My Misprizing
Sometimes, I ponder if my role in existence is to stoically remain forever a pitiless being of criticism. I say this, because as I was contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of seeing the second Spiderman film, I couldn’t draw my mind away from the stinging, predominant fact in regard to that franchise, that is I don’t care a wink about Peter Parker. I saw the first film, and I was quite disappointed with the whole ordeal to be frank, really. I do not intend to review it here, but suffice to say that had I not been in my own room and watching it on another’s tab, then I would’ve demanded the immediate refund of my hypothetical money. And as I was reading over today’s (Wednesday, June 30th) Penny Arcade post, wherein Tycho addresses Spiderman, I could do nothing but wince when he described Parker as “human,” complete with italics for emphasis and everything — is it to be whiney to be human, I ask?
I have no sympathy for the Parker character, nor any other adherent to that archetype of reluctant and overcautious superhero. You choose a lifestyle riddled with danger, you accept the risks and realise the side-effects, in my opinion; if you want to swing around beating up nefarious people of villainous nature, expect them to do evil, malevolent acts like threaten your loved ones. If you wish to save your unwitting cohorts from danger, destroy your actual identity and become the hero you wish to be — or don’t, and constantly come into perilous dilemmas because you can’t trip down an alleyway without revealing who you truly are. Just do not expect me to gasp and empathetically coo every single time it happens, as though it is surprising and the decision you face of “Who am I? Parker or Spiderman? Human or hero?” is somehow new at all.
And on that same note, I think about my favourite figures in cinema, I think about who it is in movies that I actually find myself rooting for their success. It definitely wasn’t Riddick, nor was it Neo . . . The Shining is one of my favourite movies ever, and one of the reasons is that I always found myself compelled to pull for the triumph of Jack, the crazed writer. Hannibal Lector, also, wins my wholehearted support, too, for his deliciously twisted approaches to vengeance — he ate the first violinist of the New York Philharmonic Symphony because he felt that the position was won through politics and not skill, for crying out loud; who can’t respect that? Alex from A Clockwork Orange is cruel and evil, but somewhere in my heart I enjoyed his adventures in devilish mayhem . . . And McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest stands as an example of the greatest type of hero existent in my mind, and he’s not actually a psychopath or deranged.
On the hand of anime, of which I also watch a considerable amount, there’re the heroes I give a damn about such as Spike Spiegel and Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop. I would cite an example from Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I felt mostly an overwhelming amount of pity mixed in with intolerance for Shinji and a sense of admiration for Gendo, which is undoubtedly not a case in point for me as anything but coldhearted; granted, I did feel sorry for Shinji, but my feelings were heavily tinged with frustration at his weak character, for my pity was reserved only for his misfortunate life and not his spineless reaction to its tribulations. Kusanagi from Ghost In the Shell, now there’s a hero I could admire, stopping only here and there long enough to brood over her cybernetic existence between kicking the shit out of the Puppetmaster. Tetsuo from Akira? He was just a hot-blooded adolescent, in the end, which was sort of pitiful and relatable but still inexcusable. I can keep going with my analysis of my opinion of heroes in anime; however, that would not serve my purpose of discovering whether or not I am heartless, instead it would muddle the exploration.
Let me go back to Bebop for an instant, quickly, though; Faye Valentine . . . My God, the ill will I harbour towards that character can not be rationally explained. As I see it, she was a selfish, ingratiating, freeloading slut, and as far as I was concerned, she should’ve been left to rot for her bitchiness and careless attitude. In short, fuck Faye Valentine. I get the sense, and some of my friends tell me, that I should feel bad that (REVEALING INFORMATION) she was a rich, spoiled daughter of upper-class citizens that got into a tragic accident and was put on ice for fifty-odd years, resulting in her complete amnesia from the point she woke up until the point she found the rubble of her old home, and I’m supposed to shed a tear that she worked so hard for nothing and, as the sun set, she was without a past or family? “Hard Luck Women” was a beautiful and moving episode, and even I felt a little sad for Faye, but that doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t deserve any of the generosity she got from anyone. Fuck Faye Valentine, and, come to think of it, fuck Asuka Langley Sohryu . . . However, I’m beginning to just prove that I have zero tolerance for bitchy women and not sympathetic characters in general, at this point.
