Holy Political Agenda Batman! Comic Books and the Cold War

Here ya go, the rough draft that I turned in cause I procrastinated too long.

Holy Political Agenda Batman! Comic Books and The Cold War

In 1986 two comic book writers tackled the superhero genre from a new angle. Frank Miller attempted to rework the iconic character of Batman into something new. Alan Moore created new characters that parodied the classic archetypes. The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen both told stories relevant to the neo-conservative politics instated during the Cold War. Frank Miller transformed Batman from a hard jawed deeply committed law enforcer or campy pop culture icon to a brooding sociopath with no choice left but to circumvent the system (Sabin 87). Alan Moore let readers glimpse a world where the superheroes are not set apart by circumstance and do not have an intrinsic need to fight crime; he gives us characters that are fatally and humanly flawed. The backdrop world of each comic helps to draw parallels. It is also one major difference between each book. In The Dark Knight Returns the static world of Gotham has changed to incorporate bits of the current political world. In The Watchmen, the city of New York graces the pages, changed only by the influence of the superheroes. By inserting elements of the real world and through subtle changes of the iconic cities of comic book Gotham and real world New York city, writers Frank Miller and Alan Moore were able to blend political commentary with comic book entertainment.

Gotham is the dark underbelly of the DC universe. It stands in stark contrast to the brightly lit world of Superman’s Metropolis. However, in The Dark Knight Returns, it becomes even seedier, almost anarchistic. In Miller’s vision, the streets run rampant with crime and Batman had retired. There is a tense atmosphere of fear and inevitability that permeates the dialogue and the strong hardened lines of the art. Miller’s world is broken, limping along like a wounded animal. It is feral and nothing like the Gotham illustrated in the earlier works. “In Miller’s Gotham it is no longer possible to assume the existence of Good”(Fisher 2). Batman changed to adapt. He is larger, a hulking mass that is as gritty and cynical as the city he defends. These changes reflect the political climate and even include Ronald Reagan as the president of this world. Miller took the world the reader was used to and changed it, hardened it. Miller’s Batman “mirrored Reagan’s tendency of hiding his relationship with authority behind a renegade image” (Dubose 917). Miller uses Gotham as a mirror to the world the reader lived in. He attempted to highlight the fears of the day and transform them into a hypothetical. Before this, politics of the reader’s world, never transgressed into the pages of comics. Gotham was separate, it was a safe haven to hide in, to reflect for a while. It allowed escapism, but Miller pulled his ideas from the headlines and showed the readers a world that could be.

Moore was able to use the same devices to illustrate a world that could have been. Unlike Miller who used Gotham where “though populated, it does not change nor does its populace”, Moore places his heroes in the ever dynamic New York City (Rollin 419). This change of setting allows him to more fully explore the ideology and impetus that forced his characters to put on the costume. They are not outside of the world they reside in, but fully a part of it and just as flawed and faceted as the time in which they were created. These heroes “exist at the mercy of contingent factors, which limit their actions. They have become just another facet of society” (Hughes 548). Superheroes and masked vigilantes just by existing changed the face of American history in his book. Instead of losing the Vietnam war, the help of characters like Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian, America dominates. Ronald Reagan is no longer president in his vision, but Nixon, ageing and paranoid. The cold war rages and in fact is the driving force behind the action. Masked vigilantes have been outlawed and only heroes that are willing to work implicitly with the government are allowed to continue fighting. Moore shows us a world where superheroes and political ideology are irrevocably intertwined.

In the end, both books attempt to re-examine the vigilante in light of the Cold War. “A vigilante’s activity becomes labeled as such only in the event of political differences”(DuBose 918). Without the defining bits of real world politics inserted into both books neither Miller or Moore could have created something exciting and new for the comic book world. In a time when readers were looking to comic books as a source of escape both Miller and Moore pulled them back to the reality at hand. When characters are placed outside the spectrum of ideology they do not need to answer to a higher governmental authority. By giving Batman a corrupt government and the tense ideology of neo-conservatism to interact with, Miller broke the character out of a dated and languishing mold. Miller’s Batman may “be authoritarian, violent, and sadistic, but in a world of endemic corruption he is the least worst option”(Fisher 3). By setting The Watchmen in a world “marked by fragmentation of authority and disconnected forces”, Moore lets the reader reassess the current political state from an outside pop culture perspective. By pulling in real world aspects to each book, the authors moved the comic genre from one of the lowest echelons of literary work into a new age.



Works Cited

DuBose, Mike. “Holding Out for a Hero: Reaganism, Comic Book Vigilantes, and Captain America.” Journal of Popular Culture. 40.6 (2007): 915-935.

Fisher, Mark. “Gothic Oedipus: Subjectivity and Capitalism in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins.” ImageText: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 2.2 (2006): 1-11.

