You are my Jean Grey, I am your Cyclops: A History of Marriage in Comic Book Art

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Richard Cook

I recently got engaged to my girlfriend. To mark my upcoming nuptials, I assembled a collection of comic book covers that celebrate holy matrimony.

Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor

Cover by Irwin Hasen

Romantic Marriage #2

Unknown artist

Romantic Marriage #3

Cover by Norman Saunders

Superman and Lois Lane

Cover by Win Mortimer

Wonder Woman and Mr. Monster

Cover by Ross Andru and Mike Esposito

Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane

Cover by Stan Kaye and Ray Burnley

Batman and Batwoman

Cover by Curt Swan

Aquaman and Mera

Cover by Nick Cardy

Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Girl

Cover by Jack Kirby

Jimmy Olsen and a gorilla

Cover by Curt Swan

Young Love #101

Cover by Jay Scott Pike and Gaspar Saladino

Aunt May and Dr. Octopus

Cover by Gil Kane

Superman and Lois Lane (again)

Cover by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Dick Giordano

Donna Troy and Terry Long

Cover by George Perez

Batman and Catwoman

Cover by Jim Aparo

Human Torch and Alicia “Skrull Imposter” Masters

Cover by Sal Buscema and John Buscema

Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson

Cover by John Romita, Sr.

Cyclops and Jean Grey

Cover by Andy Kubert and Matthew Ryan

Superman and Lois Lane (third times the charm)

Cover by John Byrne

Tempest and Dolphin

Cover by Eric Battle and Norm Rapmund

Storm and Black Panther

Promotional cover art by Frank Cho

Black Canary and Green Arrow

Cover by Amanda Conner

Archie and Veronica

Cover by Stan Goldberg

Archie the Bigamist and Betty

Cover by Stan Goldberg

The Comic Book Diet

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Richard Cook

Cereal
.

Candy
.

Cracker Jacks

Hostess Snacks (there are tons of these comics)

Ice Cream

Chocolate Bars

More Cereal

Slim Jims (I hear they’re supposed to be good for you)

Bubblegum

I’m not sure what this is, but it sounds disgusting…

Tootsie Rolls

And wash everything down with a cool, refreshing Pepsi

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Several of these were pulled from this blog, where there are a few more ads.
And Cracked.com writer Seanbaby has a website devoted to Hostess comics.

Evil Fanservice

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Richard Cook

I’m not sure what I expected when I rented the 2013 Evil Dead re-make. Maybe I was hoping for a few scares, or at least a few laughs. Or maybe I’m just another aging nerd wallowing in nostalgia.

The original Evil Dead (1981) is often described as a cult classic, and it launched the careers of filmmaker Sam Raimi and B-movie star Bruce Campbell. Like most horror films of that era, Evil Dead was exploitative popcorn fare that was often more funny than scary. In fact, the Evil Dead franchise morphed into a deliberate horror/comedy in the second film and an action/comedy by the third film. If the original Evil Dead is remembered fondly, it’s a fondness for its excesses and failures. It was ultra-violent even by the standards of the time, but the filmmakers lacked the skill and resources to make the gore look believable. Instead, viewers were treated to buckets of obviously fake blood and corpses made of play-doh. To describe the characters as one-dimensional would be generous, and the acting was sub-par even by the low standards of the slasher genre. And, of course there was the infamous tree rape scene. It was gratuitous and sleazy (Raimi later stated he regretted including it), but it was hardly out of place in a film that was clearly pandering to the base instincts of its (presumably) teenaged audience.

Put simply, the original Evil Dead was an amateurish horror film produced for bored teenagers looking for a few cheap thrills. It was a surprising success and seems to have entertained its core audience back in ’81. In a sane world, that would have been good enough, and no one would have remembered Evil Dead except for a handful of horror buffs. But we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a world where Hollywood keeps producing expensive movies based on 70 year old characters from children’s comics. We live in a world where a movie franchise based on a line of children’s toys is one of the biggest hits of the past decade. We live in a world where the nerd is king and every piece of pop culture detritus must be re-packaged and re-sold (often to the exact same people who bought the first copy).

