(WATCHMEN SPOILER ALERT)
A week after seeing WATCHMEN I'm still disturbed about the pantextual associations behind the "hate crime" killing of Silhouette, a lesbian superhero from the first generation (the Minutemen) who lives and dies in the opening "Times they Are a Changin'" credit sequence. After wowing audiences with a great V-Day sapphic kiss she's next seen as the victim of a ritual murder; dead in the arms of her lover, bullet holes in their temples and the words "Lesbian Whores" written across the wall in blood. The incident is never mentioned again until Rorschach(Jackie Earle Haley) hazily recalls that Silhouette and her friend were "killed by their own depraved lifestyle." In other words, none of the original Minutemen felt it necessary to avenge her death; it was "deserved" somehow.
I looked around on the web to see if anyone else thought this reeked of unconscious homophobic misogyny, and found only one brave soul over on feminsiting.com:
While the film did show the dead bodies of other superheroes after their "fall", I have a hard time understanding how two superhero(in)es could be killed (and possibly raped) by what appear to be ordinary men.
I personally don't think Zach Snyder meant to be callous or hateful--the post-WW2 era was fraught with homophobia after all, and the grisly tableau was presumably meant to be another Weegee-like photo atrocity reflecting a violent and intolerant America--we're supposed to feel sad and not misogynistic but misanthropic, our opinion of the "common folk" and their barbaric Puritan mores sinking further with every passing tableau--but I wonder whether the Alan Moore original (which I haven't read) is a little more sensitive to misogyny's many subliminal tentacles: the idea that a superhero's lesbianism somehow makes her not only vulnerable to, but somehow deserving of, a bullet from some paltry human sex killer subtextually validates lesbianism as a crime against nature. Snyder may be meaning to shock us with the brutality of American conservatism, but in doing so he's also upholding the status quo, in the typical faux-subversive style of most exploitation. A violent rapist like the Comedian is mourned, his death investigated, but Silhouette's is just chalked up to Old Testament-style wrath. 
As with most of the events in the film, the lesbian murder tableaux has roots not just in American history but in cinematic history as well, most notably the double homicide of the lesbian lovers in Russ Meyer's BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (left). Much as I love the film, the coldness with which our sapphic lovers are dispatched at the film's climax seem to me needlessly brutal (especially with the phallic correctional gun in the mouth). Adding to the idea that their murders were "deserved" is the way their friends instantly forget about them once their whiny crippled manager can suddenly walk again, and the ending narration that notes: "Theirs was not an evil love, but evil came because of it." Huh? They got killed because Lance (Michael Blodgett) wouldn't put out for Z-Man. Why doesn't the narration say that "Lance's prudish heterosexuality caused the death of two innocents"? Crazy as it sounds, that's much closer to the truth. 
In the sexy 1974 Euro-horror VAMPYRES, the lead vamps are a pair of women who are shot down in a similar fashion before the credits, but the idea that they deserved it never really comes across (undoubtedly the film's European pedigree means it's a bit more sophisticated) At any rate, they "live" afterwards and wreak plenty of vengeance on the dull Brit swingers who pass their way. But like the girls of BOUND (left), they're an exception. Even lesbian-produced films like GASOLINE end with the lovers dying violently, as if it's just "how it's gotta be."
Note the subtext in this Vancouver Sun headline: "Apollonia Vanova: Actress with a dark side goes darker still in Watchmen." What on earth is "darker" about being a gay superhero? Again, we're clearly in unconscious associative territory. We might be "liberal" but our deep-seated sexual repression still manifests itself in our every word... even in Vancouver!
I know moral ambiguity is part of the point and I don't mean to criticize WATCHMEN, which I found otherwise inspiring in its post-ironic fascist viciousness. Instead, I'm criticizing the subtext--wherein the straight male audience is pandered to in this hypocritical have-your-cake-and-purge-it-too manner. The lesbian V-Day kiss is for the blue states; the subsequent double murder is like the follow-up pandering to appease the red states (I can see a slavering crowd in Alabama cheering the bloody "Lesbian Whores" tableau the way my fellow New Yorkers cheered the V-day kiss when I saw it in the theater). If we're cheered up/turned on by the lipstick lesbian kiss, we're "cleansed" of association with it by the subsequent murder. Contrast this with male gay relationships in films like MILK or PHILADELPHIA, wherein the slings and arrows of homophobia are what makes our heroes stronger, and their deaths serve as inspiration for a new age of tolerance. With lipstick lesbians it's reversed: we are encouraged to leer away while congratulating ourselves on being so open-minded, at the same time confident in the inevitable "payment due" for these chicks' rejection of the Almighty Phallus.
