My Dystopia is Better Than Your Dystopia, Part II

Posted on March 15, 2016 by LIndsay George

Round two of the Handmaid v. Watchmen dystopia smackdown. Round 1 is here.

Published within two years of each other, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale both emerged from a similar cultural anxiety regarding the future of society in an increasingly uncertain and ambiguous world. Although these two works are typically classified under the genre of dystopian literature, I will argue they adhere better to John Huntington’s theory of utopian and anti-utopian literary models. Huntington makes an important distinction between dystopian and anti-utopian literature. Where dystopia essentially reifies the consistencies of utopia by simply replacing positive social models with negative ones, anti-utopian forms actually oppose these consistencies by discovering problems and raising questions and doubts. We see this ambiguity in both works particularly through themes of morality and heroism. In Watchmen and The Handmaid’s Tale, morality has different valences. These works effectively destroy the conventional spectrum of morality by refusing to depict characters as entirely good or evil. Thus, a closer look at the thematic structures of both works problematizes their categorization as dystopian literature, and reveals a greater affinity to the more uncertain and inquisitive anti-utopian model.

First it is important to understand Huntington’s model of utopia/dystopia and what he proposes in response to this binary: the anti-utopia. He says that while utopia and dystopia ostensibly represent opposite models of society, they actually share a common structure: “both are exercises in imagining coherent wholes, in making an idea work, either to lure the reader effectively deconstructs the misconception that dystopia is the ideological and structural opposite of utopia. Although they represent different extremes on the same spectrum, utopia and dystopia are actually aligned in the way they function. Both strive to construct a complete and coherent model of society, relying on the “expression of the deep principles of happiness or unhappiness” (142). By theorizing the notion of anti-utopia, Huntington proposes a new model that more fully opposes the consistencies of utopian/dystopian paradigms. He argues, “If the utopian-dystopian form tends to construct single, fool-proof structures which solve social dilemmas, the anti-utopian form discovers problems, raises questions, and doubts” (142). Accepting Huntington’s revision, dystopian models actually reify the consistencies of utopian models by simply replacing positive structures with negative ones. Thus, the anti-utopia subverts the utopia/dystopia binary by complicating the coherent models they attempt to construct. Although Watchmen and The Handmaid’s Tale are typically categorized as dystopian literature, Huntington’s theory of the anti-utopia is actually more representative of the nuanced and complicated morality that characterizes both works.

Utopian and anti-utopian models both work as a form of social criticism. Every utopia is a criticism of the world as it exists in reality; every anti-utopian model serves to oppose some sort of utopian ideal. Thus, both models are inherently satirical, but to opposing ends. However, Huntington expands the satiric function of anti-utopias. He contends:

Anti-utopia, as I am here defining it, is not simply satiric; it is a mode of relentless inquisition, of restless skeptical exploration of the very articles of faith on which utopias themselves are built. Thus, while there is much anti-utopian satire, it is not an attack on reality but a criticism of human desire and expectation. (142)

Where utopia seeks to improve or modify some established reality, anti-utopia illuminates the dangers particular human desires. Watchmen and The Handmaid’s Tale work to express the consequences of particular human desires. Atwood explains that while constructing the story of The Handmaid’s Tale she did not make anything up. Everything is derived from some historical precedent. She says, “I did not wish to be accused of dark, twisted inventions, or of misrepresenting the human potential for deplorable.” She continues that the seemingly dystopian elements of The Handmaid’s Tale such as forced reproduction and childbearing, clothing symbolic of castes and classes, and the control of literacy “all had precedents, and many were to be found not in other cultures and religions, but within western society, and within the ‘Christian’ tradition, itself.” The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen are both rooted in a very real and rational fear regarding the fate of society. While Atwood responds to the radicalization of conservative politics by creating the world of Gilead, Moore actually contextualizes Watchmen in an exaggerated and dramatized version of American society. In his book Considering Watchmen: Poetry, Property, Politics, Andrew Hoberek notes that Watchmen engages with the politics of the Cold War, arguing that that Reagan administration’s “bellicose rhetoric” and “policy of military buildup” had restored a fear of nuclear war to the US public consciousness (119). The doomsday clock serves as a structural backbone of the text by introducing each chapter with the looming reminder of society’s imminent fate. The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen construct anti-utopias that criticize trends in radical human desire that characterize their shared historical context.

Moore and Atwood destabilize the comforting binaries of utopian and dystopian societies by constructing their fictional worlds in complete moral ambiguity. The superhero context of Watchmen deals explicitly with issues of morality and social justice. Prevailing cultural conceptions of the superhero narrative include a Manichean divide between good and evil: a clear distinction is made between the morally superior superheroes and the degenerate villains. In Watchmen, however, Moore deconstructs this generic expectation by depicting his superhero team as morally flawed and even depraved. Take the Comedian, for instance. A satire of Captain America, the Comedian epitomizes the complete reversal of our expectations of morality. A government pawn, the Comedian embodies the ideals of imperialist United States. However, Moore represents this association as a negative and destructive force. As several of the Watchmen attend the Comedian’s funeral service, Nite Owl reminisces about his days of crime fighting with the Comedian. The imagery of the scene is chaotic and violent as the public has begun to turn against the superheroes. The Comedian and Nite Owl hover above the crowd almost menacingly as people hurl rocks at them.

In several panels the Comedian depicted almost entirely in shadow; along with his mask, he seems to embody the physical tropes of a villain better than a superhero. The Comedian even has his gun drawn on a crowd of civilians and seems to welcome a battle with them. He says to Nite Owl, “My government contacts tell me some new act is being herded through. Until then, we’re society’s only protection. We keep it up as long as we have to.” Nite Owl responds in disbelief, “Protection? Who are we protecting them from?” (Moore 2.17). This scene comes just after a flashback from Dr. Manhattan where is it revealed that the Comedian shot a woman he had impregnated while serving in Vietnam. In these moments, Moore is not unclear but extremely decisive in his depiction of the Comedian as a depraved character. He underscores the irony of this characterization in the final panel of the scene where Nite Owl questions who exactly they protecting society from. Considering the violence from the previous panels, the answer seems obvious to the reader; the Comedian and, perhaps, other Watchmen pose a real threat to the safety of humanity. In this universe, the people who are charged with the protection and surveillance of society are not universally equipped to uphold this responsibility.

Atwood builds a similar sense of uncertainty in the power structures of Gilead. Specifically, Atwood complicates the binary of good and evil by establishing both men and women as oppressors within her anti-utopia. In the article “Haunted by the Handmaid’s Tale,” Atwood speaks to interpretations of the novel as a “feminist dystopia.” She says this term is not strictly accurate: “In a feminist dystopia pure and simple, all of the men would have greater rights than all of the women. It would be a two-layered structure: top layer men, bottom layer women.” She contends Gilead is actually structured like a regular dictatorship, with powerful figures of both sexes at the apex, and then descending levels of power for both men and women.

This complicated dynamic is especially felt through the relationships between female characters in the novel. Offred is frequently oppressed by male and female characters. Ironically it is Aunt Lydia, a woman, who seems to represent the most pervasive and unavoidable oppressive force. Not only does Aunt Lydia survey every movement of Offred and the other women beneath her, she frequently delivers woman-hating rhetoric. After showing the handmaids a 1970s porn film where a woman’s body is being mutilated, Aunt Lydia warns them, “Consider the alternatives . . . you see what things used to be like? This was what they thought of women, then. Her voice trembled with indignation” (Atwood 118).

