There were lots of things to hate about Watchmen the movie, but for me the most revelatory was what was done to the Silk Spectre. As I noted here and here, the Watchmen movie thoroughly disemboweled the character of Laurie Juspeczyk, replacing her with a standard-issue brain-dead supermodel in latex.
The fact that Snyder chose to lobotomize the main female character wasn’t surprising — that’s Hollywood, after all. But what did startle me was how much I minded. When I was 16, first reading the Watchmen books, my favorite character was undoubtedly Rorschach, both for his cool-as-shit bad-ass violence and for his traumatized, tragic commitment to a noble, if nonsensical, moral code. Somewhere in the intervening twenty years, though, Rorschach got a lot less interesting, and watching the movie from which she had been excised, I realized that Laurie had for some time been my favorite character in the book. You don’t know how much you’ll miss someone till they’re gone, I guess.
I got a second shock on seeing the reaction to the Silk Spectre character in the reviews. Pretty much everyone noted that the character in the movie sucked. But I’ve seen a lot of people argue that Laurie in the comic was lame as well. For example, in
comments, looking2dastars said:
…not only was the part of Silk Spectre II not given much to do but the character was probably the worst developed out of the next generation of heroes. It was the same way in the comic, where the main thrust of Laurie’s story is that her entire identity has never been her own. Her mother tried to turn her into a younger version of herself and when Laurie began to rebel against that, she defined herself entirely by her romantic relationship. Even after she breaks free of John, she immediately falls into the same pattern, attaching herself to Dan.
Or, as another example, Spencer Ackerman argued that:
Laurie is the most functional character in the film, where in the comic, she’s one of its most broken. Laurie Juspeczyk resents her mother, is desperate for a father, and is unable to function as a normal human being.
This perspective — that Laurie is uniquely dysfunctional and uninteresting, and that her character is uniquely defined by her relationships with others — is so far from my own experience of the character that I have trouble believing that we all read the same comic. In the first place, to say that Laurie is “among the most broken” characters seems to be willfully blind. Of the six main protagonists, Rorschach is a sexually stunted homicidal nutcase, completely trapped by his childhood trauma. Adrian is a megalomaniacal mass-murderer. The Comedian is a vicious amoral rapist, thug, and murderer. Jon is isolated and cripplingly passive — if there’s anyone who’s defined by others, it’s him. He lets his father choose his career for him, not once but twice, and when his girlfriend leaves him, his mature, adult reaction is to *go to Mars*. Moore suggests pretty strongly that Dr. Manhattan’s alienation and passivity can be read as psychological; he’s that way because that’s who Jon Ostermann is, not because of his super-consciousness. Next to these folks, Dan and Laurie’s garden-variety neuroses seem like pretty small beer.
Along those lines, it’s certainly true that Laurie is seen interacting with others more than, and that those relationships are more important to her than, is the case for most of the other characters. But that’s because she’s *normal*. For most people, human relationships are a big deal. It’s only for sociopaths like Rorschach and the Comedian and Adrian that other people don’t matter.
That’s not to say that Laurie’s relationships are all healthy. She has an extremely tangled relationship with her mother, complicated by an absent father, and her story in the comic is very much about coming to terms with that and figuring out who she is and who she wants to be — in accepting responsibility for her own actions. Or, to put it another way, *Moore* doesn’t define Laurie by her relationships, but *Laurie* often does. Most conspicuously, rather than admit that she rather likes being a super-hero, she blames her mother for forcing her to dress up against her will. There’s a lovely scene in which she tries to pull the same thing on Dan, telling him she put on the costume to help him out with his sexual and personal frustrations — to which he replies, with great amusement, that she’s full of shit.
A lot of Laurie’s character is tied to her absent father. Her stepfather, she notes, was mean to her and constantly bullying. She notes that that’s “probably why I’m edgy in relationships with strong, forceful guys…;” but it’s also why she seeks them out. Jon is pretty clearly the ultimate father-figure; the great blue god who will make all the troubles go away. Laurie’s reaction to stress is often to wish for someone to make it all okay — Jon functions as a kind of super-protector, teleporting away everyone who makes her uncomfortable, swooping in to pick her up when she’s depressed after the jail-break. He’s the surrogate, all-powerful parent she never had…or that she did have, considering his distance.
