“ – Bat Label Essay –”

There is so much joy to be found in the 1960s television version of Batman (see my reviews of the first season), but in this post I’ll concentrate on the labels that appear throughout the sets.  Sometimes the labels draw our attention to things that would otherwise be marginal, insignificant, or obscure to the narrative – and thereby highlight the absurdity of the situations in which the characters find themselves.  In other instances they crystalize the tension of the moment in an awkward, destabilizing, and – of course – humorous manner.  For instance, we find the loquaciously identified “Gazebo Cricket Pavilion Paralyzing Gas Gauge – Emergency Use Only!”  Not only is this label notably wordy, but it also solidifies the panel as an object in and of itself – a mechanism worthy of a name, as it were.

Batman moves amid a world of needlessly identified objects – things that refuse to remain merely in the background and, in that capacity, challenge the hegemony of characters in the world.  These label-bound things become objects of absolute definition – no ambiguity is permitted, for viewers or characters, reinforcing the earnest reality that is the seedbed of true camp.  Characters wear labels, too – most notably the goons and henchmen that, it seems, can only really exist by wearing proclamations of their identity.

Curiously, the labels usually seem invisible to the characters.  Robin not only trips over the “Death Bee Beehive Tripwire,” but fails to notice the sign as well.  The campy laughs depend upon the characters not knowing how ridiculous they are, unable to acknowledge the absurdity of the world and its situations.  Thus the labels go unseen.  Likewise, characters tend to repeat things that the narrator has already pronounced, labeling verbally with as much vehemence as the textual counterparts demand.  The written labels are so unsubtle that they become subtle – full of mystery amidst their certainty (who put them there?), provocative in a manner that disrupts the suspension of disbelief but demands the activation of belief.  That is, by reading them we become complicit in the excessively defined non-drama of the icon/joke/ text.

The world of labels pervades the fabric of the show, beyond the parameters of props themselves.  Even the opening title reminds us that the color images we see are “In Color.”  And, of course, the “POW!” “BIFF!”, etc., intrusions in the fight scenes draw our attention to the power of our heroes while rendering their physical violence into absurd, pop art incarnations.  These cards or titles leach away the drama of the narrative into themselves, creating metaphorical black holes of meaning and non-meaning whose gravitational waves ripple through the existential fabric of the series.

The existence of a Twitter account for just the labels [@BatLabels] propels such absurdity into our digital, postmodern age.  Indeed, the catalog of labels becomes a circle of endless inter-signification constituting, one might argue, a philosophical statement of profound significance, an encyclopedia of the absurd that absorbs and disarms all other ventures of meaning.

“Holy Discourse, Batman!”

Image: http://metv.com/stories/infographic-the-a-to-z-of-batman

Anarchic Providence and Quantum Menace

Scooby-Doo Review: “Mine Your Own Business”

The magic of Scooby-Doo involves the mixture of horror and playfulness – like, of course, the holiday of Halloween.  When the gang arrives at an abandoned saloon, Scooby and Shaggy immediately indulge their impulse to fantasize and role-play amid the ruinous tavern.  This pair cannot resist the impulse to clown around.  Scooby can’t even walk past a mirror without grinning at himself and messing about!   Mystery solving and criminal investigation are combined in a tenuous alliance with mischief and mayhem.  This pattern is highlighted by Shaggy’s frequent failure to correctly identify vital objects.  He reads a map upside down, lights some “candles” only to discover that they are actually dynamite, and mistakes crude oil for chocolate syrup.  Scooby even tries to scare Shaggy at one point, suggesting that for all their campy cowardice, the pair is intrigued by the delights of danger.  Of course, their relentless playfulness can also be productive, at least when harnessed by the more thoughtful and focused members of the team – at Freddy’s suggestion, Scooby and Shaggy mimic an approaching train to chase down the villain.

There’s a kind of chant-like poetry about certain moments in the show.  Consider the rhythmic, almost ritualistic repetition of this exchange:

Hank: “It’s the miner.”

Shaggy and Freddy: “The miner?”

Scooby: “The who?”

Hank: “The miner ‘49er.”

Velma and Daphne: “‘49er?”

Every episode of the show, it seems, includes the quest of Scooby and Shaggy to eat without limitation – food is their hobby, their refuge, their playground.  Yet it is inextricably woven into the menace of the situation.  “You ask for a sarsaparilla and all you get is a glass of spider-webs,” observes Shaggy at the saloon.  Scooby steals cheese from a mousetrap, to the vehement annoyance of the rodent.  Scooby may be the only animal that really talks in the show, but he is not alone in articulating purposes and emotions – these animal intentions provide both comic relief and a glimpse into world of hidden intelligences, a gentle organic counterpart to the presence of ghostly agendas and supernatural enigmas.  Of course, food (in the form of Scooby Snacks) works its own magic, transforming Scooby from a coward miming a chicken to a hero saluting like a dutiful soldier.

