I wrote this, was ready to post it, then Chrome crashed. Fuck you too, Google and Google-owned platforms.
The main thrust of it was to state that I won't be uploading to LeagueofSuperCritics on YouTube anymore, and to inform everyone that my new HQ on YouTube will be at youtube.com/chezapoctube, and to please subscribe! Yeah, it feels weird to be begging for subscriptions, but, well, I won't call it a "mistake" per se, I... well, actually yes, I will. Because I did not own LOSC - Maker does. I don't even have access to LOSC's dashboard or metrics. Yep - I don't even know how many views per month I get. I played the game as long as I could, but it's time to move on and be free. I may speak more on this later, but suffice to say, I have reached the end of my rope.
Both leagueofsupercritics and chezapoctube are under the Maker umbrella, but where chezapoctube is a "partner" (and then only after much begging, heckling, lawyer foot-dragging and duress) leagueofsupercritics is owned by Maker. As such it is held to the same copyright standard as all of the Disney-owned channels. As such I had to go through a VERY time-consuming vetting process to get a video on LOSC, and by and large ops didn't really care to get to my videos in a timely fashion (that's why there was generally about a two month gap between a video going up here and going up on YouTube). It was my decision to go with it as long as I did, so it's not like I'm the victim of anything here. But it's just bad business to have thrown all my eggs in the LOSC basket for as long as I have, and I'll be removing those eggs over the course of the next year. So the long and short is, when my contract with Maker is up early next year, depending on circumstances (and number of subscribers), I can leave Maker and take everything (including chezapoctube) with me - including everything I've done that's on Super critics.
So this also means most of my old Nostalgia Chick stuff is in one place, too, and I'll be uploading it at chezapoctube in full formed, not the "abridged" garbage that's on LOSC for everything circa 2012. It'll be easier having stuff all in one place, plus I can hopefully upload content at a steadier pace.
tl;dr - please subscribe to my (personal) youtube channel at youtube.com/chezapoctube, and leagueofsupercritics is functionally dead. But until my stuff gets removed from that channel, I'll still get revenue from it.*
*I should add that, owing to reasons of the state of California garnishing my wages directly from Maker (without having informed me - apparently I owe them back taxes from 2010 - who knew? I certainly didn't, because I filed as a resident of Tennessee at the time. Might have been nice for them to tell me before they started garnishing my wages) that the revenue I get from YouTube is pretty fucking negligible.
This week has been stressful in a lot of ways. I've attached that video of the bucket of sloths from Last Week Tonight. It is, indeed, almost violently delightful. Enjoy.
You may have noticed that there is no credits just yet- well, my little travel computer and doesn't like Patreon's coding and therefore won't display patron info for me, so there are no credits. But I will update this very shortly with credits!
So I'm almost done with the next episode (it ended up being Queen Elizabeth I - surprised? Me too. I thought Hitler was a shoo-in!) For February I was thinking the theme should be "starcrossed lovers" (Romeo/Juliet, Cathy/Heathcliff, Cleopatra/Antony) but when I joked about doing a full length review on everything wrong with Phantom of the Opera (2004), that one got a lot of interest. But for what I have in mind it would take a lot of time and effort (like I said, it would be a long'n) - so I leave it to you - would you rather have a traditional, romance-themed episode for February, or would you rather have me verbally eviscerate Joel Schumacher for an hour?
For a story that doesn't change all that much between version, our heroine's main love interest sure does. A look at changing masculinity through the years.
First things first, to compensate for my falling short in terms of scheduling, I'm going to do mini-sodes a bit more regularly. The first will be a sort of King Kong addendum - that'll be up later today. Those will be paid posts.
For the $10+ group, to clarify some things - if I release more than one paid post in a month, but you cap your payment at $10/month, yes your name will still appear at the end of every video. So don't worry about capping payments! Also, did you know you can do that? Capping payments is a thing you can do.
Secondly, if you want me to list your name a certain way in the credits, or if I spell your name wrong, please send me a message. There are only humans at the other end of this. Well, human. One human. Me.
Now that said, I know that some were disappointed that Frankenstein didn't win for Halloween (there's always next year!), and I am just as shocked as you are. That said, since I have so many years of Phantom-related notes already (on the line of 10,000 words, and yes, most of those words are about how awful "Love Never Dies" is) that'll be a two-parter. A very long two-parter. It could easily fall into the Dan Carlin's Hardcore History realm of long and in-depth but I will try to show some restraint in the interest of actually finishing it this year. First part will be pre-Andrew Lloyd Webber Phantoms, second part will be post-ALW. And... both parts will probably be pretty long. Brace yourselves.
The vote for November's episode will be at the end of Phantom part 1 (yep, it's "fictionalized versions of historical figures" - I'll be really disappointed if Hitler doesn't win). I'll announce the winner/subject at the end of Phantom part 2, which will be up at the beginning of November.
Finally, I was planning on doing a Star Wars-related mini-sode for December for Episode VII as I am owned by Disney (yay vertical integration!) on Anakin Skywalker, then I realized, hey, I should probably put it to a vote. What Star Wars character would you like to see a mini-sode on? Or would you rather it be, like, a concept and do an episode on "The Force" or something? Put your suggestion in the comments! I am terrified of this because of the wacky extended universe but oh well it all got retconned out of canon so ha!
I have to fucking watch Once Upon a Time Again: (Cinderella, Snow White, The Beast, Evil Queen)
Trash hurricanes that need therapy: (Catwoman, Gollum, Heathcliff, The Phantom of the Opera, Hannibal Lecter)
Concepts: (The First Female President, Robot Who Wants to be Human, Mother Goddess, Monkey Sidekick to Lonely Child)
People Who actually Existed that got Fictionalized: (George Washington, Julius Caesar, Elvis, Hitler, Queen Elizabeth, Richard Nixon)
Or... other?
Just promise not to do the "but you forgot version...!" thing like you did with Death. I didn't forget. I made selections, because this show is not a comprehensive list of all versions ever or it would be hours long. Kay? Kay.
Because I've been getting a lot of requests for X-mens, the next episode will be about an X-mens character. So choose one (1) X-mens in the comments, and I will pick three for y'alls to vote on for episode 8. The only restriction is that the character must appear in X-men: Apocalypse. That means no Gambit.
I will try to make this brief and not speak out of ignorance, but since I did say I was going to keep a schedule things need be known.
As you may or may not know, I have no control over League of Super Critics. If you follow the YouTube channel I share with Doug, Brad and Todd you may have noticed that there haven't been updates from any of us for a few weeks. I'm told this has something to do with ad revenue and/or being able to upload videos longer than fifteen minutes. Things filter down to me in piecemeal, but the honest truth is I don't know why exactly the channel has been put on a sort of moratorium.
Now, normally this would not be a problem except for the nature of the show - the episode needs to go up on Chez, Blip and YouTube within about a day of each other if I'm able to tally and count a goodly number of votes within a relatively short timespan - usually about two days. Meaning that the voting for Loose Canon episodes usually only spans about 72 hours, and a huge chunk of those votes come from the YouTube audience. This wasn't a problem for the next episode (King Kong) as that one was my executive decision, but this will pose a problem for future episodes that are decided by voting.
Some may ask why I don't start my own YouTube channel - well, the truth is I prefer that mine is run by Maker. There are only so many hours in the day, and I'd rather give up some control if it meant I don't have to manage Yet Another Thing, not to mention the not-inconsiderable subscriber count would be pretty impossible to rebuild on my own. However, as you can see, this is posing a problem currently, as I won't be able to post anything for the month of June as the LAST episode hasn't even been posted to YouTube.
So, as for the delay, that is the reason why. I don't know when it will be resolved. For the time being I intend to continue to stick with LoSC, but if this continues to be an issue I may have to explore other avenues. One way or the other, Kong will go up in July, and hopefully by that time it will be mirrored on YouTube.
I know you don’t really do games, but consider mentioning the Sims’ Death. He’s also HUGE on the tumblrs and has quirky personality.
For comics, Marvel has regular Death as just like typical grim reaper guy, but Eternity comics had Lady Death who is a human-turned-lord-of-hell. might be nice to get more ladies in there even though I personally think she shouldn’t count (like I think Dead Like Me shouldn’t count :P)
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There is only one god, and that is death. And what do we say to the god of death? Lots of stuff.
The anthropomorphic personification of Death was a staple in western culture long before he she or it appeared in modern media. And of all of the anthropomorphic personifications of concepts, Death is by far the most common.
But why Death? Seldom see personifications for Birth or the Theory of Relativity, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Few things in life are harder to cope with than death, so an easy fictive way to deal with something is to give it... a face. And a motivation. And lo, the death personification is born.
Though Death's modus operandi gets squirrely from depiction to depiction - some just take the souls and don't make the death happen, like Discworld and Dead Like Me, some do. Some make some death happen but not all death, are fueled by it. Some like it, some don't. Often they don't know what follows.
A major thrust in the death personifications as a narrative device is hubris vs. inevitability. Death as a concept is a hard thing to come to terms with, and in fiction we often see characters trying to find ways to weasel their way out of it by pleading with this personification or trying to strike a deal or just avoid it altogether.
Sometimes death him or herself gets a character arc, but for the most part stories with death the character aren't about death, but about who's confronting them.
So unlike, say, Captain America or Starscream, this concept is extremely broad and the characterization is extremely varied in interpretation.
Personification of Death - means of coping with the mere concept of mortality. Something you can fight, something you can be okay with, sometimes even a friend.
So since this character and this topic is so... broad, instead of doing it chronologically like I usually do I'm going to do it a little different.
...as we take a merry jaunt through some of the many pop culture iterations... of Death.
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Let's talk about the history of the death personification -
OG Death
In Greek mythology, for instance, Hades was the Lord of the Dead but Thanatos was death itself. First we must distinguish Death personification from gods like Hades or Osiris or Hel - death related, but not personifications. They look after the spirits of the dead, they don't make the death happen.
The traditional image of Death nowadays is that of a dude in a large billowing black cloak, and usually with a scythe. Which, ironically, is an agricultural tool, and therefore associated with life, although, like a farmer, he is here to take away. The first attested use of the term "the Grim Reaper" was in 1847, hence the scythe - he reaps souls.
This archetype is the most recognized and therefore the most common in the west. In some ways the archetypal grim reaper is a distillation of centuries and centuries of folklore in the same way the Wicked Witch of the West was for the European witch archetype, but in others, not so much. Which leads us to one of the most important questions we can ask about Death...
so is Death a dude or what?
Greek mythology being so influential on Western culture, Thanatos is male, and though mysterious is not considered evil, and also has his counterpart considered female. and his most well known myth is that of king sisyphus tricking him into getting chained up so no one can die. His eventual punishment was the whole pushing boulder up a hill for eternity thing.