The trick with Laurie is that, what she’s hiding from herself, what she wants Jon to protect her from, isn’t her weakness, but her strength. She clings to an image of herself as wounded and needy, but there are lots of indications that that’s not really who she is at all. On the contrary, the Laurie who comes across throughout much of the book is absolutely able to take care of herself — she’s a tough, take-no-bullshit fighter, with a nasty mean-streak. She walks out on Jon, for example, for exactly the right reasons; he’s treating her badly, and she’s sick of taking it.
She also, incidentally, has a wicked sense of humor. There are lots of funny moments in Watchmen, but Laurie is one of the few characters who is actually, consciously, and repeatedly witty. When she’s rescuing the tenement dwellers from the fire, and one of them asks her if she’s with the fire department, she snaps out, “Listen, I’m smokey the bear’s secret mistress. Now will you please just move or throw yourself over the side or something?” Her byplay with Dan about how “Devo” he looks is laugh-out loud funny, too. Moore seems to have loved writing her dialogue, which sparkles throughout. After Jon leaves earth and the military tosses her out, and Dan suggests she go to her mother, she tells him, “Oh, she’d love that. I’d sooner sleep on a grating. Nah, I’ll get by. It just burns my ass to be so damn disposable.” It’s just a throw away, but I love the mix of profanity, self-awareness, and self-revelation. (And incidentally, when she goes to the Red Planet, the line is supposed to be “Oh, shit. I’m on Mars” — which suggests disbelief and an almost resigned wonder, not “Oh wow, I’m on Mars” as in the movie, which suggests that the character sees interplanetary star-hopping as a kind of amusement park ride)
Of course, it makes sense that Laurie is funny. She’s the Comedian’s daughter. It’s interesting that, in the handful of comments I’ve seen accusing Laurie of being dependent on other characters, nobody has pointed out how, throughout the book, we subtly and poignantly see her father in her. Laurie’s earthiness and her no-nonsense attitude echo her father’s; during the roof rescue, it’s Dan who’s the calm and reassuring one; Laurie’s busting people’s chops for their own good — mirroring the dynamic between Dan and the Comedian when they handled the ’77 riots . Laurie’s smoking also links her and her father. In one flashback, we see her Dad helping her to light a cigarette. After she mistakes the flame-thrower button for the lighter and nearly sets his basement on fire, Dan tells her that the Comedian made the same mistake. And then there are visual echoes, like this:
Finally, in her final panel in the book, Laurie is shown speculating about getting a new costume with protective leather and a mask, and perhaps a gun. She also says “Silk Spectre” is too girly and she wants a new name. The implication is that she’s going to become the Comedian.
I guess you could use this to say that she’s just racing to another father figure; defining herself in relation to someone else, etc. etc. But the point here is that she’s not *going to* a father figure. She’s becoming a father figure herself — or accepting the part of herself that is strong, like her father. In discovering who her father is, Laurie seems able to let go of her anger that he wasn’t there for her growing up, and at her need to be weak in order to draw him (or someone like him) back to her. In doing so, she’s able to forgive her mother…or perhaps to realize that there isn’t anything to forgive. “You never did anything wrong by me,” she tells her mom. Directly, she’s telling her mom that sleeping with Eddie Blake was okay — but she’s also saying that she’s not mad at her mom for pushing her to be a super-hero. A few panels later, Laurie’s telling Dan that she’s not going to have kids until she’s had some more adventures. Accepting her parents, she’s able to love her Mom, and be (at least in part) her father.
She’s also able to sleep with somebody who really has nothing to do with either of them. It’s true that at times Laurie turns to Dan for comfort and help — notably after she’s seen the destruction of New York, and she asks him to make love to her. But he also turns to her; it’s she who makes the first move in their relationsip, and she who figures out a way to aleviate his malaise; she saves him by putting on her costume. You could see it as a typical wish fulfillment nerdy loser guy – sexy girl dynamic, I guess — except that Dan, while a nerd in some ways, is hardly a loser — he’s incredibly physically tough; he’s a scientific genius, he’s wealthy, he’s caring and thoughtful, and while his fashion sense is not ideal, he’s quite good looking (“why Mr. Dreiberg, you’re ravishing.”) You can totally see why she likes him, as well as vice versa. I think it’s definitely the case, too, that she is in a lot of ways more butch than he is…though he can be kind of commanding and domineering as well. Ultimately, it doesn’t seem like either of them has to wear the pants (or tights or whatever) in the relationship; they seem like partners and friends. I don’t think it’s any more correct to say that she’s defined in relationship to Dan than it is to say that he’s defined in relationship to her. That is, it’s somewhat correct for both; they’re a couple. They’ve chosen to be together. That’s not a sign of weakness or a lack of character development. It just means that, in contrast to Rorschach or even Adrian, they’re adults.
