Batman, Batman -- How I do Love my Batmans

[maggie2]

Batman was my first true television love. Back when I was seven, I just loved Batman, Robin, and their battle with all those diabolical villains.  When I was older, I realized that Batman was a spoof and I still loved it.  Great that it could work for a literal-minded seven year old.  Great that it could amuse her when she got older.  Adam West and Burt Ward linger in my heart with the warmest affection.

I loved Tim Burton's Batman with Michael Keaton.  Mostly because batman was back and I am and always will be pro-batman girl.  I liked the serious tone, along with the cartoonish tone from the original show.  I'm not sure they worked together very well, though.  I loved that first Batman movie a lot, but more as a really cool failure than as a spectacular success.  The sequels just got worse from there.

I really like the new Batman with Christian Bale.  Oddly, I've only seen the first one once.   It's a bit long and takes itself too seriously.  But I like Dark Knight a lot.  It makes you think a bit.  It's definitely got some of that essential darkness that the TV show didn't have and that Burton couldn't quite blend with the cartoon sensibility..

Folks, these are three very different approaches to the source material which is batman.  If you want to take one of them and canonize it and say the other two don't measure up, that's your perogative.  But I'd like to be free to like all the batmans.  I don't want to live in a world where embracing Christian Bale means I have to renounce Adam West.  I want to live in a world that celebrates them both and which recognizes that the source material for batman is just that rich that it works well as serious brooding drama and as spoofy cheese.

Batman and Robin is a bad movie because it doesn't have the zany cheese of the series, or the weird combo that Burton tried.  It's not a fun movie, or a serious movie or any kind of good movie.  So of course, it's worse that Dark Knight.  But NOT because it fails to be properly serious.    Batman the series is NOT worse than Dark Knight.  It's just different.  Difference is good. 

To the argument in question, season 8 might well be an abject failure -- but at least let it be a failure of Joss to do justice to his own schtick, not a failure to do something he isn't even trying to do.  And please don't tell me that for any given set of ideas there is One True Way.  (Or less snarkily, any subject worth doing well is worth doing in multiple tones.  Literature is a conversation, not a dictatorship).

Comments

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think literature is often a chain of new interpretations of often old and similar motives. Take the story of king Arthur that was told over and over in so many different ways. I think retelling a story is a very valid literally cause that transforms a motive and often gives it new sense (not always unfortunately) and not just when it's the same story but also when it's just a certain trope.

Sometimes a new interpretation is brilliant sometimes it only makes you long for the original (The mists of Avalon, for King Arthur).

I agree with you that we can't fully judge S8 yet, because we don't know the conclusion it's coming too. But to my mind it is fair to asses the things we already have on the plate (and some might decide on it, that they'll leave the restaurant before dessert). Such things would obviously be the art and the pacing, but also individual old motives that the story used. For example the mysterious villain that is an old aquaintance of the hero. It's of course an age old motive and there are several modern interpretations of it; 20th century boys and Fables use it too. I think it's fair to compare these modern interpretations on their suspense, pacing and emotional ressonance.

I don't think Joss has even read those books and while he has read Promethea and might have wanted to pay homage to it, don't think he wanted to tell the same story. He does use motives from it though and I think it's fair to compare the two interpretations.

I agree that some of the mentioned Promethea motives are not fully retold on S8 yet, we're still missing some pieces that make it hard to compare. There are similarities, like the heroine being the one who brings about apocalypse, but while on Promethea the apocalypse genuinly is a step in evolution and a positive event, it doesn't seem to be in Buffy.

In S8 it's either a very rotten apple or really a spectacular failure to sell a positive apocalypse.

So in my mind, some of the comparison is premature and will turn out to be so (for example I'm be hard pressed to find any similarities between Batsu and Grace/Stace), some is fair, because it doesn't look like anything will be added to it (for example the emotional resonance of the gateway opening sex or the way to do exposition (letting Giles babble about sentient universes and writing a poem that's an issue long and leads you through history using tarot motives)).

I don't really want to speculate on Joss intentionally chosing motives from Promethea or just fishing from the same pond of collective storytelling, but they do have pulled out some very similar fish, even if I suspect some of Josses might turn out to be red herings.

