As anyone who teaches funny books or films knows, the task of convincing students that the scene before them is anything other than incidental would try Job’s patience. You show them a panel from the surprisingly awful Superman and Batman vs. Aliens and Predator like, say, this
and ask them to talk about the image as a crafted artifact and they will sit there, stone-silent, for fifty minutes while you prattle on about how (1) the writer wanted Batman represented by a powerful gloved hand and (2) the original alien was a giant penis preying on (a) the crew of the Nostromo and (b) our inborn fear of alien interspecies rape. You show them the H.R. Giger painting that inspired Ridley Scott:
and tell them that there’s phallic imagery, phallic imagery, and then there’s the work of H.R. Giger—and still they sit there staring at your Freudian hammer in a World of Nails. You inform them that the lips of the alien were constructed from six stretched and shredded condoms smeared with KY jelly while they quietly compose comments for Rate My Professor about how everything in your course is about sex.
“Not everything,” you insist. “But I mean, come on now, clearly this alien is. It is a giant penis, and within it is another penis, a penis within a penis, and in this panel Batman is firmly gripping that inner penis—”
And you stop because no matter what you say, professors who open semesters with images of Batman giving an alien a hand job get comments on Rate My Professor about how everything in their course is about sex.*
But it doesn’t have to end like this—there is a better way. With the help of erstwhile commenter Luther Blissett, I’ve designed an introduction to visual rhetoric assignment that forces students to understand that all comic and film images are obscenely overdetermined. On the first day of class, I’ll present them with Alan Moore’s script for the eighth panel on the first page of The Killing Joke:
NOW WE ARE LOOKING AT THE POLICE CAR SIDE-ON SO THAT WE SEE THE UNIFORMED OFFICER STANDING FACE-ON TO US OVER ON THE LEFT AS HE STANDS WITH HIS BACK TO THE CAR AND COMMISSIONER GORDON FACE-ON OVER TO THE RIGHT, LEANING AGAINST THE CAR AND DRNKING HIS STEAMING COFFEE, MAYBE LOOKING UP WITH A QUIZZICAL AND CONCERNED LOOK OVER THE RIM OF HIS CUP TOWARDS THE EXTREME LEFT OF THE FOREGROUND, WHERE WE CAN SEE THE BATMAN ENTERING THE PICTURE FROM THE LEFT, IN PROFILE. SINCE BATMAN IS (a) CLOSER TO US AND (b) TALLER THAN EITHER THE COMMISSIONER OR THE PATROLMAN IN THE BACKGROUND WE CANNOT SEE THE TOP OF HIS HEAD HERE ABOVE THE BOTTOM OF THE NOSE AS THE FRONT OF HIM ENTERS THE PANEL ON THE LEFT. HIS EYES AND UPPER HEAD ARE INVISIBLE BEYOND THE TOP PANEL BORDER AND ALL WE CAN REALLY SEE IS HIS MOUTH, WITH THE BIG AND DETERMINED SQUARE JAW AND THE GRIM AND DISAPPROVING SCOWL OF THE LIPS. THE BATMAN DOES NOT APPEAR FROM HIS POSTURE TO SO MUCH AS GLANCE AT EITHER GORDON OR THE PATROLMAN AS HE WALKS PAST THEM EVEN THOUGH BOTH OF THEM STEAL GLANCES AT HIM WITH DIFFERING LOOKS OF UNEASE. THE PATROLMAN LOOKS UNEASY JUST TO BE IN THE BATMAN’S PRESENCE, WHILE GORDON LOOKS MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE BATMAN’S POSSIBLE STATE OF MIND. RAIN DRIPS FROM EVERYTHING, INCLUDING THE BATMAN’S JUTTING AND GRIZZLED CHIN. GORDON GIVES THE LARGELY-OFF-PANEL VIGILANTE A PENETRATING LOOK OVER HIS COFFEE CUP, AND THE BLUE LIGHT ATOP THE CAR WASHES OVER ALL OF THEM AS IT CIRCLES.
No Dialogue.
Then I’ll ask them to draw it. After assuring them that I did indeed say draw it, I’ll let them have about ten minutes to transform Moore’s prose into stick-figure theater before showing them how Brian Bolland interpreted it:
Discussion will ensue. I’ll show them the scripts to other panels—ask them why, for example, Moore insisted the receptionist at Arkham Asylum be reading Graham Greene’s The Comedians—and if all goes well, I won’t spend the next few months reading essays about how in this panel Alan Moore wanted Batman to punch someone in the face so he told Brian Bolland to draw a picture of Batman punching someone in the face.
(x-posted.)
*Or not. A proper interpretation of that image—one that factors in feminist interpretations of the alien as a species which rapes its prey to death—leads down paths too disturbing to tackle the first day of class.
Your post makes me register just how, er, kinky Batman's glove (the first image up there) really is. Kink. Eee.
And now I shall go away and mentally compose an essay for Dr Kaufmann, who (I understand from Rate Your Professor is, like, obsessed with sex) on that last Killing Joke panel, there. About how the Commissioner's coffee cup is made to look like a pig's snout on his face to imply he is a sexist pig who likes have piggy sexist sex. And about how the policeman's expression is slightly startled because he's looking at the cum dripping, like, urgh, off Batman's chin.
