Batman: TAS, episode #3: Heart of Ice

This episode is about Mr. Freeze; one of the cheesiest of the Batman villains because there's nothing particularly odd about him. Up to this point, he was just a guy with cold powers who happened to also need to be in a subzero environment to survive. That made him one of the more visually interesting characters of the Batman TV series from the 60s, since he had to stay in his blue (cold) spaces or suffer in the normal (and often orangey) areas. But, aside from that, there was nothing in particular that drove him in the fashion of the more famous of The Batman's opponents. It wasn't too difficult to draw a comparison between Freeze and, say, Captain Cold; longtime member of The Flash's Rogues' Gallery. Those latter two words are capitalized because that group was a particular band of criminals that competed with The Flash based on their criminal identities. Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, Captain Boomerang, etc. They all had a gimmick and that gimmick was how they competed with The Flash's gimmick of super-speed. Mr. Freeze was the most prominent of The Batman's opponents who was of that kind; a gimmick villain, rather than a storied one (although we'll later run into another one that the producers retrieved from the hoary past of our hero, in the Clock King.) But this episode was written by Paul Dini and directed by Bruce Timm and that's probably why it numbers among the best of entire series. These were the producers with the vision to create the whole and whom were actively participating, not only in the story's creation, which will be a regular feature as we move along, but in taking a lesser opponent and turning him into one of the more tragic figures that we'll encounter and create the combination of an interesting threat and a great story.

Dini doesn't shy away from the comic villain standards: Mr. Freeze is named that way not just because of his gimmick, but also because of his actual name, Victor Fries. But there's a clear story vision in this one, from beginning to end. Freeze isn't just your standard comic villain. Instead, his origin is a lot closer to our main character's, in that he's compelled by vengeance to pursue the person responsible for the death of his wife. He's a tragic character, while also being a merciless killer. And all of it is conveyed via one simple device, literal and technical, in the form of the ballerina in the snow globe. It's an incredibly smart locus that shows a drive apart from material concerns and even the primary motivation. All Freeze wants to do is get back to the woman he lost inside a plastic bubble, but recognizes that she, like him, is now trapped in one, so that all he can do is admire her from afar while he does his best to alleviate the rage in his soul and try to exact a price from those who trapped both of them in these states. It's not a complicated message. It's not even that elevated. It's simple, but it's deeper than any meaning the character has had before this depiction and was so well done that DC adopted this approach to his origin in the comics. (Just try to ignore the film with Arnold. It's better that way.)

One of the first indications that the writer really understands these characters is from the dialogue. When our hero first arrives on the scene of one of Freeze's crimes, his thugs look up and yell: "The Batman!" Right away, I know he gets it. But Freeze also demonstrates his maniacal and ruthless nature through his lines. In leaving behind one of his servants, he tells the rest: "He should have been more careful!", even though it was Freeze who shot him and froze his legs. There's also: "Let the evil that walks inside be cleansed by pure, unforgiving ice!" It's almost robotic in its demeanor and fits the role that Freeze himself is trying to play, but can't entirely, since he's still driven by the anguish that Ferris Boyle created for him. Indeed, Michael Ansara, who voices the character, fought with Timm, who wanted Freeze to sound more robotic, but Ansara thought that would deprive him of some of the depth that he knew the character had. Boyle, voiced by Mark Hamill (who will, uh, go on to some fame as the voice of another prominent person in Gotham) also had a key line that defined the overall situation: "When the wage slaves start acting like they own the place, it's time to pull the plug!" He had his men literally do that to kill Freeze's wife and ruin his health, but it's also emblematic of that noir-based cynicism and Bruce Wayne's awareness that the true villains may not always be the ones on the streets. The Batman wasn't immune to this kind of expression, either, as the Fox censors somehow missed his muttered: "My God!" when he watches the tape of what happened to Fries; religion being normally verboten for a "kids' show." What all of this added up to was a Daytime Emmy for Writing for this episode, which put the series on the map for a number of critics who hadn't given it as much attention as it deserved to that point.

There were some really interesting visual points in this episode, as well. We continue with some of the anime stylings when the cyclotrons and generators are shown powering up in the Batcave as The Batman works to save the life of Freeze's abandoned henchman. It was a scene redolent of films like Frankenstein; appropriate for the accidental monster that Freeze has become. Also, the Batmobile appears with a lighter shade of blue here, as opposed to the usual blue-gray. Obviously, different studios will often use slightly different palettes and Spectrum Animation used some very bright contrasts with all of the ice effects, including airbrushing every scene with Freeze's helmet, so perhaps the change to the sheen of the vehicle was part of that trend. This is the first episode where we see the technology really became central to the story, as we get an extended look at the equipment in the Batcave, at the assembled ice cannon, and at Freeze's exoskeleton which is extremely reminiscent of the one worn by Clayface III in the late 70s. Perhaps the most amazing technological achievement, however, was our hero's apparent ability to stick an entire thermos of chicken soup into his utility belt.

There were a variety of other interesting points that also make this episode a favorite, not least among them the fact that The Batman was given the Wampa ice cave treatment (frozen to the ceiling by his ankles) by Freeze in an episode with none other than Luke Skywalker himself (Hamill.) The action, while generally superhero in style with Freeze as the first truly incredible type of opponent we've seen, was also quite smart. The villain's escape/entry to the awards ceremony on a high floor of a building via the constantly flowing column of ice from a fire hydrant was particularly slick (ahem.) We also saw a bit of the ruthlessness of The Batman when the Batmobile almost runs over two GothCorp security officers in his zeal to confront Freeze. Plus, we get our first look at the famous Arkham Asylum at the end, with the only flaw in that final scene being that Freeze's tears didn't instantly become snowflakes as they emerged. Timm later stated that if there was one thing they could go back and do over, that would be it.

