I Need a Hero

During Comic Con weekend (July 12th to 15th), I wrote a post, but did not post it as I felt that my thesis was flimsy. The post was about the rise of the comic book movie and why we as a society flock to see these films at a time of moral and patriotic discontent. I posited, in this unseen post, that We, the People have suffered a decade-long war effort in the Middle East and the corroding effects of a never-ending economic downturn which have necessitated our need to believe in something good, and that the current socio-economic zeitgeist has turned us all into cape crusading believers.  Unfortunately, I am too well-read for my own good and began to think about the Great Depression and Shirley Temple, and the rise of comic books by Jewish immigrants in response to Hitler's rise in Nazi Germany, and realized that my argument was specious: People have always just gone to the movies and turned to comic books for escapism and, quite frankly, just something to believe in.  In other words, this was nothing new.... But then Aurora, Colorado happened, I began to think about comic book movies all over again.

This is not a screed about the violence in comic book movies. Nor is it a petition to revisit the Second Amendment and what our Forefathers really meant about arming a militia. But it is a request to reframe the psychology that seems to be at play. First, we need to stop calling it "The Batman Shooting." I do not work for Warner Bros., D.C., or any affiliation thereof.  I do not know, nor am I affiliated with, anyone that worked on the movies.  But calling it the "Batman Shooting" or the "Batman Killing" is salacious. It was a tragedy. We don't have to link it to a major movie franchise to get people to tune-in at eleven. Yes, it did happen during a screening of the new Batman movie. Yes, James Holmes did identify himself as "the Joker." But the movie was a conduit for Holmes to express his psychosis not the motivation. So, please stop.  (Additionally, there's the Kent State Shooting, the Virginia Tech Shooting, the Columbine Shooting, and even the Amish School Shooting. This, sadly, is not a one-off. In each and every one of these massacres, we've tried to figure out the pop culture motivation -- bullying! video games! too much pressure on students to succeed! gun culture! -- and the fact of the matter is: these men were mentally ill. If we keep trying to reduce and simplify mental disorders into broader cultural issues that we can legislate, regulate, and detect with metal detectors, we will never get this under control.) The news that weekend, however, couldn't get enough of the "Batman Shooting." Would it harm ticket sales?! What does the NRA have to say?! What was the last thing Jessica Ghawi tweeted?! The line between Life and Art and the imitation of one of the other started to blur indecipherably for all of us. What was real? What was news? What wasn't? A little boy dressed as Batman being ushered out of the theater while there was a real "Joker" with real guns inside felt like theater of the absurd.

I did not go to see THE DARK KNIGHT RISING opening weekend. Not because I was worried, but because despite the shootings, I knew the theaters were still going to be packed. So I waited a week and went with a friend to a small theater that's situated to a much larger, IMAX theater, assuming that it wouldn't be quite as jammed. I was right. There was about thirty of us in the theater. The movie began to roll and during some of the louder explosions, there were flashes of light that seemed to be coming from behind us. Was this something to do with the projection? Were people coincidentally coming in-and-out of the theater letting in the outside light? What the hell is that?! I suddenly realized that I felt nervous which was absolutely ridiculous. (Full disclosure: I'm an ex-cop. The chances of a copy cat shooting on that night in that theater was probably more than a million to one. I know this. And yet....) I realized that the Holmes shooting did play into my enjoyment of the film. I'm usually all for surrendering my disbelief and sinking into the world that the movie makers have created for me. But, I couldn't. Not in that movie, not on that night. And maybe because of it, I suddenly realized how absolutely ridiculous Batman is. And once that happened, I couldn't help but to watch the rest of the movie with a skeptic's eye. Christian Bale's black eye makeup, the way the rubber rippled on the Bat suit, Tom Hardy's Darth Vader-like mask and how ADR must have been a bitch on that. As I walked out the door, I asked my friend what she thought. She shrugged her shoulders. I shrugged mine.  But then I started to think about my unpublished blog post. What did I write about the rise of the comic book movie and our unending appetite for them? I went home and checked it out.

I wrote something about nihilism, something about comedy, and a bit about platforms, and after listing the current movie titles -- which included MAGIC MIKE, TED, and SPIDER-MAN -- I wrote this on July 14th:

"It's the last [movie title, SPIDER-MAN] that made me think about this trend, especially as my Facebook Friends are at Comic-Con and posting about THE DARK KNIGHT RISING and SUPERMAN and how Wonder Woman might make an appearance in THE MAN OF STEEL (which would be awesome! Let screaming casting skirmishes ensue) in preparation for the JUSTICE LEAGUE film, DC's answer to Marvel's AVENGERS. Not to mention all the IRONMAN 3, CAPTAIN AMERICA 2, and THOR 2 articles that grace Variety and Hollywood Reporter. 

And suddenly it occurred to me that contemporary Art -- in regards to film, anyway -- is really about waiting for someone to come and save us."

Hmm....

On July 20th, James Holmes shot up a movie theater. Is it ironic that we continue to pilgrimage to the cinema waiting for a movie hero to come and save us, and the thing that showed up was the villain?