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By Yareni Segura What’s a good film without music? More specifically, what’s a good horror film without music? From John Carpenter’s iconic original Halloween theme song to Stanley Kubrick’s eerie and unsettling score in The Shining, music composition has historically played a key r

probably listening to the Old Town Road remix

theartofmoviestills

The Beaches of Agnès | Agnès Varda | 2008

pariztexas-deactivated20210721

Take This Waltz (2011) dir. Sarah Polley

In Defense of National Treasure

It’s a good movie.

Not in a so-bad-it’s-good way. Not even in an ehh-it’s-whatever-I’ll-watch-it-if-it’s-on way. It really, actually is a good movie. My name is Cole Kronman, and I love National Treasure.

The elephant in the room is, of course, Nicolas Cage. I’ll readily admit that he’s quite possibly the most mockable celebrity of all time - we’ve all seen such classics as “I’M A VAMPIRE!” and “NOT THE BEES!” - but I mock Cage the same way I’d mock a little brother. I love the guy. He truly shines in the right role (if you think I’m lying, please, please watch Raising Arizona), and even in his more… eccentric performances, the amount of charisma he brings to the table is nothing short of admirable. Hilarious, but admirable.

Thing is, I feel like National Treasure is unfairly caught in the crossfire of these discussions. When Cage naysayers try claiming he’s a bad actor, it’s usually the first thing they bring up. “Man, remember when he said he was gonna steal the Declaration of Independence? Wasn’t that LAME?” Actually, no, it was super awesome, and so is the rest of the movie. I don’t know when we all decided that National Treasure sucks, but I’m here to set the record straight.

Plot-wise, yeah, it’s pretty basic stuff. A historian, Benjamin Gates, is hunting for a lost treasure supposedly hinted at on the back of the Declaration of Independence. To find it, he’s gonna have to crack codes, solve riddles, and deliver a couple funny one-liners. Nothing too special.

That’s just it, though. National Treasure makes a point of leaning hard into well-tread action movie cliches, and it does so in ways that are consistently, wonderfully fun. Part of me suspects that’s why the movie gets a lot of flak - it’s a very goofy, family-friendly romp, and that can be jarring when viewed next to a legacy of hyper violent films like Terminator and Die Hard. Ben Gates isn’t a muscled manwich with a semi-automatic slung over his shoulder. He’s an idealist, a family man, someone who’s in the game not for power, not for revenge, but for discovery. Here is an action hero who’s not afraid to be sincere, who goes weak in the knees when he sees a historical monument, overcome by the sheer beauty of it all. Cage, with his oddball, weirdly down-to-earth persona, couldn’t be a better fit.

This optimism extends to every corner of the movie. The three main characters - protagonist Ben, sidekick Riley, and love interest Abigail - have great chemistry, and share an infectious appreciation for historiography. There’s the odd chase scene, but the movie’s most gripping moments are when someone is on the verge of solving a particularly tricky puzzle (and for what it’s worth, this movie has some great puzzles; the scene where they pull Benjamin Franklin’s glasses out of a secret alcove behind Independence Hall still blows my mind). Sean Bean plays the antagonist, Ian, as an overgrown schoolyard bully, irked by his rival’s success. At the end, rather than going down in a bombastic gunfight, he’s simply led away in cuffs. And when Ben finds the treasure he’s been looking for his whole life, he makes it public, putting that knowledge in the hands of the people. In his eyes, history shouldn’t be kept from anyone.

Good-natured candor like this is in short supply in Hollywood. Amid an endless sea of grittiness, a sunny-side-up action-adventure escapade that actively pushes against cynicism is a rare gem. That’s not to say gritty films don’t have their place - they absolutely do - but sometimes you just need a break. And right now, more than ever, I think that break is well-deserved. In this era of rampant bigotry and institutional incompetence on practically every level, Ben Gates is an endlessly refreshing character. He believes, more than anything, in good old-fashioned democracy: the inalienable rights of the common man, and the responsibility of elected leaders to work in their country’s best interests. Here in the real world, that sort of thing seems more and more like a far-flung fantasy every day. For the time being, maybe National Treasure can be that fantasy.