Although it is clear that the Commander stands at the top of the pyramid of power, Atwood avoids a strictly gendered power hierarchy by creating an overt hostility between women of different castes. In the essay, “Margaret Atwood’s dystopian visions,” Coral Ann Howells suggests that through the Commander’s wife and the odious Aunt figures, Atwood presents a critical analysis of the rise of the New Right and Christian Fundamentalism of the 1980s (169). She continues by saying that Atwood “dispels any singular definition of ‘Woman’ as it emphasizes Atwood’s resistance to reifying slogans, whether patriarchal or feminist” (168). Atwood avoids an overtly feminist tone by depicting her female character from different positions of power and even divergent conceptions of womanhood. Even if women such as Aunt Lydia are just instruments of a more powerful authority, it is significant that Atwood does not use gender as a means to achieve a Manichean divide. She muddies the clear divisions of utopia and dystopia by deconstructing any moral consistencies that align with gender.

Turning back to Watchmen, Moore similarly blurs any obvious divide between good and evil by nuancing his characterization of other superheroes. The character Rorschach exemplifies a moral ambiguity that aligns with Huntington’s theory of inconsistency and doubt in his anti-utopian model. At least initially, Rorschach seems to embody the opposite extreme as the Comedian, an unhealthy commitment to the Manichean dichotomy. In one of the first scenes with Rorschach, the reader witnesses him breaking innocent man’s fingers for simply being uncooperative (Moore 1.16). Rorschach ostensibly opposes the Comedian’s nihilistic view of morality as a futile pursuit. However, Moore deepens his characterization of Rorschach in his conversations with a therapist. Here Rorschach delves into his troubled childhood with an emotionally abusive mother. In one scene the therapist presents Rorschach with a Rorschach test, prompting him to describe what he sees in the image. Rorschach then launches into the gruesome story where he describes butchering the dog of child kidnapper.

He concludes his narrative with the harrowing realization of the inherent evil of all humanity:

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after starting at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world. Was Rorschach. (Moore 5.27)

Here Rorschach mimics a kind of superhero origin story as he reveals the conception of his dangerously rigid moral code. Also embedded within this speech, however, is a moral philosophy that is strikingly similar to Huntington’s argument. Through Rorschach’s perspective, Moore constructs a moral vacuum in the world of the Watchmen, This absence leaves Rorschach to inscribe his own twisted principles onto his surrounding society as he pleases. Rorschach articulates a kind of ambivalence that is integral to Huntington’s model of the anti-utopia. By saying that “existence is random” he implies that there are no moral patterns that drive society; there is “no meaning save what we choose to impose.” Rorschach’s worldview encompasses a sense of discomforting inconsistency. People are not inherently good; they construct their morality according the exigencies of “this morally blank world.” According to Rorschach, morality is always a dubious and contrived design.

The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen further adhere to Huntington’s anti-utopia in their vague and uncertain endings. Huntington notes that unlike utopian and dystopian works, the anti-utopia “does not succumb to the satisfactions of solutions” (142). Committed to questioning and raising doubts, the anti-utopia refuses to provide any clear resolution. For instance, in the final scene The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred is escorted from her home by governments officials who accuse her of the “violation of state secrets” (294). Despite the tension of the scene, Offred offers the strangely ambiguous final reflection: “Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing: I have given myself over into the hands of strangers, because it can’t be helped. And so I step up, into darkness within; or else within the light” (295).

Atwood leaves the reader with two conflicting interpretations of the ending of the novel: should we read it as positive or negative? While Offred demonstrates her fear, “I could scream now,” her final words also suggest a sense of relief, she has finally been removed from her position as a handmaid. The ending of Watchmen is equally as ambiguous. Rorschach’s diary had made it into the hands of a newspaper editor and his assistant. The final panel, however, depicts the seemingly incompetent assistance with a ketchup stain on his shirt reaching for the diary. His editor says from outside the panel, “I leave it entirely in your hands” (5.32). Thus, Moore leaves the transmission of Rorschach’s diary in the hands of a very unlikely and even questionable character. The reader cannot be certain that the diary will be published and Veidt’s plan revealed. Both novels refuse to restore balance to society by constructing a coherent and clear solution. Rather, as Dr. Manhattan says, “nothing ever ends” (5.27); Moore and Atwood trap their works within the unending cycle of history and the evolution of society.

Accepting Huntington’s revision of the dystopian/utopian binary, Watchmen and The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrate a closer adherence to his model of the anti-utopia. Both works reject the moral consistencies that characterize dystopian and utopian genres and instead spread their characters across a nuanced spectrum of morality. In Watchmen, Moore inverts the superhero genre by depicting the Watchmen as the real threat to society. Yet he blurs even this distinction by depicting characters such as Rorschach as committed to an overly idealized or rigid code of morality. The hierarchy of morality is similarly deconstructed in The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood rejects the notion of a “feminist dystopia” by creating a hegemonic power that is enacted by both men and women. She does not give the reader the consistency of aligning morality with a particular gender. Furthermore, Atwood and Moore contain their works in the ongoing cycle of inconsistency and doubt by creating ambiguous endings. The anti-utopia epitomizes its commitment to the questioning of utopian models by doubting whether or not society can ever escape the models of its past.

Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. (New York: Anchor Books, 1998).

Atwood, Margaret. “Haunted by The Haidmaid’s Tale.” The Guardian (January 2012).

Hoberek, Andrew. Considering Watchmen: Poetics, Property, and Politics. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2014.

Howells, Coral Ann. “Margaret Atwood’s dystopian visions: The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake.” The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 161-175.

Huntington, John. The Logic of Fantasy: H.G. Wells and Science Fiction. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).

Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. (New York: DC Comics, 1986).

My Name is Neo

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Eleanor Lockhart

In the beginning and coda to the highest grossing film to ever endorse terrorism as a virtue, V for Vendetta, narrator Evie Hammond says that ideas have power, but what really matters is the people behind them. Yet this film is strangely agnostic about truly committing to this theme; the titular protagonist, in his final martyrdom, declares that “beneath this mask there is an idea… And ideas are more than flesh. Ideas are bulletproof.”

But, as Evie Hammond asks after her friend (and torturer) V’s death, “what of the man and what he meant to me?” Today, I’m called to ask a similar question about two women who I have known only as ideas – masks, as it were. The Wachowski Sisters, once known by a slightly different name, directed and produced V and a slew of other mass market, big-budget films whose receptions ranged from the vicious – in the case of the recent Jupiter Ascending – to the rapturous, in the case of V and The Matrix. For reasons that are now eminently understandable and justifiable, the sisters have eschewed the press and contact with fandom, choosing to live intensely private lives. But the recent forced outing – the second the siblings have experienced – of Lilly Wachowski,who had chosen to identify herself to the public as Andy until this week, invite a conversation about a simple fact that should blow everyone’s mind like
Neo soaring out of that phone booth: several of the most popular cult action films of all time, including one which once held the title of “highest grossing ‘R’ rated film in history” until it was unceremoniously deposed by Mel Gibson’s sadomasochistic religious fantasy The Passion of the Christ, were directed by two transgender women.

I do not know Lilly and Lana Wachowski. I only know the art they produced and the impact it had in my life. I’m a 28 year old college professor firmly enmeshed in the Matrix of everyday conformity, except for the one fact of transgender identity that unites me and them. Unlike Evie, what I have access to is the symbol, the mask, of the Wachowskis. Yet the glimpses we’ve so reluctantly been given, often at the hands of parasitic tabloid journalists, lead me to feel that, like Valerie in V for Vendetta writing her letter to nobody and everybody, even if I don’t know the Wachowski Sisters, I love them. Another one of my reclusive artistic idols, progressive rock virtuoso Tuomas Holopainen, founder of power metal extravaganza Nightwish, wrote in a song out of frustration with fans who thought they knew him because of his often intimate lyrics, “stop saying ‘I know how you feel. How can anyone understand how another feels?” I suspect the Wachowski Sisters, if they were to read this thinkpiece, might look askance at me for similar reasons – and yet I, and I don’t hesitate to say thousands of transgender fans if not millions, have this inexorable feeling that we know quite a lot about the Wachowskis from their work, and that we share commonalities of experience that are striking.

