Batman Vs. Shameless, Whiny, Scumbag Baby Boomer, Sixties-Generation Spoiled Brats . . . Or Possibly Al Qaeda.

[More meta-academic-blogging later.  After a long day of responsible grading I needed to lash out.  I promise to bring you more questionable categories and half-baked theories about the status and future of academic blogging tomorrow.]

The year is . . . some year in Eighties.  A tired old man watches a presidential news conference:

President: Now it's taken some doing—
Old Man: Yeah, some doing.  Like repealing the Bill of Rights.
President: —but we have arrived.  We are at peace—
Old Man: Of course we're at peace!  We've killed just about everybody who disagrees with us!
President: —our children live in a world free of crime—
Old Man: Our children live in a damn police state!
President: —we are prosperous beyond the dreams of previous generations—
Old Man: We're well-paid slaves.  WHO WILL STOP ALL THIS.

BOOMING Voiceover: My patience is at its end.  The time has come.

Who booms the end of his patience?  Who agrees with the tired old man that peace has been purchased at the cost of thousands of lives overseas and servitude in a police state at home?  He does.  Examine that page carefully.  Look at the artful despair on the face of an aged Jimmy Olsen.  Look at the eyes in those center panels—blue and wide on the left and bruised and battered on the right—and tell me that isn't the work of an artist who understands the complex ways contemporary cultural myths resonate with the American public.  The graphic novel from which I scanned the above changed the way I thought both about superheroes and cultural mythology. 

Thinking about the complicated interaction of myth and politics depicted therein forced my fourteen year old brain to consider a picture more realistic than the superheroes-fight-supervillains and larger than vigilante-fights-petty-crime.  Sure I could've waited a few years and read Umberto Eco on Superman as defender of property rights and all things status quo.  But because of that graphic novel I didn't need to. 

So needless to say I felt profoundly disturbed when I learned that Frank Miller had nearly finished "a piece of propaganda" in which "Batman kicks Al Qaeda's ass."  The man who aligned Superman with Reagan foreign policy has decided to align Batman with Bush's?  (Click on that link even if you don't read comic books.  It's about as brilliant a panel-to-panel progression as you're likely to see.)  Conservatives danced in the street.  But consider their logic:

If Batman attacks al Qaeda then Miller must've turned Dennis Miller's corner.  He must now believe in the conservative way of life because . . . no liberal would approve of a vigilante going to Afghanistan and finding and fighting Bin Laden.  Now I have no idea whether Miller will reverse the symbolism of the above panel and align Batman with The War President and The Global Struggle Against Extremism . . . but isn't it strange that conservatives can't imagine how Miller sending Batman to Afghanistan might constitute a criticism of the current administration?  How can they be sure the book won't be an indictment?  Because he called it "propaganda"? 

Maybe they're right.  Maybe Miller's desire to depict Batman fighting the war Bush claims to be winning will be a ringing endorsement of the President's policy.  Maybe Olsen's words about saving "the children" via genocide and wage slavery will resonate in patriotic young hearts across America.  Or maybe they don't understand how complicated a message sending an unstable vigilante to fight a war we claim to be winning might be.  Miller has betrayed an awareness of nuance in the past . . . but so had Hitchens.  There's no point in barking about a book that hasn't been finished yet.  I understand that.  But the conservative cheerleading of Miller's decision convinces me that their ideology has robbed them of their imagination. 

Consider Miller's example: "Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That's one of the things they're there for."  Superman and Captain America punched Hitler.  We know how Miller once felt about Superman.  (Click on that link!)  And Captain America?  Can you think of a more subtle propagandistic vehicle?  The problem is that vocal conservatives can't seem to think outside the most basic political binaries.  Anyone familiar with Miller's thought would know that he's about as libertarian as they come.  His affection for Batman—a vigilante who thinks wealthy private individuals can do better than Big Government when it comes to issues like fighting petty crime and climbing buildings in kevlar tights—should tell them something.  Or they can read some of his diatribes against political correctness in which he says things like:

The most palpable threat to free speech these days comes from the secular political left.  Janet Reno, Paul Simon, all those little 'politically correct' fascists that haunt our universities, preaching that the purpose of fiction is not entertainment, but rather indoctrination.  These shameless, lying, whiny scumbag baby boomer, sixties-generation spoiled brats who think they serve society by rewriting history and trying to unravel our language . . . they represent a much more effective and successful effort to shut down free speech and the free press than the Bible-bangers ever have.

I don't agree with those sentiments but I recognize them.  They're textbook post-adolescent libertarian rage.  Textbook.  (I would continue but then I'd have to think about Ayn Rand.)  In closing I will quote (without comment) some other conservative responses to Miller's decision:

[All of these statements can be found in one of the links above.  I would point to the irony in the people's inability to understand the logic of a vigilante but that would be too easy.  Most of my responses to them would fall into that same category.  Which is why I present them 'without comment.']

"I think comic books should be forbidden by law from depicting the president, or, if they're going with a fictional president, specifically referring to him as a Republican or Democrat."

