Today’s Zen question: Can a movie be called a sequel even if it has a cast that hadn’t been in the earlier three movies but it stars the same lead character and the worldview remains consistent with those movies and all four movies have the same director, but the last one was released 30 years ago?
Today’s Zen answer: Who the hell cares? Mad Max: Fury Road is an absolutely terrific movie.
I saw this epic with my ComicMix comrade Martha Thomases and our mutual pal, Michigan’s own Penelope Ruchman. It was the beginning of an amazingly astonishing pop entertainment day; I’d give you those details but you know how I absolutely hate to name-drop. I won’t speak for Martha or Penny except to say that Martha enjoyed the movie at least as much as I did and I believe Penny liked it even more. Yes, it really is the Gone With The Wind of action movies, except instead of torching Atlanta they trashed several megatons of George Metzger-esque decrepit vehicles traveling across the desert to… well, to nowhere. Action ensues.
And that’s about it for the plot. Usually, that is not a good sign. Here, somehow, it works. If somebody pitched this to me as a graphic novel I’d have rejected it – but on the screen, in George Miller’s more-than-capable hands, it soars. I did not notice one person in the crowded Manhattan theater leaving for food or a bathroom break. That’s better than “two thumbs up,” particularly when damn near the entire movie was set in the desert. You’d think people would need some water or soda or a Slurpee or something.
Tom Hardy is fine as Max. The role isn’t overwhelmingly dependent upon acting chops, but when needed Tom delivers. The true star of this movie, in every conceivable way, is Charlize Theron. She plays the other title character, Imperator Furiosa. She is the heart and the soul of the movie but, to the regret of a few morons, she and her women companions also carry the brunt of the action. They carry it right to your lap.
There’s a bit of a controversy contrived by these aforementioned morons about how Mad Max: Fury Road emasculates men. There is a phrase for this attitude: neurotic bullshit. If this movie made their balls shrivel up and fall to the ground, trust me: society is better off.
There’s a long-standing meme in Hollywood about how women can’t carry an action movie. Executives point to truly shitty movies such as Catwoman, Elektra, and Supergirl. It doesn’t occur to the cigar-chompers that if you rewrote these movies for a male lead, they would be just as shitty and only marginally more income-active. I have three things to say to these people:
Lucy
Mad Max: Fury Road
Greenlight the fucking Black Widow movie already.
Mad Max: Fury Road was co-written by comics great Brendan McCarthy, of 2000 AD fame. Particularly of Judge Dredd fame. The parallels between the Mad Max series and Dredd are, well, overwhelming. Jus’ sayin’. I thought Mick McMahon should have received royalties for The Road Warrior, but it is a great movie. Just like Road Fury.
This movie was so relentless and so compelling that even George Eastman’s parents should be proud.
Go see it. But first, stop by the ridiculously overpriced candy counter and buy vast quantities of consumable liquid. This time, it’s actually worth the money.
So today (Sunday, which is yesterday), Editor Mike sent me a link to a column on The Jewish Daily Forward’s website which asks the question “Do Marvel Movies Have An Anti-Semitic Problem?” – which also happens to be the dumbest article I’ve ever read on their site.
Granted, The Forward – which was born way back in 1867 as a Yiddish language daily newspaper published by dissidents from the Socialist Labor Party – is a left-leaning paper whose heart and soul is the Jewish-American experience, with strong ties to Israel, and its articles are purposely written with that audience as its primary target. And granted, The Forward has not been the only news media outlet that has noted and remarked upon the recent rebirth of overt and increasingly violent anti-Semitism around the globe, especially in Europe. And yes, The Forward should be praised in its unadulterated and unabridged journalism that consistently calls out the perpetrators.
But sometimes the paper looks for boogey-men where no such creatures exist. And in this article, author Susan Mohall is not only trying to lasso the moon but gets critical facts wrong – such as stating that Stan Lee was born in Romania.
Excuse me, Ms. Mohall, but Mr. Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber) was born on December 28, 1922 in New York City, specifically an apartment house at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue. Our pal Danny Fingeroth, former Marvel Comics editor and writer and author of Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero and – by the way – co-author of The Stan Lee Universe, confirmed this to Editor Mike.
