Later, when Superman joins the fray, the movie turns into an orgy of gratuitous building-battering as Zod and Superman punch each other through several giant high-rises. It recalls a similar Metropolis fight between those two characters in 1980’s Superman II, only there, when Superman knocks a baddie into a building — an act that sends the skyscraper’s spire tumbling towards a crowd of people on the ground — Superman actually halts the fight to grab that spire before it lands, a quaint moment that still reminds us that the lives of innocent citizens are at stake. In Man of Steel, however, the superhero seems mostly unfazed by the people of Metropolis who are surely collateral damage to his big battle; similarly, director Zack Snyder seems to have waved it off. There is no acknowledgement that all of the buildings that are being destroyed might have people in them. It’s a bloodless massacre of concrete, 9/11 imagery erased of its most haunting factor: the loss of life.Over at Vulture, Kyle Buchanan talks back to the major post-9/11 blockbuster trend of using massive, violent destruction of cities and faceless, nameless innocent bystanders as backdrop for superhero, action and various other Michael Bay-esque films. It’s a great takedown of the casual nature of the approach to destruction, where collateral damage is common and rarely fully acknowledged (how much of NYC died in The Avengers? how many died in the last Star Trek?). The connection to 9/11 imagery and the cheapening of the fear that accompanies the images of crumbling buildings in a terror-struck metropolitan setting is important, too.
(The point is not fully “ugh, violence in movies” although there’s that. It’s more about the fact the violence is actually largely ignored, unacknowledged and has surprisingly little long-term impact on plot. Once over, Earth or wherever usually seems to be restored. Just minus a few thousand or more people.)
Hmm. Something to think about this morning.
(via notnadia)
This was my absolute BIGGEST problem with a movie that I found to be riddled with endless problems. All I needed was one scene. One single measly fucking moment during which Kal-El (I refuse, refuse to call that nightmarish distortion of Superman Clark Kent) pauses for a moment and tries — at least fucking tries — to prevent the outright civilian massacre that his and Zod’s brawl triggers.
Even during the Alien Decimation of New York scene in Avengers, there’s an active plan — spearheaded by, of course, Cap — to get evacuate civilians from the city. It’s the very first priority. Even though there’s nothing they could’ve done to move the tesseract. Even though loss of innocent life was inevitable, and they also had to worry about, y’know, closing the goddamn portal. They still did what I saw as absolutely everything a six-person superteam could possibly do to keep the people as safe as possible. There were multiple scenes demonstrating this. Joss Whedon refused shrug off the the consequences of his Cool Epic Super Battle, which is what made The Avengers so great.
And honestly, I think a handful of my other issues with Man of Steel could’ve been solved with the addition of a civilian evacuation/concern/something scene. Maybe not the epileptic expositional scenes or the melodramatic, more-serious-than-the-death-of-the-Waynes dialogue, but the final Zod “twist” for sure. People have been mocking Mark Waid’s frustration with “Superman making absolutely no effort to take the fight, like, ONE BLOCK AWAY INTO A CORNFIELD INSTEAD OF ON MAIN STREET,” but what he said sums up the problem perfectly. A fight in a corn field probably wouldn’t have looked as cool as skyscrapers collapsing onto thousands of screaming innocents, but it would’ve made me believe in the existence of a Clark Kent within an otherwise hollow alien shell.
I’m not saying Superman had to save them all. I’m not saying he could save them all. But God fucking dammit at least pretend like he gave half a shit beyond “bash Zod’s brains out.” Snyder and Nolan sacrificed Kal-El’s humanity for destruction porn. And that’s something that, even if MoS is the most feminist superhero movie of all time, I simply cannot get past.
(Source: thepoliticalnotebook, via popculturebrain)
- 18th June
2013 - 18
- 14th June
2013 - 14
How Kal-El Numbed My Heart
Let me start by first saying that, despite my long history with comic books, I am not exactly the world’s biggest Superman fan. In fact, in the nearly ten years I’ve spent as a comics fan, I can say with near-certainty that I’ve maybe read only one or two issues exclusive to Our Hallowed Man of Steel. But at my core, I’ve always understood what Superman was about: hope. Warmth. Love. And the respect I feel for that legacy is insurmountable, even from afar.
Man of Steel took everything I understood about Superman and shattered it, wholly and completely.
- 8th November
2012 - 08
Your words inspire me.
They really are all so inspiring. <3 I love all of these quotes.
(Source: queenmera)
- 27th October
2012 - 27
- 15th September
2012 - 15
- 29th August
2012 - 29
- 22nd August
2012 - 22
“It’s only the end if you want it to be.”
Dedicated to DC’s unending determination to kill all the things I love.
- 27th June
2012 - 27
Big talk for someone in a silly superhero film, I hear you say. But superhero films offer a shared, faithless, modern mythology, through which these truths can be explored. In our increasingly secular society, with so many disparate gods and different faiths, superhero films present a unique canvas upon which our shared hopes, dreams and apocalyptic nightmares can be projected and played out. Ancient societies had anthropomorphic gods: a huge pantheon expanding into centuries of dynastic drama; fathers and sons, martyred heroes, star-crossed lovers, the deaths of kings – stories that taught us of the danger of hubris and the primacy of humility. It’s the everyday stuff of every man’s life, and we love it. It sounds cliched, but superheroes can be lonely, vain, arrogant and proud. Often they overcome these human frailties for the greater good. The possibility of redemption is right around the corner, but we have to earn it. [Tom Hiddleston]
- 25th June
2012 - 25
I will forever use David Foster Wallace as intellectual justification for my love of superhero comic books, and I’m not sorry.
