Troy Brownfield

Hey, 

 The print version is now available! 

 Paperback: http://bit.ly/Inhabitedprint 

 Digital: http://bit.ly/Inhabiteddigital… 

The fact remains that after the week this country has had, this happens. You wonder what to say to your kids. You wonder if your 13-year-old son is going to feel safe in class tomorrow, whether something happens or not. And even it doesn't, it could to someone in Kroger or the synagogue or going to the mailbox. And the only thing I've got for my son at the moment dovetails into what I was going to say to other people, young and old alike. Remember what this feels like, and vote. Take this moment, let that motivation sink in, and vote. Now, especially for the young people . . . This is what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been training you for. Go ahead and laugh. But reflect for a moment. If you won't listen to politicians or pundits or people on the street or people on the news, remember what they've been trying to tell you for the last 10 years.

We’re funded, but our stretch rewards are INSANE. Check them out.

Young Justice Toy Fair photo - http://youngjustice.wikia.com/wiki/Young_Justice_toy_line?file=Toy_line.jpg

By now you’ve heard the news: Young Justice gets a Season 3. And there was much rejoicing. However, the correction of this injustice makes me think of what helped sink YJ the first time, and how it could have been avoided. Greg Weisman himself noted the rationale on Twitter, an assertion he repeated as recently as October of last year. That was that YJ was cancelled because its toy sales weren’t strong enough.

And that’s because Mattel dropped the ball in spectacular fashion. And Cartoon Network didn’t help.

Here’s the bright side. In all likelihood, YJ is coming to be coming back on Netflix or in a completely different arrangement than the original broadcast situation on CN. That liberates it from being tied directly to toy sales. We’ll get back to the toys in a minute.

I still believe that YJ was undermined in the long run by Cartoon Network’s habit of inconsistent scheduling. When the first two episodes premiered in November 2010 as a “special world premiere”, it took almost two months for the third episode to air. After that, there were 3 episodes in February, 2 in March, and then SIX MONTHS before the 10th episode aired in September.

Honestly, how the hell are you supposed to build an audience with kids to sell toys to when you have HALF A YEAR between episodes? Adult audiences may be conditioned to that kind of wait (witness Game of Thrones or the typical Netflix season gap), but kids aren’t, especially kids of five years ago.

After that, nine episodes ran from September through November of 2011 (October 28th was skipped for some reason). That was followed by a gap that would last until March 2012. The remaining Season 1 episodes would run in March and April. That means that between November of 2010 and March 2012, it took 17 months to run 26 episodes. Again, how was WB, CN, and Mattel expecting to move that line?

For the record, Season 2 also had some big gaps. Seven episodes ran from April thru June of 2012. Nothing in July or August. The show returned at the end of September for two episodes, then went away again until January of 2013. Episodes 36 thru 46 basically ran from then until March, the longest uninterrupted string of aired episodes, and all essentially after the toy line was dead at retail for a year.

Now, readers old enough to remember will recall that Justice League and other Cartoon Network classics had been jerked around in similar fashion. If nothing else, it’s certainly an argument for the Netflix model of dropping everything you have at once, rather than doling out two episodes in four months, for example.

WARNING, AHOY. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.

On Sunday night, The Walking Dead aired its hotly anticipated seventh season premiere. Speculation had run rampant these last few months over the identity of the person killed by Negan in the previous season’s finale. The plotline arrived in the show as something of a double-edged sword. Imported as it was from the comics, there was already intense prognostication pointing to the likelihood of Glenn as the victim (since he met the business end of Lucille in the pages). However (and maybe this is a triple-edged sword), Glenn had already been the subject of a lengthy is-he-dead? tease during that sixth season, and the show chose to double-down on trickery by ending on Negan’s fatal strike without revealing who died. Basically, it was a powderkeg of expectations, wrapped around the notion that the show already had a firm victim choice based on the source material.