Susan Mohall apparently takes umbrage at the fact that the Jewish characters of the Marvel movies don’t go around with yellow Stars of David on their clothing identifying them as Jews:
“In the comics, Kitty’s Jewish heritage is extremely important to her. In the movies, her Jewish identity isn’t even mentioned. In “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” which introduces us to Pietro and Wanda – a.k.a. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch – the omission is even more blatant. The film portrays Wanda as a baby (despite the fact that the two are twins in the comics) and her name is never even mentioned. Quicksilver’s Jewish identity is at least alluded to.
“After rescuing Magneto, Quicksilver implies that Magneto might be his father, but if you don’t already know that, then this moment goes by so quickly that it hardly matters as a relevant part of Quicksilver’s character. Quicksilver’s name was also Westernized from Pietro to Peter in an attempt to erase not only Pietro’s Jewish identity but his Romani identity as well.”
Oh, God, I’m so frustrated and annoyed that I wish that I could write this in all caps!!!! Instead I will use numerous exclamation points to assert my impatience with this idiot!!!!! Susan, my dear woman, the X-Men are mutants!!!! For over 50 years mutants have been Marvel’s superhero stand-ins for every single person who has ever been ostracized from society!!!! Ostracized and abused and tortured and killed for their religion, the color of their skin, their political beliefs, their birthplace!!!!
Ms. Mohall also accuses The Powers That Be behind the Marvel cinematic universe of focusing on Magneto as a Jewish villain:
“The only character in the X-Men franchise whose Jewish identity is ever specifically mentioned and explored is Magneto. In the first X-Men movie we see Magnetobeing taken away to a concentration camp, and in X-Men: First Class we see Magneto hunting down and killing Nazis. Magneto also uses his own experiences with prejudice as a Jewish man to justify his violent motives. But while Magneto is a well-written and complex character, he is still a villain who murders people and uses his background to justify it. Having another Jewish character to challenge Magneto would have been excellent storytelling. Instead what we get is the erasing of all other characters’ Jewish identities and the only character who is identified as Jewish is our murderous villain.”
Okay here come some more exclamation marks!!!!! My dear Susan, you are beyond words in your ridiculousness!!!! Didn’t you at the least read Exodus?!!!! I’m sorry to have to enlighten you, my dear, but Jews are quite capable of murdering and other quite immoral acts!!!! Please tell me that you have heard of the Irgun!!!! The “paramilitary” organization that splintered away from the Haganah during the Palestinian Mandate (1931 – 1948) and conducted terrorist activities like blowing up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 because it was a base for the British occupation!!!!
You do know that Menachim Begin, signer of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty with Anwar Sadat, was a member of the Irgun!!!!! Susan, sweetheart, I guess you never heard of Operation: Wrath of God, in which the Israeli government authorized the Mossad to terminate the perpetrators of the Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes!!!! Steven Spielberg made a movie based on it!!! It’s called Munich!!! I suggest you watch it!!!!
Okay, take a breath, Mindy. Count to 10.
The author also accuses Marvel Studios of “white-washing” HYDRA from its Nazi roots.
“Why is HYDRA’s identity as a Neo-Nazi organization completely sanitized in the movies?…HYDRA originates during World War II as part of the Nazis military. However, Red Skull, the leader of the organization, wants to run things and turns HYDRA into his own terrorist group. But he is never not a Nazi, and HYDRA never abandons Nazi beliefs. From the movies, you would glean that HYDRA just wants totalitarian power. The Nazi part is glossed over. It’s as if the producers are worried about the potential fallout of comparing HYDRA to the Third Reich, which is just so strange, especially since Nazis are the perfect villain. Everyone hates them”
Oh, Susan. I guess you never saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier and you never have watched Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. HYDRA evolved, my dear. It’s gotten smarter, its adapted, it’s gotten smoother – just as our own rat-fuckers learned from Watergate – but it is certainly is still fascist, and it’s certainly not “shy[ing] away from its Nazi roots.”
