Rekill The Batman
by Daren Foster

Or maybe, real life events over the course of the last 365 days have been so unusually full of high operatic drama that the fictional world of movies and TV has seemed uninspired, tame, beside the point.

So what’s a writer to do when left with no inspiration and a looming deadline staring him hard in the face? Turn inward, of course, and try to rehash stuff you’ve already written, mashing it up enough to make it look brand spanking new. My very own Best Of with a few additional studio outtakes, rarities and remixed B-sides to make it look worth the sticker price.

What immediately strikes me while perusing 2008’s 50 columns or so, is that regardless of how passionate I’ve been about politics, the media and the very state of our democracy, you people out there couldn’t really care less. For you, it’s all about movies and television. This could cause me to make downbeat generalizations about our future well-being if it weren’t for the fact that this column is posted on a film and TV website. So your distraction from real life is less damning. Somewhat.

Your passions in 2008 were never more stirred than with my September column entitled, Kill the Batman. Judging from the countless comments I received, not to mention the half billion and counting the movie has raked in, people were quite taken by the film. By a huge margin, more readers were miffed at my less than glowing take on The Dark Knight than those who wrote agreeing with me. In fact, I’d have to say that the pro-Batman contingent was like an overly protective grizzly bear mom, protective of their superhero in a way that made it seem like I savaged some helpless whelp of a litter runt rather than the Caped Crusader himself.

Special ire was inflicted upon my person by Bat-ites who took exception to my statement that comic books were directed at 12 year-old boys. Obviously, I hadn’t read a comic in 20 years, they thundered. Well no, no I hadn’t since I am a grown man which was exactly my point. I set aside my comic books some time ago, yes. Apparently, things have changed since I was a lad.

And yes, when I wrote those words, I was clearly wrong and am big enough to admit it.

Instead of saying that comic books were aimed at 12-year old boys, I should’ve written that comic books were aimed at those who still view the world like 12-year old boys.

Guys (those who identified themselves when writing me were almost exclusively guys.. which is a whole other kettle of fish), as much as you’d like to think that the world can be accurately portrayed or explained in pages filled with men in costumes, ruminating in thought bubbles, you are only deluding yourself and others dwelling in their parents’ basements just like you. There was nothing I came across in my brief comic book indoctrination that I hadn’t encountered more fully and satisfyingly in other art forms. You can gussy your comic books up with all the dead prostitutes, insane super villains and damaged super heroes with dark sides you want, but you’re still reading a comic book. It’s a perfectly benign past time but stop trying to make it anything other than that. Remember, your beloved genre’s antecedents are Archie and Jughead.

Try as you might to elevate the juvenile status of comic books to loftier heights, it is a hopeless cause guys (again, I am being pointedly gender specific with that word). Picture books are picture books and no matter how dark the colour palate you use, the best you can ever hope for is a vital two dimensionality. Big questions and matters are never examined fully on that plane. A less generous soul might take the matter even further and suggest that any attempted canonization of the comic book into a graphic novel is merely evidence of an ongoing trend toward infantilizing adult discourse.

Bringing me to my main, more pertinent point related to The Dark Knight movie. I’ve scoured the previous post and nowhere could I find a passage where I suggested the film was too smart for its own good or for a comic book/super hero movie. More than a few of you somehow took offense at the notion that I thought there was no place in a popcorn movie like The Dark Knight for serious content. My point was exactly the opposite. Bring on the serious content. Just do it smartly.

From that standpoint, The Dark Knight was a failure. It lighted ever so slightly upon issues of torture, illegal wiretapping, and the very thin line between super hero and vigilante without addressing them fully. Batman deplored heavy-handed tactics yet used them constantly in battling The Joker and winds up blaming the public for making him do it before racing off toward the next sequel.

If you’re going to broach such heated, topical subjects, go in heavy (as Junior Soprano would say). Don’t just parrot the most recent headline you’ve read and demand to be patted on the back for your brave stance. So no, The Dark Knight is not too smart for its own good (or for the formulaic genre it sprang from). It isn’t nearly as smart or thoughtful as it and its massive fan base claim.

Comic books and their Hollywood offspring will never be highbrow art form. Serial formats (that both comic books and Hollywood blockbusters adhere to rigidly) are only interested in perpetuating the franchise. Everything else they endeavour to achieve is simply beside and subservient to that main fact. When dealing with life and death issues or matters of serious import, you have to be willing to roll the dice and let the narrative, thematic and character chips fall where they may. The outcome can never be determined by the demands of the marketplace. If it does, yours is simply a product. A product seldom varies for fear of upsetting the successful status quo. (I’m looking at you, New Coke.)

Such a simplistic perspective, combined with a slavish devotion to keeping a franchise alive and healthy, is what relegates comic books (both between the covers and in the movies) to the mere diversionary. That’s OK. We all regularly need to be diverted from the travails of life. All I was suggesting in my Kill the Batman column from September and again here today is that making bigger, unsubstantiated claims to anything beyond that level diminishes the work done by those who truly do the heavy artistic lifting.

Have as happy and positive a 2009 as can be truly hoped for.

And until next year!

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