We Are The Enemy
Feb 05I’ve been thinking about comics. Because that’s basically what I do with most of my free time. In particular, I’m thinking about Grant Morrison’s (maybe not so) drug-addled, oft-quoted goal of making the DC Universe “sentient.”
On the surface, that quote makes no fucking sense, but beneath it hints at the sort of depth that the best of GMozz’s ideas plunge into. It seems insanity and promises greatness. We like the idea because it embodies exactly what we like about the comics we read – especially if you are, like I am, a devotee of the really out-there Kirby, Haney, Kanigher and Mantlo stuff that may not make sense but is indisputably awesome in the current and original senses of the word both.
After reading Final Crisis, that zany quote from everyone’s favorite alien-abducted magus makes a bit more sense. Sense because the entire (if slightly veiled) point of the event’s endgame is that the story keeps going on without us. It is its own entity, telling its own story. Storytelling – or more aptly – a kind of Platonic ideal of Story – is the very premise that Superman Beyond is constructed on. Final Crisis #7 is framed as a bedtime story told to children.
The more interesting bit of meta-commentary seeded here is Morrison’s painting of the reader – the fan – as the enemy of The Story. In fact, DC’s been doing that since Infinite Crisis when it revealed that the good-hearted fanboy who saved the universe in the first Crisis had transmogrified into a sullen, nitpicking murderer hell-bent on changing the universe into what he thinks it should be/needs to be (and ultimately decides that what he really wants is his universe back – an echo of the fans that say things like, “The Detroit JLA is my Justice League and I won’t read any other version”). In Final Crisis and its infinite lead-ins, the Monitors serve the same function – nattering and infighting over which version of which character or legacy is the canonical one.
Are we really the bad guys? Sometimes, when we lose sight of what we love about comics, we can sure seem that way. When we focus too much on the Creators (to the point of either trashing or deifying them unfairly) and not on the Story, or when we’re mean instead of actually critical about a plot twist that we don’t like, we are. Because it’s easier and more fun, I suspect we don’t celebrate what we love about the artform nearly enough. But then, maybe the creators need a thicker skin.
What do you think? Are comics fans hurting comics?
Jingle Bell Grok: The Ref
Dec 25Merry Christmas, nerds! We’re going to close out Jingle Bell Grok with another Secret Guest Post about the meaning of Christmas. But don’t just take it from me. Read it for yourself!
I don’t hate Christmas movies. I think Jeff hoped I would say I did, when he e-mailed me after reading my contribution to this article. But truly — I’m currently juggling my holiday plans so that I’m able to watch It’s a Wonderful Life! in the theater, because it’s the only time of year I can do that. I think A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch have beautiful things to say about generosity and fellow- feeling among people. (And beagles. And Grinches. And whatever the hell a Who is.)
But I’d just as soon watch these classics in the bleak cold of February or the doldrums of July. I don’t need affirmation of the basic goodness of man, and the strength of community, during the three weeks of the year that everybody pretends to believe in them. I don’t need to hear the same themes repeated in derivative and inferior forms, multiple times a day, from every possible media outlet, for the last two months of every year.
OK, so maybe I hate Christmas movies just a little bit. Blame the neighborhood my parents lived in for fifteen years. You couldn’t make a left turn onto their street any time from Veterans’ Day to Valentine’s, because the neighbors were competing to see who could get the most lights and plastic reindeer and fiberglass novelty characters into their front yards. Even better, people from other parts of the city would feel compelled to rent buses or limousines and come gawk at the ‘Tacky Light Tour.’ After a few weeks of witnessing this behavior — the crush of humanity, the waste of electricity, and did I mention the reindeer? — I wouldn’t have been nearly so thrilled to witness a miracle of human generosity as I would to have a particularly foul-mouthed stand-up comedian turn up on my street and start yelling at people to shut the fuck up.
That’s why my favorite Christmas movie is The Ref. I’m not claiming this 1994 Denis Leary vehicle is the best movie about Christmas, but it’s the one that the Christmas season actually makes me want to watch. Leary plays a luckless burglar who crosses paths with a suburban couple (Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey, back in the days where everything Spacey touched was guaranteed awesome). In theory, he takes the couple hostage. The reality — a la “The Ransom of Red Chief” — is that spending Christmas with a household of rich, angry WASP’s, for Leary’s character, involves stepping into a circle of hell. It’s a mean, funny, profane little movie, and I love it a lot.
It’s gotten trendy to point out that It’s A Wonderful Life actually delves into some pretty dark themes. To turn that on its head, the dark comedy of The Ref is curiously redemptive. The central conceit of the movie is that the hostage ordeal works as a radical form of marriage counseling. When forced to deal with a crisis, the couple actually speak honestly about their problems. They band together: with each other, with their juvenile delinquent son, eventually even with Leary against Spacey’s horrible mother.
