"Watchmen's brand of dystopian misanthropy has been specifically refuted by events. It's one thing to worry about the evil U.S. policies of containment and mutually-assured destruction in 1986. It's one thing to paint a particular political party as being unconstitutionally obsessed with the possession of power and recklessly in pursuit of nuclear confrontation with an enemy who probably wasn't so bad.
But as it turns out, that entire worldview was vitiated by events. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Reagan's strategic policy decisions vis-a-vis the Soviet Union were completely vindicated. MAD proved to be an effective deterrent. The conflict between the East and West was settled without a shot being fired. And, perhaps most importantly, the Truman/Kennedy/Reagan view of communism as an insidious ideology which led to violent, repressive authoritarianism was borne out.
So [Alan] Moore was wrong. His fears were wrong. His warnings were wrong. His fundamental view of the world was wrong. And 'Watchmen,' in particular, is left as a bizarre cultural artifact. A pretentious piece of commentary masquerading as philosophy."
I am confused as to why you need validation to your opinion that Watchmen is not good. Nothing you say to me, or what you site, it going to change the fact that I enjoyed the graphic novel as a piece of literature and that I enjoyed the movie as entertainment.
I am not challenging your own opinion. I am not demanding that you enjoy the movie or the graphic novel, either. I am not stating that you "don't get it" or that you "just don't understand" either. I am musing that the movie failed to reach out to those who have not read the novel, though, by playing only to those who have.
Here's an example about what I'm talking about: I HAAAAATED the Twilight books. HATE HATE HATE. I think they send a horrible message about love and relationship and the gender roles are sickening. Do I think my friends who enjoyed them are batshit crazy? Do I make fun of them? Do I demand that they validate my opinion of the novels? Nope. I live and let live. We share enough in common that it doesn't affect my personal views of them.
Bottom line: you are a grown man. You chose to go see the movie right when it opened, instead of simply waiting for it to be on TV or rent it from netflix or even download a bootlegged copy. Unless, that is, you were attacked by a gang of gun wielding geeks who threw you into the back of a van and then taped your eyes open through the whole movie. I don't care that you didn't like the movie or the graphic novel. I do care that you called anybody who did an emo kid who needs to put down the razor and grow up.
Oddly, I thought I was providing counterpoint here, not slapping signs and labels all over a subsegment of the culture
Literary criticism, which you should recognize from your schooling, I would hope, is a time honored criticism, and a part of our culture of discourse and knowledge. It is not helped, surely, by offhanded 140-char tweets about the book being deeply emo and in favor with the self mutilation crowd, but I can still suggest things about the relative value of the book. Or, if you'd prefer to not be challenged, you can filter me out and remain free from a viewpoint that largely differs from your own
I don't seek validation from you, Meg, your opinion on the matter is certainly welcome, but I'm not here for validation, rather to discuss the troubling deification of Moore's dystopian paranoia.
Oddly, I thought I was providing counterpoint here, not slapping signs and labels all over a subsegment of the culture
Even though you brush it off later in your reply, your tweet last night of "Frankly, anyone who loves that book for what it is, who read it after the age of 25? Needs to stop with the emo poems & cutting." makes it hard to take your criticism seriously. Your argument style makes it to be that anybody who disagrees with you is simply a whiney teenager who never grew up. This isn't high school debate team; you're not being award points for being a douchebag.
When you started criticizing Watchmen, you did so not from a literary point of view, but as a personal attack on those who enjoyed the books. Now you come back with "but I'm being INTELLECTUAL here!" and I'm still not buying it. This post wasn't about "people who hate Watchmen are idiots" and it's not about "here's why watchmen is awesome or lame" this post is about the movie's treatment of the novel and how I think they alienated a crowd by playing to the fans.