This is the origin for many narratives involving tricking death, outwitting death, etc
(bill & ted: melvin death)
Although keres, who is the spirit of VIOLENT death, is female. And, yes, she's more on the evil.
One of the most influential versions of death is the least defined - this being the Christian version as mentioned in the book of Revelation -
He rides a pale horse, and hell followed with him - well, actually, Hades - remember how the Bible had some translation wonk, which we went over back in the Hades episode? This is that.
Continuity!
Because traditional Death personifications vary a lot from culture to culture, just as much as they do from narrative to narrative.
The Grim reaper is traditionally male, though this is not the norm from culture to culture.
Usually death in the parlance of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, an "anthropomorphic personification," and usually this is in takes the form of a pale dude or a skeleton... dude. Usually. But some Deaths aren't traditionally male, or gendered, and sometimes they haven't even been human.
The most well-known instance of a non-human death embodiment is Cù Sìth of Scotland, which is a black dog one sees right before they die.
In Irish mythology we see the - dullahan, which is more of a species unto itself, kind of like leprechauns - head tucked under his or her arm. Have spinewhips?
In Japan the term is shinigami, though what actually constitutes the shinigami and whether or not a shinigami is actually a death personification varies a lot. We'll come back to that.
Sometimes the gender of the nouns (because, unlike English, some languages gender their nouns) plays into how Death is personified. Poland - grim reaper is female as the word for death in Polish is feminine.
Marzanna - Slavic mythology
Death was traditionally female in Lithuania, Spain, France and some Slavic regions up until the 19th & 20th century. Death could be old, young, beautiful, seductive, sometimes dangerous
Lithuania - Giltiné - old, ugly woman with a long blue nose and a poisonous tongue.
In India Yama is the lord of death, but in the Mahabharata - Death created by Brahma to deal with overpopulation and is a... sexy lady with lots of bling.
the queen of the Aztec underworld Mictlan - bear with me... Mictecacihuatl? - Queen of Mictlan, & Mictlantecuhtli - watch over the bones of the dead - eventual marriage to Catholicism & Spanish traditions = Day of the Dead. Some traditions she still presides over contemporary festivals.
A similar related figure is that of Santa Muerte, who, though not recognized by the catholic is the unofficial patron saint of LGbt community. And Mariachi players. Recently Mexico’s second most popular Saint behind Saint Jude. She's seen as a comforting figure, one who guides you into death, welcomes you your eternal home.
Santa Muerte - folk saint - controversial figure - associated with safe delivery to the afterlife - Catholic church (officially) does not like her. She is not canonized. - - and she isn’t even canonized. Devotees = mostly female - she's a comforting figure
Modern Grim Reaper is mostly influenced by England and Germany, where he's called ein Schnitter, not eine Schnitterin - unlike English, where there is no feminine for the word "reaper".
matriarchal societies vs. patriarchal societies - agrarian vs. hunting/warring - can't really draw a consistent parallel
Dances of Death - danse macabre
Breton - Ankou - spirit of the last person who died in the community
Scandinavia - Hel - also a goddess - like Hades, shares a name with her domain
India - Yama - lord of death - rides a black buffalo (remember, in India cows sacred, buffalo not so much) & lassos the living.
Chinese - Yánluó ruled the underworld. Derivative of Yama, like Pluto was from Hades (source?) - wears traditional Chinese judge cap & traditional Chinese robes
Cultures like Scandinavia are still well known in western culture, but not so *embedded*.
Gerhardy Hauptmann - the white savior?
Hebrew bible - Job 5:26, Jer 9:21
Baba Yaga?
In some mythologies, the Grim Reaper actually causes the victim's death by coming to collect them
others - doesn't cause death, but is a guide to the next world,
Conclusion - the cultures that most directly influenced western culture (i.e. Greek, Christian) had death personified as male, therefore male = default.
[death as a thing that can be bargained with]
So Death as a function in narrative - most common is that you can maybe talk death out of doing his job.
It's interesting that Death is very rarely the villain
So, all this is ambling up to one of the most popular modern iterations of death, who comes in the form of a young woman in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.
In the vein of Santa Muerte she is also a caring, nurturing presence in Dream’s life - he’s the series protagonist -
This Death is a bit more completionist, as she also visits people as they are born.
Appreciates life, appreciates the point of life, is merciful. There's nothing cruel about her, unlike Dream, who's usually an asshole and likes to fuck with your minds.
And contrary to popular belief, she is NOT based on Tori Amos.
Marvel death - another of the rare female versions.
Thanos has a huge death-boner - "I'm going to give you all of the death, and then you'll like me."
Neil Gaiman's version mostly subverts all of the popular character fThe most popular narrative purpose is Death what gets bargained with.
Death off with bribery or tricks, as in the case of Sisyphus, where this trope originates. Obvious this didn't pan out too well for Sisyphus so let's see how it pans out in modern media.
The Seventh Seal
The Seventh Seal, directed by Ingmar Bergman, may be the most well-known and influential works starring death as a main character. It takes place during the black plague after a Swedish soldier gets back from the Crusades.
The chronology for this totally doesn't work. Just go with it.
Antonius, played by Max Von Sydow, meets Death on the beach, and easily talks Death into a game of chess for his life.
Antonius himself says he got the idea from folk stories. According to Bergman, the man playing chess with a skeletal Death was inspired by a medieval church painting from the 1480s in Täby kyrka, Täby, north of Stockholm, painted by Albertus Pictor.
But why is Antonius so eager to cheat death?
“Life is a preposterous horror. No man can live faced with Death, knowing everything’s nothingness.” - ding ding ding
Antonius was never too keen on the whole religion thing, but faced with Death, he is not willing to go down without knowing, you know, what’s it all about.
Death waffles back and forth between darkly comic and gruesome and heavily existential. There's one point where hr shows up to collect some other guy, and he tries to talk Death out of it. Casually, though. Like he's asking for an extension for filing his taxes.
In the end he loses the game, and Death comes for not only him later, but his whole entourage. All of whom react differently to meeting death. Antonius at long last prays, Lisa & husband are nervous but placating, Jons is catty and snippy, and this girl, whose life has been pretty awful, is downright happy to see him.
3:45 “I am Death”
20:46 - “I want god to unconver his face and speak to me.”
22:30 - chess tactics
31:50 - “I saved you from death so you owe me”
1:08 - guy in tree tries to ask for, like, a tax exemption
1:17:30 - “our fears and hers are the same”
1:23 - nothing escapes me
1:32 - reactions to death
Jof sees danse macabre - 1:35
Last Action Hero
This version of death shows again up in Last Action Hero, the entire conceit of which is film characters coming to life. Someone’s watching seventh seal and then whoop, there he is, now played by Ian McKellen and oh my GOD he so Ian McKellen. He seems to just be there to fuck with our heroes. Though he does give the kid some helpful advice.
“he’s not on any of my lists”
Adventure Time
The influence of Seventh Seal reaches far… we see playing against death again in... Adventure Time - which carries also flavors of the myth of Orpheus where our heroes venture into the underworld to bring back his wife. I mean a plant that Finn was tasked with babysitting. And immediately killed.
So like the Seventh Seal, Finn loses and all hope seems lost, but unlike Seventh Seal Finn manages to talk his way out of dying because he and Death happen to have a mutual friend.
When it comes to pop culture adaptations, it’s rare that you see seventh seal-like endings.
Another obvious example is Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, the second entry to the Bill & Ted saga.
- "how's it hangin' death?"
Bill & Ted spend over half of this movie dead owing to robot clones from the future going back in time to kill them.
- "I can't believe we just melvin'd death"
Bill and Ted spend fair chunk of movie meandering through the afterlife before actually getting around to playing him for their lives.
First, battleship. and then Clue because death is a sore loser and then electronic football, and finally, twister
- How much did you pay for this high profile product placement, Milton Bradley?
- "You got a lot to learn about sportsmanship"
Death is obligated to sneak Bill & Ted into heaven to talk god into giving them their lives back.
- "Sorry... they melvin'd me"
- death looks like brain guy more than any other incarnation of death
- is this a first for Death?
- death is extremely beleaguered when he loses.
- why are they dragging death around? he's not helping, he just tags along for some reason
- cigarette smoking guy "see you real soon"-
Curiously they don't lose Death after he does his job, but he... and some alien engineers, tag along to help Bill and Ted save their girlfriends and win the battle of the bands. So this is one of the more complete character arcs we see for Death.
And at first death he’s all insecure because he life, but then he finds meaning in joining the band as a bassist AND melvining the bad guy.
- death is so shocked at "We're gonna kill your girlfriends!"
- "Reaper Rap new planetary craze"
- serial killer: "sooner or later you dance with the reaper"
This line would become famous in the way Helter Skelter did. In that it was later the last words of convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris
?????
Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy
Another in the vein of playing against death and winning we have the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, in which the two leads challenge the Grim Reaper to a game when he comes to claim their hamster. When Death loses the game, he must become their "best friend forever", though "slave" is a more accurate description, (pause) which is kind of awkward as Billy and Mandy appear to be white americans and Grim has a Jamaican accent.
When the grim reaper appeared to take their hamster's soul, Billy and Mandy made a bet with the ghoul and won. Now, Grim is forced to be their best friend -- a punishment filled with humiliation for the once-omnipotent entity.
The entire series is basically Billy and Mandy forcing Grim to do their bidding while Grim bemoans his horrible lot in life.
In the 90’s and early 2000’s there was a popular trend of child characters getting the better of authority figures, most successful being animaniacs, only instead of like… michaelangelo or the security guard or dr. scratchnsniff it’s… death.
3:20 - I’m just doing my job 10:32 - covers his junk, “I feel so violated”
animaniacs -
this show is impossible to like as an adult because you’re going to relate to grim
2A - :35 “I hate playing with the two of you” 3:20 - “I play with them til my eyes bleed” “let’s go torture the grim reaper”
he doesn’t know how the video game controller works
s3e1 - 2:52 - tortured s3e2 15:00 - “how I despise my rotten lot in life”
youth-oriented media and comedies, for whom the idea of Death is kind of distant, when there’s a game or a competition against death, our heroes are going to win.
Family Guy
“death is a bitch” - “I’m callista flockheart, who do you think I am, I’m death”
Death pops up in Family Guy a few times - in the first episode by Norm McDonald, then in all other appearances by Adam Carolla. First time he shows up is in an episode where peter fakes his death, which in turn makes death decide it's time to come collect him, but when he sprains his ankle, Peter has to fill in for him.
Peter gets out of it, and Death shows up on occasion to answer existential questions… and of course make seth macfarlane jokes.
Death has a mother?
“peter it’s okay, it’s just death” - death of dogs shows up
The Sims
When one of your sims dies, Death shows up
You can bargain with Death to revive the Sim.
You can also romance Death, and with some cheats even have sex with Death.
