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the-desolated-quill · 5 years

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Fearful Symmetry - Watchmen blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. if you haven’t read this comic yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Do you know what’s my favourite thing about Watchmen? Even when offering damning criticism about superhero archetypes and America’s corruption, it never loses sight of the average joe. And that’s what Fearful Symmetry is all about.

Fearful Symmetry explores the fallout (get it?) after Doctor Manhattan has left Earth, exploring how regular American citizens react to the news that Russia has invaded Afghanistan and that the chances of total nuclear annihilation has increased exponentially. We see the news vendor and the comic reading kid again, which means we get more snippets from Tales Of The Black Freighter. I would love to know how Moore came up with the idea of having Black Freighter interspersed throughout the novel to provide poetic irony. I know some readers don’t really care for it, but I personally really like it. Not only does it give us some nice bit of info about this alternative America, it also highlights specific themes at play within a particular issue’s narrative (as well as foreshadowing what will happen in issues to come. Wink, wink).

In the Black Freighter storyline, the unnamed pirate captain has used the corpses of his crew to make a raft in the hopes of getting back home. We also see him eat some seagulls and kill a shark. Lovely. Now for those who have read the graphic novel and know what happens at the end, this serves as a really sneaky reference to what happens in the final issue, but we’ll talk about that when we come to it. For now lets concentrate on how it relates to this issue. America is in a state of paranoia and turmoil. Their superhuman nuclear deterrent is gone and Cold War tensions are increasing exponentially. It’s getting more and more likely that World War Three is going to happen. So what do people do? Some resort to their baser instincts, such as the man who kills his daughters because the youngest said “Wah,” which he mistook for ‘war’ during a moment of intense hysteria. Others, like Joey, are trying to make the best of it. Joey asks the news vendor to hang her poster promoting a benefit gig for ‘Gay Women Against Rape.’ The news vendor was first introduced to us as a brash and somewhat bigoted old fart, and though he does make a snide remark about Joey, he still hangs the poster up for her, presumably for the same reason he let the kid have the comic for free. Life’s too short. We also see the otherwise timid Dan make a move on Laurie, inviting her to stay at his house now that Manhattan is out of the picture. The point is, like the pirate captain, people’s morals and priorities are changing in response to a sense of impending doom. The pirate captain, a once respectable gentleman, has been reduced to using his dead crew as floats for his raft and snatching seagulls out of the air for food. In the interests of survival he’s changed to the point where he no longer recognises himself.

The attack of the sharks could also be symbolic of what happens with Adrian Veidt. An assassin tries to kill him, but is violently stopped before taking a cyanide capsule to avoid talking. There’s the obvious parallel you can make about how the assassin is the shark and Adrian is the prey, but considering what happens in the issues to come, it could also be seen as a subtle hint that this assassination isn’t quite how it first appears. The sharks were drawn to the captain’s raft because of the corpses. Is Adrian really just an innocent victim here? Could he have somehow done something to bring the assassin to him? Hmmmm....

Very quickly I just want to say that I love how the assassination is played out. Obviously there’s the composition where the beginning and the end of the issue match each other symmetrically throughout, culminating in this beautiful two page spread:

But also I’m impressed with how Alan Moore is able to keep his cards close to his chest and not give the game away too soon. Yes this is a dramatic moment, but it doesn’t appear to be that significant on a first reading. When I first read it, I just assumed this assassination was a response to the growing hysteria surrounding the Cold War. I never thought it would come back to bite us on the arse in the last issue, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

Another possible parallel could be with what happens to Rorschach. The two detectives from the first issue are given a tip regarding his location with the use of the code phrase ‘raw shark.’ Admittedly not very subtle, but the symbolism works regardless. Rorschach is the only one investigating this hypothetical ‘mask killer’ just as the pirate captain is the only one who can warn his family of the impending arrival of the Black Freighter, but their plans are scuppered thanks to the sharks.

Ah yes, now lets talk about Rorschach because we get a lot of new information about him in this issue. A significant portion of Fearful Symmetry is told from his first person perspective, accompanied by another excerpt from his journal. What I find particularly interesting is how Rorschach views himself. Secret identities are a very common superhero trope, but Rorschach takes it a step further, claiming that his vigilante persona is his true self while his civilian getup is his ‘disguise.’ He even goes as far as to refer to the Rorschach mask as ‘his face.’ This links back to what I was saying about the first issue where I compared Rorschach to Moon Knight. He’s so psychotically obsessed with vengeance and his absolute morality that he has no other life outside of Rorschach. Everything he does feeds back into his primary mission. Punishing criminals in increasingly violent ways. It’s pretty disturbing and not something superhero stories tend to explore. Daredevil and Batman might come close, but they’re always viewed as being noble men doing what’s necessary to save their city. Rorschach, however, is far from noble. Remember, he flat out admitted in At Midnight, All The Agents that he has no interest in saving people. He just wants to hurt those he believes deserves to be hurt, often for relatively minor crimes. The ex-supervillain Moloch has his fingers broken and then gets shoved into the fridge just because he possesses illegal prescription drugs and an unlicensed firearm, which, yeah, is very naughty of him, but he’s not actually hurting anyone. Does he really deserve the same harsh punishment as an attempted rapist or a murderer? Does the attempted rapist or the murderer deserve such a harsh punishment, come to that?

As I said before, this is a sick power fantasy for him, which the end of Fearful Symmetry confirms conclusively when Rorschach is arrested. He wears elevated shoes to appear taller and puts on a rough voice to sound more intimidating than he actually does. It’s revealed that Rorschach is in fact the homeless man carrying the ‘The End Is Nigh’ sign we’ve seen throughout the novel.

This was such a good twist. I honestly didn’t see it coming the first time I read it, and I love how Alan Moore throws you off the scent. Rorschach’s speech bubbles are wavy and he speaks in broken sentences without pronouns, whereas the homeless man has normal speech bubbles and speaks in fuller, more complete sentences. It’s great misdirection and the reveal is wonderfully executed. Plus it makes total sense. He’s the only background character to appear in major plot relevant scenes, which explains where Rorschach gets his information, and who’s going to suspect a homeless man of being a superhero?

