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mustinvestigateSo, Chapter 2, in which Watchmen sorta passes the Bechdel Test.
Two-thirds of this chapter is present-day characters reminiscing on the former lives/careers (pretty much the same thing, yes?) of the Comedian and Silk Spectre. The Comedian’s spans several decades and identity-shifts, whereas Silk Spectre’s is summed up by an attempted rape, and some dialogue indicating she’s come to accept and see it differently. Eesh.
(This is clearly blanket permission to produce naughty fanarts *nodnodnod*)
There’s two named female characters, who talk to each other, and not about a man…mostly. They talk around their shared life problem, that of beingexposition pack mules defined by their sexuality, and by that sexuality being something utilitarian that pays the bills. I give this only a ‘sorta’ as it’s quite interesting stuff, but the novel itself doesn’t really go in depth with it. In a ‘medium is the message’ sense, the rest of the novel uses Laurie as a sex symbol who looks nice in a skimpy costume, and her purpose in the plot is to move between men and use her relationships with them to motivate them to make plot happen. I love digging into this myself, how the novel demonstrates that female characters’ personal motivations are sidelined in the genre – we get later on, what, one throwaway line that Laurie would have preferred to work with animals, balanced against several alternative-less statements that she didn’t want to be a vigilante – but it’s fanwanking. Male characters' development is shown or outright stated; Laurie’s and Sally’s must be inferred.
Still, there’s actual active emotion, rather than tears and suppression – look at the trembling fist. Imma pop you, old woman…
And, while I know it’s Dave Gibbon’s style to draw every character from the epic-tall-broad-square-chinned template, I love love love that the glamour model / vigilante is not only thickly muscular but seems to have all her internal organs intact. This could be any of the women in my family, before the invention of high-fructose corn syrup, anyway.
In four days, Rorschach’s writing style has both improved and taken off the tinfoil hat, providing a clear-eyed assessment of the vigilante lifestyle that’s both eloquent and concise. Either:
1. Dan spiked his sugar cubes with clozapine.
2. Alan Moore didn’t want to muddy up his author tract on the foolishness of comic tropes with comical right-wing nutjoberry.
3. Or, he’d fallen a little in love with the character and couldn’t be so harsh with the deconstructing of his tiny, broken brain any more.
I’d lean toward a combination of 2 and 3…aside from the unironic ‘Rorschach is a HERO’ crowd, no one can seriously espouse Walter Kovacs’ ideals, especially after the psychotic break, but he’s a surprisingly easy audience identification figure. Who doesn’t feel, at least a little, like they’ve often gotten a raw deal in life but have chosen to do good anyway? Or suspect that our bedrock beliefs, subjected to objective poking, would prove to be both childish and poorly constructed? Here’s where he begins to become more of a tragic antihero than a Miller pastiche.
Y’know, right after he brutalises an old, fatally ill man.
Two-thirds of this chapter is present-day characters reminiscing on the former lives/careers (pretty much the same thing, yes?) of the Comedian and Silk Spectre. The Comedian’s spans several decades and identity-shifts, whereas Silk Spectre’s is summed up by an attempted rape, and some dialogue indicating she’s come to accept and see it differently. Eesh.
(This is clearly blanket permission to produce naughty fanarts *nodnodnod*)
There’s two named female characters, who talk to each other, and not about a man…mostly. They talk around their shared life problem, that of being
Still, there’s actual active emotion, rather than tears and suppression – look at the trembling fist. Imma pop you, old woman…
And, while I know it’s Dave Gibbon’s style to draw every character from the epic-tall-broad-square-chinned template, I love love love that the glamour model / vigilante is not only thickly muscular but seems to have all her internal organs intact. This could be any of the women in my family, before the invention of high-fructose corn syrup, anyway.
In four days, Rorschach’s writing style has both improved and taken off the tinfoil hat, providing a clear-eyed assessment of the vigilante lifestyle that’s both eloquent and concise. Either:
1. Dan spiked his sugar cubes with clozapine.
2. Alan Moore didn’t want to muddy up his author tract on the foolishness of comic tropes with comical right-wing nutjoberry.
3. Or, he’d fallen a little in love with the character and couldn’t be so harsh with the deconstructing of his tiny, broken brain any more.
I’d lean toward a combination of 2 and 3…aside from the unironic ‘Rorschach is a HERO’ crowd, no one can seriously espouse Walter Kovacs’ ideals, especially after the psychotic break, but he’s a surprisingly easy audience identification figure. Who doesn’t feel, at least a little, like they’ve often gotten a raw deal in life but have chosen to do good anyway? Or suspect that our bedrock beliefs, subjected to objective poking, would prove to be both childish and poorly constructed? Here’s where he begins to become more of a tragic antihero than a Miller pastiche.
Y’know, right after he brutalises an old, fatally ill man.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-12-10 05:51 pm (UTC)Good luck getting set up again!