Freckles & Doubt

Teh Internets have recently been all agog about yet another in the long line of tragically misogynistic assaults on female fans by men from within the fantasy/sf/comics world. There's this utterly weird thing that goes on at cons, with certain male geeky types getting their Superman boxers in a twist because attractive female geeks in costume cannot possibly be "real" geeks and are, as far as I can make out in their somewhat incoherent argument, simply doing it for the attention. Or being deliberately and callously unattainable. Or something. Not a lot of logic here, and rather a lot of evidence that a very specific subset of the male geeky type is hopelessly defensive and bristly about "their" fandom, and moreover has absolutely no idea how to deal with the mere fact of attractive women within their "safe" space. Or the idea of anyone seeing "their" fandom in different terms - you see further outbreaks of this kind of thing in the assaults on female fanfic writers who have the temerity to slash comic-book characters, which are now "ruined" for the "real" fans. Or something. I can't even. (See here for specific examples and commentary, as well as a surgically accurate attack on the objectification of women in comic-book art).

At any rate, while there's a beautiful deconstruction of the Tony Harris misogyny here, my favourite response is, as often seems to be the case, Scalzi's: the gut-boy analogy is exquisitely withering and certain turns of phrase made me choke, as is traditional, on my Earl Grey. It's just fortunate that for every certain kind of male geeky type there is an equal and opposite male geeky type, probably because physics. Thank FSM.

I also can't help wondering if the whole thing is exacerbated by the fact that con fandoms tend to be around fantastic texts, which trend heavily to the symbolic and thus the idealised and reductionist, so that in the faint scrabblings of the demented fan-brain the concept of "fan" has the same inviolably perfect status as "Batman". Or, in other words, as I spent a happy half-hour explaining to my nice therapist the other day, because superheroes are actually about the idealisation of both identity and agency, and to a greater or lesser degree of dysfunction, being a hopeless fan is about as close as any of us are ever going to get.

So, it turns out that Avengers fan fiction is adorable. Or, at least, Avengers fan fiction by the immortal scifigrl47 is adorable. (I hasten to assure you that, given the quality of her writing, the obvious banality of "scifigrl47" as a nickname is clearly ironic). She has even reconciled me to Tony/Captain and Barton/Coulson - partially because Avengers slash, in that almost-all-boy environment, is as right and inevitable as it is in LotR; partially because her version of Hawkeye is hysterical; but mostly because she has, with beautiful accuracy, tapped straight into the crying need for some sort of address to the motley bunch of isolated dysfunctionalities who make up the Avengers, which she does by sticking them into a clubhouse together and allowing their dysfunctions to bounce off each other like misguided puppies. Also, there is a sentient toaster and a Roomba army. Run, do not walk, to read everything Avengeroid she has written. I have done so over last night and today, and my stomach muscles are sore from laughing, while there is a clear and present danger that the Evil Landlord thinks I've finally lost it on account of me spending several hours cackling like Nanny Ogg on her fifth martini. Now I shall re-read them all from the start. Go away. Busy.

There’s a post from Joss on Whedonesque where he refers to his latest, box-office-record-breaking movie variously as “The Scavengers”, “The Availers”, “The Ravagers”, “The Lavenders” and “The Avoiders”. I could wax lyrical on the way in which every single tongue-in-cheek substitution is perfectly accurate for a particular facet of the movie (my slashy-subtextual defense of “The Lavenders” is a particularly fine piece of justificatory acababble), but mostly I’m just happy at the way in which Joss’s characteristic self-deprecation also perfectly encapsulates the mood of the film. The Avengers managed to construct itself as that chimeric and mythical entity which is at once a big-budget summer-tentpole blockbuster, with all its attendant boom and glitz, and a character-driven movie with an actual plot. It has heart and swash and its slightly angsty superhero tongue firmly in its cheek at crucial junctures, and consequently works as only something by Joss can work when it’s working well.