Hughes, Jamie. “Who Watches the Watchmen: Ideology and Real World Superheroes.” Journal of Popular Culture. 39.4 (2006): 546-557.

Rollin, Roger. “Beowulf to Batman: The Epic Hero and Pop Culture.” College English. 31.5 (1970): 431- 449.

Sabin, Roger. Adult Comics: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Notes on drafting thesis

1. What is the fundamental difference in the portrayal of vigilantes in the 80’s iconic comic books The Dark Knight Returns and The Watchmen?

2. How are Batman and Ozymandius similar?

3. How are Superman and Dr. Manhattan similar?

4. How did the authors of TDKR and Watchmen re-envision superheroes in response to the political climate of the 80’s?

1. In the 80’s readers saw a shift in the portrayal of the iconic heroes Batman and Superman. Batman, in the hands of writer Frank Miller, moved from the driven detective envisioned by 50’s creator Bob Kane to a noir-like brooding near sociopath. Superman also transformed, darkening to match the sinister feel of the Dark Knight by losing his power as a symbol of American pride in truth and justice; he became just a simple tool for government to further it’s own political agenda.

Later, almost in response to the new standard set by Miller, Alan Moore released his epic The Watchmen which for the first time attempted to honestly look at what the real world integration of vigilantes and superheroes would do to American society.

(There are characteristic similarities between Moore’s Ozymandius to Miller’s Batman that are also mirrored in the comparisons that can be drawn between Moore’s Dr. Manhattan and Miller’s Superman.)

2. In Ozymandius and Batman the reader is introduced to normal men driven to not just fix a governmental system that no longer works, but to destroy it completely to allow for the creation of a new system of justice.

3. In Dr. Manhattan and Superman the reader sees how a character with inhuman, nearly Godlike, abilities is subsumed by the ruling government to further it’s own political agenda.

4.
Frank Miller-
-using iconic pre-existing characters
-changing their world from a static mirror world to include segments of reality for political satire

Alan Moore
-creating new characters that parody pre-existing characters
-establishing them in our world but shifting it into the hypothetical to encompass the affects of their influence

Job Application Letter

Okay, it may just be me, but I find that the language necessary to seem competent in a successful job application letter is very similiar to the self inflated ego driven hot air I hear in some of the people I consider jackasses. This is difficult for me. But, for the sake of maintaining my "A" average in all of my classes I bit the bullet and talked myself up.

Urgh. I feel slimy. Please, rip it apart and tell me if I have failed or if this is actually someone a company would fall for... I mean, hire.


To Whom it May Concern:

Subject: Editorial Assistant Position

Detail oriented thinking and conceptual visualization are qualities that I have worked to acquire. I enjoy finding grammatical mistakes in novels. I voluntarily clean and reorganize the customer coffee station at Starbucks. I love finding a story in every customer that has five minutes to share while making change. My attention to detail and current focus on English as a major in college help qualify me for the entry-level editorial assistant position listed on your Website.

I currently tutor a graduate level student working on his masters’ thesis and am maintaining the highest grade in my English class. I am a self-starter and have pushed the envelope on the content and structure of my papers. I research and double-check the simplest of papers. I enjoy fact checking. I love finding the truth underneath the glossy story. I always find something new to learn and am not unwilling to ask for help. I work well with others and do my best to collaborate seamlessly.

I currently work at a coffee shop where I do all of the in house signage. I handcraft each, using past artistic experience and quick copy editing skills. I write the emails for my boss to her company supervisor. I double check every announcement posting for grammar and spelling mistakes. I strive to make sure customers get exactly what they order. I strive to go further and give them exactly what they want by listening to their expectations and attempting to anticipate their needs. Communication is the largest part of excellent customer service and I maintain a specificity of language and a high standard of service that meets the needs of each customer. I am motivated and willing to learn. I learn from my mistakes. I can express myself clearly.

I am committed to doing my best in any form of employment. After reviewing the enclosed resume, I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss why I would be a successful member of your team. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Meagn Goose


On another note, I did get an "A" on my Katrina Paper. In fact the only comment that the professor could make critically for it was actually incorrect. Semi colon useage is perfectly legal and definately does NOT indicate a comma splice. Thankyouverymuch.

I'm continuing to work on the comic book based paper and will post that up for everyone who actually gives a shit to read through once I have finished. I hope you enjoy it, despite the fact that I am having the damndest time figuring out where I want to start and even quite possibly the correct way to phrase my thesis statement. However, I do want to eventually publish in the academic journal I found on comic books just so that I can say I was published academically in my early undergraduate work in any college transfer application I do.

Which reminds me, I'm going to be looking into more on the Flagler College up in St Augustine. It seems at first glance like it would be a good fit, but that could all depend on the amount of financial aid I would be awarded. I also think I may go to graduate school at UF just so I can get a masters degree in comic books and visual rhetoric. That sounds freaking awesome despite the obvious drawbacks of employability. Who knows what tomorrow brings though, so no worries at the moment.

