We, the Vampires and Werewolves

On a Washington Post analysis headlined “American Democracy Is Cracking,” I asked the following question:

What happened to make serial killers, vampires, werewolves, witches and zombies such sympathetic figures in American popular culture?

The American corporate right wingers made ruthless evil fashionable. That’s what happened.

And I don't mean Wiccans, but witches as a monster symbol. Popular culture is a funhouse mirror that distorts — but actually reflects — the society which spawns it. 

Ruthless predatory behavior is admired and rewarded in American society, so what's wrong with monsters? Nothing. They just want to rend and tear. Is that so wrong?

And Superman is only acceptable now if he breaks some necks.

SilkkyFire replied, “I'm 61 and probably a little bit of a weirdo, even among my own generational cohort. But I can tell you, the explicit violence and constant references to torture and suffering in streamed drama is both shocking and unbearable. It makes a lot of programming (some of which is otherwise excellent) almost impossible to watch.

“Many years ago now, I was watching an episode of CSI and there was a scene where the techs were pulling pieces of a man out of a tiger's gut while making catty comments. Network television! I shut the thing off, and I was done. Never watched that show again.

“We have become very blasé about explicit depictions of pain and suffering, taking it all in with crude cynicism. Does it make us more compassionate to be entertained by those things? I don't think so. I think it becomes more like porn, with the ante constantly rising, and the mind engaging with it, corrupted. It doesn’t bode well for what we are becoming.”

Habbbb replied, “Agree with you both, and would note that the insistence on ‘getting back to normal’ while covid continues killing and disabling large numbers of people, as well as tourists in Hawaii swimming and snorkeling where more than a thousand still are missing and where bodies were seen floating soon after the devastating fire, are real-life examples of this dissociative/sociopathic horror.”

SilkkyFire said, “Thank you. Our politics is a horror show, but the increasingly indecent nature of our culture (which our politics reflects) makes me deeply sad. When I say ‘indecent’ — well, I don’t care if you wear a tank top to the grocery store or say ‘damn!’ when you stub your toe. That is not what I am talking about. To me ‘decency’ really is comprised of two things: Honesty, and a caring attitude in regard to others. Is that who we are? Is that what we value?”

Disgruntled in CT replied, “It started long ago. Exploitation is not new. It was the bedrock on which this country was built. The culture reflects it. Long ago it was the brave gunfighter fighting the bloodthirsty Indian. All societies seem to develop in similar fashion. But in developed nations, we should want to progress toward a more equal society. Unfortunately, this can’t happen if our standard for success is wealth.”

The Door to Changing Your Mind

To change your thinking, cross thresholds. This is true both metaphorically and literally. Studies have shown that when we move from one room to another, our short-term memory of our environment "resets" and dumps data on the previous room, which is no longer required. But with that goes some other stuff. This is the explanation for why we go into another room for something, and then forget what it was when we get there.

How Blue Was My Beetle

Back from The Blue Beetle, a back-to-basics superhero movie with a theme about family feeling (a motif it shares with the two Shazam films). 

It will remind audience members of both Iron Man and The Greatest American Hero (the idealistic young protagonist has an alien super-suit that he can’t quite operate).

I was surprised to see that the movie directly ties into the previous Charlton Comics and DC Comics incarnations of the Blue Beetle, a character that in one form or another reaches all the way back to 1939. Jack Kirby’s OMAC is in there as well. 

This makes for a richer story, yet manages to sidestep the pitfalls of too much clunky background baggage.

The film is surprisingly straightforward about the malignancy of class oppression and the military-industrial complex, a fact that works to make the climax thrilling and satisfying. Xolo Maridueña is appealing as the hero, and Susan Sarandon is effective as the cheerfully amoral, bright-as-a-poisonous-penny corporate CEO villain Victoria Kord.

Seated in a cinema with only two other people, I had virtually a private showing — an agreeable way to while away an August afternoon.

Comic book fans should be sure to stay for a post-credits surprise.

The Demi-Beagle Lays Down the Law

George’s Rules

1) Motor scooters and bicycles are forbidden.

2) Horses are an outrage.

3) How dare squirrels exist.

4) The pillows are mine. I have plans for them.

5) Paul may not sneeze. Others may, but not Paul.

The real George the beagador.

Re: The Perfect Film

I have a mental category of "perfect films," by which I mean movies in which every minute works, and every second ticks toward a satisfying conclusion. They don't have to be great art, though many of them are.

Off the top of my head: “Chinatown,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Apartment,” “Pillow Talk,” “Life with Father,” “I Remember Mama,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” the 1933 “King Kong,” the 1978 “Superman…”

I posted that on the TCM fan Facebook page and got an ongoing tsunami in response... hundreds of nominations from movie lovers.