Category Archives: Blog

Utilitarian Review 4/14/12

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News

I’m pleased to announce that Kailyn Kent will be joining us as a regular columnist. At the moment, she’s planning for her column to focus on the links between comics and the fine art world. Kailyn’s written several posts for us already, and we’re very excited to have her appear here regularly.

In other news…I’ve mentioned this here and there already, but thought I’d semi-officially let folks know that I’ve gotten a book contract to write about the William Marston/Harry Peter Wonder Woman. As is always the case with these things, it’ll be several years before it’s written and available — but you can start hoarding your pennies now, I suppose! In the meantime, if you can’t wait for WW copy, you can read my past posts on her here. And we’re also going to have a roundtable in the beginning of May celebrating my having blogged my way through all of the Marston/Peter WW.

And…we got our first link from the Dish! To Michael Arthur’s Kpop article (I’m a fan of Andrew Sullivan’s, so I was excited.)

 
On HU

In our Featured Archive Post I talk about Art Young and the black humorist as Christ.

I talked about Marston’s vs. Azzarello’s Amazons.

Erica Friedman talked about the big and small of conventions, from the enormous Comiket in Tokyo to the tiny Yaycon in the Netherlands.

Richard Cook expressed some skepticism about Downton Abbey.

I talk about incest in Twilight and the Hunger Games.

I posted a download mix of Neil-Young_Like music.

Eric Berlatsky on Gilbert Hernandez, fetishes, and phallic mothers.

Eric Berlatsky on Jaime Hernandez, fetishes, and phallic mothers.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At the Washington Times I talk about the movie Bully and the case for homeschooling.

At the Atlantic I review the strikingly crappy film Lockout.

At Splice I talk about Derbyshire and the right’s anti-anti-racism.

At Splice Today I discuss Neil Young and the black metal band Drudkh.
 
Other Links

Ms. magazine on Katniss as a nonsexualized action hero.

War mongering and atheism apparently go together now.

Alyssa Rosenberg with a really depressing story about the Obama administration harassing journalists.

Matte Harrison on the TV show Bones and birth.

David Olsen on how he learned to love Power Girl.
 

Edward, Daddy

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In his book Forbidden Partners: The Incest Taboo In Modern Culture, James B. Twitchell argues that the gothic romance, and particularly the vampire story, is built upon the fascination/titillation/horror of the incest taboo. Twitchell points out that the vampire is typically an older, powerful man who attacks a younger, often virginal woman, forcing upon her an intimate encounter which involves a sex-like, perverted mingling of blood. Twitchell also reminds us that:

The most startling aspect of the folkloric vampire is that he must first attack members of his own family. This prerequisite has been lost in our modern versions, but it is clear in almost every early story in almost every culture. We may have neglected this because we find it too dull and predictable, but it may also be…because this familial tie makes all too clear the vampire’s specific sexual design.

The most popular current version of the vampire story is, of course, Twilight. Twilight differs from Dracula in many ways — but it definitively retains the gothic fascination with inbred family structures. Bella, notably, calls her father “Charlie” — his first name — and when she moves back in with him, she cooks for and takes care of him more like a wife than like a daughter. Bella’s surrogate vampire family is even more flagrantly incestuous; Carlyle’s “children”, turned vampire by him, all live together as brothers and sisters — and, at the same time, as paired husbands and wives. Even Carlyle himself, and his wife appear no older than their “kids” — who they create not by having sex with each other, but by having sex with the children themselves. Father/mother/brother/sister — the familial roles are all, for the vampires, arbitrary, interchangeable, and interpenetrated with sex.