If you aren’t playing a game with death or making some kind of deal, maybe you’re just straight up trying to escape him.
Twilight Zone
A famous episode of the Twilight Zone features an old lady named Wanda who has started noticing death in crowds, and has spent god knows how many years holed up in her house, refusing to go outside or let anyone in.
But one day she finally does and, yep. “I know who you are.” Yep, sorry wanda, but he’s baaaaaaby Robert Redford how could you resist? He’s like… blue-steeling her.
Wanda isn’t so much bargaining death as fanatically trying to avoid him
so obsessed with avoiding death she stops going outside altogether
“I’d rather live in the dark than not live at all”
death states the obvious - “what you’re afraid of is the unknown”
winky sexy death - “give me your hand”
he’s like blue-steeling at her
“no shock, no engulfment, no tearing asunder.”
Death is such a cinnamon roll! What a great guy to transition people out of this life and into the next.
Masque of the Red Death
1964's Masque of the Red Death, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story of the same name, features another group of people holing up to avoid death, only this death is not such a cinnamon roll.
This is just any death, but a very specific plague. In fact, new to this version, there appear to be a whole rainbow of deaths! Black death, yellow death, green death - it's a death Rainbow Brigade. This movie stars the deliciously hammy Vincent Price both as the evil, heartless ... Satanist? Prince Prospero, and also, eventually, as the red death himself.
The original story takes place during a horrible plague wherein a bunch of rich folks hide in their castle while a the red death ravages the peasantry.
But whereas the Prince and his fellow rich folk in the original story just ignore the suffering, Vincent Price’s Prospero takes it a giant leap further and is a satanist and a sadist. A satandist. A Sadtist
Less a case of trying to bargain with death and more mistaken identity - since Prospero thinks Death is Satan he assumes he’s there to do him a favor rather than kill everyone, which is of course not the case.
Moral of the movie, like the original story, is don’t bother, death conquers all. But with a weird Satanist angle also. For… reasons.
1:21 there appear to be many deaths - black death, yellow death, red death
52:57 - he pops back up again
1:12 - talks to vincent price
vincent price thinks he’s satan and he’s like yaaaay
1:17:04 - death is ruled by no one
ohhhhhh it’s vincent price
1:20:20 - “Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long time”
1:22:21 -
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Death is a major backstory player in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where he pops up in Hermione's telling of how our macguffins came into existence.
Here Death feels cheated when three wizard brothers evade a dangerous river that usually killed people - so he told them he’d grant them some wishes in a sort of deal with the devil setup.
numbers one and two die because of their arrogance, but brother three evades death, you know, for a while, but of course not forever since valar morghulis.
Weird that he'd "greet death as a friend" since death gamed the system like that. Maybe he thought his two brothers were dicks, too.
Final Destination Series
The death feels cheated motif is more central to the plot in the Final Destination series - death gets cheated out of Devon Sawa and some classmates of his due to a premonition. Here death falls on the less human end, more of a devious translucent swoosh than a legit personification, but Death is an antagonist that schemes and has a presence so I'm counting... it. So the entirety of the final destinations is the cast dying in spectacularly silly ways. (RGH getting slammed with a car). Throughout the series some of the characters manage to contrive some ways to escape death's plan, but for the most part the theme is that you can't cheat death.
Of course there are times when people don’t even bother.
Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
Monty Python’s Meaning of Life follows in the Douglas Adamsian tradition of exploring human existence through absurdism. The joke being about people’s inability to face uncomfortable truths.
This is a common theme in comedy from the UK.
“darling, you didn’t use canned salmon, did you?” “I’m so dreadfully embarrassed”
But this is not to say that Death doesn’t have opinions.
“You always talk, you americans”
“englishmen you’re all so fucking pompous, none of you have got any balls”
Anyway, on to the afterlife.
Another popular concept in recent years is that of there being a bunch of reapers on a payroll and death being this big bureaucratic enterprise.
Death the Bureaucracy
Dead Like Me
In Dead Like Me, the dead sometimes become grim reapers and it’s treated like a mind-numbing nine to five, playing what amounts to indentured servitude as a bad temp agency.
Reapers don’t appear to have much in the way of powers, they just take the souls. Things called gravelings appear to do the work of killing.
It has... aspirations of cleverness.
*facepalm*
Yeah I know a lot of you guys love this show I just… … ??
black butler
We see a similar style organization in the anime Black Butler, this one much more explicitly bureaucratic with an almost men-in-blacky way of going about things.
story of will the reaper - "IT'S ONly a job - there is no place for joy in a job"
These reapers were never human, and when people die, the reapers collect the souls and the souls come out like celluloid - this being all their memories.
They each get a scythe, often anachronistic, like the celluloid so just roll with it.
Also this guy is the most popular of the reaper characters by a lot.
Sebastian, like Pratchett death, also has a cat thing
wench 19:19 "I'm the very queen of fruits! the ripest of reapers, yes!"
Oh, Japan. And no this isn’t just coding, this guy has a huge crush on the titular butler. Moving on!
Deal with Death - Death has a motivation other than his job - Death learns about life via love - Death wanting to understand life
Death sometimes has motivations other than his or her job - we often see Death wanting to learn about a thing or understand a thing…
The Book Thief
In the book thief, Death wants to contextualize a life, that of Liesl, who was a German schoolgirl during WW2 and who he saw a lot in that time, since she was in Germany during WW2.
First person narrative by a character who’s not the main character, like the great gatsby or heart of darkness… and who isn’t really in the story so it’s not much like those at all
Obviously since it’s a POV thing in a story in which death is not a character AT ALL… like he doesn’t show up to give her helpful advice or make her a dress to wear to the ball or something, this works way better in the book
like seriously movie why even bother including that element
but usually death wanting to learn a thing ends up with Death... getting a girlfriend.
The Death and the Maiden motif dates back to the mid eighteenth century, and was a popular art motif.
German poet Ludwig Gleim wrote a poem called “to Death”, the basic thrust being that Gleim is mad that death is trying to steal his girls because his love interests kept dying young, so clearly it was because death had a hardon for them. He’s like brah you don't even have lips bruh, why you taking my girl.
So death and the maiden is like a distant cousin to the beauty and the beast motif, that of death as a lover. Usually the maiden isn’t afraid of him.
Death the lover - Gottfried August Buerger's ballad Lenore (1773)
Death and the Maiden - Matthias Claudius (1824) - he's friendly here (or at least consensual)
Terrifying seducer - Baldung Grien,
Munch - "The maiden and death" - he's welcomed
"Death and the young woman" - Ferdinand Barth
Gleim's poem "To Death" (Anden Tod) -
I suspect the appeal of death the lover is the same as the appeal of king kong and ann darrow
death the bride - contrast to death/maiden - corpse bride
Mother Earth/Father Time - father time often portrayed with a sickler
cocteau's play orphée 1927 - death = madame - made into film in 1949
Death Takes a Holiday - Death & the Maiden
Some wealthy idiots have a near death experience, and Death decides to stick around because he wants to know why mortals fear him, and so makes a deal with this Duke to stay with his place and eat his stuff and just jerk off for a bit. Duke is pretty chill about it.
20:45 - “can you conceive how weary I am of being misunderstood?”
“can you conceive how lonely I am?” Death starts a livejournal.
his main love interest is grazia, who seems to see marriage as a form of death - “I’m not ready”
See, all the other girls fear him, but not Grazia. So when at the end Death straight up says, no, you have to die to come with me, she’s like. No, it’s cool. I get it and I’m down.
AND SHE DOES. And it’s honestly kind of awesome. You go Death.
9:45 - grazia likes living on the edge - duke wants her to “be a good little daughter in law”
11:30 - “life will tame her first”
36:40 - he’s so happy he’s not killing the flower
Death seems pretty blase about the shirking of his duties
1:05 - Duke explains who he is in the most melodramatic way possible
1:15 - Grazia gets it, such as it were - she doesn’t fear death
1:17 - “when I call, come bravely through that shadow”
“then there is a love that casts out fear”
Death takes a holiday was agonizingly remade into...
Meet Joe Black
IT. IS. TWICE. AS. LONG. KILL ME.
In this version Anthony Hopkins successfully lobbies Death for some more time. the irony of this movie is how much it makes you long for death. (Brad Pitt - car)
This works so much better in the original because the characters are all dancing on the weird formalities of european aristocracy, so everyone’s weird, stilted behavior makes more sense.
Here it’s just…
The Monty Python scene was more realistic.
Also Death is a taunting prick.
22:05 - how was this meant to be anything but hilarious. also he was crossing for like a full 90 seconds without a walk sign. Darwin award.
43:35 - peanut butter scene
right off this would be a lot better if anthony hopkins had been the love interest, because he’s the one that goes with Death at the end, because it’s his time.
The maiden does NOT follow death into the great beyond. So on top of being agonizingly long and boring this one is less awesome.
I saved the best for last, as I think few would argue that Terry Pratchett’s Death ... the Death of… … there is no good way to phrase that.
THE BELOVED CHARACTER created by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld series, not only the most fleshed out, so to speak, but a combination of all of the above.
Death has appeared in every Discworld novel, though he was a main character only in five of them. He does the occasional “play games with you for your life” thing, was originally a more sinister presence but by the time he was a lead character, he had a more sympathetic and humorous personality.
Horse is named Binky because it’s a “nice name.”
Has an adopted daughter?? Ysabell said that "He didn't feel sorry for me, he never feels anything... He probably thought sorry for me."
This is in no way supported in the narrative as Death feels LOTS of stuff. he plot of Soul Music is put into motion by Death’s ennui.
His "voice" is often described using a morbid metaphor, such as two concrete blocks being rubbed together, or the slamming of coffin lids;
Maskerade - Granny Weatherwax successfully plays against death for a child’s life, granny has four queens, death concedes with four ones (aces).
Death’s jurisdiction is over Discworld - part (or minion) of Azrael, universal death
Death of rats, Grim Squeaker -created during reaper man, Death kept him around for company
death of fleas
Discworld books with Death as a leading character, starting with Mort in 1987, are:
Mort - 1987
Reaper Man - 1991
Soul Music - 1994
Hogfather - 1996
Thief of Time - 2001
As such, translations of early novels sometimes refer to Death as a woman. This is generally changed, by the time of Reaper Man. Also, the personification of Death varies from country to country leading to further confusion, for example the Russian personification is that of an old woman, the Czech version uses a (normally non-existent) male variant of the usually female word for death for his name. Explanations are given in footnotes, often with a pun.[7]
Terry Pratchett even says in The Art of Discworld that he has received a number of letters from terminally ill fans in which they hope that Death will resemble the Discworld incarnation (he also says that those particular letters usually cause him to spend some time staring at the wall).
This one isn't a paid post as it is a) a mini-sode and b) I didn't announce it ahead of time, but is up early for the day just for you guys. The full episode on Death will be up next week.