In the end, it's still just a superhero story. But it's a great superhero story, with proper motivations, entertaining dialogue, and a plot that can be identified with by anyone watching. This is one of the best episodes of the entire series and, again, it feels like a smart choice by HBO to put it in so early to inspire people to keep watching. I, of course, will keep re-watching and, speaking of Clayface, that's who's on deck for episode #4: Feat of Clay.

Batman: TAS, episode #2: On Leather Wings

This was the first episode produced but the second to be released and was done so in prime time to make the biggest splash. You can tell it was definitely an intro episode from its basic structure, which is high action and drama from the very beginning and introduces a number of characters at a rapid pace. One of the more intelligent moves made by the producers with this series was that they essentially assumed that the audience was aware of who and what The Batman is from the beginning. They further that assumption with most of the major characters. Most people whom are aware of the lead character are also familiar with Commissioner Gordon, for example, and around that period of time, many would also be familiar with the two Harveys: Bullock and Dent, the latter of whom makes the briefest of cameos, highlighted mostly by his almost off-camera flipping of his famous coin, in true noir style.

But Bullock gets the full intro, not only of his lust to take down Gotham City's acknowledged hero, but also his willingness to defy direct superiors in order to do it. Bullock was created by Doug Moench in the early 80s (there is some debate about that based on a character seen for three panels in Archie Goodwin's run on Detective in the early 70s) as a corrupt cop trying to undermine Gordon. That's a noir character if I've ever seen one, so it seems perfectly natural that the producers would ensure that he was a presence in this version of the Batman. As with his Moench origin, Bullock tends to follow the lead of the mayor, rather than the commissioner. But the real star of the episode is, as usual, the villain of the piece: Man-Bat.

In the comics, Kirk Langstrom was a good-intentioned scientist who let his own confidence in his work carry him into danger. A similar example in the comics world is Spider-Man's friend, Dr. Curtis Connors, also known as The Lizard. Obsessed by the benefit that he thinks his formula will bring to humanity, Langstrom tests it on himself and goes through a horrible transformation until The Batman is able to save him. Why Kirk felt that it was urgent for humans to develop a sonar sense like bats, as compared to Connors' attempt to regrow lost limbs like many lizards, is for your editor to decide, but this has always struck me as one of those very DC (irrational device for character) vs Marvel (semi-rational device for character) comparisons. In BTAS, however, Kirk is both ambitious and quite aggressive about it, suggesting that his colleague, Dr. March, was too weak to do what he'd done... which is transform into a monster to rob drug companies. I mean, I'm all about knocking down Big Pharma, too, but there are better ways to go about it. But in this series, they seemed determined to portray Man-Bat as an actual villain; the "beastly" side of what The Batman is. One dresses up like a bat to terrorize criminals, while the other transforms into one to terrorize everyone. It's a "there but for the grace of the bat-god go I" kind of element which would probably work much better in a story told at a somewhat slower pace.

And that's because there's a questionable plot/timing issue with this episode, as well, given that they set up the "Dr. March is lying and must be the bad guy!" angle, with the big switch supposed to be revealed when we discover it's actually Langstrom who's the villain. But that story isn't given enough room to breathe while we're also meeting Harvey Bullock and the police are suspecting The Batman of being a menace. Clearly, these are intro episode problems, where you try to cram in as much story and characters as possible and one angle of that story kind of suffers for it. In that respect, Dr. March seems somewhat irrelevant, other than that he's the weird, antisocial guy who works in the strangest chiroptera lab ever (How many are actually in caves?) It also means that Francine Langstrom (who stops to point out that she's also to be referred to as "Dr." (Like the new First Lady)) is basically just scenery, unfortunately. She gets the Oh, No!-girl role as the story circles around her criminal husband, about whom she can only wail in anguish. Sigh...

On the upside (literally), we get one of our police airships right out of the gate, which is pertinent because a lot of the action in the second half takes place in the air. We're also introduced to a few of the legendary gadgets of our hero's repertoire, with gas bombs employed to foil security guards and the "huthuthuthut" zealotry of Bullock's tactical squad, as well as a pair of goggles that let The Batman see day-old footprints and hairs among debris. From an animation perspective, we also get a bit more anime style in this episode with the closeup to the transforming Man-Bat's teeth to fangs and with Bullock's disheveled appearance (hair, tie, shirt, coat) constantly in motion. The teeth-to-fangs scene had me flashing back to things like Legend of the Overfiend for a moment. They also dropped the reaction shots (e.g. no Batman standing in menacing pose for a moment), even though this was directed by the same person, Kevin Altieri. Again, that may be a factor of how much story they were trying to squeeze into one intro episode, while the previous story had been spread across two.

Also, a note about the title cards, since this one was particularly emblematic of the style. One of the other inspirations for this series was the Fleischer Studios Superman cartoons from the 1940s. In that period, many presentations, live action and animated, would use title cards like the one above just like the title page for a book. The one for Cat and the Claw was perfectly good, but this one has that grainier, black-and-white cast to it that really evokes those old-timey films. The attention to details like those are what make BTAS the classic that it's become. That said, like many intended pilots, I think this one suffered from the usual issues, which is why both Fox (and now HBO) decided to start with another episode.

Next up, we drop the temperature but raise the story level with Heart of Ice.

Batman: TAS, episode #1: The Cat and the Claw

The HBO listing begins where the series did, with Catwoman being a Robin-Hood-of-the-animals, as she steals to raise money for the environmental/wildlife causes that she's dedicated her life to. In the process, she runs across the operations of a terrorist group, led by the mysterious Red Claw who, in a nod to The Batman's rather overt sexism ("So, this new cat burglar is a woman-!") is, uh, also a woman. So, there's more than a bit to examine here.

