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Hello, Welcome to this episode of
Superhero Ethics. A superheroes fascist? What

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does Alan Moore have to say about
this question? He did an interview in

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twenty twenty two for screen Rant that
has been discussed in a lot of places

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where he talked quite a lot about
this idea that there's something fascist about superheroes,

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and well, this is perhaps one
of the biggest names to talk about

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it. Alan More, for those
who don't know, is the author of

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comic books graphic novels such as Viva
Vendetta and The Watchman. He did a

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lot of some of the people's favorite
of the Batman comics runs. In recent

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years, he's really become very critical
of a lot of things in industry,

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including bringing up this idea that there's
something fascist about superheroes and superhero culture and

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the messages that they convey. And
while this is, like I said,

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this is probably one of the most
high profile versions, it's an attitude that

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I've heard many other people bring up. And so when Rieky brought and so

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Reeky and I have been talking about
this from a couple of different directions,

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talking about how we really want to
dive into this question, and I think

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We're probably going to cover this a
couple of ways, both in story,

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which is one where we're going to
probably do in a couple of weeks or

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maybe months, talking especially about Attack
on Titan, but also now in more

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kind of the you know, what
did these creations of art do in our

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larger world? So, Reeki,
why you say hello and introduce yourself and

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where you kind of coming to from
this question? Yeah, Hi, Matthew,

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it's good to be here again.
Greeky. I actually on board to

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talk about fascism. It's actually kind
of what I studied in school, and

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I never thought it would be this
relevant to study fascism, but here we

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are in twenty twenty four is the
year, and I brought this to you

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as you mentioned guarding Attack on Titan. I was like, hey, have

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you seen this? Like it's a
really, in my opinion, a problematic

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manga anime, and then you start
asking questions about it, and brought this

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interview with Alan Moore, and there's
a lot going on in this sphere of

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ideas and thought and we're going to
try. We're not going to cover it

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all, so we may only briefly
talk about Attack on Titan today, but

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kind of get into the subject and
then explore where it goes, because it's

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it's very I think it's very deep. Like Alan Moore, I'm not like

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a huge fan of his work,
I would say, but I am a

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fan of his his thinking and what
he tries to do with his work.

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So that's that's a funny thing to
say about him. And I do want

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to preface, like anything about Alan
Moore his criticism of the industry. He's

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gone through some stuff, Yes,
like he's been I would say, screwed

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by the industry by you know,
his various works being adapted and some of

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his friends not getting paid. So
he has some bitterness. He had some

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jadedness about the comic book industry and
especially like adaptations and movies and stuff.

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But I don't think like that can
completely discounts what he has to say,

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like because he does talk about it
in a broader sense. Well, especially

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because and we're kind of talking surface
level here, we'll dive in more in

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just a moment. We're also gonna
have some feedback from our last episode at

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the end of this episode talking about
the Last Jedi and failure. One of

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the things that really struck me reading
his interview and some of his other recent

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works, all of which we'll have
notes to the in the show notes.

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He's also very self referential and very
self understanding of his own effect in some

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ways. I think I was kind
of confused when I saw that it was

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more who was saying this, because
I think Watchmen is something that a lot

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of people point to as when superhero
stories started to get more grim dark,

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and also when they started to get
maybe not more, but like a new

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generation of them becoming much more authoritarian
and perhaps fascist. And he's very open

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about that, and he says that
sort of he he was disappointed that the

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result of Watchmen was everyone doing these
sort of dark, gritty approaches to things

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and stuff like that. And I
want to get into more of the alan

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more of it, but let's just
start by defining our terms. Riki is

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someone who really studied it. Can
you can you say what, how would

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you define fascism and particularly how is
it different than authoritarianism? Because I think

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a lot of times people use those
terms interchangeably, and it's important to understand

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that they're not the same. Well, yeah, I mean this is one

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of the complicated questions of our time
right now. As people point to other

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people in the political spectrum and say
you're being a fascist, and it's like,

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well, what does that mean?
Right? Right? And you're right,

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Like I think fundamentally like authoritarianism is
like a bigger umbrella. Mm hm.

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It's like it is about the government
exerting control, right, more control

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than perhaps should be allowed in most
cases. And certainly like we have seen

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in the recent in the twentieth century
history of Soviet the Soviet Union was an

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authoritarian state but based upon communism,
right, and then of course Nazi Germany

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was an authoritarian state based on a
more right wing ideology that we now call

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fascism. And I would I think
like one of the fundamental differences of like

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what separates the bucket of fascist for
me is the idea of a scapegoat of

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of like a out group, right, it gets persecuted and blamed and drives

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a lot of the ideology of the
state too. You know, some extreme

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cases obviously eliminate that group and to
use that group as an excuse to do

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things like right, just carry out
their political agenda and get people behind it,

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say like, hey, we want
to do things for you. The

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in group, the usually the majority
in the nation. But to do that,

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like we really got to take stuff
or like you know, punish this

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outgroup, but it's okay they are
and then like it develops this you know,

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dehumanization element. Yeah, and I
think that's really important, and especially

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because it's also very linked to this
idea of nationalism specifically and of like there

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being that one particular kind of people
who the government's supposed to represent and you

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know, and that that is tied
to the nation. And so for example,

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that's why it's very different than for
example, Soviet communism, where it's

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all about the work. You know, it's not about like we are Russians

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and so we're supposed to be free
of Azerbaijanis or Georgians or Ukrainians. There

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was certainly a lot of that in
communist Russia, but it was much more

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about all about the workers and all
that kind of stuff. And then the

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authoritarianism, Nashism becomes very much about
we the people, the right kind of

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people, and the purity of the
people, and that this other group,

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as you said, is is dirtying
us. There's a whole lot of like

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purity and dirtiness language, and that
ties into and this is something that more

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talks about specifically, and that's kind
I wanted to frame it to help people

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understand this that there's also a lot
of often a lot of nostalgia tied into

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this, of the good old days
of the back before our name went,

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back when like men were real men
and women were real women, and we

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didn't have all these immig so we
didn't have all these foreign ideas or we

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didn't have all of this kind of
stuff. And I think that it's gonna

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helpful to understand what that distinction is
before we start to dive too much in

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this conversation, because I think there
is a lot of conversation out there of

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our superheroes authoritarian in terms of because
a lot of superhero a lot of authoritarianism

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is instead of the people getting what
they want, the people get what's best

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for them, and someone a much
smaller group of people or an individual gets

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to decide what's best for them and
tell them that very much in a kind

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of paternalistic way. And fascism has
a lot of those elements, but it's

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something again, very much more specific, and since that's what Moore is saying,

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it's important to kind of start with
there. Yeah, and I just

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want to end on the difference,
like the different types of authoritarianism. The

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Soviet style communism was like an exportable
ideology, right so far as like the

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whole Cold War was about stopping the
spread of communism, and and that meant

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like stopping it from springing up in
other nations around the world. And that's

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not something like you don't you don't
stop fascism from springing up like I mean,

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we would like to, but it
is something that comes more internally rather

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than is exported from like the Soviet
Union, right, Like Italian fascism definitely

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had a strong influence on Spanish fascism
and German Nazism and MUSSOLIDI wanted that,

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but that you know, Spanish nash
Spanish fascism is about the Spanish people and

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there, you know, and and
German is about the German people, not

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about you know, the Italian et
cetera. And yeah, so with that,

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let's turn back to Alan Moore himself. Say a little bit more about

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your impressions of more before I say
that you wrote read this article, but

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like his work, you said,
you don't always love it, but you

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respect it. Say it bit more
about that, like The Watchman is obviously

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one of the most influential graphic novels
in our lifetime. Yep, and I

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certainly appreciate it. I'm pretty sure
I still own a copy. I might

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have sold it, but I mean
I bought a copy. I read it

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multiple times. I enjoy it like
as a think piece, but for me

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for my personal taste, like I
don't tend to read or watch like super

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graphically violent things, and it was
definitely like one of those things, one

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of those eras when as you said, like he was so influential that it

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led to this whole really change in
the industry of comics, and so like

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that's why, like he's not one
of my favorites, but I enjoy that

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he exists and I enjoy his work, just not in the ways that like

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a lot of other people do.
Yeah, And I think that's really fair,

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and I think that there's definitely a
lot of truth in that. I

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really love Watchmen, But I also
kind of you know, it's one of

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those stories where when someone tells me
they love it, I always kind of

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want to get a sense of like
do you think it's pro these people,

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or like, like what do you
think of your perspective on it. The

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story of his though that I think
is most relevant for me at least to

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these conversations, And there's gonna be
a bit of a digression, but I

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think it's very related because I think
it subverts the natural tendency that a lot

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of these superhero stories can have towards
authoritarianism and strongmanism, and specifically towards fascism.

