“Hey, Algorithm, I enjoy reading and illustration, painting miniature soldiers, and hiking, as well as learning about foreign cultures.”

The Algorithm selecting ads for my social media feed: “Good to know! But have you considered SPORTSBALL?”

Not Your Typical Superhero Movie, That’s For Sure!: A Review of the Supergirl Trailer

“That the dog returns to his vomit and the sow returns to her mire, and the burnt fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire.” 

~Rudyard Kipling

“This movie is a wacky, irreverent adventure about a dysfunctional loose cannon protagonist with a love of dancing and 1980s pop music, who uses snarky humor to mask their inner pain and turmoil.  They’re not your typical superhero, that’s for sure.  But when they get embroiled in a world-ending conflict, they’re forced to team up with a group of likable misfits.  They’re not your typical superhero team, that’s for sure.  Our gang have to learn to put aside their differences and work together to save the day, and along the way our main character finds a new surrogate family in this crazy group of outcasts and learns that sometimes the real heroes are the friends we make along the way.  This isn’t your typical superhero movie, that’s for sure!”

This is the summary that kicks off a review by The Critical Drinker for a superhero movie that may or may not be the brainchild of James Gunn, the doubtful talent behind such hits as the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, Suicide Squad (2021), and Superman (2025). “May-or-may-not” is to acknowledge what The Drinker’s review spells out: all of James Gunn’s superhero movies share the same core themes and styling to the point where it has become impossible to tell them apart.  So even though Supergirl is not actually Gunn’s movie, it has the look of “the most James Gunn movie that ever James Gunn’d,” in The Drinker’s words.  I agree.  There’s the 1980s pop music, the quirky retro-futuristic aesthetic, the irreverent humor advertised in the movie’s poster (“Truth. Justice. Whatever.”) and Krypto the super-dog’s sloppy on-screen urination over a newspaper that features a front-page of Superman saving the day.  

It’s all summed up in the portrayal of Kara Zor-el, Superman’s little cousin, whom The Drinker describes as “Not your typical superhero, though: she’s a drunken, cynical, messed up party girl who likes to cut loose and do her own thing.  She’s definitely not here to live up to your expectations, that’s for sure!”  She’s kitted out like a Star Lord fangirl in trench coat and puffy pocket earphones, and drops “funny” one-liners like “this does not look like this is going to end well…for you guys!” (da-da-tzz, Kara Zor-el, everybody!) and truth-bombs, wearily telling a curious sidekick that Superman “sees the good in people; I see the truth.”

Sigh.

This being a sequel to Gunn’s Superman (wherein a very drunk Kara made a cameo appearance) may be the inspiration behind these “creative” choices, but that heritage hardly absolves Supergirl of its all-too-apparent failings, and sets it squarely within the vision of its predecessor.  Maybe that’s what works for some people; I can’t say how often I’ve heard that Guardians is someone’s favorite MARVEL movie(s).  Now, mine may be the unpopular opinion here, but I never did take to that particular trilogy.  The aesthetic was entertaining, and plenty of the visual humor appreciated (I did laugh at the Sovereign drone fighters leaning into retro video game cliches) and at the time the 1980s references were fun; however, the humor and writing overall waffled between mediocre and dreadful.  Rocket Raccoon’s forced hysterics, juvenile human-anatomy jokes, and the overplayed and never-ending attempts at levity grate on the nerves and negate any sense of gravity or wonder.  Say what you like about Joss Whedon, at least his Avengers scripts land the jokes and also maintain the sense of impending doom that the heroes face if they don’t eventually get their crap together.  

Which is all to say that Supergirl, in keeping with Gunn’s style, has missed a huge opportunity to actually break from the mold and do something new, because it is based (at least in part) on a graphic novel that is one of the best I’ve ever read: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

Now’s as good a time as any to commit to a full review of the Supergirl comic, but until I get to it, let me at least draw some differences to illustrate the opportunity missed.  First, Kara is not the main character; she’s the mysterious Stranger that stumbles (drunk) into young Ruthye Marye Knoll’s life as the latter is vainly seeking retribution for her father’s murder.  But where Gunn’s trench-coated inebriation appears to be the defining feature of his lovable rebel, Woman of Tomorrow’s Kara is drunk for a very specific reason, and trench-coated for a very specific reason.  For the rest of the book, she’s resplendent in red and blue, and the object of Ruthye’s curious awe—ignorant as the little girl is of Kara’s history—and thus a foil for Ruthye’s own hero arc from stubborn and petulant to mature and introspective and, ultimately, forgiving.  