First off, let's start with the positive: Adrienne Barbeau ("Just call me Billie! Everyone does!") plays the role of Catwoman and delivers the appropriate amount of both sultry and belligerent dialogue that has frequently defined the character. The producers pulled no punches with the immediate ignition of sexual tension between her and our title character. This is a longstanding tenet to their interaction. Adam West commented ruefully on the relationship he had with Julie Newmar on the set of the Batman TV series, where the latter played up that sexual tension off-camera so that the frisson of their scenes was often a real thing. He said she would leave him suggestive notes on the steps of his trailer so that she was never far from his mind. In this story, given that they play into that relationship in their alter egos (leaning a bit hard on the "if only this were Batman outside this door" routine, IMO), it's fair to say that the producers wanted there to be no mistaking what was really happening between the two characters, even for the kids for whom the show was ostensibly intended. Given that sex is always the most untouchable of taboos when it comes to American media supposedly aimed at children, I think it was interesting that they declared their intent right out of the gate. Yes, it's a cartoon and, yes, it's a character that's been acclimated for children by cultural perception, but it was clear that their approach wasn't going to abandon elements of the character that had been maintained for decades, to whatever degree.

By contrast, this was a presentation of Catwoman that producer Bruce Timm has said that he was never quite comfortable with. The switch from self-interested thief to fervent environmentalist is a significant one. It certainly makes her a more sympathetic character to much of the audience and introduces the trend that Timm and Co. felt was important to highlight throughout the series; in that the "bad guys" aren't necessarily just the people in the weird outfits, but often the far wealthier and societally-acceptable types. That plays right into the zeitgeist of the time, dominated as it was by the Reagan religion ("Greed is good!"), where outsiders to society, including a few wealthy types like Bruce Wayne, were starting to drift from the perspective that money solves everything.

Similarly, Red Claw is kind of a mishmash of socio-cultural realities of the time. When this was released, the USSR and its satellites were in free-fall. Without the ominous presence of the Soviets, the world's attention had already turned to the imminent threat of international terrorism as the bogeyman of the day. But it seems like the writers couldn't entirely abandon the old tropes, since she's still "red" and still speaks in some contortion of an Eastern European accent by Kate Mulgrew, of Star Trek Voyager fame, who would go on to revive that accent as Galina "Red" Reznikov in Orange is the New Black. So, in this episode, Red Claw is kind of the generic "enemy" that The Batman and Catwoman will have to face together, one for the law and one for the environment (Natural law?), but she doesn't bring a lot of character or memorable impact to either episode or series, in general.

Again, in contrast, it's interesting to note that Selina's cat, Isis, is a fully-fledged character of this episode. Time is taken to show her reactions (initial hostility to the Batman and then terror at his reappearance; a need to be comforted after Catwoman's dive off the skyscraper) and also her actions (struggling to get out of the window with the jewels in a cute touch; we wait to see her successful leap in the chase across the rooftops) until finally she's rescued from an oncoming truck by The Batman and Catwoman retrieves her. There's a common approach in visual media where someone granted a first-person perspective is highlighted as someone especially important to the story (see: Game of Thrones as a good example.) Isis is given that perspective when we see the laser defenses of the jewels through her eyes before the successful robbery. In that way, we know as an audience member that she is important and concern for her well-being amidst the action is played up as an element of the story.

We also get our first moment with Commissioner Jim Gordon, who makes sure to warn his people cleaning up the attempted theft of US Army weapons that: "These guys are crazy!" and then proceeds to hold a conversation with a guy dressed as a bat... Said weapons are also Thompson submachine guns, carrying the mixed timeline theme forward as one of "generally 20th century, but probably earlier than you'd think", which accompanies the general Dick Tracy look of the assembled mobsters whom The Batman shakes down for info on Red Claw. The closeup on Gordon and subsequent ones with Selina also demonstrate the animation decision to not give anyone pupils. Like the blank, white slits of the main character, no one's eyes will get more detail than a single-colored dot, with emotion displayed by the contortion of the face around them. This decision is highlighted multiple times in this episode, where reactions are shown clearly both without dialogue and leading into confirming dialogue (Bruce obviously agreeing to postpone their date before mouthing that agreement, for example.) While the pupil absence could be seen as simply a style choice, I think it's part of the decision to overtly demonstrate subtle emotions on the face of these characters that was often lacking in animation of the day.

The episode doesn't shy away from the little touches of the comics, either, such as when Catwoman uses her famous cat-trops in the ventilation shaft to deter pursuit or when the unreality of the situation is pointedly emphasized as she commits the attempted homicide (throwing The Batman off the roof) of the man she's infatuated with, simply assuming that he'll be able to save himself. On that note, it's essential to point out the role that Timm and Co. have assigned Bruce Wayne in this version of the stories. In many cases, he's portrayed as a dilettante playboy who can't possibly help himself. But in BTAS (and Steve Engelhart's work; we'll come back to this a lot), Bruce is assertive and confident in his actions; showing far more of his Batman side than is normally employed. Indeed, at one point, you could argue that he goes past assertive to mildly creepy when he grabs Selina's arm at the fundraiser to insist upon the date that she's won. It's certainly a more natural portrayal of the type of person one would except Bruce to be, given his background and especially in this series, when he's shown to be far more interested in throwing his weight around to the benefit of his interests, rather than simply riding the tide of his bank balance. Plus, one interesting little touch of HBO's was presenting this as the first episode in the series, just as Fox did in the original broadcast, but saving part 2 for the eighth episode presented, rather than immediately following part 1. It gives The Batman's final line "And there will be a next time." a bit more weight and gives the impression of the "living world", where many things are happening and stories are not uninterrupted or linear, that has made Marvel's productions even more effective. The simple choice of timing can be disastrous (see: Firefly), but can also be a subtly positive touch, as it is in this case.

Next time, we encounter a guy who really dresses up as a bat, with On Leather Wings.

Noir toons and roots in reality - Batman: The Animated Series

Recently, I discovered that HBO had picked up the full run of Batman: The Animated Series for its catalog and I sat down to watch a couple of them. I hadn't seen any of them since they were originally broadcast in the early 90s, so it was an interesting experience to hearken back to a period that's now almost 30 years past, but still feels "relevant" to the modern era. My comic experience is woefully out of date as far as superheroes are concerned, so I'm only able to frame this from what I knew up to that point and others who have begun watching the series may feel that it's quite dated, as many things from that era are for natural reasons. But I suspect that series will still hold a lot of its contemporary charm for a couple of reasons: 1. It was designed to have its own, unique timeline that wasn't intended to reflect any particular era. 2. The Batman is the most timeless of DC's characters; just one more reason that he's also the best.