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Is v for vendetta because spoilers for
the end of a comic book that's

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I think thirty years old and a
movie that's twenty years old, but one

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of the key things that happens at
that movie is that the strongman character,

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the person who has been enacting great
violence justifiable reasons, but in part out

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of wanting to help the nation,
but part very much for his own personal

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vendetta against the bad guys, the
authoritarians in power, the fascists in power.

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He realizes that what he's doing is
clearing away the authoritarianism, but that

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if he actually leads the new government, it's just gonna be another kind of

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authoritarianism. It's gonna be another strong
man taking over, and so he very

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intentionally arranges it so that inspired by
him, the people rise up and is

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a people's uprising that takes over.
And while there's not very much given about

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what happens next, we learn a
little bit of that it is a return

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to, you know, a democracy
of some kind. Because to me,

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I think that's often the question with
superheroes or any kind of like when it's

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a heroic figure helping to overturn or
overthrow a corrupt government or corrupt authority,

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is what do you replace it with? Because if everyone ouse sees this one

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strong person as the hero, it's
gonna be really easy for them to want

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to say, Okay, cool,
will you just be the new dictator?

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You be the new whatever it is? Yeah. I mean, for the

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history of the United States, I
think one of the most remarkable things that

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happened was that George Washington chose not
to run for a third term, right,

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And they're specifically a quote that basically
says like I don't want to be

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king, and that led to this
precedent of until FDR like no other president

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attempted to run for a third term
because of the Washington, George Washington president.

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And there's a lot we can say
about the founding fathers, and you

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know how good or bad they were, But I think like that decision by

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George Washington is one of the most
like fundamentally impactful that any individual has made

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in the history of this country.
Right, Yeah, it's fun. I

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hadn't even thought of that in the
context, but I think George Washington played

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that kind of superhero role in you
know, the media of the time and

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the perspective. And as Maybeoe said, if he wanted to just make himself

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king instead of King George, it
would have taken over. We're gonna start

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diving into the article itself right after
this quick break. We're starting the conversation,

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but we want to hear from you. Send your thoughts, questions,

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or anything else you want to hear
us discuss to feedback at the Ethical panda

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Find those link in the show notes
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the show notes, and now back
to our episode welcome back. Feedback is

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great, Membership is great. So
let's talk about the article itself, because

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it's actually quite a long article and
it's not just about the superhero question,

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but I think a lot of things
in it are are very connected. But

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Ricky, do you want to start
by just kind of focusing on what is

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his argument about superheroes and superhero culture
and so the way that superhero media is

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affecting our culture. Yeah, I
think if I were to sum it up,

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it is that there's a fundamental problem
with having a fantasy setting where it

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takes extraordinary people with superhuman abilities to
solve extraordinary problems, because like that's not

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reality, Like we don't have superpowers
in real life, and so it creates

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this model, like a mythology almost
of super superheroes themselves being the only ones

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who can solve these problems. And
I it's interesting, like there's a lot

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of the stuff in the article,
in the interview that I fundamentally disagreed with

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in a sense, but I understand
where he's coming from. Yeah, I

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guess my my main criticism, my
main critique. If I can, let's

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just kind of lay out some more
of the arguments in the article specifically and

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then get into their critique. So, yeah, he has this point.

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At one point he says, the
thing is, in order to actually accomplish

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these extraordinary things, we have to
put in quite a lot of work,

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perhaps years of our life, perhaps
our entire lives, getting better at something,

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and then we can do incredible things. It's this desire to be like

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that without any work, to have
that as an appliance. Almost you find

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the power ring. You happen to
be standing too near the rack of chemicals,

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and then in a stroke of fate
or luck, you suddenly have incredible

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powers. It's that kind of longing
for a quick fix. And when he

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was talking about that and talking about
this idea of that you're waiting for someone

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else, I got thinking about the
book that came out a number of years

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ago, Waiting for Superman, and
it's a book that was all about trying

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to fix the educational system. And
I'm not gonna get into the book itself.

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I think a lot of people have
been very critical of it for I

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think very good reasons that what it's
suggesting to fix the educational system wasn't the

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best way. But putting that aside, the title comes off I think a

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very important idea, which is that
we can get to this time where we

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think the problems are so bleak and
we think ourselves are so impowerful that we're

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just waiting for someone to come along
and save us instead of doing the work

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to save ourselves. And I definitely
think that that's at that is a big

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part of what can lead to authoritarianism
and lead to fascism when it's this idea

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of Okay, there's all this poverty, there's all this problems. We see

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these other the others the problem.
Instead of us trying to do work to

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do it, we're gonna wait for
the part or the person or the hero

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to come along and fix it.
And I you know, I think a

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lot of that existed long before superheroes
were there, but I definitely see some

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truth to the idea of how it
can encourage that that kind of thinking.

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Talk also about his idea of nostalgia
and how that plays into his argument,

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Well, nostalgia is fundamental to fascism
in most of its existence. It is

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countries having problems like in the present
and then saying, remember when things were

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better, like let's let's get back
to that. And usually, like I

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said, like there's a persecution of
an outgroup, and and so you blame

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like in the in the in between, like from the good times to now

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the bad times, like well what
happened, like now we have all these

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these outgroup people that we should persecute
to get back to the good times,

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right. I mean in the United
States, there is this nostalgia of like

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the nineteen fifties, I guess,
nineteen fifties, nineteen, just before the

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sixties, because the sixties is seen
as like when America broke right. You

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look at the reasons why, like
one of them was Vietnam. But another

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thing that people point to is the
civil rights movement, right, and so

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you say, well, that has
taken us away from the good nineteen fifties,

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so we have to reverse all that, and that means persecution of minorities.

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And of course ro v wade that
the Supreme Court decision is another one

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that gets nostalgized as like let's go
you know, Unfortunately we're going back.

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That was what nineteen seventy something,
seventy two, I believe seventy three,

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So it's weird because it's so far
ago. And yet yeah, like nostalgia

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drives fascism, I think in a
lot of cases because people forget there's like

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not enough people who were there to
be like, yeah, I mean it

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was okay, but a lot of
stuff is better now. Like that's for

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me when I think of obviously like
progressivism, progress like moving forward. But

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I look at our lives now and
I'm like, okay, yeah, like

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some things bad, yes, but
like look at the things that are better

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than when I was a kid.
Yeah. I think that's a really important

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part of this is that often it's
a nostalgia not for the actual history,

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but this mythologized idea of history where
everything was better and you know, the

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the nineteen fifties were the time of
you know, dads at work and moms

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at home and the kids are hiding
under their desks for air ray drills because

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we all think nuclear war is right
around the corner, and that great American

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dream is actually pretty terrible for anyone
who's not white, and who's not male,

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and it's not you know, straight, and cisgender and you know,

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and not to mention Christian and you
know, the right kind of European and

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all this kind of stuff. Even
Catholic was pretty left out at that point.

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Or or just the fact that like
why why could the why could the

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mother stay at home and be a
housewife? Right Like now both the mother

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and the father have usually have jobs
and good work. Well, it's because

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the father like stopped getting a fair
wage or like you know, didn't keep

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up with inflation, so now you
have to have a dual income family.