Forgiveness, of one’s enemies and of one’s own survivor’s guilt, is the message of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.  The message of Supergirl: Truth, Justice, Whatever looks to be shaping up as something less redemptive and philosophical and more dysfunctional, quirky, and “heart-felt.”  Because as long as it’s from the heart, that makes it good.  Right?

Gladiator II and Weird Words

Allow me to indulge in a tangent.  Words are weird, especially words borrowed from other languages.  I got on this train of thought while watching a trailer for the new Gladiator movie, wherein a fighter enters the arena astride a fully accoutered rhinoceros.  This is likely an artistic choice predicated on tigers in the Gladiator of 2000, leading show runners to up the ante with regard to spectacle.  That said, historian-trained though I be, I do not think the inclusion of a rhinoceros in a third-century Roman death-match a necessarily unreasonable creative decision.  According to my limited knowledge of animals, the rhinoceros is said to be violent to a point, but mostly because he is easily startled, and is otherwise comparatively docile insofar as hulking wild animals are concerned.  Thus, the rhinoceros looks fierce and intimidating, but is not nearly so dangerous to the unassuming passer-by as is his neighbor, the hippopotamus.

Which brings me back to words.  “Hippopotamus” is a goofy-sounding word used to name a goofy-looking creature, which no amount of Greco-Roman plumage will ever render remotely as awesome in aspect as a perfectly naked rhinoceros.  Moreover, such a curious name, so famous among kindergarteners, is taken from the ancient Greek for “horse of the water”; in short, hippopotamus is a word that describes the beast as the ancient Greeks observed it, or maybe as they heard it described.  

Two thoughts spring to mind: Firstly, that the hippo’s predilection for breathtaking violence, verging upon the premeditated, makes the name “homicide horse” (as suggested by such luminaries as Casual Geographic on YouTube) more appropriate, because the hippo is far more ferocious than the rhino; Thought the Second: would someone not protest that the hippo looks nothing like a horse?  Indeed, quite apart from his exceedingly generous physiology, the hippo (like the rhino and the elephant) has toes!

Now, I am frankly inspired by the notion of dignifying the bloody-minded hippopotamus with the moniker, “hippophonos,” so I’ll swiftly move on to the second consideration: don’t those toes give the lie to the idea that this could be anything like a horse?  Maybe my love of the ancient world makes me a sympathetic critic; in any event, I am inclined to think that, however inaccurate this hypothetical modern may think the name, I suspect this may be less a mistake on the part of Greek tourists and more an attempt by Greeks to describe a strange animal,  using words that they had ready-made.*  We do the same today, observing orangutans and gorillas, then introducing modifiers (silverback gorilla) or wholly new generalizations, like “great apes.”  Oh, I hear you!  “That’s just differentiating groups of things (bigger apes) from like-things (apes generally).”  To which I respond, “Thank you for illustrating my point.”  This “water horse” is thusly differentiated from horses more generally. 

(*It is worth noting that ancient Greek depictions of hippos were wildly inaccurate in parts, including references to horses’ manes and tales, and hides so thick that, when dried, could be fashioned into spear shafts; also, that Herodotus, at least, is perfectly aware of the bizarre aspect that he is attempting to describe.  Critics of the second mosaic in the north African Villa Nile are not necessarily wrong to point out the horrifying nature of that artist’s hippo, but can any of us be expected to accurately illustrate an animal which we’ve never seen—or even sketch out an acceptable profile of a common house cat?  Meanwhile the contemporary Egyptians styled the hippo “water ox,” which linguistic example is still akin to the Greek attempt, if more visually reasonable.)