And so we get an Evil Dead re-make. By a few superficial measures, it’s superior to the original. The budget is obviously much larger, so the filmmakers didn’t have to cut any corners. It has the slick look of a major Hollywood production. The new cast are marginally better actors than the originals (and better looking, too). And the gore is far, far more realistic. The special make-up effects crew earned their paycheck.

And yet the film still feels like a pale imitation. Perhaps that’s unavoidable with most remakes, but I think it has more to do with the obsessive reverence for the original. Rather than simply make a new movie with some of the same ideas, the filmmakers went through a checklist of every big moment from the Evil Dead franchise and crammed them all into one movie. There’s the signature Evil Dead camera which chases the characters through the woods. There’s violence with a chainsaw. The heroine loses a hand because the original hero lost a hand in Evil Dead 2. Bruce Campbell appears and says “groovy.” Even the freakin’ car from the first movie, an Oldsmobile Delta 88, has its own cameo. And there’s a tree rape scene. It’s significantly toned down from the original, and yet it feels more gratuitous because its purpose isn’t even to titillate so much as to remind older viewers of the same scene in the original. Or to put it another way, the nostalgia is the titillation.

The sad thing is that nostalgia is about the only thing that the Evil Dead remake does well. On the few occasions when the filmmakers deviate from the source material, they fail badly. The remake spends far more time trying to get its audience to care about the characters, all for nothing because the characters are just as paper-thin as the originals. And the reason you go to a movie called Evil Dead is to see some violence inflicted on annoying people, not learn about their tragic mommy issues. Also, switching the gender of the hero might have been a great idea if executed well, but lead actress Jane Levy just doesn’t have the chops to carry the story. Bruce Campbell is not a great actor, but he had a goofy charisma which was, more often than not, the best thing about the Evil Dead franchise. Perhaps Levy will have that sort of appeal one day, but in 2013 she’s indistinguishable from every other starlet.

To sum up: not scary, not funny, not memorable on its own merits, and altogether a complete waste of time.

Bioshock Infinite

Posted on June 20, 2013 by Richard Cook

The original Bioshock is one of the most critically acclaimed games of the past decade, with an aggregate Metacritic score of 96 out of 100. It’s typically praised for its implicit criticism of Objectivist philosophy. The game is set in the hidden, underwater city of Rapture, which was established by an eccentric billionaire as a refuge away from the “parasites,” similar in concept to Galt’s Gulch in Atlas Shrugged. Of course, everything goes to shit and the city becomes overrun with psychotic killers who’ve been altering their genes to gain superhuman abilities. Unfortunately, the game is more clever than intelligent. Its critique of Objectivism is undermined by the gameplay’s emphasis on repetitive violence and overcoming all obstacles and opponents. In effect, the game suggests that Great Men who rely on money are foolish and/or wicked, but Great Men who slaughter their way through an entire city are still worthy of being the hero.* Bioshock Infinite adopts the same gameplay and storytelling approach as its predecessor and suffers from the same problem.

The sequel is more accurately described as a prequel, because while the first Bioshock takes place in the 1960’s, Bioshock Infinite is set in the second decade of the twentieth century. And instead of an underwater city Bioshock Infinite is set in the floating city of Columbia, hidden somewhere in the skies above the North Altantic. To picture Columbia, imagine a fusion of the Confederacy, Puritan New England, and Disneyland. Columbia was founded by a fanatical preacher named Comstock and an enigmatic scientist named Lutece. Lutece helped Comstock build a city away from the fallen “Sodom” of the surface, where he could create a fantasyland for WASPs: all white, all Protestant, and all middle class. But no pseudo-Confederacy could function without slaves, so Comstock was forced to purchase black and Irish prisoners from the mainland. Needless to say, this servile class resented its oppression, and as the plot begins the city of Columbia is already on the verge of a revolution.