I’ll make an aside here (sorry for doing it so early) to comment briefly on the Cult of Daryl. Daryl Dixon, a character wholly original to the TV series, became the ultimate fan-favorite early on. Much of the speculation powering the discussions these past several months has been a type of abject fear that Daryl would be the one to die. In fact, any time that there’s a suggestion that someone from the cast is going to buy the farm, internet protectiveness of Daryl reaches mother-bear levels. It’s not for nothing that there’s a whole subset of “If Daryl dies, we riot” memes and merchandise. More on that later.

So, the show ended up making a really interesting choice. Instead of one victim, it dealt out two victims. The first recipient of the bat turned out to be Abraham. The framing of the shot was intriguing. Shot from a lower angle, probably to emphasis the height of Negan over the kneeling Abraham, the bat comes down at right about the middle of the frame. We see this from the side, and it’s a pretty quick strike. Negan gives Abraham time to get off one last lovably vulgar Abrahamism, then hits him again. The second hit puts him on the ground, and the camera cuts away to cast reactions as the rest of the beating continues off-camera. This is interesting stylistically, as it immediately made me recall Psycho. As Stephen King points out in his seminal work on horror, Danse Macabre, the shower scene is a masterwork of suggestiveness; we see Janet Leigh, we see the knife, but we never see the knife in Janet Leigh. It’s a crazy-quilt of cross-cutting that makes it seem worse than it is. Hitchcock, in that moment, lets us make it worse in our own heads. Similarly, Scott McCloud details this concept of “dying in the gutters” in Understanding Comics; trained readers of comics can frequently assume or fill in details happening between panels with their own minds, such as character switching positions in a room or taking a drink from a glass they might be holding. But when that “fill-in” happens in the midst of violence, our minds invariably conceive of things that might even be worse than the actual visual. And so it goes with last night . . .

As a follow-up shock, the show first teases the death of Daryl by having him leap up and punch Negan. That, it seemed, would have been a good way for the younger Dixon to go out: standing up to impossible odds. Instead, the show went into swerve mode and had Negan literally turn and bash Glenn. Glenn was, of course, always the logical choice, as a lot of events and character development that follow this point in the comics hinge exactly on the fact that Glenn died. In fact, the utter ruin of Glenn’s head and face stood in marked tribute to the scene from the comic, right down to Negan’s (intentionally) horrible dialogue and Glenn’s ruined eye. The effects here represent some of the most gruesome make-up ever shown on television. Again, there are many more hits than we actually see, and the aftermath of Glenn resembles nothing so much as a smashed pumpkin.

Internet reaction, as it often does, erupted swiftly. Typical among the rejoinders: “I’m done.” “Too much.” “Never watching again.” Inasmuch as hyperbole is as much a part of internet fandom as the gravitational pull of the moon is part of the tides, I have to step back and ask one question:

What the hell show did you think you were watching?

In that, I mean that it frequently seems that a number of viewers of The Walking Dead forget that they are indeed watching a horror program. A lot of the fandom of the show comes from the “woo-hoo look at all that zombie-kill action” section, and that’s fine. But then, on occasion, something horrible will happen to a character, and the audience is shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment.

Let’s back up. In many ways, The Walking Dead presents as an action show. In fact, you could argue that it’s precisely that: an action show in a horror milieu. But, regardless, it’s horror. And the guiding precept of horror, to be intellectually honest, demands at least one thing of its creators, and it’s this: no one is safe.

Look at what happens when a show tries to play it too safe. My favorite example of this is Heroes. The first season built up Sylar as an enormously powerful killer, and set a number of, well, heroes on a collision course with him at Kirby Plaza. It totally seemed like one of the heroes would go down stopping him and . . . nope. The Petrelli brothers appeared to sacrifice themselves to save the world, but they both lived. Parkman took a chestful of bullets. Lived! And so on. A lot has been made of the narrative after the first season, but I always felt that the reticence to let someone go here was the first thing that hurt the longer run.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Lost. Debuting roughly a year after The Walking Dead comic and before Heroes, Lost boasted one of the more effortlessly multicultural ensembles seem on television at that point (ER did great work on that front, but Lost had a much, much deeper bench). However, Lost wasn’t afraid to take out cast members at all. It even ditched the sad trope of making the first major kill a cast member of color by eliminating “hot young white guy” Boone. (In fact, three of the first four major characters to die were white, including two blonde women, Shannon and Libby; that hews a bit closer to horror-trope land, what with all the dead blondes, but it’s still actually a little progressive for early 21st century television in a very weird way).

