I have opinions you won’t like
By Miles Baker
- Yes, this is directly related to the Watchmen movie coming out in theatres. It’s also a call back to a line in a review I wrote a while ago that people asked for some clarification on.
- Yes, I’m serious.
- Yes, I disturb shit as a hobby.
I am aware that Watchmen is an intelligent comic. It’s a work of graphic literature. It’s as important as people say it is. It’s complex and layered, and scarily still politically relevant to this day. But there are a few things I can’t get over while I’m reading Watchmen.
- That Alan Moore hates every character he’s writing about.
- That Sally Jupiter has a kid with the man who tries to rape her and justifies it with something along the lines of “it’s complicated.” I guess she read this.
- That Alan Moore hates sentiment and humanity.
- The colouring.
Though I’ve heard it can be argued that the colours in Watchmen are supposed to make you want to throw up. And I could buy that. I want to throw up to a lot of it. Particularly my number two there.
Now, I haven’t read every Alan Moore story out there, but, from what I’ve read, he really likes to rape or attempt to rape his female characters. Sometimes, he likes to borrow characters and rape them too, like in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or The Killing Joke. Yes, in cases like From Hell that is clearly justified from the source material, but he really likes to visit that plot device. Like, he really likes it. It’s his thing.
I’ve had many arguments with people about Alan Moore’s misogyny that end up with them saying, “Well, yeah, he’s a misogynist but he’s a really good writer.” And I say fuck that.
Fuck that.
It sucks that for a medium that historically has so very many problems with victimized women that this man is one of the few shots it has at legitimacy. I say we demand better than an elitist magician.
That’s the other thing he is. An elitist. Every character in Watchmen is an ineffectual rube, with the exception of the unfeeling Mr. Manhattan and the mass murdering Veitch. The Owl’s sense of nostalgia is mocked with his impotence, while Rorschach is made to look stupid with his overwrought dialogue and ridiculous sense of justice.
At the end of it, I dislike every character in Watchmen and I think Alan Moore hates them all even more. The whole work is a thesis about how failed and flawed we are and how there is absolutely no hope for us.
Fuck that too.
I do get it, why he’s popular. He’s a smart man. He has challenged the medium. He fights for his creative rights. But, right now, Alan Moore is sitting at his computer thinking of new ways he can hate you with literature.
I don’t know much about Alan Moore from a comics perspective, but I do know that he is so picky about how his stories are treated that he has now refuses any credit for film adaptations of his comics (even decent ones like V for Vendetta).
Whoah, I have to get to a class, but I think the whole thing is a thesis about how we’re all flawed, yes, but also all have our redeeming qualities. It puts the good guys and bad guys on an even playing field, which is a shade of grey that looks impressively realistic to me.
I’ll be back.
Man, you nailed it. A complete ditto, here.
I really don’t think Joker raped Barbara Gordon in the literal sense, but you have to admit that for the purposes of doing the worst things possible to Commisioner Gordon, hurting who he cared for the most makes sense.
As for Watchmen, if you make a movie riffing off “the real world” of super heroes, and you have a golden age Wonder Woman analogue, it’s a direction/conversation that HAS to be addressed. There are a lot of Wonder Woman covers back in the day that had her provocatively tied up and helpless, she even lost her strength whenever a man tied up her bracelets together or even just tying her up (I forget if that distinction was important). It’s like Alan Moore didn’t have a choice, the subject matter dictated the story in that case. In fact the subject matter dictates all of Watchmen, it’s a very directed, focused story.
I’m actually not as outraged at this article as you may think. Though I still have some factual issues with it, and they are as follows:
1. Nobody gets raped in The Killing Joke.
2. No WOMAN gets raped in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen — well okay, all those girls at the dorm by the Invisible Man. But let’s be honest, a person of low character who was entirely invisible would more than likely take advantage of that condition. And yes, someone does get raped in League II, but it’s a dude.