Of course "we" don't condone these killings--we're horrified by them--but at the same time we dismiss them; what else did they expect after flaunting their "abnormality"? It's that sort unconscious association that keeps us mired to the red state dark ages whether we know it or not. Every time we use the word "slut" or "whore" in a negative context we're reinforcing our own collective sexual strait-jacketing. For all its alleged swinger hedonism, America is still a very repressed place; our puritanism runs so deep that WATCHMEN--despite its best satirical intentions--unwittingly endorses the same reactionary sexual violence it so scathingly critiques.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Dead Lesbian Society: WATCHMEN's Dark Silhouette
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41 comments:
I agree with this distressing gloss on Watchmen. As a detailed reader of the original, one of the things that I don't like about the movie (which did get a lot of things right) is the confusion between Rorschach's perspective on morality and violence, and the director's/movie's perspective on morality and violence. In the original comic, even though Rorschach is one of the narrators, it's clear that he has a specific, intense point of view filtered by his life story (abused child, etc etc) -- it colors his views on women in particular, and the way the world works in general. So in the comic, Rorschach's comment about the Silhouette is understood to be through his own opinion about women and sexuality -- the comic itself stays neutral on this point.
In terms of violence overall, the original comic, although violent, is not nearly as extreme as the movie. Snyder has put his own editorial spin on violence through his loving use of slow-mo effects etc. He's also given more characters more violet scenes -- most of the original crimefighters were just regular people -- so for instance in the scene where Night Owl and Silk Spectre II beat up gang guys in the alley, no one is killed or maimed, it's just a fistfight. So in my opinion, Snyder has taken Rorschach's view on violence and morality and turned it somewhat into the movie's point of view. That's what happened with the shots of Silhouette I think -- both the addition of the kiss and the addition of the murder tableau (neither of which are in the original). So we're seeing Snyder's view of lesbians and the consequences, which makes it the movie's perspective overall. In the original comic, Rorschach and Ozymandias are showing two different, extreme points of view on morality and violence, neither of which really feel like the answer. The movie lost some, but not all of that subtlety.
Another couple of quick points:
You say "none of the original Minutemen felt it necessary to avenge her death." True, and also worth noticing that in contrast to Hooded Justice coming to the rescue of Sally Jupiter from the Comedian. But also, none of the second generation Watchmen were about to turn out and avenge the Comedian's death, until Rorschach stirred them up. In fact, not a mission of vengeance but of paranoia (who will be next?)
Also, in the feminisiting quote, the author wonders how two superheroines could be killed by ordinary men -- worth remembering that in the original, the only crimefighter with superhuman powers was Dr. Manhattan -- the whole point is that these are regular old people who maybe learned some martial arts.
Whew! OK that's enough for now!
Also worth noting, in the novel, the Silhouette's murder is solved off-camera as well. There's no need for a rousing to action, because the criminal is caught-- or at least that's implied as the killer is known. Of course, the point about the film is still spot on.
the biggest problem with Watchmen (novel and film) is that too many people come away from the them feeling that Rorschach is a hero (and that he has a clue about the meaning of the word "justice")...
presumably, Alan Moore did a very bad job of communicating his ideas on that front...
The way I read it--the whole point of the story (and particularly of Rorschach) is that most of these people (no matter how determined they are) have such skewed perspectives that they couldn't do anything to improve the world, even if they did have the physical power to overcome its current set of power relations...
we know that hate crimes regularly went unpunished during the mid-20th century (and still do!)--why would anyone expect the Minutemen to be more enlightened on this subject?
WE didn't stop people like Silhouette being killed during the 1940s, and when the general public read about their murders, they made the same disgustingly glib comments that Rorschach does... And Watchmen is kicking us for that. Kicking us for EVERYTHING we've done wrong, as a society, for the past 70 years...
I loved Silhouette's V-Day kiss, and I didn't find the decision to show her murder any more homophobic than the decision to show Jake Gyllenhall's murder in Brokeback Mountain. That's just the way things are in the good ol' USA.
One should also point out that none of the Minuteman or Watchmen are what you would call sexually *normal* (not that there's anything wrong with that). They are all, at the very least, costume fetishists. This is even clearer in the book than it is in the movie version.
And yes, Jen and Anagramsci, there is always the problem that when a film foregrounds characters like Rorschach or Ozymandas, some in the audience will mistake the character's point of view for the film's point of view. You get the same problem with Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver - to name just one classic example. It's difficult to show ANYTHING on film without appearing to endorse it - or without some members of the audience seeing it as an endorsement, no matter how much it might be qualified by other elements in the film.