All is well on the southern front, hope you all are doing fabulously.

comics?

Apparently my idea of a job has been severly limited by my small and scary world view of TUNNEL VISION.

Dudes, did you know there is a job out there called a "Futurist"? Swear to god, I thought I made that shit up when I was blathering on about becoming a future historian. Theoretically, it should exist only in my head because now I am insanely jealous that some old dude with money out there HAS my job. (Obviously it is mine for I have the flag in this argument.)

Also, there is an entire graduate and doctorate level program on COMIC BOOKS at UF. HOLY BATSHIT AWESOME! They produce an academic journal which has been insanely helpful in my comparison/contrast paper of vigilante superheroes in the 80's (ie: Watchmen and The Dark Knight). I'll totally post that one up later, it should be made of awesome.

That is all, there is a Maria monster to chatter with on GMAILchat.

Due dilligence.

To update: Got a 100 on my Philosophy test and a 98 on my Western Civ. It was kind of weird, two of the questions on the test were thrown out because I was the only one who got them right. Makes me wonder. I almost want to petition the teacher to change my grade by counting the two right questions for the one wrong. Probably not going to happen, but overall I'm pretty satisfied with the grades I have gotten so far. I'm interested to see what I got on my first paper in English, but it's not going to make or break anything really.

Decided to start working ahead a little bit in English and will probably get started on the comparison/contrast paper in the next day or so. I'm thinking I'll go in an entirely new direction and write about the fundamental difference between the Batman represented in the Silver Age of Comics as compared to the Batman represented by Frank Miller in The Dark Knight Returns. I think the dichotomy shows an interesting shift in public views especially if you integrate the social impact of the Cold War.

Heh. Comics is smarts.

Still doing well in Math, trying to stay ahead or at least current with the class. It's kind of fun if I think of it more as an exercise in preparedness than actual math. But we're doing basic algebra and if I don't get that base I'm never going to be able to take physics or higher level math classes. I have this weird desire to take physics, maybe just to prove to myself that I can.

In outside academia news, I have mastered the art of crock pot cooking and now return at the end of the day to a hot meal. This is excellent for the inevitable Law and Order rerun watching. My apartment is staying reasonably clean. I am still searching for the ultimate small space kitty litter. I'm going to finally be able to go to the doctor, the optometrist, and the dentist sometime next month. I vaguely fear for my teeth, but I should be able to handle at least some of the bills. It may be an exercise in damage control more than anything else. Bonus: Free Glasses! (I can't wait to get some new frames with a current prescription.)

I love being a student. I almost get a little knowledge buzz by the end of the day. I have to finish rereading Brave New World today just to be prepared for the book test in Phil. Not that I mind. After that is Stranger in a Strange Land, which I don't think I've read since High School. It's like a renaissance of SF in my life. Joy!

Also, I am ridiculously pleased with the resurgence of my vocabulary. It's rusty. It squeaks in places, but it's getting better every day. (This is also helpful with my strange specific sense of humor.)

It's club rush and I'm really trying to decide if I actually have time to consider taking the plunge into extra curricular. If they meet on tues and thur it's a possibility, but yea, other than that my life is rather full. Amazing how that happens.

Katrina Reform (Cause/Effect Paper)

Here you go mom, this is the tentative Final Draft of my paper.




Hurricane Katrina: The Educational Clean Slate


The physical scars of Hurricane Katrina are still evident in New Orleans. The widespread destruction of homes and property is only a small fraction of the devastation. The public school system itself, already laboring under the stresses of low income neighborhoods, corruption at high levels, and a lack of funding, was nearly irrevocably destroyed. However, even as the damaged areas are rebuilding, the blank slate left in Katrina’s wake has afforded educational reformers an opportunity to rework the basic idea of schooling. After years of being ranked as one of the poorest districts in the country, New Orleans public schools now have the opportunity to advance alternative methods of education. In effect, the destruction Katrina caused is now an opportunity to determine if charter Schools and magnet education will prove successful.

In an educational system that was previously ranked one of the lowest in the state and that was riddled with felony fraud convictions in 2006, New Orleans seemed to have given up on education (Tillotson 1). This was true especially in the poorer districts where the Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) was “stripped of authority over all schools that were below state average on standardized tests” (Tillotson 1). The government instituted a new order in Katrina’s wake; it created the Recovery School District (RSD) which now offers a decentralized potluck of charter, magnet, and public schools (Maxwell 1). Many schools are now privately funded, or even backed by management corporations that fish for prospective students within the community. It is still questionable whether this “new paradigm of market based education” will cause a reemergence of social and poverty segregation that riddled the previous school system (Dingerson 9). Hopefully, the program will allow parents and students to make informed decisions about their educational needs. “In 2007, approximately 11 OPSB overseen Charter schools, 5 OPSB traditional schools, 18 RSD traditional schools, 19 RSD Charter schools and 2 Charters overseen by the State Board of Education will be the start of the changing New Orleans’ educational landscape” (Tillotson 2).