Reason #1 was a decision by producers Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and Mitch Brian. Inspired by Tim Burton's interpretation of the mythos (Batman and Batman Returns), they wanted Gotham City to appear in its own technological bubble. Thus, right alongside classic big-fendered cars and Gothic architecture were not only modern technological conveniences (computers, etc.) but also police airships, which have never existed, but were indicative of the kind of "between the lines" approach that Dini and Co. were bringing to the idea. But part of that inspiration also had to do with overall tone. Now, right away, let's lay this on the table: I am not a fan of Tim Burton's version of The Batman. I appreciated his willingness to adopt much from the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neill approach from the early 70s, where DC tried to pry their most famous hero away from the endlessly goofy Batman TV series of the late 60s. Burton, a storyteller who's fond of working in the shadows (Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, etc.) was kind of a natural choice to take on the challenge, as there would be much more in the way of moody settings than the "Biff!" and "Pow!" of the Adam West show. However, Burton is also quite fond of the goofy, as films like Scissorhands and A Nightmare Before Christmas will display. That tendency stayed with him in his two Batman films and it put off at least this fan of the Darknight Detective approach to the character. When Michael Keaton confronts a thug on the street and says: "I'm Batman!", those of us who like to stick more to the shadows would've vastly preferred him to say: "I'm THE Batman!" (as I am regularly doing here) because it conveys a much more serious tone about a character who had his origins rooted in killing criminals with a .45 caliber pistol.

Thankfully, while more than willing to continue with lighthearted moments centered around Bruce Wayne's social life and his interactions with Alfred, Dini and Co. decided to stick to the more serious version of the character in their series. Indeed, they took some heat from the studio (Warner Bros.) and from various Helen Lovejoys because their series was on the darker side of good ol' Batman. However, the critical raves about that tone, the textured storytelling, and the very human aspects of the characters were enough to drown out any concern about the fact that, unlike Adam West, this Batman only came out at night, as he should. And that's the other key part about their style: This was clearly intended to be a noir approach. The entire series is suffused with the measured pace, mystery, and cynicism that are hallmarks of the genre. The Batman may be a hero who's punching out bad guys, but he's also very aware of whom some of the true villains in our society are and the series doesn't spare on displaying the ills of money, inequality, and prejudices that are everpresent in the modern world. The humanity is something that's often missing from these kinds of adventure stories, but that aspect is prominent here.

And it's that human side that makes up reason #2 cited above. The Batman is DC's best character because he's their most human character. One of the (many) reasons that DC's ventures into TV and film are often failures is the very nature of the beast: Their characters aren't human. They're demigods, with which it's far more difficult for most viewers/readers to relate. How can someone relate to the "life struggles" of a man who can fly through the sky and is invulnerable to harm or a woman who is an Amazon princess from a land that's almost literally paradise? The key aspect to Marvel wresting the comic world away from long-time suzerain DC was that the former's characters were humans first, superheroes second. Peter Parker may be able to climb walls and shoot webs from his wrists, but he also worries about paying his rent, his grades, and whether he can make his date with Mary Jane. Marvel recognized in the 60s that the bulk of their regular audience was college-aged, rather than elementary schoolers. DC wouldn't concede to that reality for another 20 years and the essence of their characters still denies it. The Batman, despite being a billionaire, genius, unarmed combat master(!) is, in the end, still just a guy. His life is vastly different from any other human in our real world, but he's still human. That's the key that makes him approachable.

Batman: The Animated Series (from here on out: BTAS) didn't shy away from that humanity. In fact, it became a lynchpin of their storytelling, not only about Bruce Wayne, but also his rogues' gallery of opponents. In truth, The Batman is the antagonist in his own stories. Many people don't necessarily read or watch his stories because they're fascinated by him. They're usually fascinated by the erratic behavior of the villains that he's attempting to get off the streets. He's constantly locking up people like The Joker, Mr. Freeze, and Two-Face in Arkham Asylum, despite the fact that a man who dresses up as a bat and spends his nights beating up criminals isn't too far a cry from being a viable patient there, as well. But he's the straight man to their comedy. He's the force of nature that tries to contain the aberrant activities that make up their personal tales. And, to their enormous credit, Dini and Co. didn't shy away from that. Their version of Mr. Freeze isn't a "bad guy" just because he's a bad guy like Sauron from Lord of the Rings. He's a "bad guy" because of an extraordinary tragedy in his life that pushed him past the point of stability. That's a far more interesting version of Freeze than almost anyone had presented prior to the cartoon's creation. That's the humanity that the producers inserted into a "kids' show" that made it an excellent watch for adults, as well.

So, I'm going to be going through the whole series, all 65 episodes that HBO has, one by one and taking a look at how those stories were told, whom they were about, and how those elements, new and old, were melded with the 53 years of history prior to the show's release. Along the way, I'll talk about visual style, previous versions of the main characters involved, new characters, and what methods it seems they might have used to get their stories from point A to point B. There have been many phases (as noted) in the character's existence and many audiences to satisfy and I think it's worth examining just how said creators jumped through those hoops, as well as how they added their own imprint to the character that many, without hedging, have declared to be among the best versions of that character ever shown. I'll be watching them in the order that HBO has them lined up (which is pretty close to the original), so my next post will be about The Cat and the Claw, part I.