There’s a lot more to discuss about Rorschach, but I’ll save that for the next issue, which explores his origins in great detail. For now, lets end by saying Fearful Symmetry is a gripping read that utilises its structure and narrative to great effect.

#fearful symmetry #watchmen #alan moore #dave gibbons #dc comics #review #spoilers

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eremji · 6 years

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Thoughts on Infinity War, and Thanos' Motivation

Disclaimer: I'm not a Marvel expert. Some of my information on comic plots was collected from wikis and secondary articles, due to a lack of access to a primary source or the simple inaccuracy of my own memory. I also mostly enjoyed Infinity War, and any criticism herein should not be taken as decrying the whole.

Spoilers behind the cut. Please close your eyes and scroll super fast, block tags, duck and cover, etc. if you’re on mobile, because, seriously, spoilers.

An extremely simplified version of movie production:

From a production standpoint, Iron Man was a huge risk for the studios fronting the money for it. After critical and box office flops from 90s Batman films and other various superhero action flicks, studios typically found comic book movies to underperform in comparison to budgetary requirements for good visuals, making them unattractive. Marvel has taken a large step away from making comic book movies, to making comic book adaptations, because what works on the page doesn’t work in a moving picture.

Marvel Studios’ cinematic success has almost nothing to do with how compelling the source material is – because some of Marvel’s library is pretty much slush pile garbage. This was before your average artist or consumer realized you can get pretty literary while still having cool pictures on a page. They’re valuable because they propelled the comic industry to widespread success, but the source is best examined with a critical eye towards tone deaf and anachronistic viewpoints on race, sexuality, gender, and pretty much everything else. Marvel Studios has done a fairly consistent job of divorcing the cinematic canon from the original medium’s baggage, to which I attribute a large portion of the films’ success in comparison to very lukewarm iterations of DC or X-Men.

As media consumers, we’re accustomed to having a finished product to hold and analyze. When considering story, in terms of plotting and pacing, I personally believe it’s most helpful to compare the scope of the MCU production to be similar to that of a television show, rather than a traditional movie or movie series. It may be startling to know that even very successful television shows, like Breaking Bad or Stranger Things, often don’t even have all the episodes completely written out prior to beginning filming of a season.

Marvel Studios’ movies have been in production for ten years, with many, many different hands in the pot, and earlier scripts don’t always set up the best planting and payoff of character or plot elements later in the continuity. (For visual learners, Lindsay Ellis has a very layman-friendly example using clips from Mad Max: Fury Road.)

You can see where this might start to cause some consistency issues.

Crossover event comics and the necessary sacrifice of emotional development:

For anyone walking in to expecting Avengers: Infinity War to have a lot of character development, I’m very sorry for your loss.

There was never going to be a grand emotional reunion for Steve and Bucky, and there was never going to be whole hours dedicated to bonding and witty bickering and new friendships that weren’t absolutely vital to the plot. That we got things like the Steve-and-Bucky hug, the jealous Star-Lord vs. Thor moments, and Steve introducing himself politely to Groot were for the benefit of the audience more than advancing the plot, which is a huge victory in terms of crushing as much as possible into a theatrical cut.

A film production has a finite amount of screen time to allocate before a movie becomes bloated. When people joke about Infinity War being the most ambitious crossover event, I don’t think some of them realize how on the mark that is from a production standpoint. Hard decisions have to be made between what isn’t vital to advancing plot in a compelling way and what was retained to meet audience expectations. Infinity War often felt like it tried to recapture that Joss Whedon-ish sassy-but-kinda-flat comedy from the first Avengers, and that meant punchlines for jokes sometimes land at emotionally inappropriate times because characters just don’t have cinematic space for witty banter between shooting aliens and losing everyone they ever cared about.

There’s a difference in author-audience expectations of what’s important in these team-up movies, and also gaps between fans actively participating in fandom because they love the characters and casual moviegoers looking for a blockbuster. It all comes down to how much each party in the creative transaction is willing to settle for. Traditionally, Marvel has set up the character-driven plots and subplots in individual comics with occasional crossover cameos for a few issues when another character or baddie is relevant to the plot. The large crossover events, like Civil War, Contest of Champions, or Infinity are almost always plot-heavy and character-light.

This is so much easier in comic book format, where multiple series can be coordinated in regular, paced releases, and different comic issues may happen parallel or directly before/after the event crossovers. Movies take a significantly larger amount of time to produce, through pre-production, filming, post-production, marketing, and distribution.

A brief (I’m serious, they’ve been making comics since the 1939) explication of source material:

One of the largest disconnects for me, as a fan of both the comics and the movies, was the change in Thanos’ motivation, but not his mission. For those who aren't aware of the origins of his character, he essentially wants to murder people to impress a girl – Mistress Death, to be specific. He wants to kill half of all life in the universe so that he can be her equal and win her affection.

Dorkly did a pretty solid breakdown of some of Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet story and the innate misogynistic slant of his character, including comic panels from the original source material, that paints comic!Thanos an internet Nice Guy™. (Feel free to skim the article; it's a bit slow to get to the point.) Perusing the comic panels, you can see Thanos is hella into negging and is spiteful when Mistress Death shows interest in another dude (spoilers: it’s Deadpool). He clearly believes love is possession, and if he can’t have what he wants, then, good golly, no one can.

He’s also really off the rails – dubbed the Mad Titan even before his objectification mega crush on a badass corpse with a wicked bod – and is personally responsible for destroying Titan. He’s not a villain that believes he’s the hero, and this shift away from his motivation being dangerous-and-horrible to dangerous-and-misguided casts the first shadow on the premise.

My (very personal) opinion on the execution:

MCU essentially played keep away with some of the more supernatural elements of the source material, at least until introducing Dr. Strange. In doing so they had to construct Thanos’ motivation for a comic-book-inspired task out of whole cloth. There is no Mistress Death. Secondary characters that were discrete entities are often pulling double duty*.

