If you’re reading this, Alan Moore… What exactly is your damage? No matter how you look at it, Barbara Gordon got fucked over. As Batgirl, after Oracle, and just as a character in general, with the final punch being Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s 1988 Batman: The Killing Joke. The comic itself is revolutionary, and such a staple of the community that it’s even become part of the curriculum for many a “Comics 101” course. Not that there’s a problem with that – because the book itself is full of amazing art, it defines the Joker as the character we know today and shows him in a moment of weakness, and it sparks constant debate about itself, usually regarding the ending. Yet what should be discussed about the book usually never is, and it’s one …show more content…
The writer, Alan Moore seems hung up on this idea, despite the obvious ethical issues with it. Peeking into his history as an author, there’s a theme. The man has penned more smash-hit comic books than you can count on one hand and won countless, well-deserved awards for them, yet every single one (including Watchmen and V for Vendetta) involves some kind of sexual assault, rape, or violence towards women. He insists on bringing questionable morals into his plots, which, quite frankly, is a very, very easy thing to avoid doing. Moore, who is actually not a fan of TKJ, brings to light how DC Comics, the publisher, basically gave him carte blanche with Barbara. According to Moore, Len Wein, the book’s editor, said, “Yeah, okay, cripple the bitch,” when Moore asked if he could cripple Barbara Gordon (Rayner). The, Moore admits that “they should have reigned [him] in, but they didn’t” (Rayner). Moore knew he probably shouldn’t have done it, but he did it …show more content…
Not only do readers gloss over the incident in discussion, but so does the story itself. TKJ never outright denies the sexual assault of Barbara Gordon, but it sure does try hard to avoid it. Nobody in the book ever says anything vaguely along the lines of “Barbara Gordon was sexually assaulted”. Not the doctors, not the police, and certainly not the Joker. Her father, Commissioner Gordon, has to put together the pieces himself while being tortured with the photos of the attack, and even then, it’s still pretty unclear. The assault is never even mentioned explicitly to Batman, who is one of Barbara’s closest friends and her former coworker. Barbara trusted Bruce, yet she can’t even bring herself to tell him about it. The way the aftermath of the attack is handled is just as bad as if the writers had denied the incident entirely. Whether or not the Joker actually raped Barb is still up for debate, but it doesn't actually matter. The entire sexual assault was wildly unnecessary on Moore’s part, because rape should never be used as a plot
“The Other Wes Moore” tells a story, two boys that has one name, but their lives are not
Barbara starts her undercover mission with her first job as a waitress in Hearthside restaurant. From her experience, I can understand how exhausting her job was with the hourly shifts the staff worked under, especially with the manager Stu always keeping the workers busy. When she was reading USA Today, she had to vacuum with a broken vacuum cleaner. She found the attitude of her manager towards his staff insulting. For example, one
James Baldwin once said, “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” In any family, one can see how parental guidance makes or breaks a child’s future. The author of The Other Wes Moore, Wes Moore, explores this idea by contrasting the outcomes of two men with the same name. As a decorated veteran, Rhodes scholar, and White House Fellow, the author hears of a man with his name wanted for murdering a police officer. Haunted by the coincidence, he reaches out to the “other” Wes Moore after he is imprisoned years later. From there, Wes Moore uncovers countless decisions, sacrifices, and mistakes that diverged the two men’s seemingly similar lives,
white and has no real idea about the music he alleges he is an expert
Melvin Udall is a successful novelist living in New York City. In the beginning of the movie he is an irritable, obsessive-compulsive man who alienates himself from those around him. To add to his alienation, he works from home and does not allow anyone in his apartment. His routine consists of going to the same restaurant, being served by the same waitress and eating at the same table every day. His mental disorder is also displayed in several different obsessive-compulsive actions such as turning the locks five times and doing the same for the lights in his home. One day, Melvin’s homosexual neighbor is assaulted and put into the hospital. Due to the misfortune, Melvin is forced to watch the neighbor’s dog while he recovers from the assault. At this point in the movie, Melvin develops an emotional attachment to the dog and his attitude begins to change for the better. Melvin decides to help the waitress from the restaurant by paying for her son’s medical bills. This gesture comes after him having a meltdown when she did not show up to work to serve him. Near the end of the movie, Melvin makes a trip to help the neighbor and invites the waitress to come along. The trip does not go as planned, but the experience helps him to learn to communicate and have better relationships with people. In the end, Melvin falls in love with the waitress and is willing to learn to overcome his obsessive-compulsive lifestyle to be with her.
“Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman is a piece that focuses on the effects that technology has on public discourse and politics. He believes that the development of the television has habituated us to constantly needing to be entertained, which changes the way we take in information. It is no longer the substance that we value but rather the entertainment value. An important point that Postman evaluates in chapter 9 is that politics has become similar to show business. With politicians paying more attention to their image than political issues the integrity of modern politics can only be questioned. To update Postman’s arguments, although the television has allowed political figures to present the image their audience wants to see the internet has allowed for all aspects of one’s life to be accessible, which changes the way we view their credibility.
Michael Moore was born on April 23rd 1954. He’s An American film maker, author and a liberal political commentator. He has directed and produced four of the eight highest grossing documentaries of all time. In 2005 Time Magazine named Moore one of the world’s ‘Hundred most influential people’. The documentary ‘Bowling for Columbine’ explores the possible causes for the Columbine High School massacre. It has won the ‘Best Documentary feature’ at both the Academy and Independent Spirit Awards, together with the César award for ‘best foreign films’.
equally? It seems to me that the answer is no. The world did not seem
Michael Moore depicts the American health care system as one that contains many flaws. He goes on to show different people who have not been able to afford the ridiculous sum of money to perform certain procedures. While scrutinizing the American health care system Michael ventures to Canada, France, Cuba and Great Britain in an attempt to compare health insurance and pharmaceuticals. The audience is invited to believe that America has the worst health care out of all five countries. Through this documentary film Moore suggests the causes for this predicament blaming the government for accepting bribes. Using the voices of different members of major insurers he is able to paint viewers a picture of the devastation people face. Moore uses unbalanced arguments and evidence to convincingly impose his biased opinion upon his audience. This is seen through a majority of Sicko. Moore positively portrays the health care systems of other countries, produces incorrect information and does not declare laws that have been put in place; he also uses editing techniques to show false images.
Jean Kilbourne’s 2010 documentary, Killing Us Softly 4, discusses the idea that the businesses of advertising and commercialism have promoted specific body ideals for women in our modern day society by the methods in which they market towards their target audiences, specifically how women are portrayed in their ads. Throughout the documentary, Kilbourne is extremely critical of the advertising industry, accusing it of misconduct. She argues that objectification and superficial, unreal portrayal of women in these advertisements consequently lower women’s self-esteem. Ordinarily, women have many industries that try to gear their products towards them with apparel, beauty, and toiletries being amongst the most prominent. The majority of advertisements
McKay expresses his enemy as a pack of dogs, stating that they are “mad and hungry dogs”. He also states that the pack of dogs mock their prey. The dogs are supposed to represent the white men and how they treated African Americans at the time. The poem is simply stating let us (African Americans) die in peace and do not push us to death or torture us. This poem acts as a call to action for African Americans to rise up and not let the whites treat them like this.
Readers often come across two major types of fictions, commercial and literary. Commercial fiction entertains the audience meanwhile literary fiction focuses more on social conflicts. “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, is a short story that imparts that destruction can be a form of creation. It is an adventurous reading full of action that ends in the a destruction of a man’s home. In which a group of boys whom are apart of the Wormsley Common Gang are responsible. After a bombing in London people from different classes unite like Trevor and his family. Meanwhile, his mother believes to be better than everyone in the neighborhood Trevor tries to fit in. He becomes a new member of the gang takes over becoming the new leader, replacing Blackie.
Quentin Tarantino’s latest offering, “The Hateful Eight,” gave a touch of the classic era as it was shown like a blast from the past. From the movie’s setup to the premiere, people behind it made sure that they gave their viewers a different kind of experience over the Christmas weekend.
In Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut expresses the idea of Postmodernism through irony commenting on a Postmodernism belief of life being disillusioned and superficial. When Billy and the Americans are crossing the theater and about to watch the Cinderella, Billy touched the “stove”, and describes it as “cold” as “ice” (184). Vonnegut uses irony to describe the stage of the theater, because people usually associate stove as being hot and warm, but he used cold and ice to describe the temperature of the stove. The ironic descripition makes the whole set up of the theater seems disillusional, and due to the fact that theater is becoming more commonly seen during the mid-twentieth century, further demonstrates how Postmodernism perceives life
The movie A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, tells the story of Nobel Prize winner, and mathematician, John Nash’s struggle with schizophrenia. The audience is taken through Nash’s life from the moment his hallucinations started to the moment they became out of control. He was forced to learn to live with his illness and learn to control it with the help of Alicia. Throughout the movie the audience learns Nash’s roommate Charles is just a hallucination, and then we learn that most of what the audience has seen from Nash’s perspective is just a hallucination. Nash had a way of working with numbers and he never let his disease get in the way of him doing math. Throughout the movie the audience is shown how impactful and inspirational John Nash was on many people even though he had a huge obstacle to overcome.