The story follows Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton, who is hired by mysterious figures to rescue a girl name Elizabeth. Elizabeth is a prisoner in Columbia, but she’s also blessed with the power to open tears in space-time, and Comstock intends to use her in his master plan to rain fire on the corrupt world below. Excepting a few twists and turns, the story is basically an effort by Booker and Elizabeth to find a way off Columbia as they’re being pursued by Comstock’s men. Halfway into the story, Booker and Elizabeth aid the rebels, known as the Vox Populi, and help spark the revolution. And soon Booker and Elizabeth are also being pursued by the Vox, who view Elizabeth as a threat to their plans.

Video game critics have generally given high marks to Bioshock Infinite. IGN gave it a 9.4 out of 10. Game Spot gave it 90 out of 100. Adam Sessler of Revision3 gushed about its awesomeness. When looking at the competition, it’s not hard to see why critics would be so easily impressed. In comparison to low brow sci-fi like Halo, or militaristic propaganda like Call of Duty, Bioshock Infinite seems to be a thoughtful work of popular entertainment. And the game developers were genuinely interested in political theory, race relations, and the darker side of American history. In other words, the game has a shiny veneer of intelligence.

But a veneer is all there is. Bioshock Infinite is still a first person shooter, and like all FPS’s the whole point of the game is to run around and kill everything that moves. And gameplay can never be wholly separated from story or themes. The game developers are not kind in their depiction of Columbia, which embodies nearly every negative aspect of American culture: pervasive racism, jingoism, and a hostility toward anyone at the bottom of the economic heap. And the game developers have an unforgiving view of the Vox Populi as well, who are modeled after the Bolsheviks. The Vox may be slightly more sympathetic than Comstock, but their revolution has less to do with justice than with revenge and mass murder. In another context, this storyline might be taken as a general criticism of political violence, whether to oppress or to overthrow oppressors.

But Bioshock Infinite would never be mistaken for a pacifist manifesto. As Booker, the player spends nearly the entire game shooting, burning, electrocuting, and otherwise horribly mutilating anyone who gets in his way. Early in the story, Elizabeth objects to Booker’s casual approach to violence, but her objections are quickly swept aside and forgotten, all so the player can get back to the gory bits. Using violence to oppress your fellow man is bad, and using violence to overthrow the system is bad. But using violence to save the girl is just good clean fun.

The game’s incoherent view of violence is just one example of its shallowness. Another example is the ridiculous finale. By the end of the game, Columbia is thoroughly wrecked by the war between Comstock and the Vox Populi. Rather than dealing with the consequences of the war, the game writers took the easy way out. They used an approach that’s been popular with hack sci-fi writers for decades. They created a multiverse, hence the name Bioshock Infinite, and thanks to Elizabeth’s powers the entire conflict was resolved as if it never happened. No doubt this ending was meant to be cerebral, but like too many other works of popular sci-fi it simply used technobabble and superpowers to avoid dealing with the complex issues raised in the story.

Strangely enough, a more low brow game would have been more enjoyable, as it would be lacking any pretensions besides offering a few cheap thrills. But Bioshock Infinite, in the less-than-sterling tradition of middle brow entertainment, aimed to be both entertaining and intellectual at the same time. It was only intermittently successful at being the former, and completely failed at being the latter.

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* And I’m not inclined to give the game that much credit for pointing out that Objectivism is terrible. If you’re looking for an ideology that deserves being eviscerated, Objectivism is the low hanging fruit.

The Miserables

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Richard Cook

Les Miserables
Directed by Tom Hooper

I read Les Miserables during a study abroad program in Paris, but I had never seen the musical before watching the 2012 film a few weeks ago. The experience was an interesting one, mostly because I would have never believed Victor Hugo’s novel to be ideal for adaptation, and especially not into a musical. There are countless asides, mini-treatises, and lengthy tangents, like the chapter devoted to the Battle of Waterloo. The musical throws all of that out and focuses on the plot and the central characters.

