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March 28, 2024, 07:28:48 PM

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Re-evaluating Watchmen (2009)

Started by Ferris, March 26, 2021, 12:39:10 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

13 schoolyards

In his comics Moore pretty much opened the door for smarter, more substantial takes on superheroes, but while he's usually lumped in with the writers that followed him it's handy to remember that he's actually coming out of an older, pre-80s tradition of pulp where rape / "a fate worse than death" was both commonplace and rarely examined.

A lot of the use of rape in his work seems to me to be more about him examining and deconstructing a trope that he sees* as central to the kind of pulp adventures he's writing, while many of his readers are from a different time and are like "why do you keep going over this creepy stuff?"

*he could be wrong

Mister Six

To what extent is he examining it though? Rape - usually man-on-woman, occasionally man-on-boy - turns up in most of his high-profile works, but it's usually a plot point or spot of character-building for the women, and a way to identify a bloke as a nasty sort when the victim is a boy. It's very rarely examined in any depth or treated as the subject of the story (and where it is a plot point it's usually used to impact the stories of male characters one way or another).

Swamp Thing is the only thing that I can remember Moore writing  that focused in depth on the trauma that comes from rape[nb]Abby scrubbing her skin with wire wool after realising she was tricked into committing incest.[/nb] or, now I think about it, that had an adult male protagonist being raped.[nb]Swamp Thing in space in that prose issue, although it's rather obliquely referenced.[/nb]

(Actually I just remembered the male saint getting gang-raped by Vikings in Voice of the Fire, but he's not really the protagonist, just a vision the actual protagonist is having, and anyway he's a rare exception.)

Custard

Re-reading Watchmen (actually it was the black n white Noir version on Comixology, as my proper version is stuck in storage) last night, the book presents The Comedian as a complete cunt for his attempted rape of Sally Jupiter. I certainly didn't get a sense of him glamourising it, or putting it in there for entertainment. It's there to show how messed up Comedian is, as a man. And also, of course, to set up Sally as a potential suspect or accomplice in his murder.

I feel its handled in the right way, presenting the attacker as an awful cunt, with the assualt still echoing in the victim's mind, and her daughter's.

Maybe some people find it weird that Sally says she no longer hates him for it, as it was so long ago, and people make mistakes etc, but that happens in real life quite often too, as obviously we all handle traumatic events in different ways

A lot of writers and authors have issues or situations they will return to in their work, it doesn't necessarily mean they're fixated or obsessed with it.

Unless of course it's Tarantino with feet

Zetetic

I don't think the discussion is so much about whether Moore "glamourises" rape, but that whether using it repeatedly as a device to:
Quote from: Shameless Custard on March 29, 2021, 10:48:27 AM
show how messed up [some character] is, as a man.
has some downsides.

MojoJojo

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on March 28, 2021, 12:38:22 PM
Isn't that just a reflection of society? Women go with much older men quite often, not so much the opposite.

Yeah, but it's all the time in Moore. I'm literally struggling to think of any Moore relationships where there isn't a big age difference. I was going to mention the police captain from Top 10, but then I remembered his partner started out as his junior sidekick.

So far the only age similar pairing I can think of* is Tom Strong and his wife. Maybe Caesar, depending on whether you count in dog years or not.

The sexual violence I weirdly have less issue with. Moore does over rely on it, but at least it's a something he's writing about. While the age difference stuff is just there and never addressed, as if he thinks a 30 year age gap is absolutely the norm.

Quote from: Mister Six on March 29, 2021, 03:15:19 AM(Top 10 has loads of 'em, and they're all memorable and interesting, although yeah it does climax with
Spoiler alert
a big burly man hero killing an evil burly woman villain
[close]
so....).

As I recall
Spoiler alert
SMAX just gets bashed around, and Toybox uses one of her Hueys to inject the drug that kills whatsherface
[close]

(*OK, obviously there are some minor characters. But really it's a struggle)

13 schoolyards

I suspect part of it is based in Moore's interest in writing horror. The rape material in Neonomicon and Providence is awful, but they're horror stories and being awful is part of the job. Likewise big chunks of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is clearly meant to be horrific, and part of his early approach to superheroes was often to treat them as scary individuals and try to create a sense of real-world menace around them.

