Diversifying Your (Artist's) Portfolio aka My Gay Spider-Man Entry

Spider-Man, Spider-Man

Does it with either gal or man

Not restrained by gender

Unlike the author of Ender

Look out! Here comes queer Spider-Man!

Recently, Andrew Garfield made pseudo headlines by intimating that Mary Jane (or MJ) could be a dude for the next Spider-Man film and that Peter could be moving a few spots up on the Kinsey scale. As is to be expected, there were unhappy fanboys. And happy gays. And once more, the internet was at war. Ultimately, Garfield declared that, despite his wishes, there would be no queer Spidey, but people are still talking.

Ultimately, as a gay fanboy and someone who thinks about representation politics far more than the average Joe or Jane, I have mixed feelings about Garfield's ruminations. On one hand, I acknowledge that someone needs to intervene on comic book canon if we are to have anything slightly resembling diversity. Let's face facts:

there have been VERY few iconic characters who emerged after the 60s (the All-New, All-Different X-Men, Venom, and Harley Quinn are the first ones that come to mind). What that means is that most of the staples for superhero movies originated in a time where heroes were predominantly white men and (with the exception of 40s Wonder Woman and, if Dr. Wertham is to be believed, Batman and Robin) heterosexual (not to mention cisgendered). If no one intervenes, we are stuck with endless blockbusters with the diversity of 50s entertainment. Think of superhero movies up until now. Gays are non-existant and women and characters of color are often relegated to the sidelines (Lucius Fox, Pepper Potts, etc) or there's one-per-team rule (Nick Fury and Black Widow). Admittedly, the X-Men films have MUCH better gender stats, but again, that's because they draw heavily from characters which emerged in the 70s and 80s.

On the other hand, Peter Parker is very straight. In fact, he may be the straightest of superheroes. Spider-Man was the super-hero comic most defined by romantic woes - possibly the first major superhero one to focus so intently on

them. Of course, gays have romantic woes...but is being a gay teen the same as being a straight one? Is thinking we can just make Mary Jane into a guy risking universalizing the queer experience? We may live in the age of Glee and Modern Family and I'm sure things are different than when I was in high school, but I still think some things will be the same. Sure, Peter would be bullied as much as he always was, but were he queer and (more importantly) out, his bullying would probably be less likely to make him romantically unappealing to other guys (who would also be bullied) instead of how it's been so far, where he just looked weak to girls. Also, Peter would be more experienced with having secrets and a double life (even if he was out by the time he was bitten) - being Spider-Man would not equal the first time he had to have barriers between him and Aunt May.

In short, diversity is never as simple as "Just add queerness/lady parts/color." Being a minority often

entails a different experience and outlook and that should be incorporated in the character. Batman, for example, might be a great bisexual character. Bruce Wayne always wants to be dominating the headlines as luxurious and decadent - sexually fluidity might help that...and also maybe make Bruce seem more effete so no one suspects he's the uber-macho Batman. In short, some characters can be changed...and some may have a harder time.

Who cannot (without changing the character substantially)? I'd say, for starters, Captain America, Superman, and Thor, as far as gender and race goes...perhaps sexuality as well. [note of course, that there CAN be a variation on any of these characters...as long as the author is aware that they may be severely changing the mythos or some of the central character conceits]

Why? Well, for Cap, we need to consider that 1940s America would never choose a racial minority to be their icon, and that Rosie the Riveter occupied a very different spot from Uncle Sam. It'd be a white-washed history if we were to make the US government color-blind. Also...we'd lose something I always love: the irony that Cap is actually the embodiment of Hitler's Master Race.

[Granted, there is a black "Captain America" story - and an excellent one at that (Truth by Robert Morales and Kyle Baker) - but anyone who has read it knows it's not your typical Captain America story (i.e. get powers, represent the US, defeat Nazis).]