Password is: "stuff"
So although I gave myself an executive decision for every 5th episode, it's still not hard and fast (believe it or not), and I have not quite yet decided who will be tackled after Death. So I'm curious - based on your knowledge of my interests, media available and the format of the show, what is a character you'd like to see me cover?
Loose Canon: Captain America -
Sources & further reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States-themed_superheroeshttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_propaganda_comics#Private_corporations
Captain America: The United States versus Itself, Through the Eyes of a Wartime Fictional Hero
http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Captain_America.htmhttp://www.academia.edu/6702300/How_did_major_comic_books_attempt_to_influence_American_perceptions_of_Nazi_Germany_and_Japan_during_World_War_2http://splashpage.mtv.com/2011/07/25/captain-america-the-first-avenger-comics-guide/
How is Captain America not a massive racist? - http://the-toast.net/2014/08/13/history-lesson-captain-america-fandom/http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/10/steven-attewell-steve-rogers-isnt-just-any-hero
Captain America hates America! http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2492/because-he-fought-alongside
Man of steel - Pentagon propaganda flic
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/man_of_steel_pentagon_propaganda_flic_partner/
Pentagon Quit the avengers because of its ‘Unreality’
http://www.wired.com/2012/05/avengers-military/
Who’s strong and brave, and here to save the american way?
Captain America is not the first character that was created literally for American war propaganda, but he is certainly the most enduring and most well-known. Hugely popular during the war, Cap came back to the Marvel fold in 1964 and has been a mainstay of Marvel comics ever since.
The war ended, but the character moved on became a character in his own right, and at the same time a constantly evolving statement on the personification of America.
So for most of Captain America’s existence, he was NOT punching Hitler in the face. So, over his many iterations over the years, how has his America-ness influenced his depictions?
Steve Rogers, Captain America is kind of the tofu of American superheros; he takes on the flavor of not only the time in which he is being written but also whoever is writing him, Steve Rogers aka Captain America is an ever-changing reflection of American ideals. Blindly patriotic Hitler-puncher? Check. Anti-government dissident? He’s been that, too. Jingoistic France-hater? He has, unfortunately been that as well. But most often he has been the defender of the defenseless, regardless of what country they hail from.
Because that’s what America does. Right? Riiiiight?
Before the recent Captainssance courtesy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in the mainstream, Captain America was more shorthand for a blind, comically patriotic person.
"boy captain america over here" - men in black
But is that really representative of the character, whose mythology stretches back over seventy years?
Propaganda
So let’s talk propaganda.
The superhero genre was only about three years old when Cap punched his way onto the scene - Action Comics #38 and the invention of Superman - a character that also got drafted into the propaganda effort, so to speak - came three years prior.
So in 1941 Timely comics, which would be rebranded as Marvel comics about twenty years later (source?), released Captain America #1.
Captain america comics were sent in huge numbers to american troops overseas. In contrast to the jaded troops we see in the 2011 film, Captain America comics were actually super popular and effective at boosting morale.
Because Steve Rogers had no defining character traits to speak of, troops saw themselves in Cap, and the kids back home saw themselves in Bucky Barnes, Captain America’s young… ward… such as it were. He’s basically Robin, and yeah, it’s a little creepy.
Captain America’s enemies were rarely real world enemies, Red Skull being the most popular and enduring, but they were coded in the same way that other flavors of propaganda colored the enemy: animalistic, weak, evil, alien and feminine.
Steve, in contrast, is strong, pure, and masculine. He has no interest in the underlying cause of the conflicts, like all comic heroes of the day, he just knows that punching faces will solve the problem forever.
the first we ever see of Captain America is of him famously punching hitler in the face. an image lampshaded almost seventy years later in his first... REAL feature film adaptation.
But, also remarkable is the fact that his signature weapon is and has always been a shield. the shield - sometimes even has the constitution written behind it
cap represented a collective ideal as well as an individual one - he is literally the embodiment of an ideal.
an ideal, that like the man himself, is completely fictional. The most simplistic of all possible patriotic embodiments, while fluidly ignoring all of the more unpalatable aspects of the American identity.
Steve Rogers, an American born from Irish immigrant parents on July 4th, 1917 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York.
There has actually been a lot of recent scholarship as to the type of New York that Steve would have grown up with, but, again, Steve wouldn’t get a solid backstory or personality traits until later.
unlike other, propaganda comics, Cap is an explicit agent and creation of the US military
After the serum he’s the blonde aryan Nietszchiean ubermensch - and this was intentional. Deliberate send up of Hitler’s racial science - America’s ubermensch is made, not bred, a physically disabled and malnourished kid from a poor working class background. Also the German-Jewish defector scientist who creates steve was also there from day one - a thinly veiled reference to Einstein. And normally this sort of frankenstein story is a cautionary tale, but it works out fine for Steve.
Yeah we got your ubermench and HE DOESN'T LIKE YOU HITLER
In a way Cap is the anti-superman - where Clark is midwestern, Steve is Urban
Jewish scientist was an element from day one
Steve is created by Dr. Reinstein, a very thinly veiled allusion to the real story of Albert Einstein.
In a matter of speaking, Steve is the a-bomb before the Americans got the real deal up and running. But he is the best a-bomb he can be!
1944 serial
Grant Gardner
slight paunch, real boring
ep 1 15:04 “lyman’s dynamic vibrator” tee hee
There was an anti-communist Cap in the 50’s, but that didn’t go well. I’m kind of surprised they even bothered to retcon him, but they did.
the 1944 Republic serial, while technically Captain America, was most likely based on Fawcett Comics' Mr. Scarlet, as it sticks to the basics of Scarlet's source material and has practically no hint of Captain America's.
As a character, he is… flat as a pancake. But then, pretty much all comic characters from the 40’s were
The only thing that makes OG remarkable is the propagandistic nature of his… self, and how popular he was. And also the sheer number of times he punched hitler.
Characters resembled character types rather than actual characterization.
later versions of Cap where he is more of a character, less genericized. The fact that he is an artist, studies the fine arts - probably surrounded by communists, Jews, anti-fascists.
When Steve signs up to fight, it isn’t out of a blind loyalty. He’s not just pro-American, he’s anti-fascist. Nazism poses an existential threat to the America he believed in.
This is reflected in his rationale in the movie. It isn’t out of blind loyalty, but because he “doesn’t like bullies”
Cap didn't work well in the post-war context.. Unlike superman who didn't have the very specific defeat-hitler reason for being, Captain America, being defined by America, became a little lost.
in the 1950's, comics were being born down on with the emergence of studies on the effects of mass media on children - comics created the CCA as a monitoring agent rather than letting the govt. do it for them at the height of the McCarthy era. Somehow this results in cap being rebranded as "commie-smasher". Yeah.
This version didn't do too well, and would eventually get retconned as not-Steve Rogers.
The REAL Steve rogers, according to the comics timeline, disappeared with Bucky Barnes in 1944. Neither body is found, both are presumed dead.
Return of Captain America (1966) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnTP8NX_DQo
some charming proto-he-man animation going on here - pretty much a verbatim retelling of what happened in the comic
Originally they got rid of bucky because they wanted to get rid of the kid sidekick thing
this animation is amazing
It’s kind of amazing that bucky didn’t come back until the original winter soldier arc … in 2005
Return & The Avengers - 1964 onwards
An intentional contrast to DC comics and their old guard - The nascent Marvel comics leads skew younger, like the readership, and also more diverse and socially conscious. y'know... for the 60's... for comics in the 60s
rather than just revamping him, they take a more rip van winkle approach - he's a man out of time, his hey day was the black and white patriotic bombast of the 40's, only to be awakened during the social turmoil of the 60's
this unfrozen caveman lawyer approach would set the stage for pretty much every captain america adaptation from here on out. Cap also has one of the more homogenous origin stories so strap in, we’re about to see a lot of white dudes get thawed out.
from here on out Captain America finally has a defining character trait! Being the man out of time, and reconciling his identity as an american icon with the changing times.
Since the 60's Cap has been a mainstay of the avengers, usually in a leadership position. He also always had his own books - this is where partners with marvel's first african american superhero african AMERICAN. Black panther is not American. Sam Wilson aka the falcon. In fact for most of the 70's the book was rebranded as Captain America and the Falcon.
And how does cap spend his days in the 70's? Why, patrolling harlem with the falcon and helping keep the kids off the streets! It is FABULOUS.
Steve's relationship with his title became tenuous at times He sits vietnam out altogether - instead begins to sympathize with people acting against america's interests.- after Marvel's watergate equivalent Steve resigns as Captain America and becomes Nomad, the "man without a country" - that's how hard he goes.
‘ - the occasional existential crisis - "looking for america, but can't find her" (cap 176 - 83, 122)
He resigns AGAIN during the reagan administration, and his replacement embodies a different american ideal. His jingoistic attitude that reflects a large segment of American Culture during Reagan’s administration (1981-1989), embodied by other fictional characters such as the movie hero ‘Rambo’ (1982, 1985, 1988).
When Cap reassumes his alter-ego - he decides Captain America identity is a symbol of America’s ideals rather than of its government.
So it's not fair to say Steve's character didn't change since the 40's - he has his ideals, and they are pretty specific.
For a good chunk of the 70’s the Falcon is even in the title of the series and it’s Cap and the Falcon, fightin’ crime on the mean streets of harlem
137 - steve joking w/ falcon: “ want me to think you’re a racist?”
Steve becomes an NYPD officer - mostly just wants to keep the kids off the street
Sam Wilson's love interest calls him an Uncle Tom. She then (correctly) accuses him of being a chauvinist. He forces her to kiss him anyway. Oh, also the Red Skull and a bunch of Nazis are in charge of the militant Black Power movement. Because of course they are.
Red Skull at one point pulls a lex luthor, becomes a wealthy businessman and in that way infiltrates America's economy - what we'd see
“Dresden. You didn’t understand what we’d done here until September the Eleventh. These people weren’t soldiers. They huddled in the dark. Trapped.”
To make the comic’s star-spangled superhero appeal to an antiwar youth audience, Englehart took on the duality and contradictions not only of the comic book superhero, but of America itself. During his first four issues (Nos. 153-156)
Captain America: The New Deal, v.4 #5, 2003.
Captain America v.4 #11, 2003:
“I remember a time when it was easy to feel pride in this ‘country’. When ‘this’ country celebrated the victories of its loyal soldiers. When ‘this’ country was my country right or wrong. And most of the time it was right. But times have changed, haven’t they? The battles are less clear, the wars less noble, the cause less right, even in the shadow of 9/11. Dark men with a ‘cause’ come at us like thieves in the night. Men who consider their ‘cause’ noble. Men who consider their cause ‘holy’. Men whose ideals carry power, and weight, and substance and make us seem wrong, but whose actions, reprehensible and vile, make murderers look right. This government can be wrong. Our politics can be flawed. We are, after all, a complex system run by human beings.”