Now you counter that with the argument that I'm going to be closed minded. Why? I'm letting you talk about it here, aren't I? I'm not telling you to shut up, am I? But you are coming across as someone who needs his argument validated (or perhaps the last word?) because you want to be RIGHT. But right about what? That Watchmen is a product of its time? That oh holy shit, the fictional world he wrote turned out to be (gasp) actually fictional? That Moore wrote about his paranoia that perhaps at the time was justified, he exaggerated that to turn it into a fictional story, blended in the role of super heros in a post WW2 world, and somehow that's BAD? Perhaps he should never have written it if it wasn't going to turn out to be true? People are wasting their time reading it because it didn't actually happen?
LitCrit is a time honored tradition, sure, but isn't reading for enjoyment?
Even though you brush it off later in your reply, your tweet last night of "Frankly, anyone who loves that book for what it is, who read it after the age of 25? Needs to stop with the emo poems & cutting." makes it hard to take your criticism seriously.
The difficulty of Twitter is that it's meant for first impressions. You distill your argument to the fewest words, fewest concepts, and that leads to a bluntness that some would not like. So, it's not unsurprising that what starts as a first impression is best explored through longer treatment.
This post wasn't about "people who hate Watchmen are idiots" and it's not about "here's why watchmen is awesome or lame" this post is about the movie's treatment of the novel and how I think they alienated a crowd by playing to the fans.
"She is going to judge her friends because of this movie" -- that's a pretty large presumption. And, it doesn't even begin to come close. I can't speak for Tiff, but I can suggest that the kind of judging that might be occuring here is the probably just about the least harmful (assuming it's even harmful!) of any kind. I'm not judging on skin color, body shape, interior/external genitalia, hair color, eye color, hand size, shoe size, security clearance, height, sexual proclivities, or any of the other out-of-your-hands things that are commonly judged. I'm not ending any friendships based on whether or not someone likes or dislikes WATCHMEN, the graphic novel or movie, but it means that I might not trust a book recommendation coming from them. And really, if they're my friends, I love them despite their questionable taste in bad 1980s paranoiac graphic novels.
So, now that you can see this horse ain't so high, and that I'm not going around nailing people to copies of the book so I can keep track which of the peons in this world hold it dear, can you back down the hackles and quit assuming I'm coming after you with the literary police?
--
PS - it's totally okay to make fun of someone for liking Twilight. Not for a long time, but sparkly vampires whose LOVE IS SO PURE deserve not just a little bit of mocking.
"Watchmen's brand of dystopian misanthropy has been specifically refuted by events. It's one thing to worry about the evil U.S. policies of containment and mutually-assured destruction in 1986. It's one thing to paint a particular political party as being unconstitutionally obsessed with the possession of power and recklessly in pursuit of nuclear confrontation with an enemy who probably wasn't so bad.
But as it turns out, that entire worldview was vitiated by events. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Reagan's strategic policy decisions vis-a-vis the Soviet Union were completely vindicated. MAD proved to be an effective deterrent. The conflict between the East and West was settled without a shot being fired. And, perhaps most importantly, the Truman/Kennedy/Reagan view of communism as an insidious ideology which led to violent, repressive authoritarianism was borne out.
So [Alan] Moore was wrong. His fears were wrong. His warnings were wrong. His fundamental view of the world was wrong. And 'Watchmen,' in particular, is left as a bizarre cultural artifact. A pretentious piece of commentary masquerading as philosophy."
Reply
I am not challenging your own opinion. I am not demanding that you enjoy the movie or the graphic novel, either. I am not stating that you "don't get it" or that you "just don't understand" either. I am musing that the movie failed to reach out to those who have not read the novel, though, by playing only to those who have.
Here's an example about what I'm talking about: I HAAAAATED the Twilight books. HATE HATE HATE. I think they send a horrible message about love and relationship and the gender roles are sickening. Do I think my friends who enjoyed them are batshit crazy? Do I make fun of them? Do I demand that they validate my opinion of the novels? Nope. I live and let live. We share enough in common that it doesn't affect my personal views of them.