"Watch libs get angry Batman abuses & oppreses people whom are just fighting to be freed from the evil American military-perto-industiral-capitalist complex serving the expansionist needs of an evil empire. Besides, Batman is too macho. Until he and Spiderman do a Brokeback style movie they are bad for libs."

"I've been daydreaming lately about Kratos from (God of War) going to Iraq and showing those terrorist scum what REAL brutality is . . ."

"I can only hope that Miller doesn't phone it in near the end of this 'Holy Terror' and turn Batman into an apologetic rat who 'recognizes diversity and celebrates a person's right to exist.' To me, that's not Batman."

"The Dark Knight Stomps a Mudhole In Bin Laden's Ass.  Opening scene - Batman is beating the shit out of Pinch Sulzburger. Frank Rich and Paul Krugman are already in Arkham Asylum after a good beat down. Maureen Dowd just gets a good scaring. Batman doesn't hit chicks."

"Scene 2: Batman runs over Robert Fisk with the Batmobile, then repeatedly drives back and forth over him as Fisk explains why Batman is justified in doing so. Hillary Clinton locates a hidden stockpile of Smylex in Syria and plans to use it to prop up her sagging protruberances . . . and poll numbers!"

"SUPERMAN PUNCHING BIN LADEN SPIDERMAN SOCKING WARD CHURCHILL WONDER WOMAN USING HER MAGIC LASO ON CINDY SHEEHAN AQUAMAN TURNING SOME DOLPHINS LOSE ON SOME GREENPEACE WACKOS"

"[Superman] also grabbed Stalin as well and dragged them back to Geneva, Switzerland to stand trial in front of the League of Nations.  Damn, I wish America was like it was back then; even if we have a new comic like that -- and I sure would love to see it and don't underestimate its worth; will it ever be as popular? I sure hope so. Its true that country music is still popular like that, but we do need more of that good honest American wisdom and pride.  Its just so sad when the left say that we are jingoistic for caring about the freedom in America and hating and proudly fighting the true enemies of freedom such as Stalin, al Qaeda and Hugo Chavez/Castro."

"IRONMAN beats the crap out of all of AL QUEDA THE AVENGERS take on the insergents the DEFENDERS are out to see what they can do with the radicals and sgt FURYS HOWLIN COMMANDOS will play havoc with the suicide bombers and HUGO CHEVEZ"

Comments

[Josh]

While they wait for the Sub-Mariner to attack the offices of The Nation, whom would the bloggers quoted side with in this Millerian battle?

[Gaijin Biker]

Well, none of those quotes came from my post, which you linked, and in which I noted that Miller is not a neo-con.

I think you're over-analyzing the situation. I'm just happy at the prospect of seeing Batman kick Al Qaeda's ass. Politics have nothing to do with it, unless you consider one's position on the merits of Al Qaeda to be a hot-button political issue.

[Rich Puchalsky]

The best-so-far libertarian analysis of superhero comics is Jim Henley's Gaudy Night, in which he labels them the "literature of ethics". Through my usual voluminous commenting, I disagree.

[Brainster]

Hmmm, this conservative (linked) wasn't dancing in the streets. I'm suspicious of Miller and noted that his last two Bat-books were terrible--not because of liberal bias but because they were crappy stories with awful characterization (and DK2 had really, really bad artwork). DKR, which did show some liberal bias, was a masterpiece.

BTW, the Jimmy Olsen page doesn't come from DKR in the 1980s, but from DK2 (2001).

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Josh, your guess is as good as mine.

Brainster, that's what I get for revising. (I'll try to keep that to a minimum in the future.) But yes, the more recent works haven't met his high standards.

Gaijin Biker, I don't think I'm over- so much as simply analyzing it. Speculating, actually, since I haven't read it. And your second point, about the relative merits of AQ not being a hot-button political issue, was partly my point. Why, then, was the conservative reaction to think that liberals would necessarily hate this book.

Rich, I'll read it, post about it, then I'll expect your volume on my desk first thing tomorrow morning.

[Belle Lettre]

Did I ever tell you that when I was 14, I won the Ayn Rand Essay contest and became one of the youngest members of the Objectivist Society? (never mind the cognitive dissonance that at the time, my life was saved by Medicare) I left at 16 after I became disillusioned with her philosophy--no space for altruism, welfare, anything charitable. Now I argue for affirmative action, civil rights, universal healthcare, and non-absolute free speech. People would call me a left-wing commie pinko fag hag! How one evolves! (or Ayn would say, "devolve")

My brother was really, really into comic books, so I absorbed some of that. But I never knew this about Frank Miller. What an eye opener.

