Not sure that rooting interest is the most important thing, but, if you need someone to root for, why not root for the Ackerman and Gugino characters? Some hardcore types thought they were almost too "nice," too easy to like and identify with - they're fun-loving, respectful of their elders, have self-esteem problems that they get over, fight well, try to do the right thing, have a goofy love affair that turns passionate to the tune of "Hallelujah"? What more do they have to do earn your rooting interest? Attack Obama?
Rorschach, though more complicated, was also someone fighting for what he thought - or was certain - was right. And Dr Manhattan was a great character. To root against him would be like rooting against God or Jesus.
Speaking of realer than real, that seems to go for your vast collection of petty hatreds. You have zero evidence for Obama having indulged in anything remotely resembling a "two minute hate," which makes your own accusation rather hateful, in my estimation.
I know the general stuff on Jung, and have read various pieces by or on him over the years, though most of it was too long ago for it to matter much to me. His essay on UFOs was a favorite of mine long ago, plus I used to know a guy who was really into his essay on Job. Or maybe it was a Job who was really into his essay on guys.
Fascism, at root, is, I think, natural justice as an end in itself - a comprehensive worldview defined by "will to power and nothing else besides", as Nietzsche found himself saying just before his attempt to build a system collapsed into itself along with his sanity. What's "cryptofascist" is whatever serves to erode or undermine possible "something elses besides." The Superhero comic makes god-like beings out of vigilantes: The inability of the state to to save itself and protect the innocent against criminal parasites and evil madmen justifies the actions of the vigilante. Dirty Harry, Rambo, and other action heroes fit within the same pattern. The Zombie genre makes superhero-vigilantes out of normal people by lowering everyone else - envisioning the masses as inhuman. And it all may go back to ancient myths that directly embrace natural justice as a way of understanding the world.
Eventually, this pagan worldview reduces justice to whatever the most powerful decide, and it's for the rest of us - the less powerful, less willing or able to kill to enforce our will - to placate the powerful or avoid their wrath, which will often seem arbitrary to us, in part because being subject to someone else's arbitrary and violent will is natural justice for slaves, defines slavery. The circle of the superhero is that sooner or later his action on behalf of the innocent against the powerful becomes equally a principle of power for its own sake. He's constantly turned into new boss same as the old boss. It's the source of much of the irony in the superhero stories, often to a comical effect.
At some point it may be at the root of the narrative forms themselves, though interestingly the most important ancient model for this kind of narrative - Homer - already contains within it the principle of its own destruction. There was a book I reviewed here that persuasively argued for that understanding of Homer - that the epic was likely received in its own time as more a lament over and attack on human and divine injustice than as celebration of heroism or praise of the gods. The Batman stories want to undermine themselves, but fall just short taken on their own terms: Batman in Batman's world is near-relentlessly misunderstood, but remains a superhero. This is also the adolescent appeal of Batman - that's how teenagers typically want to see themselves. It's almost healthy or anyway normal for teenagers to see themselves that way.
What gives it all the lie is how utterly stupid and fantastical the whole thing is, and that's also what makes it all so interesting for the movies in their current state, since they're all about the technical capacity to make the impossible seem "realer than real." Part of what makes the Nolan Batman movies and WATCHMEN so interesting to me is how they struggle to naturalize the ridiculously bizarre, make it just almost believable, or refuse to believe in a world that does not include the unbelievable. Did you ever see WATCHMEN? (And have you already seen or made plans to see the Cronenberg Jung movie - looks horrible to me from the trailers, and I say that as kind of Cronenberg fan with some love for Keira Knightley, too).
What a mess that comment is. If I assumed it was going to make sense overall, try to tie Loughner to the Guardian to terrorism to the LA riots to Times Square to Moody's point about the movies, I'd have to assume you thought the real "Loughner outrage" wasn't the shooting, but rather the suggestion that an atmosphere of politicized rage, with minors in gun and violence worship, contributed to the manner of his going off and his choice of target.
But really I think you're a frothing overheated stew of hatreds directed at those you like to think of as beneath you.
I see what you're saying about Miller's immaturity, though I don't think Batman was as bad as all that. I also agree with you that there is something about the superhero genre, alongside other pulp genres, that lends itself to some of the same impulses and ideas that inform fascism. I'm just not sure that those impulses can or should be stamped out. "Cryptofascism" is potentially such a broad category that sooner or later it probably includes THE ICE STORM, too - as well as both of our blog comments...
...and I also don't entirely understand what you're saying about Jung. If I did, maybe I would better understand what bugs you so much about the movie. I've always thought it was one of the better superhero flicks, maybe the best one up until WATCHMEN.
miguel cervantes: I imagine most of the OWSers look askance at blue collar work,
You "imagine"? Why? I imagine something different, but what difference would it make if I was wrong? Would their claims about the state of things be any less valid? Same goes for Frank Miller's rant (or Michelle Malkin's rants, or Ann Coulter's, or the New York Post's, or Newt Gingrich's). If they are insufficiently tidy, or if their encampments are infiltrated by criminals or perverts or agitators, does that make radical inequality in power and wealth a good thing, or unimportant? Or is it more important to feel superior to them, whether for the feelings of pleasure in feeling superior, or to justify harsh measures, or to deny them rights or a voice?
The problem with Moody's position, and what's rather unsophisticated about it, is the assumption that it's the office of art to favor one or another conventional political alternative. To put things simplistically, if we have been living through a fascistic or merely crypto-fascistic period, then we should expect the art of our period, and popular art in its own way, to reflect and express the fact. To take two pieces of popular art that he attacks, TRUE LIES (which I quite like as a movie, incidentally) didn't make our world, and it's hard for me to see how it materially contributed to what's wrong with it. When I was coming out of my con slumber as a defender of AVATAR, I was taking the position that the movie, seen as art, must be understood independently, often counter to, the artist's conscious intentions. That still counts from any other ideological perspective. So, it's quite possible that Miller can write "good" comix, but be an idiot. All great artists, philosopher, scientists, and saints have said or supported revolting things. That's also true of the merely good and the larger number of mediocre and worse artists and so on. I'm less interested in condemning IRON MAN or SPIDER-MAN or any of the other comic book movies, and even less in praising movies like THE ICE STORM, than in understanding how they function and what they say about us.
Hating the current regime - real or imaginary - has rarely been cause for expulsion from the ranks of reactionaries. Or is that what you mean about Miller? His anti-OWS statements fix his location, lest there be any doubt.
I don't agree with everything the critic says, by any means. I think he's about half-right regarding Hollywood actioners and comic book cryptofascism, but more than half-right about Frank Miller's pathetically stupid comments.
Not sure that rooting interest is the most important thing, but, if you need someone to root for, why not root for the Ackerman and Gugino characters? Some hardcore types thought they were almost too "nice," too easy to like and identify with - they're fun-loving, respectful of their elders, have self-esteem problems that they get over, fight well, try to do the right thing, have a goofy love affair that turns passionate to the tune of "Hallelujah"? What more do they have to do earn your rooting interest? Attack Obama?
Rorschach, though more complicated, was also someone fighting for what he thought - or was certain - was right. And Dr Manhattan was a great character. To root against him would be like rooting against God or Jesus.
Speaking of realer than real, that seems to go for your vast collection of petty hatreds. You have zero evidence for Obama having indulged in anything remotely resembling a "two minute hate," which makes your own accusation rather hateful, in my estimation.
I know the general stuff on Jung, and have read various pieces by or on him over the years, though most of it was too long ago for it to matter much to me. His essay on UFOs was a favorite of mine long ago, plus I used to know a guy who was really into his essay on Job. Or maybe it was a Job who was really into his essay on guys.
Fascism, at root, is, I think, natural justice as an end in itself - a comprehensive worldview defined by "will to power and nothing else besides", as Nietzsche found himself saying just before his attempt to build a system collapsed into itself along with his sanity. What's "cryptofascist" is whatever serves to erode or undermine possible "something elses besides." The Superhero comic makes god-like beings out of vigilantes: The inability of the state to to save itself and protect the innocent against criminal parasites and evil madmen justifies the actions of the vigilante. Dirty Harry, Rambo, and other action heroes fit within the same pattern. The Zombie genre makes superhero-vigilantes out of normal people by lowering everyone else - envisioning the masses as inhuman. And it all may go back to ancient myths that directly embrace natural justice as a way of understanding the world.
Eventually, this pagan worldview reduces justice to whatever the most powerful decide, and it's for the rest of us - the less powerful, less willing or able to kill to enforce our will - to placate the powerful or avoid their wrath, which will often seem arbitrary to us, in part because being subject to someone else's arbitrary and violent will is natural justice for slaves, defines slavery. The circle of the superhero is that sooner or later his action on behalf of the innocent against the powerful becomes equally a principle of power for its own sake. He's constantly turned into new boss same as the old boss. It's the source of much of the irony in the superhero stories, often to a comical effect.
At some point it may be at the root of the narrative forms themselves, though interestingly the most important ancient model for this kind of narrative - Homer - already contains within it the principle of its own destruction. There was a book I reviewed here that persuasively argued for that understanding of Homer - that the epic was likely received in its own time as more a lament over and attack on human and divine injustice than as celebration of heroism or praise of the gods. The Batman stories want to undermine themselves, but fall just short taken on their own terms: Batman in Batman's world is near-relentlessly misunderstood, but remains a superhero. This is also the adolescent appeal of Batman - that's how teenagers typically want to see themselves. It's almost healthy or anyway normal for teenagers to see themselves that way.
What gives it all the lie is how utterly stupid and fantastical the whole thing is, and that's also what makes it all so interesting for the movies in their current state, since they're all about the technical capacity to make the impossible seem "realer than real." Part of what makes the Nolan Batman movies and WATCHMEN so interesting to me is how they struggle to naturalize the ridiculously bizarre, make it just almost believable, or refuse to believe in a world that does not include the unbelievable. Did you ever see WATCHMEN? (And have you already seen or made plans to see the Cronenberg Jung movie - looks horrible to me from the trailers, and I say that as kind of Cronenberg fan with some love for Keira Knightley, too).
What a mess that comment is. If I assumed it was going to make sense overall, try to tie Loughner to the Guardian to terrorism to the LA riots to Times Square to Moody's point about the movies, I'd have to assume you thought the real "Loughner outrage" wasn't the shooting, but rather the suggestion that an atmosphere of politicized rage, with minors in gun and violence worship, contributed to the manner of his going off and his choice of target.
But really I think you're a frothing overheated stew of hatreds directed at those you like to think of as beneath you.
I see what you're saying about Miller's immaturity, though I don't think Batman was as bad as all that. I also agree with you that there is something about the superhero genre, alongside other pulp genres, that lends itself to some of the same impulses and ideas that inform fascism. I'm just not sure that those impulses can or should be stamped out. "Cryptofascism" is potentially such a broad category that sooner or later it probably includes THE ICE STORM, too - as well as both of our blog comments...
...and I also don't entirely understand what you're saying about Jung. If I did, maybe I would better understand what bugs you so much about the movie. I've always thought it was one of the better superhero flicks, maybe the best one up until WATCHMEN.
You "imagine"? Why? I imagine something different, but what difference would it make if I was wrong? Would their claims about the state of things be any less valid? Same goes for Frank Miller's rant (or Michelle Malkin's rants, or Ann Coulter's, or the New York Post's, or Newt Gingrich's). If they are insufficiently tidy, or if their encampments are infiltrated by criminals or perverts or agitators, does that make radical inequality in power and wealth a good thing, or unimportant? Or is it more important to feel superior to them, whether for the feelings of pleasure in feeling superior, or to justify harsh measures, or to deny them rights or a voice?
The problem with Moody's position, and what's rather unsophisticated about it, is the assumption that it's the office of art to favor one or another conventional political alternative. To put things simplistically, if we have been living through a fascistic or merely crypto-fascistic period, then we should expect the art of our period, and popular art in its own way, to reflect and express the fact. To take two pieces of popular art that he attacks, TRUE LIES (which I quite like as a movie, incidentally) didn't make our world, and it's hard for me to see how it materially contributed to what's wrong with it. When I was coming out of my con slumber as a defender of AVATAR, I was taking the position that the movie, seen as art, must be understood independently, often counter to, the artist's conscious intentions. That still counts from any other ideological perspective. So, it's quite possible that Miller can write "good" comix, but be an idiot. All great artists, philosopher, scientists, and saints have said or supported revolting things. That's also true of the merely good and the larger number of mediocre and worse artists and so on. I'm less interested in condemning IRON MAN or SPIDER-MAN or any of the other comic book movies, and even less in praising movies like THE ICE STORM, than in understanding how they function and what they say about us.
Don't see what the point of that was, but that's always been reaction to Althouse, even when I was more sympathetic to her politics.
What reason in the world have you ever given us not to assume that that's just your own fascist/petit bourgeois tendencies resonating with Miller's?
Hating the current regime - real or imaginary - has rarely been cause for expulsion from the ranks of reactionaries. Or is that what you mean about Miller? His anti-OWS statements fix his location, lest there be any doubt.
I don't agree with everything the critic says, by any means. I think he's about half-right regarding Hollywood actioners and comic book cryptofascism, but more than half-right about Frank Miller's pathetically stupid comments.