I don’t know that Alan Moore hates his characters — in fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that it’s a foolish thing to say about a writer. How do you judge whether or not a writer hates his characters? Because bad things happen to them? Explain your reasoning here. Brian K Vaughan killed his favourite character in Runaways, because it was good for the story. While you’re at it, discuss why it’s necessarily a bad thing to love or hate your characters. Isn’t it more important to craft a good STORY, regardless of your level of personal attachment to the characters in it?
I’m not sold on the idea of Moore as a misogynist. I don’t think writing stories that include victimized women as deserving the label of misogyny. Laurie Jupiter, Sally Jupiter (the attempted rape victim), Mina Murray, Evey Hammond, these are all very strong female characters. Moore rarely depicts his women as stupid or worthless or existing solely for the purpose of male servitude.
I will however, admit that Moore has a profound fascination with sex. He wrote that series, Lost Girls, about the sexual adventures of grown up fairy tale women Wendy Gale (Peter Pan), Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) and Alice (from Wonderland). It was basically soft core porn, though I never read it, so I can’t comment on it really.
Also, Promethea is a very interesting read, in regards to Moore’s view on sexuality and women. The lead character is a woman and there was an issue where she explored sex from a very mystical point of view.
As for you not liking any character in Watchmen…wow. I love all of them. Rorschach is awesome; he’s cunning and uncompromising and does not give up — he’s probably the most noble character in the entire series, what’s this talk about his ‘ridiculous sense of justice?’ Nite Owl is a pure and decent human being who allows himself to fade into an ordinary, boring life, but does a really cool turnaround when he finds his fire again. Dr Manhattan’s perspective on the value of life, and on the passage of time is fascinating. The Comedian, Veidt, they’re all such complex and interesting characters; I have no idea why you don’t like them, or at least aren’t interested in them.
As for your last line Miles, did you deliberately make that as presumptuous as you could in order to stir shit up? “New ways to hate you with literature.” Come on. When you preface your post with “I like to disturb shit as a hobby” I have a hard time totally buying everything you’re saying here.
Don’t get me wrong, Moore isn’t perfect, and he’s a weirdo with a sex fixation for sure. But labeling him as a misogynist based on your scattered interpretations on a handful of pieces of his work, I dunno man.
caesar
Oops, I made a mistake, a woman does get raped in League II. I forgot about that, it’s been a long time since I read it. POINT RETRACTED. So I guess one woman and one man get raped in League II.
Isaac, Caesar, then tell me what is happening on this page: http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/8213/batmanthekillingjoke26pj0.jpg
This more than implies that she’s being raped and that the Joker photographed it to get at Gordon. He entirely uses her as a plot device in this story.
Dude, she’s just in pain from having been shot through her spine, and the Joker took off her clothes to humiliate her as well as make it clear just what damage he’s done with the shot.
I admit that the power dynamic of the scene is a kind of rape, but I really don’t agree that the Joker raped her in the sense that is being espoused here.
I was about to concede the point of Barbara being used for the stories purposes, but I think I remember that Batman visits her at the hospital or someplace and she’s keeping it together as she asks Batman to get her dad. It’s been a while since I’ve read that, but I’m pretty sure that happens, and that’s a really impressive person portrayed.
You know, if I’m right, hopefully I’m not just making up a scene in my head.
So, your argument is that it’s just sexual assault instead?
Look at Gordon’s face, he saw her get shot, there’s something else going on there.
It’s funny, in the many times I’ve read “The Killing Joke” I never once took that panel to mean she was being raped. I always just took it to be The Joker viciously showing Gordon the extent of the physical (not sexual) damage done to her. I mean, yes, Gordon seeing her get shot is one thing. He probably didn’t know she was paralyzed.
Having his face rubbed in the extent of the damage, let alone images that probably indicate she is paralyzed from the waist down… well, that’s another matter.
