CLASSIC-LIBERAL TREK PT 3

 Season the third, but without the Great Bird.

SPOCK'S BRAIN-- The argument: "Brain and brain-- males are only good for one thing; having their brains sucked out of their heads." "Sorry, my dear, we're going to KEEP our brains where they are. But as a consolation prize, we'll do away with your gynocentric dominatrix culture and restore equity between the sexes-- see later episode TURNABOUT INTRUDER for details."

THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT-- Now it's time for the Trekkers to play "KEEPING up with the Romulans" by stealing their tech. The only "sharing" is interrupted between Spock and the sexy Romulan Commander.

AND THE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD-- Well, no. Contrary to the Isaiah quote, even godlike powers don't make a bunch of little kids into leaders, any more than it worked for big kid Charlie X. So they have to KEEP to their own lane.

IS THERE IN TRUTH NO BEAUTY? -- The Trekkers think their emissary Spock ought to be able to SHARE the privilege of communing with an alien ambassador. But his "keeper" doesn't like SHARING, though in the end she's forced to do so.

DAY OF THE DOVE-- Not all energy-beings are as saintly as the Organians; here's one that wants to "keep" hostilities between Trekkers and Klingons going at fever pitch. And this time both groups make the existential decision to SHARE a common interest, if only in survival.

FOR THE WORLD IS HOLLOW AND I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY-- Once again we have a stratified civilization that must be taught to SHARE a common destiny with the rest of the universe.

PLATO'S STEPCHILDREN-- Hey, Trekkers, you can't confine your attacks to Greek gods, but you gotta go after their philosophers too? Still, nobody's going to cry for the Platonians when they're forced to SHARE parity with other sentients.

WINK OF AN EYE-- "No, thank you; we'd rather KEEP clear of your breeding-pens."

THE EMPATH-- Certain aliens demand that Gem SHARE her very life to prove herself. The Trekkers show the ETs that, "Love means never having to SHARE so much that it kills you."

ELAAN OF TROYIUS-- Unlike "Plato's Stepchildren," this time the Trekkers must teach just one arrogant aristocrat how to SHARE for the sake of her people. However, this time the Trekker captain suffers a bit for Elaan having overSHARED with him.

LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD-- "No, thank you, KEEP both your revolutionaries and reactionaries to your dead planet."

REQUIEM FOR METHUSELAH-- Neither father nor potential son-in-law get to "keep" the lady fair. All they SHARE is mutual tragedy, though Spock has a different form of SHARING-moment.

THE WAY TO EDEN-- Didn't we already do two episodes about "KEEPING off the Eden-grass?" Oh well, space hippies make everything better.

THE CLOUD MINDERS-- Now let's have the Trekkers teach the haves to SHARE with the have-nots-- and with zero mentions of socialism, to boot.

THE SAVAGE CURTAIN-- Wel, you Trekkers *said* you wanted to SHARE the glory of your Liberal perfection with everyone and everyone's dog. So why would you object to dramatizing your beliefs by acting them out?

TURNABOUT INTRUDER-- If there's one person with whom you don't want to "share" your body and soul, it's your vengeful, possibly hormonal ex. Kirk has to figure out how to KEEP his sunny side up long enough to convince his fellow Trekkers that he's not a victim of gender dysphoria and that he really wants to KEEP his male soul in his male body. 

THIRD SEASON EXCLUSIONS-- THE PARADISE SYNDROME, SPECTRE OF THE GUN, THE THOLIAN WEB, WHOM GODS DESTROY, THE MARK OF GIDEON, THAT WHICH SURVIVES, THE LIGHTS OF ZETAR, ALL OUR YESTERDAYS. 

       

 

 

CLASSIC-LIBERAL TREK PT 2

 Second season, for the same reason.

AMOK TIME-- Kirk is told to "keep" his place. But if he did that, how would everyone have found out that even for a Vulcan, a mere mating-drive can't compete with the bonds forged by mutual SHARING of dangers and adventures. ("Slash" interpretations not considered.)

WHO MOURNS FOR ADONAIS? -- If earlier episodes told the Trekkers to KEEP clear of "men like gods," what chance does a mere ET-god have in the Roddenverse?

THE CHANGELING-- These mergers between mechanical devices of different power-levels rarely work out, and the Trekkers have to teach Nomad that he should have KEPT within his own lane. 

MIRROR, MIRROR-- Lurking beneath every sincere devotee of the Trekkers' humanism lies the mirror-reversed image of a Machiavellian, questing for pure power. And yet despite this fact, the world of naked power-politics must and will SHARE the same destiny of the world of squishy Liberals. 

THE APPLE-- What's the point of living in a world where you "share" everything but sex? Once again, it's necessary to KEEP all those officious gods out of the way in order to realize mankind's (almost) atheist destiny.

CATSPAW-- And while you're at it, make sure you also tell all witches and warlocks to KEEP off the Trekkers' lawns.     

  

I, MUDD-- At the same time, the Trekkers must remain ever alert to KEEP down all those upstart A.I. who can't appreciate the logic of the wreath of pretty birds that smell bad-- or was that the logic of the tweeting flowers?

METAMORPHOSIS-- You can't overSHARE more than to learn that your nice, clean first contact with an ET was actually her idea of Boogie Nights. And yet this time, the prospects for this mixed marriage look positive.

JOURNEY TO BABEL-- The SHARING of common goals by civilized races is all very well, but father and son SHARING in the (light) mockery of the wife/mother is the real standout ethic here.

OBSESSION-- Kirk as Ahab? Or once again, is he saved by SHARING the eminently sane priorities of all faithful Trekkers?

THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES-- See what happens when you "share" too much? You learn you to KEEP your decks clear of those verminous critters that'll eat you out of house and home if you let them. You know. Progressives.

THE GAMESTERS OF TRISKELION-- Just like the Mirror Universe, all big-brained aliens must learn to SHARE in the glories of representative democracy.