If vampires are both daddies and lovers, Edward is certainly no exception. In fact, much of Meyer’s incomprehensible plotting is suddenly clarified once you start to view Edward as a father surrogate. Edward is, of course, much, much older than Bella (while still being, also, magically, 19.) And his relationship with Bella is defined by his overwhelming desire to protect her…not merely from others, but from himself. His stalkery behavior is often specifically explained as a paternal desire to keep her from harm — he disables her car, for example, to keep her from being hurt by Jacob. Meyer also is oddly fascinated with scenes in Bella’s bedroom — scenes in which Edward does not have sex with Bella, but rather spends hours watching her sleep…like a doting father. Edward’s continual refusal to have sex with Bella, and/or to turn her into a vampire, are also consistent with his fatherhood; he loves her, but incest sex would be so right wrong.

Obviously, incest is definitionally squicky, and it’s no surprise that Twilight’s flirtation, and more than flirtation, with the taboo have repulsed many, feminist and otherwise. At the same time, Twitchell notes that the gothic — incest and all — has long appealed strongly to young women. Why should this be? Twitchell doesn’t have any very good explanation — he mutters something vaguely about false consciousness, stammers about symbolic representations of hymens breaking, waves his hands, and scurries on by.

Gale Swiontkowski in Imagining Incest: Sexton, Plath, Rich, and Olds on Life With Daddy provides a somewhat more convincing explanation of the appeal of incest narratives for young women (if not of vampires per se.) Looking at American women poets, Swiontkowski argues that for daughters incest with the father can be a kind of symbolic grasping of patriarchal power — a repudiation of passivity in favor of the phallus. Obviously, this is a fraught and potentially damaging transaction, especially in the not-nearly-infrequent-enough-cases where there is actual incest and abuse. Still, Swiontkowski argues:

An advocacy of incest by men, as in pornography, is a regressive move toward social and psychological hoarding that enslaves women to men’s desires, especially if it is taken as a literal enactment of the right of males in patriarchy. The advocacy of symbolic incest by women is an enlightening and advancing move because it breaches the social restrictions on women that determine their subservience in a patriarchy.

This does seem to be in large part what Meyer is trying to do in Twilight. Meyer’s world is one in which the incest taboo is destabilized; fathers are brothers are husbands; siblings are lovers…and, as a result, ultimately, daughters are fathers. Edward is Bella’s lover and her father — and he is also Bella’s self. Edward’s paternal desire to keep Bella safe is ultimately accomplished by making Bella into Edward — by turning her into a vampire who is (the text is careful to note) stronger than Edward himself. Marrying her father makes Bella her own father, and she has the phallus/fangs to prove it.

Bella’s fatherhood is achieved by giving birth; it is tied into, and comes out of, her motherhood. Twilight, in other words, wants to allow Bella to retain her gender even as she grasps the phallus; being a vampire does not unsex or transex her, but actually reinscribes her femaleness. Bella can be structurally father without being male, just as the vampires can all be structurally siblings while sleeping with each other. Instead of incest leading to horror as in the traditional gothic, for Meyer it opens up onto a utopia of sexy, happy families and sparkly vampires.
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While writing this, it suddenly occurred to me that there’s a vampire in the Hunger Games too. President Snow, with his breath that smells like blood, surely functions as a Dracula surrogate — the older, powerful, seductive patriarch. One of the creepier moments in the book is when he leaves a rose for Katniss in her house; a symbolic and squicky father/daughter rape.

Katniss, of course, has lost her own father — which perhaps explains the intense personal relationship she develops with Snow. Certainly, Katniss’ hatred of Snow in the book seems weirdly unmotivated. Snow does many horrible things, of course…but those horrible things seem almost too much, the personalization of the evil of the regime almost too intense, as if Suzanne Collins is desperate to find an excuse to place Snow at the center of Katniss’ mental and emotional world.

Given Snow’s role as demon/father, and given the series’ fascination with intensely gruesome and macabre violence, I think it’s possible to see The Hunger Games as itself an example of the gothic. In many ways, too, it’s a much more traditional gothic than Twilight. Incest leads to horror — and to punishment, not just for the father, but for the daughter as well. Katniss’ punishment is precisely that she doesn’t get the phallus; repudiating the incest storyline means that she must also repudiate personal power and agency. She can’t actually admit to her love of dressing up (good girls don’t do that); she can’t admit to an investment or interest in politics (good girls don’t do that); she can’t even really enjoy the denoument of her romance storyline (the boy is nice enough…but he isn’t daddy.) As with Mina Harker, the dull live with the socially acceptable doofus can’t quite compete with the rush of the blood, the horror, and the power — the violent daddy things you’re not allowed to say you want.