(*Or triple. See also: Bucky Barnes, who is wearing the backstory of Captain America's gay best friend Arnie Roth and now White Wolf. If you were previously unaware of this factoid, please enjoy the irony that Marvel’s biggest pro-American propaganda piece had an openly gay best friend circa early 80s but Civil War ham-fistedly had to work in that awkward-as-fuck smooch between Steve and Peggy Carter’s hot young romantic surrogate niece.)

So, okay, they have to reinvent Thanos, who we've only seen in a handful of post-credit scenes and vicariously learned, through Loki in the first Avengers movie and then Gamora in Guardians, is a conqueror and also really Bad News™.

I buy everything so far. And why not? Black Panther made me love Killmonger and his rage, and the parallels to contemporary issues made him fairly empathetic without highlighting that his perspective was necessarily the ‘correct’ one. Similarly, Spider-Man: Homecoming’s villain, Vulture, was believable in the sort of suffering everyman-turned-desperate way, highlighting the fallout of the Space Invaders vs. Avengers destruction without suggesting the audience should root for Vulture.

In general, I am on board for these movies going straight for the throat on the big baddies of the comic universe because movie production is lengthy, expensive, and time-consuming. Dear Marvel Studios, Give me Avengers vs. Dr. Doom. Love, Me.

A villain can be built up over the course of a single movie (or two). Armed with this optimism, and heartened by recent Marvel Studios successes in characterization, I walked into Infinity War expecting as much gratuitous violence, universe-cleansing genocide, and genuine fear of Thanos as I could possibly expect from something Disney-adjacent.

I knew people were going to die. Let me say – there was no way to spoil this for me. The Infinity Gauntlet comic series starts with half the universe dying. I expected there to be ‘casualties’ and even though the Russo bros said that this wasn’t two parts of the same movie, it’s certainly serial. At minimum, I was expecting Thanos bent on conquering the cosmos, worshiping at the altar of death in the abstract, if not groveling for an inevitable-cosmic-force-turned unattainable woman.

And yet. And yet.

We got the purple version of the Kool-Aid man with some seriously unaddressed parent-child issues (mirrored in Tony Stark’s loss of Peter Parker) and a wholly unimaginative motivation. I won’t go too far much into the movie’s alarming efforts at framing Thanos as a sympathetic character despite his genocidal and horribly abusive tendencies, because I am A) not an expert at identifying film technique and B) the push for Thanos to be an empathetic villain has been analyzed elsewhere.

Phenomenal, limitless cosmic power and all you want to do is break shit? For all the immaturity of it, Thanos’ comic book motivation was more believable.

To those arguing that the his motivations in the movie are predicated off of him being the Mad Titan and therefore not rooted in logic: The film did not explicitly plant the idea – except in the way that we know genocide is bad due to an innate sense of morality – that he was unhinged and power-mad, nor did they really give the audience any payoff.

Instead, we get, ‘I don’t really want to do this, but I must.’

There was a point where I started wondering why the hell he wasn’t just being steadily roasted by the Avengers for not receiving some sort of basic education in the evils of wealth disparity and resource distribution.

As an audience member, was I meant to believe this incredibly powerful entity at the center of a massive fleet, accompanied by a group of talented and sycophantic followers, couldn’t think of a better way to bring ‘balance’ to the universe?

Perhaps Thanos’ justification is simply the conceit of the way the universe operates, required to propel a plot forward. However, this is also poorly explained. There are many unanswered questions: Why is it a given that killing half the universe will create balance? What does balance look like? Is this state permanent or is it a routine, necessary evil in order to stop entropy? Is balance a socioeconomic state, or does it have some greater cosmological significance? We know that Titan fell after rejecting Thanos’ extreme solution, but would the population have actually endured and flourished if his plan had been carried out?

For a movie that did so well at handling a cast so phenomenally large as the one involved in its production, Infinity War really didn’t go in very hard on selling Thanos. I would have been perfectly happy if Marvel Studios had taken the risk to lean in hard on making the movie Thanos-centric, given Thanos even more screen time to develop his character, motives, and the rules of the universe – and then make Avengers 4 about, you know, the actual avenging.

Parting notes:

What are we left with?

Infinity War gifted us with some badass action clips, a fairly jarring death performance by Tom Holland, Cheerful Goatherd Bucky Barnes, and emotionally traumatizing bubbles. It never really sells the conundrum it sets up via Thanos. You'll never hear me insist a peice of art or entertainment is required to carry some sort of social commentary or moral message, but I feel like this could have been, tonally, a vastly different film had it considered the core of Thanos' motivations the same way it considered Vulture's or Killmonger's.

Also, where the hell is Adam Warlock (set up at the end of GotG: Vol. 2; revisit planting and payoff) to shit talk Thanos’ lack of villainous veracity when we need him?

#infinity war spoilers #infinity war #thanos #spoilers #seriously hella spoilers #mcu #marvel comics #infinity gauntlet #there was whiskey involved in writing this #so many links #thanos' motives #review #explication #meta

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jeanklemwriter · 7 years

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Marvel recently made yours truly (and a good number of other people) pretty cross with their recent statements that their attempts at diversity aren’t working and that “people don’t want diversity”.

Let’s ignore how Marvel charts sales only via floppies, and not trade paperbacks and/or digital copies. Let’s ignore how Marvel fails to hire new writers to reflect their diverse characters or audiences. Let’s instead focus on a graphic novel industry that’s currently eating Marvel’s pie while it complains about SJWs and makes old characters Nazis (because women inheriting Thor’s title is cardinal sin, but making them Nazis is A-OK).

Let’s talk about manga.

The Big Two, these being DC and Marvel, have a lot they should be learning from manga. It’s a growing industry! It survived a cataclysmic bubble-burst in 2008, but currently is still in a growth period. Shonen Jump has survived its print parallell being shuttered, as a digital-only publication. What are the likes of One-Punch Man, Please Tell Me! Galko-Chan!, and Attack on Titan doing that DC and Marvel aren’t? Well, for starters (more after the break)...