“But the toes!” you say.  That is very true, yet let us not forget that there existed a whole prehistoric range of horses possessed of three “toes” or claws (interestingly, a quick Google of the dinohippus claims that some were monodactyl (single-hoofed), while others of the same species were tridactyl).  I hear you!  “Those breeds died out so many thousands or millions of years ago!  How then could a Greek who’d never seen a dinohippus or an eohippus or any other sort of tridactylite equine mistake a multi-toed hippopotamus for anything like the majestic stallions of Xenophon’s Peri Hippikes?”  In answer, let me first direct your attention to any one of the more exotic artistic reimagining of what these little stallions looked like; observe how extravagantly different they appear next to their majestic modern-day descendants.  Then let me ask what may strike one as odd: did the Greeks never see a three-toed horse?  

Absurd as one may think it, hear me out: the ancient Greeks lived in a world very different from out own, where stories of lions and anatomically accurate depictions of lions figure un-ironically in the cultural landscape.  I take the Middle Ages’ artistically-reinterpreted lions (seen in illuminated manuscripts and tapestries) as evidence of what happens when one has only a description of lions with which to work (as with Herodotus and the artist responsible for the walls in the Villa Nile).  But even the Middle Ages are a time remote from our own, where the things held true and normal seem fantastical to us today.  Take Beowulf, who brags about his clash with sea monsters while swimming the fjords.  In the 2007 film, our titular hero is accosted by many-tentacled monocular hell-spawn from beyond space and time, but in the tenth-century poem, it is “merely” orcas with whom he tussled; the classically heroic bit is that he was swimming in armor with a heavy sword in his hand, in anticipation of such an assault.  I hear you!  “Orcas don’t attack people in the wild!”  Yet we do know them to be fiendishly intelligent and prone to developing strategies for washing seals from ice flows, and we read about generations of orcas assuming temporary habits of attacking tourist vessels or donning dead salmon as hats; moreover, we see video of captive orcas giving in to frustration by pushing their handlers underwater and pinning them to the pool floor—exactly as Beowulf describes.

So I think myself justified in suggesting that the medieval, antique, and ancient worlds were very different from our own, and that horses with toes would be surely the least surprising anomaly.  Indeed, it is a certain kind of arrogance on our part to assume that we have even a reasonably accurate view of the past, especially the farther back we peer.  No matter how many manuscripts we decipher, or friezes copied, or artifacts recovered, our assembled depictions of the ancient past can only ever be a best guess; and like the technically accurate urban neighborhood of Vivarium (2019), there awaits an uncanny valley for any time-traveller from second-century Rome who attends a showing of Gladiator II.

Worlds Apart

It may come as a surprise to some (certainly not to many of my friends) that my previous entry (an anthropologic observation of American Football) was only marginally tongue-in-cheek.   My understanding of the rules and intent (of scoring points by carrying a ball into a specified zone while adhering to certain constraints enforced by referees) is nothing so ignorant as a plain reading would suggest, yet it was with an equal honesty that I composed the whole piece. 

In short, my understanding of sports is purely academic. 

I comprehend the various games in the same way that I understand driving, drilled with little league teams in the same manner as when I studied and practiced for my driver's license; the rules, whether logical or tyrannical, are necessarily followed, while the processes behind engaging the gears in sequence and depressing the accelerator and/or brake at the proper moment are prerequisite skillsets necessary for conducting the whole affair.  But I have no deeper connection to rules of sports than to traffic laws, no greater thrill of play than in arriving at my destination at the proper time. For me the thrill of a goal scored is hardly more profound than a decent parking job, and certainly less permanent; at least the parking job promises the chance of an easy exit.  And I cannot begin to understand why one would care to watch someone else play ball - or watch someone else drive to the supermarket. 

(Even then my analogy is not perfect; there is a certain thrill that some men find behind the wheel of a vehicle, which I have never experienced nor truly desire.)