1979
After the success of The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman CBS thought, hey, who else can we make a super-hero show out of? And what more obvious a choice to capture late 70’s disillusionment with the US and economic ennui than Captain America?
CBS ended up commissioning TWO TV movies and while the first one is considerably worse than the second, due mostly to the presence of a slumming Christopher Lee, they’re both pretty bad.
http://twitchfilm.com/2011/10/marvel-in-the-1970s-dr-strange-and-captain-america.html
Steve Rogers is played by former USC football player, and future Big McLargeHuge Reb Brown. He is a not a soldier. In fact I’m not sure what he is really other than like... an easy rider.
the most relaxing Captain America intro you’re going to find
Ten minutes into the movie I couldn't really can’t tell if Steve is post-serum or not.
As it begins, not sure that you aren’t accidentally watching a porno.
What kind of a car crash leaves no damage to your person but does damage your shirt. Seriously, ten minutes into the movie I couldn't tell whether steve is supposed to be post-serum or not. He is pre-huge.
Steve is… really dumb. But then I’m not sure Reb Brown is capable of playing anything but really dumb.
“Man, I don’t need this.”
“I know you asked me to do something, but I’d kind of rather do nothing.”
“I just want to ride around, man. It’s the 70’s. We don’t even care about the Cold War anymore, we just ignore it!”
The SECOND time he drives off a cliff, turns out it’s maybe gonna be a problem. They 6 million dollar man him. So this one goes down as the only version where his injection is nonconsensual.
then eventually he adopts the moniker because his father embodied the american ideals… really a lot… somehow.
“a rather deadly weapon” … watch it gently glide into the breezy summer afternoon
you’d do more damage if you threw your keys
It’s a … motorcycle helmet. And a track suit.
“I want to look the way he did.” Because….
For reasons that I'm sure made sense at the time, CBS mandated that the film not be too close to the comics, and the result has only resembles Captain America in that he's the product of a drug experiment. and they are trying to make the “captain America” thing work and it just lands with a thud.
You know son… there was a reason people… maybe made fun of your dad
post helicopter - “just how much gain can it be?” worst line read
This Steve embodies the American ideals by being lazy and noncommittal
1990 - Captain America
From the director Cyborg, Nemesis, and... Cyborg Nemesis
So the studio commissioned this sucker, and when it was done they took one look at it and went NOPE, we are not releasing that.
Starring Matt Salinger of... uh... JD Salinger's son fame, this starts not with cap's childhood backstory but red skull's
Red Skull is italian, for I have a feeling the same financial reason Final Justice was set in malta.
And Steve is from Redondo beach, because they couldn't get a permit to shoot in brooklyn?
Like Reb brown he is also pre-huge, this was before we could cg people smaller so steve appears to have a foot thing in lieu of being small and sickly
"It's just that I love you!" I love you too lamp
"why's he the best?" shut up, phil he just is
and after the procedure he looks exactly the same
"HEIL HITLER" hey, at least it's Nazis in this movie
mentor figure we've barely met dies
"he's our only hope doctor" what about that nuclear bomb we've been working on, heard maybe we've been making progress on that front
And when Salinger does put on the costume makes you really appreciate the effort they went to in the new movies to make that costume not look ridiculous
his shield is clearly just a sled
And on his first mission he ... fails utterly and immediately - last hope huh?
red skull: "i could be president of the united states" we have laws against that actually
in action for, cumulitively, a day and then failed utterly as far as they know
red skull killed jfk and mlk - classy
historic fuckup found in ice
so that's why they made red skull so young - so he could be like a threatening old italian in the 80's - 1990 was basically the 80's okay?
president sends his chunk friend ned beatty instead of secret service... military... cia... to alaska....
he's captain america alright.
This is not the only time he steals a car in this film, by the by.
takes him this long to accept it? well in fairness the 40's he came from looked exactly like the 80's
It also contains the best shot ever in an action scene - kids playing ball in the middle of the road
. he's more like captain team america
"not going to blow it this time" like every other time
most of captain america takes place in italy
in fairness that is also true of the other one, but it was set during ww2, which did not take place in america
legit rubber ears
also, the martin luther king estate ok'd this, but not the speeches for selma
Like all the crappy captain america things, the fact that he's captain america is completely incidental - he's just random superhero guy. The America aspect is left to the wayside
you know how batman is batman because, like, he is the night?
he's captain america in that he's a xenophobic asshole who steals cars
Ultimates
The Ultimates … ….. ….
I’m not entirely sure why the Ultimate universe exists outside of ultimate spider-man aka the good one besides to make Nick Fury look like Samuel L Jackson. Ultimate spider-man aka the good one featured an aged down peter to run concurrent with the movies, which, fine. But for the likes of ultimate x-men and the ultimates, a “more realistic, gritty” approach was the intent here.
The Ultimates was intended to be a more realistic and gritty reboot of marvel. Only… the main universe kind of had that covered. This sort of thing was running concurrent to the likes of Grant Morrison’s New X-men so… in order to REALLY differentiate itself the Ultimate universe had to go out there to the point where it often slingshots WAY around realistic.
Enter Mark Millar, patron saint of angry 13 year old boys.
There’s one early issue of Ultimate X-men where Magneto strips george w bush naked and makes him lick Magneto’s boooooots.
So. The Ultimates takes the personality traits of the avengers and makes them extreeeeeme. Hank Pym is a SUPER domestic abuser and Tony Stark is a SUPER alcoholic and the hulk is a would-be rapist who eats people…. so EXTREEEME. Except, oddly, captain America. Who is basically the post-9/11 embodiment of many people's american ideal. It was … it was a rough time.
Ultimate Captain America is less an extreeeeeme version of the guy in 616 and more a logical alternative. I say “logical” in that some people have said, “hey, wouldn’t a guy from the 40’s be kind of a jingoistic, belligerent prick?”
This version of Steve hangs out at the old folks home - Bucky survived the war and is one of Steve’s only friends - and he is also openly religious. He also… goes to fight Iraq. … … I guess it had to happen at some point.
And he also hits people while they’re defenseless and starts fights when he’s angry. He later murders his enemies after they are beaten and defenseless.
That guy proclaimed himself to be the middle eastern alternative to captain america. Awkward.
Here’s where the idealism dies.
“A stand for france” Ultimates also gives us probably the most infamous and not in a good way frame of Captain America in all of the comics. And it gets a fuuuuuull page, too.
If you weren’t in America post-9/11… well… the France thing…
And, no, I don’t think it was meant to be parodic as Millar spends an entire panel in the next issue congratulating himself on what a funny joke that was.
The most post-9/11 thing that ever post-9/11. You HAD to know that wasn’t going to age well, Mark Millar.
Personally I don’t think someone for whom fighting alongside the french resistance was only a few months ago would be towing the party line of freedom fries, but hey.
straight out of World War 2 would become unfrozen, look at the war and Iraq and go, yep, that looks legit, clearly these situations are equal and deserve my time and super soldier-ness unless they were indeed a blind nationalistic zealot.
And Millar isn’t even American. What is your deal, dude?
Iraq war-era politics complete with the anti-french witticisms of the day.
It’s not a completely unfair interpretation, and there is something interesting about the idea of Steve being genuinely unable to relate to anyone under the age of 80 and IN FAIRNESS by the end Steve decides that going abroad to fight for the US instead of fighting for the world is a bad thing. But Steve Rogers, French-hater, is dumb no matter which way you cut it.
This version of Captain America doesn’t care if we’ve lived up to the ideals of the greatest generation.
Marvel’s 1602
Marvel’s 1602 was a one-off miniseries written by Neil Gaiman, the basic thrust being that the events of the marvel universe took place 400 years earlier, and centering around the Roanoake colony and Virginia Dare.
Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Steven Rogers is her Native American bodyguard Rojhaz. The Native American part is sort of handwaved away with oh.. some welschmen must have gotten fresh with one of the native women. But where all of the other characters are actually of their time, albeit mutants, Doctors strange and so on, turns out that Rojhaz is the ACTUAL captain America who was sent back in time from a future fascist America. And it’s Steve’s presence in the past that causes some rift in the universe and also makes it so the heroes of his time appear 400 years earlier. So he’s gotta go back to the future or the universe will explode.
Only he doesn’t wanna go back, you guys! See now that he’s in the past, he can make it so all the bad never happens! We can circumvent the genocide of the natives, we can make it so slavery’s never a thing! No McCarthyism, no Cold War, no Space Jam! But Nick fury tricks him into going back, so no better America for you, cap.
Nice try though.
Cartoons
There are roughly one shit million Marvel cartoons from the last fifteen years, and about half of them are avengers-type things. As they are all pretty samey, I will do a quick rundown.
Ultimate Avengers - 2006
Ultimate Avengers, as implied by the title, is loosely based on the first Ultimates limited run. Like Ultimates 1 the plot is about how aliens allied themselves with the nazis and come back after steve becomes unfrozen caveman lawyer.
aliens just… poking around with their little alien claws at human workstations and Steve is not surprised.
“Hitler’s dead!” smack about 3 min
28 - bucky marries caps gal - I’m sure they had decaf in the 40’s cap
30 - weird arlington scene outside of new york 34 hulk did 9/11?
44 - nobody fucking listens to cap
Once the Avengers team up, Steve’s arc revolves mostly around nobody listening to him - a problem he did not have in Ultimates, but hey, at least this version has an arc.
“nobody listens to me”
67 - “they had a great leader”
Super hero squad show 2009
This show is the rare Marvel-based comedy, so the Unfrozen Caveman lawyer aspect is not only played up, it seems to be Captain America’s main defining attribute.
Oh, he’s just so happy!
2010 - avengers earth's mightiest heros
This series, featuring a fallout boy cum pokemon theme song opening marks the first attempted tie-in with the movies. It is competent and unremarkable save for this guy’s RDJ impression.
I like also how this show manages to cut hitler out of world war 2 entirely, so that's nice - apparently hydra originated in a more russia-ly direction
one of the few versions where we get to see young bucky in steve's backstory - by which i mean KID bucky and not adult peer bucky
This version of steve is unreasonably belligerent and puts civilians in danger. At least at first.
less guy out of time so much as not keen on jokes, because soldier
Avengers Assemble - 2013
This show, while not officially in the MCU canon like, say, Agent Carter, is based off of the movie universe. So with the exception of the Hulk, who is inexplicably articulate, and Falcon who is… just there and does not share his movie counterpart’s backstory, they’re basically kiddiefied versions of the movie characters. But Steve does get a sass upgrade.
“you call them avengers? I call them loose cannons” hey namedrop! Only he means cannon with two ns. This show only has one. SPELLING.
