Tuesday re-cap for They're Not Like Us

 Our last day of class! (sob). Here are some of the things we discussed to jog your memory...

THE STYLE AND CONTENT

* Much more realistic, sometimes extremely detailed, yet sometimes lacking any detail (white backgrounds, etc.). The story takes place in San Francisco and is very documentary in its use of real buildings and locations. It seems like a story that could actually happen or IS actually happening. The style creates a "based on a true story" appearance, and makes the events less fantastic or distant for the reader.

* The narration is also a little unreliable, since our opening shot is "Syd" jumping off a building. She wakes up in the hospital, but we don't really know "where" she is. Is she dead? Dreaming? In a coma? Or is she really just okay? What if this is all in her head, and is her version of people and events, much like The Killing Joke is Joker's? 

* There's also the very real possibility that she thinks she's a superhero because this 'cult' has convinced her she is to exploit her for their own use. So much of this story illustrates how cult's work and operate, and how one man (in this case, The Voice) controls everyone's perception of reality. So this could be a straight-up superhero story, OR it could be an anti-superhero story. Is she 'mad,' sick, dead, or a would-be Batman? You decide...

* The story also functions as a parable of superheroes in general. They're vigilantes who deal out their own brand of justice, though this justice is very subjective and from another perspective, would make them villains. Syd crosses over from Clark Kent to Lex Luther by mid-story, and only at the end does she step away from the edge (but only after potentially killing someone--was he REALLY a pedophile?). But though they don't look like superheroes, they all have alter egos, costumes, and a justifiable ethics. So this puts a unique spin on who superheroes are and how dangerous they might truly be. It's a comic a lot like The Boys or Watchmen in this regard.

PORNOGRAPHY: I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT

* We also discussed the level of violence on the comic, and how much is too much? Comics are increasingly upping the level of violence and blood, and violence can itself be pornographic, even without a sexual element. So does this comic cross the line? 

* In the 1964 court case, Jacobellis vs. Ohio, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said this about a sweeping definition of pornography: “I have reached the conclusion . . . that under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case [The Lovers] is not that." So where does this leave us with comics? What is and isn't pornography?

* After looking at several recent examples of superhero comics engaging in potentially gratuitous violence, we looked at some of the most banned comics in the US, none of which were superhero comics. Ironically, almost none of these comics have violence on them...but all had sex or nudity. In the US, sex and the naked body is almost always seen as pornographic (in books, not so much in film), whereas violence is almost universally acceptable. Some comics that are banned or contested for sexual content are Blankets, Fun Home, and Persepolis.

* Check out the CBLDF website (cbldf.org) for many articles and resources about comics censorship. One of them discusses a recent case where Fun Home and Blankets were contested by parents: "One of the most challenged graphic novels by high schools and libraries: Bechdel’s Fun Home (2008): In 2006, Louise Mills of Marshall,Missouri, requested that the book (and another graphic novel, Blankets by Craig Thompson) be removed from the local public library. Mills characterized the books as “pornography” and expressed concern that children might be drawn to them because they looked like comic books. Another citizen who spoke at a library board meeting even contended that the books could result in “seedy people coming into the library and moving into our community.”