That kind of salvation through adversity is a fantasy, of course, as much as the Grinch’s heart growing ten sizes over a little bit of Who-caroling. But it’s an appealing idea, this notion that your nearest and dearest will come through when it matters. Even if they did just make you sit through a ten-course Scandanavian meal while wearing a candelabra on your head. Even if, sometimes, you secretly wish you could tell them to shut the fuck up.
[Caroline Pruett is part of the team at Fantastic Fangirls, where she writes about comics, usually with fewer F-bombs than she dropped in this article.]
Jingle Bell Grok: Jimmy Stewart In Drag
Dec 22There are a lot of Christmas films out there that are easy to hate for their blatant attempts at mawkish manipulation of their audiences. A good Christmas film will leave us with a warm and fuzzy feeling and the ones that try a bit too hard to do so probably can’t be faulted for at least trying. But there is one holiday film that lurks out there that can’t even claim the pretense of trying to infuse its audience with holiday cheer- the 1977 made-for-television movie It Happened One Christmas.
If you’ve never had the unfortunate opportunity to clap your eyes on this film, and it seems to have vanished from television schedules in more recent years, you are one of the fortunate ones. Imagine the classic It’s A Wonderful Life, but in drag, badly acted and with any semblance of soul and life drained from it by a hideous parasite and you come close to approximating It Happened One Christmas.
The hideous parasite in question is Marlo Thomas, who stars in the film as the female equivalent to Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, Mary Bailey Hatch. Wayne Rogers, with a look in his eyes that betray him questioning his decision to leave MASH, is cast as Thomas’ doting husband, George Hatch. Cloris Leachman rounds out the main cast as Mary’s guardian angel Clara. (Get it!? It’s sort of like Clarence, but not!! Ugh….)
I honestly don’t know what the writers hoped to accomplish by simply switching the genders of the lead characters. Nothing new is gained by having George Bailey suddenly sprout breasts and become Mary Bailey Hatch.
Nothing, that is, except a giant stroking of Thomas’ ego. It really takes some giant, in this case metaphorical, balls to think that one can just step into a role made famous by an acting icon like Jimmy Stewart and believe they can somehow improve on the role. Especially when acting opposite someone like Orson Welles in the Mr. Potter role. And don’t think one can argue that she is just an actress for hire on this project. She executive produced the thing. She knew what she was doing and damn her eyes for it.
Outside of the transgendering of Jimmy Stewart, this film offers no new take on the material. In fact, the script follows the screenplay for It’s A Wonderful Life pretty closely except for the substitution of gender specific pronouns. I would like to think that any remake has the potential to find a new slant on the existing material, for better or worse. Since the original film hadn’t quite become the nearly ever present holiday classic it would be in just a few years’ time, perhaps the writers and Thomas were just trying to pull a fast one.
But doesn’t matter what they thought they were trying to achieve. It Happened One Christmas would remain one of the most odious holiday film offerings in the history of cinema. That is until Ron Howard made a live-action version of the Dr. Seuss’s classic The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey.
[Note: Like myself and Newsarama’s Mike Lorah, guest blogger Rich Drees is one of less than a dozen media/geek bloggers to come out of Northeastern Pennsylvania, where many people still do not know what blogs is. When he’s not having awkward conversations with Peter David about scripts that David barely remembers writing, Rich runs Film Buff Online , which you should check out.]
Jingle Bell Grok: Holiday Rude
Dec 22Despite the overwhelming barrage of illness that has affected your Alert Nerd family (and our families) over the past week, we are committed to Jingle Bell Grok in the way that some people cannot commit to, say, Sparkle Motion. Yes, I just made a Donnie Darko reference – deal with it.
I was watching The Muppet Christmas Carol with my 15 month old niece this weekend when I noticed what may be the most incongruously awesome thing I have ever seen in my 30 years of Muppet-related viewing. Pay attention to the final seconds of this:
Thanks are due, by the way, to the awesome Jenelle Riley for pointing it out – I honestly would have missed it otherwise. I hope Alana missed it, too, or her mom will have yet another unfortunate behavior to blame me for.
Later today, SECRET GUEST POST #1. Start ‘bating that breath, Nerdians!
Jingle Bell Grok
Dec 18Not content to rest on our laurels after the amazingcrazy release of Grok #3, we’re having yet another theme week, much like this Fall’s Grok the Vote. Except it will be even better, just because we’re even more awesome.
Hyperbole aside, we’re having a Christmas* themed week of posting, starting tonight and going right up through Christmas Day. We’ve got a few Secret Guest Posters lined up, too, including a visit from Grok’s editor in chief Fake George Lucas; if YOU want to contribute, hit us up on Twitter or send us an email.
Happy Holidays to all of our loyal, smart, and attractive readers. You deserve a pony or the USS Flagg, whichever one you wanted as a kid but NEVER GOT.
*Or Yule, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc. We’re equal opportunity nerds.
