tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post9158789225601640273..comments2023-07-18T03:44:33.021-07:00Comments on The Bit Maelstrom: More Fun With Superheroes and Politicsblakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05430444326700437630noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-25520444147171993052009-03-16T17:40:00.000-07:002009-03-16T17:40:00.000-07:00That is exactly right and I believe the whole poin...That is exactly right and I believe the whole <I>point</I> of <I>Watchmen</I>. (Apart from the misanthropy and nihilism, that is.) It's also characteristic of the general degradation of archetypes that pervaded film in the '60s. <BR/><BR/>It wasn't unconscious, either: There are a ton of movies from the time about "the last hero". The cowboy also became an anti-hero. But the heroic/action stories probably suffered the least, because in order for most action to be entertaining, you need to be able to take a side.<BR/><BR/>(Romantic-comedies have never recovered. Where they were originally built on strong men and women butting heads with trying to resolve how to co-exist, they ultimately became stories about neurotic, barely functional people.)<BR/><BR/>But the Watchmen are literally just people in masks whose greater purpose has given them no occasion to rise above petty concerns.<BR/><BR/>I mean, seriously, can you imagine Superman dealing with the Silk Specter's daddy issues while the earth was at stake? Or, better yet, Batman?<BR/><BR/>Art critics always fault the action narrative for not delving into the Freudian muck. Such stories where the characters are not neurotic (or don't wallow in neuroses) are considered "childish" or "shallow". Which tells you something about art critics.<BR/><BR/>In the action tradition, it's the villains who wallow in that stuff, if it's presented at all. <BR/><BR/>In this art-critic-approved tradition--which is not just coincidental with the demoralization of our society--heroes are just like everyone else, no better, no worse. (There's some cognitive dissonance there.)<BR/><BR/><I>Then all you have to do to make a super-hero is intensify the heroism (and maybe throw in some supernatural abilities just for fun).</I><BR/><BR/>Well, isn't that <I>true?</I> Soldiers do heroic things all the time. Isn't the reason that The Batman holds such sway over the generations is that, theoretically, if you just tried hard enough, you could be him?<BR/><BR/>What purpose does it server to send a message that even if you made yourself the best you could be, you still wouldn't be very good? That you'll still spend your days soaking in ennui or hating your parents or just plain not giving enough of a damn to change the world, even though you could?blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05430444326700437630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-81196807824658538972009-03-16T13:41:00.000-07:002009-03-16T13:41:00.000-07:00if you changed Superman's character to be like one...<I>if you changed Superman's character to be like one of the Watchmen, that'd still be pretty shocking.<BR/><BR/>But if that changed Suerpman permeated the culture, that edginess would cease to be, and Superman would lose his iconic status.</I><BR/><BR/>Love that categorical imperative.<BR/><BR/>Perhaps another way of framing this discussion would be this: a super-hero is just that: a hero who goes beyond other heroes. So while I was focused on the "super", your argument rests entirely on the concept of a "hero", which, being a label of moral approbation, carries with it certain limits. <BR/><BR/>So what you're saying, then, is of heroes that "they sacrifice personal lives for the good of the community, but not because they're compelled to by an external authority. Rather they feel their ability to help translates to a responsibility to help", and that this is a <I>conservative</I> (classically liberal, w/e) ideal that isn't compatible with certain strands of <I>liberalism</I> (statism, w/e).<BR/><BR/>Then all you have to do to make a super-hero is intensify the heroism (and maybe throw in some supernatural abilities just for fun).<BR/><BR/>So we might then say that even though the Watchmen may do super-heroic deeds (e.g., the airship fire-rescue mission), they are not super-heroes because they are not <I>characteristically</I> heroic (to speak generally)--rather, they are just super-men: the same goods and the same bads, just amplified.Joe M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06787124845441195993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-81633643621220999542009-03-16T12:32:00.000-07:002009-03-16T12:32:00.000-07:00Nah, the Dark Knight wasn't all that dark when he ...Nah, the Dark Knight wasn't all that dark when he started, not in the way that's currently interpreted. (Though he did take a few years to find his feet as a character.) <BR/><BR/>The edginess only works because it's playing against a pretty well established black-and-white good-versus-evil context. <BR/><BR/>Which, actually, is why it works less and less. People don't have the expectations they used to, so there's less to play against. <BR/><BR/>It's only the truly iconic heroes that represent the "old school" so, you know, if you changed Superman's character to be like one of the Watchmen, that'd still be pretty shocking.