Deception

Soooo….hey. Yeah, last week I must have sounded like a real basket case, and it wouldn’t really be untrue. Which is why something with a tone like this is going to sound a bit odd, or at the very least a little inconsistent. I spent a long while thinking about what to write but I found myself occupied a lot this week with a lot more thoughts than I expected I would be able to handle. A lot of them, if you haven’t already guessed the general trend that tends to be in my head, besides being annoyingly political, or even more annoyingly trivial, have been about pop culture. And yes, it’s still about superheroes. I like to think I’m no more obsessed with costumed adventurers than the next man, but that’s probably a lie, and usually my thoughts regarding them tend to shift with my mood. In the case of the last few previous weeks I have been reflecting on the darker, more realistic side of the profession, and why it’s so rare to get it right. As I explained weeks before, I thought it had to do with character fidelity, about remaining true to motivations and values that kept people invested, and there’s a lot of truth to that. Yet, I saw something that also made me have a revelation, one about the nature of truth and lies, and how sometimes they can hold totally different, even inverse power when applied in different contexts. I saw the controversial speech Zack Snyder gave during a Q&A session after a recent screening of his adaptation of “Watchmen.” He was asked about the negative fan reaction he got for “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,” specifically on the issue of his two leads having killed people in the film. He met this question with disdain, and to paraphrase, believed that fans who held onto the idea of a Batman or a Superman that wouldn’t kill people were living in a child’s fantasy. Now, here’s the thing, I did not like this movie, though not for the particular reason raised. I actually felt Henry Cavill’s Superman was actually very well characterized, and thought that in the kind of world presented to the Man of Steel in these movies this would be his response. Even Ben Affleck’s Batman had merits, being based on one of my favorite iterations of the Bat, from “The Dark Knight Returns,” a grizzled, half crazed militant who has started going beyond his no killing rule in some cases. I took issue with the writing, directing, poor choice in editing that made the story flow like my cholesterol encrusted arteries. Yes, that disgust you’re feeling now is proportionate to the feelings most had for that film. That disgust, also is something I didn’t entirely understand until only recently when that interview came out. I mean, I had always known, or at least felt, that Snyder had a Michael Bay level of respect for his audience and subject matter, which is to say none, but this interview not only cemented that view, but gave me a clearer perspective.

Where I searched for the truth, specifically truth to life, to circumstance, the rest of the fans sought out a great lie, one they had heard a thousand times before. It wasn’t the one you tell to assuage the temper of a loved one, to make yourself or someone else feel better, but the one you find among many others we’re told as kids. The children’s fantasies that don’t just make you believe a man can fly or that any of us could hone our bodies to scale buildings and beat up whole rooms of people at once. The ones that have you truly believing that childhood trauma can make you stronger, make you see the value in life, and make you take an oath so strong and unbreakable as to nearly make your iron will its own superpower. The kinds that completely, unrepentantly charge you in believing that a boy from beyond the stars could grow up into a man with such indestructible morals and respect for life that even his ability to move mountains and soar so fast as to break the sound barrier pales in comparison with his unbelievable capacity for compassion and faith in the inner good in all beings. It’s admirable that we as creators want to tell our audience the truth, even if it means making people uncomfortable or unhappy. Yet, sometimes there are greater truths found in the most thinly veiled of lies put down in fiction, and they’re worth reiterating for generations to come. Batman became a symbol for us that one mortal man can make a difference, even if his abilities and his code were near impossible to repeat. Superman showed such dedication to and faith in us that he made us believe in ourselves, that we could be more, that we could strive to be better, even if we knew we were never meant to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

It might just be an old fashioned notion, but maybe there’s a reason these two almost century old icons stayed around so long, more than just being flashy gimmicks. Maybe they gave us ideals to strive for, a place we could put our best intents and drives. Just maybe we were given some truths about ourselves at the heart of something as flimsy as pulp comic book paper.