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So it's like the nostalgia for that
lifestyle ignores some of the reasons why that

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lifestyle no longer exists, and it's
like you can't rewind to that without also

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rewinding the economic inequalities that it started
to take the roots. And even then

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it was still very much a white
middle class phantasy. There were lots of

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women working just as you know,
nurses or maids or servers, often people

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of color, but often just poor
white because their husbands weren't making anywhere enough.

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You know, it is true that
that was a time when a working

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class person could like the ability to
be the person who made enough money to

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buy your own house and take a
vacation and do all the things that are

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almost completely out of reach for so
many people today. Yes, was true,

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but even that again was still for
not the entire population by any means.

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Absolutely. I mean, it's a
nostalgia for a certain lifestyle that like,

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even if you transport yourself to the
nineteen fifties, like you're probably not

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living that lifestyle, just like from
a percentage like standpoint, now, I

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tell you get that. And I
think one of the most injuring parts of

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Moore's argument is he talks about how
not only are superheroes a sign of nes

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can be a part of that nostalgia, but also that they're often the discussion

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about them today is often very nostalgic
itself and often just as inaccurate. You

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know, he talks about how,
you know, anytime someone says, why

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are superheroes so woke today? That
is itself fundamentally an argument from nostalgia,

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because it's a claim that they weren't
woke in the past, that they used

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to just be all white and male
and defenders of you know, truth justice

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in the American way, when the
fact is, you know, the first

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Superman, as he points out,
invented by two working class teenagers from Cleveland

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in the middle of the Depression,
who created a character that was an embodiment

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of a disempowered working class community.
He was an immigrant like most of them,

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but he's not forced to dress in
the drab browns and grays of most

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of the other people in the nineteen
thirty spreadlines. He was wearing bright primary

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colors, and he could leap over
the streets that they were having a trudge

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down looking for work. The early
Superman beat up strike breakers and threw a

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slum lord over the horizon. Obviously, that Superman didn't last a long while.

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He was pretty soon taken from his
creators and made a much more socially

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respectable, middle class and right naming
character. Mm hmm. Yeah, Superman

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to me is a really interesting one
because of that immigrant background. And I

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actually had this thought the other day
of just like, what what if there

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was like an Asian Superman, right, And it's so weird that Superman's stories

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oftentimes like ignore the immigrant aspect of
his origin or just like mention it,

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like obviously they mentioned that he's from
Krypton, but it doesn't focus on him

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being an immigrant, right, And
so like I thought, like a reimagining

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of Superman is an Asian or maybe
like now like a Muslim brown person,

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you know, not Muslim in a
religious sense, I guess, but you

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know from that region of the world
that I don't know. What do you

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think, Like, is that something
that it's too late? Because like Superman

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is white, right, Like if
if you try to do that, like

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people are going to lose their minds, even though we like Krypton is a

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made up planet and like who cares
what color their skin is on Krypton type

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of thing, right, I just
like I had this thought while we were

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like circling around this subject. I
was like, what if someone just fundamentally

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changes Superman. So I think it's
a really interesting conversation. And I I

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will say, I do think that
they've already started some element of this conversation

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in that the son of Superman is
now out as canonically bisexual, which is

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interesting because it is still there's no
physical change, the change to who the

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character is and wants to be,
but he still looks the same. But

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you're right, it's still almost always
still been white. I think one of

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the actors who played him on the
Supergirl was Latino, but still kind of

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like you know. And I'll say
one of the first things that courage me

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with an Asian Superman, and I'm
gonna try and say this delicately, but

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please, if any of my terms
are are the way I'm approaching it is

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problematic, please let me know.
And I promise I would say that and

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then not edit this out. So
if I, you know, really step

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in it, people can learn from
that, I hope. But one thing

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that was striking me is that one
of the persistent narratives around immigrants, particularly

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at the time of Superman but also
today, is that they're a drain on

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the economy. They come here and
they don't work, and they don't have

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jobs, and they don't have education, they don't know how to speak the

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language, and so they don't add
to the tax space. They just take

337
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away from it because you know,
we have to pay them all this welfare

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and all this criminal policing of them. And the fact is that that's fundamentally

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not true. But I think that
that is that is the general understanding of

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the black and brown especilarly like African
and Latin American immigrant experience. My understanding

341
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is, and again you can correct
me on this, that is very different

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than the Asian American immigrant perspective,
at least today, back in then like

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eighteen hundreds, in earlier days of
like the Chinese workers and like this was

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in this case. But today often
the fear of the Asian immigrant is not

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that they're uneducated, but that they're
so much better educated that they're going to

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take our jobs, that their children
are going to take our kids spots at

347
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colleges. You know that. That's
something I see all the time about how

348
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in New York City there was this
very racist thing that played out about how

349
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Asian immigrants were very overrepresented. That
sounds prajorative, You mean, like that

350
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a higher percentage of them compared to
other racial groups in New York City in

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terms of how many kids got into
the specialized high schools that you had to

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pay test that you had to pass
tests for, like Stuyvesant Bronx Science in

353
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Brooklyn Tech. And the reason I'm
making that connection is because Superman obviously isn't

354
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the useless immigrant perspective of like the
person who comes here just to drain on

355
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the system, again a false narrative, but the narrative's out there. He's

356
00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:08.119
incredibly useful, he's incredibly helpful.
It's just a question of like when who

357
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gets to control that? So and
again tell me on way off base here,

358
00:28:15.359 --> 00:28:18.480
But I feel like an Asian Superman
would be an interesting perspective on that

359
00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:25.079
because it connects more to that part
of an immigrant experience where the issue isn't

360
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oh, you're useless and you're helpless
and we have to support you, but

361
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instead you're different and you're changing things
in ways we don't want and you're taking

362
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:33.400
things away from us. Does that
does that all make make any sense?

363
00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:40.039
I'm not sure. Okay, that's
fair. It was a lot to take

364
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:45.519
in. Yeah, let me I
don't know how to answer that, Okay,

365
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:49.279
let me tell a much shortened version
of it. Is that I think

366
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people didn't think of Superman in terms
of the immigrant experience because they think of

367
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immigrants, again from a racist perspective, as people who come here without skills,

368
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without jobs, and become drain on
the system. And I'm wondering,

369
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:07.720
so, okay, I think I
disagree with that. Okay, I think

370
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the central issue regarding Superman's immigrant status
is that he passes m passes as a

371
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:22.359
native white person, right, and
so that that would be the fundamental difference

372
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if you created or like changed Superman
to be Asian coded, is that he

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wouldn't pass as white or like maybe
I don't know, Like it's interesting I've

374
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been I've started following like Asian actors
and especially those who often do pass like

375
00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:49.480
Darren Chris is a delightful actor,
like you might remember him on Glee.

376
00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:53.400
It's been in a lot of musical
type stuff. He's a great singer,

377
00:29:53.960 --> 00:30:00.400
and he's half Filipino and recently,
like he won some award and talk about

378
00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:06.200
that, talked about his Filipino mother
and about his experiences, and he has

379
00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:11.359
definitely like started to come out stronger
and identifying as Asian. And quite frankly,

380
00:30:11.400 --> 00:30:15.960
again, like when I watched Glee, like it didn't occur to me

381
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that he was half Asian. Like
if you if you say that, you're

382
00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:21.799
like, okay, I think I
can. I can kind of see it.

383
00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:27.920
But he's definitely on like that passing
side of half. So yeah,

384
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:32.160
my point is like, if you
have a Superman that doesn't pass, like,

385
00:30:32.200 --> 00:30:33.880
how does that change his story?
I think is where I am.

386
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:40.000
I'm going with this idea. Someone
take care of it. You get in

387
00:30:40.039 --> 00:30:51.440
there. I think that it makes
a lot of sense, especially because I

388
00:30:51.480 --> 00:30:53.759
think that makes a lot of sense, especially because remember, again the two

389
00:30:53.839 --> 00:31:00.839
creators were Jewish. And this is
where I want to start history of more,

390
00:31:00.880 --> 00:31:03.319
because I was gonna say that today
I think a lot of jew This

391
00:31:03.440 --> 00:31:07.920
issue of passing is one that comes
up a lot in Judaism, and being

392
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:12.519
clear, I should say within Ashkenazi
Judaism, there's a perspective there are a

393
00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:17.160
lot of Jews, and I think
my family and my father and to the

394
00:31:17.200 --> 00:31:22.240
extent that I'm Jewish myself, who
benefit from white supremacy because we are white.