The end result is a mixed bag. Part of me is happy that I didn’t have to sit through the musical riff of Victor Hugo describing the sewers of Paris. On the other hand, removing all those asides made the musical feel less rooted, less historical, and above all less French. The novel is about Fantine and Marius and Jean Valjean obviously, but it’s also about French history, geography, revolutions, Catholicism, and Hugo’s efforts to bind it all together. The musical is draped in the tricolor, and the religious and revolutionary themes are still there, but they felt cursory and disconnected in comparison to the book. And when there’s nothing to distract you from the main plot, it’s hard to ignore the many contrivances, or Hugo’s less than progressive attitude towards women.

This particular version of Les Miserables has its own share of problems. Director Tom Hooper was way too fond of close-ups, the editing was a mess during the group songs, and the actors were hit or miss in their musical performances. But for all my complaints, I found it to be a reasonably enjoyable way to fill some time. It helped that I saw it with someone who’s very enthusiastic about the musical, and I’ll admit that several of the songs are catchy. And since I’ve never seen (and still haven’t seen) the musical, my expectations were about as low as can be.

What follows are my thoughts on the singer/actors:

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean: I always imagined Jean Valjean as a big, stocky man, so Hugh Jackman would not have been my first choice for the role. But he’s a decent singer (if a bit too much warbling), and his acting performance was solid. And I’ll admit there’s something inherently awesome in seeing Wolverine in a musical.

Anne Hathaway as Fantine: Hathaway received a lot of praise (and an Oscar) for her performance. As much as I would like to be the contrarian, most of the praise is deserved. As Fantine, Hathaway had one of the most demanding songs, “I Dreamed a Dream.” It requires a powerful voice, and Hathaway’s version is rather weak when you listen to it as a single. Having now heard several other singers tackle it (including Susan Boyle), I wouldn’t rank Hathaway anywhere near the top. But within the context of the film, her version is excellent. The song occurs right after Fantine’s first night as a prostitute. Hathaway’s voice breaks, she fails to hit the right notes, yet the song feels perfect in the moment. A more polished, “ready for the album” version would have actually been strange and discordant. So by emphasizing Fantine’s despair and downplaying the show-stopper nature of “I Dreamed a Dream,” Hathaway actually made the most of her singing limitations.

Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert: Crowe had the same problem as Anne Hathaway. He has a VERY limited range as a singer but his role includes the song “Stars,” which requires a broad range and a booming voice. And Crowe just blows it. You can tell he’s trying his hardest, but he’s horribly outmatched by the song and what’s required of him. Crowe’s not much better in the rest of the movie, but at least he only has to “sing-talk” his lines. Tom Hooper probably cast Crowe because he’s a big star and headlines a rock band called The Ordinary Fear of God. After listening to a few of their singles (each one more horrible than the last), I’m left with only one conclusion: Hooper must be a fan of actors with vanity bands. Maybe his next movie will have Keanu Reeves. Or Kevin Bacon!

Amanda Seyfried as Cossette: Cossette is a thankless role. She has nothing to do and is barely even in the movie. The men in her life obsess over her, but the audience is never given any reason to care. I’d feel sorry for Seyfried, but she doesn’t help matters. Seyfried seems to think that she can make up for the paucity in her role by singing every line at the highest register, so we’ll remember the character after our ears stop ringing. She butchers her duet with Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and is generally unpleasant to hear.

Samantha Barks as Eponine: Pretty much steals the show. She’s one of the best singers in the cast and completely nails her big number, “On My Own.” To be fair, Barks is a ringer, having already played Eponine on the stage. And Eponine is among the most complex and sympathetic characters in Les Miserables, despite being a side character who gets passed over for the irresistible Cossette. But there is an odd problem with the casting. Victor Hugo described Eponine as gaunt and boyish, a product of poverty and malnutrition. It’s easy to understand why Marius would be oblivious to her affections. But Samantha Barks isn’t gaunt; she’s a knockout. And that means it’s hard to believe that Marius, or any straight man with working eyes, would be indifferent to her flirting. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.