Superman is a similar story. He's the beloved of Metropolis, of everyone. Quite frankly, were a woman or a person of color to have that much power, the sad reality is that there would be more suspicion. Lex Luthor would be the norm...not the exception. Is this an interesting story here? Definitely - one that interrogate certain attitudes on race and gender and the foundations of the Superman mythos. But it's not a classic Superman story - and one that might be tougher to sell as the major, mainstream representation of the character for the decade. [However, apparently Man of Steel ends on this note, so maybe this is a moot point.] Also, I would say Lois Lane is so key here that I'd be hesistant to make Clark anything but straight.

As for Thor...yeah, I suppose he should look very Norse. And still be a dude. I'll give some precedence to mythology. Of course, Asgard isn't only white in the movie, so again, maybe a moot point.

But that leaves us LOTS of characters. And major ones at that.

A common retort though would be that fans don't want movies tampering with the characters. Hawkeye is a white guy - to make him an Indian woman or a Chicano trans-man would make him not Hawkeye. He's Clint Barton. Fandom has not been overly quick to accept these types of changes - the lukewarm reception of the Latino Blue Beetle and the now-dead Asian Atom attest to that. In short, some may ask why do Hollywood and the PC police need to mess with things?

The reality is that Hollywood messes with things all the time (to the point that, all my prior exceptions are loose at best). Joker in Dark Knight no longer had an acid-changed face but wore makeup (and thus Batman's creation of Joker was lost). Jarvis is no longer a butler but a computer program. Rogue's big crush is Iceman, not Gambit. And so forth.

Meanwhile in comics, there sometimes is not even an iconic iteration of a character. Is the definitive Flash Barry Allen or Wally West (or Jay Garrick or Bart Allen)? How about Robin: Dick Grayson or Tim Drake? In fact, we've seen Robin change genders in The Dark Knight Returns and briefly in the comics when Spoiler took over the role. Same could be said for Jon Stewart, though he often pales to the love for Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner (but we'll soon get to why Stewart is 1000 varieties of awesome). Psylocke has managed to turn from British to Japanese without even changing her being Betsy Braddock! So maybe comic fans may be more pliable than they or others may think.

[Admittedly, part of this could point to an inherent racism/sexism/heterosexism/cisgenderism in certain areas of fandom, similar to that of the "Rue backlash" from The Hunger Games, that accept certain changes but short circuit at those of identity - particularly of major characters. But I don't want to push that argument just yet. I'll give those areas time to prove me wrong.]

[Also I should probably note that a lot of this problem stems from unconscious chauvinism - basically "write what you know." As one brave fangirl dressed as Batgirl pointed out at Comic Con in 2011 to many DC panelists, the comic world is a boy's club. Particularly, it's a straight white boy's club, despite our occasional Phil Jimenezes and Gail Simones.]

Furthermore, this has already been done, and successfully, in comics. The only reason Nick Fury is played by Samuel L Jackson in the Marvel movies is because Mark Millar and Bryan HItch reimagined him as a black man (who looked remarkably like SLJ) in the Ultimate Universe. Similarly, Wasp (sadly absent from the film Avengers) became Asian and Colossus turned gay. J Michael Straczynski's Supreme Power changes the old Squadron Supreme to essentially give us a tale of a Justice League

wherein Batman and Flash are black...and race is very much foregrounded. This choice was perfect for a retelling of Justice League that was meant to be darker and more realistic. In a series that did not shy away from the government realities in a superhero team, it only would make sense that the racial realities and tensions of superheroes should be considered. The DC Animated Universe's Justice League chose the lesser-known John Stewart (over Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner) as Green Lantern and threw in the double wildcard of Hawkgirl - not only avoiding one of the more famous members, but even choosing her over her "man" counterpart. Stewart's race/class background and Hawkgirl's defiance of gender expectations helped make these characters arguably the two most interesting ones in the Justice League series. And Batwoman has finally returned to the DCU - now a lesbian. Diversity is not only good for politics and morality - it's good for storytelling.

