Tagged: Real Time

John Ostrander: Holding Out For A Hero

Bill Maher, noted iconoclastic and increasingly misanthropic host of Real Time on HBO, announced about ten days ago that he was taking July off because, after six months of President Trump, he really needed it. I sympathize. Not before he took what I regard as some ill-informed and gratuitous swipes at comics, comic book movies, sci-fi/fantasy books, movies and TV and anything else I assume that he considers intellectually lowbrow.

Among his gripes that the stupid summer movies were increasingly infiltrating into fall, the time for more serious, adult movies. His biggest gripe is that they make us, the unwashed public, stupider because it makes us want a savior, someone who will descend from on high and rescue us instead of getting off our duffs and doing what needs to be done (i.e. deal with Trump) ourselves.

Except they’re not.

What bothers me about Maher’s criticisms is that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I have severe doubts Mr. Maher has seen any of the superhero films, let alone read a comic book. It reminds me of the people who used to criticize Harry Potter films and books (which Maher also dislikes) as Satanic without ever having seen a film or read a word of the books. Somebody told them they were Satanic and that’s all they needed.

I can’t entirely blame Maher for thinking that films such as Man of Steel present the superhero as a godlike being descending to save the masses. The director, Zack Snyder, appeared to make the same mistake, presenting Supes in various Jesus like images. However, Superman is more like Moses than Jesus. Moses comes as a baby in a basket floating down the Nile to the Egyptian princess; baby Kal-El comes to Earth in a small rocket to the Kents in Kansas. Moses grows up as an Egyptian; Kal-El grows up as part of the Midwestern farming community.

However, Superman is neither. One of the key moments in the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie is the first time he takes off his glasses and opens his shirt to reveal the iconic S.

Not only does he become Superman: we become Superman.

That’s one of the big keys to the success of Superman over the decades. It’s part of the myth. Yes, we may seem meek and mild-mannered like Clark Kent but, if we took off our glasses and opened our shirts, people would see we were Superman.

It’s the same thing in the Wonder Woman movie, the first time Princess Diana shows up in the Wonder Woman regalia. [SPOILER ALERT!] It’s a great moment as she climbs out of the trench and starts determinedly to stride across No-Man’s Land. She deflects the murderous gunfire of the Germans. She has been outraged by the suffering of innocents and she’s going to do something about it. The Allied troops, inspired, join her and drive the Germans from the suffering village.

At that moment, Wonder Woman is us. Male and female, we identify with her. We become her. That’s the power, not only of the movies but of the story in general. We identify with that hero. They can inspire us to become our best selves.

That is what Bill Maher doesn’t get.

I don’t dislike Maher. He speaks up on topics and takes positions with which I agree – such as climate change. In doing that, he speaks for many people. It’s why I listen; to hear what I think and feel put into words. That’s why it’s frustrating to hear Maher denigrate the field in which I work and that so many worldwide really enjoy. The global revenues on these films are greater than the U.S. take. This suggests that the films speak to people outside our shores and, I suspect, for much the same reasons. It’s not simply the special effects; it’s how they make us feel.

It does make me question. If Maher is so blind on this, how much else is he blind about and that I ignore because they fall into my own prejudices and beliefs.

I hope Maher comes back from his time off refreshed and ready to do battle again. I don’t expect him to backtrack from his previous statements. I’d just like to see him leave comics alone.

Because, Bill, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

John Ostrander: Crossed Lines

So, Bill Maher crossed the line and got himself into hot water. Given the nature of his HBO show, Real Time, and his own proclivities as a satirist, maybe he should just have a hot tub on stage instead of a desk. It would suit him in many ways.

Recently, as part of an interview, Maher jokingly referred to himself as a “house ‘N’ word.” No, I’m not repeating the actual word here for a few reasons. A) I don’t want to pull a Maher; B) I don’t like the word. I won’t pretend I’ve never used it; I threw it around a bit as a kid in 1950s Chicago along with the “c” word, the “f” word, the “mf” and others of that ilk because I knew they were bad words, naughty words, and I was trying at those moments to pass myself off to my self and my friends as a naughty boy, as a bad boy. Didn’t use those words around my family, my parents, or the nuns; I would have been a dead boy if I had. I haven’t used the “n” word as an adult; not since I learned the history of the word, the harm in it.

I know that the “n” word is used by African-Americans and I know that’s different; there’s a cultural aspect to the use that doesn’t work with someone who is white. There’s a menace when that happens; a whole history of racism and bigotry packed into it.

However, I do have a question. Can I, as a white male writer, ever use it in the context of a story? When I was writing The Kents (my historical Western featuring the ancestors of Clark Kent’s adoptive family), I had characters who could have and perhaps should have used that word. I couldn’t bring myself to do it so I adopted a similar word as a replacement only to learn later that this word was perhaps more offensive.

I ran up against the same problem with Kros: Hallowed Ground. It’s set during the Civil War and the word would have been used. At first, I was inclined to use it but I had long talks with my partners, Tom Mandrake and Jan Duursema. They made the point that the word was jarring when you came across it and that it might well offend some of our backers, black and white. In the end, I agreed we shouldn’t use that word and didn’t.

The question still remains for me; can I as a white male writer justifiably use such a loaded word?

There’s the Mark Twain example who made prolific use of the “n” word; one of his great characters in Huck Finn is “N” Jim. I know there are versions of the book in which all the “N” words have been removed. I’m not nuts about that. There is a term “Bowdlerize” which denotes going through a text, especially a classic, and removing words and/or terms deemed offensive or not suitable for children and people easily offended. That raises my writerly hackles.