And, Ms. Susan Mohall, I would certainly be surprised if you have read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Michael Chabon, which tells the (fictionalized) story of the birth of Marvel and the U.S. comics industry, which was 99.9% midwived into life by the sons (and some daughters) of Jewish immigrants.
It’s amazing to see the many ways comics, and by extension geek culture, have so thoroughly infiltrated the entertainment and marketing landscape. Comics-based movies and TV shows continue to be fruitful and multiply, while brands try to keep up and in an effort to engage fans in authentic conversations.
Amidst the continuing and exciting expansion of comics-based entertainment, I thought it might be interesting to try to understand this growth from a creator’s point of view. Anyone who has ever let a friend drive their new car, or sent a child off to school knows what it’s like to let go of something you cherish. And more than that, you fully recognize the cringe-worthy reality that the thing you cherish might come back changed. There’s always that worry that your car might be returned with a dent, or your child might come home from school with a vocabulary sprinkled with a few new #$@% words.
Sadly, comics do have a long history of creators not being rewarded fairly or sharing in the ultimate success of their creations. So I was especially curious how the newer breed of creator feels about letting others take charge of their creations. How do creators approach it and plan for it in 2015?
I reached out to Chris Roberson, a brilliant comics writer who’s created adventures for a wide range of characters (everyone from Superman to The Shadow), has created his own characters and leads the charge for creator-owned comics, along with Allison Baker, at Monkeybrain Comics. At DC Entertainment’s Vertigo imprint, Chris and artist Michael Allred created the iZombie series, which is now enjoying a new life, resurrected as a hit series on the CW network. Ed Catto: Can you tell me a little bit about what you were trying to create with your iZombie comic series and provide some background?
Chris Roberson: I’ve always liked the zombie genre, but had begun to feel like it was unnecessarily locked into a post-apocalyptic setting. I wanted to try setting a zombie story in the modern day, with society still up and running, but with strange things happening in the shadows. And to take it one step further, to have the zombie be the point-of-view character. Everything else kind of followed from there!
EC: Were you happy with how the comic series turned out? And what would you have done differently if you could go back do it over again?
CR: Oh, definitely! I’m really proud of the work that Mike and Laura Allred and I did with the series. My only regret was that we never got a chance to get a giant kaiju monster on stage. That would have completed the set!
EC: What was it like when you found out that your iZombie concept was going to be a series? How long did it take to reach network television and can you tell us some of your reactions and thoughts along the way?
CR: I think the first we heard about the series being in development was late summer or early fall of 2013, and by early 2014 we’d been sent a copy of the pilot script to read. We visited the set last spring, met the producers and some of the cast, and in general were really impressed with everyone involved. Over this past winter we were sent rough cuts of the first four episodes, and were just blown away by how fantastic they were!
EC: What’s your involvement in the TV series now? What’s your reaction to what they’ve done and what they’re doing?
CR: I like to say that we are “informed but not involved.” They have kept us in the loop at each stage of the process, and are happy that we’re pleased with the way the series has turned out. But otherwise, I’m just a member of the audience! (Though one with a proprietary financial stake in the show…)
EC: Comics have a sad history of many creators not fully partaking of the economic success of their literary creations. Fans are well versed on everything from the tragic story of Siegel & Shuster to Gerry Conway’s recent posting about being excluded from creator credits of certain DC characters. Here’s the question – do you think today’s creators are better prepared to protect their own rights, or is it still the same old story?
CR: I think it depends on the creator. Sure, many of us know to walk away from a bad deal, but there are always going to be hungry young creators who are more than willing to sign away all their rights in return for far too little. But I think that there’s a difference, too, between work-for-hire and creator owned stuff. When I do a work-for-hire project, it’s usually because I want to work with those characters or concepts, and will happily surrender rights that I would never dream of giving up for an original property of my creation.
EC: As a follow-up question, can you tell us a little bit about how you’ve organized your publishing endeavor, Monkeybrain Books & Comics?
