Ten days and counting. T-minus ten. The same number as are on my hands and feet, but not together and I wonder if I will return with all ten on the respective appendages. Ten, by merit of being on these appendages is a perfect number, and yet one has to wonder if perhaps it is not too late fore there to me a change.
A monumental change, a systemic, paradigmatic shift, a revolution as some might want to say, and in a swirl of atoms bouncing back and forth, in the miracle of heat and molten metals something changes and maybe that perfect number will become nine. Nine: a pinky finger, or a missing index finger. Maybe five: a missing hand or foot, and suddenly only the workdays are important, and the weekends we can finally spend as we wish--the number seven no longer exists as a standard you know. Maybe it will be two, or even one.
But for now in this moment the perfect number is ten.
To Cristine, I will say: I envy you in Brooklyn in October.
A regret: I only ever crossed the Williamsburg bridge at night. Under the cover of darkness, I would liken and fantasize, like a thief or refugee under some great peril from agents of the Axis perhaps. Or to obscure a foul deed or escape the eyes of suspicious brethren, and to my love, in the dark. The truth is that I only crossed the bridge at night because of the convenience of doing so. They daytime, all seven repetitions per week, are too full of other things, usually doled out in eight to twelve hour intervals. And the truth behind the fantasy, Cristine, is the depth of the regret.
The regret comes from a photograph Daniel took in the daytime, in October's late afternoons that are late before you expect them, and the sun hurls herself against the tall horizon and shatters into a million slivers obscured only by the shapely frame of the bridge. And in that moment I am in love in the kind of way that makes the lie something not-so-bad.
My father said it was the thing he hated most: a lie. Under normal circumstances this is an important thing because fathers are generally supposed to mean something.
Ten days, and I am tired of reading war stories. I hope that you will know why when you read this my dear beloved friends, because you are the only people that will ever find this.
I fell in love with New York, and then very quickly learned to hide myself away in the glory of her movement, between the folds of cloth and wind it's easy. I'll hide myself here and be small and wait until something happens. Someone will come, surely or the time to hide will end--surely I will know when this is. We'll count the days, the number of steps retraced and then we will know, you and I. But until then, this is where I will obscure myself to the world, real or not; always with the hope that I am discovered.
I was born to lose this game of hide and seek and when I do take me into your arms and set me upon your shoulders: We will cross the bridge and watch the October sun commit suicide against the soft crevice between Manhattan and Jersey and I will come home.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Monday, April 14, 2008
Comic Book Nation Response
Through our study of masculinity in American comics, we've drawn out parts of an evolving national consciousness beginning in the last years of the depression, through world war two, the fifties, Vietnam, and ultimately leading into contemporary modes of national consciousness.
The trajectory of comics is not simply a reflection or reactive critique of American society, rather it seems to be a manifestation of identity. We can conclude then, that comics are not static fixtures of a monolithic narrative, as mythologies such as Superman are prone to engendering such notions, rather they are as influential as actors on cultural consciousness as Steinbeck, or Horatio Alger, spanning all shades of cultural awareness.
As Wright points out, circulation by the end of WW2 was staggeringly high among children (95% boys, and 81% of girls) but more shockingly among an equally surprising number of adults (41% of men, and 28% of women). Such figures cannot be ignored as the circulation figures might indicate a huge contribution on the part of comics to the socialization of national identity within gendered narratives.
I will be as bold as to assert that in addition to other influences regarding labor and income access during the depression among women, including the loss of access and emasculation of men, as Wright points out we see the emergence of an albeit primitive proto-femenist figure in Louis Lane, alongside the ultra-masculine Superman.
Through the Second World War, Wright also points to the introduction of female artists, and an appropriation of both sexes to the war effort in an arguably gender-neutral (by the standards of the context) national consciousness. Wright goes on to say that even the ultra-masculine superheroes put aside their idealized sexual identities in deference to the larger war effort.
I say that comics are active participants in part because of the aforementioned examples, but also because of the the very unique birth of the first great successes of the golden age, namely the likes of Superman, Captain America, etc. who would form the core of DC and Marvel, America's flagship publishers. The lower-middle-class/working class "everyman" ethos adopted by the creators of these comics responded directly to the anxieties of depression, and as war loomed on the horizon, the predominantly Jewish industry would take up arms in their fictional narratives, some even taking up America's call to arms.
The war saw comics become a key component in the socialization and accultrization of national identity in WW2 era youth, perhaps even acting in some ways as an address to the absence of fathers during wartime, as we have seen in the paternalistic depictions of Captain AMerica's realtionship with Bucky.
Through the fifties, comics once again become an embodiement of national identity, almost serving as fossilized remains of the predominant social standards of the period. Wright writes that in some ways, comic writers and publishers bought into the post-war national euphoria that would ultimately serve as the seeds for American hegemony. At the same time, we see more popular comics shift with the physical structural changes of society- from rural to urban to suburbanization, which mean surviellance and domestication. We see this in the emergence and popularity of such vapid and repressed works such as Archie comics. However, we also see the resurgence of a very seedy visceral language of abjection emerge. These crime-comics grew in circulation to the point that there was a considerable national-even international response- indicating the base of influence we mgith assume. Furthermore, these comics grew alongside a cinematic tradition that also rebelled against the domestication of gender-roles in the depiction of the sexes in the film counterpart of the crime genre, as well as manifesting itself in other ways.
