convention for the publishing industry. Publishers have booths with which to show their upcoming titles, and booksellers from all over the country come to see what will fill their shelves. It’s a grand event where books are glamorous, authors are rock stars, and librarians are courted. It’s changed over the years – they are even experimenting with letting consumers in this year – but it remains a celebration of ideas and literacy.

It was my first time at ABA, but the man who would be my husband was an old hand. He’d been going since 1963, when he was 12 years old. His father had taken a job with a small bookstore in Minneapolis, which had ambitions to grow and become a national chain. That bookstore was B. Dalton. As a result, my husband was used to attending, and accustomed to being fussed over by publishing houses that wanted to make a good impression on his dad.

By 1979, his dad had long since left B. Dalton, Minneapolis, the United States and the Northern Hemisphere, but John still knew his way around the convention floor. He showed me how to get free books, catalogs, and all sorts of other cool stuff.

One of the cool things we got was a pair of tickets to a movie screening. Alien. The same booth had a graphic novel adaptation by our pals Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson (which seems to be on the fall list this year as well). I had never been to a movie screening before. I was really excited.

That night, I read the book. It scared me so much that I was unable to sleep. We were staying with my cousin in a tiny little cottage in Laurel Canyon, and every noise from outside sounded like a landing spaceship to me, not a coyote.

We left the convention with plenty of time to get to the theater for the movie. I had very particular ideas about the best place to sit (near the front, in the center of the row). I had to get there early enough so that I would have my choice of seats. I’m still like that. If you’re going to go to the movies with me, you had better be prepared to be at the theater half an hour before showtime.

Once the movie started, for the first 45 minutes or so, I was in heaven. I loved the way the future looked in the film. It was the first time I’d seen a spaceship that looked like people lived in it. There was dirt and grime. People put up New Yorker cartoons. The cast was great, and I especially loved John Hurt, whom I had only previously seen as Caligula in I, Claudius.

Boy, was I upset when his character was killed off.

You have to understand. I had read the book the night before. I knew what was going to happen. I knew the good guys were going to win at the end. And yet, I was still terrified. I was sitting in my seat, peaking through my fingers, knowing that I had about an hour left to sit in the theater and wait for the monster to jump out of dark places. Finally, I decided to go. I stepped over the many people sitting in my row (since I had to sit in the middle).

My husband had too much self-respect to leave. He later told me he did his best to hide under his seat.

And now, Prometheus is supposed to explain the story of what happened before Alien. It’s directed by Ridley Scott, whose eye for detail makes his films always worth watching. It was the film my husband was most looking forward to seeing this summer.

The trailers scare me.

I like to think of myself as a good feminist. I don’t need a man to give my life meaning, to pay my rent or open my pickle jars. And I don’t expect a man to protect me from movie monsters.

But I’m afraid to go to this movie by myself. Either I’ll find the courage, or take the cat.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman defends the modern comic book some more.

Martha Thomases on Neil Gaiman and Alison Bechdel

As if to offer a bookend to last week’s column about Neil Gaiman and creativity, Amazon delivered Alison Bechdel’s new book, Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama. A companion to her harrowing and brilliant previous book, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was about her father’s life in the closet and eventual suicide, Are You My Mother is about her relationship with her mother, and the life of an artist.

I’ve been a huge fan of Bechdel’s work since I first saw her strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. The sense of humor on display here, making fun of the challenges facing those who aspire to change the world with their passion, fervor, and political correctness, mirrors my own. (If you, too, like Bechdel’s series, I can’t recommend The Complete Wendel enough because Howard Cruse is incredibly funny.) I know the people in the strip. I identified with these characters so closely that I would sometimes question my sexual orientation.

Are You My Mother isn’t funny. I mean, there are some laughs, but the story is about the struggle the artist faces when she tries to make art that is honest and meaningful and, with luck, lucrative enough to make a living. The struggle involves the women she loves, including her mother and her therapists. I’ve read some criticism of this book that centers on the sections about psychiatry, saying they are too literal, too heavy-handed. I didn’t find that to be true. I thought they reflected the artist’s zeal to find answers, to find ways to heal her pain.

Gaiman discussed the nuts-and-bolts of an artist’s life. He talked about what to do, what kind of jobs to take, how to deal with discouragement, and how to carry on. Bechdel describes the work, the really hard parts, where you have to dig and be honest, no matter what the consequences.

I don’t think these two perspectives are in conflict, nor do I think one is superior to the other. I think, in fact, both are saying the same thing: that to be an artist, one has to find one’s unique gift, and then one has to present it to the world. No one else has the same gift, so no one else can do your work for you.

For example, this week, I’ve been mesmerized by a begonia I planted on my terrace. It is red, with an orange undertone and a blush of rose. There is a gray spot on it, one that is probably the first bit of mortality. I cannot stop staring at it. Even when the sky is overcast, the petals seem to glow. I can’t tell you why this moves me so much. Perhaps, in a previous life, I was a queen in India, and my king presented me a jewel with the same tones. Perhaps I lost a beloved baby blanket with that color. It looks a bit like blood, thinned with lemon juice. I know that every writer I enjoy would find a different story to explain it.

As should I.

Gaiman and Bechdel are describing the same thing, but inside out from each other. Either way, it still fits.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Martha Thomases: Neil Gaiman – And Failure

If you haven’t already seen this video, rush right over here and listen to Neil Gaiman give a commencement address at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia last week. In his inimitably charming manner, Neil advises the new graduates on how to approach a life in the arts.

He is wise and he is insightful, and he inspires me to riff on a few of his tenets. And, because I’m me, I’m going to quibble with another.

The best thing he says is the scariest: Fail. You can’t be an artist if you don’t fail, frequently and spectacularly. You have to make mistakes, and you have to make them in public, or it least in front of an editor or a curator or a choreographer or a director who will be a witness. If you don’t make mistakes and fail, you don’t test your limits, you don’t discover who you are and what kind of art you are capable of creating.

It’s not enough to just make mistakes, or we would all be successful artists. You also have to learn from the mistakes you’ve made. Sometimes the lesson isn’t obvious – Neil describes how he misspelled the name “Caroline” as “Coraline” and thus was born a brilliant story – but if you don’t learn, you’ll keep making the same mistake, expecting it to suddenly produce success. And then you are an executive in the DC marketing department, not an artist.

He also talks about not taking jobs just to make money, which is a fearless thing for a young artist to attempt. Money is important, especially when you don’t have any. It pays for rent and food. It allows you to clothe yourself so you are presentable and can get other jobs. Sometimes the artist has children at home, and a hungry baby really doesn’t understand why artistic integrity is a thing. Like making mistakes, this is where the true nature of the artist is revealed. You can make the sacrifices for your art, and learn from them, as you learned from your failures. Maybe you’ll learn that the life of the artist isn’t for you.

That’s no disgrace. That’s real life.

And now, here’s my quibble. Neil tells the kids in the audience that, whatever happens to them, they should “make good art.” If the cat dies, “make good art.” If you lose a leg, “make good art.” If you can do it in the bad times, you can do it in the good times.

I’m in favor of good art. There should be more of it. However, one of my personal demons, when I sit down to write, is the fear that my work isn’t good enough. I’m much better off attempting to make art, without sweating whether or not it meets anyone’s standard of “good.” A writer writes because she has to write. An artist makes art because she has to make art.

“Good” comes with luck, practice, inspiration and skill.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman