Wear Your Mask Like Michael

Posted on August 8, 2009 by Noah Berlatsky

I have an interview with Bert Stabler about an art project about Michael Jackson which he did with his Chicago high school students. Here’s an excerpt:

What was their take on his child abuse scandal and on his sexuality?

Bert Stabler: Few students seemed positive that he was guilty. Several seemed convinced of his innocence. The overall opinion was uncertainty, though there was a general agreement that, by inviting children to sleep at his house, that he was certainly leaving himself open to accusations, and, equally, that the guardians of those children were so culpable in their permissiveness as to have their motives appear suspicious.

The gay issue was interesting – a few students questioned whether he had fathered his children, but, for the most part, he was assumed to be straight. However, the possibility of his sexual deviance was never dismissed outright, but was frequently contextualized in terms of his traumatic childhood. His overall deviance in appearance and mannerisms was equated with deviant behavior by some, but not everyone– intriguingly, one student did claim that Jackson was a “faggot,” but not homosexual.

G.I. Joe Is a G.I. Jerk

Posted on August 8, 2009 by Noah Berlatsky

I have a review of G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra online now at Reason. Here’s a sample:

The thing about Star Trek, of course, was that its creator Gene Rodenberry actually had a vision; he was a liberal One Worlder, praying for the Cold War to end and the UN to take over. Joe Director Stephen Sommers has a vision of a sort, too, but it’s less UN and more aphasiac American hegemony. Sometime, in the near future, the movie posits that soldiers from every nation will gladly leave their home countries to serve in a “multi-national” force named after American soldiers, led by an American general, and apparently answering more-or-less to the American president (who personally works to get the Joes out of jail after that whole destroying Paris thing. Silly excitable French people.)

Gluey Tart: Yakuza in Love

Posted on August 6, 2009 by kinukitty

Yakuza in Love
Shiuko Kano, Deux Press, 2008

Love. Really – love. Hand-flailing, stupid grinning, trying to cover up the sex scenes with my hand on the crowded train love. I love Shiuko Kano – I love Tough Love Baby, and I love Kiss All the Boys. But I have a special love for this three-volume series. I mean, yakuza. In love. If you need much more than that, you’re a hard woman or man indeed.

Yes, yes, I know; it could have all failed miserably. Of course it could have. But it didn’t. It’s brilliant. The art is consistently good, with a slightly sort of hard-boiled style that reminds me of boy’s manga (you know – sort of), and the splash pages are so amazingly awesome I kind of swoon over them. The story is as funny and sexy and goofy as you could hope a title called Yakuza in Love would be.

Let me be completely clear: This is a ridiculous series. There are good gangsters, who are honorable and kind, and bad gangsters, who do bad things. That’s one of the reasons it works – the ridiculous holds together so well, is so seamless, that it is unassailable. It’s a smooth, perfectly spackled, freshly painted wall of ridiculous. And it thrills me. It reminds me of what I love so much about this genre – lovable characters who teeter precariously but don’t quite fall off a sheer cliff of absurdity. Also, batshit crazy plots and even crazier subplots, all mixed liberally with unapologetically over-the-top romance and hot sex. Really, Yakuza in Love is a delight, all three volumes of it. Order it right now, before Deux goes out of business. Seriously.

Wait just a minute, I hear you saying. I love Deux, too, but that’s $35.85, plus tax and/or shipping. It’s a recession, you dizzy tart. I need serious persuasion to lay down that kind of money. OK – I hear you. Here, without further teasing, is the “ZOMG You Really Need YIL in your Life, Buy It Now or I Swear to God I’ll Use More Acronyms” list.

1) The main character is a doofy, coltish baby gangster with a huge, cross-shaped scar on his face (like Kenshin!!!!!). He rises quickly in the organization – which is named the Flower Gang (which may not actually be funny in Japan but made me giggle happily) – because he saves the boss’ life. Not because he’s bad (well, maybe in the Michael Jackson sense of “I’m bad”), but because he shoves the boss aside when he’s about to step on a baby bird. (It’s one ugly-ass little bird, too.)

Every time I think about this page, I die again.

2) Cute, doofy, scar-faced baby bird saver picks up an older, mature, more gangster-like gangster (not picks up as in, “Hey baby, I’ve got a daddy complex, buy me a drink?” but as in driving the car to prison and holding the door open so the guy can get in). Tall, dark, and good-looking the younger falls in love with tall, dark, and good-looking the elder at first sight, complete with staring at him in the rear-view mirror and blushing. If you cross yourself at the thought of a daddy set-up, I’m right there with you, but this – is adorable.

3) The old-fashioned, good gangsters are honorable and promote chivalry.

The bad, decadent new gangsters traffic in bad and decadent things like snuff films. Come on. Snuff films! This is good stuff. (Lighten up, y’all – they don’t really exist. They’re an urban myth. It’s OK to laugh.)

4) Dog reaction shot.

5) Trans characters who are, yes, played for laughs, but arguably not more than any of the other characters. There’s a trans character with a small but important part who’s extremely likable and not treated like a freak. And within the context of the story, manly gangsters going to the trans bar is not considered exceptional behavior. This pleases me.

6) These gangsters are not afraid to show their emotions. They are very sensitive gangsters indeed. It is – you know what’s coming – adorable.

7) Super alternate ending, with absurdity warning!

OK. If you need more persuading, this series is obviously not for you. I can’t quite fathom how this could be, but I dimly understand that people do occasionally disagree with me. Go in peace anyway.

Apocalypse Jukebox

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Noah Berlatsky

Whoops! I was wrong; one more music review. This is a longer article reviewing a book called Apocalypse Jukebox. Here’s an excerpt:

And in rock? Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it? There is no shared vision in the kind of critically acclaimed rock that Whitelock and Janssen are discussing. On the contrary, the whole point of the genius rockstar is a hyper-cultivated, hyper-marketed, endlessly fetishized individuality. The artists that Janssen and Whitehead have chosen to analyze are deliberately unalike — they use apocalypse in different, individualized ways. For Leonard Cohen, the apocalypse is a metaphor for his divorce; for Green Day it’s a metaphor for adolescence; for Devo, it’s a metaphor, contradictorily, for de-individuation and conformity. Regular folks may all go out the same when the fire comes, but each genius has a different end.

Whatever there other eccentricities, though, the daring individualists that Whitelock and Janssen love do share one trait in common: ambivalence. They’re all complex…or, if you prefer (and in the case of Michael Stipe, literally) inarticulate. Apocalyptic songs tend to celebrate the great simplification of the end — God will set your fields on fire, the traditional bluegrass lyrics insist; trying is not enough, notes Khanate. There’s not a whole lot of wiggle room there. But for Whitelock and Janssen, the apocalypse is yet another excuse to validate, not self-obliterating finality, but self-absorbed complexity.

This is probably my favorite thing I’ve managed to get published for a while. Not that anyone’s keeping track, but there it is.