The language of abjection looks to the urban centers in attempting to re-appropriate sexuality, specifically male sexuality. Much in the same way as Davey Crockett's myth operated during a similar period of gender-role compartmentalization (the second great awakening), these crime comics sought to violently reacquire otherwise subverted/supressed/domesticated access to sexuality through lurid tales of femmes fatale', etc.
As before, we can draw out a greater mood of a period, but now with Wright's account, we see that issues of gender, class and national identity are as deeply embedded and acted upon by comics as any other popular cultural medium, perhaps even more so by the status of comic books as a largely less regulated low-artform. We can draw out a very specific and central theme to discussing gender narratives in America, and that is gender roles, and access. With the depression we see an attempt to gain access in an emasculating environment, a response to poverty. Through the FDR years to the end of WW2 we see a much more gender neutral mode of dsicourse in comics, heavily influenced by nationalized programs and a near-total war state within the confines of FDRs ultimately material critiques and methods of addressing social problems, thus access and gender roles become less prominent as access is not being addressed through a compartmentalized appropriation of gender as specific forms of force/power. In the fifties we finally see a heavily compartmentalized and thus access-restricted evironment. The limit of access can thus lead us into the germination of counterculture, and the emergence of the independent comic.
Within this greater framework of national identity, comics, and gender narratives, I want to explore contemporary comics under a hypothesis that following a period of domestication or supression, in addition to the added circumstances of the shift from materially based to information based economies, masculinity is undergoing another cycle of re-appropriation, as it did in the late fifties, thus opening possibilites, much in the same way that possibilities were opened for conunterculture in a similar environment.
The trajectory of comics is not simply a reflection or reactive critique of American society, rather it seems to be a manifestation of identity. We can conclude then, that comics are not static fixtures of a monolithic narrative, as mythologies such as Superman are prone to engendering such notions, rather they are as influential as actors on cultural consciousness as Steinbeck, or Horatio Alger, spanning all shades of cultural awareness.
As Wright points out, circulation by the end of WW2 was staggeringly high among children (95% boys, and 81% of girls) but more shockingly among an equally surprising number of adults (41% of men, and 28% of women). Such figures cannot be ignored as the circulation figures might indicate a huge contribution on the part of comics to the socialization of national identity within gendered narratives.
I will be as bold as to assert that in addition to other influences regarding labor and income access during the depression among women, including the loss of access and emasculation of men, as Wright points out we see the emergence of an albeit primitive proto-femenist figure in Louis Lane, alongside the ultra-masculine Superman.
Through the Second World War, Wright also points to the introduction of female artists, and an appropriation of both sexes to the war effort in an arguably gender-neutral (by the standards of the context) national consciousness. Wright goes on to say that even the ultra-masculine superheroes put aside their idealized sexual identities in deference to the larger war effort.
I say that comics are active participants in part because of the aforementioned examples, but also because of the the very unique birth of the first great successes of the golden age, namely the likes of Superman, Captain America, etc. who would form the core of DC and Marvel, America's flagship publishers. The lower-middle-class/working class "everyman" ethos adopted by the creators of these comics responded directly to the anxieties of depression, and as war loomed on the horizon, the predominantly Jewish industry would take up arms in their fictional narratives, some even taking up America's call to arms.
The war saw comics become a key component in the socialization and accultrization of national identity in WW2 era youth, perhaps even acting in some ways as an address to the absence of fathers during wartime, as we have seen in the paternalistic depictions of Captain AMerica's realtionship with Bucky.
Through the fifties, comics once again become an embodiement of national identity, almost serving as fossilized remains of the predominant social standards of the period. Wright writes that in some ways, comic writers and publishers bought into the post-war national euphoria that would ultimately serve as the seeds for American hegemony. At the same time, we see more popular comics shift with the physical structural changes of society- from rural to urban to suburbanization, which mean surviellance and domestication. We see this in the emergence and popularity of such vapid and repressed works such as Archie comics. However, we also see the resurgence of a very seedy visceral language of abjection emerge. These crime-comics grew in circulation to the point that there was a considerable national-even international response- indicating the base of influence we mgith assume. Furthermore, these comics grew alongside a cinematic tradition that also rebelled against the domestication of gender-roles in the depiction of the sexes in the film counterpart of the crime genre, as well as manifesting itself in other ways.
The language of abjection looks to the urban centers in attempting to re-appropriate sexuality, specifically male sexuality. Much in the same way as Davey Crockett's myth operated during a similar period of gender-role compartmentalization (the second great awakening), these crime comics sought to violently reacquire otherwise subverted/supressed/domesticated access to sexuality through lurid tales of femmes fatale', etc.