Though Lost wasn’t expressly horror, it definitely trafficked in the genre, and boasted avowed horror fans and professionals in the writing room and director’s chairs. But the creators understood that one of the major points of interest was the big rule: no one is safe. It’s not a secret that Lindelof, Cuse and Abrams were/are big Stephen King fans. King’s made something of an art of unexpectedly killing characters, with one of the biggest shocks possibly being the death of Tad in Cujo (the book; I’m well aware that they spare him in the movie). The Stand similarly features some classic King misdirection to achieve surprise deaths. At one point, the narrative intimates that three characters never saw a fourth alive again; shockingly, King flips it and rather than killing the fourth, kills off the other three. It’s a bold move, and points back to the big rule: no one is safe. (Another character-whacking aficionado that’s a King fan AND an occasional horror writer? George R.R. Martin. He survives on your tears. Moving on . . .)

So, The Walking Dead. As a comic, Kirkman and company have never been shy about positioning it as what it is. In fact, a subtitle/subhead on the collected volumes calls it a “continuing story of survival horror”. I mean, it’s right there in the description.  And immediately, debate begins because practically everyone has their own definition of what horror means and what horror is and isn’t and what’s too far and what’s not enough. Horror is, precisely, figuring out where the line is, and then messing with that line relentlessly. Horror shouldn’t make you comfortable. Because, in horror, repeat after me, no one is safe.

This is one of the interesting things that comes up in horror film classes. I had the distinct pleasure of, as both an undergrad and graduate student, studying under Dr. Sharon Russell (writer of Stephen King: A Critical Companion and many fine articles on horror, mystery, and more). I took classes from her on a variety of genres (horror more than once), and central to any film studies program is absolutely a lot of work examining a genre’s tenets. Frequently in film classes, you’ll run into other students that have more of a casual interest (which is fine), but it nearly always sets them in opposition to the people that live and breathe the stuff. Invariably, any deviation from what’s expected from a narrative really puts off the casual fan. I think we’re running into a little bit of that here. In grocery terms, “you expected it to taste this way, but you didn’t read what’s on the label.” Any prolonged discussion of casualties often went back to “But why did Person X have to die?” The smartass answer is, of course, “because that’s what the writer wanted”, but the longer answer begins, really, with “well, that’s part of the deal.”

Another annoying aside on expectation, this one of fan ownership: Fans/viewers/readers/watchers/listeners/etc. don’t own the art. They borrow it. They can read it, watch it, absorb it, love it. But the story is coming from somewhere else from inside someone else. We can identify with something and hold it up as an exemplar (“This song is who I am!”), BUT it is never truly ours. The thing comes from the creator, and the creator does with it what moves the creator. It’s their story to tell. They are the sender, and you are the receiver. You may not always like what’s sent, but that is the message and language of the artist: “This is how I feel and how I did it; your job is to react to it, not change it.” [Note: This does, put aside, for the moment, more corporate creative structures where the caretaking of characters is mandated by large teams with varied interests. The Walking Dead comic originates with Kirkman, and when the trigger gets pulled, it’s he and Adlard doing the pulling. The show may deviate, but it stays the course or deviates in reaction to the comic.]

No one is safe. It’s not comforting, but the horror story isn’t guaranteed to be a light in the darkness. In Macabre, King notes that horror itself is a sort of Dionysian intrusion on Apollonian reality. That is, something from outside (monster, alien, etc.) disrupts the world of light and reason. The story either resolves with the vanquishing or temporary expulsion of the Dionysian element, or it ends with a lingering question of whether evil was truly defeated. In some films, like The Fearless Vampire Killers, the narrator will straight out tell you at the end that the heroes fucked up and the world will be destroyed. Horror, really, endeavors to let us see how we, the audience, would react in the face of fear.

