Utilitarian Review 7/1/16

I’m Noah Berlatsky, a writer and cultural critic. I’m working on putting together a series of ebooks focusing on topics that make me happy—exploitation film, the Hammer Dracula films, alien invasion films and stories, Project Runway, Twilight, and who knows what else. The ebooks will include some essays I’ve published elsewhere…but I’d also like to write new, extra, bonus pieces I wouldn’t get to write for anyone else because no one wants to pay for that essay about James Baldwin and Angel Heart (trust me, I’ve checked.)

That’s where this Patreon comes in. Your contributions will give me a bit of time and space to write about things I wouldn’t be able to in more depth than I’d otherwise manage. In return, contributors can learn early on about what I’m planning for the books, get access to exclusive essays before the ebooks are published, and copies of the ebooks themselves before they’re available for purchase.

How many essays and books will I be writing? It depends on how many folks want to contribute to this patreon (and if anyone buys the books off of the demonic retailer that shall not be named but which rhymes with shamazon.) I have high hopes though! Thanks for aiding and abetting them!
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So, if you’re a regular reader of me and would like to regularly read more, please consider contributing. Thanks all!

20 Key Superhero Texts

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Noah Berlatsky

At the comics scholar list serve we both frequent, Chris Gavaler asked folks to think about what 20 superhero comics they’d choose as key texts for an intro to superheroes course. Here’s what he’s planning to use.

Chris’ List

Siegel & Shuster: Action Comics #1 – Superman #1 (1938-39)
Kane, Finger & Fox: Detective Comics #27 – Batman #1 (1939-40)
Eisner: The Spirit (1940-52)
Marston & Peter: All Star Comics #8 – Wonder Woman (1941-48)
Kirby & Lee: The Fantastic Four #1 – #8 (1961-62)
Ditko & Lee: Amazing Fantasy #15 – Amazing Spider-Man #38 (1962- 66)
Steranko: Strange Tales #151 – Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #5 (1966-68)
O’Neil & Adams: Green Lantern /Green Arrow #76 – #89 (1970-72)
Claremont & Byrne: The Uncanny X-Men #108 – #143 (1977-81)
Sienkiewicz & Claremont: The New Mutants #18 (August 1984) – #31 (1984-85)
Wolfman & Perez: Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-86)
Moore & Gibbons: Watchmen (1986-87)
Miller & Mazzucchelli: Batman: Year One (1987)
Gaiman & Keith: The Sandman #1-8 (1988-89)
Morrison & McKean: Arkham Asylum (1989)
McFarlane: Spawn #1 (May 1992)
McDuffie & Bright: Icon #1 (May 1993) –
Waid & Ross: Kingdom Come (1996)
Ellis & Hitch: The Authority #1-12 (1999-2000)
Bendis & Gaydos: Jessica Jones: Alias (2001)
Fraction & Aja: Hawkeye (2012)
Wilson & Alphona: Ms. Marvel #1 – 5 (2015)

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Noah’s List

I figured what the hey, I might as well put together a list. I tried not to think about this too hard, though I have put in a short rationale for each.

1. Siegel/Shuster, Action Comics #1
Probably the most influential superhero comic ever, and fairly entertaining in its own right.

2. Marston/Peter Wonder Woman, some affordable collection
One of the most popular comics of the golden age, and also the greatest superhero comic of all time (says me.)

3. Eisner, The Spirit
Honestly, haven’t read much of this, but universally acclaimed, very influential, and I like the art.

4. Kurtzman/Wood, Superduperman, and maybe other Mad parodies
Superhero parodies are central to the genre, and this is probably the most celebrated of them. Also, it’s great.

5 Goscinny/Uderzo, Asterix (one volume)
Popular, acclaimed…and quite obviously a superhero story when you stop to think about it for a minute. Good way to think about superheroes in different cultures, humor and superheroes, what makes a superhero. Also, again, who doesn’t want to read Asterix?

6. Jack Kirby, some splash pages
Influential and wonderful…but I think separate pages of art are the way to go. I’ve never read a Kirby comic I could bring myself to make anyone else read.