So to speak of ball-sports (leaving aside all other sports for the moment) in sterilized terms of people engaged in an activity with no immediately apparent meaning is the most correct expression of my connection to the game(s).   I am told that sports helps to build coordination; this is manifestly unnecessary, given the prevalence of track and field sports, as well as martial arts.  I have been assured that sports is instrumental in developing teamwork and social skills.  This is also suspect, as I developed no such ability during the several seasons I played flag football.  Not that I was warming a bench every game; I played as often as every scrawny kid out there.  The key difference is that I had no idea what was going on, something to do with that ball-that's-not-a-ball someplace behind me in the ruckus.  Nor did it occur to the coaches to explain the fundamentals.  I think they believed that we all innately knew the gist of our roles, never suspecting that I had never watched a game in my short life.  To me it was an excuse to play organized tag in large teams.  Problematically, everyone else seemed to take the ball-and-scoring bit too seriously for my liking, and to enjoy tackling each other for fun.  So when I outgrew flag football for contact, I left and took up karate. Joke's on me.

So I am left wondering what all the fuss is about, since in my experience with ball sports there does not seem to be anything going on besides groups of athletic people pelting about in search of the elusive macguffin.  In the main, there appears to be largely one set of goals in ball sports: to take the thing from point A to point B. Often there will be friends involved. Sometimes total strangers. Some of these friends and strangers are on one's own team. Sometimes these friends are not actually your friends at present, because they are on the other team. Points A and B are goals of some sort, either a zone or a net, of varying sizes but all intended to demarcate the physical space in which points are scored using the ball. Even the balls are unique to their game; basketball, soccer, lacrosse, and Gaelic football all use different balls and different goals, but the aim is the same. American football and rugby shake things up by swapping the ball for an egg (while insisting that it is, indeed, a ball).

Baseball is the wild card in this arrangement. Herein one man, representing Team A, faces the entirety of Team B; Team B's representative offers Team A's representative the ball (aggressively) while Team A's rep returns the ball in such a manner that occupies the whole Team B lineup in reestablishing control over the ball before Team A's rep is able to sprint the distance between four white targets. Unlike basketball, soccer, or American football, where the audience's attention is centered on the ball and those in proximity, in baseball the man courageously sprinting from target to target is as much the focus as the little white ball spinning merrily about somewhere in the field. Team B's responsibility is to bring these two foci back into one place, by causing the ball to arrive at one of the targets before the runner; Team A's rep's responsibility is to avoid this. 

In other words, an involved and very expensive game of tag. 

Then there's cricket, which is about as comprehensible as wack bat.  Nobody knows what those commonwealth folks are up to.  (Somebody divide that by nine, please.)

This Curious Game

I had the opportunity to attend my first Ducks game in Autzen Stadium over the weekend—which is apparently a pretty big deal in the college football world. After the game, one of the freshman players asked me if I’d enjoyed it.  I answered in the affirmative because there had been food, conversation, and a festive atmosphere; I did NOT express my general confusion regarding the sport around which (he explained) he had structured his entire academic career. Not that anything unexpected happened during the game—indeed, I suppose it went as well or as poorly as any scrimmage of that sort—only that I have no idea what happened after the first whistle. 

Down on the field there was an inflatable, ovuloid macguffin that each team often and violently offered to the other team, but only once the first team (dressed in green) had carried the macguffin to an area marked off with white paint and then taken a moment to punt it between two upright posts. The second team (yellow) busily engaged in trying to accept the macguffin earlier than their rivals were prepared to part with it, which resulted in a good deal of running and yelling and physical contact at speed (it is worth noting that the players were specifically dressed for exactly this activity, being both adequately armored to withstand impact while also sufficiently unencumbered enough to maintain their native agility). 

However, the yellow team was apparently none too eager to complete the exchange; frequently, upon forcing the greens to lose control of the macguffin, either by swatting it out of another man’s grip, or preventing its being caught following a long toss, or (most often) by physically grounding the unfortunate porter under a heap of armored bodies) the yellow team would scatter, with much strutting and yelling and exchanging of high-fives, while allowing green time to collect themselves, strategize, and carefully arrange themselves in a line formation. Never once did yellow take the opportunity to immediately seize the coveted oval and take a turn with it; they let green make several attempts at progression towards the white paint before green either kicked the macguffin at the uprights or gave up.  In either case, green finished by kicking the macguffin in the opposite direction, thereby effecting an agreed-upon exchange of the thing. Then the whole process was repeated, with the roles reversed.

