Queen of Geekdom #2: Yet Another Batman V Superman Think Piece

The title of this piece is a lie. It isn’t a think piece, though that is what I set out to write when I began this week’s Queen of Geekdom entry. And it really isn’t about Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, either, though that’s what this piece concerns. Honestly, this is a selfish piece of writing because, at it’s core, it’s about me.

Sorry in advance.

Since my first viewing of Batman V Superman on Friday (I’m not sure why I indicate “first viewing” since I would rather endure a Batman brand than endure repeat viewings of this disaster of a film), my mind has been consumed by the world that Zack Snyder built. I’ve downloaded countless podcasts on the subject, I’ve read article after article, I’ve watched every youtube video tagged with the film’s title, and I’ve delved into the seedy reddit underworld, just to try and make sense of what I saw. Last night, while scouring the internet for more information, my boyfriend looked at me and, laughing, said “you need to let it go.”

But here’s the thing. I can’t. I can’t let it go. Not because the movie was atrocious (though it was). Not because it treated female characters horrifically (though it did). And not even because the internet is basically nothing but Batman v Superman commentary (though it is).

If the goal of a film is to make you feel something, then Zack Snyder did his job, because when I walked out of Batman V Superman, I felt hurt. Genuinely, deeply, and profoundly, my chest actually ached. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a sensitive person, but even for me, this was a new kind of pain. A new way of feeling deep pity and disillusionment for another human being.

For those of you who haven’t seen BvS (or for those who have seen it and haven’t read as many break-down articles on it as I have), the main problem that most viewers seem to have with the film comes down to tone, with many reviews calling it “joyless.” This is only part of my problem with BvS. An amazing io9 article (an article which, in my opinion is required reading for the entire human race and should be shortlisted for a Pulitzer next to the life-changing “Miles Teller is a Dick” article) put it this way:

“This is a movie made out of disdain. Disdain for the nerds. Disdain for the audiences. Disdain for the kids whose parents might accidentally take them to see a movie starring their favorite superheroes. Disdain for the source material. He thinks he knows better than all of us what Batman and Superman should be, even if fans, critics, and mass audiences tell him otherwise.”

And this, actually, hits closer to why I walked out of this film on the verge of tears. However, it doesn’t catch everything. In this movie (spoilers ahead), Ma Kent says, “Be everything they need you to be. Or none of it. You don’t owe this world a thing,” essentially advocating (as Pa Kent did before her in Man of Steel) for Superman to let innocent humans die. In this movie, humans act to Superman like the Jewish crowds during the trial of Jesus- in one moment, they love him, in the next moment, they throw him to the Romans (these Biblical figures, of course, later become some of the most reviled characters in all of Biblical canon and Christian iconography). Superman allows a Capitol full of people to explode around him. Batman gives absolutely no fucks about killing anyone who stands in his way; and more than that, he kills them in the most gruesome and spectacle-inducing ways possible. The one human who supports Superman in the comics (Jimmy Olsen) is thoughtlessly killed off (as Zack Snyder put it) “for fun.” In this movie, humans are not worth saving.

But on the flip side, in this movie, our heroes are not heroes. As mentioned above, they break their own moral codes and participate in mass murder. They are labelled “false gods”. They only seem to care about saving their own loved ones and protecting their own egos (I say seem because no one has bothered to write in any motives or subtext for any of these characters). There is nothing super about them (except perhaps their egos and apartments), and there is certainly nothing heroic about them.

All of this, even, I could live with, if audiences were told that this is meant to be a dystopian re-imagining of our once-beloved heroes. But we aren’t. The DC universe is billed as a reflection of reality, unlike the optimistic, up-beat Marvel universe. (Think of DC as House of Cards and Marvel as The West Wing.) DC tells us that we are meant to look at the Marvel universe and see a fairy tale, then look at their (DC’s) movies and see a mirror.

In this movie, audiences spend two and a half torturous hours being told over and over again that we are not worth saving, and that our heroes are not interested in saving us. That’s the reflection we are meant to see.

I left this film on the verge of tears, I left this film so profoundly affected, because I feel so bad for someone who sees the world that way.

Where once superheroes were an affirmation of life- you are an ordinary person, just like these people, and you are worth saving! And not only are you worth saving, but you’re worth being saved by a literal god- this incarnation of the most beloved characters in the entire comic book canon spits in the very face of everything they once stood for.

This is a world devoid of hope.

I left this film aching inside because someone actually believes that we are living in a world without hope. Someone out there- Zack Snyder, who I’m calling out by name because half of his interviews are about how tone is essentially all he cares about and because he has proved time and time again that he cannot see past 9/11, though I’m sure the writers and WB execs should carry more than their fair share of blame- believes that there is nothing good about our world. That no one is coming to save us. That we don’t have the ability to save ourselves. The quote from Ecclesiastes, “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless”, seems to be the rallying cry of the DC Universe.

And that’s why I can’t let Batman V Superman go. Because I don’t see their universe as a mirror. I see it as a fevered nightmare horrored up by someone who has somehow lost sight of the beautiful things of this world.

During my frantic search for understanding, I came across a Max Landis video, wherein he gives a forty-two minute long pitch for his “Death and Return of Superman” comic series. No matter what you think of Max Landis (I happen to adore his work and want to write with him in the future, so if anyone has his digits, hit me up) or his work, the story he weaves here is fundamentally different from the current WB universe in its understanding of the characters, but particularly that of Superman. In this pitch, through a series of unfortunate and incredible events, two miraculous things happen:

“Superman, after the fight with Doomsday, is weakened so he’s essentially human. So, these normal paramedics, who have no idea he’s Superman stitch him up…And, of course, he’ll get better once he recharges, but they don’t know that. So, Clark Kent’s life is actually saved by normal people.”

The above moment happens somewhere in the middle of the story, after the fight against Doomsday. To me, it embodies the goodness of people; every time I hear Max speak those words, I get this glowing, warm pride in my chest. Yes, we can save people. We can even save our heroes. The following quote comes from the end of the story and is spoken by Superman.

“I don’t know who you are, but I’m not an alien. I’m a human…I’m not from Krypton. I’m from Kansas. I’ll never stop fighting. Superman is not dead.”

This second moment always sticks out to me for its simplicity. Where Snyder and Warner Brothers revel in Superman’s otherness, his detachment from the evils and ills of humanity, Landis’ Superman celebrates his humanity.

Superman celebrates humanity.

Anyone who knows comic books knows that the Max Landis Death and Return of Superman series has never happened (though he has written an incredible series called American Alien which I had to stop buying/reading during my Year of Women project), however, its realization is not the point.

The point is this: hope is out there. There is goodness in this world. Goodness that fights and goodness that is worth fighting for. And that idea can be embodied by our heroes and our gods who protect their worlds and people and by the worlds and people that our heroes and gods protect.

At the beginning of this piece, I told you it was about me. And really, it is. It’s for me to reassure myself, and all of you, of one fact that has to be true. One fact that Zack Snyder and the folks over at WB seem to have forgotten in their anti-Marvel crusade:

Humanity is good. And it is worth fighting for.

Don’t you forget it.