[Of course, writing this made me realize how the transgendered comic fans are still being incredibly ignored in superhero representation. So my apologies for being unable to think of any mainstream success stories on that front.]

In short, if a Justice League movie comes out of the upcoming Batman/Superman film, perhaps it should have a Wonder Woman who looks more like she came from a Mediterranean Island or a Flash who looks less like the typical Wally West/Barry Allen. But also, we need to not only ask "which character can be less straight/white/male/cisgendered," but also why this character should be so and what narrative potentials are possible. Garfield is making a start of this, and I applaud him for not taking comic history as canon, but his comments do not seem to fully consider both the reality and the narrative impact of making Peter queer. Comic characters' identities should shift for diversity, but this diversity should be more than just an accoutrement or a selling point. The diversity should be diversity, not a universalization of such diversity.

Kick-Ass's Target: Spider-Man or Batman?

Ah, Kick-Ass. Don’t you just love when a comic book thing becomes the hot topic du jour? Well, I don’t, but that’s for another entry.

There are about a billion and one topics I can talk about with Kick-Ass. There’s Hit-Girl and how for some reason, holding a kid at gunpoint or knife point (as seen in numerous films, such as Red Dragon, Dark Knight, etc.) or killing him or her off (e.g. The Searchers, Punisher, Gladiator) to fuel a revenge plot are both completely acceptable plot points and really not even worthy of a sentence, whereas once the kid dares to fight back, society has crumbled. Maybe the paradox is related to the idea that kids are sacred. And if we kill something sacred, well then, we can get really upset at the destruction of the sacred object. After all, Christianity is based around the destruction of the most sacred person and how darn great that was and our culture, for better or for worse, is based very much on Christianity. But whereas Passion of the Christ was adored by many a right-wing nutjob, I am relatively certain that Revenge of the Christ would get the picket-treatment. So yeah, violence and kids is honky-dory as long as the kids are on the receiving end. Got that settled? Cool.

There’s also the use of the gay joke and whether or not the movie flopped. Okay, so aside from the main point of the entry, there are three topics I can write about. But my interest lies in the fact that, upon talking to people, there seems to be a general dissatisfaction or uneasiness around how cartoonish the movie gets towards the end.

Kick-Ass starts with a promise of an uber-realistic to the point of hilarious comic book movie. We get to see what would really happen if someone tried to be a superhero: his costume would look a bit dumb, he would be terrified of jumping from buildings and when he tried to fight crime, he would get the ass kicked out of him. Many fans took this approach as a parody of the mainstream superhero movie genre, or, if I may relabel it, the Marvel movie genre. Indeed, the music often turns into a trope on Danny Elfman’s Spider-Man score and even the first 20 minutes or so are a pretty straightforward parody of the first Spider-Man movie.

But that premise cannot sustain itself. To hold the mirror of reality up to the artificial world of spandex superheroes is an entertaining Saturday Night Live sketch or possible even short film, but such an action feature would wear out its welcome fast. How many times could we watch Kick-Ass get beaten up? How many times can he flinch at the edge of a building? A super-hero in the real world movie cannot work because there are no superheroes in the real world. The logic that makes this idea worthy of our attention and allows it to become a satire would be the very same logic that undoes its ability to progress through the necessary three-act plot and reach some narrative resolution. A real Kick-Ass would just be the recipient of knife-points and spend the interim of his hospital stays looking for lost cats.

Thankfully, for the film and the viewer, Kick-Ass is not a parody of the Marvel superhero movie. It’s a parody of the DC superhero film, specifically Watchmen and Nolan’s Batman films. Why these? Just because I didn’t like them? Nah, were that the case, I would have included the Fantastic Four movies and X3 in there. I say this because Kick-Ass is not a parody of the “mainstream” superhero film; it is a satire of the “realistic” superhero film.