As before, we can draw out a greater mood of a period, but now with Wright's account, we see that issues of gender, class and national identity are as deeply embedded and acted upon by comics as any other popular cultural medium, perhaps even more so by the status of comic books as a largely less regulated low-artform. We can draw out a very specific and central theme to discussing gender narratives in America, and that is gender roles, and access. With the depression we see an attempt to gain access in an emasculating environment, a response to poverty. Through the FDR years to the end of WW2 we see a much more gender neutral mode of dsicourse in comics, heavily influenced by nationalized programs and a near-total war state within the confines of FDRs ultimately material critiques and methods of addressing social problems, thus access and gender roles become less prominent as access is not being addressed through a compartmentalized appropriation of gender as specific forms of force/power. In the fifties we finally see a heavily compartmentalized and thus access-restricted evironment. The limit of access can thus lead us into the germination of counterculture, and the emergence of the independent comic.
Within this greater framework of national identity, comics, and gender narratives, I want to explore contemporary comics under a hypothesis that following a period of domestication or supression, in addition to the added circumstances of the shift from materially based to information based economies, masculinity is undergoing another cycle of re-appropriation, as it did in the late fifties, thus opening possibilites, much in the same way that possibilities were opened for conunterculture in a similar environment.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Comic craft and masculine depictions
Given what we've read so far, I'd like to limit my discussion of McCloud's work to it's significance to the American masculine manifestations in comic books, with a focus on the readership. As we've discussed before, as significant as the complexities and nuance of sequential art may be, our examination of masculinity within the 20th century (within a very specific historical context) limits what we might take from McCloud signnificantly, so for the moment we can put discussions of comic books' predecessors to the side. If we must limit ourselves, however we should at least examine McCloud's analysis of iconography, and closure, with a focus on the readership in addition to the contexts, etc. I should note that outside of a strict craft-based approach my visual analysis capabilities are rather limited so anything more than a superficial understanding of some of your notations (kinetic v. sequential, specifically Eisenstein, film, etc) requires a significantly different depth and background to discuss.
Before I discuss iconography, let me clarify why I limit myself to so narrow a term. McCloud's discussion of the vocabulary of comics makes a point regarding Magritte's "The Treachery of Images". Now, I have to preface myself by saying that I being unfamiliar with Magritte and the critical analysis surrounding this particular painting, I'll have to resort to using an analogous example in American politics in order to discuss this point. If we are to make any cultural analysis of the United States, or the West during the 20th century, we must look to the aspect of mechanization, specifically the mechanization of language. This is the course that the American government steadily adopted from FDR's administration on; a model heavily based on modular systems, accompanied by a language that, as Dean Achenson said, should "sweep through [your] administration like a blunderbuss", which is to say that language, theory, and action all become confined (concentrated? simplified? this evolution of language is still up for debate in the policy world... but that's another course) into key phrases, like "insurgency", "reconstruction" or "war on terror". I use this example as symptomatic of an ultimately greater condition of material existence (mechanization "won" WW2 after all- one can argue it's continual novelty) on representation. What does this mean for comics, and the masculine iconography manifested within? Well, given the historical context of WW2, the Interwar period, and later on into Vietnam, we see a society driven by mechanization on all strata (television, brand names, etc.) meaning that it is certainly possible for characters like Captain America to reach iconic status, encapsulating a set of very specific values regarding the paternalism we discussed earlier. McCloud also points out that the method of representation is important to the accessibility of characters to the audience, ranging from the realistic (and thus less accessible) to the abstract and iconic. While McCloud's argument on the subject of representation is important, I feel that iconography doesn't necessarily have to fit within this limited spectrum. Captain America, Superman, or any superhero can reach iconic status and remain leaning on one side of the spectrum. Instead we can say that it is perhaps the method in which ideas become systemized into these symbols that makes icons, in this case. Style, though impossible to divorce from the icon, is perhaps more significant in a literary sense, but then again this might simply be subjective of my context. With this in mind, from the "golden age" until rather recently, masculinity in iconographic representation is a thread easily teased out of the sinewy constructs of superheroes emblazoned with almost heraldic color schemes. (Captain America: red white and blue, the flash with the red of virility, etc) A question I have regarding the mechanization of language is to what extent is mechanization part of a masculine identity? One might arge that the physicality of mechanization makes it so, but there is also an element of dehumanization which speaks to a gender neutral aspect. One might also contrast it
Regarding closure, McCloud correctly asserts a significant trait in the American comics medium, the reliance or proclivity action to action, with scene to scene and subject to subject as a simple glue to hold scenes together. Now, the sexualization (excuse my lacking vocabulary... gender divide perhaps?) of this methodology might easily be placed within the masculine realm, in it heavy physicality, and given the context of the material that we're reviewing, it privelages the attributes of the young male: almost unrelenting action, in addition to appropriating him through iconography. After all, in recalling golden age comics, one can hardly avoid the image of Captain America socking a Nazi henchman. In comparison to eastern styles of manipulating closure, one might say that my argument falls apart, however it is important to realize that masculinity ultimately places itself in different locations in society based on specific material means available, in addition to a strong sense of history and art that comes with Japanese comics. What does the masculinization of a certain style of manipulating clsure mean when we discuss the readership? Perhaps it is possible to ascertain to whom particular pieces might appeal to, although I would argue that the American closure style is symptomatic rather than marketed. Given our previous discussion about the paternal appeal of Captain America, there might also be able to make some conclusions about the maturity of the readership given the level of participation necessary for such a closure style, however this leads us into the same trap. Regardless, until we can further "unpack" (I have not had one professor not use this word) the readership, closure, the primary mechanism for readership participation, remains key, is somewhat elsusive to me at this moment.