Manga is cheaper. Used to be, people on Gaia Online would joke that manga was a drug because it was more expensive than crack, but that’s not quite true. When it started, a Shonen Jump trade paperback (commonly called a “tankoubon”, because that’s what they’re called in Japan) would retail at $7.95. Eventually, Viz bumped up the price--to $9.95 a pop. Today, you can expect to spend as much as $12.99 a pop per tankoubon, although Shonen Jump stuff still retails at just under $10, for something between 190 - 256 pages in length. Meanwhile, the MSRP for a 168-page-long Spider-Man trade paperback is $24.99. A lot of arguments can be made here: anime is only in black-and-white, the paper stock is different. But why is an imported comic that needs to be licensed, translated, edited, published, then distributed a cheaper alternative than a comic made in the US? Monthly issues (”floppies”) are a terrible investment, clocking in at $3 - $7 a pop, only 16 pages, and flimsy/fragile as all heck! Worse yet, in Marvel’s case, digital copies of the same issue cost the same as the print copy. (With Shonen Jump? They’re three bucks cheaper.) People only have so much cash, and they want their money to last: a story that’ll last you ten minutes isn’t going to be considered if that same money can go to a game that’s on sale on Steam. Considering how much work goes into a comic, I’d never even dream to consider that comics should be cheaper, but at least give people more bang for their buck.

Manga stories aren’t a messy web. When I started reading Dan Slott’s Amazing Spider-Man run in 2014, there was a whole extra series being sold alongside it that I also found myself needing to read: Learning to Crawl, which was sold as--get this--decimal-issues of Amazing Spider-Man. LtC counted as issues 1.1 to 1.6 of ASM. What. It can be argued that Learning to Crawl wasn’t necessary to understand Amazing Spider-Man, but then an important character introduced in LtC became an important recurring character in ASM. Now, let’s get even messier: ASM continued with the Spider-Verse event, with no less than four comics tying into the darn thing: Edge of Spider-Verse, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Woman, and Amazing Spider-Man. All of those characters and comics were involved, and had a hand in that event. I didn’t read all of those comics, only EoSV and ASM--so I can’t begin to explain why Spider-Woman was hiding in the Inheritor World when she was, or how Kaine appeared. Compare this to 20th Century Boys, Naoki Urusawa’s tale of childhood, post-war Japan, friendship, and political intrigue. If you want to understand that story, pick up volume one (I insist, it’s so good) and start reading. Wanna catch up on Berserk while its on hiatus? Just buy a volume and start reading! Anyone jumping into a comic book has to be ready to read three different books just to get the low-down on one story, which doesn’t combine well with the aforementioned pricing problems. Floppies are already a tough investment, and they feel even cheaper when you’re supposed to supplement them with even more purchases. It gets worse when you remember...

Manga stories don’t come with baggage. Amazing Spider-Man wasn’t as great an introduction to the character as it could have been. If Peter Parker wasn’t such a cultural marker, that story would have left me confused. Who is this guy in the red-and-blue? Why does he have spider-powers? On a deeper level, what happened with him and Doctor Octopus?! Yeah, see, ASM takes place after a period of time where Doctor Octopus switched minds with Peter Parker and took over his body, becoming the “Superior Spider-Man”, and ASM starts with Peter having regained his body and finding the messes that Doc Oc left for Peter--and trust me, not having read the SSM books, I was surprised to see stuff like Electro and Black Cat having a vendetta against Spidey, or Mary Jane having married someone else. In other words, to understand a current comic book character, you’ve had to have been reading about them for over two years--or dived into a wiki. Now, few manga in the US have lasted the forty-plus years that the likes of Captain America, Batman, or Animal Man have, but even after 84 volumes One Piece is somehow still easier to jump into than an alleged reboot (they’re pirates looking for treasure, also yo-ho-ho Luffy took a bite of gum-gum). If your point is to create an entry point for new readers, you’ve failed when people need to read at least one other book to understand the current one.

Manga covers a lot of ground. Used to be, comics in the US had all kinds of genres: besides superheroes, we had romance, horror, suspense, crime thrillers, and comedies. The rise of the Comic Book Code changed all of that; now all DC and Marvel publish are superheroes. Shonen Jump may be the house that’s ruled by Dragon Ball and One Piece, but Shonen Jump still has piles of variety. Besides action stories, they also cover comedy (Cowa!, Gintama), romance (I’’s, Strawberry 100%), horror (Muyo and Rohji’s Supernaural Detective Agency), sports (Prince of Tennis, Eyeshield 21) and thrillers (Death Note). I’m only covering series that are licensed in the US, mind--Japan has weirder stuff from Shonen Jump, like the positively-ancient KochiKame. Too much emphasis is put on capes in the Big Two. Even their attempts at moving away from that are overshadowed by capes: Grayson may have been a spy thriller, but it still starred Dick Grayson, alias Nightwing (and onetime Batman). Gotham Academy was a fun adventure series set in a large prep school--in the middle of Gotham City. The closest we could hope for Marvel to do as a romance would be Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane. It seems Marvel and DC aren’t capable--or willing--to release anything that isn’t attached to their superheroes. (There’s a lot to unpack with that last statement, and there’s no space and time to cover that--let’s just say you can’t have an audience you don’t cultivate, and you can’t complain about people ignoring you if you ignore them.) Finally...