It's hard to comprehend Rorschach without understanding his meta-textual origin. He's meant to be a commentary on the comics and characters of Steve Ditko, the creator of Spider-Man who adopted an increasingly uncompromising attitude toward good and evil in his later work. Watchmen was originally conceived as a series using the heroes of Charlton Comics, which DC Comics had recently bought out. The original of Rorschach is The Question, a still relatively mild version of a Ditko vigilante compared to later creations like Mr. A. I'm sure, also, that some memory of Travis Bickle influenced Alan Moore's plans for the character. In any event, comics readers in the know understood that Rorschach embodied an unpleasant extreme of a type they all knew and could compare with other archetypes. Without that awareness of the graphic novel as a commentary on the history of the superhero genre, moviegoers could well mistake Rorschach's perspective for that of his creators, since he dominates so much of the film.
Feels disturbingly like the old movie days where lesbians must die. It's enough for me not to watch it. Even Josh Wheedon was surprised at how upset so many of his fans were at his killing off Tara, esp. immediately after a passionate scene with Willow. Seeing that sort of thing, with no revenge or punishment... we're not there yet, it's still a homophobic ploy, intended or not.
You get the same problem with Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver - to name just one classic example.
There are a lot of formal elements in Taxi Driver, though, that point towards the notion that Travis is a sociopath, not least in that opening sequence with the close-ups on his eyes, the red-tinted light fading in and out on them, the New York streets blurry and saturated with neon.
In contrast, Snyder's Watchmen often lavishes shots of gore and violence (scalded face, broken elbow, cleaved head... just to name a few) that only serve to suggest that we're meant to accept Rorschach's fascist view of justice.
And, interestingly enough, one of the most popular themes in mens magazines is the girl on girl action. Add a fatal outcome to the mix and it makes a very intriguing statement on male/female relationships.
She wasn't the only one, Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice were in a relationship, although it didn't mention anything about it in the movie.
Kay, but the thing is, Rorschach is an extremely right wing, authoritarian headcase. And even though the movie didn't quite capture just how nutso he really was, it still did a decent enough job that no one should have been thinking that Rorschach's opinions were the opinions of the movie makers. So when it was said that the Silhouette was the victim of her own indecent lifestyle, that was all Rorschach, and I feel that we understood the character enough to realize that.
From what I remember of the graphic novel (in the process of re-reading it), the Silhouette's murder was solved, and it was implied that she was murdered by a former nemisis, making the killing a revenge thing and not so much a hate crime. And so, in a twisted sort of way, I actually appreciate the hate crime aspect of the movie, in that it makes a commentary of the times.
I feel like the two snapshots of the Silhouette's life--the kiss, and the murder--weren't done to shock audiences at all. They were meant to help give the viewer an understanding of the extremely familiar yet completely alien reality in which the story takes place, and were part of the bigger whole of the fall of the original Minutemen.
Personally, I find those two shots of the Silhouette to be equally beautiful for utterly different reasons. The kiss is triumph, and the murder is tragedy. They're opposite sides of the same coin, to use a common cliche. And honestly, would you really care so much about the one glimpse of the Silhouette if you didn't have the other?
I also vaguely recall from the comic book that the first Silk Specter says they purged Silhouette from the Minutemen because of her visibility, and that Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis got to stay around because they were closeted. Silk Specter ends up feeling bad about it only in retrospect.
I think Jen has a really good point about the movie's adoption of Rorschach's perspective.
Jen, I also agree with your inspired ranting. Though I also think we're supposed to have some STRANGELOVE-esque ironic distance to the Rorshach interpretation, as implied in the name. But it's Kid Rock American Warrior style irony, Starship Troopers irony. In other words, half this slack-jawed country won't know it's not for real; in other words it's self-fulfilling irony, with more intolerance and violence to come!
In order to both keep the conversation on the film as opposed to the comic and to hide the fact I haven't read the GN, I'm only addressing the movie here, as an enclosed narrative. So forgive me all if I missed telling details. There's no way of knowing all the closeted "otherness" going on in the books via the film. I have READ a lot of comics and come from the generation that grew up on Frank Miller's Daredevil and John Byrne's X-Men, before moving to Hate and Eightball and then stopping altogether before graphic novels really came of age.
Sam, the Charlton Comics angle IS interesting, I didn't know that about Ditko. The only thing I remember about him was that he got real sloppy in his later work. I felt Rorschach was supposed to be a reference to Frank Miller, who also loves verbose "this city is a sewer" style narrators.
I was deleted? Why?
whoa, sorry about that Diva! I was delirious and misunderstood your aim of attack. But I understand now your very good points. There's little understanding of any military build-up in the film.
I ate something poisonous Friday night, but feel better and got the WATCHMEN book at the Strand today, so soon I'll know what I'm talking about, by God.