While the opportunities for education have evolved, it is questionable whether an emphasis on free market competition among providers is in fact best for the students and parents. Currently, there is no centralized database of choice for parents and without a “coordinated and honest broker of family information and an enforcement mechanism for discrimination, families will not be informed choosers, instead schools will do the choosing” (Tillotson 3). Charter and magnet schools function, theoretically, on the idea that “schools will respond to competitive pressures by reorienting their attention toward educational consumers” (Lubienski 1). Thus far, there is little progress in standardized test scores and New Orleans is still ranked as one of the lowest school districts in the state.

Before Katrina, educational options were mandated by wealth and location. Schools are now relying on the ‘educated consumer’ to fill the classrooms. Without a centralized system in place to monitor educational and admission standards “there is a lack of consistency in the quality across the schools” (Maxwell 3). While fourth and eighth graders in the RSD posted bigger gains in several categories than their peers statewide, the cities scores remain among the lowest in the nation (Maxwell 3). Do these small gains signify that the educational reforms are destined to work? Do they represent a new need to focus on consumer based educational opportunities and free market standards? Educators have been given a clean slate to answer these questions. New Orleans must wait out the next few years and see if the results and scores revolutionize schooling in general or succumb to the segregated and apathetic ways of its’ past. If schools rewrite educational standards based on market economy, then inevitably there will be successes tempered with utter failure. New Orleans has become an experimental staging area that could take decades to see the results.







Works Cited

Dingerson, Leigh. "Dismantling A Community Timeline." High School Journal 90.2 (Dec. 2006): 8-15.

Lubienski, Christopher. "Public Schools in Marketized Environments: Shifting Incentives and Unintended Consequences of Competition-Based Educational Reforms." American Journal of Education 111.4 (Aug. 2005): 464-486.

Maxwell, Lesli A. "As Year Ends, Questions Remain for New Orleans. (cover story)." Education Week 27.39 (04 June 2008): 1-13.

Tillotson, D. “What's Next for New Orleans?” The High School Journal v. 90 no. 2 (December 2006/January 2007) p. 69-74.

Math Genius!

So I had a moment in class today where I thought I would explode with happy. For like the first time ever in my life I was singled out as the high score personage of break the bell curve awesome in a MATH class. Yes, this girl got a 100. It was shiny. I was basking quietly in a sort of embarrassed pleasure. This is one of those things that never happened before. It makes me want to keep trying, to keep getting that grade on tests and screw everyone else. I want to succeed!

Also, I managed to write my 500 word cause effect paper in English class in one sitting. I'm writing on the effects of clean slate reformers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It's a pretty fascinating topic if you look at it from both perspectives. In some ways the charter school push is the bad guy, using schools as an experiment for free market educational economies is initially supposed to incite a push for higher education standards as a way to draw in the best students, but it seems to be more of a segregating factor that instead improves a school's marketing ability. It's an interesting dilemma for someone who had up to this point been considering starting her own charter/magnet school in the indeterminate future.

I've also started researching my paper for Western Civ, quite possibly my favorite class this term. I've thrown out all of the options the professor gave us (with his blessing) and decided to focus on the life of Aspasia of Miletus. She's mostly relegated to footnote status, but is turning into something of a personal hero and I want to find out more about her. She hung with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. She was the lover and chief advisor of the most influential man of the Classical Athenian era Pericles. Overall, she's just something of a mystery and her achievements are either ridiculed by her male societal detractors or lauded for her cunning and mastery of rhetoric by her male sophist peers. She, in the fullest sense of the word, is made of awesome.

I'm still enjoying my philosophy class and have my first test on Tuesday. I also have to really dig in and get to work on the next journal assignment which deals with my personal beliefs on metaphysics and ethics. It should be interesting to say the least. Maybe I'll start tossing some of my paper rough drafts up here just to check back on at another time.

My outside of school life is still oddly complicated. I live and die by my daily planner. Wednesdays seem to have become something of a relax and chill with my friends day. Monday nights are my night with the boy. It's nice to wake up in the morning and drive there with him. It's gotten a little more difficult to spend time together with both of us working and in school, but it's definitely worth whatever time I get to spend with him.

Work is work. On Labor Day I got paid time and a half to draw pretty signs. That was cool. I've done more art for Starbucks than I have done in the last ten years. It's refreshing, but also reminds me why I'm not interested in pursuing a career in art and design.

I miss having free time and most of all I miss having a car and the freedom to just go where I need to when I need to. This will change soon though. I'm working on it. AUGH.