Like the Wachowski Sisters, my road to living authentically as who I am has been interrupted by numerous socially driven constraints on my freedom to be that person, that woman. I spent a lot of time wearing a mask that wasn’t me, and even long before I and possibly Lana and Lily themselves realized who I was, I saw the consistent theme in their films of a bisected identity, split between a professional and formal role validated by the rules of society and an authentic identity a person has found or created themselves.

The first of the Sisters’ movies to which I was exposed, The Matrix, was a giddy experience for a 14 year old “boy” who had not previously been permitted to watch “R” rated films. My father made an exception because of the film’s metaphoric and philosophical depth (blunt as it may have been). I responded particularly to the way that the Christlike savior figure Neo is split between two existences. As his nemesis, Hugo Weaving’s ingeniously portrayed Agent Smith of the Machine oppressors (more on him later), puts it:
You’ve been living two lives, Mr. Anderson. In one of these lives, you’re Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You pay your bills… You do your taxes… And you help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias “Neo” and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, Mr. Anderson, and the other… Does not.

Like all of the dialogue in the early portion of The Matrix, Smith’s statement is literally true but not in the way he predicts (in the same way that Neo’s stoner friends think he needs to “unplug” with some mescaline and that he’s their “literal Jesus Christ”). But Smith is wrong about which life has a future. As I’ll discuss subsequently, all of the Wachowskis’ work – yes, even 2008’s family film Speed Racer – deals with a bisection of identity from true to authentic, from assigned by authority, to molded by the scars and traumas left by authority. Neo the hacker has a future of black leather, gunplay, karate, and literally dying – twice – for the sins of the human race. Conversely, Jupiter Jones of the much-maligned box office flop Jupiter Ascending chooses to destroy her offered life as a space empress to live as an undocumented immigrant in modern day Chicago. Admittedly, Jupiter Ascending came from the Sisters’ teenage fantasies, and I can’t help but suspect they made with the full knowledge that it would flop and they would be blamed, and that ultimately it wouldn’t matter because Hollywood wasn’t going to keep giving tr*nnies multimillion dollar budgets to make movies. But even so, what all Wachowski protagonists share is that they have someone telling them who they are, and that tale is a lie.

I don’t know how long Lilly Wachowski has been transitioned – she says it’s been some time, but thanks to her well earned, dutifully preserved, and unjustly shattered reclusiveness, I have no details. For me though it’s been three years—three years, which feel like forever. I, like Neo and like V, felt a pervasive sense of “wrongness” about the world, but still threw on suits, ties, and whatever else I could to try to make the role I was assigned feel right, until one day in 2013 I just couldn’t anymore, and the boy I was died as surely as Neo was executed by a Machine firing squad at the end of The Matrix. About six months into the process, when I, like Lilly and Lana before her, was known as my authentic self to my friends and family but as that old dead boy to the legal and financial systems of society, I felt a moment of acute dysphoria upon calling my bank and being addressed as “Mr. Lockhart,” when I was accustomed to “Ellie.” That distress turned into a sudden recognition of a parallel: Neo, throughout the Matrix trilogy, is constantly subjected to identification as his past identity, Thomas A. Anderson, the name the Machines’ system gave him. Agent Smith is keen on making sure that Neo remembers where he came from, refusing to address him as anything other than “Mr. Anderson” until the climax of to series’ finale – the moment where Smith’s capitulation to Neo’s chosen name leads to the death of both Smith and his enemy. (This ending is significantly more grim than the ones we see in Matrix and Sense8 as well as Jupiter Ascending, in which protagonists reject self-sacrifice in favor of self-validation – a message which is refreshing in the face of a popular culture which all too often seems to validate suicide, as V and the Matrix sequels appear to.)

There’s not a lot about the Wachowskis’ life that I can conclusively claim to know is represented in their work – but if there’s one thing that’s close to certain, it’s the theme of the self-destructive urge and the sense that there is no place in the world for people who are different to live as themselves. In one of her rare public speeches (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHHycz7T_c), Lana Wachowski discusses her near-suicide attempt as a teenager. Preceding it, she wrote an extended suicide note in which she discussed the feeling that her death by her own hand was inevitable, because there was no place for her in the world. She then went to the Chicago L-train stop near the restaurant where she was writing, and prepared to step in front of the subway – and was only prevented from doing so by a stranger who made eye contact with her, preventing her from acting. That experience echoes the climactic fight between Neo and Smith in the original Matrix. Smith – who has repeatedly expressed his terror of infection with humanity (or, we might say, queerness), and who is identified in the sequels as literally being an aspect of Neo – holds Neo in front of the subway train and whispers in his ears as the train approaches “this is the sound of inevitability – it is the sound of your death.” Neo’s proclamation “my name is Neo,” echoed by the explicitly transgender Nomi Marks in the Wachowski Netflix series Sense8 when her mother refers to her by her former male name (“my name is Nomi!”), reads as a transcendent affirmation of a chosen identity – and bluntly, as a metaphor for transition.

It’s impossible to know until they offer some kind of perspective on their work – something they’ve been notoriously loath to do for, once again, quite understandable reasons – to what extent the Wachowski Sisters intentionally wrote allegories about gender transition into their films and television work, to what extent they subconsciously or semiconsciously inserted these concerns, and to what extent we’re simply reading too much into science fiction, action, and heist stories. But for transgender women the potential that two of us may have been secretly telling stories of their own lives and experiences for the better part of two decades is seductive. Transgender women are so infrequently represented in the popular media at all, and when they are given roles it is as obstacles, confusions, or threats to the normal lives of cisgender people in critically acclaimed films like Dallas Buyer’s Club and The Danish Girl —or as actively malicious monsters in horror films like Psycho, Sleepaway Camp, and Silence of the Lambs. While we do not know Lana and Lilly personally, so many of the experiences their characters – even those who appear to be cisgender males, like Neo and V – have echo with our lives.

I regret and condemn, along with many others (including Chelsea Manning, someone who has truly resisted the system and is paying a price as high as V, Neo, or any Wachowski heroine) the Daily Mail’s outing of Lilly Wachowski, as well as the previous and brutal outing of Lana during the production of the Matrix sequels. Yet I hope that like the protagonists of their films, the lives they’ve now been forced into become more fulfilling and offer them the opportunity to live in a way they have not before. If they wish to offer new perspectives on their work, I’ll be excited to hear it. If they chose to maintain their silence, thousands of trans people will still have the symbols they created and the oh-so-rare stories they gave us.

Utilitarian Review 1/12/16

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Noah Berlatsky

On HU

Things were a bit livelier this week, which was good to see.

Featured Archive Post: Adrielle Mitchell on comics creators talking about their own projects.

mouse on Disney’s horny Zootopia.

Sarah Shoker on Antonin Scalia and the politics of grief.

Jennifer Heibit on The Handmaid’s Tale, Watchmen, and the differeing evils of dystopia.

I fix everything wrong with the Supreme Court.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Guardian I wrote about:

—Ghostbusters, sex, and gender swapping.

—the Matrix’s crappy gender politics, MRAs, and the Wachowski sisters.

At Quartz I wrote about Shira Tarrant’s new book The Pornography Industry and why we need more porn.

At the Week I explained why we should get rid of early voting.

At Random Nerds I interviewed André Carrington about his new book on race and science fiction.

At Pacific Standard I wrote about Rebecca Traister’s All the Single Ladies and how single women will change the world.

At the LA Times I rounded up all the theories about who is to blame for Donald Trump.

At Splice Today I argued that the Democratic candidates should endorse Kim Foxx for Cook County prosecutor.