CR: It’s pretty simple, really. We only license the digital rights, and only for a period of five years. All the other rights are retained by the creators. Which is why you see print editions of Monkeybrain titles coming out from IDW, or Dark Horse, or Image, or what-have-you. The creative teams are free to make whatever deal suits them best.
EC: What’s coming up next for you?
CR: I am doing some amazingly cool work-for-hire stuff for Dark Horse that hasn’t been announced yet, but which is keeping me VERY busy. My bucket list is getting very short!
I’ve had a chance recently to catch some, not all, of Showtime’s series, Penny Dreadful, and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. It takes the same concept of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (combine genre characters from the Victorian Age into a single story) and uses it with mostly horror and supernatural characters and elements, again in Victorian London.
The “real” penny dreadfuls were the pulp fiction of their day, precursors to the pulp magazines and also comics. The TV series was created by John Logan (who, among other things, wrote Skyfall and will be writing the next two James Bond films as well) and is the co-executive producer along with James Bond director Sam Mendes (he also directed The Road to Perdition).
There are also other Bond connections, including Timothy Dalton as the African explorer Sir Malcolm Murray, who is the father of Mina Murray, who just happens to be a character in the novel Dracula. Eva Green, who was the “Bond Girl” Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, plays Vanessa Ives, a medium and possibly a witch. Among interest to we pop culture geeks would also be Doctor Who’s companion Billie Piper as a prostitute with a possibly very dark future.
The show also features Victor Frankenstein and his creature(s) as well as Dorian Gray and a werewolf. To say more would spoil the story for those who have not yet experienced it. The show is well acted, well directed, well written and with first class production values. First class altogether as well as being suspenseful, creepy, and shocking.
What I like most about the show is the complexity of the characters. No one is wholly admirable nor wholly despicable. One of my favorite characters is Frankenstein’s Creature, who sometimes goes by the name Caliban; he is tragic and sympathetic and dangerous all at the same time. You learn things about all the characters and you’re not sure you should root for them – but you do.
All of which really leads up to the true topic of this week’s column – creating complex characters. It is both easy and difficult. It falls back to one of my cardinal rules – we write what we know, especially about people and life as we have experienced them.
What defines a given character is what they want and what they are willing to do to get what they want. By want, I mean really want – not just sorta kinda want. What do they need, what do they desire, what do they lust for, what must they have? Something primal. The more intense the want (the motivation), the better it will drive the story. The reader must not only know what the character wants, they have to feel it. They must feel the desire behind it.
What prevents the character from getting what they want (at least initially) is what makes the story. That’s the conflict. How the character copes with that conflict reveals what their true character is. Same as in life. If the need were easy to satisfy, the story would be quickly over.
Sometimes the conflict is with a person (the antagonist), sometimes an object (a mountain), sometimes a situation (a hurricane, for example). Think of your own life. What is most likely to keep you from getting what you want? As often as not, the answer is you yourself. You have doubts or fears but what is most likely to get in your way is a competing need. You want A but you want B as well and they are mutually exclusive. However, your inner child wants both. That conflict has to be resolved for the story to reach its climax. What we choose, what the character chooses, tell us and tells the reader who the character truly is.
Character exists within opposites. Never try to explain them away. Make the reader feel both desires and identify with both. State them, dramatize them, play with them before you resolve them.
Keep in mind that there may be more than two conflicting wants; in life, we may have dozens. Not all of them have to be resolved; only the main ones. Also keep in mind that it is not only your protagonist that has these conflicting needs; all your characters should. It should be true in your stories because it is true in life; it’s never simple, it’s never easy, it’s never neat and that is what makes it fascinating. Conflict is not just external; it’s internal. Apply what you know to the characters you write.
The whole time I’ve been on the creator side of Artist Alley here in the midwest, the name Dirk Manning has been omnipresent. The ebony-coifed, Cthulu-befriending, ne’er-do-well of independent horror comic writing fame has long been a stalwart presence on the periphery of my own indie tunnel-vision. Finally, I decided to be more than a passing conversation and Facebook poker and converted myself into a paying customer. And with his first volume of Tales of Mr. Rhee sitting proudly over the potty where I watch my toddlin’ son enjoy bathtime, I’ve consumed the initial batch of madness. I am elated to post that I didn’t carve a single mystic rune into my skull whilst enjoying it.