7. Lee/Ditko, first Spider-Man story
Obvious choice.

8 Batman 1966 movie
Yes, this is supposed to be a list of comics…but superhero movies are seen by many people as comic books, which means they are functionally comic books. Also, Adam West’s Batman defined comic book superheroes for non-fans for decades (and still to some extent today.)

In some sense an MCU film should be on this list too…but they all suck, so screw ’em.

9. Moore/Gibbons Watchmen
Another obvious pick.

10. Miller/Sienkiewicz Elektra
This is Miller’s weirdest and best, thanks to Sienkiewicz.

11 Paul Chadwick, Concrete
A bit forgotten, Concrete was one of the important alternativey/titles of its day. It’s a lovely, adult contemporary superhero take, a way to do supeheros as literature which avoids the de rigeur nostalgia.

12. Grant Morrison; something from the Doom Patrol run
Grant Morrison’s an important creator, and Doom Patrol is his smartest take on superheroes, before he got staid and boring.

13 Gaiman, something from Sandman
Another popular and influential series; interesting way to talk about superhero mashups with other genres.

14. Ware, Acme Novelty Library #10
Ware’s best work, imo, and a good encapsulation of the way that indie art comics have been influenced by and struggled with superheroes.

15 McDuffie/Bright, Icon
Influential and critically acclaimed series, and a smart effort to think about the racial implications of superheroes.

16 Takeuchi, Sailor Moon
One of the most popular superhero comics of all time, and again good for discussions of definitions/limitations of superheroes.

17. Gail Simone and others, Women in Refrigerators website
Again, I see genre and medium boundaries as quite porous; Simone’s discussion of the treatment of women in comics has been hugely influential in thinking about female supeheroes, women in comics, and women in popular culture more generally.

18. Meyer, Breaking Dawn
You could argue for Buffy on this list, but I think Meyer’s weird pacifist take on superheroes is a lot more interesting (and probably more popular as well.)

19 Morales/Baker, Captain America: Truth
Flawed and not that well known, but one of the most ambitious and daring comics ever produced by the mainstream publishers—and focusing on a character who the movies have made central to what people these days think of when they think of superhero comics.

20 Wilson/Alphona, Ms. Marvel
Probably the best superhero comic out now, as well as being quite popular and a thoughtful take on the tropes.

I’ve done a crap job of including women and poc creators. I’m not sure how you rectify that when focusing on superhero comics…which might make me reluctant to do a course about superhero comics, or to take the key text approach if I did. But be that as it may, this is what I got. Let me know what you think I (or Chris) should have put on here instead!

Win Fecund Horror!

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Noah Berlatsky

So, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m going to be publishing a collection of my exploitation film writing on July 11 (if the good lord is willing and the zombies don’t get me.) There’s the cover designed by Vom Marlowe up there at the top.

I tried to do a giveaway contest thing, offering a free preview to anyone who could guess the three new essays in the book…but no one really bothered to try. (There’s a new essay on Halloween, a new one on Under the Skin, and a list of the top ten rape/revenge films…so now you know.)

Anyway, I thought I would try again with a simpler, more straightforward contest. I will give a preview ebook to the first three people who:

1. Leave a comment below saying they want one.

2. promise to write an Amazon review when the book comes out.

Remember, if you promise a review and don’t actually write a review, a gelatinous ichor from the far side of the galaxy will absorb you cell by cell and then write a review in your name. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Contest starts…now!

Origin Story (Wordless in Word)

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Chris Gavaler

We Live Here

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Noah Berlatsky

I’m not generally inclined to like right wing agitprop. Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen were some of the worst films I’ve ever seen; cheerfully swaggering calls to genocide, unrelieved by either intelligence or any conviction beyond, “blow up those non-white people, yeeha!” Their bland irresponsibility was only rivaled by their cynical opportunism; the first used North Korea rather than China as the villain because the Chinese market means we have to pretend we don’t hate the people from that part of the world; the second deployed Morgan Freeman as vice president to show that non-white people are okay as long as they’re played by perennial comforting side-kick black person Morgan Freeman.