I can still see where Miles is coming from though. The images could be interpreted that way (though I never did), though there is the point already made that if you, aka Miles, already see Moore as being fixated on rape, it might lead you to fit a square peg in a triangular hole. But even without that, it’s not inconceivable to imagine there’s room for a rape interpretation in that page. That being said, that seems to be the one crime The Joker never has committed, nor seems inclined to (then again, maybe I shudder at thinking of The Joker as a sexual being). Come to think of it, has there ever been a mainstream DC character that has been raped, or raped another?
But regardless, this is not necessarily a dummy proof argument, but as far as I know Barbara Gordon has never after this event mentioned anything about being raped. Only paralyzed. You’d think something that major would have come up at least ONCE in the continuity of her character since.
Also, on an unrelated note, I’ve always thought what The Joker did to Barbara Gordon and Robin in “The Nail” (which admittedly was an Elseworld … or whatever they were called … title), was WAY more horrifying.
I do agree on the point of Moore being a misogynistic writer, and while Caesar is right to point out that his female characters are rarely simple stock stereotypes, I would argue that he builds them up to tear them down in ways that are much more horrific and more sexual than he treats his male characters. There’s a special level of humiliation left to female characters in Moore’s work.
As for Lost Girls… to me (and I’ve read it… sadly) it really is just softcore porn in the context of three female characters discussing and illustrating their past attempts to use sex as self-confidence, and sex as power, and how it invariably turned around and destroyed them. Dude, that’s fucked up.
I agree that characters have to work for the story, not the other way round, but I do think Moore’s plots fall very easily into the broken woman cliché.
I think we’re splitting rape-hairs here.
honestly, I don’t know is the joker’s penis ever gets involved in the attack on Barbara, but I don’t think it matters.
She gets shot, tied up, and has photos taken of her gaping abdominal wound. AND THEN THOSE PICTURES ARE SHOWN TO HER DAD.
Rape is not a sexual act; it’s is an act of violence, and also a profound violation of personal dignity. What happens to Barbara is certainly a metaphorical rape, and I am willing to argue tantamount to rape in all respects. If we must define rape in terms on penis+vagina contact, I am not sure that it can be proven one way or the other (the panels imply much and show little).
Rape is a crime with this message: “I can do anything to you that I want.” And to Barbara (and to Jim Gordon) that is exactly what the Joker is saying.
Oh, this is just awesome. As soon as I saw this post go up, I knew, KNEW that the comments would at least double the article in wordcount. And I do so love commentary.
As for points I could make here: I think it’s odd to label Moore a mysogynist, especially with From Hell under his belt. The entire comic is a systemic deconstruction of Victorian patriarchy, heavily coded with the idea that it is a very dangerous thing. While Moore definitely does include themes of violence against women in much of his work, I would argue that these textual instances usually underscore a greater, more pro-feminist thematic whole.
And Rachel, as for your comment on how Moore likes to build up and tear down his female characters over his males, I’d ask you to consider to the Superman story “For The Man Who Has Everything”, where Supes is violated by a tentacle plant and has a perfect life built up that he himself must tear down. (Note to people who haven’t read this or seen it on Justice League Unlimited: better than it sounds). The idea that this is a total violation of Superman’s personhood is the central theme of what makes this plant so horrifying.
As for The Killing Joke, well to be honest I’ve never really attempted to give it much of a hard reading. Honestly, compared to his other works, it seems as though he just banged it out in a weekend to pay for a patio or something.
Let’s keep this commentary going! This is great!
I guess what my point really boils down to is that since it isn’t the physical, literal definition of rape that’s going on with Barbara, then it’s not a case of Moore just using the same literal device to tell his stories. As other posters have said, rape was never what came to my head while reading that story, and I mostly am just defending that perception.
We should totally move away from Killing Joke territory- I’m pretty sure Moore made Mogo, therefore great writer case closed, amiright?
Miles, what’s happening on that page is, Joker is showing Gordon naked pictures of his gut-shot, spine-shattered daughter in an effort to drive him to insanity. Barbara Gordon does not get raped. Is it a nice thing? No, but it’s not rape. Sure, you can argue that maybe Alan Moore really, really wanted to rape Batgirl but DC didn’t let him, but that’s not what you’re arguing.