The book itselfis a hoot. A collection of web-comics presented in the standard printed comic format, the series straddles the line of the occult somewhere between the blue collar and the black robe. “Mr. Rhee” himself is a tough-as-nails savior of the damned in the same vein as folks like Constantine or Hellboy. He’s got spells and a bad attitude to keep him safe from demented and deranged demons. In all, the first volume covers bits and pieces of the titular thaumaturgy, from his humble and tragic origin to his current dangers regarding the dastardly demons that lurk in Mr. Rhee’s barely-kept-closed-closet. Say that three times fast.
Upon completing the trade, I was left in a bit of a stupor. The forward, by fellow midwestern writer “Uncle” Raf Nieves – which I oddly chose to read last – dealt entirely with the damn, I wish I’d thought of that feeling a creator might get reading somebody else’s work. While I had none of those feelings, I get entirely what was being communicated. It’s actually what drew me into making comic books in the first place. Mr. Rhee and the universe he occupies shares so much space with so many other occult/horror universes that it left me pondering mostly how talents like Mr. Manning, Nieves, and the rest all end up traveling down the same dichotomous road.
As mentioned above, Tales of Mr. Rhee lives on the line between the blue collar workaday world and the epically macabre. The evil and horrific worlds created in horror comics (and TV shows, movies, what-have-you) rely heavily on balancing the mundane with the insane. A Friday the 13th movie without the overnight camp set-up is simply never worth your time. And even when a story shuffles harder towards the blue collar – like Hellboy or Goon – there’s always a strong undercurrent of truly wicked things that anchor the story down. The balance is the key to the quality.
And for those seeking to dispel my thesis with Ghostbusters… go watch the boogyman episodes of The Real Ghostbusters and get slimed. But I digress.
The best scares – like the best laughs, or even action beats – come when you least expect it, and hit at issues underneath the surface. The best terror one might ever feel (aside from the kind you get when you sign your first mortgage) contains a large portion of plausibility, with the right dash of the impossible. A spider catching you off guard might make you jump. A spider that whispers to you that you’ve always been a failure is terrifying.
Tales of Mr. Rhee begins as an unassuming monster hunter rag. So true that it ultimately excels when the supernatural takes form as annoying neighbors, transitory spirits hanging at the bar, and even within the crevices of land purposely sold to a unassuming family to spare those in-the-know from the potential danger. The tales themselves are presented all without backstory, and finish as quickly as they start. As chapters tick off, the creeping crescendo of the final reveal ultimately provides the biggest scare of them all: We thought these tales were merely random short idiosyncratic occurrences, devoid of greater machinations. All-the-while, amidst his own decaying network of former associates, Mr. Rhee, unyielding bad-ass we thought him to be, is caught with nary an alacazam to mutter in the face of the evil that lurked underneath him the entire volume. Plausible, with that pinch of the impossible you say?
Aced her Captains Exam, my ass! Based on the level of knowledge Kate Beckett showed this week, she couldn’t have aced a Poker hand with a stacked deck.
The May 11th episode of Castle was a fairly typical episode of the show. I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing. A fairly typical episode of Castle is entertaining and doesn’t insult your intelligence over much. A fairly typical episode of Castle, also means New York City homicide detective Kate Beckettand her husband, mystery writer Rick Castle, were investigating a murder.
The episode started with a Jane Doe running through some remote woods in upstate New York then out onto a road, where she was hit by a truck, and died. Someone had carved crosses onto the woman’s face, so the state troopers believed she had been attacked in the woods then chased until she was hit by the truck. The truck driver saw a dark figure wearing a mask emerge from the woods. Based on this, the state troopers classified the case as a homicide. There was a recent receipt from a Manhattan coffee shop on the victim, so the troopers called Beckett hoping she could help them track down the victim’s identity.