Bottom line: you are a grown man. You chose to go see the movie right when it opened, instead of simply waiting for it to be on TV or rent it from netflix or even download a bootlegged copy. Unless, that is, you were attacked by a gang of gun wielding geeks who threw you into the back of a van and then taped your eyes open through the whole movie. I don't care that you didn't like the movie or the graphic novel. I do care that you called anybody who did an emo kid who needs to put down the razor and grow up.
Reply
Literary criticism, which you should recognize from your schooling, I would hope, is a time honored criticism, and a part of our culture of discourse and knowledge. It is not helped, surely, by offhanded 140-char tweets about the book being deeply emo and in favor with the self mutilation crowd, but I can still suggest things about the relative value of the book. Or, if you'd prefer to not be challenged, you can filter me out and remain free from a viewpoint that largely differs from your own
I don't seek validation from you, Meg, your opinion on the matter is certainly welcome, but I'm not here for validation, rather to discuss the troubling deification of Moore's dystopian paranoia.
Reply
Even though you brush it off later in your reply, your tweet last night of "Frankly, anyone who loves that book for what it is, who read it after the age of 25? Needs to stop with the emo poems & cutting." makes it hard to take your criticism seriously. Your argument style makes it to be that anybody who disagrees with you is simply a whiney teenager who never grew up. This isn't high school debate team; you're not being award points for being a douchebag.
When you started criticizing Watchmen, you did so not from a literary point of view, but as a personal attack on those who enjoyed the books. Now you come back with "but I'm being INTELLECTUAL here!" and I'm still not buying it. This post wasn't about "people who hate Watchmen are idiots" and it's not about "here's why watchmen is awesome or lame" this post is about the movie's treatment of the novel and how I think they alienated a crowd by playing to the fans.
Now you counter that with the argument that I'm going to be closed minded. Why? I'm letting you talk about it here, aren't I? I'm not telling you to shut up, am I? But you are coming across as someone who needs his argument validated (or perhaps the last word?) because you want to be RIGHT. But right about what? That Watchmen is a product of its time? That oh holy shit, the fictional world he wrote turned out to be (gasp) actually fictional? That Moore wrote about his paranoia that perhaps at the time was justified, he exaggerated that to turn it into a fictional story, blended in the role of super heros in a post WW2 world, and somehow that's BAD? Perhaps he should never have written it if it wasn't going to turn out to be true? People are wasting their time reading it because it didn't actually happen?
LitCrit is a time honored tradition, sure, but isn't reading for enjoyment?
Reply
The difficulty of Twitter is that it's meant for first impressions. You distill your argument to the fewest words, fewest concepts, and that leads to a bluntness that some would not like. So, it's not unsurprising that what starts as a first impression is best explored through longer treatment.
This post wasn't about "people who hate Watchmen are idiots" and it's not about "here's why watchmen is awesome or lame" this post is about the movie's treatment of the novel and how I think they alienated a crowd by playing to the fans.
"She is going to judge her friends because of this movie" -- that's a pretty large presumption. And, it doesn't even begin to come close. I can't speak for Tiff, but I can suggest that the kind of judging that might be occuring here is the probably just about the least harmful (assuming it's even harmful!) of any kind. I'm not judging on skin color, body shape, interior/external genitalia, hair color, eye color, hand size, shoe size, security clearance, height, sexual proclivities, or any of the other out-of-your-hands things that are commonly judged. I'm not ending any friendships based on whether or not someone likes or dislikes WATCHMEN, the graphic novel or movie, but it means that I might not trust a book recommendation coming from them. And really, if they're my friends, I love them despite their questionable taste in bad 1980s paranoiac graphic novels.
So, now that you can see this horse ain't so high, and that I'm not going around nailing people to copies of the book so I can keep track which of the peons in this world hold it dear, can you back down the hackles and quit assuming I'm coming after you with the literary police?
--
PS - it's totally okay to make fun of someone for liking Twilight. Not for a long time, but sparkly vampires whose LOVE IS SO PURE deserve not just a little bit of mocking.
Reply
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