Manga actually hires women. Two of the most beloved manga of all time, each responsible for an entire generation of manga fans, are Ranma 1/2 and Inuyasha. They’re both romantic comedies with lots of action; the former is more comedy than action, the latter is more action and fantasy than romance. Both of these came to be genre-defining works. Their creator? Rumiko Takahashi--a woman. She’s not alone, either: Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon, Yana Toboso’s Black Butler, CLAMP’s Chobits, xxxHolic, and Tsubasa Resorvoir Chronicles, Hiromu Arakawa’s Full-Metal Alchemist... there is a not-insignificant list of very, very prolific manga that are written and drawn by women. Meanwhile, DCs policies during the New 52 meant that only two women worked with them: writer Gail Simone and artist Amy Reeder. A lot of people on the internet argue for a total meritocracy: that creators should be hired for their talent or skill, and not because they’re women/people of color. But you can’t have a healthy industry without a wide variety of creators. A wide, diverse team of writers means you have a wide, diverse set of viewpoints and experiences that translate to different stories. Ranma 1/2 isn’t a great story because Rumiko Takahashi is a woman, it’s a great story because Rumiko Takahashi is a great writer and artist. But she actually had to get hired in order to make Ranma 1/2. The only reason for Marvel and DC to not have more women in their teams is if they don’t give a crap... and, really, that’s quite telling: you can’t complain attempts at diversity aren’t working if you’re not willing to commit to it. Manga isn’t great at diversity either, owing to Japan’s far-more-ethnocentric population, but there’s still startlingly-more variety with manga than there’s ever been with comics in years. If publishers in the US want to make better business, start looking at how their international fellows handle business. Millions of One Piece fans worldwide exist for a reason.

#marvel #dc #shonen jump #diversity #comics

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thecomictape-blog · 7 years

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Issue 2: Broader Contexts

There have been many books, comic books, films and TV shows and music that I have looking into to further how well I do my project. As concept albums and comic books are not new ideas to the world there was a lot of information for me to obtain so I can make sure this project makes sense when compared to the current formula that these forms of media already have.

Music

When I first started doing the listening for this project I started to take a look at concept albums as well as albums that artist had taken on alter egos in their albums. A key artist I listen to was Janelle Monáe and her Metropolis saga of albums. In these albums Monáe creates a new world called Metropolis with Monáe’s alter ego Cindy Maywhether who is an android who becomes aware of the unfairness she and her fellow robots suffer at the hands of the ruling humans. This series has taken a political stance with Monáe stating that the android is the new other in her world. Monáe states that ‘you can parallel that to the gay community, to the black community, to women - we have so many things in common’ (Sieczkowski, 2013) Monáe’s why of an establishing a new world in her music both through lyrics and with her interludes were a good starting point for me when creating the world in which the narrative of my project will take place.

Another artist that has placed their alter ego in their recording is Beyoncé. In 2008 she released her 3rd solo album, I Am…Sasha Fierce, which was released as a double album. Disc 1, I Am…, represented Beyoncé. It was filled with ballads, mid-tempo songs, vulnerable and more emotional lyrics whereas disc 2, Sasha Fierce, represented Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé’s stage persona. This disc had uptempo, attitude, bolder and uptempo tracks. Although one could argue that this disc was the Beyoncé we were use to as she had released these type of songs before and this wouldn’t be totally wrong to say as Beyoncé states that Sasha Fierce was born in 2003 on the set of her video for her debut solo single, Crazy in Love. Rather than introducing us to her alter ego it could be argued that this album introduced us to Beyoncé as her ballads were noticeably more prominent and personal to her and according to the other writers on the album Beyoncé would often rewrite the songs with something more personal to her such as Ave Maria, Satellites and That’s Why You’re Beautiful. Beyoncé also sung slightly different on each disc. For the first disc, Beyoncé sung gentler and with a lighter tone than she did on the second disc. Her voice was stronger and with more grit employing more growls, even had a slight rapper’s flair on some songs such as Diva and Video Phone. This way of making a distinction between herself and her alter ego helped me in figuring out a way to make there be a more obvious difference between that will represent the character closer to me and my stage persona.

Beyoncé also released her 6th solo album, Lemonade, in 2016. Although this album wasn’t so much about her alter ego Lemonade had a running narrative running through the album, which was also accompanied by its own film. Lemonade’s ongoing narrative is of a black woman who has realised that her husband has cheated on her and all the emotions she goes through after finding this out. Although this narrative isn’t close to mine, however looking at how Beyoncé managed to string these songs together with a running theme makes this a good listening point for my project.

Another concept album with an alter ego I listened to was Melanie Martinez’s Cry Baby album. In this album Martinez tells narratives from the view of Martinez’s alter ego of the same name. Cry Baby is a fantasy version of Martinez when she was a child. Martinez describe Cry Baby as a child who experiences adult things. She also claims that things that happened to Cry Baby are similar to things Melanie have gone through herself besides the part when Cry Baby is kidnapped and then goes on to kill her kidnapper. All the song titles on the album are metaphors on childhood related things but the song lyrics contain deeper messages such as Dollhouse and Mrs. Potato Head.

Other albums I listened to weren’t explicitly about an artist’s alter ego or even concept albums but albums like Michael Jackson’s Bad and Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic show a lot of characterisation in the songs. In songs such as Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel, Jackson takes on a persona which is filled with more bravado and could be considered stereotypically masculine. This can also be seen in a lot of the songs on Mars’ album in songs such as 24K Magic, That’s What I Like and Calling All My Lovelies. Songs like these helped me figure out the bravado I wanted to make my alter ego have in his lyrical content.