I'm sitting on another fence here, because I think some shared motives bear comparison very well and some don't really fit like you say.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I wanted to add something on a more general note too, namely that comparative literary criticism is a conversation too. I don't really see the unfair in comparing the way similar motives are used in different stories. I love to do that, when I'm fascinated with a motive, for example I think both Buffy and Ellen Kushner's Privilege of the sword have very interesting takes on empowerment coming from an outside source and championship for women and I love to compare them, also because I feel Kushner provides some missing pieces that Joss neglected in his version.

I see where some of the arguments that were made give you the notion that apples are compared with pears here, but I think that's not true for all of them, so it makes more sense to argue those that don't really fit instead of dismissing them all.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is a conversation, too. And that's why I think it should be held to the standard of reasonableness.

A comparison of the way motifs are used in different works, in the sense of talking about how the motif fits into the motive of the author is a line of conversation well-worth pursuing. See Aycheb's posts as an example of doing exactly that. She's identifying how the motifs fit in very different ways into the themes the author is exploring and using that to explain why the styles are different. You can still prefer Moore's story and his style. I just don't think it's fair to criticize Whedon's style because it doesn't match the story Moore is telling with the motif. Whedon is telling a different story with a different purpose and with a correspondingly different sensibility. I hope that makes sense.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

It makes sense, but I agree only partly. I'll give you the whole apocalypse/rapture thing, because it's not fully told yet. But other parts of the story are complete and they do bear comparison. Not by saying "Ah why is he not Alan Moore" but by pointing out the weaknesses that often shine up in comparison, I'm not saying Whedon should use poetry and esoterics to do his exposition, but something more innovative than Giles bible belt babble. Not even if the whole thing is to be subverted, is it not argued well enough. It's a pathetic Mephistopheles and even C.S. Lewis allows his green witch to make a better case for atheism in the Narnia books.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I will agree with you if Last Gleaming reveals that all that exposition was meant to be anything other than mumbo-jumbo claptrap. But it played well as mumbo-jumbo claptrap, so I'm holding out space for it to be meant as that. Giles said nobody knows, and it read like, in fact, nobody knows. We're told in the text that Willow is guessing, Angel is guessing and Giles is guessing. So I think it's possible that they really are just guessing.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

But even if it is a mumbo jumbo claptrap I don't think it played well as such, because it's to silly for that.

A dispute between worldviews becomes interesting when both are argued well, but if one needs to be argued this lamely for the other one to succeed (whatever joss has in mind there)it becomes painfull to watch.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Well, we can't have this conversation properly until we see how it all fits together. I'm pointing to one possible space where it works just fine -- and that's if the point is to draw the audience into the same massive confusion confronting the characters.

I think it has the potential to work just fine as commentary about the absence of any greater meaning and our tendency to fill in the blanks with whatever mumbo jumbo suits us. Willow sees epic romance mumbo jumbo. Angel sees "we earned this" mumbo jumbo. Giles sees bizarre this is the balance Watcher type mumbo jumbo. Joss isn't articulating one world view against another. He's articulating a stance against world views. See, e.g. the Daffy Duck cartoon. 'We just make it up ourselves'.

I'm still agnostic about how it works qua story, and I need to find out what 'really' is going on with the universe Buffy inhabits; the narrative confusion is frustrating as heck with such a long gap between issues -- there are lots of ways it could not work. But I think there are lots of cool ways that it could work. Max's point about how lame Zeppo reads if you miss that the hell mouth scenes are satire obtains. It *might* be something like that. It's too soon for definitive pronouncements that it is supposed to be X and Joss fails (utterly) at making it X... especially when X is what some other guy was trying to do.

It is indisputable that Twilight was bizarre and it booted a lot of people out of the story. I'm willing to wait and see, but I think Joss handed out masses of rope for people who wanted to hang season 8 in effigy. But I'm sorry, I think the arguments about Promethea are every but as not valid as an argument that the Batman TV show fails because it's not dark and brooding like Dark Knight. I think deciding ex ante that there's one way to read a story and then to decide whether the story does or does not make sense given that one reading is an unproductive way of approaching things, because I'd think the more natural conclusion is that since the story doesn't work if read in way X is that way X is not the way to read the story. There may be no good way to read season 8 -- but the argument that one particular way fails isn't particularly illuminating.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Hm, I see your point but I can't quite suspend my disbelief that far. Angel, Willow and Giles views don't really seem to contradict itself, so I'm more leaning towards thinking the reader is meant to go with it at the very least as a red hering.

And the whole thing is too much on center stage to be similar satire as the Zeppo Hellmouth scenes. If this is satire the whole thing becomes solely a parody of itself and that would be a sad ending for Buffy.