Am I heartless, am I heartless? Perhaps my qualm arises from the fact that to be visibly human seems to be equated with displays of weakness and wafting back and forth on a subject, waffling over some life-affecting crux point . . . Which makes sense, mind you, and I do not mean to sound as if people should not carefully choose the right decision in regards to something that the effect of will ripple through their entire lifespan . . . But, Peter Parker is “human” because he struggles with his identity and experiences real pain as a result of it, and I . . . Don’t . . . Care. I don’t care. I can’t make myself care. I don’t hate Peter Parker, but I don’t care about him, either.
Perhaps, indeed, my problem arises from the idea of someone doing great things and then the audience having an obligation to feel sorry for the rest of his character. If someone does something great and is great, than I won’t think twice about forgiving him or her the faults of their human nature without qualm or emotion. And I may have a tendency to translate my sympathy for a character into callous disregard; take, for example, my reaction to Dream from Gaiman’s Sandman comic. Once I found out the core of Dream’s being, as a moody, melodramatic and ultimately suicidal fool, I kind of stopped caring about him. Looking back on everything he had done, I saw the second half of his motivation and my heart turned to stone for his final plight. And it’s not that I begin to or ever hate these characters, but I lack emotional attachment or warm fondness for them . . . Maybe I just don’t like what it means to be human? Maybe I see it in characters in movies, books, comics, plays, etc. and it causes me to reserve my affection for them because they’re human, thus no better or worse than I and unworthy of any special concern?
Of course, it only seems to be a reaction to certain qualities of human nature, and specifically it has to do with self-doubt and insecurity. I don’t have patience for those qualities in people, because I used to have them in such abundance that I lost them almost through sheer tiring of having them. Or, after years of going through the same dilemmas and self-questionings, then I have zilch desire to see it in others. I know what it’s like, I know what it feels like, I know what it entails, so it is not new, interesting, or any sort of epiphany for me . . . It’s almost like it’s rehashing part of my life, and I don’t go to movies to see that.
I honestly don’t think I’m heartless, because this is a very specific and special apathy I only harbour for characters, not people. In my mind, people are on an entirely different level and I am much less . . . Contemptuous . . . Toward actual human beings; because, that’s what I am doing to these characters, seething with contempt for their problems. After one learns how stupid a state of being is, then it no longer holds any respectful position in one’s eyes, I suppose.
I’ll probably see Spiderman 2, anyway.
Adios.
I have no sympathy for the Parker character, nor any other adherent to that archetype of reluctant and overcautious superhero. You choose a lifestyle riddled with danger, you accept the risks and realise the side-effects, in my opinion; if you want to swing around beating up nefarious people of villainous nature, expect them to do evil, malevolent acts like threaten your loved ones. If you wish to save your unwitting cohorts from danger, destroy your actual identity and become the hero you wish to be — or don’t, and constantly come into perilous dilemmas because you can’t trip down an alleyway without revealing who you truly are. Just do not expect me to gasp and empathetically coo every single time it happens, as though it is surprising and the decision you face of “Who am I? Parker or Spiderman? Human or hero?” is somehow new at all.
And on that same note, I think about my favourite figures in cinema, I think about who it is in movies that I actually find myself rooting for their success. It definitely wasn’t Riddick, nor was it Neo . . . The Shining is one of my favourite movies ever, and one of the reasons is that I always found myself compelled to pull for the triumph of Jack, the crazed writer. Hannibal Lector, also, wins my wholehearted support, too, for his deliciously twisted approaches to vengeance — he ate the first violinist of the New York Philharmonic Symphony because he felt that the position was won through politics and not skill, for crying out loud; who can’t respect that? Alex from A Clockwork Orange is cruel and evil, but somewhere in my heart I enjoyed his adventures in devilish mayhem . . . And McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest stands as an example of the greatest type of hero existent in my mind, and he’s not actually a psychopath or deranged.
