Michael vs. Insane Creators
Dear internet,Let's talk about creators and their creations. Specifically, how one leeches into the other, threatening the audience's ability to enjoy the finished product. We're living in an interesting time of upheaval when it comes to interactions between the public and our celebrities. The rapid proliferation of social networking has not only made privacy a rare commodity, it has made the very idea of not sharing all of your personal details into some sort of digital leprosy.
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| True story: NEVER IMAGE SEARCH "LEPROSY." Here are some tulips instead. |
There are few schools of thought in this matter. I would argue that humanizing celebrities is our best shot at realizing that they are all just flawed people, and maybe moving past the sort of worship that is at best unhealthy, and at worst gives Chris Brown the negative energy he needs to survive until the next blood moon. And there's something undeniably endearing about reading typo-laden inspirational messages from the least popular member of the Wu-Tang Clan. Movie stars who, at one point in time, would live within a PR bubble of respectable class and mystery, are now free to tell the world what they really think, and it's bonkers. But this isn't going to be a list of insane celebrity Twitter accounts, because TMZ and BuzzFeed exist for that stuff, and I don't really find it to be that surprising. If you are legitimately shocked that every time P!NK goes to a keyboard she leaves complete horseshit in her wake, then you must not be paying attention.
No, despite the occasional shocking outburst, we've all accepted that our celebrities and musicians will be kind of nuts. In a way, we prefer it. There's always been a non-trivial connection between inherent genius and personality disorders: it's why we loved Amadeus for its stark portrayal of Mozart as an edgy crime fighter out to avenge his parents, and it's why the biggest rock bands in any country are outlandish and daring.
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| God damn it, Canada! You had one job. |
Sometimes, though, the disconnect between the creator of a work and the quality of the work itself is so great that it can retroactively ruin my enjoyment of the original product. This is an interesting argument, and people far smarter than I am have analyzed the hell out of it. Because the problem is an intensely subjective one: is your attachment and enjoyment of a creation strong enough to divorce it from the divisive (or straight up hateful) views of its creator? It's a problem I have been facing more and more, because my natural enthusiasm to learn everything about the things I love (example: The Smiths!) has traditionally lead me to some hard realizations (example: Morrissey is a strong candidate for worst living human!) about them. I'm going to touch on a few of them.
Orson Scott Card
If you were lucky enough to read Ender's Game when you were a preteen, then you probably got the full blast of what made it special: it was a book where the kids a legitimate geniuses, the adults are treacherous and incompetent, and there were at least two scenes featuring nude children fighting to the death. Ender's Game is a challenging, twisty work of science fiction, and the sequels it spawned were even more challenging. The series starts out with genius kids in space, and ends with a serious contemplation on genocide, legacy, and how to break a vicious cycle.
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| But what's the point, without the naked child fight scenes? |
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| There is absolutely no way this could end badly. |
But wait...
It turns out Orson Scott Card is a huge Mormon bigot. That link goes to his 2004 essay, "Homosexual 'Marriage' and Civilization," and it's the exact type of even-handed, rational exploration of a contentious issue that its title suggests. What's shocking here isn't that an active member of a religious group happens to dislike the idea of gay marriage; that's par for the course. What's truly stunning is that Card seems to have A) Never returned to read his work after it was published, or B) Cannot see how his message of understanding and compassion towards all walks of life, regardless of past history, could ever apply to The Gays. Card exists in a world where he would fight to the death for the rights of hideous bug aliens, but will not invite his niece and her girlfriend over for Thanksgiving dinner.
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| Gay aliens are, as always, a gray area. |
And what can you do? The books have improved people's lives, and the film adaptation of Ender's Game is set for release in November 2013. Boycotting is always a fine option, but the original novel will always persist because of its power as an effective story for adolescents. How many kids should be denied a non-Twilight hero because Card is a Level 80 Hatermage? Something to think about.
Frank Miller
Have you seen Sin City? How about any of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies? Let's throw 300 in there as well. Have you read any Batman story since the mid-1980s? If you answered yes to any of the above, you are officially familiar with the works of Frank Miller, the Crazy Uncle of the comics world. Miller burst onto the comics scene in 1979 as the new writer for Daredevil, which I didn't mention in the opening sentences for reasons that are obvious to everyone.
Miller brought crime drama sensibilities to superhero titles. Everything was dark and edgy, the stakes seemed higher because the danger was tangible. I have an easier time understanding the immediate threat of four guys with knives, rather than one nerd with octopus arms. At a time where the industry comics industry was pushing for legitimacy ("It's not for kids and horny teenagers anymore!" they said, while making covers like this one), Miller was writing stories for adults. His crime noir aesthetic later proved to be exact what DC Comics needed for a new take on Batman, and the results are still seen today. Batman Begins is heavily influenced by Miller's Batman: Year One. The Dark Knight Returns is considered to be one of the greatest graphic novels ever written, and it's also a Miller creation. No matter what the man wrote, it was bound to have a crowd-pleasing mix of grit, violence, and darkness. Frank Miller has a knack for writing violent, militaristic, deluded psychopaths, and it was exactly what the industry needed.
But wait...
Frank Miller is a violent, militaristic, deluded psychopath. Well, they always say to write what you know. It's almost like he's the anti-Orson Scott Card; while Card himself was the opposite of his work, Miller is the embodiment of his own. This is a man who has worn the same goatee-fedora-trench coat combo for decades, despite that outfit becoming the unofficial uniform for perverts and douchebags everywhere. The above link is a brief post from him about Occupy Wall Street, where he calls all people involved a group of "louts, thieves, and rapists." Who the hell talks like that? Who actually interrupts their own written sentences to laugh loudly at his own joke? At some point, in the midst of writing his next gritty noir thriller in which absolutely every female character is a prostitute, he snapped. The vitriol and sense of righteous (and violent) justice that was meant for his protagonists seeped into him as a person, and he lost whatever sense of balance was keeping him and his goatee in check.
Not to use this as an excuse, but I think 9/11 did it for poor old Frank Miller. He doubled-down on the might-is-right idea in all of his comics, and spent the better part of the following decade trying to sell DC on a comic where Batman fights Al-Qaeda. Every prominent creator dealt with the aftermath of the attacks in a different way, and it kind of spoke to who they really were. So when Jon Stewart cried on air while asking for understanding, it pretty much reinforced how awesome everyone thought he was. When Aaron Sorkin basically froze the plot of The West Wing to educate Americans on the issues with a one-act play, it became hard to think of a more Aaron-Sorkin-y way to do anything, ever. So when Miller became a paranoid xenophobe, it wasn't exactly a shot out of left field. It was him becoming what his work had always hinted he could become.
And I think that's what this is all about, in a way. It is extremely hard to feed so much of yourself into a creative outlet and not have some part of you displayed in the final product. Card's books seem to have sprung from a truly fascinating fight between different parts of his psyche (I seriously cannot think of any other anti-gay bigot who openly writes that much about naked boys), while every Miller story seems to tap into another one of his numerous power/sex/hate fantasies. On the same note, we probably couldn't have these important works of fiction if these two men weren't as flawed and crazy as they are. As Frank Miller himself once said: "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few GODDAMN HIPPIE FASCIST WHORE IMMIGRANTS."
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| "HARGLEBARGLE!" - Winner of 6 Eisner Awards, 4 Kirby Awards, and a Palm d'Or Nomination |
Moral of the story:
Creators put themselves into their work,
Sharing the views and truths they know.
If it so happens that you're a huge jerk,
Be prepared to watch some of your fans go.
xoxo,
Mike!
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