Prodigal ME

when you get to the episodes that have trigger warnings at the beginning, please don’t ignore them. when they say graphic depictions, they mean GRAPHIC. i’m on the last episode right now and i needed to pause it and leave the room to take a breather.

even though there are content warnings at the beginning of the episodes where the worst of it takes place, i want to just reiterate them here:

EPISODE 9: very graphic depiction of rape/sexual assault

EPISODE 10: flashbacks to rape/sexual assault

EPISODE 12: another very graphic depiction of rape/sexual assault

EPISODE 13: a VERY graphic depiction of suicide with a LOT of blood. PLEASE be especially cautious when watching this episode in particular, because i was extremely shaken by it when i didn’t expect to be.

and of course, you should keep in mind before starting the series that this is a story surrounding a teenage girl’s suicide and the events leading up to/following it so the entire premise is going to be inherently triggering for some people.

Name of the Rose highlights everything that is good in the Buckynat relationship honestly.

First we’ve got them out on a date… which, BTW I didn’t include the panels here, but he’s not really comfortable here and she tells him why he’s over thinking and worrying needlessly about it.  And then we have this gem.  After she deals with a man who has been beating his wife and comes back to the table, he calls her on it.  He knows exactly what she was up to.

Minutes before she is attacked, she’s obviously on the way home judging by her phone call here.  He thinks enough of her to be waiting up even though he doesn’t know where she’s been or what she’s been up to (Smart man).  She handles the initial attack while on the phone with him and him none the wiser (Which I will show in a later post).  But he’s waiting on her and she’s on her way home.  To him.

After she’s attacked and undergone surgery, which BTW she was completely awake and alert for with no pain control (This is gonna pop up later, when I post about what a fucking bad ass Nat is), but he’s completely panicked about her and it takes both Logan and Tony to hold him back.  He’s also unamused by the situation itself and lashes out at both of them.

When she’s out of surgery, he is by her side.  She’s obviously told them she was awake for the whole thing because you can see Tony commenting on it.

So no one else has really been able to track her down, though the government, who sanctioned the attack on her BTW is looking, Bucky finds her.  She’s surprised, he tells her she shouldn’t be.  And she tells him he’s a good person.  He blows it off, as he usually does, but when he dos it points out she is the only one that understands all the reasons he’s not.

I’d also like to point out that he’s not the least bit judgmental here despite all the shit he’s been hearing.  He, at no point, has lost faith in her.

She convinces him she’s got it under control and they have some smoochies.  LOL But not before he calls her on the BS.  All the cops swarming around has something to do with her and he damn well knows it.  But doesn’t interfere because she wouldn’t appreciate it.

So we finally get to the crux of who is behind the situation and she handles it with her usual grace and aplomb.  Or does until he starts talking about Bucky.  At that point she looses her temper and pretty much launches on him.  

Meanwhile Bucky is actually there to arrest her at behest of the government, but it’s pretty much a carefully orchestrated plan to get what she wants.  (more on this in my Nat is a bad ass post that’s coming)

So Natasha gets what she wants and Logan and Bucky are there for the rescue… a bit late, but there.  (And honestly, the Old man, weak bladder line is one of my hands down favorite interactions between Logan and Nat).  And hey, she hasn’t seen him in a day or two, so if he wants to watch her get dressed, it’s cool.  (Neither one of them bats an eye when Logan smarts off either)

And even though she has cleared her name in the eyes of the government, she needs to take care of the asshat who set this whole thing up.  So, off she goes again and Bucky is a smart enough man to let her do what she needs to do.

And when things are coming to a close, she gets in touch with him and assures him she’ll be careful (She also told him she’d be home by the end of the week but this post is already long as hell by now)

That it was that very cynicism that had Superman break his cardinal rule of do not kill and had him that very thing, kill.

As the reviews come out about Batman vs Superman and the bleakness and cynicism of that film I posit that the reason Superman has killed and the reason he is so unrecognizable as the hero we grew up with and the hero we loved and looked up to is because every essence of his Jewishness has been meticulously and calculatingly been scrubbed out.

Superman was written by two Jewish teens in the early 30′s and they imprinted onto Superman a Jewish identity.