Post 9/11 - The Winter Soldier
Wouldn’t call him mopey, but certainly a much more sedate and contemplative cap.
Civil War
During hte mid-2000’s Marvel decided that the smartest business move would be rather than
And while the events all have their detractors, Civil War may win the award for the most tedious.
The basic premise is that the American government passes a superhuman registration act - Iron Man supports it, Captain America opposes it, nothing about anyone’s actions make sense and everyone is completely out of character to make the whole “civil war” premise work. So it’s no real surprise that this, too, was written by odious fuckboy Mark Millar.
Civil War is one of those things that was interesting in theory but when you watch the execution past the initial premise it's like... wait, what?
Cap is portrayed as a reactionary hothead - there’s not even a period of contemplation, the first time we see him he goes off the rails. he seems to oppose the registration act for the same reason Ron Swanson would.
Rather than opposing a law he sees as unjust in, you know, a legal way, as he usually does… always does, he goes underground, lots of collateral damage, and people die. Meanwhile Tony Stark and Reed Richards create some interdimensional gulage where they keep unregistered super-people. This doesn’t seem to be woven into the word of the law but they do it anyway.
the titular civil war is between Cap and Tony, but Steve and Tony don't even interact until issue 3, whereupon Steve almost immediately betrays Tony, who in that scene is behaving pretty reasonably.
the titular civil war is between Cap and Tony but they never even talk to each other except for in a one-shot towards the end where the reader is reminded of everyone’s position.
then he just gives up in issue 7 because fighting is bad. superheroes fighting causes collateral damage. steve's really sorry.
you know, because he couldn’t deduce that that might happen
Then after he surrenders a reporter schools him because he doesn't REALLY love america, he doesn't know what myspace is or watch american idol.
I dunno.
Nobody’s allowed to make sense and everyone has to be stubborn to the point of lunacy in order to make this work, but then I guess that’s the basis for every superhero vs. superhero thing that Marvel has done in the history of ever. Just, this one’s trying to be smart and…. …..
Steve is a hot mess but honestly the award for character assassination goes to poor tony. Although the award for literal character assassination goes to steve, as he gets murdered at the end. Which has nothing to do with civil war, actually, it’s red skull who does it. Oh, he comes back.
steve somehow manages to make it about tony's alcoholism and tony somehow manages to make it about steve's dad
They have no personal connection so the fact that they're at "war" is meaningless.
And as he is written once again by odious fuckboy Mark Millar, he's a jerk on the level of a gritty reboot. So basically he's ultimates Cap,
He does one nice thing off screen, apparently.
spider-man's the only one with an arc - cap comes out fists swinging from the very first issue
I feel like I can’t discuss Civil War without mentioning Ed Brubaker’s excellent run on Captain America, which ran for 50 issues before, during and after Civil War, although comparing the two makes civil war look worse because the character in captain america and the character in civil.
This run is where the winter soldier arc comes from - yeah, they didn’t bring bucky back until 2005. And it ties in a LOT with Steve’s past in world war two.
Even a nice, subtle “fuck you” to the “stands for France” panel. (Captain America, Vol 5. #3)
Wherein cap states, “That’s why it really galls me to hear my own people dismissing the French as cowards”
Tea Party protest in a slightly negative light in “Captain America” No. 602 in 2010, the right-wing blogosphere and Fox News cranked up their outrage machine,
2011 Captain America: The First Avenger
The surprising choice to make this a period piece - surprising in a good way. If you're going to make an entire movie dedicated to cap's backstory, best course of action is to develop him in his own time, THEN make him the fish out of water.
This might mark the first time that Bucky is actually OLDER than Cap.
steve comes from a long line of dead soldiers somehow, and he believes in the cause. Don’t disrespect the propaganda, jerk.
the modern captain America stands in some contrast to movies like Man of Steel and Transformers which do get heavy DOD subsidies and do require script approval from the government before they get it.
Yes, this is still a thing.
But while this film didn’t exactly go down that road it really doesn’t shy away from Captain America’s roots as propaganda. An extended scene where he is used as a literal propaganda item, makes serials, comic books - might be one of the best scenes in any of the marvel movies.
“I’ve knocked out adolf hitler over 200 times” 01:01:21
oh yeah they don't speak german they speak german accent
"mustard gas" "dutch oven"
"seriously, jersey?" that's where our malls will be
"i'd settle for just one woman" - steve has ideals gdi
"There are men laying down their lives" - steve just wants to die in battle
really agent carter is the obvious choice here
The Tooch’s super serum is like special smurf juice - good becomes great, bad becomes red skull. relevant especially for captain america as a mere concept - just like in the original comics, this can be read as a parallel for the US needing to develop the a-bomb before any of the axis powers did. Good guys do good things with power, bad guys do bad things.
But, again, Steve is chosen because of his very specific reason for why he wants to go to war:
“do you want to kill nazis?” “I don't want to kill anyone. I don't like bullies, I don't care where they're from."
tommy lee jones' ideas on power and masculinity - in a way, he’s describing OG Cap from the 40’s.
“he’s a bully.” He IS a bully. First he harasses Agent Carter, who goes all strong independent woman on him, and then he bullies steve.
But Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t respect steve, because he is small and effeminate. 20:51 - “we have the best … men.”
first steve is intuitive - (22:30 - captures the flag.) then he is self-sacrificing. The super soldier isn’t an ultra-masculine chauvinist, but a chaste, sensitive artist. 00:52:00
his lack of pomposity is what makes it work, 00:28:00 even in little ways, like when Peggy says “i had him” instead of the typical patronizing bravado. he is humble, he doesn't come across as entitled, even when he's asking inappropriate questions "do you fondue" 00:56:33
worst he ever gets is "yeah well i think you been doin it with howard stark"
“nobody’s perfect” 01:12:53 - I beg to differ.
Steve Rogers, Perfect Human
"you have no idea how to talk to a woman" - that's how everybody talks to women back then... back now.
"i can swim!" best joke
red skull - supposed to be opposite sides of the same coin and oh do they fail
no one's gonna notice that giant america shield, isn't that a prop... steve?
The tone is appropriately comic booky, which does serve to soften the really dumb mid-movie reveal of the red skull.
There’s a certain scharzeneggerocity to weaving's performance, you almost expect him to start doing villain puns. “you’re FIRED.”
...so where does hitler figure into all this?
This movie opts not to demonize Nazishydra logo - the not-zis, with their not-stikas. 01:29:17 “Hail Hydra!” - Hang Glider!
Avengers
Where Captain America: The First Avenger ends with Steve as unfrozen caveman lawyer, The Avengers (Avengers: Assemble in the UK for trademark reasons) serves as steve’s acclimation to the modern world.
There's an indeterminate gap of time between the first Captain America and the Avengers.
Let’s take MCU Steve - again, if we’re going for racism, how is he not a huge fucking racist? will just leave it at this - the MCU is not our universe. The army of this WW2 appears to be integrated.
00:49:00, 00:51:39, 01:11:53 - integrated army
Also steve is shown to be highly sensitive and highly adaptive, so given that one of the first things he sees is nick fury being in charge, he can probably pretty quickly deduce that things have changed.
People REALLY hate the idea of the idea of Steve even mucking up by saying something that would have been totally cool in the 40’s but wasn’t anymore because Steve is JUST that intuitive.
would have been funny even to have a well-meaning flub. (blast from the past- “oh my stars, a negro!”)
Even if he was the most egalitarian socialist that ever lived he’d probably say something well-meaning and inappropriate. So, I’m going with different universe, different rules.
Steve's paradigm shift is more in the subtext, which for a movie as full as this one is is kind of a good thing.
fish out of water, but not obnoxiously so. “I understood that reference”
breaks up slapfight between iron man & thor by NOT fighting
Steve still talks like he’s performing when his guard is up - calls natasha ma’am all the time. “There’s only one god, ma’am.”
Defends a bunch of Germans - subtle bit of character development, that Steve defends a group of Germans without question or comment. And puts on his stage persona while he's there.
The Avengers rather famously sought and was denied the aforementioned DOD subsidy - and all of this stuff is off the books so we may never know exactly what went down, but apparently the long and short of said denial being that the script just wasn't propagandistic enough.
Cap is at first not okay with Tony breaking into the mainframe - but then does snooping of his own. not blindly loyal. 1:06:12
Steve Rogers, Perfect Human vs. Tony Stark, Worst Human
58:29 - correctly guesses that Loki is trying to turn them against each other.
1:07:52 - shield building weapons - same weapons that the not-zis built
closest we get to Steve Rogers, Not Perfect Human is when he repeatedly tries to goad to goad Tony into putting on his Iron Man suit so they can punch it out Like Men 1:12
This is very un-like steve, but then there’s an evil god-rod in the room so okay.
uses a gun very briefly 1:22 - comics not so much with the using of guns (like Batman). Movies it’s not an issue. Traditionally Captain America is not pro-gun, which is kind of ironic because, y’know, America
appears to be a little freaked out by Coulson’s fanboyism. A fact which Fury later guilttrips/exploits
Steve’s arc in the Avenger’s isn’t really about modernity, and it’s not about him proving himself a leader - he knows he can lead, more like can he deal with fucking Tony
Cap takes leader role, no one questions this.
It’s not not there, it’s just more subtle - he calls Natasha ma’am all the time. Also this:
“There’s only one god ma’am, and he doesn’t dress like that”
My god is manly god.
Winter Soldier
Where Captain America: The First Avenger is a coming of age war story, The Winter Soldier is more of a conspiracy thriller.
At the start of the movie he seems more comfortable with the unfrozen caveman lawyer thing - there are subtle changes in his language - he isn’t calling women natasha all the time.
57:10 - “captain america steal a car” - I see what you did there, movie.
When he first meets Sam Wilson, he immediately rejects the idea of the good old days as being a better time. He doesn’t deify the whole greatest generation thing - Sam almost looks relieved.
Steve’s got some internal conflict, but it has fuck-all to do with Bucky. in the avengers when he’s doing his rage punch thing he doesn’t even think of Bucky.
“Is this the first time you lost a soldier?” - probably referring to Bucky.
Winter Soldier is also much more topical - it deals with themes of terrorism and heavily with government transparency. Winter soldier is considerably less comic booky in tone than either the first movie or the avengers, and Steve’s main internal conflict is that of serving the country he knew versus the changing nature of the country today. The America-ness of Steve’s America is front and center.
nazis infiltrating SHIELD is… lame. It’s extremely lame.
1:04 - “what we did not realize is that if you try to take humanity’s freedom, they resist” man nazis are dumber than I thought.
Like, the movie stops just short of implying that HYDRA planned 9/11.
So where the first half of the film dealt in shades of grey that spoke very much to the current state of things, the second half, not so much.
“How do we tell the bad guys? They’re the one’s shooting at us.”
Sigh.