I got into Alan Moore back in his old Swamp Thing days, very psychedelic, the guy's clearly a British hippy so no doubt this book's meant to be critical of our post-WW2 value system. That's cuz We're #1! USA! USA!
I think it's safe to say that if Alan Moore saw the lesbian-murder sequence, he would be appalled. Treating gay people like human beings is something he feels very strongly about; it's a theme that runs throughout his work, and that he's been pretty explicit in discussing. In fact, I read an interview where he said that one of the things he was worried about with Snyder directing was the probable misogyny and homophobia that would result. (Moore insisted on having nothing to do with the film; he took his name off it, gets no proceeds from it, and has stated that he plans never to see it.)
As another commenter noted, in the book, there are several other gay characters in the Minutemen (Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis are in a relationship.) Sally Jupiter is quoted in one of the textual end papers talking about how the Silhouette was treated poorly by the team, and how sorry she (Sally) felt about that. It's subtly and thoughtfully done.
There's some implication that Adian may be gay as well. And Rorscach's homophobia is definitely not supposed to be an endearing trait.
I saw the movie yesterday, after 20 years of swearing I'd never watch one if it was made.
The thing about Alan Moore's Silhouette, as opposed to Zak Snyder's, is that she's so far out on the periphery of the story that you can blink and miss her. She's there in the group photo, she pokes fun at Sally Jupiter for disguising her Polish origins by changing her surname, and we learn through Jupiter and Hollis Mason about her being thrown out of the group when her lesbianism became public knowledge. Similarly, her death is off camera (if that's the right term to use about a graphic novel!) You actually learn a lot more about her life and death, including IIRC a crime scene photo and a lot about her killer, from a Watchmen sourcebook DC Games released to expand its DC Heroes roleplaying game.
She's not alone in this - Mothman's committal to the asylum in Maine is also reported in the graphic novel and not seen. By contrast Captain Metropolis is almost airbrushed out of the movie - which is pretty funny when you consider that his motive for dressing up in costume and fighting crime is feelings of inadequacy caused by failures at school, college and in the Army. (Again, the DC Heroes sourcebook expands on this a lot.)
But really, she's very nearly the most minor of all the characters. She doesn't even get to be centre stage in a single panel of the orginal artwork (though Dollar Bill suffers similarly).
The Silhouette's function in Alan Moore's original is to point out the hypocrisy of the original Minutemen. Whether it's Sally Jupiter's "Well, I'm sure I wouldn't know what POLISH people think" or a decent man like Mason collaborating with her dismissal from the group, the treatment of the Silhouette shows they aren't the heroes they'd like to be. And her death, like Dollar Bill's, again shows that from the very start that these weren't heroes - they were very mortal human beings. When the Silhouette is killed in the graphic novel, to me it's a deliberate illustration of the way in which society pushes back against people who choose to live outside the rules. Find their weakness, redefine them in a way you can use to marginalise them, then suppress or erase them. And every single character is, by definition, one who lives outside the rules. So by snuffing out a few undeveloped heroes Moore is increasing the threat to the ones who take centre stage.
So why does the Silhouette step forward in the movie and get a scene of her own? Partly I think because Snyder wants to show more of the 1940s than the graphic novel gives him - Mothman and Dollar Bill also get more time, though not HJ or Captain Metropolis. Partly, no doubt, because there's the voyeuristic 'oooh - kick-ass lesbian' bit. And partly because her story has so much untold detail that cries out for development. There's very little more to tell about Dollar Bill - ex-college athlete, gets hired by bank for PR purposes, gets killed. But there's probably a whole untold novel or movie in Ursula Zandt.
Which is why Snyder's heavy-handed graffiti is one of the stupidest moments of the film. How many hate-crazed killers are going to spell out a word like 'lesbian' when vitriol-filled insults are available instead? And why couldn't Synder let us have *all* the meanings instead of channeling us down just one of them in such a clumsy way? In the graphic novel she's just a symbol, the movie shows signs of fleshing her out - but in that moment she's squashed straight back in the box marked 'allegory'.
The Times Square kiss, on the other hand, was the single best moment out of any of the new material created especially for the film. It shows the potential and the power of the Silhouette that Moore saw but never had the space to explore - and the opportunity that Snyder wasted.
Contrary to Noah and others here, I don't think Snyder championed the homophobic murder of the lesbians. I think he was basically in tune with Moore's message that the heroes all had feet of clay (note that Mothman being dragged away to an asylum occurs within minutes of the lesbians' murder).