[On a Stakeout - Harseik]
A couple months ago, a writing professor whom I respect greatly, whose teaching I enjoy so much that I’ve taken three classes with him, in a row, told me he never would’ve pegged me for a comic book lover. By this point I’d made my interest in the medium quite clear, through both fiction and nonfiction pieces alike. Still he expressed surprise, and when I asked him why, he told me, “Well, you’re very intelligent.”
My first reaction was to be flattered beyond all reason or measure. Understand that I pretty much worship this man, and his opinion of me means the world. But even so, his reaction stuck with me long after my internal gloating had subsided. Now, it must be said that this professor is an older gentleman. A real American Frontier sort of writer, who loves himself some Rick Bass, some Anne Proulx, that sort of thing. His idea of a hero is someone who owns horses and a gun. An alien in spandex? Not so much.
So I set about trying to figure out what exactly it was about superhero comics that I loved so much from a more cerebral standpoint than my usual “OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT AWESOME PANEL WHERE STARLING FUCKING DESTROYED THAT GUY?” I wished to be a little more meticulous this time around, just a hair more surgical in my analysis of the role of superhero comics in my own life. What was the draw for me? What was my trigger? What had me going back to New England Comics week after week and blowing money on Batwoman and Birds of Prey and Savage that I should’ve been using on groceries?
The answer, I’ve found, lies in the picture above (which I’ve already reblogged on my tumblr, but I just love it so much). On a Stakeout, it’s called, by an incredibly talented deviantart member who goes by the name of Harseik. In case it’s unclear, the artwork depicts Batman and Superman sitting on a street corner indulging in some fast food and soft drinks together as would you or I. But both the title of the piece and the duo’s costumes imply that they’re not just grabbing a bite because they happened to have the evening free. They’re on the clock, so to speak. Performing their vigilante duties. But superheroes, like everyone, get hungry — even when they’re supposed to merely be super.
Superhero comics have evolved over the years. Where once they were just the action-filled adventures of incredible beings doing incredible things, said beings have now developed friends and families and ties to the world that don’t just involve keeping it from going boom. Heros are no longer confined by four-panel comic strips. They live in a lush and developed universe that, yes, is overflowing with physical battles of might, but also punctuated by everyday human interactions. Sarah Johnson’s both adorable and clever Ordinary Batman Adventures is a variation on a theme — in which Batman interacts not with people, but a world that is often more mundane than not.
And therein lies my fascination. I love the little conversations as much as the explosive fights, the quieter moments in between the never-ending war between good and evil. Seeing The Flash hold Linda’s hand during her ultrasound is equally if not more powerful than when he takes down Gorilla Grodd just pages later. Because there’s more to him than the fight, more to all of them than what we typically ascribe to a superhero story. At the end of the day, they’re not just superheros — they’re people, too. The Flash’s name was Wally West, and Wally held his wife’s hand through the ultrasound of their twins Jai and Iris.
This is why I’m so enamored with “downtime” issues of superhero comics or episodes of superhero cartoons, the times when there’s not really a mission going on and everyone’s just kind of…stuck being themselves for the day. Not to get all “college writer’s workshop” on you, but it humanizes them, and humanizing is essential when you’re writing about beings that are so supreme that they border on unrelatable.
Much in the same way, David Foster Wallace writes about sports stars, and why he enjoys their memoirs so much. Here is an excerpt from his essay “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart,” featured in Consider the Lobster:
Here is a theory. Top athletes are compelling because they embody the comparison-based achievement we Americans revere — fastest, strongest — and because they do so in an totally unambiguous way. Questions of the best plumber or best managerial accountant are impossible to even define, whereas the best relief itchier, free-throw shooter, or female tennis player is, at any given time, a matter of public statistical record. Top athletes fascinate us by appealing to our twin compulsions with competitive superiority and hard data.
Plus they’re beautiful: Jordan hanging in midair like a Chagail bride, Sampras laying down a touch volley at an angle that defies Euclid. And they’re inspiring. There is about world-class athletes carving out exemptions from physical laws a transcendent beauty that makes manifest God in man. So actually more than one theory, then. Great athletes are profundity in motion. They enable abstractions like power and grace and control to become not only incarnate but televisable. To be a top athlete, performing, is to be that exquisite hybrid of animal and angel that we average unbeautiful watchers have such a hard time seeing in ourselves.
So we want to know them, these gifted, driven physical achievers. We too, as an audience, are driven: watching the performance is not enough. We want to get intimate with all that profundity. We want inside them; we want the Story. We want to hear about humble roots, privation, precocity, grim resolve, discouragement, persistence, team spirit, sacrifice, killer instinct, liniment and pain.
Now exchange every reference to athletes with “superheroes,” and you’ll begin to see my point. The grand stands and elaborate battles aren’t enough for us these days. We can’t just know that they win the big fights, we need to see them struggle hour by hour. Day by day. We crave their tribulations just as much as their triumphs, because it makes them like us. More powerful, perhaps, capable of more, but still enough like us when they come home from flinging a nuke into another dimension.
Of course, the moments in between aren’t the only reason I love superhero comics. I get an adrenaline rush from the fights, cry over the deaths, and lose myself in the sensationalized and, frankly, super quality to all the stories they tell. But I think that sometimes it’s just nice to think that when Superman goes home for the night, Lois might be a little irritated because in between all the world-saving he just did, the Man of Steel himself forgot that he was supposed to cook dinner. And so they cook the meat he left marinating in the fridge together, Superman and Lois Lane, teasing one another and eating their slightly overcooked pork chops and drinking wine and laughing late into the night.
And that, my friends, is why someone as supposedly intelligent as myself has maintained an eight-years-and-counting love affair with all things super heroic. I like “powers go boom” as much as the next person, but there has to be depth of character and a whole lot of pedestrian humanity for me to truly care, and comics are so kind as to provide a lovely blend of both.
- 10th June
2012 - 10