To Crush or Not to Crush: The Doomed Love of Angela Chase and Jordan Catalano

I recently had a friend send me a quote via text - "I will always cherish my initial misconception of you.” My friend then explained, “It reminded me of what we all do … how we create fantasies around people, imbuing them with our dreams, desires, romantic longings…” This idea - the projection of personality onto our ‘crushes’ - reminded me instantly of nineties cult-classic TV show My So-Called Life. MSCL brought us the complex, introspective and deeply longing character of Angela Chase. Angela, the show’s fifteen year-old lead, is both naive and subtly wise, leading audiences through her tangential thoughts in her many ‘like’ infused voiceovers. ("There’s something about Sunday night that really makes you want to kill yourself,” she muses.)

A central plot line of the show is Angela’s infatuation with teen dream Jordan Catalano, who boasts shaggy hair and inexplicable cool. In contrast to Angela's thoughtful demeanor, Jordan is coarse and intellectually limited. Angela is infatuated by Jordan, who she sees from afar and likes for the qualities she believes he possesses. (“He’s always closing his eyes, like it hurts to look at things.”) Jordan is somewhat interested in Angela, especially in the physical aspect of her, but fails to do what so many of us are guilty of - he fails to truly see her. In teenage solidarity, she in turn fails to see him. His many failings are lost on her - his lack of sensitivity, his mistreatment of her, his conformity to his friend group… leading to a desire doomed to dissatisfaction.

An interesting scene in the series addresses the way that love occurs. The student’s high school English teacher shares a Shakespeare sonnet with the class, in which Shakespeare writes of a mistress who is by no means an angel: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips’ red.” Shakespeare’s love is not a goddess, she “treads on the ground." When asked why Shakespeare loves this girl, Brian, Angela's neighborhood friend and the school’s resident nerd, answers, “She’s not just a fantasy. She’s got, like, flaws. She’s real.” Brian and Jordan are shown contemplating their feelings for Angela. Jordan appears to be coming to terms that he might like Angela even if she is not the type of girl he 'sees' himself with. In this scene, the characters are asked to think of what it means to love someone, and what one should be loved for. They are asked to discover the reality of one another and to love each other for the truth that presents itself.

As the series ends, Angela is becoming more aware of Jordan as a person and perhaps her lack of true affection for him. In the final episode, Brian tells her of his feelings for her (via a letter he wrote as Jordan) and she finally listens. She is then caught between the two - her infatuation with Jordan which is beginning to fade and her slowly developing interest in Brian. This change of feeling from Jordan to Brian marks an interesting moment in Angela - the time we all begin to grow up from romantic fantasy and demand the reality of connection. Although Jordan is ‘hot,’ as in having social status and high levels of ‘cool,’ in the end, Angela is doomed to dissatisfaction with him. She begins her awakening as she realizes someone who cares and sees her - truly sees - might just be worth it.

#Rachel McLeod

7 Times Seinfeld Hit the Mark

On May 14th of this year, the last episode of Seinfeld will turn 20. First airing on July 5, 1989, Seinfeld ran for 9 seasons with 180 episodes. Having one of the most lasting influences on television and pop culture, Seinfeld references are still some of the most commonly used, from the Puffy Shirt to the Marble Rye. And as a Festivus enthusiast, here are a few instances where I felt this self-proclaimed “show about nothing” was right about everything.

