Rock, Island, Etc

A couple of Thanksgivings back, the husband and I had a surprise falling out. We had a point of disagreement that was a serious moment in the history of our amiable marriage. You see, his parents wanted us to go to church with them. His aging father wanted to share his family with his friends, and of course, Bryon is very close to his parents. This all sounds quite lovely and innocent, and it would be...

Except his parents go to a church where the pastor passed around a petition against gay marriage. Bryon's mother and father are quick to tell you that they didn't sign that petition, but they go to this church. They also didn't stand up and say anything against the petition either.

Well, the long and short of that is that I wouldn't go to the service, and Bryon did. And we fought about it, until we agreed that we wouldn't talk about it again. He loved his parents. I loved my convictions. I define myself by beliefs. He also defines himself by family, and is willing to compromise his beliefs for that. Neither of us will ever be comfortable with how the other one feels about that, but it is now a place we don't go in our discussions.

I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It is a thing. It makes me uncomfortable, and sometimes it makes me cry. I'm sure it does the same for him.

And given that we don't go into this territory very often, I won't be talking to him about my current feelings either.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Great Moments in Comics Discrimination #3: Barbara Gordon and the Oracle Dilemma

If any of you follow the comic Birds of Prey, you will recognize Oracle, the mastermind leader behind the Birds, who plots their moves from the inside, her computer and strategic genius the gifts she brings to the team. Barbara Gordon, Oracle, is confined to a wheel chair after the events of Alan Moore's The Killing Joke confined her to a wheel chair.

The Oracle dilemma is complicated. Not only does it resound over different ability levels, but it also represents one of the biggest comic book continuity goofs ever.

***

In The Killing Joke (1995) Alan Moore decides to give Batman's arch enemy the Joker a psychotic shift. He brutalizes and shoots Barbara Gordon, because ostensibly he wishes to show Commissioner James Gordon, her father, that one bad day can change a man forever. Gordon remains the same moral fellow he was going into the story, and the Joker gets a personality lift. Barbara Gordon is paraplegic by the end of the story.

Ironically, the Killing Joke was not meant to be part of regular continuity. It was meant to be a special examination of the nature of man OUTSIDE of continuity. However, given the critical acclaim that The Killing Joke received in the comics field in general, Barbara Gordon became a victim in regular continuity.

The feminist outcry in the comics field led to Gail Simone, current author of Birds of Prey to refer to Barbara Gordon as another "woman in a refrigerator," which became a short hand to refer to yet another mutilation or killing of a major female character. (Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, returns home one day to find the body of his girlfriend mutilated in his refrigerator.)

Kim Yale, comic editor and writer, and her husband John Ostrander, created Oracle, Barbara Gordon's new identity, as a response. The Oracle character was strongly received. However, recently, with the scheduled reboot of the entire DC universe, Barbara Gordon has been scheduled to walk again, and to become the Batgirl she was conceived to be before Moore's story.

Fan controversy thrives. Those who suggest that Gordon was never meant to be confined to a wheel chair applaud the decision as a return to a character they thought was unjustly victimized. Advocates of disability see the disappearance of Oracle as a diminishing of disability, asserting that the disabled need to be more represented in fiction.

***

Me? I hate The Killing Joke. I hated what it did to Batgirl, and I hated that it victimized a woman for a convenient plot point. I even hate that it created an incarnation of the Joker that showed its author didn't understand the Joker at all (until Mark Hamill was on the job as the voice of the animated Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, we weren't even close to a return to what I think original creators wished to convey.)

Even so, I understand that if we are going to integrate Oracle into DC continuity, heroes generally don't come back from paralysis. I think it undercuts the story and cheapens the character to do this to her. I also think it cheapens Gail Simone to write it. I am very curious about how she will pull this off without making it seem like she has sold out on a serious issue.

Damned if they do, and damned if they don't, in this case, but all the way through, DC has bungled the handling of Barbara Gordon.

Next: Ms. Marvel and Avengers 200.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Norwegian Galleries

I have posted the Norwegian Galleries!

Oslo Folk Museum

Oslo Akershus Fortress

Balestrand

Bergen (My apologies for the few Bergen pictures. This was the part of the trip where I was the most weary and grieved.)

And here is a link to the spectacular pictures Catrina took of our trip through the mountains from Al to Flam.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.