395
00:31:23.400 --> 00:31:26.680
And thus there's a perception often that
Jews are white. That's very much

396
00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:30.119
not true. There's Jews from all
over the world, and I believe more

397
00:31:30.279 --> 00:31:37.039
are Sephardic from kind of Spain and
Africa and Southern Europe and all that.

398
00:31:38.119 --> 00:31:41.440
But the question of passing is also
one that I think of a lot as

399
00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:45.839
a disabled person, because I sometimes
use a prosthetic leg and at the moment

400
00:31:45.880 --> 00:31:49.400
my health is not great. I've
gained more weight and so people generally can

401
00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:52.359
tell I walk with a limp,
but on a good day, I don't

402
00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:55.359
walk with a limp, And it
used to be I never walked to the

403
00:31:55.400 --> 00:31:57.720
limp, but then i'd be in
a wheelchair sometimes and that would get really

404
00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:02.240
confusing for people. I have a
lot of unfortunate memories of parking in a

405
00:32:02.279 --> 00:32:07.559
disabled parking spot, getting out while
I'm on my two legs, and getting

406
00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:10.839
really dirty looks from people who think, on this able bodied guy who's taking

407
00:32:12.079 --> 00:32:15.319
a spot. And the reality is
that if I'm like I'm going into a

408
00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:19.519
mall or something, probably after an
hour of working of walking, my leg's

409
00:32:19.519 --> 00:32:21.920
gonna be in real trouble and I'm
going to need that spot that's as close

410
00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:27.720
as possible. But they don't see
that. So yeah, I think that's

411
00:32:27.759 --> 00:32:30.839
a really interesting idea, and I
think it's also really interesting in terms of

412
00:32:30.880 --> 00:32:38.640
how recently Marvel and d C have
really split on this question of secret identities.

413
00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:42.599
I'm saying that because I think secret
identities is kind of party of this

414
00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:46.519
whole passing question. You know,
where in d C most of the superheroes

415
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:52.359
want to pass to some extent,
in Marvel not so much. And you

416
00:32:52.359 --> 00:32:55.000
know, feel like Tony Stark are
very open about who they are. Four

417
00:32:55.160 --> 00:32:59.400
certainly is not trying to pass in
any way except for a couple of comics

418
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:02.839
where he tries to be a doctor, and within the X Men itself,

419
00:33:02.920 --> 00:33:07.279
this is an active part, an
active debate of you know, I think

420
00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:08.880
some of the X Men movies x
Men two did a great job of saying

421
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:14.720
this, where you know, Beast
is saying to uh, mystique, wouldn't

422
00:33:14.759 --> 00:33:16.519
you want to pass? And and
she's saying no, I think that we're

423
00:33:16.519 --> 00:33:22.839
beautiful the way we are. So
yeah, I think this is kind of

424
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:23.920
a whole other topic that I think
I haven't been prepared for, But I

425
00:33:23.920 --> 00:33:29.039
think you're right. I think it's
a really interesting question there of well,

426
00:33:29.079 --> 00:33:32.640
how much is in terms of the
marginalized experience, how much passing is out

427
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:37.640
or not passing is obviously a huge
issue that I think can get very easily

428
00:33:37.640 --> 00:33:40.599
simplified, like a lot of people
who other people say pass like. It's

429
00:33:40.680 --> 00:33:45.440
much more complicated than that. But
yeah, I think it's very much reflected

430
00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:49.119
in hero culture to be sure.
Well, let me let me help bring

431
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:52.920
it back to the Alan Moore of
it all, because it's it's mentioned a

432
00:33:52.920 --> 00:33:58.839
couple of times as this interview,
like why superheroes are fascist is that there

433
00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:07.119
I canography gets used by people like
by fascist now. And I think he

434
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:14.079
mentions Donald Trump like having like laser
beam eyes like obviously Superman reference. I

435
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:17.639
think literally that you can find images
of him like in a Superman suit,

436
00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:23.400
like doing the hands on the hips
pose as if he's gonna save the world,

437
00:34:23.519 --> 00:34:30.400
right, And it's to me,
like, I don't think that this

438
00:34:30.519 --> 00:34:35.400
is where I said, I disagree
with some of Moore's ideas as far as

439
00:34:35.639 --> 00:34:43.159
my understanding of them, Like I
don't think superheroes by definition like our fascist

440
00:34:43.239 --> 00:34:49.519
or lead to like fascist interpretations,
but they but they can be taken because

441
00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:57.800
oftentimes these organizations are fronted by a
quote unquote strong man, right literally like

442
00:34:58.639 --> 00:35:07.159
and the age of Superman is so
ingrained in our psychology as like the strongest

443
00:35:07.199 --> 00:35:13.800
man, right, and so if
you if you see Gi slap your face

444
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:17.519
on Superman's body, like, people
instantly make a connection, and it's it's

445
00:35:17.599 --> 00:35:22.079
this great irony, like as we've
been saying that Superman is an immigrant and

446
00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:28.960
that you know, he traditionally fights
for the downtrodden, right, but of

447
00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:32.719
course, like again like that's part
of fascist ideology is that you are trying

448
00:35:32.760 --> 00:35:37.159
to appeal to people who feel that
they are downtrodden and saying like I'm going

449
00:35:37.239 --> 00:35:42.119
to help you, like I'm the
superman that's going to help you. And

450
00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:45.360
I think one thing is really interesting
about that and this kind of allows me

451
00:35:45.400 --> 00:35:47.360
to touch on my all time favorite
story. They're love going back to Marvel

452
00:35:47.440 --> 00:35:52.800
Civil War, is it. One
of the things I think that makes Superman

453
00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:57.079
work is that the part if you
if you believe the story, if you

454
00:35:57.119 --> 00:36:00.440
believe that he can fly and that
kryptonite hurts him, you also have to

455
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:07.760
believe that it's okay for him to
have this incredible amount of power because he

456
00:36:07.880 --> 00:36:12.840
is committed to not using it,
to not abusing it specifically, and to

457
00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:16.199
an extent, that's part of the
point of a team Cap in Marvel Civil

458
00:36:16.199 --> 00:36:23.440
War that you don't no government can
be trusted to have oversight over Cap because

459
00:36:23.480 --> 00:36:28.119
you can trust Cap to decide how
to use that power, but you can't

460
00:36:28.119 --> 00:36:36.519
trust anyone else. And whatever you
think of those two fictionalized characters, I

461
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:38.639
think that the danger of that kind
of thinking is that, yes, it

462
00:36:38.679 --> 00:36:45.480
does lead to we can trust this
government leader, we can trust Trump and

463
00:36:45.599 --> 00:36:47.840
just to show that I'm somewhat even
handed about this. I do think that

464
00:36:47.880 --> 00:36:52.239
there was some element of that with
Obama, of like he can do no

465
00:36:52.320 --> 00:36:54.880
wrong and everything he does is right
because and he was certainly described as our

466
00:36:54.920 --> 00:37:00.719
Superman, and there was a lot
of that, like Obama as Superman language.

467
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:02.519
And I think then about you know, some of us who during his

468
00:37:02.559 --> 00:37:06.199
presidency were like, guys, he's
killing lots of people with drones. He's

469
00:37:06.199 --> 00:37:09.239
doing a lot of these kind of
moderate things that are not cool, ran

470
00:37:09.360 --> 00:37:12.880
up into of this idea of no, but he's Obama, we can trust

471
00:37:12.960 --> 00:37:17.079
him. And you know it's and
if you're familiar, if you're familiar with

472
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:22.719
the Dark Brandon memes, like that
is feeding off of that same imagery and

473
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:29.920
iconography. Yeah, very much ideology
of like the laser beam eyes and like

474
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:34.559
when he puts on the aviators,
like it gives him superpowers type of thing.

