General fan reaction to Batman: Streets of Gotham #1, which has a brief scene with a 10-year-old prostitute (no exact quotes, just my general sense of the reviews):
"Eeew! Do we need to see this, Paul Dini? Is this really what "adult" comics fans want from Batman these days? How dare he show child prostitution?!"
General fan reaction to Batman And Robin #1, which has a scene in which a young girl is forced to watch her father tortured and mutilated, and is promised that the same will be done to her (by her father, no less) (again, no exact quotes):
"Damn!! Best Batman comic in years!! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!! More, more, more please!! Torture scene? What torture scene?!?"
Make of that what you will.
"Eeew! Do we need to see this, Paul Dini? Is this really what "adult" comics fans want from Batman these days? How dare he show child prostitution?!"
General fan reaction to Batman And Robin #1, which has a scene in which a young girl is forced to watch her father tortured and mutilated, and is promised that the same will be done to her (by her father, no less) (again, no exact quotes):
"Damn!! Best Batman comic in years!! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!! More, more, more please!! Torture scene? What torture scene?!?"
Make of that what you will.
I know this phenomenon well from my improv work.
ReplyDeleteSome players can go into bad taste and make it seem funny, but only the very best players. I've seen classic comedy improvs about pedophilia, necrophila, one with dead hamsters sewn together, you name it. Great players make it WORK. Everyone else should be booed off the stage for even saying one of those words.
Same with any art form, really. Batman & Robin is a great comic that makes those scenes WORK. Streets is not such a great comic and so a similar idea DOES NOT.
While you're enjoying the ride, everything's great. If you're already annoyed or bored by the ride, a 10-year-old prostitute is just gonna get your mad on. Know what I mean?
If you're gonna sell it, better make sure they buy it.
Siskoid and others,
ReplyDeletePlease don't take my comments as flaming or argumentative. However, this brings up a gargantuan philosophical, sociological, and, for some, theological discussion.
Why sell it - "it" being a visual representation of a ten year old prostitute - at all? You want to do this repsonsibly - because, unfortunately, such things exist (Chickenhawks, though we don't call them that anymore, have been around for centuries and thriving behind all kinds of evil facades) - you do it the way Andrew Vachss does it or not at all. Sorry for being prudish, if that's what some think my stance to be, but the phrase "ten-year-old prostitute" should never be cause for entertainment. You denounce it.
I haven't seen this issue. I don't how it was done. I'm commenting on the general concept of it all, mostly about selling and buying such things. Sounds rather nefarious to me.
That's not to say that some people haven't promulgated visual representations of child pornography under the banner of denouncing it. That's definitely happened, too. Just check out NAMBLA's schemes.
Anyway, I'm going on too long and, perhaps, overstaying my welcome.
Some fans will say anything in reaction to stuff like this. Some fans want more because they just might be a freak.
It makes me think how far we've come in comics, though.
Rick Veitch wasn't allowed to bring a rather great Jesus story into his Swamp Thing run (and whether you're religious or not, it was a great story in every aesthetic sense; you can find people selling a photocopied copy on eBay once in a while), but now we can have this?
"Hrm," says Rorschach.
Ugggg - that was MEGA disturbing. All the villains of the 50s are back - and they brought nightmares with them!
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I think on some level it has to do with age and on another level on innocence. As a culture we're revolted by the victimization of the innocent, especially children (and especially crimes of a sexual nature). In a way, comics are a response to that with masked men and women risking their lives to stop or prevent such victimization.
ReplyDeleteBoth the victims in Batman And Robin #1 are adults. The father is a criminal associated with his torturer, and while we see him get tortured and mutilated, there is only the threat that the daughter will be tortured and mutilated and the issue ends. As far as we're aware, she's an innocent not privy to whatever criminal actions her father has been involved with, so we can probably assume that Batman and Robin will show up and save her in the nick of time. It's a typical cliffhanger ending, and reading comics has taught us nothing if not that the innocent person gets rescued by the good guys (usually at the last second). As for her father, there's also that sort of old comic notion that while something horrible has happened to a criminal, it's kind of his own fault -- he's not an innocent. I'm not saying that anything the father has done merits that kind of treatment, mind you, but that kind of thing often happens in comics -- from the killed by his own super-weapon to the done in by his greedy associates for the ill-gotten gain.
Even if Batman and Robin are unable to rescue the daughter, it's the kind of thing that can be turned around into characterization for the heroes when they realize they've failed and it renews their determination to take down this horrible, derranged villain.
The 10 year old girl forced into prostitution in Batman: Streets of Gotham #1 is a completely differnet story. She's a victim as well, but an innocent victim of the kind of crime that makes most (I say 'most' as obviously some people engage in that kind of activity) people outraged if not physically ill. We're used to criminal activity in comics, even excessively violent criminal activity where hundreds (if not thousands) of people die, but not that kind of criminal activity.
I'm not sure what the take on Batman: Streets of Gotham #1 would have been had the girl forced into prostitution been older. There seems to be a point where we're more accepting of who can be a victim in fiction based on age. Think about Freddie Kruger. He was killed for being a child killer, but we don't see that -- all his vicitms are generally teenagers or older. He doesn't invade the dreams of a second grade class and start killing, he instead goes to the high school down the street, despite his being a child killer in his former life. It's unusual that a child dies in a horror movie, and even more unusual if we see the details of the slaying.
I haven't read Streets, mind you.
ReplyDeleteI respect that one might feel ill at the idea of the use of the 10-year-old-as-victim in fiction, and in fact, would hope that this use is exactly to make the reader feel ill. (Certainly, no matter how bad Streets is as a comic, I don't think Dini is actually PROMOTING the idea.) It's meant to shock and show the level of villainy. It's a cheap shock, and may even be irresponsibly done. I might even be too far for a mainstream Batman comic (for damn sure, I thought "rapist Dr. Light" was completely wrong for a Teen Titans villain).
I just don't think any subject matter is taboo IN AND OF ITSELF.
It remains a question of execution. And WHERE you choose to use an idea is part of that execution. What's fine for a Vertigo comic, or say, The Boys, is not fine in Batman, Spider-Man (which recently also featured an underage prostitute) and other mainstream comics (some of which seem to be code-approved, not that that has any meaning).
But Rottgutt has it right when he says child prostitution and threatening to torture a child are two very different contexts. The second has a built-in "out" that may be "scary", but isn't necessarily in bad taste, which the first is.
Finally read it. Pretty icky, yes.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just sickening, it's gratuitous because it doesn't have any real bearing on the story. Sucks.
The ten-year-old prostitute in "Batman: Year One" (later revealed as Holly Robinson, if memory serves) would be a better comparison, I think.
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