The mirror, darkly

People usually ask me around the appropriate times: "What do you want for Christmas?" or "What do you want for your birthday?" My typical response is something like: "Bloody revolution." Most that know me also know my political outlook, which is one that decidedly contrasts much of America's and certainly the outlook that has come to embody America. Whereas most believe in and promote the idea of big business, everything for profit, what's good for GM is good for America, etc., I'm a Marxist. What that means is that I favor people over profits, whether it comes to labor law, environmental law, or any other rules of society. So, when I talk about "bloody revolution", my image is of a popular revolt based on a higher principle, rather than on petty prejudices and a demagogue. So, when it came to the events today around and inside the Capitol building, my primary reaction was a mix of disgust and humor. The humorous part was that all of these fools were following the commands of an idiotic con man whose true nature has been blatantly apparent for 40 years. The disgust was based on watching all of the institutions that are held so sacred by most Americans being brought to their proverbial knees by a bunch of ignorant QAnon believers and a large number of racist cops; many of whom are also supporters of that idiotic con man. (How can someone that stupid deceive so many people? Animal cunning isn't bounded by intelligence. It's an instinct that's well-served by people who want to be deceived in the first place. But I digress.)

First off, let's get one thing straight: Anyone invading the Capitol today should have been shot. Full stop. That's what any nation does when an insurrection is attacking its primary legislative body. If I were leading my much-fantasized bloody revolution, I'd certainly expect to be shot if I was in the halls of Congress or the White House. That's what happens when you're trying to violently overthrow a government. People tend to shoot you or at least shoot back when you shoot at them. These people should have been treated as the domestic terrorists that they are and been shot. The first few to go down would have scattered the rest to the four winds. This is how this normally works. But, instead, what we saw were repeated instances of police retreating from unarmed invaders, taking selfies with said invaders, and even letting them in the door in the first place. This was after the date of January 6 was singled out by both President Trump and anyone who casually followed this thing called the Internet for weeks. Everyone knew this was coming, so there can be no argument that the Capitol Police or the myriad of security forces in and around DC were surprised by what happened. The fact that they stopped to share photos with these insurrectionists demonstrates what the reality was: These cops supported this insurrection. The foxes were, indeed, guarding the henhouse.

This brings into stark contrast what happened over the summer, when actual protests occurred across the nation in response to the death of George Floyd. In those instances, since the protests were made up of non-White people and were in support of non-White people and protesting against their usual treatment at the hands of authority (Protect and serve!), those participating in those events were attacked by police as if they were the enemy... because we are, to their thinking. We threaten the institutions because we point out that those institutions are either flawed or malicious. That's never a good idea in a state that's beholden to a very few. Indeed, the starkest example of the difference in response to the two events were what Washington looked like then:

 And what it looked like today:

This speaks to not only orders given from on high, given the weeks of lead-in to this event, but also attitudes among the police themselves. After all, these "protesters" weren't Black! We're all in this together as fellow Americans, right?! This was cooperated with. Messages were sent from above that this behavior was acceptable in the corridors of power. (15 whole arrests today! Woo!)

And that's where the disgust really ramps up. Right away, you get the plaintive mewlings of government officials with the "This isn't who we are." line. This isn't America!, they say. This doesn't represent our grand, idealized vision of the city on the hill that, as one CNN reporter put it tonight, is the "anchor of democracy throughout the world." I nearly spit my water across the room because, you see, this is America. It totally is. This nation is seen as the "anchor of democracy" in many corners of the world only if your interpretation of "anchor" is something that weighs you down until you drown. This image- of self-entitled White people given free reign by cops to attack the legislature in the hopes of intimidating it to hand power to a would-be dictator -is absolutely America; especially when contrasted with what happened over the summer and what has happened to Black people in this nation for 400 years at the hands of authority, both locally in the form of cops and nationally in the form of Congress. This is so on brand for America it's almost as funny as it is disgusting. The "This isn't who we are" line is a dodge. It's an evasion that allows people to not confront this truth and pretend that real problems don't exist until everyone can move on to the next episode of The Mandalorian and forget that bad things even happened. It usually helps that the people using that line are the ones for whom those problems don't really exist (i.e. White, often wealthy) because they're never directly affected by them.

But that's another thing to keep in mind: This problem is far bigger than The Idiot, Donald J. Trump. This is the Republican party in a nutshell (with their often all-too-willing accomplices, the Democrats.) Trump may be the beacon in these insurrectionists' lives. He may be the one that keeps whipping them into a frenzy with lies that they love to hear and fantasies that can't possibly make sense. But it's vermin like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, Mitch McConnell, and Josh Hawley that have made this possible, among many, many others. They enabled this creature and looked the other way every time he committed crime after crime just like today, usually only after announcing that he was going to commit whatever crime that took place. (Someone tell me: Is Susan Collins concerned again? Or has she learned her lesson...?) This is the modern GOP and no one should ever forget what this party is: fanatical hucksters, dependent on ignorance, and completely devoid of any policy ideas that will improve life for anyone but the tiny sliver of the wealthy of which they are a part. This is a party so dependent on the Reagan religion, the tenets of which that have been so resoundingly disproved or rejected over the past 40 years that they can't reasonably be brought forward as actually popular ideas, that it can't promote anything but ignorance and fear; mostly of The Other (the non-Whites, the foreigners, the immigrants, the "socialists", etc.) Trump is the outward manifestation of this trend and they have covered his tracks at every opportunity; so much so that Cruz and Hawley have played to his base tonight on the Senate floor as prospective candidates for 2024. This is the Republican party and no one should ever forget what they've created.

