Bullying and law in the multiverse
Emily Bazelon, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy: Free LibraryThing early reviewer book. Bazelon investigates several bullying controversies in detail, some of which became nationally prominent and others of which didn’t, and concludes that the stories are often quite complicated-kids aren’t making very good decisions, because they’re kids, and if schools and parents don’t react fast and perfectly things may go very wrong. Bullying is worst, she suggests, in middle school, when kids are just finding out how powerful they can be using aggression (and relatedly when they’re starting to explore their sexuality). High schoolers start to learn how to moderate “drama,” but often seem to be on their own in doing so. Bazelon concludes that “bullying” is often not the right target for adults-it’s behavior generally, both in managing the boundaries of the self (delete that formspring.me account!) and in dealing humanely with other people. She suggests that schools and involved adults use consistent policies to make clear that bad behavior is taken seriously; making bully and victim sit and talk it out isn’t likely to work, especially with bullies who know what adults want to hear, but other forms of changing the context can do better.
James Daily & Ryan Davidson, The Law of Superheroes: Based on lawandthemultiverse.com, this breezy book has the benefit of plenty of illustrations, but its presentation of the law is generally devoid of nuance. While it’s not wrong for the sake of drama the way a Law & Order episode or a comic book might be, it’s probably a much better read if you don’t actually know any law. It starts with the preposterous statement that “[t]he terms ‘superhero’ and ‘supervillain’ are trademarks co-owned by Marvel Characters, Inc. and DC Comics, Inc. These terms are used throughout this book solely to refer descriptively to Marvel and DC characters.” I don’t presume to know whether Marvel & DC asked for this ridiculous disclaimer in return for agreeing not to contest the extensive and helpful (and fair use!) images in the book, but, just to be clear: (1) superhero and supervillain are generic terms, not trademarks; (2) even if they weren’t, the owner (since a trademark must have an owner, not two who don’t control each other’s behavior) would not have any claim against a book that used a term “wrongly.”
But at least this is a good indication of what you’re going to get: some entertaining/shallow discussion of various legal dilemmas in which comics characters might find themselves. I did like the discussion of masked superheroes testifying in court, and the point that DC has solved this problem with a constitutional amendment allowing “registered meta-humans” to testify masked, which then means that DC has already put in place the very provision that in the Marvelverse sparked Civil War: “while the DC workaround would be effective in the courts, it does not seem as if that universe has fully dealt with the implications of that solution.” Heh.
Unfortunately, while sensitive to the First Amendment implications of anti-mask laws, the authors badly mishandle the idea of newsworthiness when it comes to invasion of privacy, claiming that Peter Parker would have a cause of action against someone who revealed that he was Spiderman because Peter Parker “is just a working stiff, a news photographer and, perhaps most importantly, is often written as a minor. The public probably doesn’t have as much of an interest in knowing these details.” Um, no. Dude is Spiderman. That his secret identity seems like an ordinary Joe is no more relevant to whether the Spiderman-Peter Parker link is newsworthy than the ordinariness of the contents of Anthony Weiner’s boxer-briefs is relevant to the newsworthiness of the fact that a Congressman was sending pictures of his erection around. So, as the authors suggest, don’t take the book as offering legal advice.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
James Daily & Ryan Davidson, The Law of Superheroes: Based on lawandthemultiverse.com, this breezy book has the benefit of plenty of illustrations, but its presentation of the law is generally devoid of nuance. While it’s not wrong for the sake of drama the way a Law & Order episode or a comic book might be, it’s probably a much better read if you don’t actually know any law. It starts with the preposterous statement that “[t]he terms ‘superhero’ and ‘supervillain’ are trademarks co-owned by Marvel Characters, Inc. and DC Comics, Inc. These terms are used throughout this book solely to refer descriptively to Marvel and DC characters.” I don’t presume to know whether Marvel & DC asked for this ridiculous disclaimer in return for agreeing not to contest the extensive and helpful (and fair use!) images in the book, but, just to be clear: (1) superhero and supervillain are generic terms, not trademarks; (2) even if they weren’t, the owner (since a trademark must have an owner, not two who don’t control each other’s behavior) would not have any claim against a book that used a term “wrongly.”
But at least this is a good indication of what you’re going to get: some entertaining/shallow discussion of various legal dilemmas in which comics characters might find themselves. I did like the discussion of masked superheroes testifying in court, and the point that DC has solved this problem with a constitutional amendment allowing “registered meta-humans” to testify masked, which then means that DC has already put in place the very provision that in the Marvelverse sparked Civil War: “while the DC workaround would be effective in the courts, it does not seem as if that universe has fully dealt with the implications of that solution.” Heh.
Unfortunately, while sensitive to the First Amendment implications of anti-mask laws, the authors badly mishandle the idea of newsworthiness when it comes to invasion of privacy, claiming that Peter Parker would have a cause of action against someone who revealed that he was Spiderman because Peter Parker “is just a working stiff, a news photographer and, perhaps most importantly, is often written as a minor. The public probably doesn’t have as much of an interest in knowing these details.” Um, no. Dude is Spiderman. That his secret identity seems like an ordinary Joe is no more relevant to whether the Spiderman-Peter Parker link is newsworthy than the ordinariness of the contents of Anthony Weiner’s boxer-briefs is relevant to the newsworthiness of the fact that a Congressman was sending pictures of his erection around. So, as the authors suggest, don’t take the book as offering legal advice.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.