A PIECE OF THE ACTION-- On the other hand, "sharing" scientific innovations with gangsta ETs might make you wish you'd just KEPT traveling past that particular planet.

A PRIVATE LITTLE WAR-- Call this one "KEEPING up with the Klingons," not in terms of conspicuous consumption but rather military escalation. "Sharing" a disease isn't altogether ethical.

BY ANY OTHER NAME-- As in "Arena" and "Mirror, Mirror," the very process of "keeping" your borders can lead to mutual respect and the SHARING of common humanity.

THE OMEGA GLORY-- Nothing says SHARING like worlds so parallel they even have the natives mangling their Latin.

BREAD AND CIRCUSES-- Only some minor SHARING of parallel evolution-- regarding, of all things, revealed religion.

ASSGNMENT EARTH-- The Trekkers learn that they're not the only cosmic busybodies seeking to SHARE beneficent ethics with lesser worlds-- even such primitive frontier-planets as 1960s Earth.

(Second season episodes excluded: THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE, FRIDAY'S CHILD, THE DEADLY YEARS, WOLF IN THE FOLD, THE IMMUNITY SYNDROME, RETURN TO TOMORROW, PATTERNS OF FORCE, THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER.)

               

CLASSIC-LIBERAL TREK PT 1

In my original essay-series KEEPING VS SHARING, starting here, I provided an overview of the ways in which Liberal ethics prioritized "Sharing" while Conservative ethics prioritized "Keeping." The nature of that overview, though, meant that I could not address certain fine points.  

One personal point is that for most of my life, I considered myself a Liberal. However, I belonged to that now almost extinct subspecies known as the "Classical Liberal," a species almost been crowded out of existence by a toxic form of Liberal known as "the Progressive." Though the Classical Liberals were never perfect, they had a definite ethical compass validated by many (though not all) historical events. I am proud to say that I was never sucked into the barren pseudo-ethics of the Progressive, who has nothing to say but "Share what we tell you to Share, even if we, the movement's leaders, often don't practice what we preach." Still, rather than flipping completely to the ethics of Conservatism, I consider myself a Centrist, seeking to chart a course between the extreme virtues and vices of both systems.

Classical Liberalism may never return to the political sphere, but its distinctions from Toxic Progressivism can be well illustrated by sussing out the ethical stances depicted, episode by episode, in STAR TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES. Under the aegis of both Gene Roddenberry and his successor Fred Freiberger, the series demonstrates that the Liberalism of that era was not manically fixated only upon the Sharing-ethic. The makers of Classic-Liberal Trek knew that sometimes even the generous had to watch their borders.

Not every episode shows a strong ethical orientation toward one system or another. Some stories are just life-and-death conflicts for the starring characters, who of course engage the sympathies of the audience on a visceral level. But the majority of the TREK tales seek to align the sympathetic characters with either Liberal ("Sharing") or Conservative ("Keeping") ethical attitudes. Taking each relevant episode in broadcast order, I will sum which attitude the narratives seek to represent. To keep the story-summaries concise, I want to avoid breaking down specific actions by specific characters, speaking of the totality of the sympathetic characters as "The Trekkers." It's not the best of all possible cognomens, but the writers never supplied a usable substitute.

And so we begin with THE MAN TRAP, in which the Trekkers face "The Salt Vampire," a genderfluid alien that devours humans. Even though the beast is the last of its kind, the Trekkers must KEEP loyalty to their own kind and exterminate the brute.

In CHARLIE X, the Trekkers seek to "share" human culture with a shipwrecked human. But Charlie's been given god-like powers, and the Trekkers must KEEP clear of all teen deities with anger issues.

Going WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE-- if you don't count Adam and Eve, right after they ate of the fruit of knowledge--the Trekkers learn the same lesson seen in CHARLIE X: KEEP away from "men (and women) like gods."

THE NAKED TIME is the time in which everyone casts off the chains of the social contract and begins "sharing" whatever they feel like sharing. The Trekkers use time-travel to beat devolution and to KEEP their psyches in good working order.

THE ENEMY WITHIN-- Through the example of one Kirk too many, the Trekkers learn that every man must SHARE the good and evil in his soul to be able to function in the world. 

MUDD'S WOMEN-- Though feminists probably don't like the idea of women being both goddesses and queens of the kitchen, at base the Trekkers recapitulate the old saw that men and women must SHARE the burdens of existence (and without even getting into the topic of progeny).

WHAT ARE LITTLE GIRLS MADE OF? is the question, but the answer is, "Not being so nice that they don't KEEP away from robots posing as humans." (Data would be mortified.)

THE CORBOMITE MANEUEVER-- The Trekkers use guile to "keep" a potential enemy at arm's length, only to find that they both SHARE in the implicit brotherhood of ETs.

THE CONSCIENCE OF THE KING-- "Neither a borrower nor a 'sharer' be:" justice must be KEPT by unearthing the sins of the king, even when those sins have passed on to the next generation.

BALANCE OF TERROR-- Who will KEEP sovereignty in a war of rival powers?  

ARENA-- Though the source material was all about "keeping" the upper hand against one's enemy, here the Trekkers learn to SHARE the universe with an apparent rival.     

COURT MARTIAL-- "In the name of a humanity that KEEPS truth, as against those damn dirty machines that can be programmed to lie, I demand the correct verdict!"

THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS-- The Trekkers must teach a whole planet, warped by the control of another damn dirty machine, to KEEP the counsels of the Federation on how to run one's civilization.

SPACE SEED-- Even though the Trekkers cannot allow an autocrat to return to power, they still find a way for him to SHARE in the manifest destiny of taming the spatial frontier.

A TASTE OF ARMAGEDDON-- This time it's a planet whose people think they can regularize the death-toll of war to avoid armageddon. The Trekkers show them how to KEEP an existential awareness of how messy death is.

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE-- No flaming sword needed here, to KEEP the Trekkers away from the perils of Eden.

