For We are Many

I've been thinking about what it means to be a geek lately. Unfortunately, there's a hint of truth to the idea that geek culture is one built on compulsive consumption. Games, movies, TV, comics: all the things that identify geek culture are shamelessly and actively exploited by groups that either never cared about the artistry of these media, or have been driven to forget what love they had. This is pretty fucking clear when you look at how many comic book movies have been scheduled and how they've been handled. All of that shit is a big part of our social presence, but I feel like its too easy to assume these things are what make us geeks. They fucking aren't.

Geek culture isn't about Captain America or Batman or Warcraft; its about loving something so much you involve yourself with it. That's a weird thing to say, but bare with me. Geeks aren't just known for playing games and watching movies, we're known for dressing up as those people, writing our own fiction in those worlds, and relentlessly deconstructing and examining seemingly random aspects of those stories. That last one is important because it really is the bit that unifies us. The tricky part is that isn't some random expression of appreciation for a specific genre or medium, that's a personality trait. Geeks can and do geek out over anything they're into. It's not about what you obsess over, its about the passion. Foodies are geeks, ask them about their favorite food and tell me it doesn't feel exactly like talking to a LARPer about their character. The same is true about people who're really into politics, folks who get weird about sports, and pretty much anybody who enjoys their job after ten years.

The reason I'm all fuckered about this is that I've been dragged (largely through my own shitty, comment-reading habits) into some of the more aggressive discussions about how we're all evil, or stupid, or bigoted. I really hope I don't have to point out how fucking absurd that is. The problem is that we are really, really easily led. Once the mode of exploitation is determined (comics, games, and movies for many of us) the immediately popular aspects of that mode are flogged well past the point of meaninglessness. It happened with Batman, it happened with Final Fantasy, and it happened with politics. The trouble arises from the fact that when huge portions of your obsession have been highjacked and refined to the least common denominator for easy marketing; you get defensive about weird things, you stop thinking about what you really believe.

I don't know how we're going to get away from that, its a little too easy to capitalize and monopolize on people's obsessions. But I do know that we can't really afford to be complicit in our own exploitation anymore. So I don't know, boycott EA games, or MCU movies, or whatever evil you feel like you can do without. Better yet, try to create something of your own for other geeks to cling to. Foodies, sports nuts, Gamers; we aren't really different groups, we are one people with many passions.

His Superpower is Punching!

So a friend recently convinced me to watch the new Daredevil series. It should be stated that I've largely avoided the comic/TV bullshit. I dig the new Constantine but I didn't really go for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D or Arrow or any of that kind of thing. I just don't have any faith in the people who make TV happen and I fucking love comic books, so I tend to ignore TV adaptations. Daredevil is the reason I lack that faith. Not because its bad, but because its made by Netflix.

They don't have to worry about the same standards and practices fuckery that TV producers do. People on Daredevil speak like real people because believe it or not profanity plays an enormous role in human communication. I love this. We've discussed profanity here before, and it holds a dear place in both mine and Brian's lexicon. So a show about people in fucked up situations that allows them to discuss them in those terms is always more enjoyable than you'd expect.

The other big thing about Daredevil for me is the violence. It ought to come as no surprise that I appreciate me some physical aggression, and the clarity and relative honesty of the violence in this show is beautiful. Sure we've still got a guy in a kinda silly outfit throwing down with Russian mobsters and not getting shot repeatedly and dropped in a hole, but that doesn't actually reduce the brutality of the combat.

Now this might sound like an ad spot for this one show, but its not. I like some things about Daredevil. Some of it is ridiculous, of course it is, its a comic book adaptation. But the things I like about it stem from a lack of censorship. They don't have to sugar coat things to placate shitty people.  I'm a geek; I love stories, the exploration of ideas, and the building of narrative worlds. When Constantine leaves out the details of what happened in Newcastle we lose a big part of that story and the motivations of the characters. I really don't have an issue with adapting comics or books to the screen but when we have to hobble them to make them suitable to irresponsible parents and ego-maniacal busybodies we've failed to respect what makes a story great.

In Which I Tell Superman To Fuck Off

So I want to talk about Superman today. I don't like Superman. He is a Mary Sue, and because of that he is insanely boring. He doesn't need to fear losing because he is invincible. Sure you might say, "oh, but kryptonite makes him weaker!" and sure it does, but how often is it a lasting threat? If kryptonite was a meaningful weakness then superman should have died a long time ago. Fuck, on that note he is basically the reason comic book heroes don't need to fear death.

