Thursday, May 30, 2013
"Batman Begins" (2005)
(Sigh), I like superhero movies. I liked it. I thought it was well done. I forgot to look and see how long it was before I started it--2 hours 20 min.--which isn't bad, but now I'm up later than I thought--which is a good sign because it means I really didn't want to stop the movie, or at least not permanently stop it. (I had to pause it a few times to deal with prolonged suspense or plot elements I didn't like--but that's quite normal for me. One of the reasons I like DVDs.) I like how the story took it's time with the different story elements--the transformation into Batman and the coming together of the Bat Cave and other elements; shied away from doing it strictly montage as much as it could. Kind of like having 2 movies in one--I don't mind that--some of Grace Livingston Hill's books do that. Found myself wondering if there are any super heroes that haven't lost their parents: Spiderman not only doesn't have his parents, but loses his uncle, too; Daredevil loses his dad, no mom in the picture; Superman had foster parents, whether knowingly growing up or not. So, now something I'm watching for--does any super hero still have his or her parents around? And the Bat mobile? Cool car! I like chase scenes.
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File this under "articles I read awhile ago and didn't think anyone else would care about": http://www.wisegeek.com/why-are-there-so-many-orphan-heroes-and-superheroes.htm
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the theory that so many superheroes are orphans because that status makes them "children of the world," so they save the world to please their "parents."
Off the top of my head, Raven and Starfire from Teen Titans have parents, although part of the schtick is that they are superheroes who are also teenagers, so the parents are played for conflict (whether humorous and incidental or more menacing; I believe Raven's father is a demon) more than for supportive mentors. Also Wonder Woman's mother is Queen Hippolyta, and Jean Gray is portrayed as having parents up until fairly recently in the XMen. And now I'm noticing that all the superheroes I've named are female, and wondering if there's a gendered element to this phenomenon. Do female superheroes need family to drive story in a way that male superheroes do not? Hmmmm...there's a paper in that.
(Also I loved this Batman trilogy, even though it does deviate somewhat from the Knightfall trilogy on which it is based.)
Yes, there indeed is a paper in that. I knew there were other superheroes out there, but am not currently as familiar with their back stories yet. Yes, is that that picture? females need family/parents and guys don't--unless it is a female figure to protect? And it's been awhile since I've watched female solo superheroes. Do they end up saving guys by themselves like the guys save girls? As for the teenagers, the portrayal of parents--superhero or not--is something else that is worth looking at. The portrayal of the parents is one of the criticisms from the Christian (broadly and loosely defined) community against the Twilight series --> A female daughter starts hanging out with a questionable male teen, and the female keeps it a secret from her parents--no confiding, no guidance, if anything parents as enemies. Perhaps that is a Hollywood marketing appeal to the teen market--"you don't get along with your parents, okay, we'll make you feel better about that and portray them as enemies" but not all families are that way. And in the midwest (I can't speak for the coasts), I'd even venture to say that that is the majority way--maybe not a large majority in places, but strong enough that parents and teens on friendly terms shouldn't be seen as an exception to the rule. So, I find your adjectives "humorous and incidental or more menacing" as indicative of there being a thematic study of this matter that could be done--and should be done if it is not done already.
ReplyDeleteTotally. Interestingly, I read a critique of Twilight written by a Pagan blogger I follow that said much the same thing you're talking about coming from the Christian community: that kind of dangerous secret-keeping behavior is a no-go for us too, being in general people who value family networks as an article of faith. And the fact that the parents make no real effort to find out what their child is doing is also problematic; I have a hard time believing that good parents of any faith would just let things go without intervening. Certainly my own parents would (and did) insist on being informed about my comings and goings at that age: who will you be with? where will you go? when will you be back? what are you doing? AAAARGH, stop LOVING me so much, already! I want to misbehave! ;)
ReplyDeleteAs for the female superheroes: I can't off the top of my head remember an instance where a female superhero has swooped in to save a specific man in the sense that say Spiderman saves Mary Jane or Superman saves Lois Lane (also of interest: both men represent the "orphan" trope, and work to protect a female love interest...maybe to fill that gap?). I know that Wonder Woman has saved men from a variety of dangers, but they tended to be men who had no real connection to her and not by any means a "shipped" character. And there are female Xmen (that's a problematic phrase) who have no families, who function narratively in a very similar way to their male superhero counterparts.
I am remembering an episode of Mutant X where a male team member and the guy they were trying to save were stuck in a cage in standing water. Because of the nature of the imprisonment, the jailed superhero/mutant couldn't be of any assistance. When a solo female team member came to break them out, the stranger prisoner questioned being saved by only one person. Follow up questions: How incapacitated does a male have to become before the female does the saving? Certainly part of the time females needing saving are portrayed as "innately" incapacitated. Would the stranger prisoner react the same way if it was a solo male? Might depend on whether his reaction is that of "only one" or if it is "only her". I don't have that episode to view again and would be surprised to see it available for purchase at this point because of the lawsuit matters; so am doing this off of memory which is bad film practice. It's an episode I've long wanted for other reasons. Now I want to watch again.
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