And I don’t mean to be splitting rape-hairs — which by the way Natalie, is a much funnier turn of phrase than it should be — I was just pointing out a factual error that I think Miles is making in his argument.
Incidentally, I much prefer the crippled Barbara Gordon…she’s much more interesting and useful of a character as Oracle than she is as another costumed bat-person. Anyhoo.
I notice you ignored 90% of my comments, Miles.
I guess my main point is that it’s unfair and presumptuous of you to label a man a misogynist because of the stories he tends to write. You’ve never met him, and you’ve never read any interviews where he’s said “Cor blimey, all women are loose trollops that need a good non-consensual rodgering, what what!” (all british people talk like that, right?). Yet here you are, basically calling him a rape-loving woman-hater who hates every character he ever wrote.
Too bad for him if he IS a misogynist, he has a wife and two daughters. Must be tough for him.
caesar
I take issue with you calling it a “factual” issue, because it’s not. I grant that they do not explicitly show it, but it’s more than implied. I feel it’s really the only conclusion you can come to, especially when the Joker says, while undressing her, that he’s doing it to prove a point.
I’m not the only person who thinks that’s true. John Ostrander, one of the people who turned Barb into Oracle thinks so: http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/ostrander/?frames=n;read=4642&expand=1. I’d say it was one of the reasons he decided to use the character.
As for your other points, Caeser, where you see noble characters, I see people Moore wants you to laugh at. These people have good qualities, sure. But when I read it I feel Moore goading me to pity them in a mean way. It’s not that bad things happen to them, it’s how ineffectual and silly they all are.
For me to like a writer I need to have some attachments to the characters. Period. I’m more of a fan of character-driven stories. Plot isn’t the be all and end all in writing. The plot in Watchmen is great. That’s a good plot. But I think all the characters are savage parodies of humanity. From Rorschach’s speech patters, to Nite Owl’s impotence, to Veidt’s stupid cat, I feel you’re supposed to laugh at these characters
The only chapter I unabashedly like in Watchmen is the chapter is Dr. Manhattan on Mars thinking about time. I’d say that’s the only moment of pathos or connection I had to any character.
I’m sure he loves his wife and daughters. He’s probably even a good husband and father. But I will label his work as misogynist, and as that’s the only side of him that I get to see.
I literally can not beLIEVE you don’t like the characters in Watchmen. I don’t even know what to say to that, because my opinion is so different. None of those characters are ineffectual to me.
* SPOILER *
Sure, Nite Owl has an impotency problem — ONCE — which he almost immediately gets over once he embraces the side of himself that he’s been sublimating and ignoring for the past few years. Veidt is obviously pretty effective, since he “saves the world.” Manhattan can do anything he wants and you could imagine. And Rorschach spends his time wiping out criminals with great success and potentially might end up destroying the result that Veidt spent decades trying to achieve. Where’s the ineffectiveness? They are some of the most human and layered and realistic characters I’ve ever seen in comics.
To me, and I mean no offense, you seem to be colouring your perception of these characters by assigning a meaning, or a motive to Moore’s writing. You don’t like the characters because you don’t think Moore likes them, you think he hates the characters and that he’s writing them in a malicious way. Personally I never assume that I know what’s going on in the writer’s head when he’s writing. You (the general ‘you’) have no idea what a writer is feeling or intending when he or she puts a story to paper. There are so many different issues at work in the human psyche when art or creativity is involved, it’s impossible (and stunningly presumptuous) to say, “Oh, the writer personally hates this, or loves that, or had this motive,” etc.
I think Moore just likes to write flawed and morally questionable characters (which in my mind, makes them a lot more realistic and human than say, Superman or Batman or even Spider-Man type characters). He doesn’t pretty them up, that’s for sure. But exploring those human flaws and moral faults makes for really refreshing writing in an industry where all the main characters are usually good and pure and true and always triumph in the end.