1. George on the importance of sleep.

2. Thoughts on person accomplishment.

3. On juggling friendships.

4. Congested Public Transportation.

5. When you’re reeeeeeally hungry.

6. Finding the motivation to get things done.

7. Finally, on 2017.

You’re Either a Mother Mary or a Magdalene: Thoughts on The Magdalene Sisters

If you like The Handmaid’s Tale, you’ll love The Magdalene Sisters. After studying abroad in Ireland for a semester, I have come out with a much better understanding and appreciation for Irish films. Although there is a lot to say about Irish cinema, one of my favorite films that I saw while abroad was The Magdalene Sisters (2002). This was the film that really made me appreciate my Irish cinema class, because it made me realize that without enrolling in this course, I would not have otherwise known about an incredibly interesting and equally disturbing era of Irish (and world) history.

The Magdalene Sisters is based off of true events, focusing on three young women who are put in a Magdalene Asylum (or Magdalene Laundry) in 1964. These asylums, which were also located in Australia, Canada, England, and even the United States, were first opened in Ireland in 1839 and not closed until 1996. These asylums housed “fallen women” or women who were deemed immoral in some way and needed “to work out their sins” similar to Mary Magdalene in the Bible who “den[ied] all pleasures of the flesh including and sleep” to work hard labour to get into heaven, as Sister Bridget in the film states.1 This laundries were funded but not overseen by the Irish government, making the Catholic church, which was extremely corrupt and feel of sex and abuse scandals at this time, completely in charge of thousands of women, most of whom never left these laundries.

The film focuses on Margaret, who is locked up shortly after being raped, Bernadette, who is accused of being a temptress, and Rose, a young girl who has a child out of wedlock and is forced to give it up for adoption. All of these reasons for locking up a woman are wrong, but I find Bernadette’s to be the most interesting.

When we first meet Bernadette, she is seen being flirted with by a number of boys. She is mostly passive in this conversation, but refuses to kiss any of them. Though, her hand remains on her lips the whole time, an act that is arguably sexual. This alone convinces others that she is a threat to the men around her, and that she could possibly tempt the men into straying from God. The most ponderable quote of the film comes from two girls who speak to Bernadette before she is locked up.

As they brush her hair, one of them asks her “isn’t it a sin to be beautiful?” Bernadette responds by saying “no[...] it’s a sin to be vain”, whether you agree with that statement or not is your own opinion, but I’d argue that this film is making a commentary in relation to this. At this time, to be beautiful was equivalent to being vain, and in that way, it is a sin to be beautiful. Because of this, Bernadette must be taken out of society and punished. At one point in the film, Bernadette attempts to escape, and when she is found, the nuns hold her down as they cut off her hair as punishment. This way, they get what they always wanted from this girl, to take away her beauty, the thing that once gave this girl happiness and strength.

I’d recommend this film to anyone who likes films about strong women, especially if you are like me, and had no idea about the existence of these laundries in the first place. This film forces us to question how society sees women, particularly because these horrible events only happened such a short time ago.

Giving Thanks

Despite our mixed feelings about Thanksgiving, we love to give thanks! Here is what our contributors are most grateful for this year.

This Thanksgiving, I’m really thankful for podcasts! And two podcasts in particular: Sleep With Me podcast and Wonderful!: an enthusiast podcast. Both of these podcasts are now a part of my routine; I sometimes can’t go to bed without listening to Sleep With Me, which is a podcast where the host tells you a story to help you fall asleep (it is essentially the adult version of a bedtime story). I turn the podcast on, tuck myself into bed, and find it way easier to fall asleep, especially when I have a lot on my mind. I also love listening to Wonderful!, since it is a great way to start your day with some positivity. Listening to this husband wife duo talk about what they love every week really lifts my spirits, and I tend to listen to it when walking to class/school, or when I am otherwise not very excited to start the day. Although these are just two podcasts in particular that I love, I also love the concept of podcasts and the opportunities they offer for creating content!