Superman is in Diaspora. His homeland gone, his language, his culture, and his heritage both alien and foreign to were he lives. Living day to day with a part of himself hidden so as to be live a somewhat unmolested life.

He must struggle with what it means to be a member of his people while not having his people or culture around him and while having the outside culture imposed upon him and expected to assimilate to this outside force.

A great example of this can be seen oddly enough in Man of Steel when Lois Lane asks Superman what the S on his chest stands for. He tells it means hope in his people’s language and Lois responds by saying that here it is a S.

Superman is expected to accept this new reality and to let go of his culture and understand that he must rather assimilate instead. That he must let go of what it means in his language and culture and understand that it is now a S.

It is the internal struggle of the Jew. To survive in Diaspora. To endure and still maintain a sense of self and one’s roots. To keep your people’s language, customs, and culture alive especially surrounded by a world where you are the alien. You are the foreign being and you must assimilate and then be grateful that you were allowed to be forced to assimilate in the first place.

Superman has two masks. The mask of Superman and the mask of Clark Kent. Kal-el, is the face of Superman and not the mask. Kal-el is the struggle to survive when you are the alien.

Superman in the films and especially Man of Steel and even more so in Batman vs Superman is meant to be a jesus figure. A Messiah.

But that is not what he really is. He is rather the personification of Tikkun Olam.

Tikkun Olam is that each and every person is obligated to fix the world. To leave it a better place that when it was when you got there. To work towards justice, peace, and truth, the three pillars of Judaism.

Superman is meant to reflect what each of us can be. What we should be and should do. That when given the opportunity to good we should take it with both hands. That is whatever way we can with whatever our own abilities and powers are we should help others when given the chance. That is Tikkun Olam and that is Superman.

Because sorry, but no.  No, he’s really not.  It’s SO SO SO much more subtle and interesting and well done than that.  Because if you actually watched the movie, if you actually pay attention to the story and what’s really happening, Clark is absolutely positively a Moses figure in the DCEU.  The Jesus is there is an illusion.  The Jesus is posed as what people WANT HIM TO BE when he is actually Moses.  

And this is not at all accidental.  This is very clearly the intent of both the narrative AND the meta-narrative, the commentary on who Superman is and who people think he is and what kind of character he ACTUALLY IS, in narrative and for us as the audience.

“Well, he was 33 years old when MOS happens and he submitted himself to die!”

Except he DIDN’T die.  Instead, Clark’s first adventure in the DCEU is coming to know and learn his true origin, much as Moses did after he chose one of the slaves over one of his ‘own’ people and killed him for his abuse of said slave.  Because as we realize after the movie is over, this movie isn’t about Clark sacrificing his life for the world.  Instead, it is about him CHOOSING where his loyalties are, choosing who and how he will act, and CHOOSING to take the place leading the people of earth ‘towards the sun’.  

“But his ‘true’ people, his true place of origin, is Krypton.  That doesn’t make sense with what you just said.”

Except it ISN’T.  Lara and Jor-El pointedly REJECT the ways and the mistakes of Krypton and put their faith in the freedom of choice and the people of Earth.  Lara, specifically in this version, is the one to send him ‘down the river’ so to speak.  Regardless of WHERE he came from, regardless of what his genetic heritage, his true people (as evidenced by his choice) are the people of Earth.

And that doesn’t even bring the fact that if you try and put this as a Christian metaphor, what does that make Zod?  The Devil?  He wasn’t really tempting Clark with anything; he was threatening him and destroying everything he cares about.  Judas?  Don’t make me laugh.  There was nothing TO betray.  He might have betrayed Jor-El, but that was a betrayal of brothers who see different ways that the world works, NOT a decision based upon greed and betrayal of ideals.  All the same, not Clark.  Pontius Pilate?  Nope.  Because Zod deems Clark as guilty all on his own.  Zod never thinks he’s innocent.

Zod is the Pharaoh.  Zod is Clark’s last standing ‘brother’ who seeks to maintain that which he was tasked with protecting, the leader who would do anything for HIS people not realizing that Clark, despite all the trappings, is NOT one of those people but one of the people of Earth.  And Zod can’t understand that, why Clark would choose that when being Kryptonian is so clearly better, so much more important, but it is the TRUTH.  