Before I discuss iconography, let me clarify why I limit myself to so narrow a term. McCloud's discussion of the vocabulary of comics makes a point regarding Magritte's "The Treachery of Images". Now, I have to preface myself by saying that I being unfamiliar with Magritte and the critical analysis surrounding this particular painting, I'll have to resort to using an analogous example in American politics in order to discuss this point. If we are to make any cultural analysis of the United States, or the West during the 20th century, we must look to the aspect of mechanization, specifically the mechanization of language. This is the course that the American government steadily adopted from FDR's administration on; a model heavily based on modular systems, accompanied by a language that, as Dean Achenson said, should "sweep through [your] administration like a blunderbuss", which is to say that language, theory, and action all become confined (concentrated? simplified? this evolution of language is still up for debate in the policy world... but that's another course) into key phrases, like "insurgency", "reconstruction" or "war on terror". I use this example as symptomatic of an ultimately greater condition of material existence (mechanization "won" WW2 after all- one can argue it's continual novelty) on representation. What does this mean for comics, and the masculine iconography manifested within? Well, given the historical context of WW2, the Interwar period, and later on into Vietnam, we see a society driven by mechanization on all strata (television, brand names, etc.) meaning that it is certainly possible for characters like Captain America to reach iconic status, encapsulating a set of very specific values regarding the paternalism we discussed earlier. McCloud also points out that the method of representation is important to the accessibility of characters to the audience, ranging from the realistic (and thus less accessible) to the abstract and iconic. While McCloud's argument on the subject of representation is important, I feel that iconography doesn't necessarily have to fit within this limited spectrum. Captain America, Superman, or any superhero can reach iconic status and remain leaning on one side of the spectrum. Instead we can say that it is perhaps the method in which ideas become systemized into these symbols that makes icons, in this case. Style, though impossible to divorce from the icon, is perhaps more significant in a literary sense, but then again this might simply be subjective of my context. With this in mind, from the "golden age" until rather recently, masculinity in iconographic representation is a thread easily teased out of the sinewy constructs of superheroes emblazoned with almost heraldic color schemes. (Captain America: red white and blue, the flash with the red of virility, etc) A question I have regarding the mechanization of language is to what extent is mechanization part of a masculine identity? One might arge that the physicality of mechanization makes it so, but there is also an element of dehumanization which speaks to a gender neutral aspect. One might also contrast it
Regarding closure, McCloud correctly asserts a significant trait in the American comics medium, the reliance or proclivity action to action, with scene to scene and subject to subject as a simple glue to hold scenes together. Now, the sexualization (excuse my lacking vocabulary... gender divide perhaps?) of this methodology might easily be placed within the masculine realm, in it heavy physicality, and given the context of the material that we're reviewing, it privelages the attributes of the young male: almost unrelenting action, in addition to appropriating him through iconography. After all, in recalling golden age comics, one can hardly avoid the image of Captain America socking a Nazi henchman. In comparison to eastern styles of manipulating closure, one might say that my argument falls apart, however it is important to realize that masculinity ultimately places itself in different locations in society based on specific material means available, in addition to a strong sense of history and art that comes with Japanese comics. What does the masculinization of a certain style of manipulating clsure mean when we discuss the readership? Perhaps it is possible to ascertain to whom particular pieces might appeal to, although I would argue that the American closure style is symptomatic rather than marketed. Given our previous discussion about the paternal appeal of Captain America, there might also be able to make some conclusions about the maturity of the readership given the level of participation necessary for such a closure style, however this leads us into the same trap. Regardless, until we can further "unpack" (I have not had one professor not use this word) the readership, closure, the primary mechanism for readership participation, remains key, is somewhat elsusive to me at this moment.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
This is more of a formal history of comics (a singular noun) than it is an analysis of the subculture of comics readers. McCloud defines comics as “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”
n This definition includes Pre-Colombian art, some Ancient Egyptian scrolls, and the work of Rudolphe Topfer in the mid-1800s, William Hogarth, etc.
n Broad enough to include many different visual media – drawing, photography, painting, design – but narrow enough that single frame cartoons wouldn’t fit
Some formal elements:
n The Vocabulary of Comics
o Icons
o What we see on the page is a representation of a thing, of sounds, of smells, of touch, etc. – it is not the thing itself (ex. Magritte)
o the continuum of realism to iconography and the strengths/weaknesses of both
o Modes of identification – the more real an image is, the less we’re able to identify with it? Relate this to film theory – Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” – what about “the gaze”
n The Gutter
o The space in between frames and what it allows – the ways in which it gives the spectator/reader agency is creating a custom-made narrative in parallel with the narrative being shared by the comics itself.
o Closure vs. Suture
o Modes of narrative structure:
§ Panel to panel
§ Action to action
§ Subject to subject
§ Scene to scene
§ Aspect to aspect
§ Non-sequitur
o Western storytelling (American, European) vs. Japanese and the ways in which the ratios of narrative structuring differ – i.e. Western uses more panel to panel and action to action, but Japanese also uses more of the aspect to aspect and non-sequiter
o Japanese comics also pays more attention to negative space and silence than Western does
n Time
o How does time work in comics differently than it does in film? Think D.W. Griffith and Eisenstein here!