On the surface, Red Dawn, from 1984, is in the same vein as these turkeys. As in Olympus Has Fallen, the U.S. suffers an invasion—not from North Korea, but from Cubans and Russians raiding middle America from Mexico. And as in Olympus Has Fallen, the exciting fantasy is to see righteous Americans kicking the invaders butts. It’s all turning America into the scrappy underdog resisting oppression, a paranoid wish-fulfillment/fever dream in which someone does to the US what the US is always doing to everyone else, allowing us to expiate our guilty consciences in an orgy of xenophobic violence.

What makes Red Dawn different, though, is the ruthless, tragic vision. Olympus Has Fallen is a cheerful empowerment fantasy for macho imperialists; the heroes are a virile secret service agent and the American president. And the good guys unequivocally win; it’s a rousing ode to the awesomeness of coastal elites and the national security state. The right people are in the right place, and they’ll kick some terrorist ass.

Red Dawn, though, really thinks that the United States is on the verge of collapse. The heroes here aren’t the national security personnel, who, from the little we hear of them, are distant and probably incompetent. Rather, the protagonists are a group of high school football dudes—a scared, battered band who survive on team slogans (“Wolverines!”) and tearful determination.

The whole thing is preposterous, of course—the idea that the Cubans somehow gain immediate air superiority is as goofy as the fact that the Wolverine resistance fighters appear to have a virtually limitless supply of high tech weaponry. But the melodramatic details have the vivid, dumb terror of overdetermined nightmare. The way the black history teacher —the only black man in the film—is the first one shot by the enemy; the grizzled dad telling his boys through the concentration camp wire that he was tough on them in anticipation of just such a Communist invasion; the NRA sign declaring that you’ll remove my gun from my cold dead hand, flashed right before one of the Commies removes a gun from some poor bastard’s cold dead hand.

What makes the film, I think, is the yearning—for justification, for apotheosis, for death. People talk about liberal guilt, but I’ve never seen a film so utterly sodden in maudlin self-loathing, like a sentient sponge adrift in the stale beer of bad conscience. From the reflexive, furtive references to Native Americans to the Cuban officer recalling his own days as a partisan, America’s history of imperial atrocity wafts over the Wolverines like a ragged, hacking football cheer. The heroic deaths, one by one, seem both expiation and justification. When Patrick Swayze is asked what’s the difference between them and us he declares “we live here!” before standing by as one of his teen soldiers shoots another to death for treachery. That’s a pretty forthright stand against imperialism—or a forthright, desperate declaration that good football players like Swayze are incapable of imperialism, as the case may be.

Olympus Has Fallen is happy with the status quo; it just wants the same Americans to triumph who always triumph, with maybe a few more explosions and dead bodies thrown in. Red Dawn, on the other hand, is about an American heartland that feels both alienated from and implicated in power, and sees the only honorable resolution in apocalypse. It’s America’s death wish on screen, the last stand of god-fearing freedom lovers, knee deep in blood, building their own gulag.

Utilitarian Review 6/24/16

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Noah Berlatsky

On HU

Subdee on Homestuck.

Chris Gavaler on Louise Simonson and Queen Kong.

My ebook on exploitation film is coming soon! There’s a contest thingee where you can read a free copy, which nobody really tried for, so…still time!

Su-Min Lim with a long essay on Belle and Sebastian and twee for non-white people.

Utilitarians Everywhere

At Playboy:

—Independence Day and reverse colonial fever dreams.

—I wrote about Ralph Stanley as metalhead.

At Splice Today I wrote about:

—how grit is not the key to my success, Angela Duckworth.

—7 Golden Vampires and how Hammer Dracula is better at diversity than current Hollywood.

—the fact that Trump will rise, so don’t panic when he does.

Other Links

Katie Schenkel on why Starfire should be pansexual.

Ellie Lockhart on the queer themes, or lack thereof, in Independence Day: Resurgence.

The Hooded Utilitarian

a pundit in every panopticon

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