Yes, I didn't mean to slam comics in my first reply--or maybe I worked myself into a position where I was slamming without enthusiasm. Heh. I read superhero comics from time to time (The Authority! Gay superheros!) and I sure did grow up on them, and I have no quarrel with anyone who likes them. I also read graphic novels and consider them a completely valid literary form (I know, thanks, wiseacress, we needed that), and would like to start to build our library's collection there a bit more.
I think where I got myself into a tight spot was in equating low-quality entertainment crap like Daredevil with comics, which was careless. There are wonderful comic, fantastic worlds out there. I just watched Spirited Away and fell in love with it, for instance.
And that's interesting to me--if you sent Spirited Away to the troops, would it answer their need? I mean, who can say, and what's this single, monolithic "need" thing? There are lots of needs. But you say (sensibly) that people at war may have a craving to see clear lines of good and bad, right and wrong, and Gandalf the White coming over the hill at dawn. I can understand that. I can also imagine that some people might have a need to see a complex, ambiguous world presented back to them, to see others try to navigate it. To watch Welcome to Sarajevo, in which people try to do right under terrible, untenable circumstances, instead of Con Air, which is just schlock.
Schlock I've enjoyed, I hasten to add.
I don't know. Being prescriptive or judgmental is worse than useless, I think. But then I think, there has to be some dissension. I just don't believe that True Lies provides a good, healthy model for relating to the world and other people, however satisfying it may be for some folks to watch Arnold machine-gun Arabs and nuke a Florida cay. You know?
I'm also highly conscious of the fact that my little wibbling voice is pretty much irrelevant to the real world, the real situations. Or maybe it's not. Maybe there's room for a BooksforSoldiers2.com, providing alternative sources of entertainment that...I don't know, at least don't perpetuate the racism and xenophobia and greed and fear that got us into this war and will continue to get us into wars just like it until we drive someone to nuke us, world without end.
Um, okay. I'm sorry, Stakebait, I don't know what's got into me today. I'm too emotionally invested. I'm not trying to take over your LJ. Stopping now.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 12:43 pm (UTC)I think where I got myself into a tight spot was in equating low-quality entertainment crap like Daredevil with comics, which was careless. There are wonderful comic, fantastic worlds out there. I just watched Spirited Away and fell in love with it, for instance.
And that's interesting to me--if you sent Spirited Away to the troops, would it answer their need? I mean, who can say, and what's this single, monolithic "need" thing? There are lots of needs. But you say (sensibly) that people at war may have a craving to see clear lines of good and bad, right and wrong, and Gandalf the White coming over the hill at dawn. I can understand that. I can also imagine that some people might have a need to see a complex, ambiguous world presented back to them, to see others try to navigate it. To watch Welcome to Sarajevo, in which people try to do right under terrible, untenable circumstances, instead of Con Air, which is just schlock.
Schlock I've enjoyed, I hasten to add.
I don't know. Being prescriptive or judgmental is worse than useless, I think. But then I think, there has to be some dissension. I just don't believe that True Lies provides a good, healthy model for relating to the world and other people, however satisfying it may be for some folks to watch Arnold machine-gun Arabs and nuke a Florida cay. You know?
I'm also highly conscious of the fact that my little wibbling voice is pretty much irrelevant to the real world, the real situations. Or maybe it's not. Maybe there's room for a BooksforSoldiers2.com, providing alternative sources of entertainment that...I don't know, at least don't perpetuate the racism and xenophobia and greed and fear that got us into this war and will continue to get us into wars just like it until we drive someone to nuke us, world without end.
Um, okay. I'm sorry, Stakebait, I don't know what's got into me today. I'm too emotionally invested. I'm not trying to take over your LJ. Stopping now.