Life And Art

Some people point out that there are many instances of sexual violence against women in Alan Moore's works. Moore replies that there are many instances of sexual violence against women in real life and also that popular fiction distorts life by presenting an excessive number of instances of violent killing. This discussion needs to progress, i.e., we do not need more people pointing out that there are many instances of sexual violence against women in Alan Moore's works.

Are current superhero films merely a rehash of fiction created for twelve year olds fifty years ago and do they prevent our unprecedented era from developing a relevant culture of its own, as Moore suggests (see link to interview a few posts back here)? Well, fictions originally addressed to twelve year olds can be upgraded age-wise, as Moore has preeminently demonstrated.

A superhero film can be:

escapist light entertainment;

like any art, a mirror to reality, i. e., while enjoying an imaginary world precisely because it is different from ours, we can simultaneously see ourselves and our society reflected in it.

In Moore's Watchmen, the US is unquestioningly served by a virtually omnipotent superhero and therefore wins in Vietnam. The VC want to surrender to him personally. Another character comments that, if the US had lost that war, then it might have gone a bit mad as a nation...

In Watchmen, the UN is also unquestioningly served by a violent vigilante - and two journalists called Woodward and Bernstein are found dead....

In Moore's Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?... (to be continued here)