Bucky - winter soldier turn makes more sense in the comics since Bucky was cap’s ward, not his peer who was in most regards more experienced than Steve.
10:30 “SHEILD doesn’t negotiate” how early aughts of you
17:41 - greated generation convo
25:30 - steve goes to military support group
32:40 bucky shows up
1:36:40 - “price of freedom is high”
1:04:51 - HYRDA framed Julian Assange
20:51 - “wanted to do what was right - not sure what that is anymore” “thought I could follow orders, serve - it’s not the same”
Steve and Natasha = Edward Snowden
so the reveal that most of the bad things that have gone down in the world since WW2 is because of secret hydra
It was nice to be able to stop blaming all of our problems on misfortune, bad people and short-sighted international policy made in our own self-interest and just say it's all HYRDRA's fault
So now having suffered through the agonizingly redundant entirety of Marvel's Civil War, my research for Captain America is almost done, meaning it's time to start looking forward to episode 5, which will come out in May. I've narrowed it down to some possible themes:
Ancient religious figures! (Moses, Loki, Cupid)
Public domain book characters! (Ichabod Crane, Long John Silver, Tinkerbell)
Oh boy I get to watch Once Upon a Time again! (Cinderella, Snow White, Mulan)
Abstract personifications of unfathomable concepts! (Death, Satan, God)
Every fifth video will be MY choice, so episode 6 (the episode after the one you're voting on) will be an executive decision. LIVE IN FEAR. (i.e. yeah it will probably be a transformer)
Which of the aforementioned themes appeals to you? Leave your choice in the comments!
Witches.
If you’re a woman in hollywood over the age of 35 you have probably played one. In fact you’re probably in the process of playing a witch right now.
This can speak to many facets regarding the way we view women but I don’t think all of them necessarily bad. In part I think it speaks to an increased interest in complex witch characters. No longer is the witch a one-note archetype. No sir, now she’s a complex figure with motivations and a backstory.
From the simplistic archetype of the old hag to the more recent sympathetic of powerful witch-type characters we’ve seen emerge in pop culture, following the history of “witches” is, in a way, following the history of how we as society look at powerful women.
With that in mind, who better to talk about than The Wicked Witch of the West? - arguably THE most famous witch of the 20th century and the template for a good 30% of halloween costumes.
But you can’t really talk about the influence of Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West--and yes, sorry Baum fans, that was the influential ones, let’s be honest here--without talking about the history of the archetype of the old hag.
http://upclose.unimelb.edu.au/episode/109-witch-depicted-images-and-iconography-early-modern-timeshttp://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140925-where-do-witches-come-fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_of_Endor
Witch of Endor - King Saul of Israel goes to this woman to learn the future because God won’t talk to him
Witches are a source of dangerous wisdom, such as MacBeth’s “weird sisters”
The iconography of witches and the old hag archetype.
Where did the broom thing come from? Hard to pinpoint exactly.
First known visual depiction of a witch flying on a broomstick: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Champion_des_dames_Vaudoises_01.png
Hexenflug der "Vaudoises" (hier Hexen, ursprünglich Waldenser) auf dem Besen, Miniatur in einer Handschrift von Martin Le France, Le champion des dames, 1451
Hooknosed old hag is even older -
Almost everything that defines the European witch archetype relates to the perversion of the domestic. Women’s work of a domestic nature around the fire
you’re supposed to use your broom to clean, not to fly around! That’s just wrong. Your’e supposed to use foodstuffs to cook, not make potions! That’s just wrong. You’re supposed to get married and have babies, not stay single and be shifty! That’s just wrong. Also cats have satanic associations for some reason. Now being a crazy old cat lady is a joke, back in the day it could get you burned alive for witchcraft.
later stories focus on the figure of the witch - sexual, alluring figure, or naked, or old and ugly - as the focus in european culture moves more towards the fixation on witchcraft & the devil.
The root of any folk villain tends to deal with some cultural anxiety. And the witch archetype is European anxiety about women straying from the very, very narrow box set for them.
the wicked witch of the west is a distillation of all of these many hundreds of years into the ultimate modern archetype of the witch -
originally a character for children, but over the last hundred years, has grown and expanded in many ways.
But to keep it honest, we’re going to pretty much have to use the 1939 film as our bedrock here, not the original book. Which is an important distinction for one very important reason:
The 1939 film is still under copyright, where L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not.
With that in mind, let us proceed.
original book
We can’t discuss the land of Oz, or its chief protagonists, without discussing L. Frank Baum’s politics, which are very… there. In his writing. And Baum’s version of political allegory was way, way more on the nose than anything you’re going to see today, especially in children’s literature, unless you’re looking at the Rush Limbaugh ouvre
If you learn about Oz and politics in history class, it was probably in relationship to Baum’s ideas on populism and American culture. There are entire books dedicated to political interpretations. Not that he was necessarily doing it deliberately--outside of the feminist stuff, that’s super up for debate, but reading politics into the world of Oz is super popular.
Those ruby slippers? Originally they were silver slippers--thought to represent gold standard/Silverite sixteen. Yellow brick road = relation to dissolution of the gold standard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interpretations_of_The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz
West = American west, winged monkeys = Native Americans? Eesh, problematic.
This could tie into some of Baum’s more infamous attitudes on Natives:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/10/27/130862391/l-frank-baum-advocated-extermination-of-native-americans
The world of Oz is one in which almost all of the power players, good and bad, are women. Baum was also a huge suffrage supporter, so, that’s not a coincidence.
Feminism wasn’t above reproach or even making fun of - later Oz books included characters like general Jinjur and her all-female army. This is a very on-the-nose parody of the suffrage movement, of which Baum was a huge supporter. And yet the whole thing was a pastiche of every paranoid anxiety nightmare of anti suffragists of the time--women taking men’s jobs, forcing them to work in the kitchen and be all domestic, so… I’m honestly not quite sure what to do with that one.
“I honestly find more worrisome the "LOL SPOUSAL ABUSE!" revealed in the 3rd book when you find out she's gotten married and beats her husband when he doesn't do things right and everyone down to Ozma and Dorothy are like "well, glad you are keeping out of trouble on your dairy farm!"
. Like. Baum. Baum no.” - Nella
Glinda’s also entirely-female army. - the novel idea of a sorceress character who’s a good guy.
“are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”
There were examples of morally grey or not-evil sorceress characters before Glinda--you’ve got the lady in the lake, the blue fairy, etc. But she’s the first modern example of a “good guy” female wizard-type that was in something really, really popular.
Again, a shift in the way powerful women were perceived. It’s not any coincidence that these books came out during the height of the suffrage movement.
In the grand scheme of Baum’s universe the Wicked Witch of the West isn’t a huge player - she’s only in that first novel, and she’s not even mentioned until towards the end when the Wizard gives Dorothy and her pals a murderquest.
And the book’s version of the witch is nothing like what we’ve come to associate with the words, “wicked witch of the west.” She doesn’t have green skin, she doesn’t have a broom, she’s short and frumpy, the wizard doesn’t ask them to grab anything from her. Dorothy does wet her out of spite rather than trying to save the scarecrow, but is likewise surprised that water makes her melt.
So--the witch is an obstacle that need be overcome, but at the end of the day not a huge player in the grand scheme of oz. Next!
1910 silent movie but…….it’s stupid short: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWQ5-UBU22M
I waffled as to whether or not to include this one as it is stupid short and not terribly influential, either as a film or as a piece of Oz arcana, but since so much of the film from this era has been lost it’s a miracle it even survived, so for that reason it’s… worth a look… animals what are you doing
cow goes with dorothy for some reason
In this version the witch is named… Momba? I must assume this is a variant on the name Mombi, who is the primary antagonist in the SECOND Oz book.
7:49 - well it’s kind of hard to follow but dorothy and her barnyard friend like… go to momba’s house. and brawl
“dorothy learns that water is fatal to the witch” - she learns this offscreen somewhere.
So where it’s an oopsie in the book and in the ‘39, here she’s a cold-hearted killer.
There was also a movie in 1925 movie, but it didn’t have much in the way of witch in it, so, skipping that one.
1939 film
Where the book is episodic, the film takes on a much more traditional Hollywood structure, setting up the wicked witch as the chief antagonist even before Dorothy goes to Oz.
hamilton on mr. rogers - “she never gets what she wants.” “think of it from her point of view - she never got what she wanted, she was unhappy.”
3:51 - “lots of children are quite scared of her.” - compares to playing pretend/dress up.
5:55 - “just like a halloween costume”
barbara walters - “we are fortunate no one ever dropped a house on her.” - ?????
The influence of Hamilton’s wicked witch of the west can’t be understated.
Gale Sondergaard was originally cast as the Wicked Witch when the film was more overtly influenced by Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The Wicked Witch wasn’t going to be a post-apple influence, but a sexy, intimidating pre-apple.
Gale Sondergaard out, and in came Margaret Hamilton.
Let’s get this out of the way from the outset-- this is one of the best movies ever made. Whether or not you consider it high or low art, it’s just
Can't fault Mrs. Gulch on the whole dog thing
Dressed like a suffragette caricature
“only bad witches are ugly.”
Funny, anti-suffragists said the same thing about women.
"I had the measles once"
AAAAAHHHHHH
Margaret Hamilton gunned hard for the part
She got burned real bad- no literally with fire
Witch Shia le beoufs in the sky
Lion has "witch remover" tin man goes in with a wrench
The Wiz
A whole ‘nother 40 years before another Wizard of Oz movie of note, the agonizingly long The Wiz. Written by Joel Schumacher so you know it’s going to be good.
There’s much to be said about the stylistic… dissonance in this movie’s version of Oz. Industrial but not, otherworldly but not. Flying monkeys are bikers. I uh… I don’t think I like your lips
Her name is Evillene, she appears to be the, uh, slavelord of a sweatshop. Which is kind of weird. She even has a whip. Which is also weird.
She marches around in the most uncomfortable dress imaginable, and has eyeballs on her crown - maybe to reference her all seeing eye.
Like Wicked Witch Prime this witch is barely in it, but unlike the Margaret Hamilton version she actually gets a song. Before she gets melted in perhaps the most non-melting melting scene of all of them. water also melts sewing machines.
But then in the subsequent musical number we see that the Witch’s minions were all… sexy people. And they’re naked in the way that characters in skyrim are naked. When you steal all their clothes.
Even though this movie is agonizingly long, the witch portions are among the better paced in the film. Even though… I’m not so sure about this witch.
“WAR IS HELL” Ohhh kay.
Wicked
Skipping forward almost another twenty years, it is time for a reexamination of the classic witch archetype, and one of the most influential books ever on that topic, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked.
Most of Gregory Maguire’s most well known books deal with popular stories and characters that just haaaaaaaappen to be in the public domain, and Wicked is no exception. The wonderful wizard of oz itself and its characters and concepts entered the public domain in 1956.