THE DEVIL IN THE DARK-- Kill the monster! Oh, it's really a mother? And a mother who can save humans from loads of labor? Why, sign her up for a role in "The Not So Secret SHARER."

ERRAND OF MERCY--  "Who will 'keep' sovereignty in a war of rival powers?" Well, it would be either the Trekkers or the Klingons, except that a third power compels them to play nice and SHARE.

THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER-- "Though they're disapprovin', KEEP them time-dogies movin,'" so that they run in the right direction and make certain that the good guys won World War Two-- even if a sacrifice proves necessary.

(Season One episodes omitted: MIRI, DAGGER OF THE MIND, THE MENAGERIE, SHORE LEAVE, THE GALILEO SEVEN, THE SQUIRE OF GOTHOS, TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY, THE ALTERNATIVE FACTOR, OPERATION-- ANNHILATE!)

         

BUFFY THE WOKENESS SLAYER

 If there's anything I got from my massive rewatch of all seven seasons (1997-2003) of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, it's a recollection of the days when it was fun to be Liberal.

Not that I think I was ever a hard-and-fast Lib. When I saw Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING on DVD, probably shortly after its 1989 debut, I knew it was not genuine drama, but political agitprop. I don't know when I read Laura Mulvey's essay on "the male gaze," but I recognized it as ultra-feminist garbage. Though the essay came from the 1970s and the movie from the very late 1980s, both represented politicized myths that had a great deal of influence on American entertainment in terms of the depiction of race and sexual nature. Both were harbingers of the Progressive credo known as "wokeness," even though the term predated both works but did not become a mainstream concept until the 2010s. The metaphor of wokeness depended on a simple binary opposition: to be woke was to be vigilantly aware of the many abuses that mainstream American culture inflicted upon the marginalized, while, implicitly at least, to be asleep would mean passively (and foolishly) accepting the status quo.  

Similar metaphors of vigilance surely appeared throughout American history and other national histories. But the concept of eternal vigilance (paging JFK) does not capture what the appeal of Liberalism was for a baby-boomer like myself. Classical Liberalism wasn't just figuring out how to keep Evil Conservatives at bay, it seemed to be about an embrace of plurality across the board. And Liberalism of the Sixties was much sexier as well-- which brings me back to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, which might be the last great fictional proponent of Classical Liberalism of the 1990s. 

  Now, if I was being paid to write this essay, I'd probably research all the complex and varied ways that the TV show renounced the sort of simplistic concepts of good and evil beloved by both Far Left and Far Right. But since I'm not, I'll confine myself to a BUFFY episode that's one of the lighter stories, even though it concerns the near-extermination of a marginalized race: the Chumash Indians of California.  

"Pangs" (no idea what the title signifies) premiered in 1999, the eighth episode of the fourth season, which means that a lot of soap opera has gone down the pike at that point. I'm not breaking down any of the characters or their multifarious relationships; that's what the Buffy wikis are for. Some quick points though. Xander has just started dating former demon Anya, but Willow's first major love-interest departed for parts unknown. Buffy's mother has gone to a relative's place for the impending Thanksgiving holiday, and though there's a potential new romance in the Slayer's life, she's still fairly bummed about former Great Love Angel, who decamped from the show at the end of Season 3 for his own series. Buffy talks her friends and her sometime teacher Giles to put together their own Thanksgiving, which of course makes for lots of comic chaos. Angel, by the way, shows up for the first BUFFY-ANGEL crossover, while Buffy's perennial enemy Spike manages to intrude on the holiday cheer as well.

 The main threat to the Clan Scooby is a vengeful Chumash Indian spirit, name of Hus, accidentally released from a subterranean tomb by Xander. But even before Hus starts killing people for the wrongs done to his people, Willow's first scene includes her reading the riot act to her White ancestors, remarking upon the hypocrisy of Thanksgiving, the status quo's coverup of a racial holocaust. The scene notes that Willow is "channeling" her academician mother, but the script doesn't make fun of the actual evil deeds done to the Chumash by past ancestors. Most of the humor flows from Buffy's frenetic attempts to celebrate a favorite holiday, political implications be damned. She does sympathize with Hus more than most of the foes she fights, and she joins Willow in using the preferred term of "Native Americans" over "Indians"-- even when Hus and some other vengeful spirits show up to crash the Thanksgiving party for an old-fashioned massacre.

Had anyone tried to remake this episode in the 2010s, all the comedy elements would have been gone, and Willow would probably have become a Black Women's Studies major, dissing the Evil White Patriarchy. And there would have been no room at all for Spike, whose primary purpose in "Pangs" is to provide a discordant voice. He snidely laughs at the Scoobies' desire to find a peaceful solution, and he's entirely justified-- as Willow herself eventually affirms-- that the situation is one of "kill or be killed." He also remarks that "the history of the world is not people making friends," and even the most empathetic Liberal can recognize some truth in this statement, even if it's coming from a bloodsucking monster who boasts about his own murderous history at the drop of a hat.      

By itself "Pangs" does not prove my claim that the BUFFY show could be the last major Liberal work of the 1990s, or an additional claim that it's far superior to most Liberal works of the next two decades. Most Liberal entertainments became increasingly infected with the disease of Woke, full of a smug confidence that there were only two clear sides, and that the Wokesters were on the right one. There have been some setbacks to Wokism in pop culture during the last five years, but I've seen no indications that anyone's managed to get back to the humor and pluralism seen in the original BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. This suggests that the rumored reboot from (of all corporate entities) Disney will probably be a shit-show of the first order. But whatever the sins of Joss Whedon might be, they'll never even come close to the driveling banalities of the Disney Corporation.          

Addendum: though Willow frequently disses the tropes of "cowboys vs. Indians" as communicated through cinema, the writers worked in a couple of Western tropes, not entirely with ironic meaning. In the opening scene, Buffy wears a girly cowboy-hat, a piece of headware she never sports again. (In fact I don't think the character ever wears any hat besides this one, preferring caps if anything.) In addition, late in the story Willow, Anya and Xander leave the Summers house on an errand, and when Angel brings news that the house is under attack by the Indian spirits, the three of them steal bicycles and rush to the rescue, accompanied by strains of music I found very "cavalry-esque."    