I will admit though that having a hero who is supposed to represent all the good in the world who is happy and a symbol of hope (Despite what Zach Snyder seems to think) is a net positive. What I want to talk about specifically today is that Superman and superheroes like him are bad for the world they inhabit. Stopping crime is a good act, I think we can all agree, but with the basic powers that superman has, he hurts the world.

Humans are an amazing species. We have adapted to the world in ways that other species can only dream about. Hunter/gathering doesn't provide a stable food source for us? Invent agriculture! Don't like walking long distances? Boom: horse and cart. Not fast enough? Car. Still not fast enough? Super sonic fucking planes. To hot? Lets create a device that can make it freezing in your house. Sure, some of these changes fuck with us in bad ways, but hey its only been 14,000ish years, we are still working out the kinks.

Why has this adaptation occurred? Need. I joked about not going fast enough up above, but faster forms of travel allowed us to transport goods to areas of the world where they are needed. Refrigeration and agriculture both allowed us to have far stabler forms of sustenance. What superman does is eliminate need. Social changes to eliminate crime will never need to take place because a superhero is taking care of it for us. We become reliant on a higher being for an entire form of ethics and it will never solve the core problem (stuff like treating drug addicts as people who suffer from a disease instead of criminals /programs to increase funding to inner city schools and improving the neighborhoods they are in).

You can see why this happens. We tend to default to the easiest solution to a problem that we can see. Superman is the perfect easy solution. This is why I dislike him. He puts himself in this position. Instead of only using his powers on enemies that we can't stop (i.e. other supers) Supes stops basic fucking robbers. This is like using a tactical nuke to take out a mouse you saw in your kitchen, way fucking overkill. I appreciate how easy it is, and that superman thinks its his responsibility because he has the power to do so, but it stunts personal/societal growth, and that's a problem.

D.C. brings up this problem in a different context with Sinestro, so its clear that they know it is a possibility. I know that this shit is just comics, but comics, movies, and television are our modern equivalent to mythology. Mythology is supposed to be a template for how people should act as we've discussed before. In the case of Superman, there is a major failing and I think its important to point it out. Easy solutions aren't always the best solutions.

CAW CAW BANG! ...Oh Fuck He's Dead

We talk about remakes and reboots just... entirely too much. Today's post isn't going to be about how remakes are all fucked up (though they often are), or reboots are money-grubbing bullshit (though they often are). No today I'm going direct reference. Relativity is doing a remake of The Crow. I fucking loved The Crow, both the comic and the first movie. That said, seriously, don't fucking do that.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the our little tale of woe; Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son, straight up fucking died in making The Crow. When your movie kills one of the ridiculously rare instances of a second generation fucking legend you need to pack up and go home. They didn't, they made three more movies and a shitty T.V. show, but that was at best in bad taste. I totally understand that its a nifty concept, I intimately appreciate that The Crow had a huge impact on a certain population, like me. However, The Crow is a pretty self contained story about loss and pain, that does extrapolate out pretty well but that doesn't require the bludgeoning of a deeply intimate story, especially after the first cinematic attempt fucking killed your headliner.

The Crow is essentially about a dude who comes back from the dead to inflict his grief on the people who murdered him and his SO. There are so many fucking ways to do that story without piggybacking the comic or disrespecting Brandon Lee's death. Find one and do that if you wanna make a movie. 

Okay, so I lied, this is all about how how fucked up remakes are and how the film industry is a soulless, money-grubbing fuckscape. Sorry for the deception.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Mythology is a weird thing. It is, at its core, the primary method of instilling values in a society. In some cases, its certainly true that mythology can be taken entirely too seriously, as in the case of biblical literalists. Don't get me wrong, I've no particular interest in the existence, much less characteristics, of anyone's respective deity, but if you feel the need to push science to acquiesce to the demands of your mythology you're a fucking asshole. That's not really the topic of interest today though. My interest lies in the habit of misrepresenting mythology.

