Superheroes: Batman & Robin
Contrary to its reputation as a garish, headache-inducing day-glo nightmare, Batman & Robin is, in fact, a sensitive, heartfelt examination of power, frailty, family, humanity’s custody of the earth, the ties that bind and the mysterious ways of the human heart.
Adolescent fantasy thread
You state [fantasy’s place as an exclusively adolescent genre] as if it’s a universal, but that attitude is a pretty new development in literary culture. — swan_tower
This discussion touches on a whole host of issues like middlebrow vs. high brow; entertainment vs. art; fantastic genres vs. realistic genres vs. non-genre dramas. — curt_holman
That Homer’s fucked. — iainjcoleman
Ms. Tower correctly points out that "fantasy" as a genre was not always exclusively for the young. I would have done better to add "these days" to my description of the role of fantasy in our common storytelling world.
Some have asked me to define "adolescent" stories as opposed to "adult" stories. I would say that an adolescent story is designed to appeal to a primarily adolescent mindset — that is, the mind of an adolescent. The concerns of the adolescent are different from the concerns of the adult, and there’s not much you or I can do about that. The adolescent mind is still asking questions, taking its measure of the world and seeking its place within it. (Kurt Vonnegut was often accused of being "sophomoric," which he said was entirely intentional — he knew that if he really wanted to change the way people think, he had to do it while they were still young — the people with real power don’t read novels.) There is no qualitative difference between a story designed to appeal to children, a story designed to appeal to adolescents or a story designed to appeal to adults. Each can be well executed or poorly executed, transcendent or trashy, innovative or rote. "Children’s movies" includes both Bambi and Ernest Goes to Camp, and the realm of the adolescent movie, as I’ve said, spans almost our entire release schedule.
As for Homer, two things:
1. Yeah, Homer wrote adolescent power fantasies. Sorry. They are very good, and they have lasted a long time, and they bring great storytelling talent to bear on their narratives, but they are still, primarily and essentially, adolescent power fantasies.
2. That said, the fact that we’re still talking about Homer thousands of years later indicates that there is hope for the superhero genre. There’s no reason why, given time and development, Superman will not take his place in the mythological pantheon next to Odysseus and Achilles, to say nothing of Arthur or Heracles, or Cinderella or Peter Pan. All are fantastic stories that plumb the depths of what it means to be human, the only thing separating them is time. There is no reason why, a thousand years from now, people will not study superhero stories in serious college courses or create serious, adult dramas from what will then be considered classics. Superman, Batman and the rest, it seems to me, share a lot of things with those older characters, including being constantly reinvented as the society that imagined them shifts in its needs.
Superman belongs to no one, or rather he belongs to everyone, and always has — that’s one of the interesting thing about comics. The creator of a superhero may have something specific to say, but it’s the audience who actually decides who the hero is, and they decide by buying one comic and leaving another on the shelf. I was surprised to learn that when Superman first appeared, Siegel and Shuster hadn’t actually figured out his origin story or basic character outline. They tried out this, that and the other personality trait, letting the readers respond and thus re-shape the material. The audience would love one kind of story and shrug at another, so the material was tailored to meet the audience’s expectations. In seeking only to keep their aborning creation in print, they — through a kind of Darwinian process — created a strong, resonant hero that became the first, the original and, even today, the most influential character in his genre.
Fun fact: when I Googled "Homer" to find an appropriate image for this thread discussing this whole adult/adolescent fantasy debate, I had to wade through three pages of Homer Simpson until I found a picture of the Greek bard. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.
Can superheroes grow up?
voiceofisaac writes:
"So, if most superhero comic books are adolescent power fantasies, what about them would need to be changed in order to make them a more adult fantasy? Or are all power fantasies adolescent by definition?"
ted_slaughter ripostes:
"First, ‘adolescent’? Are you saying it’s adolescent to desire power, or that comics are inherently jejune? Because I beg to differ, on both counts.
Ted and Isaac cut to the core of the issue here. This is, in a way, the whole ball game.