Anyway. I suppose we’re just going to disagree on this one.
Oh, and the Barbara Gordon thing. There is no such thing as “more than implied” unless you mean “explicitly shown or proven.” You either imply something or you prove it, there’s no in between. And since nothing is shown or proven (nobody even appears in those pictures except for Barbara Gordon, Joker has never raped anyone before, and no one in comic books ever, EVER references “the rape of Batgirl” in the entire history of comics up to this point, twenty some years later), the best you can say is that it’s implied, but even that is a weak argument. The idea that she was raped is just your opinion and you have almost nothing to back that up — that’s why I take issue with you saying she was raped to a bunch of readers who may have never read the comic and wouldn’t know any better.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve used the word “rape” way too many times in the past 24 hours. Ick.
caesar
So there’s no such thing as subtext or foreshadowing? Those things are implied and not proven.
This is comics in the 80s we’re talking about. There’s a lot of showing without showing. That page I linked shows more than what you’re saying it does. The composition of the photographs and Gordon’s face suggests something even more heinous that you think.
It’s like Frank Miller’s stabbing of Elektra in Daredevil #181. The way that panel is drawn it’s meant to be a rape/murder. Miller himself has said as much. He couldn’t believe he got away with it.
And the exact same thing happened here.
You’re right, thought, that no one else at DC has referenced it in continuity. But I think, like Ostrander, they just didn’t know what to do with it. It was enough that she was paralyzed, so they read the ambiguity stand. My I don’t think that was the author’s intention.
As for reading into a writer and his works: a writer of the caliber of Alan Moore, who I admit is a smart writer, is a writer who tries to say things about people and who they are. As a reader, as a critic, as a former academic, I read into those things. I enjoy dissecting a work to see what it says, through it’s themes and characters, about everything. And when I do that, I just don’t agree with Moore.
Ah, Miles. I like you and I’ll tell you why: I may not often agree with your point of view on things, but I can always count on you to have a thoughtful and well put together argument.
My one main quibble is that you imply that Alan Moore hates every character he writes about. I’m not quite clear as to whether you mean only in “Watchmen” (in which case I don’t really agree, but I think you could make a pretty solid case which could be debated for quite some time back and forth with either side never really winning), or if you mean in everything he’s written. Should you mean the latter I strongly disagree and don’t think you have much of a case. After all, Moore clearly loves Quartermain and Mina in “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, he certainly loves V in “V for Vendetta” and he seems to love the whole damn cast of “Top 10″. But I’m betting that you meant only in “Watchmen”. Because otherwise that would be crazy.
Lastly, the second I saw this article go up I knew it would be a fun one for the comment board. And I’m betting you knew it too.
Thank you, Owen.
Between this thread and the thread on my Facebook there have been something like forty responses and replies to this article. I think the article works out to about 450 words, I’ve probably written 4,000 or more in response. And, yeah, I knew I was poking a bear, but I think this is a bear that needs to be poked.
I honestly couldn’t get far enough into Top 10 to judge about the characters. There was nothing about the first issue that grabbed me, but I did read it four or five years ago, so can barely remember. And from everything I’ve heard it does steer clear of a lot of problems I have with his work.
“So there’s no such thing as subtext or foreshadowing? Those things are implied and not proven.”
No, at one point you said her rape was “more than implied.” I’m saying that an act can’t be more than implied unless it’s shown or told. Which it wasn’t. Also, foreshadowing is a COMPLETELY different thing and doesn’t relate to anything we’re discussing here.
And “the expression on her face suggests something more heinous than you think?” That’s even more absurd than saying something is more than implied!
A) I cannot imagine you are such an expert on facial expressions that you can distinguish between the expression of a young girl being raped and a young girl with a bullet in her spine, and
B) There is an upper limit to how much a face can express. Tell someone their mother died and they will look very sad; tell them their father died immediately after and they likely will not look any more sad than they did before they knew they just became orphaned.