TV Shows/Films

Superheroes are now often in live action films or tv series. What these films and shows do is put the heroes that were created in the early, mid and late 20th century and puts them in modern day society. For example Spider-Man was created in the 1960s and has had years of adventures since then growing from a teenager to a now married man. What the movies have done is reimagined what Spider-Man would be like growing up in the 21st century. The films have touched on many issues. Captain America: Civil War was a very good movie to study in regards to my project as the topic of morality is brought up. The superheroes are deemed as dangerous as the damage they cause while saving people is high. It’s also argued that if the heroes never showed up there would be no villains in the first place. This begins the Superhero Registration Act which wants the superheroes to sign on so they can be seen as legitimate heroes and then the government can use them. Any hero who didn’t sign would be seen as a threat. This now brings the story of justice vs. law. The law states that the heroes must do this so they and their damage can be controlled however signing this act will mean the heroes would not be able to jump into action when they see injustice they would always have to wait for the government to send them out. This could also do more harm than good. Another reason why I saw Captain America: Civil War as a good point of study is because it was the on-screen debut of Black Panther, arguably the most popular black superhero. Although the Marvel Cinematic Universe has heroes of colour such as Falcon and War Machine these characters are both seen as allies and/or sidekicks to Captain America and Iron Man. Black Panther however is his own stand alone hero with his own backstory that isn’t connected to any of the previous heroes introduced. Series 2 of the Netflix series, Daredevil, also follow a justice vs. law narrative. The introduction of The Punisher in the Marvel live action lore brought about this story. Instead of handing criminals over to the hands of the law, The Punisher decides to take matters into his own hands and kill criminals himself. Daredevil argues that this is wrong but The Punisher argues that to really rid the world of evil you have to take it out. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice also shows a story the fear of superheroes becoming to powerful and the element of fear people can have of the unknown. The Luke Cage Netflix series was also a good point for me. A lot of things that are included in the series such as the music, themes and language are things that are coded as black. Many people have stated that Luke Cage could be seen as a modern day blaxploitation film (in a tv series format). One of the most powerful scenes of the show is in episode 9 where Luke Cage, wearing a hoodie, is stopped by two police officers. Luke Cage resists arrests and the officers shoot at him however Cage is bulletproof so the bullets bounce off at him. This is a direct commentary of the police brutality and targeting that black people face.

These superhero narratives were very helpful when trying to figure out the running plot of my project. One thing what the tv shows and films of superheroes do is focus on strong stories for the comics. The comics have hundreds (if not thousands) of different story arcs for each character yet the strongest ones are usually brought to life as these are the most engaging and thought provoking. When looking at these different narratives I tried to bring out notions that were not alien to comics however putting my own twist on it so I’d not only have an engaging story but also a thought provoking one.

Another type of film I decided to investigate is concert films. The one’s I truly studied were Beyoncé’s I Am…World Tour, Michael Jackson’s Live at Wembley July 16, 1988 and Live in Bucharest - The Dangerous Tour. One of the reason’s I choose these two artist in particular is because they are very known for their theatrical stage shows and high energy performing. In Beyoncé’s case this was the tour where she performed as herself and Sasha Fierce as she carried on her concept of the the I Am…Sasha Fierce album and drove it further with the show even having the two meet each other in the video interludes of the show. Beyoncé showed the difference in performing styles, vocal styling and costumes. When performing as herself Beyoncé’s costumes were usually a lighter colour such as when performing Smash into You she wears a white leotard with a long white cape, in Ave Maria she wears a wedding dress and in Listen she wears a long sparking white/silver dress. These costumes seem to show a sense of purity and vulnerability. They are more understated when compared to her normal stage wear. During the Beyoncé sections (which usually contained the ballads of her setlist) Beyoncé moved very little, occasionally walking from one side of the stage to the other and the emphasis was put on the vocal performance. Beyoncé being a singer known for her live high belting capabilities, growling and slightly chestier style of singing swapped this in these sections for mainly lower belts, head voice usage, more subtle vocal runs and more of a head placement when singing. However when the uptempo were Sasha Fierce. The costumes were usually a variation on a leotard with bright, flashy colours, her costume during Diva had her dressed as a superhero. The Sasha Fierce sections of the show contained a high level of movement with Beyoncé performing intense choreography, running from one side of the stage to the other, head banging and even flying to a smaller stage at one point. The vocals were the Beyoncé we had become use to, strong belts, growling, full of attitude and more flashy vocals. It seemed like her the distinction between the two characters were more defined in the live show compared to the element where some of the lines seemed like they blurred. Maybe this is because Beyoncé seems to use Sasha Fierce as more of a stage than as a whole other person. To see how Beyoncé was able to switch characters mid-show through just doing things subtly different in the different segments of the show. Michael Jackson’s shows are mostly on the theatrical side until he performs songs like She’s Out Of My Life, Will You Be There and Man In The Mirror. When not performing these songs, Jackson’s larger than life stage persona was out on full force with high choreography, demanding stage presence, dynamic vocal performances and elaborate staging.

Watching both DVDs gave me an idea of how to bring a stage persona to a recorded format. There different approaches towards different songs and different sections of their shows show that there doesn’t need to be a dramatic change to represent yourself as another persona. Sometimes subtly can make the biggest changes.

Books

There were two main books that I read when going into this topic are Super Black: American Pop Culture And Black Superheroes (Nama, 2011) and Black Comics: Politics Of Race And Representation (edited by Howard and Jackson II, 2013). Super Black talks about the appearance of black superheroes and how they are links with the trends in America in political sense as well as in a pop culture sense in it’s first chapter, Color Them Black. In chapter two, Birth of the Cool, examines Black Panther and Luke Cage and how they connected to the Black Power movement. This chapter also looks at blaxploitation films and their characters. The third chapter, Friends and Lovers, is about black superheroes relationships with white characters whether be the friendship and partnership between Captain America/Falcon and Iron Man/War Machine or the relationship between characters Cloak and Dagger. Chapter four, Attack of the Clones, is about how white superheroes have been changed to black however I found that this chapter wasn’t as useful to me as the others were. The final chapter of the book, For Reel?: Black Superheroes Come To Life, explores the black characters from comics that have been on television and film such as when Eartha Kitt played Catwoman in the Batman tv series from the 60s and films like Blade.

Black Comics is a book that explores the ways which black comic artists have grappled with themes like the black experience, gender identity, politics and social media. The first entry in the book is, Brief History of the black comic strip: Past and present (Howard, 2013), which talks about the origins of the black comic starting with comic strips in the 1920s. The next chapter I found useful is, Black comics and social media economics: New media, new production models (Lacklaff and Sales, 2013) which touched on how the comic book industry changed from releasing comic strips, then comic books, to graphic novels and how web comics and digital distribution of comics could be the future. The final section that was really helpful at this point in time was Gender, Race and the Boondocks (Howard, 2013). The last few paragraphs of this section are titled, The search for pride and manhood, which talk about how pride and ‘being cool’ plays apart in a black male’s life. Howard states that ‘playing it cool’ serves as a behavioural performance used when under pressure like when a black male is confronted by a white authority figure such as a police officer. Howard also states the this pressure to keep cool at all times could have negative effects on the black male’s life as he may lose touch with his feelings in interpersonal relationships, such as romantic and familial relationships.