Curiously, the people in the stands around us (and many of my coworkers too) seemed inordinately and emotionally invested in who had the macguffin or how they comported themselves while possessing it or trying to. Several became very animated and vocal whenever a third set of players (themselves unarmored and wearing white and black clothing) inserted themselves into the ritual exchange, dictating to either the yellow or green teams how and when and where to properly carry or exchange the macguffin. The vocal people became the most so when these black and white individuals took to the field apparently for a reason imperceptible at our distance, which generated much excitement in the stands, as well as an amount of colorful language. 

So it was with the utmost candor that I expressed bemused appreciation of the young man’s sport—besides, I got a free t-shirt out of the deal.  Good game, indeed!

On Goodwill Towards Men

While stumbling about Youtube last night, I happened upon a video titled “Why Isn’t Mexico A Global Power?” The premise asked why Mexico has never extended her reach overseas, taking into account geographic, population, economic and other factors. By the time the video ended I found myself rooting for Mexico, hoping that maybe one day she will exert hegemony over her neighbors. 

After laughing off this passing sympathetic fancy, I nevertheless sat considering how I actually regard the global prospects of a foreign country, be it Mexico or any other. On the face of it, an American like myself (or any patriot anywhere) would understandably want the very best for their own home to the exclusion of everyone else. In terms of human nature, it is sadly easy for anyone looking across the border at another state, especially those against whom one has some legitimate gripe, such as Russia or China, to lump into this assessment the people also living within the bounds of that state; to wish the devil take them all and for one’s own to reign supreme. 

That, at least, is a fearsomely pragmatic and nationalistic view (and one frequently ascribed to "America First" patriots by unkind observers during the last administration).

The more wholesome reality for myself and most everyone I know, is that we like and value our friends and acquaintances from abroad; moreover, those countries that I have had the pleasure of visiting I have enjoyed and appreciated very much. To what end to condemn the energetic Japanese shop owner who kept an English-language dictionary on his desk in anticipation of my regular visits? To what end condemnation of the gregarious Welsh bus driver taking simple joy in talking about local happenings or musing about international politics with his Yankee passengers? I have laughed at (and have myself made) my share of jokes at the expense of the allegedly elusive warrior spirit of France, but in practical terms such jabs or ribbing has been more than outweighed by the cheerful humor of the Frenchmen I have been privileged to meet. If I cannot honestly distain such wonderful people and if I have found joy and happiness in visiting their colorful and inspiring countries myself, then how can I earnestly condemn any place or anyone at all, especially my neighbors south and north? 

Much as I have studied other cultures and their peoples over the years, I have mostly neglected Mexico and Canada. Perhaps proximity fuels disinterest. This is a matter deserving of attention, hence Adam Shoalts’ History of Canada In Ten Maps on my end table and videos on Mexican geopolitical prospects in my watch history. However insular my own experience, that of my country (or “countries” if one takes a States’ Right view) has been a rip-roaring adventure alongside and occasionally in conflict with those states immediately next our own. The militant within me hopes for martial strength at home juxtaposed against weakness and passivity beyond the limes, but my inner capitalist thinks otherwise; for isn’t a prosperous neighbor a valuable one? And the Christian within me speaks of peace on earth not by right of conquest but by brotherly love—watched over by solemn guardians, to be sure. It is true that I regard the murky and unknown frontier with a trepidation born of ignorance and distrust of any evils perceptible from my vantage point, but let it never be that I ascribe generally to the people of any place the bitter wrongs committed specifically by their most lawless (or in government, the most lawful) citizens. Chaos along the Mexican border need not inculcate a disgust for Mexicans, nor should breathtaking tyrannical abuses by the Canadian government ever instill in me mistrust of Canadians. How hypocritical it would be to cheer the success of the immigrant self-starter in this country, while at the same time wishing ill (or worse perhaps, not wishing or even thinking at all) about the successes of his erstwhile countrymen! It is the most reprehensible and ignorant shade of Karl Marx that believes one man’s prosperity to be at the expense of another’s.