The first twenty minutes may be giving us a fantasy-free variety of Spider-Man, but they are also delivering the promises of Nolan or Snyder with abundance. Nolan strove to give us a real urban hero: a Batmobile that “made sense” for city streets, a believable training background for the protagonist, and villains that reflect the problems of society today and use knives as weapons instead of freeze-rays and killer plants.

However, ultimately, as I pointed out two years ago when tearing Dark Knight a new one, Batman is not realistic. A billionaire secreting financing his own one-man war on crime after secretly training decades around the world is only a miniscule bit more believable than webslinging across Times Square. In fact, people should not fear the man in a giant rubber Batsuit, but mock him. And that reaction is the one of the first “villains” in Kick-Ass. Kick-Ass is a crazy person, a nerd, a loser, an idiot in a playsuit. He does the best one can do with the resources accessible to an actual superhero. And it’s funny.

Such a parody makes sense, after all. Why expose the stupidity of a real-life superhero to a series of films that have genetically altered arachnids, weather controlling mutants, and Jessica Alba trying to act? It mocks a genre for not having something it never pretended to possess. However, to go after a subgenre by giving all that it promised but failed to deliver is to have a more worthy target.

But the film extends its satire. It does not simply show what the “realistic” superhero film lacks; it then exaggerates the necessary trajectory of any “realistic” action film. As the film progresses, it descends from this almost hyper-realistic world into a Tarantino-esque Lala-Land. This progression is heralded in by the introduction of Hit-Girl and Big Daddy. These two, in a sense, are the quintessential “real” superhero. Their outfits are dark, they use lethal force, and, unlike Kick-Ass, they deliver a real plot, real conflict, and real results. Yet they are also the most detached from reality itself. Their very costumes and mannerisms evoke the cartoonish. Hit-Girl has purple hair like an anime character and enters to a perky soundtrack that could very well be performed by Puffy Ami Yumi. Big Daddy talks like Adam West’s Batman, everything from which Nolan strived to detach himself. He also paints the areas around his eyes like Joel Schumacher’s Batmen did. Yes, there may be believable reasons for the character’s choices (colorful wigs and weird speech patterns hide identities), but such reasons do not automatically nullify such evocations. Whatever the logic behind such choices is, Hit-Girl looks like a she could join the Sailor Senshi and Big Daddy could say “old chum” any second.

Furthermore, their larger-than-life traits extend beyond their appearances. They take on dozens of henchmen at a time and live. They can catch guns (and even reload them) midair like refugees from The Matrix. In fact, their arsenal itself seems to rival that of the white room in the first Matrix* film. They even own a jetpack because, you know, that’s so much more down-to-earth than just jumping out the window and flying. I know they were stealing money from the drug busts…but could that buy all of those weapons? And wouldn’t someone be able to trace them?

[*In fact, the parallels to The Matrix are quite fascinating. After all, The Matrix attempts to explain the unrealistic, aerial movements of kung-fu action heroes. But how does it do it? By placing everything within an even larger artificial reality, both literally by introducing the Matrix program and by forcing the audience to believe that sentient robots have taken over mankind. I suppose that is more plausible than thinking a man can jump between skyscrapers. I do not know if I was even being sarcastic in that last sentence.]



But these two are very much like Batman or The Minutem – excuse me, Watchmen: cartoon characters running around a real world, trying to pass. But they manage to appear only more cartoonish and their superhuman acts seem more egregiously, ridiculously powerful because they have purported themselves to be below superhuman. In movies such as Spider-Man and X-Men, storytellers introduce a series of rules and mostly adhere to them. We do not question that Magneto can take on a veritable army because he can manipulate metal. Wolverine can take a licking and keep on ticking thanks to a healing factor. Kick-Ass should not be able to endure such punishment. And, in the beginning of the movie, he isn’t. He actually does go to the hospital (a rare locale for a superhero unless he is visiting his aunt or a district attorney) and he seems pretty out of it by the end of his first “victory.” But yet, he goes on to fight another battle immediately after the torture scene. He admits that he hurts and by all means our hero should be returning to the hospital, or at least his bed room. But no, he still manages to take on Red Mist.