British Comfort Food

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Downton Abbey is a television series set on a fictional English estate of the same name. It chronicles the lives of the patrician Crawley family and their servants at the beginning of the twentieth century.

According to Wikipedia, Downton Abbey is a “period drama,” a term used by people who are embarrassed to admit that they are watching a soap opera with corsets. There’s no point in pretending otherwise, as Downton Abbey has all the familiar, soapy elements: betrayal, sex, dead bodies, catty women, unrequited love, etc., etc. This observation isn’t meant to be dismissive. Soap operas aren’t inherently better or worse than any other genre. And by the standards of the genre, Downton Abbey is pretty good. It has decent acting, high production values, and lead writer Julian Fellowes hits just the right notes of the soap genre. I particularly enjoy the mutually destructive, pathological rivalry of the elder Crawley sisters. And no one can deliver a cutting one-liner like Maggie Smith.

After watching the first season, I was reminded of why soap operas are the ultimate achievement of serialized television. The great challenge in serial storytelling is maintaining the interest of the audience for not just hours (as in a film), but for months and even years. Plots must be sustainable over multiple episodes so they can capture viewers for the long-term. The most common technique is to focus on interpersonal – and especially romantic – relationships that viewers can easily connect with. These relationship-centered stories lend themselves to deliberate pacing and slow development over many episodes. There’s the meet-cute moment, like when Matthew Crawley first encounters the lovely Mary, the gradual build-up of the relationship spread out over several episodes, the unrequited sexual tension, and finally the big, romantic kiss during sweeps. But romance is only part of the appeal, and the most successful soaps mix romantic plots with storylines involving betrayal, revenge, or other conflicts. It’s also helpful to have various sub-plots to ensure that the audience does not become bored with any one storyline. Like most soaps, Downton Abbey has a large ensemble cast, so when viewers become bored with Matthew and Mary they can enjoy the scheming Thomas or the rivalry between the Dowager Countess and Matthew’s mother.

The soap opera formula is so effective that even series that are not technically soaps will often adopt soapy sub-plots. More often than not, this means an unrequited romance between two of the main characters (as an example, see X-Files, or Bones, or House, or any drama from the last twenty years). And as entertainment conglomerates have shifted from standalone stories to long-term franchises, the soap opera formula has spread to other media. Every new story has a huge cast and a plot extended across multiple novels, movies, comics, or video games. The soap opera is so mainstream its basic features are taken for granted.

But because the soap opera is so ubiquitous, it’s hard to do anything particularly innovative with the formula. Downton Abbey distinguishes itself from the pack in two ways: setting and social commentary. A pre-WWI English estate is a relatively unusual setting (especially for American audiences), and the series is overflowing with nostalgia for a bygone era of fox hunts and Victorian fashion. The social commentary, on the other hand, focuses on class relations and the role of women in a pre-feminist society. At least in the first season, the treatment of these issues is rather cursory and superficial. The writers want to show the gradual transformation of British society, so there are sub-plots where the youngest Crawley daughter flirts with women’s suffrage and helps a maid find a more respectable job as a secretary. But the series never addresses the roots of social inequality, because to do so the writers would have to acknowledge that the Crawleys are spoiled oafs who’ve coasted through life thanks to their undeserved wealth. So the appeal of the setting – and its adoration of noble privilege – clashes with the attempt to say something meaningful about social change in the twentieth century. At least the social commentary provides a veneer of seriousness that most soaps lack (it’s not just a TV series but a “Masterpiece Classic,” according to PBS).