Other Links

The Chicago Reader on Kim Foxx’s vision for changing the Cook County prosecutor’s office.

Nicole Brinkley on the YA novel Inexcusable and rape.

Parker Molloy on the Wachowskis coming out as trans and the disappointment of redpill MRAs.

Solving the Supreme Court

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Noah Berlatsky

I had this brilliant idea about how to fix the Supreme Court, but no one wanted to pay me for it. But the country needs to know! So here it is.

So what is the problem with the Supreme Court anyway? I would say there are 2.

(1) Judge’s have life tenures and life forever now because of pesky improving diet and healthcare. That means that your grandpappy’s electoral preferences determine who gets to marry and have abortions and have labor unions. Nothing against your grandpappy, but people shouldn’t have their lives mangled and stretched by elections that happened before they were born. The court needs to be more accountable to the current electorate. Or, in short, the court isn’t politicized enough.

(2) Partisan polarization means that battles over judges have become completely intractable. At the moment, it’s not entirely clear that we can ever get a judge approved again if the President and the Senate aren’t of the same party. Justices are also forced to try to time their retirement so they’re replaced by a President of the right party. The whole thing is undignified, distracting, and generally pitiful, as well as potentially interfering with the smooth functioning of the court. In short, the court is too politicized.

So, how do you fix the too much politicization and the too little politicization? It seems impossible…but I have the one perfect awesome solution that you can tell is awesome because no one would pay me for it.

Prepare for said solution…now.

Have each President appoint one and only one judge per term. Appointments should happen right after the President is elected; it can be one of the first things the President does.

This of course means that the number of judges on the court will change. But the number of judges isn’t set in stone, or even in the Constitution. It’s been as low as 7 and as high as 10. There’s no reason it can’t vary every four years (or more often if a judge retires or dies mid-term).

Let’s list the advantages of the Berlatsky plan:

1. Every Presidential election will be represented on the court. Voters will know that a vote for President is a vote for one (1) Supreme Court pick.

2. Since everyone knows there is a pick coming, the election will be a mandate for a Supreme Court selection. This will undermine the partisan “wait till the next election” nonsense. To prevent stalling and stonewalling, a bill could also provide that if there is no vote on a nominee within 6 months, the judge is automatically seated. Since everyone knows each president will get a judge, the stakes will be reduced; each party will hope that their own judge will affect the balance of the court in four short years.

3. Retirements would be divorced from Supreme Court nominations. Justices would have much less incentive to time their retirements, since every President would always get one pick, no matter when the sitting justices step down. Presumably, justices would often retire at the beginning of a presidential term, when the new judge would be selected…but if they didn’t, it wouldn’t make no nevermind.

4. At least in theory, this shouldn’t be a difficult reform to pass. It doesn’t give a clear advantage to either Democrats or Republicans; instead, it ensures that each President, from whichever party, has a chance to select a judge with much lower stakes and much less partisan squabbling. It also mean that Presidents, of whatever party, will be able immediately to somewhat reduce the chance that the court will interfere with their policy preferences. Democrats and Republicans alike should like that, since Democrats and Republicans alike always think they’re going to win the next election.

So there you have it. I could see various tweaks—maybe it should be two justices for each President rather than one? But overall, I think it’s a remarkably elegant solution if I do say so myself. Since all the policymakers read the Hooded Utilitarian religiously, I expect it to be adopted any minute now.

I John Marshall, old white dude, and I endorse this plan.

My Dystopia is Better Than Your Dystopia, Part I

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Jennifer Heibig

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985. The first issue of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s Watchmen was published in 1986. Despite that closeness, they’re not two novels that are routinely paired. Which is why I was pleased when a pair of students in my Late 20th Century Fiction course decided to combine them as examples of dystopias. And, even more fun, my students disagree about the definition of “dystopia.”

So here’s round one of their literary match-up.

—Chris Gavaler

Beginning with Thomas Moore’s Utopia, a tradition of idealized societies has existed both in the imaginations of great thinkers and writers as well as in the literary canons of virtually every culture. Yet frequently in these perfect utopian universes, a dark underbelly emerges, characterized by abuses of power, totalitarian regimes, and control of every minutia of a citizens’ lives, usually as an excuse for their protection in the beginning. These types of dystopian universes create environments of fear and isolation, with an evil government and good and innocent citizens. However, what happens in dystopias in which there is no clear oppressor, no direct dichotomy of good and evil? Instead, subtle powers are at work that do not allow for a clear ability to point a finger at the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ power responsible for ‘light’ oppression. In their novels The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen, Margaret Atwood and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons grapple with this question of good and evil and create two dystopian worlds that either reinforce the Manichean dichotomy or blur the line between good and evil. Where The Handmaid’s Tale utilizes total dystopian control of its people to further confine and separate them, creating a Manichean dichotomy between good and evil, Watchmen uses subtle manipulation in order to unite the entire world, blurring the line between good and evil. In showing two radically different uses of dystopia, these authors call into question the assumption that absolute control in a dystopia is necessarily evil.

To formulate my argument, I will begin by exploring two definitions of dystopia. I will then examine how The Handmaid’s Tale fulfills Ketterer’s definition of dystopia. Contrastingly, I will delve into the world of Watchmen, and explore the ways that it fits into Greene’s definition of dystopia. Finally, I will examine the good versus evil dichotomies in each of these novels and their relationship to dystopian literature.

Utopia and dystopia are frequently two sides of the same coin, representing idealized societies that are either perfect or move too far in the direction of creating a perfect world. Greene establishes a simple yet effective definition of utopia as “an ideal society” (Greene 2). Unfortunately, these utopias are rarely idealistic and perfect places in practice, even if their ideals are, in theory. In one of the earliest examples of utopian literature, “Thomas More, in his Utopia (1516), conjures an isolated island to describe a better world but one that in hindsight sounds fascist” (2). By blurring the lines between these two genres, Greene demonstrates that utopia and dystopia are on a continuum and lend themselves to blurring the lines of Manichean dichotomies of good and evil.

Dystopian literature is characterized by a multitude of individual genre characteristics, but is pervaded by a sense of oppression via governmental and totalitarian powers. The opposite of a perfect society, a literary dystopia is an “imaginary society that differs from the author’s own, first, by being significantly worse in important respects, and, second, by being worse because it attempts to reify some utopian ideal” (Beauchamp 11). By Beauchamp’s definition, dystopia perverts positive ideals and the world of the author in order to create a plausible society in which there is no freedom from the government. In order to classify novels and stories as dystopian, Ketterer provides a clear framework of the types of features included in the genre: “lack of freedom, the constant surveillance, the routine, the failed escape attempt” (211). In a different vein, Greene claims that dystopian universes are characterized by a distinct “suffocation of independent thought” (2). Greene’s definition of dystopia may include some of Ketterer’s elements, but focuses its attentions on the atmosphere of control and stifling of non-institutionalized thought amongst its citizens. These two definitions, though not always mutually exclusive, serve as useful categorizations for The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen.

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale’s government of Gilead contains every element of Ketterer’s definition of dystopia. Though there are some elements of stifling of independent thought, its most salient dystopian features belong to Ketterer’s definition and classify it solidly in the dystopian genre through four specific features.

Firstly, Gilead eliminates freedom from the lives of its citizens. When the Gilead government began, “newspapers were censored, and some were closed down, for security reasons they said. The roadblocks began to appear, the Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was obvious you couldn’t be too careful” (Atwood 174). The government closed down the freedoms of its citizens one by one, slowly taking every semblance of freedom they had in a subtle way, at first. Ultimately, Gilead obliterates freedom by creating roles relating to fertility, and women’s “real name[s have] been erased in favor of the form of ‘Of’ plus the first name, possibly abbreviated, of her Commander” (Ketterer 210). As Offred herself states, “my name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up”(Atwood 84). This removal of names dehumanizes women and forces them to become their proscribed roles, as Handmaids, or “two-legged wombs” (136), Aunts, Marthas, Wives, Unwomen, or prostitutes. By removing agency and proscribing roles, Gilead destroys freedom.

