Watch Out For ‘Watchmen’
by Jonah Goldberg
Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published Jan. 7th. It returns today for obvious reasons, but also for the benefit of new readers. The original post and comments can be found here.
Last summer, Joss Whedon (yes, he’s my master now), caused a minor sensation with his Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. One of the reasons the musical comedy about a would-be super-villain’s miserable love life was so successful — other than Whedon’s pact with Satan whereby he traded his soul, his mint condition Giant Size X-Men # 1 and a lifetime supply of HoHos in exchange for mystical word-talent – was that Whedon was standing on the shoulders of Alan Moore, the author of the landmark comic book Watchmen. More than anyone else, Moore is credited with “deconstructing” the comic book super-hero, and he probably deserves that credit. Though like with all great artistic innovators, Moore had his influences in this regard. Every artist has in his background a mob of ghostly helpers bigger than the crowd of phone technicians in that Verizon commercial. For instance, Marvel Comics (where my first loyalties lie, for the record) had already broken considerable ground in humanizing its heroes long before Moore started writing. Peter Parker, after all, was a terrible dork.
Nonetheless, Moore took the genre to grand new vistas in psychology, political commentary and literature (see, for a mere taste, Eve Tushnet’s sprawling essay comparing it to Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure [link for Tushnet's essay requires you scroll down a bit to Friday, January 23rd at 12:02am -- Ed]). Watchmen is a brilliant accomplishment and deserves the bulk of its sometimes gob-smackingly good press. Though I’ll leave it to others to debate whether it belongs on Time magazine’s list of the 100 best novels since 1923 (the only graphic novel on the list). But the man’s influence on comics and Hollywood has been enormous, if not necessarily obvious to folks who don’t know who he is or only know him from the movie adaptations of V for Vendetta or From Hell. Whedon’s own Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel can easily be seen as Moore’s grandchildren.
This March, after decades of typical Hollywood rigmarole and creative argy-bargy, the film adaptation of Watchmen is finally going to hit screens and Watchmen-mania is running its course like a particular bad case of fanboy (and fangirl) St. Vitus’ Dance. I’m very excited to see it myself. But lots of people, starting with Moore himself, simply don’t believe Watchmen will work as a movie. My fingers are crossed, but I think they have the better part of the argument.
Regardless, if for no other reason than this is a new blog at the intersection of politics and Hollywood, there’s one thing that should at least be pointed out: Much of the political vision of Watchmen – and Watchmen was a deeply political piece of work – is horribly outdated today and was, in the grand scheme of things, just plain wrong when it came out. Moore intended the book to be at least in part a biting indictment of Reagan and Thatcher and the Cold War in general. He saw the book as explicitly anti-Reagan, if not necessarily anti-American (Reagan doesn’t actually appear in Watchmen).
This exposes one of the problems with Moore’s political vision: he seems to think the Cold War was a purely Reaganite phenomena that descended on America like a dark curtain thanks in part to the death of JFK. In Moore’s alternative universe Richard Nixon, a stand-in for Reagan, is serving out his fifth term as president. The title “Watchmen” is an allusion to a real JFK speech – “We are the watchmen of freedom” – that was never delivered because of the assassination, which in Moore’s alternate reality was probably masterminded by Nixon. It’s never said outright, but it’s strongly suggested that everything went wrong geopolitically after that. For example, JFK apparently wouldn’t have approved the use of superheroes in Vietnam (superheroes being something of a stand-in for nuclear weapons in this case. It’s complicated.).
But this is nonsense. Kennedy was an outright Cold War hawk who ran to Nixon’s right in 1960 on such issues as the “missile gap.” While Nixon certainly had very solid anti-Communist credentials, when he actually became president, Nixon ended the Vietnam War, recognized Communist China and ushered in an era of détente with the Soviets.
But that’s a nitpick about what may be a defensible thematic device. The real problem with Moore’s anti-Reaganite vision is that it places the blame for the omnipresent climate of fear on Reagan himself. (Apparently, Moore was unaware of, say, the Kennedy-era “duck-and-cover” ads). In the 1980s the greatest fear-mongering could be found not in Reagan’s “Morning in America” themes but in left-wing critiques like Moore’s. Films like the British “Threads“ or the watered-down American made-for-TV movie “The Day After,” were far more relentless in scaring the hell out of people than anything Reagan ever said or did. This was the deliberate tactic of the SANE Freeze crowd in and out of Hollywood, which thought it was their duty to make Americans more scared of their own government than they were of the Soviets. And the miasma of conspiratorial phobias that hangs over Watchmen’s universe is one that suggests Western governments were not only to blame for Cold War tensions, but that Western governments were actually the real villains.