I can't think of any examples of rape in any of Moore's comedic work, and when he was trying to do "serious" comic literature in the 90s he tended to either avoid it (A Small Killing, Big Numbers, though who knows where that was going) or writing things that overtly dealt with sexuality up front in a variety of ways (From Hell, Lost Girls).

I'm definitely giving Moore the benefit of the doubt here, but I guess my view is that while he probably could have used it less in his work it's never felt gratuitous or treated lightly.

13 schoolyards

Quote from: MojoJojo on March 29, 2021, 11:02:57 AM
Yeah, but it's all the time in Moore. I'm literally struggling to think of any Moore relationships where there isn't a big age difference.

Laurie Jupiter and Dan in Watchmen are fairly age-appropriate. Mina eventually catches up to Allan Quartermaine (and Hyde is roughly around her age). Swamp Thing and Abby aren't too far apart either. Supreme's love interest was around his age as well I think?

Then again, the lead in A Small Killing is threatened by a child
Spoiler alert
who turns out to be himself
[close]
so who knows what's going on there.

bgmnts

Quote from: 13 schoolyards on March 29, 2021, 11:06:21 AM
I suspect part of it is based in Moore's interest in writing horror. The rape material in Neonomicon and Providence is awful, but they're horror stories and being awful is part of the job. Likewise big chunks of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is clearly meant to be horrific, and part of his early approach to superheroes was often to treat them as scary individuals and try to create a sense of real-world menace around them.

Plus to be fair Griffin and Hyde are absolutely monsters in the source material so it makes sense they would rape.

Mobbd

Quote from: colacentral on March 28, 2021, 04:53:56 PM
The Leftovers gets better as it goes on too. I almost binned it off in the first season, but the third season is up there with the all time greatest seasons of anything ever. The final episode, in particular, is beautiful.

I'm with you in hating all the other stuff you've mentioned, but my impression is more that he'll take a job and write something for the money, and is willing to do as he's ordered, but that with a bit of freedom he's a genuinely good writer with good ideas.

Quote from: mothman on March 28, 2021, 04:33:35 PM
Lindelof being viewed solely through a prism of his past association with the JJ crowd and their ouevre is a common misapprehension (guilty). Especially as The Leftovers and the Watchmen limited series are both superb. I'm not sure what he's up to next but the crushing weight of expectations may come into play.

This is great news. A lovely surprise. Thanks all. I'm still on Watchmen and enjoying it. Will move on to Leftovers.

Mobbd

Isn't Moore friends with Josie Long? I can't see her having any time for a creep with a sexual violence fixation.

I think we can lay off Alan Moore. Where sexual violence comes up, it isn't framed as a good thing. If it's exploited, can we not chalk that up to the pulp medium in which he is writing? Alan Moore always exploded the medium and utilised the shrapnel.

Lost Girls, from what I remember, is very sex positive, no? Wasn't it a collaboration with his wife, essentially an act of love in its own right? I stand to be corrected.

Dr Rock

IMO it's not a clue to him being a sicko  pervert or whatever (and that may be because he's built my trust over the years with too many stories that were a huge influence with his planet-sized brain), but it's a trope he overused a long time ago, and it harms his oeuvre that he relies on it so often, with no great insight that might justify the multitude of rapes, sexual abuse and near-rapes he writes.

MojoJojo

Quote from: 13 schoolyards on March 29, 2021, 11:24:51 AM
Laurie Jupiter and Dan in Watchmen are fairly age-appropriate.

You're right, there's only 4 years difference officially. I don't know how much the film has influenced me here, as Dan certainly looks a lot older.

Custard

Lost Girls is pure filth. In a good way. If you ever fancied seeing (an adult) Dorothy Gale get munched out by (an adult) Alice In Wonderland, then this is the book for you

It did actually shock me at first with how graphic it is, and the constant orgies and incest, and I couldn't quite believe it came (hehe) from Moore, partly.