What I can see is it being something akin to Jasmin land but that too was indeffinitely better done.

Like I said, for me at least it's not like Joss wants to do the exact same thing Moore does, or that he should be doing that, but more that some aspects of S8 are takes on similar motifs and they fail to intrigue.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

I agree that some of the mentioned Promethea motives are not fully retold on S8 yet, we're still missing some pieces that make it hard to compare. There are similarities, like the heroine being the one who brings about apocalypse, but while on Promethea the apocalypse genuinly is a step in evolution and a positive event, it doesn't seem to be in Buffy.

Exactly, and I'd bet real money that it's not supposed to be. Twilight isn't a homage to Promethea or the esoteric philosophies Alan Moore proselytises in it. It's a parody, a rebuke, a passionate counter-argument. So much of the Promethea apolgism on LJ focuses on how the sex scenes and the universe expo are better done and more poetically expressed than in Twilight. Of course they are. The hippy tantric philosophy, the idea that Sophie having sex with Jack (Alan Moore's dirty old man self insert) represents a world changing pathway to enlightenment is central to the message Moore is trying to sell (and he sells it very well, I stand by my Leni Reifenstahl comparison if only because Moore would hate it so much). In Twilight it's basically filler. In Twilight the key emotional beats are a) when Buffy, despairing at having brought nothing but destruction to her girls, gives in to Angel's destiny pleading at the end of #33 and b) when she rips a hole in Daffy Duck world rejecting it wholesale to go help her friends back on the 'lower' plane. The space sex wasn't an end in itself but a means to convince the audience that Buffy really had chosen Twilight and it worked. All those complaints that she was no longer a hero, all the slut shaming? People were convinced even as they hated it. Obviously for some the hate was a point of no return (to the story) and the moment of her rediscovering her "me" came too late. It worked for me but then for me the Adam West way is the only way to make Batman's story of one man and his manpain anything resembling palatable. As ever YMMV.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I have a highly different interpretation of Promethea from you, because I don't really see it as actual philosophy but more as literary philosophy. Instead of applying esoteric patterns to reality, it applies them to storytelling. It doesn't try to sell a universal truth but a universal dream, which is why it did not come off as esoteric crap to me.

And I don't think S8 is a rebuke or a counter argument either. I described that I recognize some motives from Promethea and think they were done more artistically there, the central motive about a step in evolution and so on is the one were I'm inclined to agree with you though, that Joss version of this is very different. But a rebuke? I'm not really sure, because what motive is there to rebuke?

Buffy doesn't want her new world and created it out of dersperation, the people in Promethea break free from old bonds. In Buffy everyone is left behind in Promethea the apocalypse changes the whole world and doesn't leave it as an after birth.

So, while I'm fairly sure Joss is doing something different from Promethea here, I don't think he's subverting it either.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Even as a philosophy of literature it fails. Central to Moore's thinking is that the wallpaper pattern connections between different esoteric traditions are significant, that they tell us something fundamental about how the human brain is wired other than that it's wired to see patterns whether they're there or not.

Motive = why he dun it. Motif = trope, repeated element. I'm assuming you've been talking about the latter.

My point largely is that Moore does tantric sex and ending the imperfect old world for the higher plane of storytelling as reality more artistically than Joss because he *wants* it look irresistible where Joss wants quite the opposite. Sure what he does want stands independently from anything Moore has to say. Buffy turning down the paradise where she would be warm and loved and 'knew' her friends were OK? Where she was done? Where she could finally just give in? Where (to quote Spike) the fear and uncertainty stops. It's a temptation that's been there ever since Restless and one she's never been able to face head on, it's always been duty more than desire holding her back, tying her to life. Now she gets to choose. It is nevertheless a choice that if looked at with reference to Sophie's choice completely repudiates it and in that sense subverts it and all the stories from Promethea to The Last Battle where the end of the world is to be celebrated as the dawn of a rapturous (Rapture- ous) new era.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I very much like all your comments in this thread. I'd like to frame the last one.

I'm replying here because I hadn't seen the connection between Buffy choosing to go back here and her huge despair at being forced back in season 6. It's obvious once you say it, and I like that it picks up something that had bugged me about season 6 -- namely Buffy's sense that everyone was OK. I've always thought that was a flag that 'heaven' wasn't an unproblematic paradise -- and I like the development of that theme here.