This is not to say that Moore’s vision is cartoonish or even comic-bookish. It is deadly serious and he leaves many things open to diverse interpretations. Indeed, the greatest villain of the book is an idealistic, liberal-leaning, megalomaniac. But the existential angst and moral nihilism that serves as the spine of the book isn’t a product of Reaganism, but of the left’s ill-advised, ahistoric, and self-indulgent response to Reaganism. And, oh yeah: let the word go forth that Reagan’s vision proved correct barely a few years after Watchmen’s release. Meanwhile, Moore’s political vision – in part because it was so wrong – seems like 80’s kitsch today, which may be one of the reasons so many people believe the book is untranslatable to the big screen. Again, I hope the naysayers are wrong about that. I also hope the producers don’t try to cram the story into today’s left-wing critiques of the war on terror either which would, in a stroke, prove the naysayers right.
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45 Comments
"Apparently, Moore was unaware of, say, the Kennedy-era “duck-and-cover” ads"
Another epic fail,or a lie. 'Duck and Cover' was produced in he early 50s, when Eisenhower was President.
Moore, like many Brits, are deeply conflicted by American power and how it's projected; ergo the political schizophrenia extant in 'Watchmen'. Our cultural ties cause further angst; they realize that we ARE them, in many respects. Their embrace of Fabian Socialism (the drip, drip drip of eroding freedoms) with their innate desire to triumph over all obstacles (that is the British way, you know) causes a massive dilemna.
Simply put, they secretly realize a muscular United States is necessary. So, enter 'Watchmen'. One suspects it will give both the left and right many issues to debate. And, too, why it's actually important, both culturally and politically.
dcase:
What a stunningly eloquent treatise on the author, his work, and perhaps the zeitgeist of the anglo american soul- all in two short paragraphs. Brevity is not merely the soul of wit, but of wondrous insight as you have just beautifully demonstrated. Well done, indeed.
Me, I just wanna see stuff get blowed up real good.
From the trailer, looks like lotsa splosions- yee haw and a ding dang doo!
"Watchmen" being on the 100 greatest novels since 1920 (or whenever) is laughable. It was mostly pictures, had corny dialogue, sledghammer symbolism, a ridiculous ending, and–for all the supposed psychological realism–extremely broadly drawn characters. (That was intentional, I suppose, as they were archetypes. But I guess that's a limitation of the form. Comics are devoted to their archetypes.) The various tacked-on literary devices (excerpts from textbooks, newspaper articles, biographies, etc.), though effective, are amateurishly written. Except for the Black Freighter story, which I believe is artfully rendered.
That's not to say that the themes aren't serious. However, I assume those themes are pretty universial in the comic world. You know, "with great powers come great responsibility," blah, blah, blah. Batman also seems to be constantly in a state of, "My God, what have I done!"
As for the political commentary, whatever larger points the book makes about the dark side of American imperialism, Moore's work is damaged by its monomaniacal obsession with nuclear anxiety. I'll tell you, without the atom bomb, I have absolutely no doubt the U.S. and the Soviets would have gone to war. And unless you haven't noticed, the nukes never flew. That wouldn't be so bad, but Moore made annihilation seem so damn inevitable, what with the doomsday clock and the Comedian's cynical prophecies, that he comes off in hindsight as sophomoric.
Goldberg's point was that the cold war predated Reagan. Since Ike came before Kennedy, the point is even more valid. And, if you want to be really nit picky it "Duck and Cover", was produced in 1951 and first shown in 1952. Placing it squarely in the Truman Administration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_(film... . Democrat Harry S.Truman, you may recall, sent U.S. troops to Korea to fight Communism. A model later followed by Democrats JFK & LBJ in a place called Viet Nam.
wonder if Hollywood will use this Moore book like V for Vendetta, turn it into an anti-GOP/conservative's are Nazi's hit piece and place us on the same moral playing field as Terrorist.
a comic book version of http://inthefaceofevil.com
could be great, too bad so many of our artist are morally bankrupt.
just remember the Pill popping "Talk show host" that empowered the "Fascist Christian conservative" govt., a la Rush Limbaugh in V…would be timely at the moment for hollywood to pull that one out again
As someone who will be going into the film completely fresh tomorrow, having never read the graphic novel, I'm intrigued by the wide division among conservatives, not about the politics, but whether Moore's work is any good. Liberals love it, obviously, but intellectually honest conservatives (people who won't dismiss something for political reasons) either love or loath Moore's story.