The humor of today was also brought about by entities like the National Association of Manufacturers, suddenly realizing that widespread public violence might be bad for their profit margins, finally suggesting that Trump is unfit for office, two weeks from his removal after four years of perfidy. Or Twitter and Facebook, finally responding to the unending stream of lies that he spews forth that led directly to the national legislature being evacuated from its building by cutting him off their platforms; the same platforms that were used to organize this little revolt and which did nothing but promote his bullshit for years as a concession to "free speech", but really because they made money from it. As always in American politics, it's about the money. It's always about the money. Even the corporate media finally had to concede that perhaps "protesters" and "demonstration" weren't quite sufficient euphemisms for insurrectionists attempting a coup. CNN even labeled them "anarchists" at first. Remember anarchy? That thing you do when you're trying to keep the current government in power? Yeah. That. But all of this is reflective of the normalization of fascism. History is replete with examples of events like this, both within America (the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 (also racially-motivated)) and without (Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922.) Fascism is a solidification of corporate and political power and most major media sources are corporations, so they feed off this. Organizations like the New York Times remain eager to avoid buzzwords that might make anyone think that something is wrong with the American democratic edifice like, say, when the President is a liar or when people attempting to intimidate the legislature are staging a coup. That's why the term "anarchist" is thrown around. Anarchy represents change, so it's used to represent chaos, the lack of order (Law and order!), the undermining of authority, the breaking down of institutions.

So, don't kid yourself when you think that America is "better than this." It never has been, because things like this usually lead to profits for the people that own America (exactly what the NAM was concerned about.) It's also a shining example of what the US has done, repeatedly, in other nations around the world, also at the behest of those owners (the term "banana republic", which many are applying to the US these days, came about because of the activities of United Fruit, the US Marines, and the CIA.) This is America. One of our two major political parties has simply begun saying the quiet part out loud; usually embodied in the form of The Idiot, but now also in his devoted followers who have been elected to the highest legislative body in the land. But his departure will not change anything but the façade. While every effort should be made to both arrest all of the participants of today's debacle (including the outgoing president) and expel all of the Congresspeople promoting sedition (It actually should be done, legally, per the 14th amendment.), there will still be much more work to be done. They and the people they serve will still own everything and will still work to maintain that situation. The only thing to potentially look forward to is the actual bloody revolution that might serve the interests of someone other than a minority of racist morons. I await that day with great anticipation.

The sky doesn't need framing

It's been a while since I've posted anything here. (If you're really desperate for my overly wordy writing, you can always look at Extratime.blog, but probably only if you're a Liverpool and/or Euro football fan.) Part of the reason that I haven't been present is, well, kind of obvious. Since I spent most of my time doing movie criticism here and we really haven't been to see any movies since March, 2020, there hasn't been a ton of material to work with. Like most other people, we've been watching a lot of TV, some of which has been really interesting (Boardwalk Empire!) and some of which really didn't measure up (Lovecraft Country.) But tonight I decided to sit down in front of an actual newly-released film in the form of The Midnight Sky on Netflix. It's a George Clooney effort, as he both starred in and directed it, and that's always a draw for me. I'm a Clooney fan both for most of the work he's done and his philosophy on life that he mentioned to James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio many years ago. I recorded that episode and watched it several times (before the DVR crashed.) I often wished I had the drive and ambition that Clooney talked about in that interview but, at the very least, it made me respect his work even more than I did when I simply enjoyed it. That said, I can't say I'm entirely sure about this one.

The Midnight Sky is based on the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton and I can see the novel structure in the film and its underlying screenplay. Like much modern science fiction since the advent of the New Wave in the 70s, the central focus isn't on the technology but the people caught up in the vortex that it may (or may not) be a part of. In short, it's a humanist perspective that makes most stories more interesting if you're not just interested in laser beams, global catastrophes, and spaceflight. Of course, this is a story about a global catastrophe and spaceflight... (But no lasers!) But what it's really about is one man's struggle with his humanity or lack thereof. The initial lead character is Clooney as Augustine Lofthouse, an astro-something (-physicist? -nomer? It's never mentioned but the crew of the space flight seems super indebted to him for their mission without ever having met him, which is odd in itself.) I say "initial lead" because despite our story beginning at an Arctic observatory and Augustine waving away his colleagues as the global catastrophe ensues, there's a whole other primary locale for our story, which is said spaceflight: the returning mission Æther, on the back leg from its voyage to K-23, a heretofore undiscovered moon of Jupiter which is habitable (Shades of 2010, although this takes place in 2049.)

So, the story is nominally about Augustine and his obsession with looking outwardly, to outer space and new worlds, and inability to focus on the inward: himself, his relationships, and his commitment issues. Delivered in so few words, the story sounds incredibly trite and very overused: Cold scientist (literally and figuratively) discovers human contact is right in front of him if only he'd try. It's also staged against a very grand tableau (the collapse of the old world, the discovery of a new one) that can serve as a metaphor for the need for more empathy in our society as a whole before it leads to our own destruction. I can see how this story would work in novel form, especially if the author was willing to immerse the reader in the emotions and inner thoughts of her characters. But as a film, it really doesn't or at least it doesn't in the manner in which this one is presented.

We have a story that's about the inner struggles of one man, writ large against the disasters happening around him. But we spend a lot of time on those disasters to no significant end. First off, we're skipping between the Arctic and outer space. We have two radically different settings and two completely disparate sets of characters that are nominally telling the same story but really aren't. The struggle for survival contrasted with the casual return home of the Æther is kind of jarring as we switch back and forth. Here's a man struggling with some form of lethal disease and surviving in one of the deadliest zones of a ravaged world... and then there's the spaceship crew eating cereal with holograms of their families. It changes tune a bit when the Æther suddenly veers off course and has to approach Earth through uncharted space(?), whereupon various physical disasters begin occurring off the planet, as well as on.

But if the main struggle is supposed to be one man searching for empathy in trying circumstances, why do we spend so much time with this ship's crew as they battle meteor storms on the way home? There's a ton of action involving smashed spaceships, blood, and Star Trek-style RED ALERT sirens (that are pointedly turned off in an acknowledgment of pragmatism) that really departs from what otherwise seems to be a fairly inward-looking and cerebral story. As jarring as the shift from survival to the boredom of spaceflight is, it's even more jarring to have a story about humanity dropped into bog-standard Hollywood sci-fi action. I mean, I guess the leverage of trying circumstances can explain the transformation of Augustine, but isn't survival in the Arctic enough? Couldn't we have simply had the global catastrophe teaching him how to care about other people? Being alone in the Arctic and delirious from chemo and blood transfusions should be sufficient stress to drive most people to examine their lives. We also need the (exaggerated) dangers of space travel and a new moon around Jupiter to make this happen? Because what ends up happening is that a potentially intelligent and personal story is being hoisted on the massive framing devices of global catastrophe and humanity-saving spaceflight and making both of them seem like they were half told. Did we need both frames to create the window on our story? One already seems like it may have been enough, if not too much. (Global catastrophe!)