-Emily Millard Murphy

I’ve been in a bit of a musical rut lately. For the past six months or so, I’ve been listening to the same twenty or so songs on repeat and I just was not in the mood to explore other songs or artists. This was until I discovered FKA Twigs’ sixteen minute visual album M3LL155X (pronounced “Melissa”) a few weeks ago. To anyone who knows FKA Twigs or M3LL155X, you’re probably thinking “that album came out in 2015, why are you talking about it now?” To that I have no excuse; I had no idea what I was missing. I can tell you that I haven’t been able to stop listening, watching, or thinking about the songs or the visuals in the album since I first watched. FKA Twigs wrote, directed, composed, and starred in the short film, which does not have an overarching narrative, like Beyonce’s Lemonade, but does have recurring themes, such as the male gaze and feeling victimised as a woman (especially a woman of color) in pop culture. I guarantee you will love something about M3LL155X (which you can watch for free on youtube), whether it’s FKA Twigs’ amazing vocals, the mind bending visuals, or the expert choreography.

-Meghan Hebbard

To remain in the holiday spirit, I must say that I am particularly thankful for the film Embrace of the Serpent (2015). Although not dealing specifically with the Pilgrims and Native Americans of the northeast coast of soon-to-be colonized America, Embrace of the Serpent does portray the vicissitudes of white colonialism in the Colombian Amazon; an act of colonization that is both in the name of scientific pursuit and Christian morality. The two white anthropologists, one German and one American, who set out to explore the Amazon in an attempts to discover a hallucinogenic plant are constantly refuted in their actions by the knowledge and tradition of indigenous practices, of which they wish to study ‘objectively’. Embrace enables a wonderful criticism of ethnographic tendencies to otherize and objectify a people and their practices and is, otherwise, a piece of cinematographic beauty. I’ve also really enjoyed the album Long Season by Fishmans. Happy Thanksgiving; enjoy your dry turkeys!

-Cole Nelson

It’s been a weird and sad and scary year, and like the last few years, I’ve turned to podcasts for some comfort. Hollywood Handbook is pretty hard to describe. An equally precise and absurdist satire of showbiz, HH pushes self-referential comedy to an insane point. In the best recent episode, Jason Mantzoukas stops by to promote Big Mouth on Netflix and share his puberty stories. Immediately, Jason and Sean and Hayes decide that all three of them went to a French boarding school together, where Sean’s clique was the faculty, and Jason was a 17 year old divorcee. Imaginative wackiness is getting me through right now. As Ron Howard (never) said: “Thanks. This helped.”

-Asher “The Stone” Guthertz

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for Guillermo del Toro. Just in general, I guess. I’d hardly even heard of the guy before Pacific Rim, which, at the time, completely blew me away; it was so rare to see a big-budget, over-the-top action flick that had genuine heart in it. “Whoever made this actually cares,” I remember thinking. That’s what sets del Toro’s work apart for me: it’s so clear that he just really, really digs the movies. Everything he makes is a labor of love. This can be said for so many directors, of course, but I can’t think of anyone who tackles the strange, the fantastical, and the downright ridiculous as fervently and artfully as del Toro does. There’s Pan’s Labyrinth, of course, a downright beautiful film that I’ve heard referred to as “the first fantasy movie for adults.” Del Toro’s adaptation of Hellboy reveled in the absurdity of its premise, and wound up being one of my all-time favorite superhero films as a result. I won’t go through his entire filmography here, but rest assured, it’s good stuff. And now coming up we have The Shape of Water, a movie about a woman falling in love with a fish… monster… person? Honestly, if anyone can pull it off, it’s del Toro. Nobody in Hollywood is having quite as much fun as him, and it’s so inspiring to see.

(P.S. If you’re interested, you should look up the video tour of del Toro’s house, which is basically a creepy museum filled top to bottom with weird decorations and memorabilia. There’s a life-size statue of H.P. Lovecraft in the living room. Dude’s seriously bizarre.)