As an outsider, it's been a fascinating debate.
alot of the supposed 'true conservatives', the Rothbard clique(Ron Paul followers) Love V for Vendetta, granted Moore himself did not like it at all.
V For Vendetta was awful and I say that as someone who loved Soderbergh's CHE films.
This exposes one of the problems with Moore’s political vision: he seems to think the Cold War was a purely Reaganite phenomena that descended on America like a dark curtain thanks in part to the death of JFK
Kind of like how the libs and liberts think the Islamofascist war was a W invention.
"Another epic fail,or a lie."
Good grief. It's called an error, Burt. An *error*. Common, correctable, probably committed without malice.
are you the one that wrote the review on it at Libertas? Just a suggestion but some of that may be something to repost here one day. Alot of younger college age kids are worshipping that movie and not all are liberals. Some are being misguided by the Ron Paul idiots(recall their V for Vendetta fundraiser).
The movie was terrible. Just awful. The comic book was interesting, but it had big problems stemming from Moore's rather eccentric anarchist political views and his hatred for Thatcher, among other things.. For what it's worth, "V" began as a strip in a British magazine in the early 1980s, then the magazine got cancelled, then DC persuaded Moore to finish it. There was a gap of several years between the time the first chapters appeared and when Moore and David Lloyd actually finished it. It shows.
Heck, read the recently-completed "Final Crisis" from DC; it mirrors Barack Obama's ascension eerily, down to the mind-numbed, catchphrase spouting populace. "The Day Evil Won" indeed…
there is another V review by screenwriter Brian Godawa from a Christian and Philosophical point of view here: http://web.archive.org/web/20060827010332/www.cha...
I do loathe it for political reasons and because its mental poison, but simply as a story, its decent. It certainly deserves to be listed in the Top Thousand comic books, okay Top Ten Thousand comic books ever made. The art is kinda interesting but fairly bland and not that much better than run of the mill Marvel, the story and characters are decent.
Its a B- kind of story.
I'm not a big fan of the comic – yeah, that's right, I called it a comic, not a graphic novel – but I am interested in seeing how a famously unfilmable source material gets translated into a motion picture.
Liberals love it, obviously, but intellectually honest conservatives (people who won't dismiss something for political reasons) either love or loath Moore's story.
I can explain that in one word: Rorschach.
A certifiably crazy, atheistic, bloodthirsty antihero who turns out (and this spoils nothing) to be the one pillar of moral rectitude in the entire book — because, when the time comes to compromise, he says no. "Not even in the face of Armageddon."
Think John Galt meets Travis Bickle.
There's a distinct feeling that there's something that sets him apart from the sane and the mundane — but that which sets him apart from the world, that makes him incapable of fitting into it, also allows him to rise above it. He is by far the most interesting character in the book, and he will probably be worth paying attention to in the movie.
Wow, that was a whole lot of words about a comic book and the guy that wrote it along with another whole lot of words about things that have nothing to do with anything. Stan Lee would sell his soul to the devil for this kind of article. I agree with the writer who said he just wants to see things blowed up good. I only bought Watchmen because it was on the top 100 list and they were making a movie. It reignited my love for the comic books I had when I was a kid.
I loved V for Vendetta and I have't read the comic. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. I don't care about a comic book writer from Englands political views.
"Think John Galt meets Travis Bickle." you hit the nail on the head.
V for Vendetta was attacking Leftism. Control in the name of peace. However, Right wingers are mistakenly associated with that ideology because Reagan wouldn't put a flower in Moscow rifle.
Was the leader in V for Vendetta advocating a limited role of government like Reagan? of course not. Look what Obama is doing. especially with the 'fairness doctrine' then you tell me who Alan Moore is talking about.
Haven't read V for Vendetta, but Watchmen definitely, and painfully obviously, goes after right-wingers. Nixon is on his thrid term, was probably complicit in the Kennedy assassinatio; there's a joke about Robert Redford running for president, and someone responds that a movie cowboy could never be elected; there's a wacko righty newsletter whose readership and editorial cartoons are blatantly racist; finally, Rorschach is by far the craziest and most conservative figure. The liberal "villain" he comes closest to damning, Ozymandias, is indeed monstrous. Nonetheless, he's justified in the end, at the expense of Rorschach's moral absolutism.