475
00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:39.719
Like that's almost like his costume,
like his superhero costume. Now one

476
00:37:39.760 --> 00:37:44.199
of my favorite Superman comics, and
I admit I've not read many of them,

477
00:37:44.199 --> 00:37:46.880
but this one I have read.
And I just say favorite Superman stories

478
00:37:46.920 --> 00:37:52.559
because the experienced stories and other mediums
is Kingdom come by Mark Wade and Alex

479
00:37:52.639 --> 00:37:55.840
Ross. Have you read that.
Yeah, it's been a few years,

480
00:37:55.840 --> 00:38:00.559
but I remember it. Yeah,
because I think the fundamental idea of this

481
00:38:00.840 --> 00:38:07.679
is that when Lois Lane and other
people are killed, hold on a second,

482
00:38:07.719 --> 00:38:19.119
let me just quickly check this.
Yeah. So a big part of

483
00:38:19.159 --> 00:38:22.599
that story is this idea that Superman
does start to cross the lines, that

484
00:38:22.639 --> 00:38:28.079
he does start to say, you
know, the way things are being run

485
00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:30.880
is not okay. I need to
step in and stop this, even though

486
00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:34.920
I don't have the actual authority,
because I have the power to do so,

487
00:38:35.480 --> 00:38:38.880
and that people have to trust me
that I know what I'm doing is

488
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:43.840
right in order to make this work. And I think I'm mixing it.

489
00:38:43.960 --> 00:38:46.000
And there's another story that is similar
where he does something similar. I think

490
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:51.719
I'm mixing the two of them up. But Justice probably, yeah, which

491
00:38:51.800 --> 00:38:55.840
is the one where he keeps like, uh, Metropolis locked up in a

492
00:38:55.840 --> 00:39:02.639
little glass jar that sounds like Kingdom
come okay, yeah. But and in

493
00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:07.480
Justice, like he literally just becomes
a tyrant and takes over the entire world.

494
00:39:07.920 --> 00:39:10.840
Yeah, Injustice is that one.
Red Son is another one that's like

495
00:39:10.840 --> 00:39:15.280
because red Son is about the idea
of what if his capsule had arrived a

496
00:39:15.320 --> 00:39:20.039
couple hours later and crashed in the
Ukraine instead of in Kansas. But in

497
00:39:20.039 --> 00:39:22.360
all of them, I think the
idea is supposed to be that this is

498
00:39:22.400 --> 00:39:27.519
a horrific idea that is meant to
be a tale to say that the reason

499
00:39:27.559 --> 00:39:30.800
why it's safe to have Superman is
that we know he would never actually do

500
00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:37.719
this, right, and having these
Superman stories where he does do it,

501
00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:42.360
where he becomes a dictator, where
he kills people, et cetera, I

502
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:47.880
think that's problematic from a industry standpoint. I guess from a storytelling standpoint.

503
00:39:49.239 --> 00:39:52.880
Like we talked in the past,
I love Sinestro. He's literally a fascist,

504
00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:59.440
like designed to look like Hitler with
his little mustache. And when Alan

505
00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:02.119
Moore mentioned, you know, the
power Ring, he's talking about the green

506
00:40:02.159 --> 00:40:07.639
Lantern mythos, and I felt like
he was specifically talking about Sinestro, right,

507
00:40:07.800 --> 00:40:13.880
Like Sinestro uses his power ring to
take over his planet and impose his

508
00:40:14.119 --> 00:40:17.800
style of order, which often you
know, involves imprisoning people who speak out,

509
00:40:17.800 --> 00:40:25.760
et cetera. So it's just classic
dictor dictatory. But he is the

510
00:40:25.880 --> 00:40:31.400
villain, like he is always clearly
the villain. Yeah, there's a couple

511
00:40:31.440 --> 00:40:35.880
of stories where he takes on an
anti hero role, and I do find

512
00:40:35.880 --> 00:40:40.039
that interesting, but he's never the
good guy. And that's why I think

513
00:40:40.119 --> 00:40:46.199
like having him is fine because we
understand who he is and what he is.

514
00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:52.480
Having Superman like occupy that same space
of being a tyrant is problematic because

515
00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:57.559
we have so much history of Superman
as the good guy, and then we

516
00:40:57.599 --> 00:41:00.000
see him do some tyrant stuff and
he's like, eh, but he's super

517
00:41:00.159 --> 00:41:02.920
Man, so it's mostly fine,
Like maybe he crosses the line this one

518
00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:06.920
time, but it's mostly okay,
Like I'm okay with this. Yeah,

519
00:41:06.920 --> 00:41:13.159
I think that's the problem at Yeah, I think that makes a lot of

520
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:16.320
sense, and I like one thing
that I'm also struck by is that for

521
00:41:16.400 --> 00:41:21.079
a lot of comic book characters,
not all and maybe this is something that's

522
00:41:21.119 --> 00:41:24.199
fading, and listeners, definitely let
me know what you think, you know,

523
00:41:24.199 --> 00:41:30.800
because I was thinking is that Clark
isn't just someone who comes to Earth

524
00:41:30.880 --> 00:41:35.440
and randomly gets powers and he's never
thought about this before. Part of the

525
00:41:35.480 --> 00:41:38.559
idea is that that whole time that
he's in the Capsule, uh, both

526
00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:43.480
both when he's in the Capsule and
then when he's with Martha and and you

527
00:41:43.519 --> 00:41:52.559
know Mom and Pac Kent, both
his Kryptonian parents and his Earth parents are

528
00:41:52.639 --> 00:41:55.440
teaching him from a very early age, Yes, you have the power,

529
00:41:55.719 --> 00:42:00.199
but you have to have these lines
that you will not cross. You have

530
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:02.880
to be able to you know,
because there is no police that can stop

531
00:42:02.920 --> 00:42:06.880
you, there is no one else, and you could just become an authoritarian.

532
00:42:07.400 --> 00:42:10.719
So we have to teach you to
be that person. And in Captain

533
00:42:10.760 --> 00:42:15.719
America it's flipped a bit. It's
not that people give him the power teach

534
00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:20.280
him that. It's that they only
give him the power because they can tell

535
00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:23.880
he already knows that. And Spider
Man has you know Uncle Ben saying,

536
00:42:23.880 --> 00:42:29.679
with great power comes great responsibility.
And one thing I think is that a

537
00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:31.400
lot of newer stories you don't have
that you know, no one's saying to

538
00:42:31.480 --> 00:42:35.159
Jessica Jones, like, I mean, her friends are kind of tearing her

539
00:42:35.159 --> 00:42:37.920
hair out, but like she just
gets powers. Luke Cage just gets powers.

540
00:42:38.440 --> 00:42:44.760
And I think I like those stories
more because we see them wrestling with

541
00:42:44.840 --> 00:42:49.360
it and it feels more realistic to
me. But it has more of the

542
00:42:49.480 --> 00:42:58.159
danger of you know that it's funny
because I'm often goodhead you have to have

543
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:05.440
Clark Kent's because what you're describing,
like the Kent raise Superman as Clark Kent

544
00:43:05.679 --> 00:43:12.000
and teaching these values, and oftentimes, like people describe it as different characters,

545
00:43:12.039 --> 00:43:15.639
like Clark Kent and Superman being different
characters, or like different sides of

546
00:43:15.639 --> 00:43:17.440
the coin, like who's the real
one, like who's the disguise, et

547
00:43:17.519 --> 00:43:25.360
cetera. But in my opinion,
a good Superman story needs to have significant

548
00:43:25.400 --> 00:43:30.239
Clark Kent. And that's where like
stuff like you're talking about, like Injustice,

549
00:43:30.719 --> 00:43:32.960
I think has like zero Clark Kent, Like they call him Clark because

550
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:37.360
like once you're a dictator who cares
like you don't have a secret identity anymore,

551
00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:40.480
but he's that he never no longer
dresses as Clark, like obviously doesn't

552
00:43:40.519 --> 00:43:45.400
work as at the Daily Planet as
a reporter while he's also the dictator.