Sacha Baron Cohen as M. Thenardier: I understand why Sacha Baron Cohen was cast. He’s goofy looking, and the Thenardiers are the comic relief. What I don’t get is why Sacha Baron Cohen has a mock-French accent in the first half of the movie and a bad Cockney accent in the second half. I’ve been told that some stage versions of Thenardier use the mock-French accent, so maybe Cohen is simply following the example set by other performers. But it isn’t funny, partly because it doesn’t make sense that only one character sounds vaguely French while everyone else speaks with an English accent. Or maybe I don’t think it’s funny because I don’t think Sacha Baron Cohen is particularly funny.

Eddie Redmayne as Marius: quite good in his performance. The character of Marius annoys the hell out of me, but Redmayne does a great job and is a fantastic singer.

Twihard

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Richard Cook

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Director – Bill Condon
Starring – Rob Pattinson
Kristen Stewart
Taylor Lautner
Michael Sheen
Dakota Fanning

I should start this post by noting that, prior to Breaking Dawn Part 2, I had never seen a Twilight movie or read any of the books. What little I know about Twilight comes from a handful of online articles, blogs, and pestering my girlfriend with questions about who everyone is what the hell they’re doing. But despite my ignorance, or maybe because of it, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is, of course, the last movie in the incredibly popular Twilight series. I doubt a synopsis is necessary since everyone reading this blog probably knows more about Twilight than I ever will. So I’ll briefly note that the movie resolved the cliffhanger at the end of Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Bella Swan survived childbirth and is now a vampire, she and Edward Cullen had a baby daughter named Renesmee) and it ended with the Volturi (the bad vampires) agreeing to leave the Cullens alone. Everyone lived happily ever after, or at least until Stephanie Meyer needs more money.

If I judged the film according to the usual measures used by movie reviewers I would have to give it a negative review. I’ll concede that some of my confusion with the plot may be due to my lack of background knowledge, but characters behaved in ways that are inexplicable under any circumstances. For example, if vampires can run across continents at super-speed, why do the Cullens drive everywhere? Why does Bella drive her damn Volvo all the way to Seattle to meet Bunk from “The Wire” when that conversation could have been handled over the phone? And why does Edward just seem to resign himself to the idea that Jacob will be banging his daughter in the near future (and I get the whole imprinting thing, maybe it works in the books, but it’s damn creepy on the screen)? Doesn’t Edward hate Jacob, and if so why does he let the guy hang around his house?

The long middle section of the film was a ripoff of the sequence in “Seven Samurai” where the hero assembled a team of badasses. There’s nothing wrong with ripping off Kurosawa, but there’s not much of a payoff. The collection of badasses actually don’t get much to do and half of them don’t even have speaking roles. The only amusing thing about them was the film’s shameless reliance on ethnic stereotypes. The Amazonian vampire women were particularly ridiculous. I assume they were suppose to come from a primitive tribe in the jungle, but the filmmakers defined “primitive” to mean dressed like rejects from a mid-80’s music video. I started humming “Hungry Like the Wolf” whenever they were on screen.

And the acting by the leads was atrocious. Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson are not novices: they’ve acted in four previous Twilight movies and plenty of other films on the side. So I was floored by just how bad they were. Pattinson fluctuated between looking bored and looking constipated. Stewart wasn’t much better, and she delivered nearly every line without conviction or emotional tone. And her narration was even worse! She was so disinterested in her lines she might as well have been reading an instruction manual for assembling furniture. And their romantic chemistry was about as exciting as watching someone assemble furniture.