Note that I said "in tune," not that he Snyder had the same skill-set as Moore. Snyder's handling of the lesbians' murder is blunt and over-the-top, so that while it basically agrees with Moore in condemning homophobia, Snyder is much more sensationalistic.
Similarly, the lesbian kiss in front of gaping crowds was well composed, but entirely illogical if homosexuality was as taboo in the WATCHMEN 1940s as it was in the real period. The murder suggests that the same taboo existed, so the conclusion is that Snyder sacrificed story-logic for a quickie sensation.
I don't think Snyder's homophobic; just as subtle as a donkey punch.
I agree, I think Snyder's intent was to stir up complex emotions regarding America and its homophobia; but the "lesbian whores" in blood though fairly demands retribution in this context, while in the book from what I've gleaned they only mention she was "killed by a minor rival" - which doesn't really stir any hackles.
It's also typical of filmmakers these days to use bludgeons when feathers will do.
There's some implication that Adrian may be gay as well.
What tipped you off, Adrian standing in front of Studio 54 with Bowie and the Village People or the secret file on his computer labeled "Boys"?
Sorry, didn't mean to be as snarky as that sounded--all derision is aimed squarely at Zack Snyder, not Noah. The comic contains a few speculations that Adrian might be gay, but they come from Rorschach and they say as much about his paranoia and homophobia as they do about Adrian's sexuality. Snyder seems to have picked up on that but, in his typically subtle fashion, "hints" at it so broadly that Adrian threatens to become yet another gay murderer in a tradition that I thought we were over. Frankly, I'm amazed this aspect of the movie hasn't seen more discussion.
Also--when exactly does Zack Snyder think a Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie would have been hobnobbing with the Village People?
Anonymous a ways back up the page:
"From what I remember of the graphic novel (in the process of re-reading it), the Silhouette's murder was solved, and it was implied that she was murdered by a former nemisis, making the killing a revenge thing and not so much a hate crime."
I could have sworn that the said former nemesis just outed her, then sat back and let 1940s homophobia do the rest of the work, but I could be misremembering. I'm sure that you'll come across the correct version as you re-read.
Jen said: "so for instance in the scene where Night Owl and Silk Spectre II beat up gang guys in the alley, no one is killed or maimed, it's just a fistfight."
I read the comic and it was NOT just a fistfight. It was Dan and Laurie fending off knife-wielding thugs and causing blood to be drawn.
An anonymous poster said: "She wasn't the only one, Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice were in a relationship, although it didn't mention anything about it in the movie."
You can see it in the retirement party image in the opening scene. Look at Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice to the far right.
Having read Watchmen several times over the years, I've always believed Moore included The Silhouette, Captain Metropolis and Hooded Justice to illustrate how the costumed life attracted people with extreme sexual persuasions. The Silhoutte was a fetishist (and a lesbian), while Hooded Justice was heavily into rough stuff (and a gay man), and his partner ('Nellie')was into being abused. Their sexual identities were not as important as the aspects of sexuality they represented - and that is not to say that Moore is homophobic, nor adverse to other forms of sexuality; it was just added colour to one of the main themes of Watchmen.
I may be wrong, but as a gay man that is how I read it.
And I haven't seen the film.
i'm gay, i didn't think it was homophobic. on the contrary, i thought it was a sad truth about what would have really happened to those women even though silhouette was a crime fighter. it was meant, to me, to reflect badly on the times. i mean, let's be real here, this kind of thing still happens today. (boys don't cry, anyone? lawrence king from oxnard?). the act is shitty but i didn't come awya thinking "watchmen thinks it's cool to kill lesbians". it would have been really stupid to me if they were like "but everyone loved the lesbians! they lived happily ever after!". i mean, just think about how people freak out TODAY in REAL LIFE about not-real gay characters in comics.
can people react stupidly to this and think "oh, good, they died"? yes. but those people are stupid and will never get it/get over it.
i was glad the scene was there. like i said, i think it hits pretty close to home considering the violence lgbtq people still face today in the real world. and a lot of the movie was about how messed up things from the past come back to bite you on the ass/need to be resolved/still affect us. it just reminded me of the issues we still have to deal with today.
Thanks for your comment, Adriana. I agree with you but I think I failed to convey part of my point which is how we might be horrified by her "fate" but not even notice the ramifications and reasons.
Even people who consider themselves very tolerant will often unconsciously fall into this sort of trap. One minute they're crying over MILK, the next they're using "gay" as an insult, "that hat is totally gay, dude" or "what are you, gay?" not even aware of their subconscious partcipation in that which they consciously condemn.
Moore's very public about his pro-gay rights stance, but I get the impression Snyder's attempts to do justice to that are marred by the damaging effects that language and conventional mores have had on his commercial artistic perceptions.