You may be noticing a slight subtextual hint that I enjoyed this movie. I loved this movie. I mean, I’m the world’s easiest sell on superheroes, you flap a cape at me and my inner “Whee!” takes over, but I also love the archetypes enough that, while bouncing happily in my seat, I am also supercritical about how they’re depicted. Joss, of course, gets it. While not quite descending to the levels of grit and angst promulgated by Nolan’s Batman, Avengers is simultaneously an ensemble film, a comic book movie, and one about real, live individuals. It partially rides, of course, on the success of its predecessors - both Thor and Captain America were amiable, character-driven pieces, and Iron Man was rather more than that - but its strength is in its ability to synthesise those individual backstories, simultaneously recognising the angsts and drives of the individuals while subjugating them to the needs of the group. And I am, as always, absolutely about the superhero ensemble. Joss himself acknowledges that the common trait of all these superheroes is their isolation, to a greater or lesser extent, into a world of their own - super-wealthy playboy, man out of time, alien god, assassin, sniper, Jekyll-and-Hyde entity afraid to be among people. In spite of that, he pulls them together into a whole that is coherent, functional and, by the end of it, even joyous, without ever losing sight of individual motivations and abilities, or stretching our credulity too far. (Inserts such as revelations of Nick Fury's manipulation of them contribute materially to this). It's quite an achievement.

The action in this film is pretty much non-stop, so it's interesting to look back on it and realise quite how character-driven it is. There's a particular skill with which the wildly varying power levels of the different superheroes have been integrated and balanced: Black Widow's martial arts training isn't even faintly in the same class as the powers of a Hulk or a god, but the script manages to assert her value nonetheless. (It's a particularly lovely bit of footwork which affirms the part-superhero, part-normal powers of Captain America, who resolutely remains my favourite character in the ensemble). Primarily, though, the explosions and what have you never feel gratuitous; they feel consequential, integrated, and in addition, they're also fun. This is absolutely not Batman. There are moments which epitomise the sense of superheroes as the sheer pleasure of agency, Hulk bounding around the show slapping aliens out of the sky in a sort of joyous abandon, or Iron Man "bringing the party to you". I also love the film's sense of play with the geeky stereotypes which speak both to comic book fans and to Joss's own following - one of my favourite moments in the film is Coulson geeking out over Captain America and wittering on about the pristine set of trading cards he wants signed. (Also, slashy subtext ftw).

No rhapsody about this film would be complete without noting that Joss seems to have pulled off the impossible, particularly, with the Hulk: the Avengers Hulk restores my faith both in the myth and in superhero film-making as a whole. It's possibly a bit odd to talk about the Hulk being humanised, but that's precisely what happens - certainly in the special effects, which neatly avoid Plastic!Hulk and integrate Hulk and Bruce Banner essentially and credibly via the motion capture, but above all in Mark Ruffalo, and in the script. Actor and writing work perfectly together to create not only a credible, world-weary man who retains something resembling a sense of humour about his situation, but also a rather endearing monster who stands not just for unrestrained violence, but for an unrestrained, childlike joy. If Hulk embodies a lack of sophistication, a stripping down to essentials, then the film demonstrates, vitally, that this does not only apply to the "smash" aspect of the character. Hulk is an important component in the film's address to a swashbuckling essence of superheroes: not the angst and conflict, but the simple coolness of magical, unlikely power. Hulk vs Loki is one of the great vignettes of the contemporary superhero story, both an assertion of evil's inevitable destruction within the superhero paradigm, and an amused and knowing nod to stereotype, comic-book power, and the villain's rueful subjugation to narrative expectation.

There was a terrible fear in watching this film, that a geek icon like Joss wouldn't have been able to pull it off. His experiences with Fox (hiss, spit) demonstrate all too clearly the extent to which a confident creative integrity is subject to the whims and warps of marketing. Marvel has generally a much more sane and coherent approach to their mythos films, but the fact remains, if Joss couldn't make something of this movie, it would have suggested, inescapably, that the giant blockbuster superhero ensemble simply couldn't be done. Thank the cosmic wossnames that it can, and the Marvel write-in campaign to put Joss behind the sequel starts here. I'm in.

Ways in which The Avengers, seen yesterday at Cavendish, was precisely calculated to elicit outbreaks of geeky and fangirly glee:

1. Trailer for The Hobbit. Squeee! (The dwarves singing still makes me cry.)
   
2. Trailer for Prometheus. It looks both gritty and beautiful, and I will overcome my dislike of being scared in movies to actually see it.
   