Maybe I cannot truly wish that Mexico ever be a global power. Indeed, to take that wish to its fullest extent might smack of gross insubordination to my own homeland. But I can say with the utmost candor that I want the very best, and I do wish the very best for my neighbors in Mexico and Canada. If we each find success and security and freedom within our own boundaries while respecting and maintaining cordial and firm relations with those around us, cannot the result be anything but good?

Ethnicity, Cinema, and the Fanbase: Let Us Reason Together

With the advent of the teaser trailer for Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (LOTRTROP or TROP for my sanity) and the resultant internet flame-wars between diehard Tolkien-fans and their cousins in the Peter Jackson camp, the issue of race remains center-stage in a polarized pop-culture society. Some might argue that the best route forward is to drop the issue entirely, for one camp or the other to cease their foul sputtering and cede ground to the side with the greater moral clout. However, to marry Rahm Emanuel’s infamous quotation “never let a serious crisis go to waste” with St. Paul’s injunction to “overcome evil with good,” it is my persistent belief that honest and articulate discussion encourages mutual understanding and is anathema to the rampant, nonsensical, and counter-productive race baiting so pervasive in today’s social discourse. 

One perspective commonly argued is that more representation in media cannot be a bad thing. Art for art’s sake, as it were. I question this assumption on a number of grounds, but if the fundamental issue is that of hiring and firing actors based on their merits, then I find myself in total agreement. But an ancillary consideration should not be lost in the argument that all and sundry ought to be welcome to the casting couch: that a person’s appearance can be of as much substance as their acting caliber. Let me explain.

It should go without saying that casting actors appropriate to the role is of equal importance to casting actors whose abilities measure up to the producers’ very high expectations. One would not cast a woman in the role of Abraham Lincoln, for instance, unless the intent is to subvert tropes in a specific way that requires the casting of a woman. Now, I know nothing about show-biz, but I have been advised to surround myself with people whose expertise make up for my lack. For which I now turn to comedian and sometimes actor Gabriel Iglesias. In recounting his first casting call, Iglesias observed that the producers were clearly looking for a type because competitors for the slot all looked like him—to the point where he described the atmosphere in the room as that of everyone trying to show how they were more like themselves than the next fellow. The producers clearly knew the sort of person they wanted to represent a character; thus, appearance took on equal if not more precedence than acting chops. 

So perhaps a discussion of race in film is to mischaracterize the central argument: it is not the ethnicity of the actor, but their appearance that ought to be considered. One can blithely argue that it should not matter that a given performer’s complexion is darker than Pantone 727, but the altruism of that enlightened sentiment falls rather flat if a 5’3” Inuit is considered for the role of Lincoln. But neither should the role be denied a man who can convincingly portray the sixteenth president. An historical example: I have a vague memory from high school of having read excerpts from the diary of a black man who wanted very much to fight for the Union in the days before that was legal. Happily, all he needed to do was tuck his hair into his cap and, like Clark Kent donning glasses, he suddenly looked like a completely different person. So complete the transformation, in fact, that he not only served at the Battle of Gettysburg but also acted as the unit’s scribe (being the only literate soldier available to transcribe his comrades’ letters), which required close-quarters interaction with the other men, who remained none the wiser. Could not this man, were he dropped into the present day, walk into a studio and offer his acting services in the role of a white character? Perhaps one need only reference the cast of Broadway’s Hamilton for validation here. 

In a world riven with racial angst, it is perfectly reasonable to expect proponents of representation-in-media to argue in favor of breaking any glass ceiling that may exist for actors of color. Yet it remains essential to temper that elevated desire with the realistic expectation that producers can and should cast only those actors who can accurately interpret the characters that they are hired to represent. And meanwhile among the fanbase, it is equally important that frank discussions of race, ethnicity, and representation be held frequently and freely, because if the culture is really as divided as some would have the rest of us believe, then honest talk can do nothing but good.

~~~

*I hope to make this the first of several blog entries exploring diversity in cinema—where it succeeds, where it fails, and how its implementation contributes to or detracts from storytelling. This need not be about race alone, but cultures, women, accents, and anything else employed by producers to best bring their world to life.