First, let me make something clear: there is nothing wrong, shameful or second-rate about adolescent fantasies. Adolescent fantasies drive the entire movie business and have for more than a generation. "Grown-up" drama was once where all the money was spent in Hollywood, now it’s the opposite: all the money is spent on adolescent fantasies, while adult drama must squeeze itself in where it can. Adolescent fantasies thus call the shots in this world of professionals — movies based on superhero comics, fantasy novels, children’s books and pop-culture flotsam attract the biggest names, the highest salaries and our brightest talents. No offense to the wonderful movies nominated for Best Picture this year, but the three movies I went to see more than once in the theaters, Iron Man, Kung Fu Panda and The Dark Knight, are not on the list. The question here is not "are superhero movies any good?" but "can superhero movies ever be anything but adolescent fantasies?"
Superheroes: Batman Forever
Batman Forever does something that Batman and Batman Returns were unable to do: it makes Batman a proper protagonist, with goals and desires of his own. Not merely reacting to events, Bruce/Batman is after something in Forever. His various allies and antagonists, seductions and betrayals are all thematically consistent and relevant to his struggle. This does not mean that the finished movie is without flaws.
Superheroes: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is in interesting entry in the world of long-form cinematic Batman stories for a few different reasons. First, it manages to do what the Burton movies were unable to — make Bruce/Batman the protagonist of his own story. Second, it’s primarily a detective story as opposed to an action story. Third, at least half of the story is told in flashback, a parallel-action setup ambitious for a movie thought of as primarily for kids. Lastly, the story it tells is rather emotional and internal — Bruce/Batman broods a lot in this movie, even by his own standards. The action sequences feel perfunctory and tacked-on. The two that come to mind — a truck chase and the explosive finale — are poorly motivated and don’t advance the plot in any meaningful way.
Superheroes: Batman Returns
Like Batman, Batman Returns presents three protagonists, almost the same protagonists as the previous movie — a deformed freak of a gangster (this time the Penguin), a blonde who’s crazy about bats (Catwoman subbing for Vicki Vale), and Batman himself. In addition to its three protagonists, it offers an antagonist from outside the traditional Batman world — a ringer, if you will, in the form of businessman Max Shreck.
It would be great to report that Batman Returns takes all of these worthwhile, interesting characters and weaves them into a single, unified story, but it does not. Instead, it presents two separate stories, each compelling in its own right, and kind of sutures them together like the irregular chunks of vinyl of Catwoman’s bodysuit. As this is an unusually complicated narrative with three separate, competing plot strands which actually take place in utterly different genres, let’s separate out each character’s storyline and examine them one at a time.
Superheroes: Batman (1989) part 1
Batman has an interesting agenda: the screenplay wants to keep its title character mysterious and elusive for as long as possible. Both Batman and Bruce Wayne are presented as cold, remote and unreachable. "Why won’t you let me in?" asks Vicki Vale, as well she might. Bruce Wayne takes a long time to emerge as a protagonist in Batman, and Batman takes even longer. For the longest time, Bruce/Batman is pursued, tangled with and drawn out, with the effect being to turn him into a kind of mythological figure, or even a fetish object.
The act thing
Can we see a break-down of the concepts behind the Multiple Acts school of writing? I’ve had the idea of three acts only shoved down my throat for years and it feels wrong to try to shoehorn a story into this particular artificial construct. Is there some magic number of acts, or do you just need to make sure your story has a beginning and an ending of some sort and build from there or something else entirely? — quitwriting
Completely agreed. I don’t fully understand what makes one act disparate from the next. — erranthope
I’d be interested to see this as well. — stormwyvern
I currently define an act as when the status quo changes into something else, and those changes are irreversible...How many acts, though? My answer right now is "however many you need to tell the story". — Kent M. Beeson
Let me answer this the best way I know, by telling a story:
“Who does what” in practical terms: the making of “Grasshopper”
Following up from my previous post, wherein I described, in rather dry, technical terms, the jobs of some of the principal players on a movie set, to give the novice some idea of what all that means I offer this personal experience.
In the autumn of 2001, a PRODUCER named Patricia Maguire came to me and asked me to write and direct a short film based on a Chekhov story of my choosing. I chose "Grasshopper," a tale of marriage and betrayal and seduction and sudden death.
I wrote my script (it was 25 pages) and submitted it to Patricia. She had a few notes, which were good notes, and I incorporated them into the script. (The wise screenwriter accepts good ideas from anyone, no matter who they are — producer, director, actor or man on the street. The trick is having a clear enough understanding of what you’re doing so that you can tell a good idea from a bad one.)