553
00:43:45.800 --> 00:43:47.280
Well, one of the things that
happens in that story is that forgive me

554
00:43:47.320 --> 00:43:51.760
spoilers here if you want to skip
ahead, Well, it's like five pages.

555
00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.679
Yeah, Lois Lane dies, and
I think that's one of the things

556
00:43:53.800 --> 00:43:57.000
that that's one of his last connections. Yeah, that's what drives it.

557
00:43:57.760 --> 00:44:05.679
Yeah, but that I think Yeah, what gets what gets forgotten is the

558
00:44:05.679 --> 00:44:09.400
Clark Kent character in a lot of
these Superman stories, And I think,

559
00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:15.800
like Zack Snyder Superman Man of Steel
is very similar and that there's not enough

560
00:44:15.880 --> 00:44:21.880
Clark Kent to really balance the story
out. And that was one of the

561
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:27.320
things about the christiher Reef Superman,
Like some of the most delightful scenes are

562
00:44:27.360 --> 00:44:31.320
the Clark Kent scenes, right,
or the scenes where it's like there's both

563
00:44:31.360 --> 00:44:36.159
of him, right. I think
there's a scene that gets clipped a lot

564
00:44:36.239 --> 00:44:43.480
where he is Clark Kent talking to
Lois Lane and he's debating whether to tell

565
00:44:43.519 --> 00:44:50.039
her his secret identity and she turns
away and you watch him like literally transform,

566
00:44:50.119 --> 00:44:52.039
like it's just a posture, and
I think he like takes off his

567
00:44:52.119 --> 00:44:55.039
glasses and changes his posture and he's
thinking about telling her, and then he

568
00:44:55.119 --> 00:45:00.199
changes his mind and like changes back, like his posture changes back. Not

569
00:45:00.400 --> 00:45:06.239
like it's not only a great acting
performance like Christopher read, but also just

570
00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:10.440
like a fundamental and interesting exploration of
this character, the duality of it,

571
00:45:10.519 --> 00:45:14.679
and you have to have that.
And I think, like again, like

572
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:21.079
that's where Alan Moore is going,
is like superhero stories shouldn't just be about

573
00:45:21.119 --> 00:45:28.000
superpowers. It should be about the
human beings or whatever Kryptonians behind the powers

574
00:45:28.280 --> 00:45:32.320
and exploring their stories. Yeah,
And people often say stuff like Superman is

575
00:45:32.360 --> 00:45:37.320
a boring character because he's in vulnerable
and he can do all these things.

576
00:45:37.800 --> 00:45:40.159
That's why you got to have the
Clark Kent. Yeah, and I think

577
00:45:40.159 --> 00:45:44.440
it's It's like I used to very
much be one of those people. And

578
00:45:44.599 --> 00:45:47.440
Jessica Plumber, who's a freaking guest
on here and who is a huge Superman

579
00:45:47.480 --> 00:45:52.000
fan, has a very similar perspective
to what you're saying. She often talks

580
00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:58.559
about how her favorite Superman on screen
is the New Adventures of Lois and Clark.

581
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:02.199
I don't say that and that and
it's hard and soul, I think

582
00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:05.840
very much. Also, she said, like the first of the Christophery Superman

583
00:46:05.880 --> 00:46:08.920
movies, it's a rom com.
Oh yeah, like like it with meet

584
00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:10.840
cutes and all this kind of stuff, and they're like, which one are

585
00:46:10.840 --> 00:46:15.960
you gonna fall in love with?
In f Dan Kane like and everything he's

586
00:46:15.000 --> 00:46:20.119
done since then. But yes,
like the show is so great that that

587
00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:24.559
show had a lot of Clark Kent. And because Clark Kent is vulnerable,

588
00:46:24.719 --> 00:46:30.079
right, Like not he's not physically
vulnerable because underneath he's Superman, but he

589
00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:35.039
can't get Lois to go out with
him as Clark Kent. And like in

590
00:46:35.079 --> 00:46:38.000
the movies as well, like Lois
is in Lowe Superman and ignores Clark Kent,

591
00:46:38.280 --> 00:46:42.280
and yeah, like I love that. I love those stories. Yeah,

592
00:46:42.559 --> 00:46:45.000
and then in so many homages to
that, you know, like I

593
00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:52.280
I everything from the the Toby Parker
Spartan, the Toby Parker, Toby Parker,

594
00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:59.840
I don't know where you're going,
Toby Maguire, the Tobyoguire Spider Man,

595
00:47:00.840 --> 00:47:05.880
where you have the you know,
the Mary Jane character who kind of

596
00:47:06.039 --> 00:47:09.000
is has much more crush on Spider
Man than Toby. I think Princess Leah

597
00:47:09.079 --> 00:47:13.719
is in many ways a Lois Lane
figure of the you know, she's the

598
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:15.480
damsel, but she's not the damsel, and she's gonna all sorts of back

599
00:47:15.480 --> 00:47:20.760
talk for the people who rescue her
and stuff like that. Let let's pull

600
00:47:20.800 --> 00:47:22.679
back, though, to our main
topic, and there's a lot more we

601
00:47:22.679 --> 00:47:27.360
can say about this. I think
I'll just say that I'm a little different

602
00:47:27.400 --> 00:47:30.559
than you and the kind of stories
I like in that I think for me,

603
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:37.840
because I fundamentally do not believe the
conceit that it's okay for someone like

604
00:47:38.039 --> 00:47:44.119
Superman or Captain America to have all
the power they do and that we can

605
00:47:44.159 --> 00:47:45.880
just trust them, because I just
don't. I don't believe that, and

606
00:47:45.880 --> 00:47:51.039
I think it's dangerous. And I
think that's why I really like stories like

607
00:47:51.159 --> 00:47:54.719
Kingdom Come or even more the stories
where the character wrestles with how are they

608
00:47:54.760 --> 00:47:59.599
going to use the power and the
decides to do the right thing, because

609
00:47:59.639 --> 00:48:02.559
those are stories in our own world, you know, Like underdog stories are

610
00:48:02.599 --> 00:48:06.519
great. But and this isn't all
my audience, but it's a lot of

611
00:48:06.559 --> 00:48:09.800
us. If you're an American citizen, A lot of times our story isn't

612
00:48:09.800 --> 00:48:15.440
the plucky little underdog. Our story
is the superman of the world who has

613
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:17.719
to decide when is it right for
us to use our power to do what

614
00:48:17.719 --> 00:48:22.639
we think is right in the world
or should we be holding back because us

615
00:48:22.719 --> 00:48:28.559
coming in as superman in the world
doesn't actually help. So I guess to

616
00:48:28.639 --> 00:48:32.719
me, going back to this original
question, I want to read more of

617
00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:37.559
Alan Moore's thinking. I'm not quite
convinced that superheroes are fascist, but I

618
00:48:37.639 --> 00:48:44.239
think He's got a point in that
the modern revising, the modern sort of

619
00:48:44.320 --> 00:48:49.199
rebirth of fascism, I don't think
is caused by superhero culture, but do

620
00:48:49.199 --> 00:48:52.960
you think has some overlaps there?
And I think certainly there's a lot of

621
00:48:52.039 --> 00:48:57.880
elements of superheroes that overlap with authoritarianism
that we're definitely gonna keep talking about because

622
00:48:57.880 --> 00:49:02.280
I think there is something about all
all these stories about one strong person will

623
00:49:02.280 --> 00:49:07.079
come and save the day. Yeah, And I think part of his criticism

624
00:49:07.280 --> 00:49:15.280
is on media literacy or audience literacy
and like understanding the stories, because if

625
00:49:15.320 --> 00:49:23.800
we go back to The Watchman,
like his Ozamandias is a villain, right,

626
00:49:23.880 --> 00:49:28.719
like we should read him as a
villain, like he is a hero

627
00:49:28.880 --> 00:49:32.400
in that world, but then does
villainous things and so like this is this

628
00:49:32.440 --> 00:49:37.199
is where we point to. It's
like he's creating this archetype of the evil

629
00:49:37.239 --> 00:49:40.400
Superman. But I think like in
the in reading The Watchmen, like the

630
00:49:40.440 --> 00:49:45.320
graphic novel, like it's pretty clear, but then you get to something like

631
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:51.880
the movie and and Zack Snyder like
frames it in much more of a question

632
00:49:51.960 --> 00:49:55.039
mark, like is Osmandias a villain? Like I don't know, you decide.