Still, the question persists – can a white male writer legitimately use the “n” word or the “c” word or any other words of that ilk? I don’t know. I’m still searching for that answer and I suspect I won’t find a definitive one.

Maher, for his part, realizes he went too far and did apologize for it. He devoted a considerable part of his show this week in a discussion of the term, repeating his apology. Ice Cube, among others, explained why the word is objectionable in ways that might expand our understanding of the situation.

However, there have been those who have called for him to be fired. I understand that Sen. Al Franken canceled a scheduled appearance on Real Time this week. Franken was formerly a comic, sometimes an edgy one, but he’s cutting no slack here.

Both Maher and Kathy Griffin (who got herself in trouble with a photo holding up a severed head of Trump) make edginess part of their routines. The edge, however, is not well marked and at times the only way you know where it is is when you’ve gone over it. And, at times, you’ll go past it at 100 mph.

To say the “N,” if you’re white, is never right. As a writer, as a white male writer, can I ever write it? I don’t know and until I have a clearer answer, I won’t. I may never get that.

Life would be simpler if it just came with a clearer book of instructions. Something simple and easy, in clear black and white.

Mindy Newell: Bend Over

“I won’t be ig-NORED, Dan,” said Alex Forest (Glenn Close) to her illicit lover Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) in Fatal Attraction. And so said a large enough number of disconcerted people who were fed up with being ig-NORED by the political elite gathered around the Potomac basin to swing the Electoral College vote in favor of Donald Trump. Go fuck yourselves, they said. Bend over, said Trump.

It’s been one lie after another, one alternative fact after another, and one tweet after another since the inauguration, all to assuage the ego of the malignant narcissist who sits in the oval office. His sickophants trip over each other in their eagerness to obfuscate the truth and stay in their own bubbles of power. Erstwhile enemies, thugs, and bullies are welcomed and coddled and credit is taken where it is not due. Everything is upside down and inside out. And then this happened:

The Washington Post, Friday, May 26: “Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.”

Reuters, Saturday, May 27: “U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, had at least three previously undisclosed contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, seven current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.”

What the fuck?!!

And what did his father-in-law have to say – I mean, tweet? “It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media.” He also said: “Jared is doing a great job for the country… I have total confidence in him. He is respected by virtually everyone and is working on programs that will save our country billions of dollars. In addition to that, and perhaps more importantly, he is a very good person.” Which statement do you think reflects the real Donald? One is from the gut, the other, im-not so-ho, came from some political toady assigned to make Il Trumpci sound more erudite.

Today is Monday, May 29. Jared Kushner still sits at his father-in-law’s right hand, his Senior White House Advisor.

Get fucked, said the people to the Washington establishment.

Bend over, said Trump.

Look, I know this isn’t a political site, and I’m supposed to be talking about comics and pop culture. But some days – and it’s becoming more and more difficult not to say every day – it’s really hard not to dwell on the way words like integrity and honor and truth are fading away from the American zeitgeist.

And this brings me to yesterday’s column by my pal John Ostrander.

I do not miss an episode of Real Time. I love Bill Maher. I love that he is not afraid to say what he thinks, despite – and maybe just because – he knows he has a large bulls-eye painted right between his eyes, that he would be among the first to be jailed, and maybe even worse if Il Trumpci could have his way and arrest journalists, as the New York Times reported on May 17 (“Trump’s Urging That Comey Jail Reporters Denounced as an ‘Act of Intimidation’”). Yes, I know Maher is a comic and a political commentator, but Il Trumpci is incapable of splitting hairs.

My love of Maher doesn’t mean that I always agree with him, and when I watched and listened to his diatribe during the “New Rules” segment, I was, at first, like John, angered and dismayed. I was surprised that he didn’t get it.

Just as in the Great Depression, when people escaped the misery of their lives by escaping to movies in which an impeccably tuxedoed Fred Astaire and gorgeously gowned Ginger Rogers danced and sang in front of a backdrop of fantasized night clubs and hotels and apartments, and the plucky and adorable Shirley Temple beat insurmountable odds to survive “happily every after,” today’s audiences seek relief from the constant negativity around them, and they (we) find it in super-hero movies and television shows. Not because they are waiting for “Star-Lord and a fucking raccoon to sweep in and save our sorry asses” (well, some, maybe, and if so, they have a long wait), but because underneath it all there is a yearning for the abstract principles we learned in Social Studies class or in movies like Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day and even Camelot to be true – “not might is right, but might for right.” A yearning for “truth, justice, and the American way.”

But, people, I also get where Bill was coming from. He was saying that We, the People must not wait for King Arthur to return. He was saying that We, the People must not pin our hopes on fictional heroes in colorful costumes. He was saying that We, the People must be our own heroes. He was saying, “get your noses out of your asses and smell the roses. Stop looking at your phones, and look at the fucking world. For fuck’s sake, act.”

He’s angry and mystified and screaming what the fuck!!?

But here’s another thought: Everybody needs a hero. And you, Bill Maher, and you, Stephen Colbert, and Samantha Bee, and Jimmy Fallon, and John Oliver, and Trevor Noah, and Seth Meyer, and every other comedic commentator, every public persona who speaks truth to power, are real superheroes; are Star-Lord and Superman and Wonder Woman and Iron Man and Black Widow and Captain America and Batman and Supergirl and The Flash and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. They are Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and The Defenders.

Bend over, Donald.

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