Can't remember any rape in that one. Everyone seems to enjoy shagging everyone. But yeah, you need a long cold shower afterwards

Zetetic


stonkers

Quote from: Dr Rock on March 29, 2021, 11:47:52 AM
IMO it's not a clue to him being a sicko  pervert or whatever (and that may be because he's built my trust over the years with too many stories that were a huge influence with his planet-sized brain), but it's a trope he overused a long time ago, and it harms his oeuvre that he relies on it so often, with no great insight that might justify the multitude of rapes, sexual abuse and near-rapes he writes.

Pretty much bang on, this.

Quote from: C_Larence on March 28, 2021, 10:19:04 PM
Been a while since I read it, but isn't the League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen full of it? Dim, possibly false, memories of the invisible man raping a woman and then in turn getting raped by Mr Hyde.

Spoiler alert
Mr Hyde in fact rapes the Invisible Man to death.
[close]

bgmnts

In those examples though, I definitely think it's reflects their characters, as written in his book and in the original source material.

Is there rape in Jerusalem? I'm only a bit into it and its so large I may have forgotten.

Mister Six

Quote from: Dr Rock on March 29, 2021, 11:47:52 AM
IMO it's not a clue to him being a sicko  pervert or whatever (and that may be because he's built my trust over the years with too many stories that were a huge influence with his planet-sized brain), but it's a trope he overused a long time ago, and it harms his oeuvre that he relies on it so often, with no great insight that might justify the multitude of rapes, sexual abuse and near-rapes he writes.

Yes, exactly this. I'm not saying that Moore is a psychopath or portrays rape as a good thing, or has rape fantasies or anything,[nb]Although TBH if someone does have those fantasies I don't really care so long as they are restricted purely to consensual roleplaying or something.[/nb] and I'm not saying it makes him a shit writer or that he should be #cancelled or anything. I just think that his reliance on rape as a plot or characterisation point is notable and potentially PrObLEmAtIc.

Quote from: 13 schoolyards on March 29, 2021, 11:06:21 AM
I suspect part of it is based in Moore's interest in writing horror. The rape material in Neonomicon and Providence is awful, but they're horror stories and being awful is part of the job. Likewise big chunks of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is clearly meant to be horrific, and part of his early approach to superheroes was often to treat them as scary individuals and try to create a sense of real-world menace around them.

I can't think of any examples of rape in any of Moore's comedic work, and when he was trying to do "serious" comic literature in the 90s he tended to either avoid it (A Small Killing, Big Numbers, though who knows where that was going) or writing things that overtly dealt with sexuality up front in a variety of ways (From Hell, Lost Girls).

I'm definitely giving Moore the benefit of the doubt here, but I guess my view is that while he probably could have used it less in his work it's never felt gratuitous or treated lightly.

The rapes committed by the Invisible Man in the girl's school in LoEG Vol. 1 are absolutely played for laughs (complete with one of his victims being the ever-cheerful Pollyanna, who vows not to let it get her down) and his death at Hyde's hands is absolutely played for pitch-black humour. Top 10 is largely comedic and that has Smax being born of rape as a bit of casual backstory (again, used to inform characterisation/motivation of a man, too).

Again, I'm not saying Moore shouldn't have done this or that he thinks rape is a GBOL or anything, but it's there.

Actually, off the top of my head, Moore's works that feature rape or sexual assault (spoilers for everything of course...).

SWAMP THING
Abby is raped by her uncle who is possessing the body of her husband. Swamp Thing is raped by an alien intelligence.

V FOR VENDETTA
Rose is raped by Nazis (IIRC V forces her into that position in order to cause her to have a nervous breakdown so she'll assassinate a prominent figure and Rose's fate is left unknown, but probably not good). The lesbian prisoner whose notes are found might have been raped in prison?

TOP 10
Smax is the product of rape. The Superman analogue and maybe some of his Justice League pals have been sexually abusing their boy sidekicks.

TOP 10: THE 49ers
Women are turned into vampires and then pimped out.

TOP 10: SMAX
More detail on Smax's mum's rape.

LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN
The Invisible Man rapes and impregnates a bunch of girls at a Catholic school. He rapes Mina Harder too, IIRC. Hyde rapes him in revenge, causing massive and fatal haemmhoraging. Women being raped in the background in Limehouse. Got a bit bored by the time Century came out but IIRC there's something rapey there too with the James Bond analogue trying to grab Mrs Peel and getting a knee in the bollocks in kind?

WATCHMEN
Sally Jupiter is raped by The Comedian. The Comedian also rapes a lot of women in Vietnam, getting one of them pregnant and subsequently shooting her in the belly.

VOICE OF THE FIRE
The caveboy thinks he is having sex with a girl, but she's a boy in disguise (so more of a "not informed consent" rape than a violent one). The narrator of the Crusades story casually talks about the women and boys he and his allies raped in the Middle East. The nun has a vision of the martyred saint being gang-raped by Vikings before he is killed.

THAT LOVECRAFT THING
Haven't read it yet, but as I understand it, a female nymphomaniac is given to a fishman to be repeatedly raped ahead of her sacrifice, but she manages to get him on her side by masturbating him instead.

THE BOJEFFRIES SAGA
The monstrous daughter character kidnaps and physically assaults a young man with the intention of "seducing" him. It's subverted at the end in that she doesn't actually know what sex is and he's able to run away, but still.

MIRACLEMAN
Miracle Boy rapes a nurse after himself being gang-raped in a borstal. I think he rapes a bunch of other people during his London rampage but not sure on that.

THE KILLING JOKE
Joker at the very least strips and assaults Barbara after shooting her in the spine. I think it's implied that he raped her too.

SOME DC STORY I FORGET FROM WHERE
A busty alien anthropologist wants to seduce a handsome alien, who wants to "put his spear in her to make a baby". HILARIOUS TWIST: That's literally how procreation works on the planet and he stabs her to death.

FROM HELL
I mean...

Again, I'm not saying that any of these individual works, or Moore's career, as a whole, should be changed. And it's never as arbitrary and EDGY and Mark Millar's much more cynical usage. But it's there, and it's notable.

Custard

I remember Robert Kirkman was heavily criticised for a rape which took place in The Walking Dead. Lots of people thinking it was way too graphic, and that he was even glamourising it

It was extremely horrific, and it was implied that the character was raped several times over, over the course of several days, whilst being held in chains. Though you don't see the actual abuse happening, just the various aftermaths

I remember reading that and it being one of the only times when I seriously thought that maybe a piece of entertainment had gone too far. It was extremely disturbing, and jarring, and just bloody horrible

Right or wrong, I guess sexual assault is another way for a writer to get across how fucked up or evil a character is, along with murder, emotional abuse, etc etc. All of which happen in comics regularly

After that, I don't think Kirkman went near sexual abuse again. At least not that graphically. Whereas I can imagine Moore being more the type to ignore any criticism and carry on writing exactly what he wants to write. It is surprising to find out how often sexual violence occurs in his work

Anyway I'm waffling a bit, I just remembered the Kirkman controversy, and it seemed to fit in here

Mister Six

Was that
Spoiler alert
Michonne
[close]
?

If so, I read a little past that to the bit
Spoiler alert
where she spent an issue torturing the Governor
[close]
and then called it quits. Just felt really unnecessary. The comic had been "shocking" before, but it didn't have the dramatic weight to carry that sort of thing.

Blumf

Moore's been interviewed a few times, has nobody broached the issue? Could the next interviewer give it a punt?

Mister Six

Quote from: Blumf on March 30, 2021, 01:09:14 AM
Moore's been interviewed a few times, has nobody broached the issue? Could the next interviewer give it a punt?

https://slovobooks.wordpress.com/2014/01/09/last-alan-moore-interview/

I was going to copy and paste what he wrote there (it's a little way down below the golliwog questions and contextualised by the introduction) but it's about the length of a novella[nb]Or one of Moore's panel descriptions in the From Hell scripts.[/nb] and I couldn't be arsed.