First, lets establish the difference between mythology and fiction. Mythology is concerned with highlighting the ideal path of action in the more mired and nuanced situations in life. It does this typically by writing that nuance large and hyperbolising factors within that situation. Fiction is only really concerned with entertainment and provide escapism. That's it. Now you might have noticed that that somewhat broadens the standard perceptions of mythology into things that are typically described as fiction. That is intentional.

I think entirely too often modern mythology is disregarded as just a pretty escape. This feels like a huge mistake to me. Most, if not all, of us were raised on stories where the hero's were earnest and caring; stories of great friendships overcoming implacable forces. Stories strewn with courage and dedication. Now how many people do you know today who you would describe as earnest? Many of us move on from the stories of great heroes doing wonderful things as we were simply setting aside childish things. There's nothing wrong with not caring to keep reading those stories as adults, but I think its tragic that more of us don't hang on to those lessons. I'm not saying we should all be wearing capes and making whoosh noises (though we should, those things are awesome and life is too short to not enjoy them), but I am saying that as cliche as it might sound being honest and good and true is a far more beautiful goal than being rich, we ought to start valuing it more.

This Is The Song That Never Ends

Eshi and I have been talking recently about something that we have dubbed "the shonen problem". For those of you who do not know, shonen is a brand of manga/anime that focuses on audiences of boys in their early teens and up. Some of the most popular anime falls into this classification: Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleach, and the like. Now, "the shonen problem" doesn't necessarily only happen in shonen, but is something that is very apparent in them. Basically it is a problem that centers on escalation. Basically the story lines always follow this rough pattern with very minimal changes: hero fights bad guy, bad guy beats hero, hero trains to become more powerful, good guy fights the bad guy and wins. This, as a generic story arc, isn't terrible. The problem arises when this pattern is continued ad nauseam.

Every new villain has to be more powerful, every new case has to be more dramatic and convoluted, every new disease has to be more obscure or obfuscated, otherwise the difficulty of  manufacturing a satisfying climax is likely to outstrip the skill of the writers. Its way easier to write the same essential story over and over, changing faces and increasing disparities, than to inject novel character development. This means that the longer a series runs the more outlandish this escalation gets to the point where the audience can't help but become desensitized. Dragon Ball Z was 291 episodes of people getting more and more powerful in a way that shows that all of their previous training wasn't good enough. This is a problem that happens when you try to extend the length of a series artificially. A good story will have a message or point, but this type of "development" removes from that message in favor of perpetuating a brand.

Character death is the most poignant version of this. Character death ought  to be terminal for a storyline, even if it isn't permanent for the character. Death is something that needs to carry a lot of emotional weight, when you take that weight away from a character to justify continuing a story you diminish the character, the story, and what death means. The main character from DBZ, Goku, sacrifices himself on multiple occasions to save the universe and defeat the bad guy, but each and every time is resurrected. This removes the value behind the sacrifice. The impact of a main character who dies is huge, something that people shouldn't see coming, and all of that impact goes away if you bring that hero back. If you know that you will come back to life when you die there is no reason to not sacrifice yourself and the sacrifice is less a price one must pay and more a minor inconvenience.

American comics do this too, there is no end to escalation in story lines for most Marvel and DC comics. Superman is the worst offender in my opinion, and not just because he has been around since the 1930s but because of a trend he started in American comics. Superman getting resurrected was great for the writers in terms of continuing what is essentially a brand name, but it removed the value from his death at the hands of Doomsday. Superman is essentially a deity in the DC universe, and the death of someone who held that much sway would have changed the way comics where written if it wasn't for the cop out, which changed the way comics are written as well, just in a much worse direction. It was both lazy and manipulative and set up a precedent for other writers to follow. Comic writers didn't need to make up a new character to replace the dead hero after their emotionally charged death nor write any story lines which dealt with the long term effect of a dead superhero on their friends, family, or civilians who relied on the protection of the hero.

Really this is a problem that happens with non-episodic series in general. The X Files started strong from a creative standpoint, but the less episodic it became the more it grew to rely on threat escalation and left-field "plot twists".  Movies, TV, comics, and anime are all industries that have multiple goals, one of which seems to be disproportionately prioritized above artistic integrity: profit. I have talked about this in similar terms before, but I just keep seeing how pervasive this problem really is in popular culture and it always depresses me. These things are modern myths, and as Eshi, and countless others, have pointed out, myths are how we establish social values; trading out the core of our cultural values in order to pander to consumerism is pretty fucking disappointing.