On the hand of anime, of which I also watch a considerable amount, there’re the heroes I give a damn about such as Spike Spiegel and Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop. I would cite an example from Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I felt mostly an overwhelming amount of pity mixed in with intolerance for Shinji and a sense of admiration for Gendo, which is undoubtedly not a case in point for me as anything but coldhearted; granted, I did feel sorry for Shinji, but my feelings were heavily tinged with frustration at his weak character, for my pity was reserved only for his misfortunate life and not his spineless reaction to its tribulations. Kusanagi from Ghost In the Shell, now there’s a hero I could admire, stopping only here and there long enough to brood over her cybernetic existence between kicking the shit out of the Puppetmaster. Tetsuo from Akira? He was just a hot-blooded adolescent, in the end, which was sort of pitiful and relatable but still inexcusable. I can keep going with my analysis of my opinion of heroes in anime; however, that would not serve my purpose of discovering whether or not I am heartless, instead it would muddle the exploration.
Let me go back to Bebop for an instant, quickly, though; Faye Valentine . . . My God, the ill will I harbour towards that character can not be rationally explained. As I see it, she was a selfish, ingratiating, freeloading slut, and as far as I was concerned, she should’ve been left to rot for her bitchiness and careless attitude. In short, fuck Faye Valentine. I get the sense, and some of my friends tell me, that I should feel bad that (REVEALING INFORMATION) she was a rich, spoiled daughter of upper-class citizens that got into a tragic accident and was put on ice for fifty-odd years, resulting in her complete amnesia from the point she woke up until the point she found the rubble of her old home, and I’m supposed to shed a tear that she worked so hard for nothing and, as the sun set, she was without a past or family? “Hard Luck Women” was a beautiful and moving episode, and even I felt a little sad for Faye, but that doesn’t change the fact that she didn’t deserve any of the generosity she got from anyone. Fuck Faye Valentine, and, come to think of it, fuck Asuka Langley Sohryu . . . However, I’m beginning to just prove that I have zero tolerance for bitchy women and not sympathetic characters in general, at this point.
Am I heartless, am I heartless? Perhaps my qualm arises from the fact that to be visibly human seems to be equated with displays of weakness and wafting back and forth on a subject, waffling over some life-affecting crux point . . . Which makes sense, mind you, and I do not mean to sound as if people should not carefully choose the right decision in regards to something that the effect of will ripple through their entire lifespan . . . But, Peter Parker is “human” because he struggles with his identity and experiences real pain as a result of it, and I . . . Don’t . . . Care. I don’t care. I can’t make myself care. I don’t hate Peter Parker, but I don’t care about him, either.
Perhaps, indeed, my problem arises from the idea of someone doing great things and then the audience having an obligation to feel sorry for the rest of his character. If someone does something great and is great, than I won’t think twice about forgiving him or her the faults of their human nature without qualm or emotion. And I may have a tendency to translate my sympathy for a character into callous disregard; take, for example, my reaction to Dream from Gaiman’s Sandman comic. Once I found out the core of Dream’s being, as a moody, melodramatic and ultimately suicidal fool, I kind of stopped caring about him. Looking back on everything he had done, I saw the second half of his motivation and my heart turned to stone for his final plight. And it’s not that I begin to or ever hate these characters, but I lack emotional attachment or warm fondness for them . . . Maybe I just don’t like what it means to be human? Maybe I see it in characters in movies, books, comics, plays, etc. and it causes me to reserve my affection for them because they’re human, thus no better or worse than I and unworthy of any special concern?
Of course, it only seems to be a reaction to certain qualities of human nature, and specifically it has to do with self-doubt and insecurity. I don’t have patience for those qualities in people, because I used to have them in such abundance that I lost them almost through sheer tiring of having them. Or, after years of going through the same dilemmas and self-questionings, then I have zilch desire to see it in others. I know what it’s like, I know what it feels like, I know what it entails, so it is not new, interesting, or any sort of epiphany for me . . . It’s almost like it’s rehashing part of my life, and I don’t go to movies to see that.
I honestly don’t think I’m heartless, because this is a very specific and special apathy I only harbour for characters, not people. In my mind, people are on an entirely different level and I am much less . . . Contemptuous . . . Toward actual human beings; because, that’s what I am doing to these characters, seething with contempt for their problems. After one learns how stupid a state of being is, then it no longer holds any respectful position in one’s eyes, I suppose.
I’ll probably see Spiderman 2, anyway.
Adios.
posted by c.Jay Wrong at
2:01 AM
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