I also don't have the time or energy to read it right now, so I'm just going to dismiss Moore as a rape-o-monst. #cancelled

bgmnts

Think he makes a few good points there. But I havent read all of his work so I can't really say.

13 schoolyards

If nothing else, that interview does an extremely good job of kicking Grant Morrison around the block. I think I still have the issue of Speakeasy with the Drivel column where Morrison accused Moore of plagiarism over the early chapters of From Hell - guess revenge really is a dish best served cold.

Moore's response to "what's the deal with all the rape?" in that interview seems to boil down to "I'm just reflecting the realities of a society where sexual assault is both extremely common and largely ignored". Which seems a little unusual for a writer of fantastic adventure serials, but bringing real-world concerns into comic book subject matter has always been his big selling point.

Custard

Mister Six - yep, the Governor and Michonne stuff. Awful

I think if I ever re-read TWD, I'll be skipping over all that too.

robotam

Quote from: Mobbd on March 26, 2021, 05:25:19 PM
Is that an extra feature or is it actually cut into the film?

They cut it into the film.




My thoughts on some of the other stuff:

-Moore seems like a good guy but I haven't read too much of his stuff. In general, I think sexual assault and other types of abuse are often handled very badly in "mature" comics. Like, as others have pointed out The Walking Dead.

-Snyder is no great visionary but I don't think we can assume he misunderstands the comic. I have no idea how decisions get made with movies, I imagine a few compromises had to be made. The comic is better though.

colacentral

Quote from: 13 schoolyards on March 30, 2021, 05:34:42 AM
If nothing else, that interview does an extremely good job of kicking Grant Morrison around the block. I think I still have the issue of Speakeasy with the Drivel column where Morrison accused Moore of plagiarism over the early chapters of From Hell - guess revenge really is a dish best served cold.

Oof.

QuoteA possible reason for Morrison's excruciating perseverance was to be found some years later in another fanzine contribution that I had pointed out to me, this time an interview in the American Comics Journal where he discussed his early reaction to my work. By this juncture his appreciation had evidently moved on from the mere 'inspiration' which he claimed to have found in my work during our only conversation in a Glaswegian curry house, to the remarkable statement that he had experienced such a strong response to my early stories that he'd felt, in a sense, that they were actually his stories. While this would explain why he'd felt at liberty to plunder them for ideas, I feel I must point out that in the limited technical sense of things that really happened in the real world, those were actually my stories, weren't they? Later in the same interview, he reflected upon those early years of struggle and upon the frustrations he'd known upon realising that he still wasn't famous enough (fame seemingly being the whole point of his career, rather than say the development of a distinctive voice or talent). Allegedly it was at this point that the young author, presumably lacking the option of attracting attention by means of original and well-written stories, decided that it would be easier to gain status by smearing my name from the safety of his fanzine columns. He expressed some mild regret that this had for some reason led to me not wanting anything to do with him, but in validation of his unusual method for attaining fame without noticeable ability, he pointed out that it had worked. The end, at least in the Morrison household, would always seem to justify the means. And although he certainly implied that he'd only employed this ugly technique during his disadvantaged entry into the field, as far as I can tell he never actually stated in so many words that he'd stopped, or that he'd ever had enough imagination to engineer another means of drawing attention to himself and his otherwise unrewarding product. I presume that in the world which Grant Morrison and his fellow mediocrities inhabit, where the worth of one's work is a remote consideration after one's bank balance and degree of celebrity, these methods are seen as completely legitimate or even in some way entertaining.