TOTALITARIAN TOKENISM PT. 3

I suppose that this essay-series is a very roundabout way of approaching the subject I first raised in my review of Season One of the Netflix SANDMAN teleseries. In that review, I specified that I wanted to discuss the formal properties of the show, and deal with the "politically oriented alterations" elsewhere. But before doing so, I wanted to explore the background of said changes. In Part 1, I described the way that a given phenomenon could be viewed as either a "negative token" or a "positive token" according to one's presuppositions. In an intermediary essay, I analyzed the conditions of the early 20th's century's "Status Quo," in which positive tokenism had very limited potential, and in Part 2, I proceeded to specify the early inroads of this form of tokenism in the 1960s decade. I did not deny the possibility of negative tokenism. However, whereas many people have used the term to connote a superficial pretense to follow certain political principles, I've defined negative fictional tokens as those that shows no individuality, but are defined ONLY as sociopolitical indicators, whether for "Liberal" or "Conservative" purposes. While the showrunners showed a great deal of sensitivity in adapting the Neil Gaiman stories from the SANDMAN comic book, their efforts were compromised by the constant emphasis on virtue signaling through Netflix-approved DEI casting. Instead of making all the race-bending, gender-bending and kink-bending seem natural, the message of forced inclusivity serves as a constant reminder of a new-- and totalitarian-- Status Quo.                                                                                                                        So what were the various "bendings" of SANDMAN SEASON ONE?                                                                                                                  

"The Sleep of the Just"-- Alex Burgess, who has custody of Morpheus at the time that the dream-lord breaks free, is given a gay lover, played by an apparently-Black British actor. Lucienne, the librarian of The Dream-World, is depicted as a White male in the comic book, becomes a Black female in the TV show.                                     

"Imperfect Hosts"/"Dream a Little Dream of Me"-- the original Gaiman stories concern male John Constantine, who gives aid to Morpheus in exchange for help with his opposite-sex lover. In the Netflix narrative, John becomes Johanna, but her lover remains female. In the comics John Constantine was sometimes defined as bisexual, but I suspect Johanna swings only one approved way.                  

"A Hope in Hell"-- In the original Gaiman story, a male demon in Lucifer's domain acquires Morpheus' helmet, and the dream-lord enters Hell to challenge the demon, name of Choronzon, for custody of the prize. In the TV show the challenge proceeds largely as it does in the comic, except that Lucifer, now played by Gwendoline Christie, takes Choronzon's place in the contest, for no discernible reason but to give the actress playing Lucifer more lines than the actor playing Choronzon. In a subplot, the madman John Dee escapes an asylum and catches a lift from a female driver. In the comic the driver is a White woman, whom Dee kills when he's done with her. In the TV episode, the driver is a Black female, but Dee not only spares her. he gives her a protective charm for no plot-related reason.                                   

     "24/7"-- As in the original story, John Dee enters an all-night diner and uses his powers to manipulate the personnel and customers. The comic included a White "power couple." but here they become an Asian wife and a Black husband. The original story includes a young lesbian woman, who gets to stay the same. But that's not enough for the TV show: the Black husband is secretly gay, and so is the diner's cook, with whom waitress Bette thinks she has a romance of sorts. The cook not only reveals that he's gay, but that he's slept with Bette's younger brother. Somehow the writer manages to omit the question of anyone gay committing child sexual abuse.               

"The Sound of Her Wings"-- In the comic, Dream's sister Death is depicted as a Caucasian-looking Goth girl with skin as chalk-white as Dream's, so of course she must be played by a Black actress here. Hmm, since she's a conceptual being, couldn't she have also satisfied DEI had she been played by a dark-complected Hispanic or one of several different Asian types? But no, we have a hero who's White, so a Black "sister" is the necessary counterbalance. One or two minor characters go from White to Black as well.                                         

    "The Doll's House" and the next three episodes-- The characters Rose Walker, her brother Jed, and her great-grandmother Unity go from White to Black. Yet Jed, separated from his family when his Black father dies, lives with his Aunt Clarice, played by a White performer, as is her abusive husband Barnaby. Was Clarice's sister, mother to Rose and Jed, supposed to be White too? Maybe someone in the writers' room didn't think things through? Or they just thought it was OK for villains to remain White? Another conceptual entity, a nightmare named Gault, is played by a Black actress, but this time the two entities she substitutes for were generic monsters, not belonging to any racial type as such. Rose's friend Lyta Hall, a White character in the comics, is played by a Lebanese-British actress, but her late husband Hector? Starts with "B," ends with "k--" again.         

