Zero to Hero? Please.
Oct. 16th, 2006 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alliancesjrKnow what I hate about generic superhero-themed stories? The not-so-subtly implied idea that without special powers, you're not important.
You see it all the time. Kid wants to be famous/do great things/earn lots of money/etc. Kid fails because he is normal. Kid gets special power (through various means). Kid becomes famous.
Sure, they all tack on the "The power was within you all along", but it's very clear that without the external power, the kid would still be alone and poor and unwanted. The kid couldn't cut it without that extra boost.
This is bullshit. It's a horrible message that keeps getting passed along, because it's wrapped up in a shell of pretty effects and the kid winning at the end of the story. Even Spiderman falls prey to this message; many times throughout every incarnation of his story, he is faced with a choice; to live as a normal person and have a life, or to have his powers and nothing more than that. They write it as being noble that he's sacrificing himself for the greater good, and that's definitely heroic, but it's still sending a message that his powers are the most important thing. Not his life, not his personality, but his superhuman abilities.
What about those who are normal people (or relatively so) and accomplish all the same things that the superheroes do - sometimes even moreso - and get swept aside? They're regular people, men and women1 and even children, but they're dismissed as not being able to compete with the top-namers. Sometimes, writers will take extra measures to get rid of these wonderful people2.
Disney, of all people, is the one most on the fence about this. They'll put out spectacular "Root for the regular people" movies, including - but not limited to - Up, Up, and Away and The Incredibles3, but then they'll pull a bait-and-switch with Sky High.
I'll tell you what I'm talking about. Will Stronghold, the protagonist of the movie, is the child of two well-known superheroes. He, however, is without powers of his own, something that he doesn't want them to know, for fear of disappointing them. There is a Generic Evil Person that wants to rid the world of superheroes, and Will is in the precarious position of stopping it. He becomes proud of the fact that while he doesn't have any powers, he can get by without them, because he has heart.
This is a direct parallel to the premise of Up, Up, and Away, but that is where the similarities end.
In a confrontation with Warren Peace, he gains his father's Super Strength, and uses it to defend himself. The climax of the movie reveals that he also inherited his mother's Flight ability, and uses it in conjunction with his Strength to save the floating school from crashing.
I loved Sky High. It was a great story, with tongue-in-cheek references and self-parody, and it featured a pretty redhead with florakinesis. But I really didn't like the way that they were building up the story for Will to save the day without powers of his own. He was a normal person, like Ron Wilson: Bus Driver, but that gave him unpredictability and further incentive to succeed. Instead, at critical moments, they gave him the easy way out. Not only that, but they justified it by making it the only way he could succeed. Then what happened afterwards? Fame. Popularity. Because of his powers.
It was a good movie. It would have been a great movie if they had either not given him powers but let him succeed on his own merit, or given him his powers but let him succeed because he was Will Stronghold, not the son of The Commander and Jetstream.
I'm not saying to do away with superpowers. Superpowers are very cool. They're what everyone wants. But they're not always the best solution. If you have powers, you need to know that they're not the end-all be-all of every situation, and be able to use something else when needed.
When all you have is a wrench, every problem looks like it needs to be torqued.
Give us more variety. Give us more perspectives. If you give us a Buffy and Willow, don't be afraid to give us a Xander. And don't cheapen it by giving him powers5 later on, or killing him off, or just forgetting about him.
The superheroes will shine on their own. Let the regular people on the team have their glory, too.
"Most people in life don't have great power, and the few that do are almost never responsible with it. The people who have the greatest responsibility are the kids with no power, because we're the ones who have to keep everybody else in check."
~Gertrude to Spiderman, Runaways vol. 5
You see it all the time. Kid wants to be famous/do great things/earn lots of money/etc. Kid fails because he is normal. Kid gets special power (through various means). Kid becomes famous.
Sure, they all tack on the "The power was within you all along", but it's very clear that without the external power, the kid would still be alone and poor and unwanted. The kid couldn't cut it without that extra boost.
This is bullshit. It's a horrible message that keeps getting passed along, because it's wrapped up in a shell of pretty effects and the kid winning at the end of the story. Even Spiderman falls prey to this message; many times throughout every incarnation of his story, he is faced with a choice; to live as a normal person and have a life, or to have his powers and nothing more than that. They write it as being noble that he's sacrificing himself for the greater good, and that's definitely heroic, but it's still sending a message that his powers are the most important thing. Not his life, not his personality, but his superhuman abilities.
What about those who are normal people (or relatively so) and accomplish all the same things that the superheroes do - sometimes even moreso - and get swept aside? They're regular people, men and women1 and even children, but they're dismissed as not being able to compete with the top-namers. Sometimes, writers will take extra measures to get rid of these wonderful people2.