633
00:49:55.119 --> 00:49:59.239
It's like, no, like,
don't let people decide because you might

634
00:49:59.239 --> 00:50:02.360
be disappointed by what they decide.
I don't. I don't think Alan Moore

635
00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:07.400
is like you decide like he's a
villain. I'm writing him as a villain,

636
00:50:07.480 --> 00:50:14.800
but he quote unquote wins anyway,
And yeah, should we tell stories

637
00:50:14.840 --> 00:50:17.639
like that? I don't know.
I think it's I think it's somewhat different

638
00:50:17.760 --> 00:50:21.679
and that there's a good reason for
us to rewatch the movie. But also,

639
00:50:21.760 --> 00:50:23.760
have you seen the TV show that
was made of a Watchman? I

640
00:50:23.800 --> 00:50:27.880
have not. It is very good, and I think goes a lot deeper

641
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:30.960
into the question, and I think
it's asking. Actually, I think you're

642
00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.639
right that those people were saying no, as Amandias is kind of an antihero,

643
00:50:34.760 --> 00:50:37.559
are completely wrong. It's not an
open question. He is a villain.

644
00:50:38.039 --> 00:50:43.079
But I think what Alan Moore is
saying the world was saved by a

645
00:50:43.159 --> 00:50:45.719
villain, that if he had not
done what he did, there was almost

646
00:50:45.719 --> 00:50:50.880
definitely going to be a nuclear war. Yeah, And to me, that's

647
00:50:50.920 --> 00:50:54.840
the other question is what does it
say about our world when the fact was

648
00:50:54.880 --> 00:50:58.519
we needed a villain, and so
does that mean that he's not a villain?

649
00:50:58.559 --> 00:51:00.800
Or does it mean that we need
to fix thing so that we don't

650
00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:07.079
need the villain again? Right,
that the world itself was already broken to

651
00:51:07.199 --> 00:51:09.920
a degree beyond repair, like hopefully, like it does get repaired, but

652
00:51:12.039 --> 00:51:15.320
it was broken to a point where
a hero could not save the world.

653
00:51:15.760 --> 00:51:20.880
Right, I have a tangent that
want to asks. We're gonna save that

654
00:51:20.920 --> 00:51:24.000
for our I have a tangent that
want to ask, So we're gonna save

655
00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:29.519
that for our bonus content for our
members. The other thing I guess I

656
00:51:29.559 --> 00:51:31.559
want to end on is like at
one point, he mentions again like the

657
00:51:31.639 --> 00:51:39.639
audience, and about how comic book
heroes were originally written for kids, and

658
00:51:39.679 --> 00:51:45.679
then like as kids grew up,
the stories continued and the industry, like

659
00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:52.599
these companies wanted to keep making money
all of these characters. And that's why

660
00:51:52.639 --> 00:51:55.400
like nostalgia comes into play, right, Like if you liked Superman as a

661
00:51:55.480 --> 00:52:00.519
kid, well, like, we
still got Superman as an adult for you.

662
00:52:00.840 --> 00:52:02.639
But because it's for an adult,
for an adult audience, like,

663
00:52:02.679 --> 00:52:07.199
it's a little more mature, it's
a little darker. Like he makes some

664
00:52:07.480 --> 00:52:14.079
questionable decisions, right, Like,
because that's what we think much mature storytelling

665
00:52:14.360 --> 00:52:22.039
is, and I I a like, I fundamentally disagree because you and I

666
00:52:22.119 --> 00:52:28.519
watch a lot of cartoons like Star
Wars. Cartoons are for kids, like

667
00:52:28.639 --> 00:52:31.199
Rebels is for kids. I don't
think there's any question about that. But

668
00:52:31.280 --> 00:52:36.480
we enjoy it as adults, and
we find interesting things to discuss in it,

669
00:52:37.239 --> 00:52:43.199
and it doesn't have to be like
this gritty, dark thing. So

670
00:52:43.280 --> 00:52:46.639
you walked right into my trap.
I mean sorry, you actually led to

671
00:52:46.639 --> 00:52:51.320
the point I was going to make, which is also a disagreement with more

672
00:52:51.360 --> 00:52:55.159
because I think he actually seems to
believe that it's only adults who are reading

673
00:52:55.199 --> 00:53:00.159
comics. I don't think that's true. I think adults are continuing to be

674
00:53:00.280 --> 00:53:04.519
the comics they grew up on,
and so some of them have matured.

675
00:53:05.360 --> 00:53:07.519
But also there's a whole bunch of
new comics, like there are versions of

676
00:53:07.559 --> 00:53:12.400
these things for kids. But also
there's Kamala Khan, there's you know,

677
00:53:14.559 --> 00:53:17.159
uh god, I can't remember his
name. There's Miles Morales. There's all

678
00:53:17.199 --> 00:53:21.880
sorts of and thousands of new characters
that I don't even know about, that

679
00:53:22.039 --> 00:53:25.199
kids love and that all ages can
love. But to go to your example

680
00:53:25.840 --> 00:53:30.360
in Star Wars, yes we have
those kids shows. We also have and

681
00:53:30.519 --> 00:53:35.360
Or. And if there's anything that
says we're going to take the more simple

682
00:53:36.159 --> 00:53:38.320
young adults you know, all ages
story of Star Wars, of good and

683
00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:43.639
evil and complicated a lot, and
make it a lot more gritty and dark,

684
00:53:44.480 --> 00:53:47.199
that's and Or. So to me, I guess I kind of see

685
00:53:47.239 --> 00:53:51.159
that. I think that can be
the medium is we don't If Star Wars

686
00:53:51.199 --> 00:53:54.800
was all Mandor and Or, it'd
be terrible, terrible. I said Mandor

687
00:53:54.800 --> 00:53:59.519
because as a Mandor, I think
it's that same like when a person's body

688
00:53:59.519 --> 00:54:04.000
gets chopped in half ten minutes into
the first episode of Mando and you hear

689
00:54:04.079 --> 00:54:07.039
the thud of the body hitting the
ground. I was like, oh,

690
00:54:07.280 --> 00:54:12.360
we're not for kids anymore. But
yeah, so I hear your point.

691
00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:15.840
I just think that I think we
do have some of that in the comics

692
00:54:15.079 --> 00:54:20.559
universe right now. It's just probably
like we're not I was gonna say,

693
00:54:20.559 --> 00:54:22.679
but they're not getting made into movies. But like ms Marvel is a movie,

694
00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:28.559
you know, yeah, well it's
a TV show, and then The

695
00:54:28.599 --> 00:54:30.719
Marvels was a movie. That's true, that's true. Yeah, And into

696
00:54:30.719 --> 00:54:34.880
the Spider Verse, the Miles Marlan
stuff, well, there's a lot more

697
00:54:34.920 --> 00:54:37.960
on this topic we can discuss listeners
has always let us know what you think.

698
00:54:37.079 --> 00:54:42.280
Go to the website the Ethical panda
dot com find us under the Ethical

699
00:54:42.320 --> 00:54:46.000
Panda. We did get some interesting
feedback about the topic we discussed last week

700
00:54:46.000 --> 00:54:50.559
that wanted just to end on and
as always, yeah, keep giving us

701
00:54:50.599 --> 00:54:52.719
this feedback. Let's know what you
think. Chris mccurl when it was a

702
00:54:52.719 --> 00:54:57.039
big fanity stories and some of the
things a lot about these kind of issues,

703
00:54:57.119 --> 00:55:00.280
wrote in response to my question about
is failure good teacher? Failure is

704
00:55:00.280 --> 00:55:04.480
a good teacher so long as you
try and learn from it. If you

705
00:55:04.599 --> 00:55:07.559
fail and quit, as Luke did
until Ray and Yoga came calling, it

706
00:55:07.639 --> 00:55:14.960
can't teach. Okay, Yeah,
well, first off, thank you very

707
00:55:15.079 --> 00:55:21.960
much for the feedback. I think
in our discussion I talked about like depression,

708
00:55:22.039 --> 00:55:25.599
like cycles of depression when you fail, and yeah, like that.