Accidental death by truck during a brutal assault, however, is too ordinary a case for a police procedural show like Castle. There had to be a complication. Something to give the case that audience-grabbing oomph just before the show broke away for the opening credits.
There was. First Castle recognized the facial cross carvings and the truck driver’s description of the assailant’s mask. Then Castle gave us that extra oomph.
When he was a boy, Castle chanced upon a murder in progress while walking through some woods. Castle saw the killer had carved crosses onto the victim’s face and that the killer wore a distinctive mask; the same crosses and same mask from the current Jane Doe case. Castle realized that the Jane Doe was the work of a serial killer who had been operating for thirty years.
The detectives determined that their killer du semaine must have hidden his victims’ bodies so none were ever found. They were classified as missing persons. No one knew they murder victims, let alone that there was a TV-styled serial killer involved.
No one, that is, until Castle put the pieces together. When Castle saw the killer the first time, the killer, for reasons known only to no one, didn’t kill the only person who knew about his mask and his penchant for carving facial crosses. The killer simply warned Castle not to tell anyone about what he saw. Because that’s what you want to do if you’re a serial killer who operates in such secrecy that no one even knows you exist; you leave the only person who knows you exist alive to talk to the police. Oops, let me rethink that whole not insulting your intelligence thing.
In the course of their investigation, Castle and Beckett end up interviewing a person and Castle immediately recognized that person’s voice as being the murderer’s voice. So with about ten minutes to go in the episode, Castle and Beckett knew who the murderer was.
Problem was they had no proof.
Then Beckett learned the murderer’s dead parents had owned a remote farm in upstate New York near where the Jane Doe died. The farm was now held in trust now and their suspect was the trustee. Castle and Beckett realized that this remote farm was a perfect place for hiding bodies.
Problem was they still had no proof.
Beckett knew she could never get a warrant to search the farm based solely on Castle’s thirty-year-old voice recognition. “And if I searched it without one, then any evidence I would find would be inadmissible.” Okay, so far so good. Beckett showed an understanding of search and seizure law that was more than good enough to you ace a captains exam.
Then Beckett proved she actually understood search and seizure about as well asCookie Monster understands good eating habits. “But you’re not [a cop],” Beckett said to Castle. “It would be trespassing. You would be breaking the law. But if you found something… And I know how much this means to you. So whatever you decide, I will back your play.”
Detective Beckett was correct, the Fourth Amendment did prevent her from searching the farm without a warrant. Beckett was also correct that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t cover the actions of private citizens and that if a private citizen searched the farm without a warrant then gave any evidence he found to the police, that evidence would be admissible, because there was no state action involved – state action being actions by any government, either state or federal. It’s called the Silver Platter Doctrine, a term first used in Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74.
Where Beckett went wrong was classifying Castle as a private citizen.
If a private citizen conducts a search while acting as a government agent, then state action does exist. United States v. Jacobsen 466 U.S. 109. If the private citizen is working with the police, than anything the private citizen finds during an illegal search is every bit as inadmissible as evidence found by an actual police officer, because, in essence, the police did find it.
So the question is: Was Castle acting as a private citizen or as a government agent when he searched the farm? The answer is plain. But to make it plainer, let’s look at the test most federal courts use to determine whether a person is acting as a private citizen or a government agent.
It’s a two-prong test, because courts would never make anything so simple that it could be answered with only one prong. The prongs are “ 1) whether the government knew of and acquiesced in the intrusive conduct, and 2) whether the party performing the search intended to assist law enforcement efforts or to further his own ends.” U.S. v. Walther 652 F.2d 788, 791 (9th Cir. 1981).
Here Detective Beckett not only knew of and acquiesced in Castle’s warrantless search, she actually suggested that Castle commit criminal trespass in order to search the farm for the evidence to convict the murderer. Under the Walther test, there wasn’t enough doubt that Castle was acting as a police agent to give Thomas the Apostlepause.