-Cole Kronman

Cancelled Shows We Want Netflix to Save

In ‘reboot’ culture, nothing is off the table. Here are the shows our contributors most want to see back in action:

So, Kim Possible was cancelled after it’s third season and then brought back on for one more season to defy the Disney ‘65 episode’ rule… I don’t know if that counts as a ‘complete’ cancellation, but I would love to see Netflix pick this back up because, one, a continuation of this show is much needed due to the clever dualism of crime-fighting Kim and everyday high school Kim (it was the original and much more interesting Hannah Montana) and, two, I need somewhere to binge watch the first four seasons. Besides, this show holds a special place in my heart; when I was a youngster I was convinced that my mom was the inspiration for the show, being a redhead named Kim. -Cole Nelson

Netflix is a savior and already picked up the best show that got cancelled for no good reason, DEGRASSI. Although they changed the title from Degrassi: The Next Generation to Degrassi: Next Class, made the theme song kinda worse, and won’t stop using hashtags for episode titles, the show can still live on and talk about really important issues in high school like troubles with gender, sexuality, religion, race and mental illness. Netflix saved a show that has been talking about the issues of teens for over two decades, which is pretty impressive. Also the show is so overdramatic and I love it. So thanks Netflix. -Emily Millard Murphy

Although Netflix is giving it a two hour finale, Sense8 was sadly cancelled earlier this year. The series was created by the Wachowskis (The Matrix series), two of the very few, if any, transgender directors of our time. This show was full of amazing action sequences, filmed all over the world, and masterfully used music in sync with the events going on screen. Along with having wonderful filmmaking, Sense8 was about the human connection, no matter how different we are from one another. This series was a masterful work of art, and deserves more than a measly two hours of wrapping up. -Meghan Hebbard

Maybe you’ve never heard of Clone High, but you’ve probably heard of its creators. Phil Lord and Chris Miller are a pair of comedy writers known for their work on 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and The Lego Movie (a personal favorite of mine). But before all that, there was Clone High, a quirky little PG-13 cartoon from 2002 that was the duo’s first major project. The series follows teenage clones of historical figures - at the forefront are Abe Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Gandhi, John F. Kennedy, and Cleopatra - all attending a contemporary high school together. There’s a reason for this, but it more or less only functions as an excuse for these eclectic characters to interact with each other. Clone High is consistently hilarious, and its surreal takes on the adolescent experience hit surprisingly close to home. Sadly, the show never really found an audience, and was cancelled after a single 13-episode season, ending on an incredibly frustrating cliffhanger. In the years since, it’s found quite the cult following, and Lord and Miller have expressed interest in revisiting it... maybe, if the stars align, Netflix could swoop in, save the day, and give Clone High the audience it always deserved. For the time being, the original series is all up on YouTube. Please watch it. It’s good. -Cole Kronman

This question is difficult for me, because I trust Netflix about as far as I can throw it, which isn’t far because it’s a website and I am not very strong. That being said, the incredible Freaks and Geeks could use another season. I personally wouldn’t want them to reboot the show, but to present the lives of my beloved burnouts and av-club dorks as the middle aged people they would’ve become. Twenty years have passed since the show was cancelled; why not set the reboot twenty years after the ending of the show? If Netflix was to get Paul Feig back to write an examination of those now-grown-up outcasts at the dawn of the millenia, I’d be a little more on board with how they’re destroying live television. -Asher “The Stone” Guthertz

One Extinction: Life After One Direction

We are currently in the year 1 A1D (After One Direction), and if this boyband has taught me anything, it is that change is hard. Yes, I understand that the band has declared they are in a state of Hiatus, but ever since the break, every single member has gone on to create solo music. Much like Michael Scott on The Office just yelling out the word Bankruptcy in attempt to declare it, I’m not completely sure the band understands the concept of what they stated, or rather the reality of it. Zayn’s initial split indicates that he is gone for good, never to rejoin the original 1D pack, but what makes the other members so different. Just the word Hiatus? Is that enough to keep these heartthrob boys together? Maybe they are not headed in one direction after all?

