mustinvestigate

How, exactly, does vigilante crimefighting work?

I don’t mean the kinky costumes and the UST-ridden stake-outs and the fighting and tying to streetlamps and post-patrol shagging which is definitely not gay if you don’t make eye contact.

I mean…how the hell do they prosecute these crimes that are caught through the aforementioned total awesomeness?

Even in the ur-deconstruction of heroic costumed vigilantes, Rorschach encounters people he’s responsible for putting in prison, in said prison. I’m assuming he didn’t show up for court.

Please state your name for the record.
Rorschach.
Your real name.
Rorschach
Sir, your real…
*stenographer renders snap of bailiff’s pinky finger as ‘thkk! aaaaargh!’*

If a heavily beaten thug was deposited on precinct steps, with or without a note declaring them a rapist, wouldn’t the cops’ first response be to treat them as a victim of a violent crime, or (say, if Superman did it and didn’t even have to whack them around first) for wrongful imprisonment, and ask if they want to file a report on the strange assailant in the Halloween costume?

Maybe vigilantes are more like bounty hunters, only going after those the police already have a warrant for, but passing on the reward due to anonymity?

Hmmm.

Also, from the fallout kinkmeme’s twitter feed, this is horribly cathartic. *whiiiiiiiiiiiistle...boom*

There's a new Nostalgia Chick up this morning called The Smurfette Principle, which has had the husband and me debating modern token chicks and chickification. He's hopeful that the mass brain-dump that is the internet, particularly youtube and the like, is establishing a lot more variety as the 'default' of both demographic groups and just 'human.' I'm a bit less hopeful, as it seems those who really want attention (and get the tap to join the ‘legitimate’ media family) usually revert to shrill, retrograde stereotypes of whatever demographic they fit.

Or, actually, I’m not as grim as all that. Like, I have fanatical love for the canon Sally and Laurie, because they’re legitimate crimefighters, entertaining, attractive in a sort of big-strong-manly-faced way, and there’s the whole meta where what limits or ruins their lives is the different limiting ruining definitions of ‘woman’ their two generations face. And I don’t care that probably wasn’t so much what was intended as just how two male writers might unthinkingly box up two female characters. (See several previous tealdeer natterings on the subject.)

Then there’s the fanon Jupiter/Juspeczyks, which is generally a whole different and even more awesome thing. Especially when I think back to what was available when I first discovered fanfic as a young ‘un (mostly on geocities and surrounded by animated gifs) – and the Harlequin treatments commonly given to Scully or Buffy or Dr Crusher in order to make them fit fannish plots that didn’t have to get approval of executives and advertisers…yeah. I’m actually getting quite hopeful for the future of fictional women, if these are our wish-fulfilment versions.

So, Chapter 2, in which Watchmen sorta passes the Bechdel Test.

( yo dawg, I heard you like expository flashbacks… )

Chronological Watchmen read, yay!

12 October: Wow, on the first page, Rorschach seems like more of an obvious nutbar than I remember – less fox-crazy than mentally-12 crazy. Then Hollis and Dan telling stories, obviously both lost and sharing surface-cheerful depression. Dan makes fists and fiercely goes to confront what he thinks is a burglar, but momentary manliness impression is blown out of the water by immediate subservience to crazy fella. Detectives can’t be bothered to take on knotty murder case, intimidated by mystery rather than intrigued. Emphasis on total lack of heroes, only husks, empty masks.

13 October: Obvious-nutbar impression somewhat dispelled by Rorschach terrifying entire bar and effortlessly breaking into highly guarded government facility. Leads to the following priceless panels: ( cut for friendslist sanity )

It would be way too much fun to parse the social shifts in that scene. I mean, "fun." For a certain type of mind. The kind that knows, if you dissect something, you find out how it works, but it's really really dead...and does it anyway.

The Cameo had Watchmen and Sin City on as today’s free double bill – third time through, it’s still so emotionally draining. Skipped Sin City because 300 about filled my lifetime Frank Miller requirements (though I’ve seen it maybe three-four times now as well, but that’s due to an excellent Rifftrax).

JEH, as himself, I tend to find charismatic and painfully adorable. The graphic novel Rorschach was compelling, especially that arrestingly homely face, but…not one to inspire rampant sexytiem contemplacation.*

So why, oh why, do the two combine on screen to become SEX ON LEGS OM NOM NOM?

Although there’s no one in the film I’d kick out of bed, to be honest. Up to and including Keene-riot third extra from the left only seen from the back for .00008 seconds. The film has many flaws, but I’d forgive them all for the sheer beauty of every frame.

The only missing layers I really miss and don’t hold out any hope the extended cut will redeem is the Laurie/Sally plot line. They’re two of my favourite female characters ever, because they’re so damaged by their own neuroses and the madonna/whore knife-edge societal mores leave them precariously balancing on, but they still do some brilliant things and have real emotional progression. That really gets shortchanged in the film, and Laurie’s just too bland and nice to really have anywhere to go in terms of finally growing up, and all those lovely layers and layers of oedipal and sexual issues are squished into tissue paper.

Also, this time the scene that really made me teary was Manhattan’s retreat to Mars, his memories of being made into something gaudy and lethal – the distance and flashes of bewilderment of his eyes as he goes through the motions of fighting soldiers and criminals – and his best friend calling him in so many words an abomination against sanity.

Sploosh.

* pre-movie, that is. Re-reading it since then…hoo boy. Damn you, JEH!

I’ve been re-reading Watchmen over the last week or so (more and more slowly as I get near the end), and today realised there’s an even more d’awwwwww-inducing Nite Owl / Rorschach moment than the long awkward handshake:

When the two of them break into Veidt’s office and Nite Owl pokes around, finally hacking into the computer, while Rorschach talks…and talks…and talks.

( Here’s the full text, from Rorschach noticing the chart on the wall to Dan finally rejoining the conversation: )

Obviously, there’s lots of thematic goodness in there, and there’s got to be something interesting going on while the always visually scintillating hacking goes on in the background, but sheesh, Rorschach! You’re monologue-ing, with rhetorical flourishes!

He’s so comfortable and happy (…for him) to have his bestest buddy working at his side again to share his thoughts with, instead of only his journal, and it’s goddamned adorable.

And it makes me wonder – all the ficcers (including me) write even 1960s Rorschach as Mister Terse. It feels wrong just to let him use a pronoun once in a while. But, based on this, what if he spent every minute of alone time with Nite Owl like this, chattering out every single thought that crossed his mind?

Poor, poor lucky Nite Owl – it would have been like working with a perpetual Raymond Chandler loop! Maybe he spent nearly every pre-Roche patrol gritting his teeth after a few hours and muttering “Shut. Up. Rorschach. Shut. Up. ShutUpShutUpShutUp!” Or giggling like a maniac at rapid-fire literary references.

Someone needs to write this. I don’t know if I’m up to it, but goddamn, someone needs to.

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today's vital question

distaff counterparts

pretty as a picture an' still keepin' her figure

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