   "Dream of a Thousand Cats" and "Calliope"-- though there a few minor characters who are race-bent, there are no major changes here. But that may be because the main human characters-- a couple who drown some kittens for expedience, and Ric Madoc, a man who keeps a Greek muse in captivity-- are White People Doing Bad Things.                                                                                                                                                                                                                Yet "Calliope" displays the most interesting script-change in any episode. In the original story, Madoc is an immense hypocrite. Though he exploits his imprisoned, suffering Muse so that he becomes a celebrated author, Madoc describes himself to his adoring fans as a "feminist writer." This line is also in the episode's script. However, someone on staff added a rather revealing line. Madoc is on the phone, talking to what one assumes to be an agent about a TV-adaptation of one of his books, and he says, "I need [the producers] to guarantee at the outset that the cast and crew will be made up of at least 50%  women and people of color, and that we need to publicize it so they won't get out of it when it comes to hiring people."                                                                                                                                                                                             Now, what does it mean that someone-- be it the credited writer or one of the showrunners-- inserted that line? Was it meant to carry the same irony as the Gaiman line in which Madoc describes himself as a feminist writer? It's possible, but the line is weird, coming from a writer working for a company that insisted on the very pattern of virtue signaling that Madoc uses to make himself look virtuous. Did the writer of the line want to imply, however covertly, that virtue-signaling Netflix wasn't any more virtuous than Ric Madoc?                                                                                                                             That's one possibility. Another is that the writer of the line really did believe that it was both moral and necessary to make companies commit to DEI hires, because otherwise they would revert to the bad old days of "if you're White you're all right." I should point that, although SANDMAN Season One came out in 2022, as of this writing Netflix remains firmly committed to DEI, unlike a number of companies that have at least modified their more extreme positions.                                                                                                                                                                                                   To pursue my tokenism metaphor to the bitter end, usually the word is used for one character of a divergent race, gender or proclivity whose presence "proves" that an author, or the characters the author creates, is/are free of bigotry against the divergent type. But tokenism inheres just as much in mass quantities of virtue signaling. In the minds of the politically correct, they believe they're fighting the good fight. But how "inclusive" can their multi-ethnic, polysexual characters be if they exclude themselves from accepting any of the "badness" that belongs to the entire human race? Their demands to be in all ways sympathetic and/or heroic hold the ring of totalitarian propaganda-- particularly that of the totalitarian seeking to drum up a war against an enemy's alleged wrongdoings.                                                                                                                                                                                             

CLAW CONSIDERATIONS

 On THE TOM BREVOORT EXPERIENCE, the question was raised as to why Atlas Comics had published four issues of THE YELLOW CLAW in 1956, and whether it was a response to the same-year appearance of a syndicated teleseries, THE ADVENTURES OF FU MANCHU. My response follows.

_______

Since Martin Goodman was far more known for jumping on trends than was Stan Lee, I would concur that YELLOW CLAW probably had its genesis from Goodman hearing news about the syndicated series ADVENTURES OF FU MANCHU. In fact, since the cover date for YELLOW CLAW #1 was October 1956, that issue probably hit stands at least two months before the first episode of ADVENTURES aired in September ’56. The comic book outlasted the series (not counting reruns), published into early 1957 some time after ADVENTURES broadcast its last new episode back in November.

Now, what might have boosted the Fu Manchu TV show? One short novelette with Fu Manchu had been published in 1952– I don’t recall where– but it didn’t see book publication in Rohmer’s lifetime, only getting collected by Daw in 1973 with three ultra-short uncollected Fu stories in WRATH OF FU MANCHU. For most readers, Fu’s last novel had been in 1947 or 1948, and the next to last full novel would show up one year after the series appeared, in 1957– UNLESS that novel got serialized in periodical form somewhere first. A lot of Fu novels were serialized before book publication, but I’ve no evidence that happened with the 1957 novel. Still, the news of a new novel with the devil-doctor might have sparked the TV show, though, as with the comic, it’s hard to coat-tail on a phenomenon if your imitation comes out FIRST.

Addendum: The Page of Fu Manchu reports that the 1957 novel had no serialization.

There might have been an uptick in Asian villains in pop media of the early fifties thanks to the Korean War, but I’m not aware of any major influential challengers to the legacy of the devil doctor– EXCEPT for Sax Rohmer’s second best known character, Sumuru. She had first appeared in a late forties radio serial, but according to one online review, Rohmer’s five novelizations of the character’s exploits did very well for paperback publisher Gold Medal in the early fifties:

Sax Rohmer’s Nude in Mink (released as Sins of Sumuru in the UK) was published in May 1950. It was Gold Medal’s seventh overall title, and their third fiction novel. Like the Fu Manchu series, it featured a series villain, Sumuru, that was molded to be a female version of her male predecessor. In the first two months, Nude in Mink went through three printings—at 200,000 copies per print run (assuming it followed Gold Medal’s usual publishing pattern), that means 600,000 copies in just 60 days. According to The Page of Fu Manchu, it would go through another printing in October 1950, followed by a fifth printing in October 1951 and then a sixth in July 1953. Not bad for a novel that was salvaged from a BBC radio serial from 1945–1946. It would also spawn several sequels: Sumuru (1951), The Fire Goddess (1952), Return of Sumuru (1954), and Sinister Madonna (1956)

http://www.pulp-serenade.com/2020/08/nude-in-mink-by-sax-rohmer-1950.html

I don’t know exactly how “Asian” Sumuru is since I’ve read only one of the novels, but her success might have sparked Rohmer to execute his last few Fu-stories, and that might have convinced TV producers that there was gold in them thar Asian mastermind hills. And of course in the mid to late fifties, syndicated TV was coming out with a lot of pulpy adaptations– Sheena, Jungle Jim, Flash Gordon– so Fu Manchu fit into that overall spirit of pulp-revival.

ONCE AND FUTURE STATURE (AND CHARISMA)

 I confess that my fascination with categorization sometimes gets the better of me. This is in no way a rejection of my critical methodology, nor an endorsement of the lack of critical thought in most comics-critics of my experience. But any practice can go in the wrong direction occasionally.

For instance, I'm mostly rejecting the theories I promoted in May of this year, in the essay NULL VS. NASCENT STATURE/CHARISMA. The biggest problem with this essay is that I now think I was trying too hard to "back-door" the concept of crossovers between characters possessed of either Prime stature or Sub charisma. 

In this, I believe I accepted, without adequate consideration, the tendency to lump together crossovers and spinoffs. This site, Poobala's Crossovers and Spin-Offs Master List, is one such exemplar of this tendency. However, in the NULL VS. NASCENT essay I think I went too far in eliding the biggest difference between the two forms.

--a CROSSOVER depends on the association of two or more characters (or other focal entities) from established properties. The prospective reader may be familiar with all of the crossover figures, only one, or none at all, but the appeal is to pull in the reader who wants to see the association of established characters.