<BR/><BR/>But if that changed Suerpman permeated the culture, that edginess would cease to be, and Superman would lose his iconic status.blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05430444326700437630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-91833228475264162312009-03-16T10:25:00.000-07:002009-03-16T10:25:00.000-07:00Blake:That makes sense. I suppose that I've seen ...Blake:<BR/><BR/>That makes sense. I suppose that I've seen so much of the "dark" heroes that I've lost touch with what you point out is the traditional moral framework.Joe M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06787124845441195993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-53390457777414220612009-03-16T00:11:00.000-07:002009-03-16T00:11:00.000-07:00XWL--That had to be pretty late if it featured the...XWL--<BR/><BR/>That had to be pretty late if it featured the Ninja Turtles, which were created in '84 and weren't really kiddie fodder until '87. <BR/><BR/>I agree that Octobriana looks like a hoax.blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05430444326700437630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-37610133508535606812009-03-16T00:09:00.000-07:002009-03-16T00:09:00.000-07:00Joe M--I'm really talking about the comic-book-her...Joe M--<BR/><BR/>I'm really talking about the comic-book-heroic-genre as originally established, trying to make the point that this very libertarian framework can be used in any number of (self-defeating) ways. <BR/><BR/>Anything from the past 25 years is suspect, as the model has been established, and can now be deconstructed. <I>Watchmen</I> couldn't be written without--doesn't make sense without--a history based on the notion of the powerful individual righting wrongs. <BR/><BR/>Now, that kidnapping you're referring to in <I>The Dark Knight</I> is really just "extraordinary rendition". He's acting as an unofficial agent of the government. Since we actually do this, and since he does it working with the police and district attorney, it's hard to say he's operating outside the law. (And we do have people who do that, at least for the Federal government.)<BR/><BR/>By the way, the two recent Batman movies are contradictory: In the first movie, Batman lets Ra's al Ghul die. He says "I won't kill you but I don't have to save you" which is wrong: The Batman does have to save those he can. So in the sequel, he looks sort of foolish going through all this trouble to keep The Joker alive.<BR/><BR/>As to your larger point, whether something akin to the <I>Watchmen</I> is the logical conclusion to heroism and super-heroism, I say, no, although it's possibly an inevitable subervision of the paradigm.<BR/><BR/>The far more likely conclusion is the one found in "Dark Knight Returns".<BR/><BR/>I don't think it's really supportable--from the comic book tradition, anyway--that masked vigilantes are above the law, since I'm pretty sure all of them have done prison time at some point. <BR/><BR/>In any event, all serve some sort of code. Most famously, there's "truth, justice and the American Way". But Green Lantern, e.g., is actually a cop. <BR/><BR/>Again, it's more like superheroes are bounty hunters or private investigators, with special "license" in some areas.<BR/><BR/>If you really wanted to go deep on it, though, we'd have to start looking at the various eras, because attitudes change over time, and the issue has been tackled and resolved in the medium itself in various ways.blakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05430444326700437630noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-21343236684107463492009-03-15T18:33:00.000-07:002009-03-15T18:33:00.000-07:00"I don't believe the USSR had superheroes."Oh, the...<I>"I don't believe the USSR had superheroes."</I><BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://englishrussia.com/?p=2291" REL="nofollow">Oh, they tried</A> sort of, this would have been at the very tail end of the Soviet era, or possibly during the CIS days, so it appears there never was a comic book culture in Cold War era Soviet Union, unless you count <A HREF="http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/o/octob.htm" REL="nofollow">Octobriana</A>, but that's probably a hoax.XWLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13646729965929680256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7268985416439660021.post-46301118623840429312009-03-15T17:31:00.000-07:002009-03-15T17:31:00.000-07:00[Apologies for the length. This is when it would ...[Apologies for the length. This is when it would prove useful to have a blog of my own.]<BR/><BR/><I>While superheroes do act outside "the rules" for normal people ... they don't act outside the law, or at least not much. ...<BR/><BR/>Traditionally, heroes and superheroes capture the criminal--but leave them to the law to prosecute.<BR/></I><BR/>Now if we're talking Spiderman tying up some thugs while they're robbing a candy store, sure. But I'm not certain that you can draw a hard and fast line here ; I'm not certain that you can establish that the super-hero is, in fact, subject to the rule of law.<BR/><BR/>An example from <I>The Dark Knight</I>: Batman goes to China and abducts a crooked businessman--does he get prosecuted for kidnapping, or for breaking any of the myriad other laws he surely did while on that operation (destruction of private property, assault, &c)? No. That would seem to make him outside the law. His actions, not okay for other people, are somehow okay for him because we trust in him to "do the right thing."<BR/><BR/>It seems then that the super-hero with respect to his super-hero-ness (super-hero <I>qua</I> super-hero, hereafter the <I>ideal</I> super-hero) is not accountable to the law or to the state.<BR/><BR/>Could we say, however, ideal super-hero is accountable to something else? Society as distinct from the state, perhaps? How would that work? If society rejects super-heroics (a common trope in these stories, I believe), then does the ideal super-hero stop super-heroing? Or does he continue in his activity for the benefit of those who only reject him out of ignorance/fear/&c?<BR/><BR/>So what evidence do we really have to show that the hero is accountable to anything other than his own conscience?<BR/><BR/>And if the hero is only accountable to his own conscience (for the greater good) we have <I>Watchmen</I>: the logical extreme of super-heroics.<BR/><BR/>Make sense? It seems to me that the super-hero can be said to act outside the law, but I'm not sold on that position ; I'd be happy to be persuaded away from it. More could be said, of course, but I'll leave off here and pass the discussion back to you.Joe M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/06787124845441195993noreply@blogger.com