o Ways of representing time – series of similar frames, one long frame, icon of time passing, bleeds (open frames)
o How this is related to Muybridge and pre-cinematic experiments (for example, through representations of speed)
n Lines
o The emotion of lines
o Synaesthesia
n Words versus images and how we master the balance between both is determined by how a few things:
o Reader participation and the degree to which the artist wants that
o How much needs to be explained (the reader’s ability to read icons)
o What the narrative means to say
o Who’s speaking
o What the picture depicts
n The Six Steps
o Idea/Purpose
o Form
o Idiom
o Structure
o Craft
o Surface
n Color
This is more of a formal history of comics (a singular noun) than it is an analysis of the subculture of comics readers. McCloud defines comics as “Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer.”
n This definition includes Pre-Colombian art, some Ancient Egyptian scrolls, and the work of Rudolphe Topfer in the mid-1800s, William Hogarth, etc.
n Broad enough to include many different visual media – drawing, photography, painting, design – but narrow enough that single frame cartoons wouldn’t fit
Some formal elements:
n The Vocabulary of Comics
o Icons
o What we see on the page is a representation of a thing, of sounds, of smells, of touch, etc. – it is not the thing itself (ex. Magritte)
o the continuum of realism to iconography and the strengths/weaknesses of both
o Modes of identification – the more real an image is, the less we’re able to identify with it? Relate this to film theory – Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” – what about “the gaze”
n The Gutter
o The space in between frames and what it allows – the ways in which it gives the spectator/reader agency is creating a custom-made narrative in parallel with the narrative being shared by the comics itself.
o Closure vs. Suture
o Modes of narrative structure:
§ Panel to panel
§ Action to action
§ Subject to subject
§ Scene to scene
§ Aspect to aspect
§ Non-sequitur
o Western storytelling (American, European) vs. Japanese and the ways in which the ratios of narrative structuring differ – i.e. Western uses more panel to panel and action to action, but Japanese also uses more of the aspect to aspect and non-sequiter
o Japanese comics also pays more attention to negative space and silence than Western does
n Time
o How does time work in comics differently than it does in film? Think D.W. Griffith and Eisenstein here!
o Ways of representing time – series of similar frames, one long frame, icon of time passing, bleeds (open frames)
o How this is related to Muybridge and pre-cinematic experiments (for example, through representations of speed)
n Lines
o The emotion of lines
o Synaesthesia
n Words versus images and how we master the balance between both is determined by how a few things:
o Reader participation and the degree to which the artist wants that
o How much needs to be explained (the reader’s ability to read icons)
o What the narrative means to say
o Who’s speaking
o What the picture depicts
n The Six Steps
o Idea/Purpose
o Form
o Idiom
o Structure
o Craft
o Surface
n Color
Monday, March 17, 2008
Rading Captain America
Firstly, I'm glad we've gotten the rampant ivory tower rhetoric of homoeroticism between superheroes and their sidekicks.
Now, I'll address this issue as we move further into our negotiation with comics, but on the subject of bucky, regarding Captain America's visual representation when I discuss McCloud. Here we see McCloud's argument regarding iconographic representation in the cartoon style in practice, with an adolescent target audience, given the level of abstraction involved with depicting Captain America and Bucky's "Cartooniness" level. (now a part of deconstructionist theory might say that we've begun to have a wildly divergent system of representation if we were to take a control group of "general" comics today as opposed to the WW2 era-Golden age control group, but this is another discussion for another response).
Now McCloud gives us the basis of understanding in order to see how the Superhero-Sidekick dynamic might be effective in our examination of Gender given the particular context of the time Captain America and other comic book heroes were interwoven into the greater American narrative. (Now, I've confirmed that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did indeed create Captain America in the 1940s) One this issue of fatherhood, we can easily see how a paternal narrative quickly becomes part of the overall militarization of society; Steve Rogers becomes an instrument of the military after all, and as we've discussed, in taking Bucky under his wing, the Captain America comics succeed in popularity perhaps due to how the comics addresses some basic wartime anxieties: the absence of a "proper" father figure in a challenged parternal system, which migh include his esmaculation, depending on his earning position/draft status in which by merit of being an American, the potential for strength is a part of the mythos (Steve Rogers was originally feeble) or deployment overseas in which case the abjection of the stable paternal system in wartime is shored up and reinforced, and thus filling a symbolic gap. Indeed, young boys become a part of the war effort in their own way, as a result.
Following Captain America's success, Joe SImon also took part in the creation of similiar comics such as the Newsboys Legion, and The Boy Commandos, with a similar narrative bent. On the other hand, however it might be interesting to note that in the inter-war period, such an unquestioningly partiotic appraisal of the American mythos did not continue as a strain in his work, as he would later revert to pulps that would capture the repressed imaginations of Americans living in the shadow of that American Golem. As Faulkner said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the quesion "when will I be blown up?" does seem to drive us into writing "not of the heart but of the glands".