Laurie convinces Jon to come back to earth by demonstrating to him the improbability of human life; the unlikelihood that this man would love this woman, and so produce this particular child. For Moore, in other words, the miracle of human life is a miracle of *relationships.* That’s why Jon smiles when he sees Laurie and Dan sleeping together at the end; love and the way people create one another is, for him, the beauty of life. People are miraculous because they are made of, or come out of, other people. In accepting her parents, in admitting how she is connected to them, Laurie is able to accept herself, and make choices about what she wants to take and leave from each. Finding that she’s not alone, she realizes that she doesn’t need a savior, but can instead be the hero she was pretending not to be all along.
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This is the first entry in a roundtable on female characters in comics. Tom, Miriam, and Bill will be along with posts on the topic as the week goes along.
Update: I have a follow-up post on Alan Moore’s female characters here
Update:Looking2dastars feels I mischaracterized his comments. His objections are here.
… If you´re trying to make this a roundtable you´re probably nuts, this is the most obvious and shallow we have read …
Um…I’m not trying to make it anything. There will be a roundtable, because other people on the blog are going to write about female characters in comics.
I’m not sure what you feel is obvious and shallow…female characters? My post? And are you the Pope or a monarch, or is there some other reason you’re referring to yourself with the royal “we”?
A lot of interesting things I haven’t thought about. As you say, Laurie isn’t as fucked up as the other characters in Watchmen, which is why I suspect most readers find her less interesting and relevant.
I agree with you in that I see the developing Dan/Laurie relationship as one counterpoint Moore provides to all the Heart of Darkness nihilism going on. The psychiatrist’s lines as he’s breaking up the street fight before NY explodes is another.
What I find so astonishing about Watchmen is that even such relatively minor characters are incredibly well realised and psychologically complex. They are not just tools in moving a story along or constructing overarching themes. They are *real people*.
Btw, don’t agree with your view on Adrian, see blog for why…
Did you mean to provide a link to that post, Mercer? It doesn’t seem to have come through….
One of my other favorite characters in Watchmen is Joey, actually. She’s funny and sad and a prick and very sweet — just a lovely portrayal of somebody with not much more than a walk on part (though this time through I finally noticed that it’s Joey who drives Laurie away when she and Jon have their fight….)
Really lovely analysis of a character I confess I haven’t examined that closely. Will pay more attention next re-read, definitely.
Yikes, I missed all the Comedian parallels, except that both characters are mouthy and dickish. I also missed that it’s Joey who drives her away.
Ah well …
On rereading multiple times, the Comedian parallels become more and more prevalent/obvious. For instance, Laurie is talking about becoming a Comedian-type in leather at the end…but it’s equally important that HE used to wear yellow pajamas as a costume, as she does for most of the book. He switched from yellow pajamas to leather fetish gear, as she plans to do. “It all fits together”. Maybe Don Diavolo thinks its fairly obvious that Laurie is linked to the Comedian and that she is the most “normal” and sympathetic character (well, her and Dan)…I tend to agree that if one reads closely and as an adult, Rorschach is less appealing that he was when we were in our teens. No need to defend Laurie, I think. Her forgiveness of her mom also quite obviously includes Sally’s forcing superheroics on her (in fact, this is the first place I went with this…even before forgiving her for sleeping with Eddie again). Don Diavolo still seems unnecessarily mean, though.
Sorry. My bad. If you’re interested:
http://dollhousehothouse.blogspot.com/2009/03/watchmen.html
Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Thank you for articulating what’s been flitting around in my head for the past month. I especially like how you point out that Jon was a passive person before the accident, as I feel that frequently gets overlooked.