There’s even, cinematics being as gorgeous as they can be, a ‘wave’ of force when Zod forces the issue on Clark and Clark chooses to kill Zod instead of seeing more of his people die.  The Phantom Zone sucking in the ship, that wave, like the Red Sea closing around the Pharaoh’s soldiers, leaving the people of Earth once more free and saved. 

“But why would they hide this message?  Why put in that scene where Clark goes to a church and stands in front of Jesus?  Why make him 33?  Why give an illusion of Messianic when you’re going for Moses?”

Because of the main thrust and the point of everything that IS Batman v Superman:  Clark Kent is ‘just a guy trying to do the right thing’.  Clark Kent is not the messiah, he is not divine.  He is EMPOWERED by the Divine (light=G*d=yellow sunlight=come on guys it’s right there) but he is not INHERENTLY Divine.  Everyone thinks that he’s Jesus but he’s NOT JESUS.  

Because it’s easy to think of him as Jesus.  It’s easy to think of him as all powerful, easy to divorce him from yourself and say ‘well he can do that because he’s Superman’ or ‘he should have fixed this part of the terrible world because he’s Superman’ when NO.  Noooo.  

He is a man.  Just trying to do the right thing.  He is a man, trying to lead the rest of the world with him into the ‘sun’, into a world where everyone acts like Superman, where everyone always tries to do the right thing.  It’s right there in the speech Jor-El gives him in MoS.

But the rest of the world INSISTS on creating that divide.  It insists on deifying him when as you can see in the movie, it is the last thing he wants.  It is the last thing that’s TRUE, as the movie takes great pains to both show that Clark is Exceptionally And Incredibly Normal in a lot of ways (brings his girlfriend flowers, gets grumpy face, has a boss coming after him for work, doesn’t know stuff, gets kind of awkward, gets angry) and that a lot of what he does (namely speak up for the poor and disenfranchised and insist that they be deemed ‘important’ in the eyes of the world is something that anyone can do if they decide to.  I’ve seen a dozen and a half metas about how various heroes would be proponents for the poor or POC or LGBTQA+ allies, but LITERALLY THE ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY SAYS SHIT ABOUT THIS POINT is Clark Kent in BvS and I’m going to harp on that point forever because it’s IMPORTANT that people remember it.

“But he died and he’s going to rise again!  That’s totally Jesusy!”

Except here’s the thing: he didn’t die when he was 33, he died when he was 34-35.  AND the way that he died, METATEXTUALLY?  We know he’s coming back.  We KNOW HE’S COMING BACK. Not only that, but they’ve chosen to make it so early in his career that it transforms this event: this is not so much Jesus’s death before he ascends to Heaven after having lived his life and told his story.  This is Odin on the Tree.  This is Moses in the desert (you know, that dream that Bruce had with the DESERT?).  This is a man being transformed by an experience, and the world’s perception of him transformed at the same time.  The Jesus-death for Superman isn’t possible, let alone at this stage of the game, because we know they aren’t going to keep him dead, unlike when it was done in the comics.  He is coming back ON EARTH to be Superman.  

So do you want to know why the DCEU Superman ‘failed’?

Well, first of all, as a giant Superman fan?  I don’t think he did.  I don’t think that at all.  I think there’s a million thinkpieces on it because people, as a THING lately, like to hate on Superman.  Or at least, a Superman that doesn’t solve all the problems and is perfect all the time, except for how he could solve all the problems and he’s perfect so he’s boring…

People.  PEOPLE.

I also think there’s a cottage industry of clickbait articles on how much the DCEU sucks because people click on them and negativity is more popular than positivity.  

But there’s plenty of Superman fans that I know who love the DCEU Superman.  Lots of fans that I’ve seen who connect with a Superman who feels misunderstood, who is so intrinsically tied to his roots as the Original Immigrant that people hold up signs telling him to go home IN CANON, who clearly has issues with depression and anxiety and doesn’t like to talk to people because he knows how important anything he says would be and that’s TERRIFYING.  And no matter what said clickbait articles say, the damn movies ARE making money.   

Why do people reject him?