The special effects looked second-rate too. I could go on and on about the werewolves, but the worse example of CGI was the digital face layered on the baby. It was so fake and poorly done that she looked like a monster. Baby Renesmee was far creepier than any of the vampires or werewolves.

so Breaking Dawn Part 2 is a bad movie in most respects, though that hardly matters to most Twihards. And to be honest, I enjoyed the movie far more than I thought I would. In fact, I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it more than my girlfriend did, and she’s read every book. Some of the entertainment value comes from the badness itself, which turned serious scenes into unintentionally hilarious moments. My favorite example was when Jacob decided to reveal his werewolf nature to Bella’s father, Charlie.* Rather than explain what he’s about to do, thereby giving Charlie some mental preparation, Jacob started stripping in front of Charlie while saying (something along the lines of) “The world is not what you think it is!” And poor Charlie reacted as if he was about to have a gay surprise in the woods. I’m not sure if the scene is in the book, if it is perhaps it’s less homoerotic on the page, but on the screen it was a laugh-out-loud moment.

But I have to give the filmmakers some credit, as there are plenty of scenes in the film that could only have been intended as comedy. There is no other explanation for Bella’s response when she learned that Jacob had given her daughter the nickname Nessie. I refuse to believe that the line “You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster!” was intended as anything other than comedy gold. Intentionality aside, that scene should be stored in the AFI vault because that is the greatest line in film history. Michael Sheen’s reaction when he first met Renesmee was almost as fantastic, particularly when he unleashed this incredible sound that resembled a girlish squeal mixed with a giggle. It was probably an improvised moment, but kudos to the filmmakers for leaving it in.

The battle scene was surprisingly cool as well. The entire battle was a dream sequence/possible future that never occurred, and everyone who died in the battle was still alive at the end of the movie (except for Maggie Grace). It was gratuitous violence that added nothing to the plot and shamelessly pandered to the worst instincts of the audience. And I’m okay with that. After sitting through more than an hour of what passes for acting in this movie, a sudden burst of psycho violence was a welcome change of pace. And how can I hate a movie with such a high character-to-decapitation ratio? Dakota Fanning had her head bitten off by a giant dog! Alice kicked insane amounts of ass and that one Volturi got half his head ripped off starting from the cheeks (I don’t remember his name, but he’s the one who yelled “Artifice!” which was the second greatest/craziest line in the movie). Even Bella and Edward were awesome when they tag teamed Aro. Though as much as I enjoyed the battle, I have to admit that the level of violence was shocking for a PG-13 movie. Apparently, if there’s no blood spurt then on-screen decapitations are perfectly appropriate as tween entertainment. As for the lack of pumping blood, is that from the novels or is it an innovation by the filmmakers?

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is either the greatest bad movie of 2012 or just a shitty movie with 3 or 4 brilliant moments. I’m tempted to watch the earlier films just to see if they’re equally terrible/awesome, though I’ve been warned that they’re not as fun. Or maybe I should just swallow my pride and read the damn novels. What say you commenters, are they worth it?

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* This was the moment when I decided that I was with Team Edward. Edward may be dull as dirt, but Jacob is an obnoxious meddler. And the pedophile vibe doesn’t exactly help matters.

American Horror

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Richard Cook

American Horror Story, Season 1, 2012-13

Produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk
Cast: Dylan McDermott
Connie Britton
Jessica Lange
Evan Peters
Taissa Farmiga

“American Horror Story” begins with Vivien Harmon (Connie Britton) discovering her husband, Ben (Dylan McDermott), in bed with one of his patients. To keep the family together (and move the plot forward) Ben convinces his angry wife and sullen daughter (Taissa Farmiga) to move to California and start over. They manage to purchase an old mansion at a bargain price, but soon discover that the reason the mansion was such a steal is due to its unpleasant history – most of its former residents were murdered. Even worse, “murder house” is filled with so many ghosts that they’re practically tripping over each other – a mad doctor from the Jazz Age, student nurses from the 60’s, a sexy maid from the 80’s, a psychotic teenager (Evan Peters) from the 90’s, and the gay couple who owned the house prior to the Harmons. And there are freakier residents, including a monster baby and the show’s most recognizable figure, the “Rubber Man,” who dresses in a skin-tight bondage suit complete with gimp mask. Rubber Man is the show’s main trouble-maker, and in one of the early episodes he rapes Vivien and impregnates her with a demonic baby. If that weren’t bad enough, the Harmons’ next door neighbor is Constance (Jessica Lange), a schemer who knows far more about the ghosts than she initially lets on.