I don't have a problem taking Synder to task for dispensing almost entirely with the subtlety and artfulness of Moore's work, but I will say the reference to Rorschach's to the fate of the Silhouette as "killed by their own depraved lifestyle" I believe is as much in the movie as the comic supposed to viewed as a comment on Rorschach's personal homophobia, not an implicit judgement of the character's morality by the movie's authors and thus shouldn't be part of the discussion.
Almost seconds after he says this, he says the line, taken verbatim from the book, "Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders?" which at least half the theater laughed at. Because, frankly, it's absurd. He's leaping from a rooftop, wearing a sock over his head, and he considers this the behavior of someone who is "healthy, and without personality disorders?"
I'll agree the movie tones down Rorschach's right-wing, conspiracy-theory, homophobic nature a bit and thus the context of the book is a lacking. Still, the audience throughout the movie is made well aware that this is a sick, sick man, and, if they choose to root for him, must deal with the outlandish nature of his views. Moore has Rorschach talk about investigating Ozymandis for possible homosexual behavior in that same scene from the book, and this definitely implies a judgement on behalf of the character.
Thus his comments are blatantly homophobic and misogynist, but we need to divorce this from the promotion of such views by the author. Rorschach's a lunatic, both in the comic and the movie (maybe lacking context in the movie) and thus his views should be taken with a grain of salt.
It may seem like a minor point, but I think it's important to think about.
Gray, you've got a solid point. My criticism isn't meant to be aimed anywhere in particular. We're supposed to be horrified by Mr. R to a point, but the line between satire and sincerity has long been erased, especially in big budget cinema... and for as far ahead as we think we are, it's just a single step back. The "Lesbian whores" is the tip of the iceberg, an iceberg that still unconsciously views murder as somehow "fitting" the crime of homosexuality.
you have a point but please remember this took place in an alternate universe were Nixon was president and it was in the 1940s that was considered not right back then. I've read the novel and they don't really go into the minute men only in the mid ways of chapters where it's Hollis' pieces of the novel you read. In his book is where he mentions the death of Silhouette. They didn't seek revenge because they broke up. The only one in the novel that seeks judgment is rorschach and that was before his time. They are also not super heroes just Heroes Super would mean they would have powers non of them did they where human in the end after all the only super on in the novel is Dr. Manhattan aka Jon.
this website was the only website that quelled my curiosity as i watched the movie couple of days ago.
i'm really into crime history. As I surfed the net trying to figure out the nature of her murder scene, something interesting cameabout.
So here's the irony: Rorschach is westwing and homophobic when he says that she was disgraced by her grave lifestyle. However, the novels mention that he, Kovacs , became his alter ego, Rorschach, after he learns of kitty genovese's murder.
Kitty was from nyc, killed by a necrophile, and her murder was witnessed by 34 useless witnesses during her struggle (60s). She was also a LESBIAN!!!! Her lesbian lover and roommate outed her couple of years ago, so Moore probably didnt know about this when he wrote them.
It's slightly comical, to me at least, that the basis of Rorschach's mask and his character arised from a tragic lesbian murder.
this is beautifully written. thank you for putting into words what i couldn't.
True, there is no mention of the minutemen men trying to avenge Silhouette's death, and it is obvious that she was killed for being a lesbian, but it seems to me that that all means to say if it hadn't happened this way, she would have been killed for something else. There's even a chance that, in some way, she did deserve it. Not for being a lesbian, but because in all likely hood, she /was/ as depraved as the Comedian or Rorschach. One of the points of the graphic novels was that the type who would actually go out and be a vigilante would be sociopaths and generally not good people for all manner of reasons, stamping their own version of justice on the world. Rorschach, being who he is, likely lumped in Silhouette's homosexuality in with her depraved attributes, but it was you who assumed that he was only referring to said homosexuality. Whoever killed her /did/ do it because she was gay, but what you are discussing is that Rorschach's comment and the Minutemen's lack of retribution implies that, as a lesbian, she deserved it, when it seems more like it suggests Silhouette herself may have deserved it. You've also contrasted her death with the Comedian's, when they were both treated in much the same manner, given the circumstances. It was also suggested that the Comedian deserved what happened to him. The Comedian, despite the list of people he hurt who may well have wanted him dead, was killed only because he uncovered part of Adrian's plan, very similar to how Silhouette was killed for being a lesbian, despite what I see as evidence that she may have been no better than the Comedian. The Comedian was only mourned in the slightest by the very woman he raped and she explained why she never really hated him (and in the movie there is no evidence that no one mourned Silhouette). Some of the Watchmen did attend his funeral but only for the time they spent with him and possibly because no one else would attend or even knew who he was. His murder /was/ investigated, only by Rorschach, and he started that investigation before he even knew it was the Comedian who was murdered, because there wasn't a clear motive like in Silhouette's murder, and because, being a sociopath, Rorschach's black and white world view wouldn't allow him to leave any crime unpunished. Had Rorschach been active at the time, there's every reason to believe he would have investigated Silhouette's murder.