If Downton Abbey never quite rises above passably entertaining, the blame is mostly due to the lackluster writing rather than the conventions of the soap opera. The soap opera formula is simplistic, but that very simplicity means it can be easily merged with other genres and adapted to the interests of the writer. As an example, The Sopranos possessed many of the typical features of the soap opera (extended plots and sub-plots, large ensemble, an emphasis on relationships), and it successfully combined these features with intelligent social/psychological commentary. If I were to arbitrarily rank Downton Abbey, I’d place it below the best of HBO, but well above the cookie-cutter soaps on network TV. It’s probably on par with Mad Men, another series where nostalgia and social commentary collide.

Only One Can Wear the Venus Girdle: Latest DC Idiocy Edition

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Kelly Thompson had a piece a couple weeks back about Brian Azzarello’s decision to make Wonder Woman’s Amazons into lying child-murdering rapists. She points out that this is maybe possibly problematic.

Anyway, I haven’t read the issues in question, but I left a couple of comments about Marston/Peter because I can’t help myself. I thought I’d reprint them below, because, what the hell, it’s my blog. So here you go.

First comment here.

“The Amazons may not have been created originally to be such a thing,”

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. Deep breaths…..

William Marston, who created Wonder Woman, was a passionate, ideologically committed feminist. He believed women were better than men in just about every way — smarter, stronger, more compassionate, more fitted to rule.

The Amazons were absolutely, uncontestably, intentionally meant as feminist icons. They were meant to be feminist examples for girls and *for boys.* It is impossible to read Marston’s Wonder Woman stories and doubt this; it’s impossible to read what he wrote about the character and doubt it. There simply is no doubt. The Amazons are feminist icons now because they were meant to be feminist icons by their creator. From the very first Wonder Woman story, they were established as feminist icons.

You know how horrified you are by castrating, evil, violent Amazons preying on men? Double that. Then double it again. Then, what the hey, double it a third time. That’s how absolutely, down to his socks horrified Wiliam Marston would be to see his beloved creations used in this manner. It is a deliberate, misogynist, betrayal of his vision. Azzarello might as well dig up the man’s corpse and defecate on it.

The fact that no one — not even committed Wonder Woman fans — knows about Marston or what he wanted for his creation is yet another sign of DC’s contempt for creator’s rights. (Which is in addition to their contempt for women, of course.)

Okay…sorry. End of rant.

And a second comment.

Wow…just skimmed through this.

I think for me the point is that Wonder Woman was very consciously created as a feminist statement. You can argue about the parameters of that statement (the swimsuit? amazons on a pedestal?) and certainly it wasn’t perfect in every way (though Marston and Peter are actually pretty thoughtful and complicated — they’re take on issues of war and peace, for example, is a lot more subtle than some folks here seem to think.) But be that as it way, Wonder Woman is decidedly, definitively a feminist vision for girls *and* for boys.

That was, and remains, extremely unusual for pop culture — or, for that matter, for any culture. You just don’t see a whole lot of movies, or books, much less comics, in which (a) the woman is the hero, (b) female friendships are central to her heroism, (c) feminism is explicitly, repeatedly, and ideologically presented as the basis for her heroism.

Since Marston and Peter, there have been a lot of creators who have, in one way or another, decided that the thing to do with the character is jettison the feminism. It’s important to realize that when they do that, they betray the original vision of the character in a way which is really, to my mind, fairly despicable. If you care about creator’s rights at all, what Azzarello is doing is really problematic.

Beyond that, though, to take a character who is originally, definitively intended to be feminist, and make her ideologically anti-feminist, is a really aggressive ideological act. One of the things Marston was doing was taking a negative mythological portrayal (the Amazons) and turning it into a feminist vision. Azzarello is turning that around and changing it back into a misogynist vision. Marston did what he did because he was a committed feminist. Azzarello is doing what he is doing…because he’s a committed misogynist? Because he’s not really thinking that hard about what he’s doing? Because he’s just getting his kicks? Whatever the reason, it is, as I said, a very definite decision with very definite ideological ramifications, and he deserves to be called on them.