[aycheb.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I hope you can forgive me being rude about Batman (Daddy issues I haz them).

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Your take on batman made me laugh, and at least you said that Adam West was the best of the lot. That's the batman that got wedged into my heart when I was seven, and I think my fondness for it is unshakeable as a result.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Sorry for the motif/motive confusion, and thanks for pointing it out. In german there is just one spelling for both meanings (motiv) and I'm very prone to such accedents once I've filed a word under "same as in german".

I still disagree about Moore. You seem to think that Moore wants you to believe something or other, but I don't really see how?
Because he makes it very clear that the original world in Promethea is a story too, just a more dreary one, that gets opened up by the apocalypse. It makes sense when you apply it as an opening of the mind but non at all when you apply it to actual reality, the way Buffy does.

In a way it works like tarot,completely silly to think you can tell the future with it, but as a way to gain persepectives and exit your box entirely usefull.

It is in fact the absolute subversion of Lewis classical Rapture, because it reacts as an opener to more possibilities, while in the last battle the characters end up in an ultimately boring perfect world.

I can see Joss subverting Lewis with this in his own way, Promethea, which is already subversion, not so much.

But no matter the intention, it's really the bad execution that kills S8, because the whole Twilight thing just seems silly from the get go instead of alluring (not to speak of the abysmal characterization that was needed to get there).

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

Aycheb has pretty much argued my case for me (and more ably since she's actually read Promethea). I had thought you meant motive and not motif. So my reply changes a bit. They may well have common motifs, but my argument all along has been that motifs do not, in any way shape or form, demand similar treatment or invite comparison by a standard. The motif fits the motives of the author, and its the motives that dictate how things should be done. As Aycheb points out (and what I've been trying to say all along), Joss patently does not have the same motives in storytelling as does Moore, and that's why his style and method is different.

Whether he succeeds or fails at doing whatever it is he's trying to do remains an open question -- though I can see why a lot of people would want to conclude now that it's a failure. It's just not a failure because it's not done like Moore, and it's unfair to say it's a failure because it's not done like Moore. That's all I have been trying to say.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

sorry about the confusion. Sometimes my English still fails me, there's just one word for both meaning in german, so I didn't think to differ.

As I argued with Aycheb, I do think some of Joss and Moore's motives might overlap just as well as the motifs do. His style and method is different but that doesn't make them impossible to compare.

I don't think anyone argued that Joss as to do it exactly like Moore to do it good. But the comparison with an author who brought similar ideas to an interesting conclusio, helps putting the finger on the sore spots.
I resent the argument that it can't be done better and I do think citing books that did a similar thing better is a valid way to dispell it.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

No worries about motive/motif -- your English is 10,000 times better than my German.

To the subject at hand: I do not mean -- in any way -- to say that arguments that season 8 could be done better are out of bounds. People have a lot of problems with the comics, and it's completely fair to articulate them. It is this one, particular form of argument that triggers my "that's unfair" button.

Based on the wiki summary and what I've gleaned from these conversations it sounds like Joss is the anti-Moore. But I haven't read Promethea so I can't really comment. What I can say is that even when they are congruent you have to say that Joss *wanted* to achieve the effect Moore achieved and failed. And since I think Joss is telling a different story, I fail to see why we should assume he's trying to achieve an effect which he doesn't come even close to realizing. See Gabs' comment below for another pass at articulating the complaint. My own effort to hit the point: If you assume that Joss is trying to do X, and see that he's doing A Very Bad Job at X, it's easier to challenge the assumption that he's trying to do X than to conclude that his writing just fails on this point. If I see cheesy cartoons, I'm pretty sure the creators aren't going for transcendent and magical. I think the burden is on you all to explain why Joss would want to be going for transcendent and magical, and then how a generally competent (if often imperfect) writer would pretty much do the exact opposite of transcendent and magical. Aycheb's account just sounds much more true to the facts than the one I'm hearing from the promethea >> season 8 folks.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Ok, it's a bit hard to get into a spot on argument without referencing Moore's material, but I don't think you can say that Joss is the anti Moore.

First off the S4 is a homage to Promethea, Joss said so and he said he loved the book. Second Moore's books hit on similar topics as Joss shows a lot, V for Vendetta and Firefly for example about rebellion to absolutistic peacekeepers and they do come to fairly similar conclusions.

They differ of course, Moore is way darker, often downright depressing and he loves to recreate popculture instead of referencing it, but I find the notion that they are somehow diametrically opposed very far fetched and I just plain don't see it reflected in their works.