Now, on the racial/ethnic dimension I'll try to touch on very briefly; a snap assesment seems to tell me that the readership might primarily be urban, by merit of the geographic availability of comics, and thus potentially ethnicly defined in subordinate terms within the context of the period. This makes the "American creation myth" useful when negotiating the masculinity narrative as it presents itself in American comics. Furthermore, it is important to note the Jack Kirby is himself a kind of creation/recreation based on these social pressure, if we examine him through an ethosocial lens he is by definition a jew, with the birthname of Jacob Kurtzman.
I'm beginning to think it might be difficult to ignore this Jewish dimension. Is the Red skull perhaps representative of the paralell, and divergent trajectories of the Golem myth? Another question for another course.
Now, I'll address this issue as we move further into our negotiation with comics, but on the subject of bucky, regarding Captain America's visual representation when I discuss McCloud. Here we see McCloud's argument regarding iconographic representation in the cartoon style in practice, with an adolescent target audience, given the level of abstraction involved with depicting Captain America and Bucky's "Cartooniness" level. (now a part of deconstructionist theory might say that we've begun to have a wildly divergent system of representation if we were to take a control group of "general" comics today as opposed to the WW2 era-Golden age control group, but this is another discussion for another response).
Now McCloud gives us the basis of understanding in order to see how the Superhero-Sidekick dynamic might be effective in our examination of Gender given the particular context of the time Captain America and other comic book heroes were interwoven into the greater American narrative. (Now, I've confirmed that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby did indeed create Captain America in the 1940s) One this issue of fatherhood, we can easily see how a paternal narrative quickly becomes part of the overall militarization of society; Steve Rogers becomes an instrument of the military after all, and as we've discussed, in taking Bucky under his wing, the Captain America comics succeed in popularity perhaps due to how the comics addresses some basic wartime anxieties: the absence of a "proper" father figure in a challenged parternal system, which migh include his esmaculation, depending on his earning position/draft status in which by merit of being an American, the potential for strength is a part of the mythos (Steve Rogers was originally feeble) or deployment overseas in which case the abjection of the stable paternal system in wartime is shored up and reinforced, and thus filling a symbolic gap. Indeed, young boys become a part of the war effort in their own way, as a result.
Following Captain America's success, Joe SImon also took part in the creation of similiar comics such as the Newsboys Legion, and The Boy Commandos, with a similar narrative bent. On the other hand, however it might be interesting to note that in the inter-war period, such an unquestioningly partiotic appraisal of the American mythos did not continue as a strain in his work, as he would later revert to pulps that would capture the repressed imaginations of Americans living in the shadow of that American Golem. As Faulkner said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the quesion "when will I be blown up?" does seem to drive us into writing "not of the heart but of the glands".
Now, on the racial/ethnic dimension I'll try to touch on very briefly; a snap assesment seems to tell me that the readership might primarily be urban, by merit of the geographic availability of comics, and thus potentially ethnicly defined in subordinate terms within the context of the period. This makes the "American creation myth" useful when negotiating the masculinity narrative as it presents itself in American comics. Furthermore, it is important to note the Jack Kirby is himself a kind of creation/recreation based on these social pressure, if we examine him through an ethosocial lens he is by definition a jew, with the birthname of Jacob Kurtzman.
I'm beginning to think it might be difficult to ignore this Jewish dimension. Is the Red skull perhaps representative of the paralell, and divergent trajectories of the Golem myth? Another question for another course.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Notes on Captain America
Notes from Captain America:
-- young sidekick, Bucky, as a key for the spectator to feel or identify with someone like him, a way into the narrative -- considering that the audience is perceived as adolescent and male, this may make sense.
-- female characters not helpless (i.e., "damsels in distress") and made more relevant because of the mission in which they're involved (for example, the WAC agent)
-- scenes of WWII battles lay out the foundation of Captain America's mission, but also serve a reflective role since these comics are coming out in the early-mid 1960s, during Vietnam
-- Criminals in this comic are typically simian-looking, which is interesting in the context of a longer history of the late 19th century (1860s-1890s) illustrated press. Often, immigrants (esp. Irish) depicted in same ways.
-- the transformation of Steve Rogers -- strength and power come from courage, resolve, patriotism, not the other way around
-- focus on freedom as essentially American, but what does that mean
-- also consider the physical builds of certain characters -- Americans are almost always proportional, while Nazis and other criminals are misshapen, short, or disfigured in some way
-- theme of sabotage and how we decide who is a saboteur and who is not (seems the dividing line has to do with values -- humanity over technology, community over the individual, etc.)
-- similarities between the Red Skull's story and that of Steve Rogers
-- also notice: there is a lot of explication of what's going on; nothing is implied and left open to spectatorial interpretation
-- Americans in these narratives are merciful, fair, believe in trial vs. immediate punishment
-- stories alter according to reader request?
-- NATO as the heroes in the 1960s narratives!
-- Stan Lee as a character in his own creation -- self-reflexivity
-- Who is Irving Forbush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbush_Man)?
-- Issue 75 -- Steve Rogers as a lonely, melancholy figure -- loss of identity, disconnection from people -- does this prefigure some of the themes in Watchmen?
Areas for research:
At this point, what interests me most is the reader. Is it really an adolescent male audience and who are these boys? What is the subculture like? Where do they spend time? How do they exchange information? How might their own ideas of masculinity be reflected in these comics?