Hey Chris. Yeah…though my brother has pointed out to me that the all-time-being-one thing means you could actually say that the accident caused his pre-accident passivity, if you wanted to go that route….
Either way, it’s a really nicely done piece of characterization. Completely lost in the movie of course….
Well, you couldn’t say it “caused” it, since cause and effect would have to undergo some major overhauls.
Since, I see the book in general as saying that we can (and should) change our situations rather than “just going along”–Jon’s lack of agency is condemnable to some degree…although he is throughout, a “special case.”
Hmmm; I think you’d have to do some convincing to get me to agree that Watchmen’s moral message is that straightforward. Adrian does something, obviously; it’s not at all clear that Moore approves of his actions, though.
And, yes, I was going to put in the caveat about cause and effect…but then I though, ah, screw it….
Well, I don’t think I said that Adrian is right…He clearly isn’t I think. I guess what I meant is that I don’t think the book suggests that because of four-dimensional spacetime business, we can’t “cause” or “effect” anything. This may be true for Jon, but not for us. Sometimes “causes” can lead to productive “effects”…but quite frequently (if we have a huge ego, like Adrian Veidt, especially), bad “effects” can happen too. If we see everything as “fated” or “predetermined” this leaves little room for moral (or ethical, or political) judgments of any kind…and I don’t think the book assumes a kind of general paralysis, despite Jon’s vision/powers. In fact, the tachyons suggest that change is possible even on the level of relativity (since they go back in time). I’m not saying Veidt is right to do what he does…just that the book doesn’t suggest that what we do doesn’t matter. Clearly it does (more with the two Bernies embracing than with Veidt’s “moral” actions, for instance).
EB
Thank you, Noah. Back in the day my favorite characters were Dan and Laurie, and boy, did I get a lot of groans for saying so. Their story was the first love story that I ever defended, the first one that didn’t bore me or offend me– the first one I didn’t see coming nor disbelieve happening. I was not a very girly teenager, and guy-gets-girl still has to take me by surprise in order to work for me. Thanks for putting this all so well.
Hey Carla. Thanks for your comments! It’s nice to hear others have felt the need to leap to the defense of Laurie and Dan.
Eric, I agree that Watchmen doesn’t privilege Jon’s perspective as being “right”. I don’t know that it’s wrong either, exactly — just as I’m not sure Rorschach is necessarily wrong (I think, for example, that he’s the most empathetic character, the one who most feels for others, in an odd way. Adrian says he feels all the deaths, but the only person who really cares about them is Rorscach — just as he’s the only one who really cares about the Comedian dying. It’s interesting that what he ends up teaching his therapist is precisely empathy; caring too much.)
I’m not so sure about Rorschach’s empathy. I see his effect on the psychiatrist…but Is Rorschach really invested in the dead New Yorkers or is he invested in his moral system…his only way of making sense of the world? I think more the latter. If he “goes along” with Veidt, he must give up on the one thing that makes the world make some modicum of “sense” to him. It’s not about empathy for him. It’s about avoiding staring into the existential abyss by creating order where there is none.
On the other hand, we certainly are led to empathize with Rorschach…no mean trick.
No, I think that’s wrong. Rorschach is upset by the deaths, and he very much empathizes with people who suffer. Remember, he becomes a costumed hero because in part in response to the rape/murder of the woman who cried for help and was ignored…even watched…by neighbors. He goes insane because of the death of the child (he notes that he has a thing about children being hurt for “personal reasons.”) He spares his landlady when he sees how upset her child is.
His moral code is black/white, obviously, but it’s a response to suffering. I don’t think he’s crying for himself at the end there, at least not solely.
Yes…you’re right to some degree. Definitely his reasons for being Rorschach are precisely about the lack of empathy that people have in the Watchmen world (and our own, of course, esp. since the Kitty Genovese incident happened in our own too). He seems to feel for Kitty and for the kidnap girl…although again, quite frequently it seems more about condemning a corrupt world for not caring…and less about him caring himself. For this reason, I’m not so sure his empathy extends to “half New York” since he spends most of his time condemning it for its moral depravity…but he is not devoid of empathy. Silly of me to suggest otherwise.
It’s interesting, though, that he starts out by saying/hoping to get the chance to condemn the world to apocalypse, but when apocalypse comes he is not at all happy about it.