Disney, of all people, is the one most on the fence about this. They'll put out spectacular "Root for the regular people" movies, including - but not limited to - Up, Up, and Away and The Incredibles3, but then they'll pull a bait-and-switch with Sky High.
I'll tell you what I'm talking about. Will Stronghold, the protagonist of the movie, is the child of two well-known superheroes. He, however, is without powers of his own, something that he doesn't want them to know, for fear of disappointing them. There is a Generic Evil Person that wants to rid the world of superheroes, and Will is in the precarious position of stopping it. He becomes proud of the fact that while he doesn't have any powers, he can get by without them, because he has heart.
This is a direct parallel to the premise of Up, Up, and Away, but that is where the similarities end.
In a confrontation with Warren Peace, he gains his father's Super Strength, and uses it to defend himself. The climax of the movie reveals that he also inherited his mother's Flight ability, and uses it in conjunction with his Strength to save the floating school from crashing.
I loved Sky High. It was a great story, with tongue-in-cheek references and self-parody, and it featured a pretty redhead with florakinesis. But I really didn't like the way that they were building up the story for Will to save the day without powers of his own. He was a normal person, like Ron Wilson: Bus Driver, but that gave him unpredictability and further incentive to succeed. Instead, at critical moments, they gave him the easy way out. Not only that, but they justified it by making it the only way he could succeed. Then what happened afterwards? Fame. Popularity. Because of his powers.
It was a good movie. It would have been a great movie if they had either not given him powers but let him succeed on his own merit, or given him his powers but let him succeed because he was Will Stronghold, not the son of The Commander and Jetstream.
I'm not saying to do away with superpowers. Superpowers are very cool. They're what everyone wants. But they're not always the best solution. If you have powers, you need to know that they're not the end-all be-all of every situation, and be able to use something else when needed.
When all you have is a wrench, every problem looks like it needs to be torqued.
Give us more variety. Give us more perspectives. If you give us a Buffy and Willow, don't be afraid to give us a Xander. And don't cheapen it by giving him powers5 later on, or killing him off, or just forgetting about him.
The superheroes will shine on their own. Let the regular people on the team have their glory, too.
"Most people in life don't have great power, and the few that do are almost never responsible with it. The people who have the greatest responsibility are the kids with no power, because we're the ones who have to keep everybody else in check."
~Gertrude to Spiderman, Runaways vol. 5
- "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels." Dayna Abel, at least twice that I could count.
- Stephanie Brown, anyone? The only female4 Robin, and also the only Robin to not have a posthumous memorial in the Batcave.
- You might ask why I don't count this movie as part of the "Wrong Message" crowd, since it seems to enforce - much more visibly - the "mundanes are insignificant" ideal. Except, if you look more closely at it, it really isn't. Its message is to judge people on their accomplishments and moral fiber rather than what powers they may or may not have.
- This opens up the debate for the "Women in Refridgerators" Syndrome, but that's another topic for another time.
- Though I'm using Xander as a metaphor, I should state that in most Buffy-based fanfiction, if Xander is mentioned at all, he's either worthless, killed off, or given powers of his own. This is wrong. This is not Xander. Xander is the basis of my very opinion, and one of the few "normal people in abnormal situations" examples that was done right. But then, you already knew how I looked at Xander.
Re: XD
Date: 2006-10-17 04:35 pm (UTC)Basically, my opinion on this matter follows Anne Onymous's (Creator of The Wotch (http://www.thewotch.com)), who wrote a piece recently following mainly Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain - a Robin and a Batgirl, respectively - who were treated horribly in their respective comic lines, not because they were superheroes, but because they were women. One, in how she died, and one in how she lived (and most recently was seen again after DC's "One Year Later" timeskip.
I'll link that when I get home tonight.
Essentially, I'm not of the "Don't let women die" camp. I'm putting my chips in with the "Give them their due" crowd, much as I am with this post with the people without the powers. I don't mind that they killed off Stephanie - plot devices are plot devices, even when they hurt, and I liked Stephanie - but I hate how she was just forgotten after that.
If Jason Todd gets a memorial, so should Stephanie. Put her Spoiler costume in a case in the Batcave.
Re: D:
Date: 2006-10-17 05:07 pm (UTC)Re: D:
Date: 2006-10-17 05:08 pm (UTC)Re: XD
Date: 2006-10-17 06:46 pm (UTC)I'd love to read that article, though. I'm not sure how much I'd sympathize with Batgirl, as I generally dislike -girl versions of male superheroes and I think Batman's "loner" status is in danger as it is, though. ;P
Also, I completely forgot about Carrie Kelly, so let's just retcon my last post to mean "no female Robins in regular continuity". :ninja:
Re: XD
Date: 2006-10-17 10:57 pm (UTC)