Routines similarly are present in Gilead, from a daily morning walk for the Handmaids, to the Ceremony. The most salient routine of the society is the Ceremony, a brutal moment when the Commander tries to impregnate his Handmaid. Offred does not describe this scene as rape, however, instead calling it “nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for. There wasn’t a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose” (94). Through this brutal routine and near sacred ritual, Atwood creates the only alternative a young fertile woman could choose, aside from the oblivion of Unwomanhood. This monthly routine of impregnation, in parallel with other more innocuous routines and rituals, demonstrates the ways that Gilead governs through strict control of its citizens’ freedoms, particularly by organizing their daily lives.

Gilead constantly spies and watches its citizens, as is proven by the many golden eyes found in public places and privates ones, such as the doctor’s office (60), Offred’s room, or on the Soul Scrolls (167). In front of the Soul Scrolls store, Greene’s rules of no independent thought are broken, and readers see the surveillance in place in Gilead. Ofglen, Offred’s walking partner, leans over to Offred and says, “’Do you think God listens,’ she says, ‘to these machines?’ […] In the past this would have been a trivial enough remark, a kind of scholarly speculation. Right now it’s treason,” (168) remarks Offred. Thought and spoken original thought is no longer taken for granted. It is stifled and discouraged through constant surveillance and fear of being taken by the Eyes. To think is treason in Gilead; to birth children is of the highest importance. This government fulfills Ketterer’s category of constant surveillance, and uses it to engage in thought suppression, though that is not necessarily its ultimate goal. Surveillance in Gilead is used to incite fear, not to prevent independent thought.

Finally, The Handmaid’s Tale contains varied escape attempts, including the ending of the novel. There are minor ‘escapes’ found throughout the novel, during which the women of Gilead attempt to communicate with one another while escaping detection. For instance, in the Center where the Handmaids are trained, “in the paint of the washroom cubicle someone unknown had scratched: Aunt Lydia sucks” (222). These clandestine messages, though not directly escape attempts, create distinct groups in Gilead of good and evil. These two categories are even further proven in an actual escape attempt at the end of the novel, when the Eyes come to take Offred. Nick assures her, “It’s all right. It’s Mayday. Go with them” (293). Mayday, signifying a day of rebellion for Gilead, shows the final escape attempt. She must choose to trust the only male in the story not in a position of possession over her and go with the Eyes, not knowing whether or not she should believe Nick. This final attempt, in conjunction with smaller escape attempts found throughout the novel fulfill Ketterer’s definition of dystopia, as people want to leave the evil power regime created by Gilead.

Conversely, Watchmen’s universe contains almost no direct elements of Ketterer’s dystopia, and instead only falls into the category of Greene’s definition of dystopia as preventing independent thought. Instead of creating a directly oppressive and tyrannical government, Moore instead forms a world in which corporations and powerful individuals subtly exert control and manipulate the masses in order to gain power and influence. In Watchmen’s “realistic world, governed by power politics” (Paik 27), the most important elements of control are eerily similar to those of the American present: the media. Thus, thought is controlled by advertising and other media and independent thought is stifled, fulfilling Greene’s definition.

Adrian Veidt, the evil mastermind behind the ultimate destruction of the world of Watchmen in order to create a new world order, controls the entirety of the novel and the world inside of it through media influences. Before Moore reveals that Veidt is at the center of the conspiracy to destroy half of New York in order to unite the world, Veidt’s commercial empire permeates almost every page of the graphic novel. Before the attack on New York, Veidt’s ad campaign for his perfume, Nostalgia, is seen in the background of dozens of panels. It is found over boutiques (Moore 3:7), diners (4: 24), on torn posters on walls (5:18). These nostalgic campaigns reflect back to a time when there were superheroes and no threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction: a utopia. By bombarding the citizens of Watchmen’s world with imagery relating to the past, Veidt controls their thoughts and emotions, forcing them to feel anxious about the threat of the Cold War. After resolving these fears he created in the public through the Nostalgia ad campaign by killing millions of people in New York and ending the Cold War because of a new perceived alien common enemy, Veidt continues to exercise influence over the public through his new “Millennium” campaign, that shows figures facing toward the now bright future(12:31). Veidt even talks about the way that he influences the public through advertisement and media in Chapter 10 on page 8, saying that because of the trends of pre-war times, he is going to invest differently “into the major erotic video companies. That’s short term. Also, we should negotiate controlling shares in selected baby food and maternity goods and manufacturers”(10:8), because of the baby boom he predicts. Veidt’s control is subtle, yet absolute, giving Watchmen the qualities of intellectual control instead of direct oppression as in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Finally, Veidt literally destroys independent thought when he threatens to destroy the world. The superheroes of the novel all agree to follow Veidt’s lead because it is the only way to unite the world, and the deed had already been done (11:27). Yet Rorschach, the one dissenter who wishes to return to America and tell the world that Veidt is behind the destruction is obliterated. Because the rest of the superheroes “must protect Veidt’s new utopia, one more body amongst the foundations makes little difference” (12:24). Rorschach is destroyed because of his refusal to follow what Veidt wants him to believe, and so Veidt continues to exercise influence over thought and independent thinking by literally destroying his enemy and Rorschach’s dissenting opinion. Clearly, Watchmen fits perfectly into Greene’s category of dystopia as being a government that stifles any kind of oppressive thought and serves instead to manipulate thought and control its citizens’ minds.

Not only do The Handmaid’s Tale and Watchmen fulfill two differing definitions of dystopia, but they also represent two different dichotomies between good and evil. The Handmaid’s Tale, which clearly fulfills every feature of Ketterer’s dystopia definition, creates a distinct Manichean dichotomy of good versus evil. Conversely, Watchmen only fulfills Greene’s definition of dystopia, and blurs the lines between good and evil. Though The Handmaid’s Tale contains elements of thought suppression, it is not the most salient dystopian feature of the novel. Instead, Watchmen is distinctly characterized by the repression of independent thinking and in doing so creates a world in which good and evil are on a spectrum and characters and corporations cannot necessarily be placed on one end.

The Handmaid’s Tale grapples with evil in distinct dichotomies that are perceived by not only the reader but also by the citizens of Gilead. This novel’s “Historical Notes” present a perspective from hundreds of years after the Gilead Empire, denouncing the atrocities that were in place at the time. The black and white nature of good and evil is one that is clear because the dystopia was overthrown; it must have been so oppressive and miserable for its citizens because they were controlled by routine, roles, and removal of freedom, that they tried to escape and overthrow the government. The Historical Notes present The Handmaid’s Tale as a true story that was “unearthed on the site of what was once the city of Bangor” (Atwood 301) as “thirty tapes in the collection altogether” (301) having been spoken by the same narrator. Because of this conclusion that the tapes came from someone who escape the Gilead regime, The Handmaid’s Tale’s world is one in which the evil of the Gilead government was overthrown. The novel’s easily identifiable evil characters, such as the Aunts, the Commanders, and some unnamed powers who run the government, create a target that readers are invited to view as evil in nature. Because the novel was told in first person and identifies these characters as evil, readers even further view the women and men forced into their proscribed roles as being good, while those who did the forcing are represented as evil. By fulfilling the necessary components of Ketterer’s dystopia and entrenching herself in the genre, Atwood formulates a world in which the reader’s beliefs about dystopia are reinforced. There is an evil overlord and government who presides over a good citizenry. In order to restore the balance of good over evil, the government must be overthrown. These citizens of the future are able to claim that, “Gileadean society was under a good deal of pressure, demographic and otherwise, and was subject to factors from which we ourselves are happily more free” (302), because of the overthrow of this evil government, further imposing strict categorizations of good and evil.