Both these books deal with the identity of black people and how that then intern effects black superheroes. I found this useful as writing a black superhero without doing much investigation can lead to unintentionally writing the character into some harmful and outdated stereotypes. Although my character falls into some of the stereotypes about black men this is a part of the story and apart of the character’s development.

Personal discussions

This part was very important for me as I am writing a female character who has gone through sexism and also decided to turn against the law because of how gender inequality treated men accused of sexual assault and abuse. For me to truly write this character correctly I decided to ask several women I know about there feelings on gender inequality, experiences they’ve gone through, how it’s made them feel and how they have dealt with. I will leave a few quotes on what these women have said and I will keep them anonymous.

(Trigger Warning: Swearing, sexual assault, violence, rape, mental assault)

Wearing certain things men see you as a thing

You’re stupid cos your girly

When you’re on the street surrounded by men you end up laughing it off because you don’t feel safe

I was once told, when I was a virgin, by a guy who was attracted to me, who lied about his age, don’t give it all away at once

I’ve been called hard to please, why am I yours to please? Why am I something to conquer?

All the women I know feel insecure about their bodies

Pitting women against one another is another way of controlling them

What men make in music is considered more valuable

If they don’t get feminism, I don’t wanna be around you

There’s a stereotype of pretty girls to have big boobs

If I went out without make up everyone would think I was a monster

I’m happy to be sexual with some men but I choose that. I don’t have to be sexual with anyone I don’t please to

A lot of people think rape is men in dark alleys who are strangers, it does happen but most rape is not spoken about and it between people who know each other

People don’t talk about harassment that happen in relationships

I consent to being sexual with someone just cos you see me doing it does it mean I want to do it with you

Patriarchy is such an insured thing in society that I sometimes don’t see it

I don’t think I’m conventionally pretty

As a producer I’m not seen the same as a male producer

When my hair was long I got twice the amount of attention, I guess cos it’s short it’s deemed edgier?

I was playing the guitar and my friends said ‘you’re actually good, I didn’t think you’d be that good cos you’re so girly’

I was trying to talk in the rehearsal and I was belittles and I just couldn’t take it anymore

I have a strong opinion on this watered down version of feminism

When you lose your virginity, if you’re young, no says anything to the guy but they treated me like I did this awful thing, like I ruined my life and was going off the rails

Stop staring at me!

Men are encouraged to do things that women aren’t

What’s wrong with girly? Why is girly an insult?

We have a right to be angry!? Why can’t I be?

They kept talking to me about protection like he was the one in control of me

Male privilege is obviously shit, they just piss me off really

When I cut my hair I did it so I wouldn’t be deemed as girly and I shouldn’t have to feel like that

You don’t have big boobs but you’re still pretty

All I’m supposedly good for is sex

Its annoying when a women represents her sexuality she has to be shamed for it

Being sexual isn’t a free for all

There shouldn’t be a tax on period pads

Women not feeling okay in their natural bodies, feeling that they have to change their bodies, faces and appearance

When we were out it was commented that I drink beer, can we not drink what we want?

I’m always blamed when your in a situation with a guy. It’s always the girl who’s to blame rather than the guy even if both parties are wrong

If I drink wine and champagne I’m too girly, when I drink beer I’m trying to be one of the guys, WHY CAN’T I JUST LIKE BEER!?

Why are you only talking about how I look?

‘You’re prettier when you look like this rather than that’

Women have to fight harder to be taken seriously

You grow up thinking like sex is wrong and if you do it you’re a less version of yourself

No one says to women if you smile more you’d be attractive, instead its ‘wear more make up’ it’s never about being happy, funny, or engaged with life

Women that put nudes up… Men think ‘it’s on display for me to have

The moment guys realise I’m not interested sexually… they cut me off

I thought if I cut my hair my boyfriend would break up with me

It’s always our fault when we get abused

They don’t want women to compete with men so they pit women against one another

My sister didn’t know you couldn’t flush pads down the toilet!

I didn’t understand sexual assault, even when I was assaulted

The hypocrisy of it all!

One of the guys made a comment and I literally broke down, all the male teachers didn’t say anything except the one woman teacher. She explained this is what sexism is

I’m pretty fiesty, I’ll start a fight if you try to grope me

Every time they talk about a wave of feminism they only talk about white women

Theres so many things I didn’t realise were sexual harassment until recently

It’s easier to block out of your memory then deal with it

They don’t tell UTIs! It’s very difficult for boys to get it but for women it’s easy

If they guys had sex they were popular and worth having

There’s a difference between appreciation and objectification

Every woman I know has been some type of sexual harassment or assault

These guys felt like they could shout things at me and put me down and tell me I was shit. I know they wouldn’t do it if I was a man and I fought back. They hated it, they wanted me to stay down.

If I listen to rock and heavy metal I’ll be like one of the guys and suddenly I was cool cos I wasn’t girly

Women don’t come out the womb thinking that they aren’t good

I want to get ready but they want to have sex… it’s easy for them to pick me up and put me on the bed even though I don’t want to…

I have a family history of depression and the fact until 2016 there wasn’t a study connecting the link between mental illness, health and contraception!

Her mum and dad wouldn’t care if her brother had a girlfriend over but she wasn’t allowed a boy in her room

Meghan Trainor’s songs… I get what they try to do but it made me feel shit about myself

You don’t learn about the clitoris in sex or the spot because for men it doesn’t matter

When guys say I don’t like condoms… If you wanna deal with STIs and pregnancy you deal with it! I don’t want it!

As queer woman I’ve noticed a different in how I look at women and how straight men do

I’ve had sexism in school, our skirt lengths were checked in front of the class

The burden of carrying of child is on women and so is the burden of not having one!