Do I pass the course?
Posted by: Adam Roberts | Monday, 05 January 2009 at 04:19 PM
So where are you trying to get your students to go in the end? I mean, what point are you leading up to once (if?) you get them to agree that everything in visual texts is overdetermined? That they should read differently?
Posted by: Sisyphus | Monday, 05 January 2009 at 07:57 PM
Honestly, I thought Scott was going to go for the cum-dripping thing, too.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | Monday, 05 January 2009 at 08:23 PM
I suspect that part of what makes it hard is that they are used to looking for hidden clues (suspense movies, and all that) but not for images that add meaning without advancing the plot. Allegory is one thing -- they're reasonably good at seeing that, even when it's not really there -- but symbolism is trickier.
Funny, for a brief, shining moment, I considered taking this seriously. Thanks for pulling me back, Scott.
Posted by: Ahistoricality | Monday, 05 January 2009 at 08:27 PM
Do I pass the course?
No, with thunder . . . but only because you neglected to mention Batman's clenched jaw, which is vital to understanding how disgusted he is with his treatment, nay, presence in Superman and Batman vs. Aliens and Predator.
So where are you trying to get your students to go in the end? I mean, what point are you leading up to once (if?) you get them to agree that everything in visual texts is overdetermined? That they should read differently?
With this particular exercise, I'm simply trying to get them to see that visual rhetoric is meaningful, which---to my eternal dismay---they seem reluctant to do. There's something odd to their reluctance though, because they'll admit that ads manipulate and directors structure scenes to a particular end, but they stop there. Ideally, this exercise will force them to confront the constructedness of the image by showing them the parts the authors want combined into wholes. We'll see. (I think it'll work, but then again, I always do and it hardly ever does.)
Honestly, I thought Scott was going to go for the cum-dripping thing, too.
What do you think my footnote was for? Seriously, there's something incredibly disturbing about that image when you think about it in feminist terms---not only does Batman avoid being raped-to-death by grabbing the alien by its cock-within-a-cock, its cock-within-a-cock has a vagina dentata at its tip; moreover, the alien either gets off on the thought of raping Batman's head to death it cums prematurely or it so gets off on being grabbed by such a manly hand it . . . as I said, I don't like the implications, hence the footnote.
I suspect that part of what makes it hard is that they are used to looking for hidden clues (suspense movies, and all that) but not for images that add meaning without advancing the plot.
They're entirely up to the task of identifying what the hidden stuff means, that is, they'll venture that the monster around the corner is a symbol of the lead character's childhood trauma; but for the life of them, they can't tell you how the director builds suspense by placing the symbol of the lead character's childhood trauma around the corner and shooting the scene from said character's perspective and amping up the strings ever so slightly as said character nears aforementioned corner, &c.
They can't do the nuts and bolts, so much so that last quarter when I tried to get them to discuss the first scene in Batman Begins in which we see Batman---the one where we don't, as he's flitting around like a classic horror monster, until he announces his arrival---they can't discern that Nolan shot that scene like a horror director would.
Funny, for a brief, shining moment, I considered taking this seriously. Thanks for pulling me back, Scott.
Always take Joe seriously. I mean that. He's leagues smarter than 99.99 percent of everyone I've ever met.
Posted by: SEK | Monday, 05 January 2009 at 08:50 PM
There's something odd to their reluctance though, because they'll admit that ads manipulate and directors structure scenes to a particular end, but they stop there. Ideally, this exercise will force them to confront the constructedness of the image by showing them the parts the authors want combined into wholes.
So are you pushing them toward a craft-oriented view of the text or more like a reading of the unconscious of the author and/or the surrounding culture itself?
And while those drawings definitely have a jizz resemblance, in the movies it is clearly supposed to be vaginal fluid, to go along with all the "mother" references.
And no one has said anything about the significance of the "NO!" in the top panel yet.
This is fun. You ought to have more posts about how your teaching is not all about sex around here. Maybe those students picked your office because they, somehow, knew.
Posted by: Sisyphus | Monday, 05 January 2009 at 10:56 PM
So when you've been talking about the very phallic Alien, do you hit a hidden button on your desk, causing a bed to drop out of the wall and a disco ball and spotlight to drop from the ceiling and sexy music starts playing?
Posted by: Jon H | Saturday, 10 January 2009 at 05:40 AM
Where does one get Alan Moore's script for Killing Joke?
Posted by: Terry | Thursday, 15 October 2009 at 12:47 PM
Scott,
I'm late as usual (umm, I missed my bus because I was up all night being sick and taking care of a friend whose grandmother is in the hospital and I'll get you that paper really soon, I've been working on it honestly, and can you waive the penalties for turning in stuff late since I'm, like, really sincerely?), but quick question - what do you make of the alien(s) being vicious rapist females bent on reproducing regardless of their 'partners' wishes (depositing fertilized eggs into their prey etc)? That seems significant to me.
cheers,
Nate
Posted by: Nate | Wednesday, 16 December 2009 at 02:20 PM