You mention DC didn’t know what to do with it: bullshit. I feel confident in guaranteeing you that the official stance of DC is that Barbara Gordon did not get raped. Let’s say that Moore wanted her character raped in The Killing Joke (which he might have), DC would have flat out said no. There’s very little rape in the major comic publishers; and 99% of the time it does happen, it’s not main characters. Off the top of my head I can only think of one, Black Canary, yeeeeeaaaars ago. And DC editors would have been right to nix the rape idea, since it’s against the Joker’s character.
Of course, you’re going to think what you want to think, and your opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. If you choose to think Gordon was sexually violated in The Killing Joke, that’s fine. Your crime here, in my eyes, is that you’re taking your opinion on a subjective matter of which there is no proof, and not only claiming to know what’s ‘really going on’ so to speak, but also judging a writer’s personal character because of what you’re “seeing” with your insight.
But it makes for lots of comments and dialogue, yes?
Here’s where I think your major objection to my reading of this scene comes in “since it’s against the Joker’s character.”
I think most people don’t see my reading because for some reason they think that the Joker wouldn’t do it. He might blow up a school bus full of children or disfigure a corpse, but he wouldn’t do THAT. Then why is he undressing Barbara? To my knowledge he’s never done that before or since. He could just take the pictures with her clothes on if he wanted to hurt Gordon.
Joker stripping Barbara already brings this act to the realm of sexual violation, so I think my original point is still valid. Moore has Joker sexually violate Barbara Gordon for no other reason than to act as a motivator for Batman and Gordon. It’s another in a long line of Women in Refrigerators that people just seem to overlook because they like Alan Moore’s writing.
I don’t think anyone overlooks what happens to Barbara as an instance of “Women In Refrigerator.” It may be a little hard to remember it as such, given how bad-ass and empowered Barbara has become now (thanks largely to the deft hands of Gail Simone), but is certainly an example of it. Or at least I don’t overlook that, but…
Doesn’t mean she was raped.
She was brutalized and victimized, yes. I still don’t buy the rape, for many of the solid reasons Caeser has already listed. Also it’s hard not to notice how there are numerous condemning points he’s made – to your argument – that you haven’t really responded too…. Something Caeser has already pointed out … and you didn’t respond too…. I tease because I love, haha….
Now, a few things. As for your comment about “Why is he undressing her?” Well, what’s going to traumatize Gordon more? Pictures of her fully dressed in some blood soaked clothing that give you no idea of the damage? Or pictures of her undressed that show exactly how (and where) she is damaged? That being said, even though I don’t think she was raped, I can’t help but agree that just by removing her clothing he has sexually violated her (if not necessarily attacked her).
And even though I am mostly on Caeser’s side, the liberal arts/film studies student in me does want to argue for the right to interpret things that leave room with it. Then again, I once read a paper that argued the alien ship the crew finds on that planet in the movie “Alien” looked like a woman with her legs spread open…. so there’s only so much interpretation I am willing to take
Finally, I’m also inclined to agree with Isaac about DC’s official stance being she wasn’t raped. There’s a reason after all “Identity Crisis” was such a HUGE deal to the DCU (and the industry itself a bit) – because it was the first time rape was really dealt with – for better or for worse – and a villain resorted to that.
Which brings me to my final point. Your argument makes sense that some of us may not think Joker raped her because we think it’s not something he would do as a character. The reason we think that though is because of the character has been written. Yes, he has done insanely violent things, but he has never (to my knowledge) committed any sexual crimes, let alone barely shown any serious examples of being a sexual being. We’re going by the history of the character – created by the writers himself – not just by our perception of his character.
Which brings me to my final point. Your argument makes sense that some of us may not think Joker raped her because we think it’s not something he would do as a character. The reason we think that though is because of the character has been written. Yes, he has done insanely violent things, but he has never (to my knowledge) committed any sexual crimes, let alone barely shown any serious examples of being a sexual being. We’re going by the history of the character – created by the writers himself – not just by our perception of his character.