MGM’s 1939 film, however, had not.
Maguire’s book borrows from both.
Elphaba - L. F. B - geddit?
Conceptually, Wicked is purported to be a prequel to the Oz books, not the film-- it utilizes many book-only concepts such as the geography of the countries, the shoes being silver, etc.
Maguire also introduces many of his own ideas--for instance, not only that the talking animals exist, but exist as a different type of person altogether, and that Oz operates even on something of an apartheid system. This being Elphaba’s main motivation for turning on the system as she does.
….. buuuhhhhhht
There are some major elements that are very rooted in the ‘39 film, not in the original book-- Elphaba’s greenness not only isolates her within the world of the novel, it’s also a major plot point.
So is the pointy hat, so is the broom.
So one can argue that the most important influences from the ‘39 movie on Maguire’s book are aesthetic and therefore can’t really be subject to copyright law, which is probably true. But since the book got adapted into a very popular-still running musical...
Well, they got away with it somehow.
Wicked is kind of… Musical, the musical. Your mom loves it. And in a way, it’s the perfect broadway musical. It’s based on a familiar thing, but it’s still a new story so you’re not just watching a stage version of a movie you’ve seen.
ahemahemahem
Elphaba in the show is a sort of Proto-Elsa in many ways, not the least of which being originally played by Idina Menzel. Whose signature song is the proto-let it go.
I think Gregory Maguire had really interesting ideas and worldbuilding, but I don’t much care for his writing. I like the book more in theory, prefer the musical in practice.
Tin Man
Why is this called Tin Man?
"Come on, tin man, have a heart"
Well, originally he was going to be the main character, but then it turned more into just a wizard of oz retelling and so now Doroth-... her name is DG comes to the O.Z. It’s called the O.Z. Well Tin Man was originally going to be the main character, and it was going to be like… a witch murder mystery. But then they decided it should be more of an analogue to the original book and DG is the main character but they kept the title anyway. And boy howdy is is a race to the bottom for who is the worst Dorothy.
Concentrate, we’re talking about the witch.
This also purports to be inspired by the public domain book, but of course there are many elements lifted from the ‘39 movie here, too. Much as they seem trying not to be.
Police man named gulch - geeedddit - yeah, he doesn't come back
No, the Wicked Witch in this version, is actually Doroth-.... DG’s sister, named Azkadelia.
DG accidentally got Azkadelia possessed by… another witch as a child. They had a special hand holding magic thing, but DG ran away, Azkadelia got possessed, DG got raised by robot parents. (Zim)
So it straddles this weird line between retelling and completely off in its own little world. Glinda is here, but she’s the mom - because these reboots do love them some familial things. They’re also descended from the ORIGINAL Dorothy gale, so again, it straddles this weird retelling-slash-own thing line.
"He's like a psychic, but sees with his heart" um ein minute bitte
The witch is not melted, but gets de-possessed by hand-holding magic. So that’s nice.
In a lot of ways, Tin Man is the most interesting out of all of them, but I get the impression that this was written by people with imagination and THE STUDIO WAS LIKE NO people are stupid. Make it dumber.
But interesting universe and unique backstory aside, we still end up with our least interesting witch.
muppets in oz
“witch of the west coming at you from my lair of evil”
AGGHHHHH
So this is the worst muppet movie.
This one... again it is a race to the bottom for the worst Dorothy, and Ashanti and Zooey Deschanel are neck in neck.
Sorry, I mean, keep focused but… people who shit on Diana Ross…. look at the competition.
Since miss piggy is really the only female muppet of note--like, come on, janice stans, we all know she doesn’t really matter--muppets in oz takes the interesting and honestly I’m kind of surprised no one’s done this before approach of having all of the witches played by the same actress.
well, “actress”
This version has three witches, two of which are involved in the most horrifying scenes ever to involve a muppet.
This (house crushing) and then the melting scene, which...
Without getting into it too deeply, let’s just say that as a character, Miss Piggy is arguably something of a… problematic figure. With that in mind, the melting scene… is probably a low for miss piggy.
Like first that she’s melting because she’s not bathing in bottled water. Such is her bottomless vanity. And then…
bottled water, “got skinny”
there’s nothing about this I don’t hate
Then it turns into arc of the covenant-level horror show that I think is supposed to be funny.
This movie suffers from growing pains. this was right after the Muppets were bought by Disney and way before the Kermissance. Piggy’s wicked witch is a sort of BDSM biker witch… which is a weird thing to steal from the Wiz.
“the witch is in the house”
“this is my scene” she said… explaining the situation.
I miss the Wiz...
by the time you get to the witch you’re longing for death so badly you don’t even care how awful she is. Which is good because halfway through the end battle this happens.
It can’t get worse than this, can it?
Oz the Great and Powerful
….*weeps*
I was going to say that the worst thing about you guys choosing the wicked witch for this video was the fact that I had to watch this fucking movie again. But then I had to watch the Muppet version so, that did put it in perspective.
Because there’s a lot here I can live with - I can live with the fact that Franco looks high all the time and the bottomlessness to how much he doesn’t care, I can live with the tired-ass shitty faker is deemed the chosen one and lies to everyone narrative (I haaaaate that plot.)
I can even live with the fact that the studio took a universe that almost always had female protagonists--even in the other big pop culture adaptation of the day(wicked)--and gave it a male one.
But I cannot take the reason why the wicked witch is wicked.
It’s just. So. lame. Like, it’s second-hand embarrassing to watch. It’s like a layer cake of lame, you peel back one layer and it’s like, uugh. I don’t know what’s worse, that it’s ultimately that she’s a woman scorned, or the fact that she isn’t really so she has no agency in her wickedness. See it’s not HER fault she’s wicked…. but it kind of is… I dunno it’s confusing.
It’s really the anti-Wicked. Where in Wicked she was an anarchic activist for the rights of animals, quite literally a social justice warrior, here she is a woman scorned who… isn’t really, because hey, it isn’t her fault she caught the evil, her sister gave her a thing. Which really she could have done under any pretense, she just so happened to do it under this pretense.
So it’s kind of impressive that in a post-wicked world, any storyteller no matter how hacky could come up with backstory THIS weaksauce for the wicked witch. Even with the painfully obvious red herring in the form of rachel weisz.
I’m … I think I might be saying that it’s… bad. It’s bad and I don’t like it.
Disney having to be mindful of copyright ramifications plays an element here, let’s not kid ourselves, the most prominent of which… witch… which… was the look of the witch herself. Namely the shade of green that could not be infringed upon, or Margaret Hamilton’s iconic black dress.
So if you were wondering about the decolatage, that’s sort of why.
There are elements to this movie that aren’t the worst thing ever. In fact this movie might have just been boringly passable had it not done the thing, but pretty much every decision surrounding the wicked witch of the west is the worst they could have made.
Except Theodora’s pre-green outfit. And her make-up is pretty rad.
So if anything is going to make you appreciate wicked, it’s this. Next.
TV - Once Upon a Time
It’s not the wild west - it’s the wicked west - woooof
Okay. It’s not as bad as the last two. Perspective. Perspective.
Once again, so much is based on the ‘39 movie, you see the copyright side-stepping with the off-brand Margaret Hamilton. She’s got this weird-ass shade of green that makes her look like she’s sweating constantly, but her dress is pretty awesome so there is that.
This show… … this show. I’m not sure how to sum it up concisely.
Okay so if you’ve never seen this show this is like Disney’s great big domestic AU fanfic… some of the time. Something something spell something something now we’re in the normal world but sometimes we’re not because sometimes there is a curse -- this tends to change with the villain. It was Regina, the evil queen, who was the spell-caster for a while, but in this arc it’s the wicked witch of the west, but then it turns out it’s not… anyway she’s Regina’s half sister, because she’s always someone’s sister or daughter or something.
And you’d be like man, who’s this badass lady that’s their mom, what’s it like… Maleficent or something--no, it’s just some basic bitch named Cora Mills and the wicked witch wants to take over Fantasia, so she is here to chew all of the scenery.
But most of the Wizard of Oz isn’t a known Disney thing--why the wicked witch? It’s not til we get to her tragic backstory episode that… we actually get to see oz, the oz logo, the… wizard… himself… and it’s like oh…. oh now I understand why disney wants to integrate oz stuff into its fanfic show.
I get it now.
Oz the great and vertically integrated
I THOUGHT I ESCAPED YOU, thinly veiled James Franco!
“I’m a circus huckster, I’m a showman” oh my god, they’re just laying it all out there.
So Wicked Elphaba’s green because of date rape drug, Great and Powerful because of… heart-killing drug, why’s she green?
Yep. She literally turns green with envy.
In oz the great and powerful: he dumped me. Here it’s everyone’s prettier than me
I have some translucent powder for that… shine. Do you want to borrow it?
She is also motivated by the desire to destroy her half-sister, the “Evil Queen”, who Regina despite being kind of an asshole literally did nothing to her.
“What the hell did I ever do to you?” yes.
“You were born.” Well okay then.
“cora’s other daughter” - apparently. I found this out 30 seconds ago
“ding dong” ughh
For her evil plan, she need’s regina’s heart, whose brain? someone’s courage. and a baby. Snow White’s baby, because this show.
So given when this aired, the year after Oz the Great and Powerful was released, we might be able to read this as something of a brand integration. Subtle, but distinctive.
Buhhhht given that there’s been no real news on the OTGAP sequel in two years… they may just be hedging their brand bets.
there’s something beautifully ironic for disney wanting to slip in there and wibble their way around all of the copyrights that MGM still holds for the wizard of oz, and yet what company is most responsible for the extension of the length of copyright… hmmm who could it be...
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To examine different incarnations of the wicked witch of the west is to examine our relationship to the iconography of the witch. She is the single most famous “witch” of the last century. The distillation of a trope, and a trope originator.
In Oz there are powerful women, these witches both good and bad, that's how Baum wrote them. In fact, I can't think of a male character in Oz that wasn't broken in some way. Women have the power, and this is considered a good thing DEPENDING on how they use it, not that they wield it.
As audiences and consumers of media, we’re just not interested in the idea of inherent evil anymore. The idea that a powerful, solitary woman is no longer as strange and perverse and terrifying as it used to be. Now it’s even sympathetic sometimes. Sometimes.
I think maybe Disney should… keep its mitts off this franchise.
There’s this episode of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood that featured Margaret Hamilton and she talks a bit about being the witch, and how children shouldn’t be scared, she was just playing make believe, and it’s the cutest thing, but there’s this one bit that sticks out - “I think she’s angry because things don’t go her way”. See, Maggie gets it.
Even the wickedest of witches has their motivation.
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The delicate tango between the archetypal witch and the copyright holder.
BATHE IN ITS INCREDIBLE LONGNESS. Seriously, this is the longest video I've ever made.