In this world, clues erupt from an anarchic Providence – Scooby runs away, gets caught on a cigar store Indian, and knocks it over to discover an essential map.   Likewise, opening a door will reveal the villain standing there with inconceivable patience, apparently just waiting for someone to arrive at that particular spot.  In a mine car chase, characters inexplicably switch vehicles, creating a sense of quantum menace – of discontinuous reality held together only by dramatic or comedic effect.  A mirror will suddenly and impossibly become a window through which the villain can emerge.  Somehow this brilliant show makes the supernatural mundane (and therefore conquerable by a child’s imagination) without destroying the excitement of the unknown.  At the same time, it makes the mundane more supernatural, thus stimulating the imagination in exciting and unexpected ways.

Images: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Scooby-Doo is © Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros. Enterntainment

The Soul in the Machine: Star Wars and Technology

Part of the old Star Wars magic was the way that technology “came to life.”  This was most literally the case, perhaps, for droids like R2 and 3PO… and now we need to include that rolling sphere of pure joy, BB-8.  Beyond that, I started thinking about how many different ways technology in the saga becomes mystical or almost organic.  Think about the Millennium Falcon.  It was always a home-like space in the original trilogy, and we can sense Han’s affection for it throughout the films.  But it was always, also, “a piece of junk” – an imperfect glory, something more than it seemed or more than it should have been.  The name of the ship itself evokes cosmic glory and Art Deco boldness – something perhaps at odds with the actual look of the ship.  Now, in The Force Awakens, the Falcon has never looked more splendid.  Swooping across lakes, crashing through forests, skidding across snow – the ship has left the darkness of space to go careening through beautiful landscapes, and seems to have picked up some of the natural beauty along the way.  You can sense that energy – transferred to the iconic X-Wings – in this beautiful piece by Dan Mumford.

Yet the welcoming techno-hearth space of the Falcon is not the only spiritualization of technology in these films.  From the moment Luke lights up that saber in A New Hope we know that the laser sword is something with spiritual energy.  It’s a weapon fit for angels: radiant, musical, elegant.  The Force Awakens reinforces that idea, seemingly imbuing the weapon with ghostly memories – or at least allowing it to stir visions in the mind of young Rey.  And the saber is the centerpiece – the nexus point – of that implicitly mystical encounter that occurs after Rey ascends the Jedi Steps and discovers Luke Skywalker.

Or course, there’s a lineage of rejecting technology in the films, too, such as when Luke switches off his targeting computer on his epic Trench Run against the Death Star.  The noble Ewoks, Yoda’s primitive hut, Vader’s mechanical evilness – all of these point to a privileging of the human-organic over the techno-authoritarian.  That’s the power and beauty of the saga – that we can absorb a critique of technology while drooling over awesome spaceships and marveling at weird mechanisms.  (And I do love the ships in TFA – Leia’s transport and the ill-fated Quadjumper, particularly).  We get some sense of that critique in this film, too – Luke’s new abode hardly seems state of the art, and it is family and friendship and the Force that give the film its real power and its deepest meanings.

In The Force Awakens, Poe Dameron’s enthusiasm for ships reinforces the benefits of technology.  Yet the machine as tool is never the end purpose for Poe – it’s the freedom of flight that calls to him, the need to defend the world of kindness against the world of cruelty.  I’m reminded of Faramir from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

Rey, in particular, seems to present an intriguing balancing of technology and spiritualism.  As a scavenger, she reimagines technology, pushing it beyond its original system and purpose – transforming a warmachine AT-AT into a shelter against the hostile elements.  By rescuing BB-8, by flying and “appreciating” the Falcon, she proves that she can ennoble technology by treating it with a kind of reverence that more greedy and abusive souls (like Unkar Plutt) cannot understand.  Besides, Chewbacca likes Rey, and in some ways Chewie represents the living soul of the ship – he helps to make those final scenes with Rey in the cockpit so powerful, to legitimize her place in the pilot’s seat.  Of course, a technophile can ignore all that and just marvel at how cool she looks on that awesome speeder!  Finally, consider Maz Kanata’s glasses.  They are a technological construct of some kind and it might have been fun to see them do something even more odd, to invoke some kind of crazy clockwork-steampunk vibe – yet in this form they reinforce the fundamental truth of the scene.  The real power is in the living being of Maz, her memory and her wisdom are what matters, not the lenses through which she peers.  Even now, when technology holds such a powerful grip on our imaginations, Star Wars encourages us to think beyond the machine to the life and spirit behind it.

Images:

https://twitter.com/starwars/media (Dan Mumford, AMC IMAX promotion)

http://www.starwars.com/films/star-wars-the-force-awakens-gallery