The horror genre on television does not have an illustrious history. There are many people who get nostalgic for “The Twilight Zone” or “Tales from the Dark Side,” though those people have terrible memories because 90% of their episodes were crap. And those shows preferred the “anthology” approach, where every episode was a discreet narrative. Serialized television (where every episode is part of a single, larger narrative) has an even worse track record. For every hit like “The X-Files” there are ten flops like “The River.” Unfortunately, “American Horror Story” continues the long trend of shitty television horror.

Which is not to say that it doesn’t have its charms. Unlike “The River,” “American Horror Story” is not an complete debacle. While hardly innovative, it is a polished and professional-looking TV series. The basic premise – troubled family moves into a haunted house – is a simple but effective setup for a horror story. The series is also deliberately campy, which helps offset its tendency towards soapy melodrama (more on that below). The cast is quite impressive for basic cable, and the acting is generally good. The one weak link is Connie Britton, who responds to every situation with a look of dim-witted confusion. But Jessica Lange more than makes up for any other actor’s poor performance. Recognizing the show’s campiness and its debt to Southern Gothic horror, she plays a character that combines two archetypes: the Faded Southern Belle and the Evil Bitch Mama. Constance is by far the most entertaining character in the series, motherly one minute and crazy, narcissistic, and cruel the next. And she’s completely unafraid of the ghosts, treating most of them with barely concealed contempt.

But the series has many failings. Some of the ghosts, like the mad doctor, are entertaining in a goofy way. Others, like the the Rubber Man, are genuinely creepy (at least at first). But most of the ghosts are forgettable or annoying. Another problem is that death doesn’t seem like a big deal, which removes much of the potential tension. Sure, the ghosts are trapped in the house (except on Halloween), but otherwise they’re free to continue their un-lives however they choose. Plus, they don’t age, they can’t be permanently injured, and they can even have sex with the living or each other. The show also has a bad habit of raising interesting issues, and then addressing with them in a glib manner. For example, the psychotic teenager, Tate, killed other kids in a school shooting before he died. It’s a big, important “hot button” issue … that just kind of sits there. I might be offended if I weren’t so bored. The show also bills itself as psychosexual horror (according to the description in Netflix), but while there is sex, the psychology is absent. Rubber Man is obviously a BDSM monster, but there’s very little actual BDSM in the series. So after his initial appearance, Rubber Man becomes just another mystery villain whose identity will be revealed … during sweeps!

For all its other problems, “American Horror Story” largely fails at being horror because it has to be a TV series. This means soapy sub-plots, because TV producers believe that every show must have them. The teenage daughter must fall in love with one of the ghosts, and there must be drama and tears because Ben is an adulterer. In a soap opera, these plots might be relevant, but in a show called “American HORROR Story” they’re distracting at best, mind-numbing at worst. And the critical flaw in the series is that it both wants and needs the viewers to care about the Harmons, who are the lead characters and the emotional core of the series. The problem is that the Harmons are a typical middle class family on television, which is another way of saying they’re obnoxious assholes. In any halfway-decent horror story, the audience would get to relish the horrific punishment meted out to the Harmons. But this is prime time television in America, so we’re supposed to root for the family to overcome all odds and live happily ever after. [Spoiler alert!] To its credit, the season did not end with the family walking off into the sunset. Instead, all three Harmons died in the house and continued on as a ghost family. A surprise twist, and a clever show might have turned that into a truly horrific ending. Imagine spending the rest of eternity with the most tedious and/or annoying members of your family, with no one ever able to grow, change, or move out. But in this series, were supposed to find it bittersweet and touching that the family will be together forever. In the end, they even decorate a Christmas tree! Or maybe it’s the ghost of a Christmas tree.

Once again, a horror series has let me down.

The Hooded Utilitarian

a pundit in every panopticon

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