Few genres wind up as more instructional than the modern zombie tale. Our modern conception begins with Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. That spreads like wildfire throughout films in the ‘70s, bringing us inspired and related films like Cronenberg’s Rabid, varied works by the likes of Fulci and Argento, among others, and circling back to Romero’s first sequel, Dawn of the Dead.  I say instructional because the zombie genre literally asks us how we would react. Would you hold up in a farm house? A mall? Where would you go? What would you get for supplies? Weapons? Who, as Facebook frequently asks us, are the friends for your zombie survival team? Zombie cinema is one of the most passively interactive subgenres of horror, because we mentally participate in how WE would deal with it. (Of course, we all think that we’d be Rick or Daryl or Michonne. But most of us would be Eugene, and probably without the science background.)

Similarly, few subgenres push the horror line as much as the zombie film. In fact, when it comes to the pioneering of make-up effects and gore, four subgenres have carried most of the weight in the last few decades: zombies, science fiction horror (notable examples being The Thing and Alien), slasher films, and its sicker cousin, “torture porn” aka “gorno”. Whatever your taste, remember that horror is, in many ways, about testing the line. If you aren’t occasionally startled or surprised or even sickened, then it’s not really working as horror; it’s just drama. And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with well-made, gore-free drama (Mad Men, hat tip), it’s not horror. (Another sidenote: many will tell you that one of the audience appeals of horror is the thrill-ride aspect. When you ride a rollercoaster, there’s an element where you’re looking fear in the face, and then you safely come to the end of the ride. So it is with horror film. Then again, thrill rides occasionally do actually kill people. The Witch may have scared the shit out of you last year, but it didn’t decapitate anybody).

Therefore, combine the idea of pushing the line with the philosophy that no one is safe, and mix that with the fact that zombie cinema remains on the frontline of habitual line-stepping. This is the genre that Kirkman chose, and he has been very artistically true to it since 2003. Say what you want about The Walking Dead comic. You may love it. You may not like it. You don’t have to like it. But you can certainly say one thing about it: Kirkman’s never been a candy-ass. He’s beheaded fan favorites. He’s taken the main character’s hand. He had Carl’s eye socket get licked. He had a baby crushed to death under the weight of its shotgun-blasted mother (confirmed in the Walking Dead Survivor’s Guide). And . . . he had Glenn meet Negan. Kirkman has seen the line, and he’s occasionally punted it another five yards.

Which brings us back to Sunday night. I understand that some people might be shocked, but in the show’s deepest, blackest heart, this is no surprise. Kirkman has remained true to what the comic and the show have always been about. And yes, you can say that there is a gratuitous element to it. But one person’s gratuitous is another person’s conquered frontier. The ear scene in Reservoir Dogs has been called gratuitous, as was Isabella Rossellini’s nudity in Blue Velvet and the violence in Scarface. And maybe they are. But a number of other critics and audience members have held those same elements up as exactly why those various and sundry projects worked. They employed a kind of fearlessness. And that doesn’t have to be for everybody.

Some of the people that watched last night and proclaimed the end of their watching may have honestly found their personal line. And again, that is okay. Just as it’s okay for the people that found their line before. And their line may have nothing to do with horror. Maybe it was boredom. Maybe it was sameness. Maybe something else was on. That all circles back to another prevailing idea: you don’t have to watch.

Fandom should be freedom. And yet, I find that a lot of readers/viewers/etc. tend to talk in terms that sound like they HAD to read or they HAD to watch because . . . they have been. That’s honestly not true. You can stop at any time. It’s okay. Fandom should be the freedom you enjoy in a narrative. If it becomes too painful or too much work or too depressing for you, then by all means, cut that thing loose. Real life is painful and hard work and depressing enough.  (And FFS, I’m not saying that anything or everything should be shiny and/or happy all the damn time; I’m saying that it is okay to know that something isn’t working for you and let it go. I’m one of YOU, you mad scampering agents of chaos; my coffee is black, my heart is sometimes blacker, and a nihilistic bent can be a party in the right hands.)