And even Thomas would have stopped doubting when the show came out of commercial break. Castle didn’t drive up to the farm alone. Castle and Beckett drove up to the farm together. Beckett stayed in the car which was parked just on the other side of the farm’s property line and watched through binoculars, while Castle searched the farm’s barn. But Beckett didn’t want Castle “going in alone.” She instructed him to put his cell phone on speaker. Ever the dutiful husband, Castle gave Beckett a step-by-step account of what he found over his cell. At one point, Beckett even told him, “you’re gonna need more than that to call the police. Look around he may have keep trophies from his victims.” Beckett may not have been physically conducting the search, but she was directing it from long distance.
Was there state action? Hell yes! Castle’s search had more state than the 114th Congress. In fact, considering current gridlock, Castle’s search had a more government action than the 114th Congress. A lot more.
Beckett’s suggested plan of attack was one that guaranteed none of the evidence found on the farm would be admissible. Her plan actually jeopardized their chance of catching the killer. Unless, of course, she and Castle planned to lie on the witness stand about how Castle found the evidence.
But they wouldn’t do that, would they? Not even I am so cynical as to suggest that “Effective Perjury” is covered in the captains exam.
This week, Archie Comics announced a Kickstarter campaign to launch a bunch of new titles. If you read the comments at the link (which normally, I would never recommend), you’ll see people who object to Adam Hughes drawing Betty and Veronica because it objectifies the characters, seeing them through the male gaze.
First, let me say that I like Adam Hughes’ work. I think the women he draws, while beautiful, also look physically possible, more like movie stars with trainers than broomsticks with hair and boobs. If that gets me booted out of Feminism Camp, so be it.
But mostly, when has Betty and Veronica been about anything but the male gaze? Two beautiful teenage girls, interchangeable except for the color of their hair, wear the most revealing clothes the Comics Code would allow, mooning over a boy who is average at best. The fact that these have been described as “comics for girls” is an example of gender-role indoctrination at its most insidious.
And, yes, I kind of like them, too. I contain multitudes.
Anyway, this story, which might not be important in and of itself, seems to me to be part of a larger issue. We are in (I hope) a period of transition, as women and other groups who don’t look like studio heads and venture capitalists (i.e. by and large mostly straight white men) are trying to tell their own stories or, at least, see stories about characters who look like them.
This happens most felicitously when a variety of people get to tell their own stories in their own ways. It can also happen when talented straight white men who actually know a variety of people tell a story honestly.
It doesn’t happen when they take a straight white male hero and slap tits/black skin/brown skin/queer impulses on him. Unfortunately, that last option happens a lot. And when the hero is made female, she is too often cast because she looks beautiful, not heroic.
This was satirized brilliantly on a recent episode of Inside Amy Schumer. A jury of 12 angry men sat in judgment as to whether or not Amy Schumer was hot enough to star in a cable television show. They didn’t talk about whether or not she was funny, or a talented actor. They talked about whether or not her appearance gave them a “chubbie.”
Lots of women in show business have complained about this type of behavior, and for the most part, men – even sympathetic men — haven’t fully believed them. In fact, the show was inspired by a real event and a real idiot, a man with access to entertainment executives, a man to whom the industry listens.
It’s tempting, at this point, to sigh and make a (stereotyped and bigoted) joke about nerds who live in their mothers’ basements and don’t know any real women. Those jokes might even have a bit of truth to them. However, we live in a time when women who express opinions and demonstrate autonomy get death threats. Their jobs are threatened. The men responsible complain about the tyranny of feminism (in which case, where is my scepter?) and lament that women get to control their own bodies when deciding with whom they want to have sex.
(Note: I read that somewhere online in a comments section, and can’t find the link anymore. It might be the opinion of only one guy. I hope so.)
There will be nothing on television in the upcoming season that extreme because television exists on advertising aimed at the mass market. Instead, we’ll get a bunch of shows that pat women on the head for being so gosh-darned resourceful as to manage both a career and a vagina . All the women starring in these shows will be as beautiful as Betty and Veronica. and they will have gorgeous wardrobes. Some will be able to chase criminals while wearing high heels.
It is up to us, as the audience, to see to it that this condescending, patronizing kind of show falls flat on its face.