It almost seems like you accepted Silhouette's homosexuality at face value as the cause of all that happened to her, and while you read very deeply into what was and wasn't said about her murder, you didn't read into anything that suggested who she was, or why the other characters would react the way they did. I find it a bit odd that you read so very deeply into these few scenes in the intro, and then when Rorschach said she was "killed by their own depraved lifestyle",you apparently said, "oh, he must mean her homosexuality" and left it at that.
While you weren't anywhere nearly as bad or single-minded as the feminist article you linked to, you both were clearly predisposed to find this 'homophobic misogyny'.
I think it's relevant that only the two of you posted anything on it.
If you can't tell that Rorschach's idea of what other people "deserve" to experience is warped beyond all sanity, then let me spell it out for you: Rorschach's idea of what other people "deserve" to experience is warped beyond all sanity, and that's the point.
I don't think you know a damn thing about red states.
In the case of Rorschach, it's a matter of Alan Moore making his negative references too subtle - Rorschach is meant to be a parody of conservatives, sort of along the "Dirty Harry/Punisher" line. THe characterization is intentionally meant to be insulting, and caters to all the stadard prejudices liberals have in regards the "red state" folks, right down to the callous prostitute-mother. Really, if there'a anyone that Moore would deign cater to from his lofty ideological pedestal, it would be his fellow Leftists, and that means people who want to use gay people as a political power block. He even has Rorschach becoming a vigilante because of the Kitty Genovese's death (a lesbian), so his status on the morality of murdering gay people is pretty clear to anyone who has a sufficient grasp of the pop references.
Your comments do remind me why Leftist propaganda tends to be much less nuanced than "Watchmen" is. These ideological Nazis tend to want their message spelled out as simply nad as directly as possible, so that no possible mistake can be made as to what it is. Moore is not the sort to cater to the majority compulsion, however, and wants the leftist propaganda he creates to be nuanced, intellectually compelling, and above all effective. He mainly speaks to the intellectuals amongst comic fandom, essentially in an attempt to win them over the the Leftist worldview by compelling them to jump to the conclusions he chooses, all the while thinking that the ideas they "discover" are their own. His success in this regard is why so many people consider him a genius, and why the Watchmen is rated as a comic book masterpiece by the liberal intelligensia.
Of course, as a Reagan Republican, I can't stand his stuff. But I think your own criticisms are entirely unfair. Not that I'd want to defend Alan Moore, of all people (!), but I'd suggest you're about as far off the mark as you can get.
My dear Dr., you are aptly named for your comments cut me like a scalpel.
However I think you misunderstand my point, which centers less on Rorshcach and more on the "Lesbian WHORES" written in blood on the wall, which is not in the comic book, and which encourages the "she asked for it" reading as automatic, an assumed and just fate, if a hate crime, rather than something the film would have the actual guts to expose directly. It's not unlike the older brother who keeps slapping your face saying "you know I'm kidding, right?" over and over, any critique of fascism can unconsciously endorse the way of thinking it presumes its undermining. THis is what Hollywood is all about. Coke adds life! You know, I'm kidding right? Coke kills!
Your otherwise interesting criticism of my blog entry indicates you didn't grasp this idea, which is understandable, but YOU are in fact doing what you think I am doing with the original text, misreading an intended larger and more pervasive point. For I am not saying WATCHMEN is homophobic at all, far from it, I think the film (which Moore is not part of since he's not in the credits) indicates an auteur who is closeted to its own fear of castration and difference, regardless of the fact athat what he is filming directly and fearlessly examines sexism, homophobia and misogyny.
In that sense, it has a rich history in exploitation cinema, wherein lesbians are shot dead by an unseen prowler in several films, but why? It points somewhere, mon freund. Alan Moore's orientation or intention is irrelevant in this case, as it has nothing to do with the original book, it's a meta-textual reading of the film only, where every choice of words left in the script or added is indicative of an underlying world view, conscious or not. Imagine if you will a scene such as the rape in BOYS DONT CRY, but set to low Barry White music and soft lighting. So sad... so tragic, baby...aww just relax. it's not the same of course, but maybe it will help you see where I'm coming from.
Or maybe I'm just too sensitive? I've argued this already too many times on this thread. I can be wrong... but the use of "whores" makes it seem like Moore's original material was re-written by a frat boy, that's all.
they should sell that VJ poster, anyone got a good screencap of it?