--a SPINOFF depends on the association of one or more completely new characters (or focal entities) who "tailgate" on the back of one or more established characters/entities. The usual intent is to create a new franchise, usually one in serial form, that then stands for the most part independent of the established franchise. At best, then, a SPINOFF is a DEMI-CROSSOVER, using "demi" less in the exactly proportional sense of "half" than with the equally valid connotation of "lesser."

Another way of framing the difference is to state that the FULL STATURE CROSSOVER is oriented on THE PAST in the sense that, even if one franchise is newer than the other, the producer has already launched both franchises and is trying to increase the appeal of both. With the DEMI STATURE CROSSOVER, the producer's orientation is on THE FUTURE of a brand-new franchise, given greater fame thanks to its association with the established franchise. 

Obviously either strategy can be a success or a failure for whatever reasons. DC's Metamorpho had already begun his 1960s series when he was given a Full Crossover over in the Justice League, but the association didn't do anything for the relatively short run of the Element Man's first series. In contrast, Marvel's Daredevil, who was never a major seller in the same Silver Age decade as that of Metamorpho, was probably boosted to some degree by his Full Crossovers in more popular serials like SPIDER-MAN and FANTASTIC FOUR.

As for demi-crossovers, my frequently cited example of the  teleseries MAUDE would be one that successfully capitalized on its two-episode association with ALL IN THE FAMILY, and continued its independent success without (to my recollection) ever mentioning the FAMILY connection again. The most unsuccessful form of demi-crossovers are those in which the new franchise never gets launched at all, with the result that the unsuccessful franchise-characters just became Subs within the cosmos of the established franchise. MARRIED WITH CHILDREN had two back-door pilots, entitled "Enemies" and "Radio Free Tremaine," which went nowhere, and a third, "Top of the Heap," which did air for six episodes before cancellation. (The show was retooled under another name, but that only lasted seven episodes before it too bit the dust.)

Having made this distinction for stature-type crossovers, I'll try to keep things with regard to charisma-crossovers and demi-crossovers.

FULL CHARISMA-CROSSOVERS are also rooted in THE PAST. The reader of Batman comics is principally concerned with Batman, or with Batman and Robin, but a constant reader will be familiar that certain villains get more fame than others. Thus, when a story depicts the meeting of two Bat-villains, Joker and Penguin, the appeal to the reader rests in past associations of the two criminals.

DEMI CHARISMA-CROSSOVERS attempt to boost a new Sub villain for THE FUTURE by association with an established one, as I described in the scenario of SPIDER-MAN #14:

In SPIDER-MAN #14, the "repeat offenders" are The Enforcers, though they had made but one previous appearance. The Green Goblin was the "first timer," and though his creators patently intended for him to be a repeat villain, his first appearance can only be seen as having "nascent c-charisma" from the perspective of knowing that the Goblin made further appearances. But from the current historical perspective, most comics-fans know that the character became far more iconic as a Spider-villain than the Enforcers ever could have been, and so SPIDER-MAN #14 also can be deemed a charisma-crossover. 

 

I made some convoluted attempts to view the Goblin as having regular crossover-potential based on a "historical" view, but now I consider this (and all the null/nascent terminology) unnecessary. It's enough to say that the Goblin was being "spun off" via his association with The Enforcers, even though Lee and Ditko ended up using the Goblin far more than they did The Enforcers. After the Goblin became an established figure, he did have a demi-crossover with a new villain, the Crime-Master, who only appeared in one two-part story and then died. 

Though I've addressed heroes and villains for the most part so far, and will probably continue to do so, I will note one case in which a one-shot villain from the SPIDER-MAN series went on to greater fame as a demihero support-cast member. Fred Foswell started out in SPIDER-MAN #10 as a minor employee of Jonah Jameson, but in that same issue he was revealed to be the criminal mastermind The Big Man, also the boss to his flunkies The Enforcers. Foswell never again appeared as the Big Man, but Lee and Ditko teased readers by having Foswell return to work at Jameson's paper. When the newspaperman began taking up a secret identity as an underworld informant, "Patch," there was the possibility that he might again take up the super-villain game. Instead, some time after Ditko left and Romita became the resident artist, Lee had Foswell return to crime as an ally to the newly minted Kingpin-- only to be killed by the Kingpin's thugs for trying to protect Jameson. This might be deemed a demi-crossover of the charismatic kind, since Foswell had some escalation-charisma even as a support-figure, and the Kingpin had none until he appeared often enough to become a familiar figure.

ADDENDUM 8-27: I'm contradicting the above statement for reasons I'll enlarge upon elsewhere, but I'm now of the opinion that demihero support-characters don't forge any sort of crossovers with any other persona-type.

EMANICIPATION VS. FREEDOM PT. 4

I had hoped that I had said all I needed to say about the politicization of the CW superhero universe in the previous essay in this series. Unfortunately, thanks to the BLACK LIGHTNING episode "Just and Unjust," broadcast on 2-5-19,  I’m returning to the CW well once more.

I don’t watch BLACK LIGHTNING for entertainment, since I don’t generally get entertainment out of any sort of art that puts politics ahead of poetry. Despite my having been accused in some benighted bailiwicks of being an arch-conservative, I find conservative soapboxes just as flimsy as liberal ones. But in the 2010s there's not nearly as many venues where conservatives can may fools of themselves as the ultraliberals like to pretend.

I won’t attempt to analyze the complicated plot-lines of BLACK LIGHTNING's two seasons here. The show's posture was made clear from the first episode. Racist white cops gratuitously pull over school principal Jefferson Pierce and humiliate him for “driving while black”—and in front of his teenaged daughters Anissa and Jennifer, no less. This incident looms large in Pierce’s return to his earlier role as the vigilante superhero Black Lightning, and when his daughters also develop powers, they too become equally involved in fighting against “the Man,” as an earlier generation called it. To be sure, most of the hero’s opponents are the minions of the albino-black gang-boss Tobias Whale, against whom Black Lightning nurtures an old grudge. But even the presence of black cops in Pierce's mostly-black community of Freeland doesn’t anneal the general sense that all Black Americans live in a state of constant victimization. Even the predatory actions of black gangstas, by implication, are ultimately the responsibility of America’s system of “institutionalized racism.”