A woman TV presenter can never be heavy, you’ve never seen it! Look at Holly Willoughby

Men are always commenting on women profiles and feel like they can say anything they want… they feel like you’re asking for it

A man is always praised for having multiple partners

The attitude towards at girls… they think feminism is burning bras and hating men!

You didn’t even look at her face, just her body

I don’t have time for assholes who say ‘I don’t want to use a condom’

She had a group of guys following her but because she didn’t want them they got angry and made it out that she led them own!

I was scared of being label

They randomly switched me to another pill

Women are always asked what are you wearing, what did you do?

Guys are allowed to lose their virginity when they want!

I love not shaving cos it’s like, fuck you!

If she doesn’t want you, deal with it!

Teachers always go ‘I need a strong boy to carry something’ why not I need a strong student

Having friends who are not willing to acknowledge that the physical relationship they’ve had with someone is rape

I do have another choice! The choice is my boyfriend wearing a condom!

They spiked her drink and they had sex with her and now she has a life long STD! That’s fucked up!

I know how it feels to be looked at so when I look at a woman I know how it feels to be objectified

Why is consent not discussed in secondary schools

Don’t grope me!

Girls were labeled ‘slags’ for the rest of school’s duration because they wanted to have sex!

Male pleasure is discussed but female pleasure isn’t

In catholic school we didn’t really have sexual education

It made me feel so gross… they felt like they could do it to anyone

They just throw you on the pill! They literally don’t communicate with you properly, you’d think with doctors they would. I know they give a leaflet but when you’re 15 to 16 you just trust the doctor they’re meant to be health

God forbid I’d have to get an abortion because it’s shamed so much!

There’s complexity in intersectionality

You never realise how much guys don’t ask for consent until you meet someone who does

I often have to keep reminding myself ‘I don’t have to look nice’

We deserve to be angry, I’m not making myself seem nice and acceptable for someone else

My best friend’s boyfriend came home drunk and raped her and she didn’t report it, she just took it, she never accepted it was rape because they were in a relationship

There’s no space for sexism!

In the past feminist wave movements didn’t include black women

Because I’m skinny it’s a little different because society makes you feel like you have to be skinny but it wasn’t a choice for me, it’s just my body, it makes you feel like other girls think you try to look skinny

Slut shaming is not progressive!

This guy pulled up my skirt, tried to pull my pants down and grabbed my area

They only just started making the male contraceptive pill but stopped it because it gives the same effects as it gives women

Our bodies are treated different by medics, it’s strange

A sense of entitlement to bash down your opinions and tell you to calm down

Be progressive in your statements

No that’s not sexist, you could ruin this guy’s career saying that

I don’t like the fact I have to be sexual for everyone or not at all

How dare you feel entitled to say I’m disgusting for not shaving

In school we were told girls couldn’t wear coloured bras because it distracted the male staff

We had a teacher that use to drop a pencil and look up girls’ skirt, baring in mind he was 60!

From a guys perspective they feel like they can’t cry, my boyfriend kept apologising for crying… why? It’s ingrained that girls are emotional and guys aren’t. It’s okay for me to be emotional cos I’m weak

It’s not just a bunch of abortion rights, It’s a global thing

We can’t take about periods! Its a thing all women have! It’s important!

I’m either hyper sexualised or asexualised

You’re kinky it’s a bad thing

I didn’t understand sexual assault, even when I was assaulted

If i make a point on why I think something is sexist then male privilege kicks in and they think they can say I’m wrong cos they haven’t experienced this

Men they get up and go outside feeling like… they deserve to be walking down that street, going anywhere, whereas women walk out with a hand bag of sheet so we have all bases covered, its kinda like anxiety, we have this notion that we don’t deserve to be there, people our gonna judge us… theres just this uncertainty about our position

Unrealistic body images are plastered everywhere!

You don’t get in GQ magazine, ‘how to give her great head’

This isn’t male privilege but in my job… It makes me laugh because the managers say the girls should do table cloths but the guys should lift the chairs. The girls get told to wipe and iron

Its pleasure shaming rather than having sex

A lot of women are hurt all the time for saying no

Boys feel like they’re entitled to sex

Why are we taxed for tampons?

I can be oblivious when I’m having a good time… My friend had to keep fighting random people from trying to touch me on a night out

For some strange reason the male gaze wants us to look like little girls… so that we’re so tiny and petite with big eyes… very skinny… no boobs… It’s kinda gross

Small minded people telling me I’m having too much sex

People think I’m vulnerable because I’m small

Society dictates I should do things that society thinks is the perfect aesthetic for a woman

If you still have women who want to bleach their skin… There’s a problem!

If you’re gonna make a statement it needs to be progressive

I’m small so guys have just taken advantage for that

They would just pin me to walls and keep me there as long as they wanted

Even today a guy beeped at me to get my attention

These pants for women that have button that you can lock them... They say it’s good but why the fuck would society create these? We should be teaching people not rape

A woman who is white feels better about herself than a woman of colour

I thought that I brought it on myself

If I’m happy with what I naturally look like why would I damage myself to look like what people think I should

Do you think women are being self destructive by being a ‘slut’ or not shaving?

When I use to be in college all the teachers were male except one, all the guys in my band would look down on us

Women in pop music… everything they do has to have a purposed they’re over analysed

I was told by the guy who ran a gig ‘you can take your top off’

We don’t say enough about our sisters of colour!

Society makes male think sex is so important, it’s dangerous

When women take control it’s seen as threatening cos sex is power

However even with all that the charts are still dominated by men

You can’t say you want equality for all women and forget women of colour

I’m angry, I’m pissed off but I don’t care if people are threatened by my feminism!

Characters in TV don’t really help. The male who sleeps with everyone is considered so cool

As I woman I feel like my hair is apart of my womanhood, if I cut it I will lose my femininity

Even though we know these things… we still do it because of society

Thank you to all the women are contributed thoughts and feelings!

#themes #concepts #contexts #issues

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