Watchmen, on the other hand, presents a much grayer view of good and evil, particularly in the form of Adrian Veidt. Veidt reaches the height of his control over the world when he chooses to employ dystopian means in order to attempt to create a utopia. Sending an ‘alien’ monster he created through genetic engineering to New York, Veidt causes a cataclysmic neurological disaster, killing millions, with the intention of uniting the world against a common enemy. Moore places the destruction of Times Square on six full pages at the beginning of Chapter 12, ensuring that the reader must take in the entirety of the carnage. Placed amongst the the bodies, Moore places discarded newspapers that read “WAR?” in large typeface (Moore 12:3-6), indicating that the society was on the brink of destruction before this terrorist event, along with a discarded pamphlet for The Veidt Training Method. This pamphlet falls to the ground amongst the destruction, reading “I Will Give You Bodies Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings” (12:6). This darkly almost comical insertion of Veidt’s presence into the scene demonstrates not only his responsibility for the event, but also signifies that perhaps Veidt could truly have meant two things in what he was communicating; he wanted to help the people of the world by literally helping them to perfect their bodies, yet gives the world dead bodies in order to unite them. Though he has murdered countless people, “we are invited to read this extended scene of death and destruction as the signifiers for the near-miraculous founding of a new and peaceful order, a golden age of international cooperation and solidarity” (Paik 35). Instead of viewing Veidt as an inherently evil character, the reader is asked to instead see that perhaps his evil actions serve a higher and ‘good’ purpose.

Moore confuses the question of good and evil further through his characters Rorschach, who represents an idea of justice and the vindication of good and evil, and The Comedian, who seems amoral but in fact sometimes stands for good. After the heroes find out that Veidt has committed this attack, they almost universally agree to cover up his involvement for the betterment of society. Yet Rorschach disagrees, and leaves to return to America because “evil must be punished” (Moore 12:22). As seen earlier in this examination, however, Doctor Manhattan chooses to kill a crying Rorschach instead of allowing him to reveal what Rorschach believes is Veidt’s evil nature. Though in this moment Rorschach represents good, he is imprisoned as a violent criminal earlier in the novel. Similarly, the Comedian is evil in his love of senseless violence, yet says that “Somebody has to save the world” (2:10), even though this perhaps inspired Veidt’s evil deeds. The Comedian is even killed because he uncovers and opposes Veidt’s plot: “He knew my plan would succeed, though its scale terrified him” (11:25). The Comedian is seen murdering his pregnant Vietnamese girlfriend (2:14), yet in some situations clearly takes a moral standpoint. These two characters muddy the waters between good and evil and cause the reader to seriously question the morality of not only the world of Watchmen, but of dystopias and powerful governments as a whole.

Finally, though Veidt commits an evil action of mass murder, he is perhaps good in his attempts to create a true utopia resulting from a common enemy, but Moore complicates this issue further with the final frames of the novel. On page 32 of Chapter 12, a lowly assistant at a newspaper is seen reaching for Rorschach’s journal that reveals every part of Veidt’s plan, as the symbol of the Comedian’s badge lies on his shirt. Though the story ends here, there is an epigraph on the last page, on which is written “Who watches the watchmen?” (12:33). Here, the reader sees that only two confusingly amoral at times and moral at times characters, Rorschach and the Comedian, are the watchers of the world. They selectively condemn evil, and in others moments perpetrate evil, yet they are both silenced because they condemn Veidt’s actions despite the moral gray area they reside in. Their ideas of certain acts as being concretely good or concretely evil demonstrate just how confused the notions of good and evil are in Watchmen. By stifling their voices, Moore indicates that Greene’s definition of a dystopia is one that creates a more realistic world, in which there is never a true dominance of good over evil in the end.

Through their varying uses of dystopia and dystopian features, Atwood and Moore bring to light a hidden feature of each type of dystopia. In fulfilling each of Ketterer’s strict features of dystopia, Atwood reveals that this definition of dystopia creates a world with strict separation between good and evil. In only fulfilling Greene’s definition of dystopia as destroying independent thought, Moore reveals that these sorts of dystopias, that are much less extreme in their manifestations, create a world in which good and evil are not clearly defined. By calling morality into question or creating a hyper-strict definition of good versus evil, Moore and Atwood grapple with questions of the nature of power in dystopia, and challenge readers to question their understandings of this genre. Power is not always inherently evil, and neither is dystopia.

Works Cited

Beauchamp, Gorman. “The Politics of The Handmaid’s Tale.” The Midwest Quarterly 51.1 (2009): 11–25. Print.

Greene, Vivien. “Utopia/Dystopia.” American Art 25.2 (2011): 2–7. JSTOR. Web.

Ketterer, David. “Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: A Contextual Dystopia (‘La Servante écarlate’ de Margaret Atwood: Une Dystopie Contextuelle).” Science Fiction Studies 16.2 (1989): 209–217. Print.

Paik, Peter. “Utopia Achieved: The Case of Watchmen.” From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. 23–69. Print.

The Politics of Grief

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Sarah Shoker

What can political science tell us about grief? Antonin Scalia’s death provoked a mixture of disgust and admiration that was covered extensively by American and international news media.

Some progressives were ready to list Scalia’s faults and argue that, even though dead, the man needed to be held accountable. Others, including some leftists, argued that condemning Scalia’s politics was disrespectful and tasteless. Death became a de-politicizing force that elevated Scalia above contestation, an ideological position that has historic support from philosophers like Hannah Arendt, who once argued that, “what makes a man a political being is his faculty of action.” The argument might go that Scalia, now deprived of his ability to enact politics in any space that could be called ‘the public sphere,’ had become a depoliticized object. But this position obscures how dead bodies are politically managed, with some dead bodies used to advance national identity and others being omitted from civic life. Death and grief aren’t apolitical.

Literary texts, at least, suggest that mourning can be a form of political expression. Texts like Antigone and the character of Ophelia from Hamlet illustrate how grief can either consolidate or subvert state power. When President Obama visited Scalia’s body “to pay his respects”, he also reinforced the idea that grief could be managed through public practice. But is publicizing grief necessarily wrong? I don’t think so, for reasons I’ll explain below, but there are certainly some articulations of grief that should make us wary.

Judith Butler, for example, warns her readers that highly ritualized styles of mourning, often supported by state and media, can produce moments where “critical modes of questioning are drowned out.” Butler, in particular, is interested in how grief for certain bodies can meet “social and cultural force of prohibition,” a conclusion she has reached by examining LGBTQ relationships and the institutional barriers that prevent couples from engaging in certain rituals of mourning. Think of hospital visitation rights, where a seemingly mundane waiting room becomes the space where grief is managed by bureaucratic processes. Certain persons become the recipients of national mourning, with all the material support this entails, and others have their grief consigned to the margins of society through legalistic manoeuvring.

We can extend these examples to world politics. Witness how grief is often used to advance nation-building projects and manage international conflict. Children, in particular, often figure as natural innocents and become strategic assets that are used to mobilize outrage. Take the death of Mohammed al-Durrah in 2000, a Palestinian child who was filmed hiding from Israeli gunfire with his father. His mother described his death as a sacrifice “for our homeland, for Palestine.” A PLO spokesperson told the BBC that the international community shouldn’t be surprised when children participate in spontaneous uprisings when “from womb to tomb, we are condemned to sub-human living conditions.” The Israeli Defence Force similarly condemned Mohammed’s death, but then blamed Palestinian militants, arguing that the “cynical use” of “innocent children” as human shields resulted in Mohammad’s death.