Nothing signals this unrelenting depiction of constant victimization more than what I’ll term “the Khalil plotline.” Khalil, a fellow student with Jennifer and Anissa at Freeland’s fairly upscale high school, is an up-and-coming track star with a bright future ahead of him, the more so when he and Jennifer fall in love. But Khalil's dreams come to an end when one of Tobias Whale's minions tries to kill a local organizer, resulting in Khalil being crippled by a stray bullet. 

Tobias Whale, though indirectly the author of Khalil's predicament, then plays the role of the Tempter. Using cyborg-like technology, Tobias gives Khalil the power to walk again, as well as super-powers, so that Khalil will function as Whale’s enforcer. Khalil makes this devil’s bargain in full possession of his faculties, and one of Whale’s plots involves Khalil storming his former high school and creating havoc. The students, most of whom are black, flee in panic from Khalili’s powers, though, conveniently for later plotlines, he doesn’t kill any of them.

Jennifer Pierce believes in her beloved and turns him away from serving Whale. So far as this goes, this is pretty standard for the CW, having a sympathetic character commit criminal offenses but finding some way to redeem him so that he never goes to jail for them. However, in season two, Khalil meets his reward for rebelling against the gangsta life, and he dies by the order of Whale.

As “Just and Unjust” begins, the mourning Jennifer returns to her school, where incidentally, Jefferson Pierce has been demoted to vice-principal due to his mysterious absences (caused by his superhero sideline), and an unfeeling white guy takes Pierce’s former job. This of course is one of the nightmares of Afro-American culture: the fear that at any moment even those with rewarding, respectable community positions will simply have their advancements ripped away by the white hierarchy. Since Unfeeling White Guy is not a developed character, I’ll just call him UWG for short.

On Jennifer’s first day back at school, she’s pleased that many of the students have evidently forgiven (or forgotten) Khalil’s rampage, for they’ve created memorials for the former track star. However, UWG has the memorials taken down.

Jennifer doesn’t make any attempt to meet with the principal or anyone else to contest this dictate. Instead, she assembles her own memorial in one of the school hallways. UWG quotes the school handbook, calling the display “inappropriate student art.” Though I don’t recall UWG having done or said anything racist in previous episodes, Jennifer immediately tasks him with bigotry.

“You can hide behind the handbook and all your rules. But the fact of the matter is, you just don’t like [Khalil]—or any of us, do you?” She also inducts Khalil into the ranks of “black lives that matter,” and outright calls UWG a racist. All of the student witnessing the exchange—not just some of them, but ALL of them—completely agree with Jennifer and apparently don’t care that Khalil’s rampage might’ve killed or injured some of them. Once a white guy’s in charge, he can be nothing but a representative of the white hierarchy, even though I believe most principals in a similar situation would have a lot of problems with honoring a gangster’s enforcer. Somehow, Khalil’s injury becomes the injury that all black people suffer at the hands of white people, for Jennifer, before being removed by security, preaches that “every person standing here is just one step away from becoming something they never meant to be.” And it’s totally the fault of the hierarchy: black people are  “trapped by a system, that doesn’t give a damn about us-- run by people like you.”

UWG then has a student rebellion on his hands, and his vice-principal’s only concern is his daughter’s welfare. When Pierce is told that finds his daughter called UWG a racist in front of other students, Pierce re-interprets this direct insult into liberal-speak:

“Jennifer is just questioning whether you have the perspective or the sensitivity for this community.”

Uh, not quite. She wanted to have a memorial to her gangsta-boyfriend on school property, and thought she could get it by picturing him as a victim of institutionalized racism.  The script, not willing to recognize Pierce’s bullshit, then loads the dice further by having UWG express resentment for the fact that he believes he’s had a harder life than Jefferson Pierce. Pierce’s response is practically boilerplate Leftism:

“you get the benefit of the doubt that even a rich black man will not get.  That’s what these kids are facing.”

If Khalil had been framed by the cops or the KKK, this “benefit of the doubt” argument might hold some relevance. But there is no “doubt” that Khalil committed criminal acts, and it would be a peculiar principal of any race who would think it a great idea to memorialize a gangsta in a high school. The idea that Khalil is instantly forgiven all of his sins because he’s had a hard row to hoe, being black in America, summarizes BLACK LIGHTNING’s total investment in victimization politics, and makes clear that the show endorses only the credo of “justice for the oppressed alone.”

EMANCIPATION VS. FREEDOM PT. 3

In Part 1, I quoted Fukuyama on a philosophical question posed by Nietzsche:

 Is recognition that can be universalized worth having in the first place? Is not the quality of recognition far more important than its universality? And does not the goal of universalizing recognition inevitably trivialize and devalue it?

Contemporary television serials are possibly one of the best mediums by which ideologies can produce widespread, albeit trivialized, forms of the ethic of emancipation. When television was dominated by conservative and occasionally ultraconservative creators of content, the emancipation ethic followed the "melting-pot" paradigm that I mentioned in Part 2.  Persons who did not conform to the WASP image of normality were not condemned for their differences, but there was the expectation that, say, a heroic Black American would be devote his energies to the benefit of the American status quo.  A character like Barney Collins of the 1966 MISSION IMPOSSIBLE provides an apposite example. In the Hegelian terms promoted by Fukuyama, Barney received "recognition" of his talents and his heroic nobility because he served the status quo by curbing the excesses of foreign dictators. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, then, provides a fair example of the trivialization of recognition along conservative political lines.

 In the ultraliberal morass of current television, a series, or a group of related serials, are far more likely to pursue liberal ideals of "identity politics," whether the identity is defined in terms of a character's race, religious heritage, or sexual proclivities. My apposite example of this current trend is the so-called "Arrowverse," usually identified with show-runner Greg Berlanti and incarnated in four current TV-shows on the CW Network: ARROW, THE FLASH, LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, and SUPERGIRL (which originally debuted on CBS but moved to CW in the show's second season).