3. Trailer for Spiderman. I like Spidey, and anything has to be better than Tobey McGuire.
   
4. Trailer for Men in Black III. Even if it's terrible, the essential good nature both of the movie and of its stars is likely to make it watchable. Also, aliens ftw. And, could the summer releases be any more geek-friendly? We've mainstreamed. Oo, er.
   
5. The movie. Joss Whedon is my master now. That was a perfect balance of character development, humour, pathos and severely kick-butt action. Wheee. I shall probably dissect it at length anon, but I'm still cogitating.

Ways in which watching The Avengers in Cavendish was precisely calculated to eject me from the cinema growling and swearing and gnashing my teeth at passing kiddies:

1. The 3-D. While this was nicely handled in the movie, I deeply and fundamentally object to the darkness of picture which inevitably results. Cavendish's light levels are always too low anyway, and there were tracts of this which were murky beyond belief. I will be delaying my re-watch until someone puts it on in 2-D.
   
2. The ham-fisted and oblivious incompetence of the Cavendish projector team, who turned the lights on full halfway through the mid-credit scene, rendering it both illegible and inaudible as two-thirds of the audience immediately started talking and leaving. I also have no idea if there was the usual post-credits easter egg, as there was no point in waiting for a tantalising washed-out glimpse. The level of fury this has engendered in me is slightly worrying. They may as well have replaced the entire credits with a large sign reading "YOUR EXPERIENCE FAR LESS IMPORTANT THAN YOUR SPEEDY EJECTION IN FAVOUR OF THE NEXT LOT OF BUTTS ON SEATS".
   
3. The inutterable twit who insisted on waiting for my parking place as I was leaving, blocking the road and forcing me to approach the ticket machine at right angles and necessitating a lot of backing and filling in the middle of a stream of cars. I'm afraid I shouted rude words at him.

It's actually bizarre how badly the lights-on thing wrecked my experience of the movie. The easter eggs are a sort of geeky in-joke, and staying for them is an expression both of insider knowledge and of investment in the text, both of which the unspeakably malignant cinema is obliviously slapping in the face. I swear, most of my future watching is going to be on the DVD version, and I hope Ster-Kinekor, its empty cinemas and all its bloody incompetent ilk sink gently into the sea.

On the other hand, mad props to the actual 6 students in my class this morning. There should be about 40, but on a Monday between public holidays I was expecting about 3, and I'll cheerfully settle for twice that.

The new Avengers trailer is bloody exciting, and has me all whipped up into a frenzy to see this movie. Which is, of course, the point; but it also underlines how much trailer-making is an art, and how seldom it's done well. The movie looks as though it's going to provide the ideal balance between human (or superhuman) drama and kick-butt action, which is, after all, no more than we expect from Joss. If you haven't watched it, do: it's guaranteed to raise your heart-rate. In a good way.



And it has The Moment! Remember The Moment? Of course it has The Moment. This is Joss.



Apologies for the terrible screen capture, it's an extended version of The Moment with the camera swinging around (about two minutes in to the trailer) and it doesn't translate well into a single static viewpoint. I could do random analyses of the back-to-back pose and the circularity of the camera enfolding the heroes in their own self-contained world and separating them from the evils which beset them, but I'll be merciful and leave it as an exercise for the student.

One of the minor irritations of the Slight Medical Contretemps which afflicted me in the middle of this year, was its timing. It stuck me in hospital, and immobile/recovering, slap bang over the period when a bunch of movies I would have liked to see were on circuit. In horrible defiance of my ongoing superhero fetish, I thus missed X-Men First Class and Green Lantern, as well as PotC 4, although I'm not too distraught over the last one - Johnny Depp notwithstanding, the films have progressively lost the plot as they staggered onwards into greater and more unrestrained excess. Nonetheless, giant blockbuster special-effects extravaganza superhero films need to be seen on the big screen, all the better to Pow! Blam! Zap!

At any rate, we're watching X-Men FC and PotC 4 for movie club on Sunday, the theme being "Popcorn movies we missed on circuit", and proud of it. Green Lantern arrived in the same batch of videos, and I watched it the other night. I can't say I expected much, the reviews have been terrible, but in the event it was both a bad film, and more interesting than I'd thought it would be.