Teen Titans Go! is an animated TV show that follows the Teen Titans — Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Raven & Beast Boy — when they are not saving the world.They live in a T-shaped building (cool) together (so cool) as teenagers (OMG even cooler) without adult supervision (CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE!)It’s based on DC’s Teen Titans, so if you watch closely you’ll see some characters you might know.But you should watch because they have an episode where they just say “Waffles” and one where Robin has to house sit the Bat Cave.They also like to sing.
When we were at WonderCon, we had chance to talk with the show’s producers, Michael Jelenic and Aaron Harvath, as well as two of the voice actors, Scott Manville (Robin) and Greg Cipes (Beast Boy).Teen Titan Go! airs Tuesday night at 6/5c on Cartoon Network.
I call them “cop shows” or, if I’m feeling a bit cutesy, “badge operas.” A screenwriting acquaintance says they’re “procedurals.” But never mind the label: by whatever name, they’re what constitutes most of the bread-and-butter television programming and you probably don’t have to go further than your nearest remote to find one.
There will be a pseudo family of protagonists – police, doctors, lawyers, feds, the occasional fire fighter or paramedic – and these people will be presented with a problem, usually one that involves injury done to an innocent party, and, using their skills and wit and such facilities as are provided to them, they will solve the problem. Usually, but not always, there is a happy ending appended to the story and once in a very great while, things end badly.
But don’t hold your breath waiting for that episode. Usually, by the rolling of the end credits, righteousness and harmony have been restored, justice has been done. The message, which we get over and over and over and over again, is that the system works to assure that the good guys win. Those good guys may have their quirks and eccentricities, but they’ve got each others’ backs and they will get the job done!
Do you believe that? Do I? Well, no, not consciously. That’s not the message real life has delivered. But it is the message that we hear every day, constantly. And I suspect that it registers with most people, at least subliminally, and we are cheery and optimistic enough to hit the mall and, you know, buy happy-making stuff.
Many of the world’s religions have been offering similar palliatives for centuries. No matter how wretched your life is, be patient and do what we say and eventually you’ll go to the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
But procedurals aren’t all that television provides. Lately, if you’ve surfed your way onto a news channel, you’ve seen images of fire and chaos and violence. That little town outside St. Louis – Ferguson, is it? And a couple of hundred miles or so south of where I’m sitting, a favorite city, Baltimore. Riots and looting and pain and terror. None of it scripted.
More to come? Almost certainly.
Maybe something can be done. But…the situation isn’t really that bad, is it? Oh, that business in Ferguson and Baltimore and maybe a few other locales here and there, now and then – that’s certainly disturbing. But fundamentally, everything’s okay. Nothing broke that won’t be fixed.
Now, what’s on tonight? Law and Order SVU? One of the CSI shows? Oh, and Bones. Bones is always good.
Probably everyone I know has that stack of books in their home just waiting to be read. You know, that stack of books that you bought at an event, or saw at the bookstore, or a friend gave you as a must-read! Well, my stack has grown to become an amorphous blob of books, overtaking my apartment like an alien virus. It’s about time I get cracking some spines open.
So, I started with Strong Female Protagonisthttp://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/, which I admittedly was first interested in totally based on the name. Because, it’s about time we saw more female comic leads. Like I always just started saying, if the Big Two won’t provide, go to the indie comics!
SFP is a web comic (yes, you can read it for free! but since I spend a good chunk of my life on the subway unground sans Internet, I just bought the book to get me started) starring Allison, a former superhero who is just trying to figure out who she is with, or even despite, her powers. We follow Allison as she interacts with the world and the people around her, some with powers and some without.
This story, by Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag, pays off in that Allison’s questions aren’t specific to a superhero with powers or even to a woman. They apply to everyone and anyone could relate to this story. It was a fantastic read, and I immediately jumped right onto the web to read what happened next.
The downside of reading it was the knowledge I had waited so long to read it. I had heard of Strong Female Protagonist for years but failed to follow through on actually reading it. Everything we read affects who were are as people, so I can only wonder who I would have been if I had more strong female characters in comics.
At least, I’ve learned my lesson. That stack of books is going to shrink, even as I continue to add to it.