-- young sidekick, Bucky, as a key for the spectator to feel or identify with someone like him, a way into the narrative -- considering that the audience is perceived as adolescent and male, this may make sense.
-- female characters not helpless (i.e., "damsels in distress") and made more relevant because of the mission in which they're involved (for example, the WAC agent)
-- scenes of WWII battles lay out the foundation of Captain America's mission, but also serve a reflective role since these comics are coming out in the early-mid 1960s, during Vietnam
-- Criminals in this comic are typically simian-looking, which is interesting in the context of a longer history of the late 19th century (1860s-1890s) illustrated press. Often, immigrants (esp. Irish) depicted in same ways.
-- the transformation of Steve Rogers -- strength and power come from courage, resolve, patriotism, not the other way around
-- focus on freedom as essentially American, but what does that mean
-- also consider the physical builds of certain characters -- Americans are almost always proportional, while Nazis and other criminals are misshapen, short, or disfigured in some way
-- theme of sabotage and how we decide who is a saboteur and who is not (seems the dividing line has to do with values -- humanity over technology, community over the individual, etc.)
-- similarities between the Red Skull's story and that of Steve Rogers
-- also notice: there is a lot of explication of what's going on; nothing is implied and left open to spectatorial interpretation
-- Americans in these narratives are merciful, fair, believe in trial vs. immediate punishment
-- stories alter according to reader request?
-- NATO as the heroes in the 1960s narratives!
-- Stan Lee as a character in his own creation -- self-reflexivity
-- Who is Irving Forbush (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbush_Man)?
-- Issue 75 -- Steve Rogers as a lonely, melancholy figure -- loss of identity, disconnection from people -- does this prefigure some of the themes in Watchmen?
Areas for research:
At this point, what interests me most is the reader. Is it really an adolescent male audience and who are these boys? What is the subculture like? Where do they spend time? How do they exchange information? How might their own ideas of masculinity be reflected in these comics?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Reading Notes for February 12 Class
Joan Scott, "Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis" (1985)
-- "gender as a way of referring to the social organization of the relationship between the sexes" -- new discourse begun by feminists
-- against the biological determinism of "sex"
-- "women and men were defined in terms of one another"-- Natalie Davis -- 1975
-- put on par with class and race, making gender only one of the factors in power plays that usually end in the oppression or suppression of certain histories
Scott argues that these three are not on part with one another at all:
-- there are certain assumptions that go with class analysis (economic causality, historical processes, the dialectic) that do not apply to the ways historians use race or gender in their analysis
-- need for gender as a new category because there are limitations to simple descriptions of women's history that require a larger look at the mechanisms that support that history
Review of past theories and how they've limited the scope of useful analysis:
-- gender as a synonym for women -- adds academic and social science cache to the study; less politically charged
-- gender used to denote social constructedness, that femininity doesn't exist without masculinity, etc., which also opens the door to a specific study of sexuality as separate from gender as a social role
-- Marxist-Feminism as an approach to gender, as in Powers of Desire -- materialist analyses that focus on consumption/production and gender as a reflection of this power struggle -- but then it's not an independent analytical category, is it?
-- Psychoanalytic approaches -- Chodorow and Gilligan from Anglo-U.S. perspective (moral behavior, limit to the family and home); French psychoanalysis borrowing from Freud and Lacan with a focus on language (so, unconscious and internalized gender roles, but limited to the subject and individuality instead of the larger social structure) -- Alexander's reading is useful here-- Feminist Studies symposium in 1980 -- Gilligan's insistence on binaries works against feminist projects
The project:
-- accept the allies within post-strucuralism and the humanities who open a space for this disuccsion
-- focus not on the individual or the society, but how each is interconnected with the other
-- bring in Foucault's interpretation of power as a constellation of smaller hierarchies and interactions
-- "gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power." -- cultural symbols that mean a multiplicty of representations (Eve, light vs. dark, etc.) and how they are used and contested in different moments and to what purpose
Some examples she shares:
-- power determined by limtation of women's legal rights
-- power determined by expanding welfare for women
-- gendering of labor roles or of populations (like some men of color in America denoted as feminine in certain contexts)
Questions to explore further:
How can this lead to change?
Does she provide an answer?
What's the point of writing this kind of history then?
What does this tell us about masculinity?
How might we apply this to comics and graphic novels?
One possibility is that by using gender as a category of analysis, we see it as just that and not as a fixed system that defined social roles in ways that cannot and have never been subverted. What does she mean by utopia at the end here?
Bryce Traister, "Academic Viagra: The Rise of American Masculinity Studies" (2000)
-- Masculinity studies as heterosexual masculinity studies with some overlap into gay male studies
-- This heteromasculinity is awkwardly defined against and in tandem with homomasculinity
-- Strongly Americanist
-- Phallocentrism – writing this history of "men as men"
-- “Crisis theory” – instability of American masculinity vs. Butler’s performative and contingent masculinity
-- Criticism: this just puts masculinity back at the center of the story and crowds out femininity
-- Response to the pro-“men’s rights” strain in popular culture
-- These studies tend to begin with a confession of the author’s own subjectivity
-- Kimmel : “make gender visible to men.” “constructedness”
-- Kimmel: the ideal version vs. the lived version
-- Butler: the performance is based on regulatory practice that naturalizes gender and is based on compulsory heterosexuality
Some questions asked in the texts discussed in the essay:
-- “What is the role of the warrior in a society that no longer requires defending?”