It appears that he never developed to a degree where he felt he could safely abandon either his sniping criticisms of my work or his Happy Shopper emulation of the same. I remember some several months after my announcement of the fractal mathematics-based Big Numbers, or The Mandelbrot Set as it was originally known, I had someone call my attention to a Mandelbrot set that had been spuriously shoehorned into the plot of an issue of Grant Morrison's superhero comic Animal Man. This may, admittedly, have been no more than trivial and unimportant coincidence, and yet over the next year or so it would come more and more to look like Morrison's sole creative strategy and an obvious extension of his strange 'I felt they were really my ideas' ethos. I remember Eddie Campbell advancing the theory that Grant Morrison had arrived at most of his published works around this time by reading my early press releases concerning projects which it would take me years to complete and then rushing into print with his limited conception of what he thought my work might end up being like. I announce From Hell and in short order he 'has the idea' for a comic strip account of a historical serial murderer. I announce Lost Girls, a lengthy erotic work involving characters from fiction, and within a few months he has somehow managed to conceptualise a Vertigo mini-series along exactly those lines. What I at first believed to be the actions of an ordinary comic-business career plagiarist came to take on worrying aspects of cargo cultism, as if this funny little man believed that by simply duplicating all of my actions, whether he understood them or not, he could somehow become me and duplicate my success. It would appear that at one stage, as an example, he had concluded that the secret to being a big-time acclaimed comic-writer was to be found in having a memorable hairstyle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the possession of talent, hard-earned craft or even his own ideas would seem never to have occurred to him.

Having removed myself as much as possible from a comic scene that seemed more the province of posturing would-be pop-stars than people with a genuine respect for themselves, their craft or the medium in which they were working, I could only marvel when the customary several months after I'd announced my own entry into occultism and the visionary episode which I believed Steve Moore and myself to have experienced in January, 1994, Grant Morrison apparently had his own mystical vision and decided that he too would become a magician. (It wasn't until I read Lance Parkin's biography that I learned that as a result of Morrison's apparently unwitnessed magical epiphany he had boldly decided to pursue a visionary path of 'materialism and hedonism'. Could I point out for the benefit of anyone who may have been taking this idiotic shit seriously that this doesn't sound so much like a mystical vision as it does an episode of The Only Way Is Essex? How does this magical discipline and philosophy differ in any way from the rapacious Thatcherite ideologies of the decade in which Grant Morrison wriggled his way to prominence?) I'm reliably informed that he has recently made the unprecedented move of expressing his dissatisfaction with the superhero industry, if only because there isn't as much money in it as there used to be, and I imagine that there is a very strong likelihood that he will contrive to die within four to six months of my own demise, after leaving pre-dated documents testifying to the fact that he actually predeceased me.

Custard


Mister Six

Does anyone know what Moore is referring to in this bit?

QuoteI announce From Hell and in short order he %u2018has the idea%u2019 for a comic strip account of a historical serial murderer. I announce Lost Girls, a lengthy erotic work involving characters from fiction, and within a few months he has somehow managed to conceptualise a Vertigo mini-series along exactly those lines.

I can't think of a Morrison book about a historical serial killer, or an erotic Vertigo mini "involving characters from fiction".

I love Moore, but I get the feeling his bitterness is either messing with his memory or making him credulous to the made-up accusations of others.

Quote from: robotam on March 30, 2021, 12:13:50 PM
-Snyder is no great visionary but I don't think we can assume he misunderstands the comic. I have no idea how decisions get made with movies, I imagine a few compromises had to be made. The comic is better though.

Not assume, but divine from the actual film he made, and from absolutely everything else he has produced that goes against the themes and philosophies of Moore's work, and from his own pronouncements about how he views the world and politics.

Compromised are always made in films with substantial budgets, but they don't tend to be thematic or involve the day-to-day act of filming individual scenes. The tone and treatment of Snyder's film is his own, unless there's a Suicide Squad-level amount of fuckery by the producers that has somehow gone unmentioned until now...

Ferris

From that Moore piece. Really made me chuckle at the concept and the faintly ludicrous way he paints Morrison (validly or otherwise):

QuoteWhat I at first believed to be the actions of an ordinary comic-business career plagiarist came to take on worrying aspects of cargo cultism, as if this funny little man believed that by simply duplicating all of my actions, whether he understood them or not, he could somehow become me and duplicate my success. It would appear that at one stage, as an example, he had concluded that the secret to being a big-time acclaimed comic-writer was to be found in having a memorable hairstyle. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the possession of talent, hard-earned craft or even his own ideas would seem never to have occurred to him.

Custard

"Funny little man" is my favourite bit