Utilitarian Review 4/7/12

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On HU

Featured Archive Post: James Romberger’s comic based on a Wallace Stevens poem.

Ng Suat Tong calls for nominations for best comics criticism and surveys the state of comics criticism.

I talk about romance and convention in Room With a View and The African Queen.

Vom Marlowe on the Canadian steampunk of Murdoch Mysteries.

Katherine Wirick on Rorschach as rape victim.

Michael Arthur on the mysterious joy of kpop.
 
Utilitarians Everywhere

At Splice Today I review the lovely new Justin Townes Earle album.
 
Other Links

Charles Reece on the Hunger Games as Confederate fantasy.

Eric Cohen reviews Stanley Hauerwas’ new book on American militarism.

Ta-Nehisi Coates on black communities against violence.

Shaenon Garrity on the greatest cartoonists of our generation.

Alyssa Rosenberg on adults reading YA.

My brother got nominated for an Eisner!

Catholic high school kids for gay marriage in the teeth of their idiotic hierarchy.

Isaac Butler on gender balance in his syllabus.

Robert Stanley Martin on Gustave Flaubert.
 

Canadian Steampunk: Murdoch Mysteries

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photo of main characters (Murdoch, Crabtree, Ogden, Brackenreid)

I had finished yet another cozy (this one with not-quite lesbian gardeners) and was waiting for more discs to arrive, so I moodily poked around Netflix’s Watch Instantly Options.  And this time, it turned out rather well.

Murdoch Mysteries is a little different from the British shows I’ve been watching.  First of all, it’s set in Victorian-era Toronto.  Not a real Toronto, of course, but a much more Steampunk, brown and gray, scientifically-minded, Ye Olde Fashioned Toronto, full of interesting mysteries solved by thoughtful men in serious suits.  And a female coroner in a series of very fine hats.

This is not a plausible show, OK?

It’s more like a Dr Who or Star Trek.  Interesting ideas, fun acting, but you’re never going to worry that the main character will perish.

Also like those shows, each episode of Murdoch Mysteries focuses on some aspect of history or science (often forensic science) to solve the murder of the week.  In the first episode, an electric company–but no.  It’s too complicated and I can’t stop giggling over Nikolai Tesla’s ridiculous “accent” enough to type. (Not only is there Tesla, but also an adorable ancient golden retriever.  Just go with it.)

Let’s take the episode Body Double instead (season one, episode seven, in case anyone cares).  This particular episode is about the theater–Inspector Brackenreid attends a performance of Macbeth and during one of the crucial scenes a body falls from the ceiling and wham! right onto the stage.

In another TV show, the body would be fresh and gruesome, but not in Murdoch Mystery land.  This corpse is long dead and decomposed and the episode revolves around solving the identity of the corpse and figuring out how (and why) there was a dead guy in the ceiling of the local theater.

Naturally, plenty of time is spent on how the theater worked during that time period, what kinds of plays were performed, how profits were made, etc.  But the nifty part of this episode is that Doctor Ogden, the pathologist, decides to try a new technique.  Using anatomy books, rulers, measured pins, and a few simple tools, she carefully layers modeling clay onto the skull in order to create a sort of mockup of what the dead man would have looked like, starting with various ligaments and gruesome muscle bits and working out to the skin.

Yeah, yeah, a Victorian-era pathologist probably wouldn’t have succeeded in creating an exact life replica of a dead man their first time out.  Like I said, this show isn’t about realism per se.  It’s more about learning how things could have been done, using simple ingredients you could find in your own cupboard and a sound understanding of our good friend, Captain Science.

Some of the semi-historical forensics are more believable than others.   The size of blood droplets can determine the nature of a wound, apparently, and I had a good time watching long-suffering Constable Crabtree get roped into shooting an already dead pig’s head with a gun at various distances to see how and where the blood would get on his clothes.