"For I am not saying WATCHMEN is homophobic at all, far from it, I think the film (which Moore is not part of since he's not in the credits) indicates an auteur who is closeted to its own fear of castration and difference, regardless of the fact athat what he is filming directly and fearlessly examines sexism, homophobia and misogyny.
In that sense, it has a rich history in exploitation cinema, wherein lesbians are shot dead by an unseen prowler in several films, but why? It points somewhere, mon freund. "
Thank your for this excellent analysis and pointing at the connection to exploitation cinema. You express very clearly what I feel about the director of Watchmen, and not just him (Tarantino’s pseudo- feminist movies come to mind).
First of all let me say that I usually don't comment on films that I haven't seen yet. But after I heard that Watchmen was directed by the same guy that did 300, I though uh-oh…
The lesbian scenes are just what I would have expected from him.
After having seen the kiss scene on the net, and then hearing about the murder, this film deepens the (for lack of better words) disturbance that I have felt since lesbian main characters started to come out in media products during the 1990, and, after creating feelings of intense euphoria in their queer audience, where killed off one by one (or "snuffed off" as someone said, interestingly)- Dax, Xena, Tara anyone?
In my early 20s I have been involved in organizing one of the first lesbigay film festivals in Europe. At that time (1988) there were no such things as feature films with positive queer characters that we could show. Instead, for preparation, we viewed what must have been like 50 classic films with queer characters, all killed off during the plot, often in disturbingly sadistic ways.
At the same time, someone from the US did a film lecture that consisted of cutting all these queer murder scenes into a 90 minute program, with very little comment. I believe that nobody who has seen that lecture will ever forget it. It was distilled Western film history.
I guess, I don't have to explain how I felt when they started killing off Dax & co.
These new killings were even more problematic than the old ones, because they contain a weird double message that first encourages a coming out, even celebrates queerness, but eventually punishes it- accidentally. Officially, none of these characters were killed for their "depraved lifestyles". But the message is understood anyway— (spelled out it is, as always: if you are queer you die).
The message of these killings gets even clearer when you compare them to the killing of contemporary straight main characters, or lack thereof. Apart from Cpt. Kirk there are few who were "snuffed off", while a high percentage of the lesbian characters was killed.
Someone mentioned Joss Whedon’s surprise at the reaction after Tara's death. He obviously wouldn't have been surprised if he would have been educated in queer film history. But Whedon is pro-queer. So what is happening here, I wonder.
I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who described in Blink how media products are one of the very few ways to actually change unconscious racism- the type of racism that Gladwell himself as a person of colour displayed in experiment. If I remember rightly, this unconscious racism is very difficult to change (there is a scientific method to measure it, read the book). But after watching positive films about successful people like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela, it suddenly gets measurably less.
Meaning, it can probably be increased by watching films that show racist stereotypes.
(to be continued in the next post)
(continued from the last post)
I believe that films like Watchmen, or series like Buffy and DS9 document and increase, unconscious homophobia (racism and eugenic ideology) without their directors even knowing what they are doing. They are reproducing and increasing an unconscious message that is going on- while on the surface we are all nice guys of course. They reflect the double opinion that many people seem to have today (queer is good, I’m a good person, I’m tolerant, queer is somehow wrong, or dangerous).
That said, Russel T Davies has been criticised for killing off the gay love interest of Cpt Jack Harkness from Torchwood, recently. Davis is gay himself and he is annoyed, that, as a gay author he is expected to write "politically correct" scripts, which interferes with his work. But Russel has actually killed off two main straight characters before "killing the fag"... (still I wish he would have kept Ianto).
U.M.
"(I can see a slavering crowd in Alabama cheering the bloody "Lesbian Whores" tableau the way my fellow New Yorkers cheered the V-day kiss when I saw it in the theater)."
I find it interesting that you promote an invidious stereotype in a post decrying an invidious stereotype. People in the South may, generally, be less sympathetic to the LGBT cause than people in other parts of the country, but the image of the Southern degenerate hate mob is just as much a stereotypical image as the Doomed Lesbian. And I would argue that it's more unequivocally a negative stereotype. At least the Doomed Lesbian is treated as a tragic figure with whom the audience is supposed to be sympathetic (though ultimately dismissive). The Irrational Hate-filled Southerner is nothing but a bogey-man. (And yet the image is taken as truthful by so many.)
So... for shame.
It seems to me that the movie version of Rorshach murdered the two women; because the writing on the wall is similar to Rorshachs handwriting (caps letters mixed with a lower case ‘e’ for example).
Horrible!
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