(Continued…)
Running all through the book, serving as its central thesis besides the deconstruction of superherodom, is an unmistakably leftist vision of the Cold War. The message is loud and clear: Reaganite saber-rattling will lead to the apocaplypse. Accidental war will inevitably result from the arms race. There is no symmetrical criticism of liberal policy/figures, unless you count Ozy's outlandish super-villainy. Now, you and I may believe that leftists are the true statists, or securitarians as I like to say. Not everyone agrees. Remember when hippies used to think themselves enemies of the state? Call more an unapologetic, unreformed hippie. I'll take him at his word that he's an anarchist. So far so good. Better than a statist, anyway. However, bearing
But looking back, Reagan's saber rattling is what avoided major conflict. At the time it was written, Moore and pretty much everyone else thought the opposite would happen.
The whole countdown clock. It really gives the feel of what it was like to live in the mid 80's. Ironically, Dr. Manhattan's presence is what deterred the Russians. That's why they had to make him disappear. I don't want to give too much of the story away. And they do add the 'cowboy' jab at the very end. gratuitous.
Interestingly Ozymandias's actiondirectly referenced by President Reagan in a speech at the UN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag44dRO8LEA) He says the US and Soviet Union would come together in peace in the face of an alien threat.
Moore intended V to be an attack on Thatcher's United Kingdom(i.e. right winger). The movie was much worse, and turned the story on its head and went out of its way to say Conservatives are Fascist.
Moore also is/was an Anarchist, not a conservative. Much like Murray Rothbard in the US who is the key mind behind the Ron Paul types. i.e. Anarcho-Capitalist, conservatives are not Anarcho-Capitalist.
I finally watched VfV last night and didn't think it was all that bad politically. I can't say how close it was to Moore's original work, but I suppose there were elements of anti-Thatcherism in it. Still, more of that came out in the "making of" featurette than the film. One problem lefties have is that they often portray their hatred of conservative governments in terms of nazis and facists and other, ahem, left wing, totalitarian governments.
I'm not even sure the attempt at moral relativism worked in VfV. V was certainly a murderer. Was he a terrorist? Yes, to the extent that he was blowing up government buildings. The evil government would certainly describe him as so, but one could argue that under such a repressive government (think Stalin or your favorite dictator) the people–or their champion in V–had no other recourse. Contrast that with the terrorism we face today that targets innocent civilians. Quite a difference.
That said, after the movie I pretty much went, eh. I didn't think it was awful, but most of the actors were wasted.
It was a good story, and I can see why it was so popular because it was so different from everything that came before it. Now it seems dated, but it holds up pretty well. The compelling thing about the novel to me was the whole time reading it, it's obvious that Rorschach is the "villain". You're not supposed to like him, and he's cartoonishly fascist, the obvious leftist idea of a right-winger. It's so bad that even right-wingers will dislike him, he's a psycopath afterall. Nonetheless, in the end he comes off as the hero. It's not rah-rah, as I don't want to give away the plot, but the longer you think about it, the more he comes off as the hero. The superficial and misanthropes will consider Ozymandias the hero, but on deeper reflection, people will realize that Rorschach was the man defending morality and humanity. And we have to assume, it was all accidental on the part of the author. Great stuff.
I was one of 7 male students at the very liberal Wellesley College when The Day After came out. The entire campus watched. Girls (sorry, women) were clustered together in the dorms around the dorm TV sets. A group of us "coeds" watched in my room upstairs, and found the show laughable. When it finished, we headed out for some beer, loud and laughing. When we turned the corner and entered the dorm TV room, we were met by openly weeping students who were incensed by our insensitivity, so to speak. These were the days of the deadly Ronald Ray-Gun. Smile girls, we all made it!
Deconstruction is junk. Because it requires knowledge and appreciation of the original form. In dramatic terms it is about as appealing as Ornette Coleman's "Free Jazz" which is just noise.
Shakrespeare, Stan Lee, and Siegel and Schuster are art. You might not put the latter amongst the former, but all are oringal creations, that stand on their own merit.
Watchmen depends among comic book fans "knowing" that Dr. Manhattan is really Captain Atom, that Ozymandias is really Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt (a character by the way that's merely a mystic martial artist more inclined to meditate than kick ass), that the Owl is Blue Beetle, and that Rorschach is the Question? All minor Charleston comic book characters who were lampooned by Moore when DC acquired the characters.
Nothing really original or provocative comes from either V or Watchmen. In the former, Guy Fawkes, who sought to blow up Parliament and invite the Spanish Inquisition to re-impose Catholicism by force (really) is lionized as a political hero. In the latter, questions about a society that NEEDS Superheroes, and creates them, is studiously avoided.