709
00:55:25.599 --> 00:55:30.880
That's why fundamentally, like I guess
I would disagree with the failure as a

710
00:55:30.880 --> 00:55:37.199
good teacher. It's because if you
fail, like if you continue to fail,

711
00:55:37.280 --> 00:55:40.880
you can fall into the cycle where
you give up. And in a

712
00:55:40.960 --> 00:55:45.199
sense, like giving up is the
ultimate failure, right, because you know

713
00:55:45.400 --> 00:55:47.719
if you don't come back, like
you're not doing the thing, so you're

714
00:55:47.719 --> 00:55:53.519
not succeeding. And so if we're
talking about like teachers or like how to

715
00:55:53.599 --> 00:55:59.599
mentor someone to do something. That's
why like, I don't think failure is

716
00:55:59.639 --> 00:56:06.519
all that great. I think you
can create an environment where you don't fail

717
00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:14.159
but still learn lessons or just kind
of maybe like stumble, but there's a

718
00:56:14.199 --> 00:56:21.559
safety net and the stumble doesn't cost
you or your your organization too much.

719
00:56:22.320 --> 00:56:28.519
Yeah, going back to like you
and I used to do magic to gathering,

720
00:56:28.599 --> 00:56:32.920
judging and that this is one of
the things I would try to set

721
00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:38.039
up is environments where there was like
a safety net. They gave people an

722
00:56:38.079 --> 00:56:45.639
opportunity to try something new, but
two be okay with not succeeding. Yeah,

723
00:56:45.239 --> 00:56:49.639
modular mentor could be something we have
a mentor d over your shoulder who

724
00:56:49.679 --> 00:56:52.119
can catch you if you're about to
call it that problem, but not failing,

725
00:56:52.360 --> 00:56:55.440
because a failure would mean, you
know, like a tournament, an

726
00:56:55.480 --> 00:57:00.400
event goes badly and then the customers, the players have a experience, and

727
00:57:00.440 --> 00:57:04.800
that that person the judge running that
is going to have a bad experience too,

728
00:57:04.880 --> 00:57:07.119
and be like I don't I don't
know if I want to do this

729
00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:10.280
anymore. Like that's what you got
to avoid. And that's why, Like

730
00:57:10.440 --> 00:57:15.440
I I love Yoda, but this
is not the Airport Book for me,

731
00:57:15.679 --> 00:57:19.760
Like he is the best teacher.
No, like to give people an opportunity,

732
00:57:19.800 --> 00:57:22.559
I think stumble and me. Yeah, like that that's where like nuance

733
00:57:22.639 --> 00:57:28.239
of these phrases is important, right, which, by the way is uh

734
00:57:28.400 --> 00:57:31.760
Reeky introduced me to another fantastic podcast
called If Books Could Kill, which is

735
00:57:31.800 --> 00:57:35.960
a lot about like diving into the
problems with these books, with these uh

736
00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:38.360
airport sell help books, which is
wonderful, and I love those books.

737
00:57:38.519 --> 00:57:43.519
I love reading those books. But
you have to you can't take them at

738
00:57:43.519 --> 00:57:46.400
face value. Yeah, just like
Yoda, I think I'm a little more

739
00:57:46.400 --> 00:57:51.280
defensive of that's wrong term. I
think I'm a little more still on Yoda's

740
00:57:51.320 --> 00:57:53.920
side with this, but I think
I would change it to failure can be

741
00:57:53.960 --> 00:57:58.639
a great teacher, Yeah, because
I think I think it's like like because

742
00:57:58.639 --> 00:58:00.239
I think, on the one hand, is good to set up situations where

743
00:58:00.239 --> 00:58:05.480
people can try things and possibly fail, you know, like put really big

744
00:58:05.480 --> 00:58:08.199
mats under the jungle gyms that kids
can try it and if they slip,

745
00:58:08.199 --> 00:58:14.880
They're gonna be okay. But I
mean, I this was not working for

746
00:58:14.920 --> 00:58:16.320
you, which I'm happy about because
I don't know they wouldn't kept working for

747
00:58:16.360 --> 00:58:20.639
you. But I certainly made a
screw up that caused a huge problem at

748
00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:23.679
a conference I was working at,
a tournament I was working at. I

749
00:58:23.719 --> 00:58:25.800
didn't try to do it. It
wasn't a good thing that I did it,

750
00:58:25.880 --> 00:58:30.239
And it did take some very strong
mentorship to help me realize, like,

751
00:58:30.840 --> 00:58:34.360
you know that it doesn't mean I'm
terrible and I should never do this

752
00:58:34.400 --> 00:58:37.920
again. But I'm actually never gonna
do that again. I would definitely learn

753
00:58:37.960 --> 00:58:42.320
from it, And so I think, yeah, it's that it's to me,

754
00:58:42.400 --> 00:58:44.760
failure is an opportunity, is maybe
the way I would say it,

755
00:58:44.760 --> 00:58:47.840
like failure gives you the chance to
learn from it. But you have to

756
00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:52.000
both. You have to have a
support system, both internally and maybe externally

757
00:58:52.519 --> 00:58:55.679
that helps you stay away from the
depression, stay away from the therefore I

758
00:58:55.679 --> 00:58:59.920
should quit. And you also have
to be self reflective enough to be able

759
00:58:59.920 --> 00:59:02.000
to recognize is this a time where
you failed because you made a mistake,

760
00:59:02.639 --> 00:59:06.159
or is this a time where you
did everything right and still failed? You

761
00:59:06.159 --> 00:59:08.440
know, so there's yeah, and
you have to have like a certain amount

762
00:59:08.440 --> 00:59:13.119
of fortitude to get over failure and
that that I think that's where I have

763
00:59:13.239 --> 00:59:15.960
problems with it is like you often
hear phrases like oh, well, it's

764
00:59:15.960 --> 00:59:21.320
just tough enough, right, right, And people have different toughnesses, whether

765
00:59:21.400 --> 00:59:25.920
it's emotional, mental, like physical
toughness. Again, like going back to

766
00:59:27.079 --> 00:59:34.199
my experience as a runner, like
when you run a marathon, it's it's

767
00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:39.079
really rough and not everyone's going to
finish, and you can't just be like,

768
00:59:39.199 --> 00:59:43.000
well, like you gotta you gotta
train more, right, Like it's

769
00:59:43.400 --> 00:59:46.599
there's a lot of stuff that goes
into it and I don't know. Life.

770
00:59:46.639 --> 00:59:52.800
To me, if I never fail
in life again, like that would

771
00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:57.639
be great. I would prefer that. That's fair. That's fair. Uh,

772
00:59:57.920 --> 01:00:00.000
listeners, what do you think is
always we want to hear from you,

773
01:00:00.119 --> 01:00:02.159
We want you to become a member. It's a great way to be

774
01:00:02.159 --> 01:00:06.000
part of the process. Help us
along. Riki, thank you so much.

775
01:00:06.039 --> 01:00:07.559
We're going to have a quick conversation
going a little bit deeper on the

776
01:00:07.599 --> 01:00:12.679
Watchman for our bonus content for members
for everybody else. Thank you so much

777
01:00:12.719 --> 01:00:15.880
for listening. We have spoken Superhero
Ethics is an ethical pan of podcast part

778
01:00:15.920 --> 01:00:20.119
of the True Story FM network.
If you enjoyed the show, please share

779
01:00:20.119 --> 01:00:22.000
it and leave a rating or review
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780
01:00:22.039 --> 01:00:25.360
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becoming a member. Find info and social

781
01:00:25.360 --> 01:00:28.239
links in the show notes. Thanks
for listening.