-- How do men confront the patriarchy as much as women do? Might patriarchy be the creation of both? In other words, is power always lodged with the male in a patriarchy? Must we assume that the benefiter of a system is always the creator of it?
-- Are the paths of masculinity different for African American men? Working-class men?
-- Is there always a dominant narrative of masculinity with which everyone must contend? Or is this a dominant discourse from which different eras borrow for different reasons (Scott)?
-- Is it possible that no man is a “real man” according to the ideal? If everything is a performance, if we’re all anxious, all queer, all “not living up,” then what’s “normal”? Can we even write this narrative?
-- Are masculinity and femininity equal analytic categories? (Traister says no)
-- Why are we not pushing toward an analysis of masculinity as strength, the force of domination, the force of imperialism, etc.?
-- "gender as a way of referring to the social organization of the relationship between the sexes" -- new discourse begun by feminists
-- against the biological determinism of "sex"
-- "women and men were defined in terms of one another"-- Natalie Davis -- 1975
-- put on par with class and race, making gender only one of the factors in power plays that usually end in the oppression or suppression of certain histories
Scott argues that these three are not on part with one another at all:
-- there are certain assumptions that go with class analysis (economic causality, historical processes, the dialectic) that do not apply to the ways historians use race or gender in their analysis
-- need for gender as a new category because there are limitations to simple descriptions of women's history that require a larger look at the mechanisms that support that history
Review of past theories and how they've limited the scope of useful analysis:
-- gender as a synonym for women -- adds academic and social science cache to the study; less politically charged
-- gender used to denote social constructedness, that femininity doesn't exist without masculinity, etc., which also opens the door to a specific study of sexuality as separate from gender as a social role
-- Marxist-Feminism as an approach to gender, as in Powers of Desire -- materialist analyses that focus on consumption/production and gender as a reflection of this power struggle -- but then it's not an independent analytical category, is it?
-- Psychoanalytic approaches -- Chodorow and Gilligan from Anglo-U.S. perspective (moral behavior, limit to the family and home); French psychoanalysis borrowing from Freud and Lacan with a focus on language (so, unconscious and internalized gender roles, but limited to the subject and individuality instead of the larger social structure) -- Alexander's reading is useful here-- Feminist Studies symposium in 1980 -- Gilligan's insistence on binaries works against feminist projects
The project:
-- accept the allies within post-strucuralism and the humanities who open a space for this disuccsion
-- focus not on the individual or the society, but how each is interconnected with the other
-- bring in Foucault's interpretation of power as a constellation of smaller hierarchies and interactions
-- "gender is a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power." -- cultural symbols that mean a multiplicty of representations (Eve, light vs. dark, etc.) and how they are used and contested in different moments and to what purpose
Some examples she shares:
-- power determined by limtation of women's legal rights
-- power determined by expanding welfare for women
-- gendering of labor roles or of populations (like some men of color in America denoted as feminine in certain contexts)
Questions to explore further:
How can this lead to change?
Does she provide an answer?
What's the point of writing this kind of history then?
What does this tell us about masculinity?
How might we apply this to comics and graphic novels?
One possibility is that by using gender as a category of analysis, we see it as just that and not as a fixed system that defined social roles in ways that cannot and have never been subverted. What does she mean by utopia at the end here?
Bryce Traister, "Academic Viagra: The Rise of American Masculinity Studies" (2000)
-- Masculinity studies as heterosexual masculinity studies with some overlap into gay male studies
-- This heteromasculinity is awkwardly defined against and in tandem with homomasculinity
-- Strongly Americanist
-- Phallocentrism – writing this history of "men as men"
-- “Crisis theory” – instability of American masculinity vs. Butler’s performative and contingent masculinity
-- Criticism: this just puts masculinity back at the center of the story and crowds out femininity
-- Response to the pro-“men’s rights” strain in popular culture
-- These studies tend to begin with a confession of the author’s own subjectivity
-- Kimmel : “make gender visible to men.” “constructedness”
-- Kimmel: the ideal version vs. the lived version
-- Butler: the performance is based on regulatory practice that naturalizes gender and is based on compulsory heterosexuality
Some questions asked in the texts discussed in the essay:
-- “What is the role of the warrior in a society that no longer requires defending?”
-- How do men confront the patriarchy as much as women do? Might patriarchy be the creation of both? In other words, is power always lodged with the male in a patriarchy? Must we assume that the benefiter of a system is always the creator of it?
-- Are the paths of masculinity different for African American men? Working-class men?
-- Is there always a dominant narrative of masculinity with which everyone must contend? Or is this a dominant discourse from which different eras borrow for different reasons (Scott)?
-- Is it possible that no man is a “real man” according to the ideal? If everything is a performance, if we’re all anxious, all queer, all “not living up,” then what’s “normal”? Can we even write this narrative?
-- Are masculinity and femininity equal analytic categories? (Traister says no)
-- Why are we not pushing toward an analysis of masculinity as strength, the force of domination, the force of imperialism, etc.?
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