The Arrowverse's identity politics orientation does not touch on the matter of religious heritage very often, so this aspect does not come into play. In terms of the representation of racial identity, the four shows have not followed the tendency of race-bending established franchise-heroes. Green Arrow, the Flash and Supergirl, depicted as Caucasian in the comics, are all played by Caucasian actors, and most of the "Legends" follow the same pattern, with the exception of short-lived members like Hawkgirl and Kid Flash.

However, the Berlanti-verse has invested heavily in the idea of "gender-bending" various characters in terms not of sexual identity but in terms of sexual proclivities, to wit:

ARROW started the ball rolling with the character of Sara Lance/White Canary. Sara was an original creation for the teleseries, though she was loosely patterned upon the comics-character Black Canary, and was apparently conceived as a lesbian early on. Sara did not stay on ARROW but was later spun off on the LEGENDS OF TOMORROW show. However, a gay version of Mister Terrific-- who debuted in the comics as a straight character in 1997-- joined the ARROW show in 2015.

THE FLASH, though it rewrote the hero's origin so that he now had a Black American "father" and "sister," didn't "gender-bend" any previously existing characters, such as those based on DC-characters Vibe and Killer Frost. In the course of one of the Arrowverse-crossovers, however, regular FLASH villain Captain Cold was revealed to have a gay doppelganger in another universe.

SUPERGIRL, though it introduced "Black Jimmy Olsen" as the Arrowverse's most notable "race-bending" up to that point, did not signal its investment in LGTB concerns during the show's first season on CBS. When the second season commenced on the CW, the original-to-TV character of Alex Danvers, adoptive sister to Kara "Supergirl" Danvers, belatedly discovered that she was a lesbian without ever having realized it, thanks to an encounter with a cop named Maggie Sawyer. Sawyer, a character who debuted in the SUPERMAN comics-universe, was "ambiguously gay" in her first appearances, though eventually her lesbian status was fully embraced by DC. The TV-version of Sawyer did not remain as a regular on SUPERGIRL but Alex Danvers remained as the representative for this particular strand of identity politics. In the fourth season, the show introduced a new character who will be defined as "trans," and though created for the teleseries, Nia Nal is loosely patterned after "Dream Girl" of the LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES franchise.

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, obviously, started out with a lesbian character as one of the regular members, and she was eventually joined by regular girlfriend Ava in Seasons 3 and 4, whose status is that of a support-character, rather than being a member of the Legends team. None of the Legends regulars were gender-bent, though in Season 4 the group recruited DC character John Constantine. In the comics Constantine has been loosely defined as bisexual, but according to online essays, the comics have not tended to focus on the character's homosexual encounters very often, while Season 4 made one such liaison a going concern for several episodes. There has also been a suggestion of possible romance between Constantine and "Citizen Cold," the gay doppelganger of FLASH's Captain Cold.

Now, what's my point in laboriously listing all the examples of gender-bending in the Arrowverse? Obviously nothing I could write would change Greg Berlanti's patent conviction to his liberal emancipation ethic. His interpretation of the liberal ethic seems based on the "monkey see, monkey do" principle, essentially taking the position that the only way TV can help achieve equity for LGTB people in reality is to bombard viewers with LGTB characters, and hope that said viewers, if not already liberal in their sentiments, will become more liberal in attitude by exposure to such characters.

Here, however, Berlanti's intent is far more consistent than his execution. Speaking only for myself, I consider most of the LGBT characters in the Arrowverse to be extremely mediocre,  both as characters and as representatives of identity politics. The only character who seems authentic both as a character and as a homosexual is Mister Terrific of the ARROW series, expertly portrayed by the actor Echo Kellum.

In some cases, the actor may be good but the character-arc is mediocre. Like many fans, I applaud the fact that the Arrowverse gave actor Matt Ryan the opportunity to portray John Constantine once more, following the demise of the 2014 NBC teleseries in which Ryan first essayed the character. However, his homosexual story-arc was jejune in the extreme, as are most of the arcs involving Sara and Ava,  which are also not well-served by the wooden line-readings of Cathy "White Canary" Lotz. Chyler Leigh provides decent thesping for the character of Alex Danvers on SUPERGIRL, but since her primary function on the series is to be an ally to the central heroine, being a lesbian doesn't really hurt or help her.

I assume that Berlanti's deluge of LGBT characters within a relatively short span of time is predicated on roughly similar liberalizing strategies seen in earlier eras. I stated in Part 2 of this series that the racial liberalization seen in television shows and even comic books of the 1960s broke down many of the old barriers of white privilege vis-a-vis creating all characters as WASPs. However, it's my conviction that people didn't respond so much to mediocre Black American characters like the aforementioned Barney Collins, but to those the audiences found more distinctive and memorable, like the contemporaneous 1960s character Alexander Scott of I SPY.

Berlanti follows the current trend of identity politics, assuming that as long as you keep showing "noble gays" to the public in great quantity, the public will embrace gay people in response to this fervent appeal to social equity. But I don't think that's the way it worked for the liberalization of 1960s attitudes toward Black Americans as fictional characters. White people may remember the presence of a Barney Collins or a Julia Baker (from the titular series JULIA), but mediocre characters don't change opinions. Whatever the real-life failings of Bill Cosby, his portrayal of Alexander Scott puts across a character who is enjoyable because he is rounded as well as being black. Similarly, even though Nichelle Nichols' Lieutenant Uhura appeared in far fewer scenes than did Diahann Carroll's Julia, the former made a more lasting impression because her character was better conceived, both as a character and as a black woman.

Both the melting-pot paradigm and the paradigm of identity politics substitute political status in place of vivid characterization. They fail because they conceive of the audience as imitative monkeys, and when their politics become known, they're more likely to conjure forth King Kong than Curious George.