This hole is gaping, but upon looking through it, we can see similar instances in Nolan’s films. Batman should show up in the hospital after certain run ins. While amazing, Alfred can only do so much. And his background of service in the British SS seems a bit more ridiculous in a reality where Joker cannot even use laughing gas, so I doubt they would invoke that bit of character history. Or, to return to the prior point, his triumphs over legions of criminals should be directed with the same anime-esque glee that fills Hit-Girl’s assaults, for they should be just as much as blemish on the believability of Chicago-Gotham as Hit-Girl is on Manhattan. The aforementioned jet-pack, the bazooka that ends the movie with an exclamation point (a long line and a dot), and its ilk are all things meant for the funny pages, but so is the contraption Bruce used in his Hong-Kong adventure, his tank of a Batmobile, and even his Batarangs.

In short, the very act of promising reality in a comic book movie only makes it more cartoonish and unreal than a typical comic book movie. We may not believe people can shoot beams out of their eyes, but once we buy into that fact (one no one would ever question Cyclops when watching X-Men), we can believe that the ability to shoot beams out of one’s eyes makes one a one-man army. But we know there are limits to what the human body can do, even if aided by intense training and the best weapons that money can secretly buy. Kick-Ass more blatantly does what Rorschach, Ozymandius, and Batman have already done: made the human superhuman while still trying to pass them off as human. A girl with a sword must be just as competent as Superman, which is even less plausible than the concept of Superman himself.



Sure Kick-Ass may appear more cartoonish than Dark Knight or its ilk, but that is only because it so enthusiastically owns its cartoonishness. But in flaunting its own implausibility, it manages to show that art can never be life. Especially when that art involves wearing a cape.

Lady Haha

Last week, I, like most Americans my age, found myself in a rapturous stupor over the nirvana that is Lady Gaga and Beyonce’s video for “Telephone.” And then I, like many, listened to “Telephone” around a bajillion times, all the while thinking about the video. One of the roughly bajillion things I loved about the video was how Gaga says “We did it, Honey B!” at the end of the video. She sounds more like she just won the dance-off to save the youth center than that she just succeeded in poisoning dozens of people.

In short, she adopts the tone of a supervillain. A Batman villain. And then, an epiphany: Lady Gaga would be a perfect choice to play Harley Quinn.

We have a woman who dresses in outlandish costumes, who performs her entire life as if it were an eccentric burlesque, and who rarely appears without makeup. Nearly every video involves her joyfully committing homicide. In “Paparazzi,” she murders costumed her – I mean, pop stars – one after the other and then proceeds to pose lasciviously for the mug shot camera. In “Telephone,” she theatrically dons a chef’s outfit (or Gaga’s idea of an outfit, which is plastic top and nipple tape) to prepare poison. She even dreams of having “a bad romance.” She is Dr. Quinzel sans the squeaky voice.



Of course, having our favorite very very bad bad girl don a domino mask and greasepaint to play our favorite fictional bad girl is not without impediment. Aside from having to shape the character to suit the needs of the actress, there is the issue of how she could fit into the already established Gotham of the prior two Batman films.

[Note: For the rest of the entry, I’ll be talking about Nolan’s Batman franchise, Ledger’s Joker, etc. While I still remain less than a fan of these, I’m putting aside any judgments for the sake of the entry. This entry would not profit from constant Nolan/Ledger-bashing, but should also not be read as a change of heart on the films.]

While the character of Harley Quinn as is perfectly complements that of the Joker, she would be as much of an aberration in Nolan’s Gotham as Chico Marx would be. She is a predominantly comedic character, serving often to temper Joker’s darker scenes. While, of course, one could argue that such comedy in the face of horror only further twists the situation, this route was not the one taken in Dark Knight. Admittedly, we received bits such as the “pencil trick” or Joker in drag, but nothing so far as for him to beat a man to death with a rubber chicken or anything to that level.