This, of course, leads one to question how much the film departs from the book and/or how much is lost in the usual translation between the two media. There's always going to be something lost from the author's vision when you take a 400-page novel and turn it into a two-hour film. Always. Something will be lost. But the danger is also that a studio decided that a movie audience wouldn't appreciate a very cerebral tale about one man's inner self, spaceflight or not, and decided to toss in the usual rock'em, sock'em action in order to keep people watching. And that's where we usually end up in the technical issues.

Most sci-fi stories have technical issues. That's why they're science fiction. But some plot holes are bigger than others and they're only more obvious when they're as large as these two stories are (because this really is two stories that kind of touch each other in various places.) Augustine keeps talking to his young companion, Iris, about not breathing the air or when and where the air is safe. Meanwhile, the catastrophe is referenced several times as being rooted in radiation. The only way radiation would spread through the air is via dust, most of which wouldn't reach the Arctic in the manner displayed and certainly wouldn't be released in ever-growing, perfectly circular shapes as shown on his instruments. Dust travels on wind patterns which go around the globe because... you know... our world is a globe, Trump followers. When I saw the scene of Augustine examining what appeared to be mutated birds who'd suffered the effects of the catastrophe, I thought they were some kind of alien organisms and wondered just how far out (space joke!) we were going to go. Did someone bring back an alien from an earlier voyage to K23? Other than vague "radiation" and "don't breathe the air" descriptions, "The Event" isn't detailed at all; other than it apparently being an accident of some kind.

Also, Æther has to approach Earth from "the dark side" or some such thing, so it's stated that they're "flying in the dark". Other than that being another obvious space joke, there is no "dark side" to Earth. Because it rotates. Like a globe. And there are observatories and satellites on every "side" of that globe that have explored the local environment extensively. There are no clusters of ice or rocks in the vicinity that would create a threat to spacecraft that I'm aware of. It's just a plot device so that some kind of action other than the holographic kind actually happens in one half of our movie setting. Action which is, of course, kind of unnecessary to tell the story, since confronting death in space (just like on Earth!) is superfluous to the plot. This is, of course, compounded when members of the crew make the decision to confront certain death upon reaching home, for reasons that aren't especially clear other than overwhelming depression at the state of affairs (arrived at in a couple minutes of screen time) and a desire to join everyone else on the planet in the depths of that despair. This doesn't even touch on the idea of a perfectly temperate moon around Jupiter (almost five times as far from the Sun as Earth) and the awesome radiation and magnetic fields around that planet (witness Io) that would make the likelihood of said inhabitable orb extremely small.

Again, all of these strange, very human emotions and their consequential actions may be perfectly explained at a reasonable pace in a written novel, but they don't come across at all well in a two hour film. Once again, the problem of moving a story from one medium to another. Aside from all that, there aren't really any performances to speak of other than Clooney's, since he has the most range and material to work with (It's good to be the king (director)) which brings us back around to why all of this narrative was included for a story that is, in the end, comparatively small, despite a broad and well-felt message. Overall, it's not a bad film, but it simply tries too hard (and in too many large ways) to be a good one and mostly fails.

Today I learned that an oil change for a Lamborghini costs $1600

The definition of class standing is often a moment of awkwardness in discussions among Americans. Few people want to admit to being "wealthy" because that involves an inherent conflict of perspective when associating with those who aren't. Likewise, most people aren't eager to announce themselves as "poor", because of the similar social stigma. Back in the Old Country, it was simply accepted that those who were of the noble class were simply superior humans (Star-bellied Sneetches) to others and both sides were more or less comfortable with that arrangement (or had to be.) This kind of division had been handed down in many ways from the Roman Republic's patrician and plebeian divide, where the former class, even if its members weren't wealthy, had certain rights that placed them above the "commoners". That system, like that of later Europe, eventually became fuzzy around the edges, as wealthy New Men, like Gaius Marius and Marcus Licinius Crassus, later demonstrated just how foolish the idea of genetic superiority was (Yes, we still have a problem with that...) It was, of course, later revived in the Dark Ages like so many other things that had been dismissed.

In the US, there has nominally never been a "noble" class... unless you were White. And male. And a landowner. But aside from all of that, the ideal of the American experiment was that social mobility was key and anyone could be whatever they wanted, so long as they worked hard enough. This is The American Dream. As the US was founded as a moneymaking venture and has never departed that classification, the idea of social divisions was based solely upon that more practical divide that people like Crassus once used to their advantage: money. The "highest" social class in the modern American perspective is that of "middle class", since one can access pretty much everything that one wants (and certainly everything one needs) and not be seen by the bulk of the population as being part of the ownership class, who are the ones properly reviled for making/writing/altering the rules to their own advantage; typically to the misery of the rest of us. As part of the middle class, one can be comfortable and still qualify as Average Joe. It's a conceit and a pretty obvious one, but it's a tiny part of the vast illusion that so many carry about the success of that American experiment.