Certain deaths cultivate outrage, while others are met with shrugs. When Ben Norton asked last week, “[d]o French lives matter more?” he was contrasting Western rage at the ISIS attacks in Paris with the silence on attacks in Iraq, the deadliest the country has seen this year. Answering his own question, Norton writes: “The responses — or lack thereof — from Western media outlets, governments, and citizens makes their answer obvious.” In this moment, grief could have acted as a critical intervention to the way conflict in the Middle East is usually understood.

Alternatively, we see how the grief surrounding Alan Kurdi, whose death prompted international rage, pressured the EU into adopting a more favourable stance on refugee policy, indicating that public grief has the potential to, as David McIvor writes, cultivate “ethical dispositions towards human vulnerability that would make possible a less-violent politics.” Perhaps for this reason I’m hesitant to condemn public rituals of grief, since these rituals can produce grassroots movement. But the question of whose pain is validated has an answer rooted in the asymmetries of political power.

These are only a few examples that illustrate how grief is legitimized through political ritual. Mohammad al-Durrah’s body, for example, became a stage upon which two competing nation-building visions were articulated. Alan Kurdi underwent the same treatment, and the nearly universal outpouring of grief towards his death was then later subverted when Charlie Hebedo portrayed him as an Abuser-in-the-Making on its front cover. The message was clear: the humanitarian impulse towards refugee children was misplaced, since they’d grow up to be misogynists anyway. Scalia now faces similar treatment, with various factions competing to dominate the narrative that gives meaning to his death.
I’m not convinced that dead people can remain apolitical, or that being ‘apolitical,’ (translation: being silent) is even desirable. Attempts to dampen criticism about Scalia can reinforce an ‘official’ American identity, one that’s apparently dependent on conservatism in the judicial branch. Certainly, the Republican presidential nominees have used Scalia’s status as a “legal giant,” to quote Ted Cruz, to push forward their ideas about what America should be. At first, these words seem courteous and tasteful and so haven’t attracted scorn, but kind words aren’t automatically apolitical or non-strategic and commemoration can be a way of validating ideology. Scalia’s towering reputation, according to Jeb Bush, creates an onus on Obama to nominate someone with a “proven conservative record,” after all. And as any pacifist can attest, kindness and praise shouldn’t be conflated with an absence of politics.

Can criticizing Scalia create an alternative political vision for the United States? At the very least, Scalia’s critics counter the national vision offered by state officials and their supporters. Mourners should not be compelled to reproduce civic identity in a way that celebrates some lives, like Supreme Court Justices, and marginalizes others. Celebrate or condemn Scalia, but don’t pretend that one side has a monopoly on etiquette or exists outside of politics.

Zootopia, the Only Good Cop is a Judy Hopps

Posted on March 7, 2016 by mouse

Based on the leaded trailers and, let’s face it, troubling buddy-cop framing, I expected to bitterly groan my way trough Zootopia, Disney’s new CGI bauble which is on its way to box office records for the studio in its opening weekend. For me, the glaring sting in this movie purported to teach kids about racial bias and the idea that anyone can be whatever you want to be (a novel concept for a Disney film!) is that a picked-on girl’s greatest dream is to be a police officer. In the lead-up to the film’s release, I’ve brooded over a melange of discomfort and disgust at a theme so poorly timed when more and more attention is being paid to the tensions between minority communities and law enforcement. I feel like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. “Cops… Why’d it have to be cops?” It’s the Achilles’ heel to a film I largely found delightful. However, in those moments of doubt, I had of course set aside the fact that a) I am a furry pervert. b) this movie stars a plucky bunny lady. c) BUNNY. BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY.

I’ve written before about how using furries as an analog for racial strife can be a very bad idea, specifically dealing with the disaster that is Blacksad: Arctic Nation. (TW: cartoon depictions of racist violence/lynching) It can be just too crude a cudgel with which to bash your message into the lobes of your intended audience, and animal stand-ins often substitute for racist caricatures in an ostensibly anti-racist work. The dynamic between the lead characters, and the sociology of a furry metropolis could have fit into many kinds of stories. Instead we have a message that tensions in a multicultural society are solved by policing. That by the end of con-man Nick’s (Jason Bateman) arc is that he joins the civic-minded, selfless Judy on the force, as that is the natural end-point of those good personality traits. I’m sorely disappointed with that particular angle. I agree largely with furries like twitter friend Eva Problem s whose critiques the movie on the grounds that the political element can’t be decontextualized provide some much-needed clarity.

The social organization of the furry universe of Zootopia serves individual character interactions with less clumsiness than the broad “message” of the film. The film actually benefits from a lack of commitment to a coherent racial analogy like the depiction of white fur in Arctic Nation that mimics whiteness as a social construct. The hazy coexistence of predator/prey gives us an environment where contradictory characters can experience marginalization and empowerment in a variety of contexts. The tension between predator and prey abruptly upends itself three-quarters way through the movie, where the point of view switches somewhat from Judy’s to Nick’s and we are given new perspectives from which the characters can feel discounted, othered and feared. It’s bewilderingly self-aware and at the same time is so not. For instance the police department that Judy is assigned to is largely staffed by predator species. This makes sense in the first act when they bully and discount Judy’s ability, but doesn’t carry over to the 2nd when predators are the targets of fear and suspicion. The take-away of the film is clearly meant to instill empathy, compassion, anti-racism and multiculturalism in its intended audience of young viewers. The real concern regarding a critical reading of Zootopia’s themes is whether this movie will inspire more curiosity in young folks about bias, bigotry and corruption or pacify that curiosity instead in a pat, simplified entertainment product that upholds the status quo.

In Zootopia, Judy Hopps is our hero, voiced by Jennifer Goodwin. Judy is a punk and Judy is a runt. A child in a litter of two hundred or so kittens of content Rabbit carrot farmers in a rural community, she is driven to be extraordinary, to explore and to serve the greater good. That her vision of service involves the career of law enforcement… well I’ve already registered my reservations. Judy is personally ambitious and driven to protect others, except maybe when made to doubt her competence as an authority figure. Her chief, the hulking Cape Buffalo (Idris Elba), accepts her assignment as a publicity measure but was never interested in employing his city’s “first rabbit officer.” He wants Judy out of there as soon as the good press blows over, assigning her to parking duty in an attempt to humiliate her off the force. Stung, Judy sticks it to the chief by being the best meter maid she can be, employing a predatory practice that often disproportionately affects the poor. She knows how to stick up for herself when a (juuuuuuust right) sized citizen wants to pick on her (which is all the time) and also misjudges the good nature of bigger people who accept her presence as a matter of political convenience rather than actual tolerance. She busted her ass to ace exams she was disadvantaged for only to matriculate into a police department made up of brutes and bruisers who, predator and prey, male and female, are evaluated on a scale of physical characteristics that only acknowledge the big and physically imposing. She battles against the idea that bunnies are too meek for serious work, that gentle-hearted people are too feeble for serious service. It’s clear she’s every bit as capable at her job as much for her wits, tenacity and compassion as any big bad wolf.

She takes an opportunity to butt her way into a real case when over a dozen citizens, all predators, go missing. What’s more, they’ve all been struck by a rapid degenerative position that renders them violent and in basically a “feral” state. After being burned by him, she conscripts the petty grifter Nick Wilde, a sly-but-not-as-sly-as-he-thinks-he-is fox into her scheme to keep her job by him helping out in the missing-person investigation. Nick takes every opportunity to gleefully undermine her ecumenical dream of moving to the big city and changing the world, so Judy blackmails him into helping her, in part because she needs his streetwise knowledge of her new city, and also to test her insecurities. She wants to battle the social prejudices that belittle her, but can she overcome deep-seated ones of her own about foxes? Her moment of clarity was after being violently bullied by a fox as a child who told her, dumb bunnies can’t amount to anything. Hopps’ overcautious Midwestern parents reinforce this. So Judy goes for broke and moves to to a miserable little boarding house in the big city, not necessarily to spite them, but to prove them all wrong in any case.