Furthermore, Ledger’s Joker (I speak of this Joker as a character that, to an extent, is independent of Ledger in so much that a subsequent actor would be drawing directly from this Joker than any other incarnation of the villain) simply lacks to inclination to create Harley Quinn. That prank was one for Hamill’s Joker. The Diniverse Joker had different goals and motivations than Dark Knight’s antagonist and fooling his psychiatrist to make her a clingy, demented girlfriend fits into such an agenda. Raising havoc as a two-person vaudeville act fits his modus operandi. Harley, however, fails to find comfortable lodgings in the social philosophy espoused by Ledger’s Joker. Just as Joker was reimagined to fit Nolan’s needs, so must Harley be recreated and reformatted to appease this universe. Even the staunchest of Dark Knight fans could not (or at least should not) argue that vastly different Jokers would inevitably create vastly different Quinns.



Oh, and there is one other bigger problem: Joker. The aura that lingers around Ledger’s performance threatens to make any actor who attempts to play the character next appear presumptuous, disrespectful, or even heretical. Putting the Joker on film with anyone else besides Ledger behind those scars risks alienating the devoted fans.

Now comes my favorite part: what I would do!

I am going to be fair and play by Nolan’s rules. The character has to be semi-realistic and threatening. And she has to be a product of Ledger’s Joker. Personally, I might add a few more jokes or quirks here and there, but nothing that would stretch beyond simply a writing decision; this screenplay would not be part of another reboot.

My Harley came to me as I listened to “Paparazzi.” This Harley Quinn has never even met the Joker. She’s just a fan. A obsessive, crazy fan. Think Squeaky Fromme and John Hinckley meet the crying Justin Bieber girl. She followed Joker’s crime spree from Dark Knight in the papers and instead of panicking, reveled in the brilliance of each act. Maybe she understood his angle, maybe she didn’t completely get it. Maybe she was so blinded by the spectacle and explosions that she never paid attention to whatever he was saying about soldiers dying vs. old man in car crash. This could allow for different concepts to be explored in this film instead of just rehashing the conceit of Dark Knight.

So she goes on a crime spree to prove her love to Joker. Every bombed building, every mutilated face, every corpse is a Valentine to Mr. J. He could be dead or in jail, but either way keeps him off screen and makes her character even more twisted. Just like the Justin Bieber girl, she is convinced that Joker does love her back, except the situation is a lot less cute and a lot more disturbing when we’re dealing with a thirty year-old instead of a toddler.

And, I even play by Nolan’s rules so much as to allow for commentary. Where Dark Knight’s villain led to an investigation on terror and the subsequent war against it, this sequel’s Harley allows for a contemplation on the meaning of celebrity and fandom. Michael Jackson’s death led to a simultaneously circus and sanctification of the former pariah. Sarah Palin’s words about Barack Obama resulted in people sending the President death threats. And, were the filmmakers particularly ballsy, they could even comment on the cult of Ledger/Joker that formed in 2008. This direction would also coincide with Gaga’s own work, which often scrutinizes our relation to stars, fame, and pop culture.

I leave you with a possible scene. Like I said, I would keep this Harley grounded…but as her motivation would revolve around the necessity of creating a show to impress another, I would allow her for a bit more theatrics than the prior Nolan villains…

A street in Gotham. Two or three police cars at one end, speeding towards Quinn at the other. She puts one hand into a gun shape (an act often performed Gaga in her videos). The other holds a trigger to three explosives (a button for each one). She presses one button and simultaneously points at one car. The explosive goes off as she pulls the “gun” back. She does the same with the second and third car. There. Showy, but still nothing more than what someone in the real world could do with a little imagination and some high quality demolition expertise.

So, Mr. Nolan, in the very likely chance that you are reading this (I’d rank it around 97%), I offer a truce between us. You pay me a few million to write the screenplay and I’ll apologize for whatever I’ve said about your prior movies. Though, I did really like Memento. That seems totally fair, right?