I Am Not A Comic Book Geek, insofar as I've actually read very few of them, and my collection is a small and random sampling heavily weighted towards Sandman¹ and things which have recently been made into movies (mostly because the folkloric adaptation of mythology across media fascinates me unduly). However, any genuine comics geek is fully entitled to righteously look down their nose at me. I've never read any Green Lantern comics (although my unhealthy relationship with Loot suggests that that will change shortly). I didn't know much about it, other than random sideswipes in geeky blog comments, and a half-arsed sense that "the ring allows you to create anything green, but yellow is DOOM!" is not a well-thought-out superpower.

One movie and a spot of random research later, and it's a fascinating mythology. Its genesis is, I think, identical in sensibility to that of the classic old space operas of E. 'Doc' Smith, whose Skylark and Lensman novels presuppose the same inter-species troop of good ol' American clean-cut lads kicking righteous butt across the universe in the name of Mom and apple pie. The whole thing has a sort of goofy naiveté which verges on the endearingly gormless, and for which I have a low, reprehensible fondness. (I love the Lensman books, if only for their galloping excess. By the end of it they're chucking galaxies and universes at each other). The other influence I can't help detecting is that of animated cartoons: the endless morphability of the ring's creations, and in fact the weird alien races which make up the Corps, are really the opposite of realistic, tending to invoke the no-limits fantasy of an animated space-opera universe rather than anything real.

The film caused me, alas, quite unseemly levels of toe-curling fangirly glee, but that's a personal weakness: while it appeals equally to my mutant organs of space-opera and superhero enjoyment, it's not a good movie. It struggles with precisely the elements of unreality I describe above, and I've spent odd moments of the last few days wondering how on earth they actually could have dealt with the Green Lantern story in any way which would infuse it with even a little bit of grit. It's a fairly tall order, trying to use this mythology to appeal to the sensibilities of an audience conditioned to Dark Knights and the strange element of naturalism achieved by RDJ even in shiny powered armour. I don't think it's impossible, the mythology has some interesting things to say about heroism and power, but they really needed to be a lot more thoughtful about it.

The film, I think, hamstrung itself on two levels: in its special effects, and in its lead actor. The green in this movie is very green. Sunday morning cartoon green. Practically glowing. The suit looks plastic, the aliens look cartoon, the landscapes on Oa appear to originate in an animated special. The green ring creations are apparently radioactive, and horribly prone to slapstick. The script is serviceable, if uninspired, and certainly not good enough to infuse the mythology's over-the-top elements with any degree of conviction. Likewise, Ryan Reynolds is an extremely likeable lead, but in fact his fit with the material is almost too good: you could probably equally accuse him of a sort of goofy naiveté which verges on the endearingly gormless, which means he doesn't quite manage to ground the story in anything particularly real. He tries, but ... nope.

I had fun watching this film, but I'm slightly ashamed of the fact. It also occurs to me that at least part of the enjoyment I am apparently able to gain from bad genre movies and TV is the result of my academic inclinations towards contexualisation, analysis, deconstruction. To be an academic and a fan is to exist surprisingly comfortably in a state of dual personality, both enjoyably invested and equally enjoyably distanced. It means that even a bad and facile movie is layered and textured in surprising ways. It works for me.

¹ If only because I possess four Absolute Sandman tomes, any one of which must weigh rather more than Hobbit.

It's all strawberryfrog's fault. He took my shamefaced admission of enjoyment of the Fantastic Four movies as an inducement to add them to his Netflix queue, and in the resulting interchange I found myself dealing with the inevitable fallout, viz. the need to watch both movies again, back-to-back, to confirm that they're as cheesy and horrible as they were the first time.

God, they're horrible. In the comments on the last post I described them as "fluffy and plastic and entirely lacking in brain. The clockwork kittens of the superhero genre. The meeping is mechanical and they bump into walls." They really do. They're ham-fisted junior-science-project robot kittens programmed by a stoned goldfish. The script is dreadful, the actors are largely cardboard, the special effects are cartoon. (Especially Mr. Fantastic. Aargh.) The only interchanges which have any snap or ginger to them are those between Johnny Storm and the Thing, both of whom are apparently blessed by something vaguely resembling personality, and manage to almost elevate the terrible material. The plot basically goes through the motions, and ends up being a slow-moving parade of predictable clichés loosely held together by unimaginative fight sequences.