This very much rings true with all the music being produced individually, because again they are all different. Zayn’s initial breakout with “Pillowtalk” felt very reminiscent of Justin Timberlake’s break from Nsync; Zayn shaved his head and made a flashy music video with a song explicitly about sex to prove that he is a grown man, no longer a member of a boyband. I say this but I am in no way trying to criticize him. Pillowtalk, despite its flaws, was a banger, and with that, you should read Jasmine Lee Ehrhardt’s previous EyeCandy article all about PillowTalk from when it first premiered. Zayn is very much making music for himself now, and his first album, Mind of Mine, definitely stated that he is not like other pop star boys with his love for strange capitalization (ex. His song tracks titled iT’s YoU, BeFoUr, etc.). Again, no hate. His first album was great, but his newer music does make me waiver. Like his song “I Don’t Want To Live Forever,” made with Taylor Swift for the new Fifty Shades film. It just feels like selling out when his break from One Direction was clearly an act of independence and artistry. But who am I to judge. He split from One Direction on his own terms and is making a life for himself, despite the change. Zayn is a beacon of independence and possibility, and once the Hiatus was announced, every other member followed his footsteps.

Niall Horan was the first to start his solo career when he put out the song “This Town” in September of 2016. But the thing about this song, it sounds exactly like a One Direction song except it is only one voice. This isn’t a bad thing. I would not be writing any of this if I didn’t love One Direction in the first place. Niall’s new music is then not at all off brand, but he is rather embracing his strengths. He is not ashamed of his past boyband-hood and he is not trying to declare himself a reborn person like Zayn did with his new music. Niall is being Niall. Just a plain Irish guy who was once part of a boyband but now isn’t. Niall continued to put out another song in May of 2017 called “Slow Hands” which is obviously a song about sex, but it is executed in a very upbeat nature that you are distracted from the sexual undertones of the lyrics. Very boyband like. But again, another banger. Niall’s solo departure, like Zayn’s, is also his own style, which also happens to be a boy band style.

Louis Tomlinson was the next to go solo although he was not solo, he ganged up with popular DJ Steve Aoki. Although this solo career really just culminated with one single. Pretty anti-climactic. But Tomlinson is busy, he was a guest judge for The X Factor, the show that got him started, for awhile, working with Simon Cowell on other unnamed projects. He is also the first from the boyband to become a father, having a son with a girl from L.A., which I find pretty distressful (I also just find babies and people having babies in their early 20’s very stressful in general). I get it Louis, you are just taking advantage of your fame, but fame doesn’t stop you from getting diseases. Be safe. Not to mention, this news was pre-hiatus, meaning despite this new fatherhood, he was still in an active boy band member. One day, this will probably be a great story to tell his son. And I’m sure that Louis is a great father and really taking this new post 1D time to spend on his child. But if he isn’t, at least he still has a lot of money from being in the most successful boy band of the modern era.

Talking about boyband members having kids brings me to the next person, Liam Payne. The second former 1D member to have a child, is also on to great things. He spent his post 1D life mainly working as a music producer, as well as being lovey dovey with a woman ten years older than him and having a baby together (Honestly though, good for them). He, very recently, got signed and put out the single “Strip that Down” which I honestly have not been able to listen all the way through without cringing a little bit. Some of his lyrics include “You know, I used to be in 1D (now I'm out, free) / People want me for one thing (that's not me) / I'm not changing, the way, that I (used to be).” Really something and I honestly don’t know what to make of it. With my lack of commentary, I think I’m just going to move on.