In addition to these techniques, the show tosses in historical figures.  Prince Albert, for example (yes, the one in the can…) shows up, as does Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Tesla, and Buffalo Bill Cody.  These historical figures are often used for comic effect or to illustrate interesting historical issues.

Which brings to me one aspect of the show that I don’t really enjoy as much.  In a somewhat Star Trekish fashion, Murdoch Mysteries attempts to explore Important Sensitive Issues of that Time.  For instance, one show is set in Chinatown and some of the police constables treat the Chinese immigrants like dirt.  (Our plucky detective shows them that’s wrong, of course.)  Did the show also show the Chinese as big gamblers?  Yes, of course it did.

In a similar vein, does the Temperance League appear in this series?  Yes of course it does.  Does the show address the very real issue of alcoholism during that time or does it make the Temperance Leaguers seem like annoying teatollers?  (Or, ahem, S&M practicing sexual deviant murders…..yes, really.)

One show, about the insular Jewish community, gave me a heck of an eye twitch.  It portrayed the police constables as doing their best to convince those pesky Jews to let the police do their jobs (showing the rabbi as being unwilling to allow an autopsy, various people as unwilling to talk to the cops about the crime, a wall of silence, and so on).  The villain (also Jewish, who runs a tailoring and clothing sweatshop, no less) complains that the investigation into the murder is all persecution and antisemitism.  The police are shown as being thoughtful, considerate, kind….the Jews as insular, difficult, weird, and money grubbing.  Did I mention the money grubbing? Not only was there the main (insular) Jewish community, there was also the more acceptable (but still annoying) powerful and political Jewish family with old money.  The rabbi of the community ends up betraying one member of his community in order to gain money for the greater good and says he’d do it again.   And so on.  Some of the Jewish characters are given more depth (one is a union organizer, one is a young woman who spends the whole time ill and unable to say much) but it’s not by much.  Considering how genuinely awful police treatment of various minorities was in real history (and today, ahem), I found the episode in somewhat bad taste.  Yes, Murdoch might not be mean to someone just because they’re of a different religion (he’s Catholic), but come on.  It’s not just that particular episode that irritated me.  The episode about Indians/First Nations did discuss some Indian issues…..but also had an Indian villain.  Etc.

Personally, I just decided to peek at the synopsis and skip the episodes I thought would make me cranky, but I wanted to mention it for the unwary.  I’ve certainly seen worse, and it doesn’t render the whole show unwatchable, but….I’m sure as heck not going to watch the episode about abortion.

But setting that aside, the main purpose of the show is tone and setting.  The overall theme is a bit more comedic than dramatic.  Episodes often contain joking references to modern day inventions (like Scotch tape).  Others show how circus performers do tricks or how one of the tricks in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show would have been performed (using fake bullets, cigarettes, and sleight of tongue).

William Murdoch is the main character, and he’s fairly entertaining.  A scientific and eccentric man, he was raised by Jesuits.  He often reads odd books and decides to try newfangled ideas and logical approaches to problems.  His boss, Inspector Brackenried, is more savvy about people and more heavily muscled.  Brackenried, while he often thinks Murdoch is a bit loony, lets him approach problems in his own way, and is usually fond and proud when his odd subordinate succeeds.  Constable Crabtree is Murdoch’s earnest but not too bright assistant.  He provides comic relief and is kind and sweet.  Dr Julia Ogden is Murdoch’s love interest, brainstorming partner, and the police station’s pathologist.  She’s usually seen up to her elbows in a corpse.

There are minor throughlines, such as a romance/flirtation between Detective Murdoch and Dr Ogden, and marital troubles between Inspector Brackenried and his wife over his drinking, some conspiracy theories/political machinations of various governments (usually involving brash and hawklike Americans!), and some recurring side characters such as the alienist (psychiatrist) who Murdoch consults about troubled minds.  Mostly, however, the show is more episodic and I’ve skipped around without running into any trouble.

What can I say?  Great hats, awesome costumes, witty banter, beautiful settings.

A fine show to watch while folding laundry or getting over a cold.