And, you know, they're still kittens, and therefore cute, and it was still a perfectly enjoyable way to spend a few hours of a Saturday evening. The movies aren't up to much except cheese (low-grade Gouda, toasted into Mr-Fantastic-style gloopy strings), but they're perfectly inoffensive, good-natured, unpretentious. They're about the zing and zap and Spandex of superheroes, and while their nods to angst and realistic characterisation are rather less than perfunctory, they do celebrate, however ineptly, the simple moral imperative as well as the cool of the superhero. And there' s one thing they do get right, which is the ensemble.

I have said before that superheroes are, to me, ultimately about their ability to symbolise the worthwhile goals of a co-operative system, which seems to be a basic concern in my psyche. I'm always more about the superhero group than the lone hero, which is why I'd rather watch X-Men than Batman, and why my fondness for Superman is a bit of an aberration. (The bits of Smallville where other heroes start working with Clark are still my favourites. The Avengers is going to reduce me to a superhero-fangirly puddle of glee). A group of superheroes working together to Save The Day/The World/whatever still contents a very basic need I seem to have to recognise perfect co-operation, elegant euphony of abilities, mutual recognition of function in the cause of efficient address to a problem.

There is always a moment, in a superhero movie, where it pauses on the threshold of a combat, with the band of superheroes carefully arranged in a variety of striking poses, neatly centred around the main character, and confronting the Evil Du Jour. It is, of course, a moment designed for movie posters, and you very often see it there. (The only bit I can remember enjoying in the horrible Wolverine movie is the superhero pose before hitting the Nigerian facility; I can't find it online anywhere, phooey, and it's not quite the one in the poster).



This isn't just a photo-op. It's a statement of creed, a momentary embodiment of philosophy. Here, it says, we are: each of us recognising not just the need to battle the Evil Whatever, and our unity (often temporary and flawed, but for a moment perfect) in the face of that threat, but something more. Here we also are individually, if only for that moment, each inhabiting the skin of our powers, completely and perfectly, in a rare union of self and ability and purpose. Those powers are by nature incomplete, too specific and one-dimensional or even silly (Aquaman!), often a mere embodiment of sterotype; it's only in the co-operative moment that their individual value is truly realised. That momentary epiphany is like a fulcrum point. The angsts and insecurities of the superhero coalesce into this instant of coherence, of acceptance of agency and embrace of individual limitation in the service of a greater whole, and then swirl outward again into the violence of the encounter. But it's both fulcrum and springboard, that ownership of self and powers catapulting the hero onwards into the fray somehow empowered to place precisely the necessary ability on the point of desperate need. Self-recognition is simultaneous with the submission of self to the greater good.

(Actually, parenthetically, this is probably why Superman gets a free pass in my superhero processes. His powers are ridiculously wide-ranging and mutually co-operative, and his angsts are not about accepting them. He's a one-man group superhero pose in himself.)

My favourite bit of Fantastic Four is the four heroes facing off against Doctor Doom. It's particularly effective because they've signally lacked cohesion and co-operation up until this point; like the script, they've simply floundered. They don't step forward together, but separately, so the moment is cumulative and all the more powerful for it. (Of course, they might overcome Doctor Doom, but they are powerless against the script iniquities; this is probably the best moment they'll get.)



X-Men are also good for the Pose Moment; one of the (many, many) things for which I will eternally loathe Brett Ratner is the way in which he gives that moment most reliably to the bad guys. Brett Ratner, director most likely to put the important point in the seat of his trousers and sit down on it. But it still works, after a fashion, for misguided mutants; the goal is ignoble, but the moment of embrace still powerful.



All of my examples are from bad superhero movies for a reason. It's because even bad superhero movies can't always completely obscure the power and point of the myth. And thus I will occasionally watch Fantastic Four, and cheer as it bumps off the walls, meeping. Because it occasionally pauses, just for a moment, to let the heroes be themselves.

Or, Three Things Make A Post.

1. It has occurred to me that the condition for Dragon Age's easy health regeneration is simply that you have to kill all your enemies. I'm wondering if this has real-world application. Right now, for easy health regeneration I'd be willing to become a ninja assassin. If I had the energy for rappelling down buildings, which I don't. Sigh.
   