And this brings me to Harry Styles, and the main reason I am writing this article in the first place. Harry, who has been off the grid acting in Christopher Nolan’s new big movie, just put out his own solo album, eloquently called “Harry Styles.” I am utterly entranced by his new album and I think that may even be an understatement. The album seems to go deep, mean more than surface level pop music that Harry Styles made while in One Direction. First off, he wrote the lyrics himself, which does in fact make the album more personal. But I can’t help myself from wondering what does it mean? Who is Harry Styles? A solo career is inherently more personal than being in a boyband, but the thing about Harry is that he is a mystery. His personal life section on wikipedia is the shortest of all of them. Harry Styles was the pretty boy, and a mysterious one; with his plethora of tattoos and his long hair I often found myself wondering what he is like in real life. But one thing this new album taught me is that he is real. Making him way more tangible than his previous pop star persona. The musician Mitski really captures this idea perfectly in her review of the album, which is titled “One Projection: Harry Styles and the Art of Idealism.” To her, Harry has also always been so far away, the pretty face that you can only observe at a distance. But this album brings him closer, puts him at the bus stop right next to you. And when you start talking to him, he is normal. Her description of this supposed Harry Styles is both evocative and hilarious; “You miraculously get to talking while you wait for the bus, only to find that this beautiful, distant boy from school sometimes says stupid things like, ‘You’re cool, no one else knows who the Beatles are,’ or is awkward and nervous sometimes, like you.” And she is right. I can picture him like this perfectly, especially after this album. If you get a chance, read Mitski’s piece, because it really captures the new Harry Styles.

Well, this is where we are. Currently surviving a time post 1D, and every member seems to be off onto greener pastures. And when I said that this band split taught me that change is hard, I didn’t mean for them. They are all moving on pretty gracefully, but me on the other hand, I’m a wreck. I’m an adult, a 20 year old college student whose life should not be so preoccupied by a boyband. But they are a part of my history. I can still remember when their first single, “What Makes You Beautiful” came out. It made me want to dance. Then I remember listening to their very first album, playing the song “Moments” in my bedroom at night. That song made me want to cry. After their initial release as a band, we did have a turbulent past. I would lose interest but I could not help but love them from afar. That’s who they always were to me. Loves from afar. But now they are broken up, all separate, making them spread a little farther. But does that make them harder to love? Maybe not harder, but definitely less convenient. I am a busy college student after all.

#eyecandy #one direction #harry styles #mitski

While you're picking up your copy of EyeCandy, pick up the latest copy of Matchbox Magazine, Fruitcake, Fishrap, Chinquapin, or any other Student Media print!!!

The 27th edition of EyeCandy is OUT!!! Pick up your copy at the Press Center or FDM (Communications Building) and enjoy!!!! 😍😆😱😬😵🕺💃

“Just Tell Us What You Need”: Uncertainty and Empathy in DC Comics’ New Justice League of America Series

by Asher Guthertz

How do superheroes know what’s best for the people they want to save? In February, DC comics released the first issue of a new comic book series: Justice League of America (JLA). What was strange about this sudden addition to DC’s comic lineup was that the Justice League (JL) series, in addition to the new Justice League Of America, would continue to run. In the past, JL and JLA have been roughly synonymous, or else the JLA has existed as a government-sponsored team in opposition to a sovereign Justice League. In this new iteration, however, the Justice League of America is an independent team run by Batman, who founds the new league because he believes: “People need to see heroes are human.”

There are ways to read the new Justice League of America comic as some kind of response to America’s new political reality. The first arc of the series features the Justice League doing battle against The Extremists, a group that believes Earth’s survival depends on the acceptance of their authoritarian rule. As their leader Havok shouts in the first issue: “Freedom is too dangerous to be unchecked. Only a strong hand can bring safety to order.” Battles between heroes and villains with vaguely articulated political beliefs (the heroes always standing for some kind of democracy) is nothing new in superhero stories. If JLA seems to have a more specific position on the relationship between people and political structures, it comes not from the representation of the supervillains in the story but from the depiction of our superheroes.