In fact, Moore's wold-view is simplistic and childish. "Evil" just happens and "evil conservatives" win politically … for reasons never explained other than "cheating." It's elitism and "SWPL" dogma, disdain and contempt for ordinary people and various cultural, social, economic, and moral institutions that pose as barriers to absolute tyranny. The role of civil institutions, personal relations, the way people live inclining people more or less to evil is somethign that never enters into Moore's thoughts.
Something that the current crop of SWPL writers, Whedon, Ron Moore, JJ Abrams, etc. echo.
I've never actually read the graphic novel, but from what I've heard, Rorschach and this Adrian Veidt character seem to be what appeals politically to conservative readers. Rorschach, arguably the "hero" of the story, is a right-wing nationalist and anti-Communist with, as you point out, an unwavering devotion to the truth. Veidt, apparently described by Moore himself as the closest thing to the "villain" in the story, is a left-wing "blood soaked utopian." These characters, and my curiosity about how Zack "American Infidel" Snyder handles this controversial material, are the only reason I'm seeing the film this weekend.
I have been a long time fan of the comic. Obviously its extremely stilted to the left, but the story is good and it tickles me that even as hard core leftist as it attempts to be, the character that comes out looking the best is the far right parody character Rorschach.
I wouldn't say he's the key mind, since he took all his best ideas from Mises and Hayek, but very true. Rothbard spent much time courting radicals in the 60s, 'cause he thought all radicals were libertarians. When the hippies turned out to be statists, boy was egg on his face! Moore may be one of the few hippies who actually meant what he said when he attacked the state. Now if we could only convince him that conservatives are the least of freedom's problems.
I half-heartedly admire Rothbard both because we have a common enemy (socialism) and because I love Austrian economics. However, his anarchism is far too utopian for my taste. Fine, pure libertarianism is more logically consistent than conservatism. Government is organized violence and there's no such thing as a public good. But can you tell me with a straight face that private security forces won't go to war with eachother and create a new feudal system? Are you that naive?
- "Was he a terrorist? Yes, to the extent that he was blowing up government buildings"
I know governments often use the terms anarchist and terrorist interchangably, the dictionary definition of terrorist necessarily involves the targeting of civillians. As such, targeting the government is incidental; what matters is whether there are civilian casualties. V should be referred to as a traitor, a criminal, or an enemy combatant. Not a terrorist.
By the way, what disturbed me about V for Vendetta was that I had just finished reading Macbeth at the time, and was therefore all too aware of Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot. Shakespeare had a much better moral hold on the issue.
Hello!
Regarding this Alan Moore's anti-Reagan subtext of "Watchmen", I always thought Dr. Manhattan was analogous to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and like SDI, it is strongly implied that Dr. Manhattan was a de-stabilizing factor in the Cold War, particularly regarding American-Soviet relations.
This was very explicit in the supplemental material for Chapter 4: “Watchmaker”, which was “Dr. Manhattan: Super-Powers and the Superpowers”, an essay by Dr. Milton Glass, who was Jonathan Osterman’s boss before being transformed into Dr. Manhattan. This included a reference to Dr. Manhattan’s ability to destroy up to 60 percent of Soviet ICBMs in flight, and how strategically de-stabilizing Dr. Manhattan was.
Sounds like Moore’s talking about Reagan and SDI.
Thanks!
Marc
I haven't read a graphic novel or comic since Superman comics went over a quarter. Not knocking the art form, it gave us Frank Miller, not to mention a number of valued Big Hollywood contributors, but like scripted television, the theatre and post 1990 music, it's never anything that caught my interest.
I still have those comics, though. Love the smell of them.
Jonah's shot at THE DAY AFTER makes for an excellent point. I was in high school when that came out and the push to make us watch it was relentless. I think it was even part of an assignment for most of us. I like the film a lot, but a pure scare tactic it is.
I remember they also wanted us to watch "Shogun" — an eight night miniseries. I opted for the "F." Permanent record or no, I wasn't missing reruns of the "Honeymooners" and "Hogan's Heroes."
To me, the Day After was really poor propoganda. Threads (UK) was the better film — at least, it had a stronger impact.
On a related point, I find it funny that the left use to HATE the idea of mutally assured destruction. They pinned this theory on Reagan in the 80's and just blasted him as an insane, crazy old man who would kill us all. Used to really annoy me.
But now that we're looking at doing missile defense, and the left claims that MAD was the one thing that kept us safe!! And they act like it was their idea. So much for intellectual honesty.
So your review is one Doughy Pantload?
[...] The reviews are in, and it sounds like a cool movie, even if it doesn’t quite live up to its graphic novel [...]
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