Ah yes, but doesn’t this assume that rape is a sexual crime as opposed to something about violence and power? Certainly Moore believes otherwise: Hyde didn’t rape the Invisible Man because he was sexually attracted to him, right?
Ceaser, major issue here in your attempts to say that Moore doesn’t mean things in how he writes characters. Could almost be seen as a bad joke to tell Moore, a deconstructionist, that he is not writing meta-messages in his characters. As im sure Moore would contend, interpretation trumps content (done stylistically through art and word the two should technically never reach the same synthesis) therefore Miles’ reading of the several instances of rape in these comic books nonetheless continues this age-old gendered violence.
And why aren’t we intrigued when women in comics enter into menopause, or lose the ability to sit down to pee, or other things that is intrinsically feminine. patriarchy and perpetual force feeding of straw-women. I like Moore, but to conclude that he isn’t saying anything with characters, violence, or that we cant know Moore through his work is a reactionary slandering of artistic creativity.
“…to conclude that he isn’t saying anything with characters, violence, or that we cant know Moore through his work is a reactionary slandering of artistic creativity.”
Sweet Jesus.
I never said anything of the sort. Of course you can infer things from an artist’s (writer, painter, musician, etc) work. You can infer anything you want. You can infer that Alan Moore has seventeen nipples and a penchant for midnight dolphin masturbation. That doesn’t mean you know what the hell you’re talking about.
A more realistic example: you can infer that Judas Priest encodes secret suicide messages in their songs in order to seduce vulnerable teenagers into killing themselves in the name of the great Satan, and that Rob Halford is the most macho and heterosexual man alive, as people have done in the past. Except, oh wait, neither of those things are true, and the people who thought that were kind of idiots.
I’m not saying that Moore isn’t saying anything with his stories and I’m not saying his work doesn’t provide clues to his personal life and experience. In fact, I think a lot of personal stuff comes out when art is created. What I am saying, is that we shouldn’t automatically assume that we know what he’s saying or his intentions behind his message (if there is one, or if it’s the one we think it is, with our flawed and painfully uninformed and subjective interpretations). And we sure as hell shouldn’t assume we know his whole life story and what he’s like as a person because of some stories he wrote.
And finally, I’m also saying, good Lord who cares. I think more trouble comes out of this kind of hypothesizing than good. You make a good point, and I think analyzing art is a worthwhile pastime…but I think over analyzing it is a horrible waste of time.
Thanks for your comment, though.
Sorry for being late, rape, women in scantily clad outfits, yeah sure every other writer has done that piece of misogyny, but Alan Moore has this unique quality of constantly humanizing the male woman abuser, the thermodynamic miracle is a woman falling in love & having a child with her rapist, that’s so totally fucked up. For a much more disturbing example I suggest you check out his Vigilante story “Father’s Day”, I believe its in his collected DC stories (no sales pitch intended). What Alan Moore really represents is that genius means getting away with and getting praised for things other people are condemned for.
Anyone who considers Moore a misogynist obviously lacks the basic comprehension skills to allow them to do anything as a reader but serve their own ego and politics. No writer has done more to promote the notion of strong female characters in mainstream comics than Moore.
I think a major problem is of course people just not realizing how serious an accusation “misogynist” is. It’s fun to throw such a word around to prove how pro-woman YOU are, but throwing it at someone like Moore proves a complete and utter lack of familiarity with his work and his person, and you’re slandering others in the name of boosting your own ego and self image as a more open minded type (which ironically, you can’t possibly be if you’re making snap decisions regarding who is and isn’t a misogynist).
Sorry, but in this essay: http://boredrigged.blogspot.com/2008/02/alan-moores-essay-sexism-in-comics.html Moore shows a much deeper understanding of the problem of sexism in comics than any of his misinformed detractors, and his work has done much more to combat that sexism than any of his detractors will ever do with all of their efforts combined.