He’s not empathetic about everything. He doesn’t seem especially sorry for Sally Jupiter’s rape, for example…..
He describes the rape as the “moral failings” of a patriot (which he is “not there to discuss”). No, not empathetic.
…Along those lines, it’s certainly true that Laurie is seen interacting with others more than, and that those relationships are more important to her than, is the case for most of the other characters. But that’s because she’s *normal*. For most people, human relationships are a big deal. It’s only for sociopaths like Rorschach and the Comedian and Adrian that other people don’t matter…
I’m sorry this isn’t one of those trendy new blog-journal gizmos where I could buy you a virtual beer.
— cleome45
Others have already said so, but this was a really interesting discussion on Laurie that noted a lot of points that I completely missed while reading the book. Thank you for this impressive post!
Thanks Sheryl and Cleome! That’s one of those things, that, even if somebody else has said it, I’m happy to hear again….
I did not say that the character of Laurie in ‘Watchmen’ was lame. I merely noted that – compared to the male characters of her generation – she was given a lot less character development and was a lot more of a blank slate.
Please refrain from quoting me in the future if you are going to put words in my mouth.
I quoted you so that folks could see what you said for themselves; since your words are there, people can make up their own minds whether my characterization of your position was correct or not.
I don’t really understand the distinction you’re making, myself. You say she’s given less characterization and is a “blank slate.” To me, that sounds like you’re saying she’s kind of lame.
I’m happy to put an update on the post noting your objection, though.
“Please refrain from quoting me in the future if you are going to put words in my mouth.”
What a slob thing to say
Well…I don’t want to start a flame war, necessarily. If he feels I mischaracterized him, it’s fine to say so. Maybe he phrased it a bit more snarkily than need-be, but these things happen….
You know what. That’s fair. That probably did come out a little snarkier than I intended, given that I was coming out of a heated discussion prior to posting here. My apologies.
My intent wasn’t to slam Laurie’s character. I was just pointing out that – compared to the other characters in Watchmen – she wasn’t really given a complex motivation or personality. This doesn’t mean that she’s a bad character by any means – she just wasn’t given quite as much material or page-time as say, Dr. Manhattan or Rorscach.
This is why I think it’s a little unfair to blame the actress who played her in the movie for being wooden – she seemed to me, as an actor, to be an actress TRYING to give her all to a character who wasn’t as well defined as everyone around her.
Your Mileage May Vary, of course.
Fair enough…but don’t you think that the Laurie in the movie was much, much less well-defined than the Laurie in the comic? I agree that it’s not the actor’s fault…but I do blame the movie writers and the director.
Thank you so much for writing this. Laurie is nowhere near my favorite character, but I don’t understand why she’s bashed so frequently. I don’t find her lame, or whiny, or annoying or anything else a lot of people claim she is. To me, she’s just another character with her own personality and quirks that are just as interesting and tolerable as anyone else’s.
Great analysis of Laurie/Silk Spectre II. I agree with everything you said about her. That’s probably my biggest complaint about the film, not enough character development, especially in Laurie’s case. The graphic novel definitely fills in the gaps that the movie does not explain. Take care! :-)
A couple months later… I was just linked to this when I wrote something similar (though much less detailed/thought out) in defense of Laurie as the DVD was released yesterday. Just wanted to say I definitely agree, and thanks for writing it. I had noticed some of the Comedian parallels before, but never all of them (the yellow pajamas thing NEVER occurred to me, despite multiple rereadings).
Glad you liked the piece. The yellow pajamas thing hadn't occurred to me either; I think Eric B. is the one who mentioned it.
A thousand times thank you. I've got to say I was shocked at how much your words paralleled my own interpretations. Great job.
Aw, you're going to make me blush. Thanks.
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This is a great analysis of Laurie. Well done. I love the self-actualization that takes place in her story. Also, the part where she goes to Mars and the Jon’s epiphany that makes him return to Earth is my favorite part of the entire book. I remember crying the first time I read that part. Then I saw the movie, which I thought botched that scene badly. Thanks for mentioning the significance of that event and of Laurie’s part in it.
Pardon my misprints. I sure wish I could edit my comment.
Alas we have never managed comment editing. But thank you for saying nice things about the essay!