   
2. I am completely enamoured of the new Firefox tab grouping system. Suddenly my Giant Tab List Of Doom looks all neat and structured and minimalist, and I can hide the shame of the near-infinite list of computer game quest walkthroughs, while still being able to consult them at a click.
   
   
3. I trundled off, dazed but determined, and saw Captain America yesterday. The default state of this year's superhero movie seems to be Cute And Fluffy, and Captain America falls very much into the Thor category - bland, inoffensive story featuring slightly bland, inoffensive superhero. The default state of this year's male superhero seems to be in some sense antiheroic: they always have to be decontextualised figures, fish out of water trying desperately to make sense of an overwhelming alien environment. Thor on Earth. Steve Rogers on a propaganda stage or in the future. Hal Jordan out in the galaxy. They no longer celebrate effortless agency, it has to be hard-won. Since the default state of this year's Extemporanea Brain is towards the cute and fluffy, I rather enjoyed the movie (particularly the 40s period feel, and wossname, Chris Evans does a good job of a sort of geeky good-ol'-boy innocence, and the nifty shield uses are unexpectedly beguiling), but I mourn the iron-clad physical and/or moral certainty of Superman or Batman.
   
   Also, the default state of this year's bad guys seems to be shiny Nazi jackboots. What's with that?

Now I have to go and unwrap the Hobbit from the new kelim (well, old kelim, new to me, courtesy of friendly_shrink) in my study, a frenzied desire to disembowl which he has apparently conceived the instant I put it down. Dear little kitties.

Why is LJ only displaying one comment on any post? Too weird. I feel as though I'm on a strictly-enforced diet or something. You may only have ONE! I darkly suspect the laughable university bandwidth. (OK, a brief, random, 90-second power cut has apparently sorted them out. Shorted them out. Whatever).

In other news, I love Joanna Russ. I've just acquired, via the magic of interlibrary loan, a copy of her book of feminist criticism, which rejoices in the title of Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans and Perverts and has a cover in blushing shades of pink and purple. Given the subject matter, this offers a level of incongruity which is making me giggle. She places her finger, with her characteristic acerbic accuracy, on the disquiet I feel with the whole cultural machinery which expects women to wear make-up, heels and other artificial beauty ages as an index of worth or (in a business context) seriousness. Her comment: "What [this] also always means is giving off signals of the availability of your energies, time, emotions, and resources to men, that is, your loyalty to the patriarchal order" (p. 13). I really, really feel this about make-up, in particular. I feel like I'm subscribing to the patriarchal newsletter.

Hmm, I still haven't seen Thor, owing to near-terminal hermitage, and am thinking of trundling off to the Waterfront this evening or tomorrow evening for the 8pm show before it vanishes off circuit. It seems like the kind of Action Popcorn movie that should be seen big-screen. Any takers? Or do I exercise the Solitary Splendour again, not without girly glee? I like watching movies with friends, but I also like watching them on my own. There are, as they say, no actual down sides here.

Is it weird that the scenes of Gandalf digging through piles of parchment looking for One Ring info in the LotR movie made me want to be a librarian in Minas Tirith? Because, dear sweet cosmic wossnames do they need one. The dweeb they dug up to talk about athelas in the books is clearly incompetent. I have added to my List of Soothing Mental Exercises For Use In Insomnia the construction of a happy alternate identity becoming Gondor's primary knowledge specialist, and ruling all those piles of parchment with an Inkstained Iron Fist. There may be pauses for hitting very hard on Faramir. (Other Soothing Mental Exercises For Use In Insomnia: Designing Sybil Trelawney's Divination Classes, and Which X-Men Ability Would I Have? [Flying, for a start. A lot of my Superman fixation is about the flight. Which is another reason why Smallville is irking me, but hey, Clark still cute, in that stunned-puppy sort of way]).

This entirely inconsequential post possibly brought to you courtesy of devouring the entire Questionable Content archive since Friday, something that seems to be making me even more vague and lateral than usual. Also, I have a new skirt featuring deep red cherries on a black background. The Dean likes it.

I think I need more tea. I think the five-day weekend I have starting tomorrow, courtesy of a sneaky use of leave time adjacent to a long weekend, is arriving not a moment too soon.

Anyone for Fiasco! this weekend?