Sex, Oligarchy & Reality T.V.— 30 Years Ago, ‘American Flagg!’ Anticipated Trump’s America
Real patriotism in an apocalyptic comic book
by JANET JAY
Everywhere you look there’s an ad for something — the T.V. show Mark Thrust: Sexus Ranger, the morning-after drug Mananacillan, customized guns or just the live sex show down the road.
After Earth’s environment and economy collapse, the super-wealthy decamp to Mars, where they continue to control Earth’s masses through one omnipresent corporation. But amid the oppression and confusion, real patriots fight back.
This is the world of Howard Chaykin’s comic book American Flagg! Even though it was first published in 1983 and takes place in 2031, it speaks directly to Donald Trump’s America.
I first read American Flagg! while Trump was taking office, installing Bannon and Spicer and tweeting about #FakeNews while watching Fox and Friends every afternoon.
The real world primed me for Chaykin’s fictional one.
“This isn’t a post-apocalypse story, because the apocalypse never happened,” Jim MacQuarrie wrote in an essay about American Flagg! “What did happen was the gradual takeover of the major governments by mega-corporations, which eventually merged to form a consumerist oligarchy.”
The megacorporation, “the Plex,” watches citizens’ every move while bombarding them with advertising for programming filled with violence (24–7 Fire Fight Live) and sex (White Sluts on Dope).
Chaykin claimed that his female characters wear garter belts and spike heels for empowerment. Costuming aside, his is a world that relentlessly objectifies women.
There’s a constant, overhanging fear of nuclear war. There’s been a man-made climate disaster. Giant corporations infiltrate and take over vital functions of the government. Surveillance is pervasive. Neo-Nazis and fascists are on the rise.
The rural population is “bitter, disenfranchised, politically reactionary and raising their children to be extremist survivalist warriors,” according to MacQuarrie. The Plex controls people’s lives, but instead of addressing real issues they fight about whether to blame the Nazis, communists, bankers or Jews.
But most people seem content to be controlled “as long as the ‘bread and circuses’ aren’t interrupted,” MacQuarrie explained.
Among Chaykin’s many predictions, there are some that simply don’t bear out. No, California hasn’t fallen into the sea and, no, there haven’t yet been widespread crop failures and food riots. Also, we don’t yet have talking cats.
But there’s still a lot of truth in this three-decade-old comic book. As I write this, Trump has been president for two months. In that time, he’s managed to rekindle fear of nuclear war, lower the level of public discourse, pit media outlets against each other, champion health care “reform” that benefits only the rich.
Trump appointed as his right-hand man a guy who didn’t want his children going to school with too many Jews.
The president ignores his intelligence briefings but lets Fox and Friends and Twitter trolls set his agenda. The very rich and the very poor are farther apart than ever. If the rich could flee to Mars, they probably would.
A big part of what makes American Flagg! so great is Chaykin’s detailed world-building — “a circus of cheap elements from action movies, porn films, comic books, sci-fi [and] T.V. — all going off as glorious fireworks,” is how The Atlantic’s Lloyd Rose put it.
But American Flagg! does not despair. Publisher Mike Gold wrote the intro to the first issue. “What’s it about?” he recalled asking Chaykin.
“Oh, the usual,” Chaykin replied. “Women and violence. And patriotism.”
“That’s not a non-sequitur,” Gold wrote. “Chaykin’s probably the most patriotic person I know. Not the usual ‘love it or leave it’ nonsense that serves to divide instead of unite — and is therefore not patriotic. Howard’s patriotism comes from pride — and from great hopes for America. The United States isn’t the land of opportunity. It isn’t the land of freedom. Other nations have comparable levels of opportunity and freedom.
“America is the land of hope,” Gold continued. “And that’s a wonderful thing to have. So amid all the violence and women … you’re going to find a great deal of patriotism in American Flagg! … thoughtful, hopeful patriotism.”
It’s a prescription for our own bizarre, dangerous, real-life present.
Stay defiant.
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