Because he’s uncomfortable.  Because he IS so very clearly the immigrant unsure of his place in this world.  He is imperfect and human and in that place of imperfection and humanity LOOKS STRAIGHT AT YOU, just as he looks at Perry, and asks why you don’t care about the poor and disenfranchised TOO.  He shoves logs through a sexist’s truck because he endangered the livelihood of a woman, endangering that man’s livelihood right back and he does it unapologetically.

As Grant Morrison once pointed out, he’s not traditional wish fulfillment.  Not at all.

Why do people reject him?  BECAUSE HE’S A GODDAMN SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR, just the way those two Jewish boys made him, and people got used to the happy smiley everyone-loves-him joke-and-a-grin defender of the status quo that made up a lot of the public perception of the character for many years because it’s EASIER to like even if it’s HARDER to be invested in.  Because he IS a personification of Tikkun Olam and THAT IS NOT A COMFORTABLE PERSON TO BE, either from the outside or the inside and people are a lot more comfortable with sad men who do the wrong thing for the right reasons than those who insist that they have to do the right thing even when it costs them EVERYTHING.

One of these images is of a woman’s breasts in tight-fitting athletic clothing. The other is vacuum-sealed fruit.

Women don’t owe you shit. We are not sex objects. Too bad if you’re sad about it. You don’t deserve anybody. You are not entitled to another human being.

IT’S PERFECTLY NATURAL TO BE SAD WHEN SOMEONE YOU’RE INTERESTED IN DOESN’T WANT TO BE WITH YOU

Jesus fucking Christ that’s not entitlement, that’s totally normal disappointment. 

wackd:

itswalky:

bdorfman:

Man Lego is really missing out on a ton of cash by not selling D-list Batman villain minifig blind boxes.

You friggin’ kiddin’ me?

It’s literally the only reason any of these guys are in the movie

I don’t think it’s the only reason, per se–obviously marketing and merchandise play a big deal in crafting a movie literally centered on a toy line, but a CMF line was pretty much guaranteed for LEGO Batman since they had already done one for The LEGO Movie, and they could’ve easily filled a whole series with Batsuit variations, Robin/Batgirl/Gordon figures, or even variations on the more major villains like Joker and Harley (and indeed, even the existing line is about half obscure Batman villains and half what I just mentioned).

Given the extent to which The LEGO Batman Movie is fascinated by the arcane aspects of the Batman mythos, and specifically in mashing together every version of the mythos no matter how dissonant, it seems more likely to me that McKay and co. went “hey, what if we used like every single silly Batman villain out there and made a joke of it”, and then backed up the decision with “hey, this would make the necessary toy line really easy to figure out”.

But while The LEGO Batman Movie is intensely toyetic as The LEGO Movie was before it, I think the concepts for the film came first and the toyline second, rather than the toyline dictating specific concepts for the film. It just happens that making movies about LEGO bricks naturally leads to very toyetic films.

I mean, look, I wanna agree with you on this? Because I really like Lego Batman Movie and it’s willingness to do dumb things like claim the Bruce and the Joker are septuagenarians and put Alfred in the Bat-Butler costume is a huge part of that.

But treating the introduction of D-list villains as an extension of that joke feels off to me. Nothing’s DONE with it. It’s never really integrated into the broader whole of the story being told. Even when they do the Suicide Squad thing at the end it’s tough to tell any of these guys are even there.

I mean, I don’t think LEGO was, like, “oh man, we really hope we get to make an entirely new bunny hat piece for March Harriet and a giant new whale body piece for Orca, and a new Batman-cowl-but-not-quite piece for Catman.”  I imagine LEGO would rather, like, spend new tooling on characters that are more marketable, like the more-iconic villain dudes.  But if the movie dumps on them this roster of weird guys, they might work in that direction now that they’re given the opportunity.  

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut some of the other villain bits are, in fact, totes new. Sure Catman’s cowl is obvious, but The Eraser’s noggin is also a new bit, which is definitely in the “likely movie first, then toy” column. Pretty much all of Bane and Killer Croc are new. I can’t see Two-Face’s half-melted hairpiece seeing much use outside the very specific context of “Lego Batman universe”.