Nick is Judy’s natural foil, a totally self-interested, cynical crook whose dreams got crushed early by his childhood tormentors (all herbivores), replayed in a devastating flashback (good thing I saw it at a nearly empty matinee, as a lone adult crying seated next to a strangers’ kids is not a great look). He nags her with poisonous barbs because, well naturally he doesn’t like cops, and her cloying earnestness eats away at something inside of him. They share a back-and-forth that reads like the first act of a horseshit romantic comedy, bitterness and acrimony as a silty overcoat to a significant bond. The value that comes out in the wash though, is the damage, and the shared desire to heal that damage that brings them together, and breaks them apart, and brings them together again. The emotional core of this movie, the reason that it works, is these two people who are so fundamentally opposed in every way who grow to depend and care for each other. Maybe you could read their relationship as a romantic one, but it’s not necessary for appreciating the bond they share. It’s a buddy cop movie, and Nick and Judy are magnetic buddies.

The Zootopia-inspired site banner for Furaffinity, the internet’s largest furry social media/art gallery site. By Korichi.

So again, the race allegory keeps weaving itself through every relationship, interpersonal and social. Judy is transferred to the heart of the city by calculating bureaucrats seeking to appeal to a %90 herbivorous population who nevertheless entrust their policing to a minority of mostly predator species. The predators are the natural leaders and protectors, and yet feared and ultimately despised and marginalized for their supposedly “biological” predilections toward violence. The mayor is the lion and his deputy, the lamb (well, sheep). Judy in the world of Zootopia occupies at the same time the position of being victim and victimizer. She’s someone counted out by her native community and her chosen community. But Judy finds herself wielding tremendous social power against a populace that is seen as highly influential and yet looked upon with suspicion. Criminality is shown as a trait of in predatory species, just as as political corruption is in prey species that secretly manipulate the supposedly homogeneous society of Zootopia. The explicitly stated point is that forming a multicultural society is messy, and yet each individual is responsible for dealing with their own ingrained biases when interacting with people with a (naturally) different perspective. Judy and Nick are not fast friends. But they share a common experience in being singled out. There are large herbivores on the police force, but there’s never been a BUNNY cop. Carnivores are largely integrated into society, but everyone agrees you can’t trust those nasty FOXES.

Hi Daddy

There has been non-stop chatter in the community in the lead-up to this weekend about the extent to which Zootopia is a “Furry” movie. How many of us walked among the aminators, directors and writers who brought us this fantasy. Would Zootopia, like its antecedent, Disney’s Robin Hood be a secret key to the hearts of people who pretend to be cartoon animals in order to really feel human? Young folks love cartoon animals, sure, but will this film mark another Cambrian explosion of lifers like well, me? Supposedly, the image Byron Howard, Zootia’s director along with Rich Moore, used to pitch the concept of a return to funny animal movies to executive producer John Lasseter was of Disney’s foxy loxy Robin Hood reclining in a wicker basket. The not-insignificant marketing campaign behind the movie might have included a branch directly reaching out to furries. I’ve noticed a rush to claim ownership over a well-anticipated property. I share in a relief at its positive response that wouldn’t have necessarily happened maybe just five years ago. Nowadays who even are you if you don’t have a fursona?

I’m somewhat of a camp that understands Furry culture as inextricable from sexuality. So I’m hesitant to speculate on the upcoming generation of furries who have a right to figure their own shit out in their own time. Furries have already proliferated a king-of-the-jungle’s ransom of Zootopia inspired fan porn (sometimes obnoxiously using official hashtags. I do wish people would cut that gunk out.) If you know where to look, it’s unavoidable that Zootopia is a fueled in part by the horny of furry animators and storytellers from roughly my generation. There’s the scene where Judy, though small in stature compared to many creatures, got to be a relative giantess, stomping around the neighborhood populated by tiny mice and shrews. While not an exclusive attribute, the Macro/Micro fetish focusing on extreme size difference is a conspicuous facet of furry culture. It’s a spectacularly composed chase scene for those not in the know, and a pretty big “OOOOOOH” moment for the kink-literate. During the climax, Nick (with negotiated consent) “went feral” and play acted a scene that culminating in him sensually biting Judy’s neck. This doesn’t necessarily subvert my non-rom-com interpretation of the leads’ relationship, I’m of the school of friends boning down sans-strings being a thing that can happen. But in any case, this is a crucial, fraught, terrifying intimate moment. And Nick’s definitely a type of guy who’s down to get pegged. Oh. By the way. Did you notice, watching the end credits…………… THOSE TIIIIIIIIIIIGERS? MY GOD. Zootopia highlights a lead who is not a princess, and not really romantically driven. But it’s also the horniest movie Disney has ever made. I’m talking almost Don Bluth-level barely sublimated horny.

EXCUSE ME???!

Zootopia is a PRETTY movie, no… a goregeous movie, with jaw-dropping attention to detail in background animation and dedicated research based on the real animals the cartoonized characters are based on. Every figure, major and minor, is cartooned with an exaggerated take on their native animal’s shape, weight and movement. Their responses to high-stress situations, like ducking an obstacle on the roof of an out-of-control subway car, is informed by the meticulously observed behavior of the actual animals being represented. The environments they move through, the city center or the tundra or, my lord, the jungle zone, are spectacles, lovingly rendered in frequent wide establishing shots. The fur (THE FURR) of each chraracter is so tactile, from the fluffy cheeks of a sedentary cheetah to the greasy, nappy locks of a naturist gnu (voiced by Tommy Chong!). To the art department, only love and kisses and more money for you.

Zootopia’s message is mired in role reversals, or dualistic prejudices cast into flux. The twist ending, the reveal of the mastermind behind the purposeful stoking of tensions between species is hysterical in one sense and deflating in another. There is a constant, conscious focus on hard realities in this breezy fuzzy fable for kids. People sometimes act on unexamined biases or are motivated to do terrible things by an unaddressed but real sense of grievance. Zootopia glosses over issues of police departments’ responsibilities to the communities they serve, but also highlights its main characters empathy and selflessness as her personal and professional strength. It mind-blowingly (though abstractly) references the panic about crack cocaine in urban communities in the 80s and 90s and how it was cynically used as a wedge to stoke racist paranoia. And yet the film presents a fantasy where the government parties who stoke the fires of fear and division are punished for their corruption and the victims are given treatment. The city focuses on a theraputic, non-carceral solution to the chemical that turned the unlucky predators to violence, and they return to their families.

This court has concluded that there is no statute on record that explicitly forbids parties Wilde and Hopps from kissing.

Zootopia is one hell of a slimy gumbo of contradictory messages. But I’m from Alabama, and I like gumbo. The inherent pun in the title, in the United States release at least, is that the messy, resentful furry metropolis that Judy vows to serve and protect is not anything like a Utopia. It’s multi-culture sheen is driven by barely restrained resentment and contempt. People like Judy Hopps can in good conscience think they’re doing the right thing while letting their biases stoke sub-dermal bigotry between predator and prey. And in the pursuit of her own dreams, she realizes that she’s the convenient tool of predatory bureaucrats covering their own asses until the next election cycle. In this miasma of cynicism, the corniest of Disney cliches kind of… blossom. When Judy believes in herself, and cares about others, and trusts someone who isn’t anxious to give her a reason to, she saves the day. Fatally flawed as it is, Zootopia is one paw forward into our furry future.

ALSO LOOK AT THE BUNNY.

The Hooded Utilitarian

a pundit in every panopticon

Monthly Archives: March 2016