To your second point on why I assume that Joss was going for a similar effect. My general assumption about authors is that they want to draw the reader in, that they want you to understand why their characters act the way they do, that when the characters are impressed, the reader should in a way be impressed too, that also goes for situations you plan to subvert later on.

The text of S8 told us that the opening of the Twilight dimension was meant to seem like a big cataclysmic event, but instead it just seemed silly and the impression it made on the characters could only be explained with Glowhypnol for lack of being convincing on it's own in any way.

Even seen as subversion it remains pathetic.

See, I really have trouble believing all of this mess is intentional. Take the sex issue, I do believe it's meant to leave a bad taste in your mouth (similar to depression sex in S6), to come of wrong, but I honestly believe they mean it when they say they thought it was sexy. And here I see where they wanted to go (basically S6, sexy but disturbing) but they ended up in completely ridiculous land.

That Meltzer person called #35 philosophy, why should I assume he doesn't mean it? They voiced their intentions very loudly in interviews, but the actual book doesn't live up to them. So I don't think that the assumption that the whole Twilight business was meant to be impressive too is not too far fetched.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I think we are not using the same lens for the moore/anti-Moore thing. What Aycheb says makes total sense to me. But that's really not an issue here.

Your other ctiqiues are really just fine. I have replies to them -- or at least to some of them -- and we can hash them out if you like. But please notice that you do not once make reference to Promethea. You've just introduced a series of productive lines of conversation to have -- and you did it by looking at *this* text and asking about what *this* text might be trying to achieve. Promethea is a distraction, especially when the issue is launched in a post that made much more sweeping claims than even you are willing to defend. All we are left with is "Promethea succeeds in its own aims; season 8 fails in its own aims." I say we can strike the first and be left with "season 8 fails in its own aims" and get down to business on that.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm not willing to defend all the statements that were made in connection with Promethea, mainly because Emmie had not read all of it yet either and I don't agree with all of her points (naturally, like you said, it's a conversation).

But that doesn't mean that a comparative reading in itself is "unfair" when there are so many similar motifs explored in both stories. Like any other critique I think it can be dealt with point by point but not as a whole be swept under the rug.

S8 plunges into the comic genre, it rises comparisons on every second page, why should we not make them?

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

There's a difference between asking about why authors have different takes on a given trope or motif, and using one author's use of the motif as a standard by which to measure the other author. The first is the conversation. The second is the dictatorship. The conversation can even lead to judgments, but they'll be of a more sophisticated sort taking into account the differing aims and so on. Again Aycheb is my model on this. She's showing what the conversation is. You are free to say you think Moore has the better part of the argument. I just think it's unfair to say that Joss fails because he didn't just say what Moore said. That refuses the conversation altogether.

[norwie2010.livejournal.com]

What i read from flake_sake's responses here at least partially is that Promethea shows how to do certain things in mood (for lack of a better word) - not in motive or philosophy or what-not. And while it seems fairly obvious that one can critique season 8 on it's own for the failure in mood (drawing the audience emotionally in) it seems also fairly obvious to me to compare this with a comic book that actually achieves this, especially when said reference material is, well, referenced in season 8.

So, what i want to say is that it seems to me that there is a slight misunderstanding going on here (but maybe i got it all wrong and flake_sake will beat me with w stick for this ;-)).

Oh, and, of course, i fan You, Maggie. Thanks for being a voice of reason in a sea of, well, emotional "upside down".

I dislike seaon 8 at this point in time and i do get why people (including me) are upset but i also get your sense of unfairness at some of the critiques. But that's what You get when the creative team confuses the audience - in a very unsatisfactory way.

[next_to_normal]

If you assume that Joss is trying to do X, and see that he's doing A Very Bad Job at X, it's easier to challenge the assumption that he's trying to do X than to conclude that his writing just fails on this point.

I think this may be the problem. Because I'm NOT assuming Joss is trying to do X. I couldn't even begin to guess what Joss is trying to do. I'm saying I want to see X, and Joss isn't delivering it, therefore I don't like it.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

That's cool. I had read people as wanting to critique season 8 on this basis -- but it's perfectly fair to express a preference. Using the current analogy, you don't like Batman, the TV show -- but that doesn't mean that you are claiming that it's bad. It's just not your cuppa. De gustibus non est disputandum. I had been reading people as making a judgment, not expressing a preference.