For one thing, the roster of this Justice League of America is ever so slightly more diverse than the current Justice League. There are a couple of queer superheroes and more gender balance on the team. There’s actually one less person of color on this new team, but the team is one person smaller, there are three less straight white men, and two of the three superheroes of color in the Justice League are technically replacements for their straight white male predecessor (who is off in space). I’m uncomfortable with the idea that this meagre representation really means anything in and of itself, especially given that the series, like almost every comic book at DC, is written by a white guy, and that it exists as an addendum to the Justice League series. This is the Justice League with the possibly reductive “Of America” tagged on. And I’m uncomfortable with what it might mean that this team is the one that Batman chooses because he believes “people need to see heroes are human.” Is the implicit suggestion that superheroes who are women, queer, or non-white can only be on the Justice-League-That’s-More-Human? Or that this team is only allowed to exist as long as a separate, more powerful, more god-like Justice League is still in place? It doesn’t help that the advertisements ahead of the release billed the team as “The Roughest League of All Time.” Ostensibly this tag line refers to the fact that two of the members are reformed supervillains, and yet...

At the same time, I wanted to write this blog post not to complain about the weirdness of DC’s promotional campaign, but because of some moments in the series that I love. Again, the supervillains are the same old supervillains, but the heroes’ response to them feels different. Havok and the Extremists quickly take control of the country of Kravia, and because the country is an internationally recognized sovereign nation, the Justice League of America is at a loss for what to do. In the third issue of JLA, an entire page early in the issue shows the Kravian rebels hiding from Havok, who lament: “our home has been taken by those meant to protect us.” We understand, before the Justice League even shows up, that if they are going to be any better than the supervillains, they must think about what it means to protect. The league appears in a large spread on the next page. In a typical spread from the other Justice League comic, every hero stands straight and tall, their hands on their hips or clenched at their side. Here, though, Black Canary stands in the front, her arms open and outstretched, Vixen kneels, Frost sits on the balcony, Atom appears to have his head down. This Justice League of America appears less sure of themselves and less paternalistic than their Justice League counterparts. Batman underscores this new position by telling the Kravian rebel leader: “We’re here to ask how we can help.” I’ve seen the Justice League pronounce that they’re here to help a hundred thousand times, but I don’t think I’ve seen a superhero ask how they can help. “We’re not here to give orders,” Vixen says. “Just tell us what you need,” Black Canary adds.

When I read this issue, I was moved to see a Justice League that wants to know how it can help. A Justice League that wants to know what its people want from them. I decided to write this article to suggest that the work of comic book writers in the present day should be to create self-conscious superheroes who actively work to make sure they battle, and do not become, authoritarians that assume they know what’s best for everyone else. Justice League of America underscores this message in the last scene of the first arc, where Batman expresses concern that the Kravian government, and not the league, will be holding Havok prisoner. “This is a win, Batman...just a different one than you’re used to. They told us what they need. We gave it to them.” This Justice League, perhaps, will not assume its own justice system. They will listen to people around the world and learn to ask, as Batman asked, how they can help.

I want to say now that I have an underlying ambivalence about writing this article. I hold two feelings in me at once. On one hand, I believe that this is all relatively meaningless. Superheroes aren’t real, they don’t affect political change, probably very few people who do are reading these books. Also, these moments of empathy take place within pages and pages of people punching each other. And yet, I personally believe in superheroes so strongly, in the power in the idea of empathy and aid that lies at the heart of the best superheroes. And in holding these two feelings at once, I don’t know how to end this article. I don’t know which is more disingenuous, a note of hope or an acknowledgement that important activism probably doesn’t happen here.

There’s a steep hill in Noe Valley, San Francisco, that I used to walk up sometimes, to pick up my sister from tutoring. Every time I walked up the hill, I couldn’t help but hop a little, thinking that perhaps I would not, immediately, touch the ground. I am going to end my blog post by telling you how much I wanted to, still want to, perhaps believe I will, become a superhero. And to confess that maybe I love Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America because it feels like a pretty good road map for how I should behave when I finally get my powers.

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