That's what makes the Robert Frank article yesterday on CNBC's site, spotlighting the ruffled feathers of the ownership class about Joe Biden's proposed new tax plan, so funny. First off, let's start with the idea that an income of $400,000/year defines one as "middle-class." (Why the hyphen? I don't know.) This ludicrous concept is solidly refuted within the article itself, as it points out that said income places one in the top 2% of income earners in the nation. Given a scale from 1 to 100, I'm willing to bet that most people would define the "middle" of that as somewhere within shouting distance of 50; such that "middle class" would be, say, the middle third, roughly 36 to 75% or so. That, of course, would plunge a number of people into those labels that they're eager to avoid: "upper class", "wealthy", "rich", and so on. This is, again, mirrored by those not wanting to define themselves as "lower class", since the shine of being a blue-collar worker on the lower end of the income scale has been rapidly rubbed off over the past half-century. It's not so much that people are doing "honest" or "necessary" work for lower pay (we can talk about the societal morality of that some other time), as much as it is that being perceived as "lower class" is part of being among those who have "failed" in America. Thus, everyone aspires to be "middle class" so that everyone can be the same and, of course, be treated the same just like all Americans are treated, right? Right? Tell it to a woman when the topic of salary comparisons comes up. Tell it to a Black person when the topic of treatment by police comes up.

This is from the Wall Street Journal, the last time Obama was seriously talking taxes (2013.) Extremely tough going for that single person making a quarter mil and needing to drop another $3K.

But let's get back to why Robert Frank has decided to take the ownership class' perspective on the concept of being "middle class". Let's start with the obvious: The real target of Biden's prospective plan is the super wealthy (i.e. the top .1% of income earners.) But that doesn't mean it stops only there. Thus, the acknowledgment that those who make $400K or more are, in fact, wealthy. CNBC attempts to refute this by suggesting that, since those "middle class" earners aren't driving a Lamborghini, they don't deserve to be labeled as such. (A friend pointing out this farce also informed me of the cost of an oil change for that line of cars. Life is rough.) He follows swiftly by citing the fact that less than 2% of the nation's population earns 25% of its gross income. If one is trying to make the point that the "middle class" is already burdened enough, this is hardly the way to start. And, as always, let's be sure to keep in mind the difference between income and wealth; the latter of which is often more difficult to quantify but which represents a significant factor in the difference between the wealthy(!) and everyone else. He reinforces this rake-stepping assessment of the obvious by pointing out that $400K is six times the national median (hardly "middle class", then, right?) and even three times the median in high-cost locales like New York and San Francisco.

This is immediately followed by the disclaimer that living in one of those high-cost cities means that $400K doesn't really go as far as you'd think (still 2 to 3 times the median!) when under the following definition of "middle class":

“Based on the expenses, a $400,000 household income provides for a relatively middle-class lifestyle,” Dogen said. “A middle-class lifestyle is defined as: owning a home, having two kids, saving for retirement, saving for college, going on modest vacations several weeks a year, and retiring in one’s early 60s.”

From a personal perspective, I've always considered myself to be somewhere in the vicinity of middle class because even when I (or we) was struggling to make ends meet, I still had enough for things like cable TV and wasn't in crisis mode when it came to paying the rent or putting food on the table. That's how I define "middle class." I've owned a home once in my life. It was a net negative to our income, because it meant that our housing cost basically doubled over the amount of rent we'd been paying previously. Oh, but the tax benefits! was the answering refrain when I brought up that point. Yeah, those tax benefits occurred once a year, but I was paying that mortgage in the 11 other months. I've never worked a job that paid me enough to seriously consider the idea of substantially saving for a child's college expenses (this doesn't even consider the outrageous cost of 4-year universities, currently), to say nothing of two. I've also rarely had a job that let me save for more than roughly six months of "retirement" expenses. Most so-called "middle class" jobs start at one or two weeks of vacation. If you stay there for 10 years, maybe you'll climb up to three or four. None of those qualify as "several weeks a year", be they "modest vacations" or not. Am I, then, not "middle class"?

But Frank argues that middle class folks who clear $400K/year (aka more than I've made at most of my jobs in almost 10 years) aren't doing so well, considering the mortgage on their $2 million home... So, why does their home cost $2 million as a "middle class" person again? Is it because they live in San Francisco? Well, that's a luxury good/choice, right? According to CNBC, even if they do make that luxury choice, they're still making 3 times the median income there, right? And they're still dumping what was close to an entire year's salary for me into their 401K, right? That sounds pretty damn wealthy. The fact that you spend every dime you make (except for, you know, the $40K going into a retirement account every year) doesn't make you unable to live the high life. It just means that you've made choices that make you cash poor in order to subtly signal your status (home worth $2 million in NYC), while you can claim to be more affected than you could be. People enjoying this special CNBC status are what the Russian peasantry used to call kulaks, peasants that had become landowners themselves, although that term originally meant "tight-fisted", which is not what's happening here.

And, of course, the genuine irony here about CNBC's definition of "middle class" is that all of those assertions that they make about that status were what Average Joe used to be able to do. When the unions were strong from the 40s to the 70s, they actually could work blue collar jobs and still send their kids to college, own a home, take vacations, and so on. A lot of people working the "white collar" jobs like I've done could do the same. We could do these things because the power of collective action meant that the ownership class was forced to acknowledge the value of both our labor and our identity as human beings. Since the Reagan era, that has been less and less of a concern to the wealthy and most Americans have been indoctrinated into their religion, as well. The ownership class became disturbed that lesser people could enjoy that fabled American Dream and decided to reorient the public's perception of who deserved what. Instead, what we now have is this:

What that basically displays is the number of weeks the average male worker needs to work in order to afford major expenses (housing, health care, education, etc.) In 1985, it was 30 weeks. In 2018, it was 53. It hasn't gotten better. It is, of course, even worse for women: In 1985, it was 45 weeks (just barely enough for those "several" weeks of vacation!) In 2018, it was 66. This also doesn't include other necessary expenses like food, clothing, utilities, and maintenance of those major expenses. It also comes equipped with the assumption that emergencies will never occur and, of course, that retirement will never, ever happen.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that those same kulaks in early 20th-century Russia were believed to be tentative allies of the revolution, because they recognized the vast gulf that remained between their life of relative comfort and the resplendence that the top of the pyramid enjoyed. That may be the case here, as well, since the central theme of control always employed by the ownership class is turning one segment of the population against another; whether it be by differences of income, skin tone, religion, or otherwise. It's useful to keep in mind the source of this article and the type of America that they're most interested in promoting.