Also, although I would not risk imputing it to gender differences, my favorite comics are about anti-heroes, sad sacks, and losers. Check out Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth about a loser who was abandoned by his father, and Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer prize winning series Maus, about Jewish mice who surive the Holocaust at the hands of the Cat Gestapo.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Fixed the links there for you. And I would check those out, but I already own both of them, so I don't need to. I'm your typical comic nerd: I evolved from an X-Men/Batman-loving kid to a Frank Miller's Batman/Daredevil/Ronin-loving young adult to a Chris Ware/Daniel Clowes-loving adult. (Which may be why I didn't like Ghost World as much as you did. I'd read it already and had expectations which were sorely disappointed the first time I saw. Subsequent viewings have improved my opinion of it immensely.) I'm also a fan of the seminal Love and Rockets and, of course, Cerebus. That is, I'm a fan when I have the time to be, which is rarely these days.

[Belle Lettre]

One day, you have to tell me how to turn words into links.

You'd think with 3/6 engineer siblings, I'd have picked up something.

This is why I'm the black sheep of the family that defied Asian model minority expectations by sucking at math and science and had to run away and join the legal profession.

[eM]

Pardon the intrusion, but Frank Miller has lost all 'otaku' credibility. My former self screams at the thought of "All Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder". It has yet to be released as a GN, which is why you are unaware of its existence, but I asure you that it is less intriguing than poo on a stick.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

And how would you, sir, know that I only read graphic novels? Oh, nevermind, I">http://theinnersanctum.typepad.com/">I see.

[T. Scrivener]

I'd really like to write a refutation of Ayn Rand one day and publish it as a book, not a scholarly tome but a popular one written at a level your rank and file objectivist can understand, that way I might save some before they become too indoctrinated.

I feel sorry for objectivists, I really do, they want to do philosophy ( at least some of them) so that's why it's sad that they don't really understand the problem of induction, why it is incoherent to found logic on observation, why it is almost certainly incoherent to found mathematics on observation, why the is-ought gap is not so easily crossed, why there is a sense/ reference distinction etc etc.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Hey, you got Narnia in my Objectivism! No, you got Objectivism in my Narnia!

""Snow?" she asks. She brushes at her shoulder. Reason quickly informs her that it is snow.

"And, why," she says, "a lamp post!"

The lamp post shines like a monument to industry."

From Hitherby Dragons, of course.

Actually, probably my favorite part is:

""I do not do this thing," rumbles Aslan, "because you are unworthy and small. You are not. I do not do this thing to save an evil land. It is not. I do this because Narnia is good. I do this because you are good. I do this because you are worth this to me. Because in a world that seems very dark I will prove to you that you are worthy of my life.""

After which the kids debate whether Aslan is coming back from the dead, and Susan asks why they're waiting around.

""Because Aslan is Aslan," says Peter. "A is A.""

[Coelecanth]

There's a pretty straightfoward refutation of Objectivism in Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things" ISBN: 0-965-59487-4

[T. Scrivener]

Yeah, but I want to write a book length fully philosophical refutation which is still acessiable to the general public. I know that Shermer's thing doesn't meet the first criteria and it probably doesn't meet the second.

[Ahistoricality]

I don't see how you can prejudge the tenor of Miller's Batman Does Kabul until you see it. My guess: everyone will get skewered to some extent; smart people will recognize that they got hit and object; dumb ones will notice where the opposition got hit and celebrate....

[Anthony]

I hope you don't mind my directing your attention to this:

http://www.dailyfreepress.com/media/paper87/news/2006/03/23/Opinion/The-Fine.Line.Between.Stupid.And.Clever-1626014.shtml

[Anthony]

I'm not sure if that link came out correctly. Sorry about that.

[Cyrus]

I've been meaning to read The Dark Knight Returns for a while, not because I'm specifically a Batman or Miller fan but because I'm a comics fan in general, and maybe Batman vs. Al Qaeda will inspire me to do it.

But I have to make a revision to this.
I don't see how you can prejudge the tenor of Miller's Batman Does Kabul until you see it. My guess: everyone will get skewered to some extent; smart people will recognize that they got hit and object; dumb ones will notice where the opposition got hit and celebrate....

No, more like dumb right-wingers will notice where the opposition got hit and celebrate, dumb left-wingers will notice where they got hit (or the opposition got praised) and object, and smart people will enjoy it based on their personal tastes and whatever value it might or might not have as art.

I'm reminded of "The Incredibles", how a left-wing friend of mine refused to see it for months because he had heard about a reactionary slant, and then he saw it and was amazed at how all the villains were greedy bastards and arch-capitalists. Or reactionaries eager to find a political message in "Serenity", never mind that in "Firefly" economic injustice was at least as important as political oppression. At least no one is dumb enough to be bothered by the pro-monarchy messages of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

Some art and media lends itself to simple and clear political interpretations. But there's a lot that doesn't, or has political themes but no actual messages, or where the political messages are part of the narrative rather than being proscriptive. So barring endorsements or straightforward public statements by Miller, I'll go out of my way to avoid finding partisan politics in Batman Does Kabul.

[Felicity]

I try not to think of Frank Miller as an Objectivist when I enjoy his work, but it got harder when he and Dave Gibbons admitted in the letter column for Martha Washington that they were doing Atlas Shrugged.