Rorshach’s flawed worldview

I was reading up on Objectivism recently in reference to Steve Ditko’s characters, Mr.A and the Question, and more specifically Alan Moore’s Rorshach from the recent Watchmen movie.

This article here (http://www.reason.com/news/show/132100.html) is what prompted me to look it up and have a think. There’s an idea in the article that I’ve come across before; that Rorschach sacrifices himself. That he is the true hero of the tale. But I’m no so sure.

I never thought this was the case. Rorschach uncompromising objectivism: being his cold dispassionate view and the moral absolutes that he himself creates and writes upon the world. These are just revealed to be fake constructs in the end. His philosophy hits the villain’s complete compromise like a wave crashing against a cliff. Because the world isn’t so black and white. Because the final ultimate sinful compromise to evil is what will save the world.

I think the clue is in the voice. In the end Rorschach fails and the human stil trapped inside begs to be put down. I also believe that’s the biggest mistake the film made. It fails to distinguish between Kovacs and Rorschach.

He investigates a particularly vile case. A young girl has been kidnapped and Kovacs discovering that her body has been fed to the kidnappers dogs is the final push toward psychosis. His creating the persona of Rorshach is the only reasonable response in the face of such absolute evil. The most apparent clue is the voice; the monotone wheeze that narrates much of the book. It is not the voice of a human; it is the cold dispassionate voice of a natural law. Just as there is gravity; just as the sun rises, so is there Rorshach’s morality. There is absolute Good and absolute Evil. Objectivism. Rorshach is a persona created by Walter Kovacs but, Kovacs himself puts it, “It was Kovacs who close his eyes. It was Rorshach who opened them again”.

It is only when his mask (or his “face”) is torn away that his Kovacs’ human voice returns. At the book’s climax when the heroes are faced with a moral compromise so vast, so impossible to conceive, that they are forced one-by-one to admit defeat. Rorshach alone stands against this: “Never compromise. Not even in the face of armageddon”. Knowing full well that to follow his course of action means triggering World War Three is of less relevance to him than his coherence to his moral code.

When confronted with Dr.Manhattan who refuses to allow him to continue; he tears away his mask and demands his own murder. Rorshach’s simplistic view of the world has failed. His moraltiy shattered. His ‘face’ is torn away and Kovacs, still alive under there, pleads for his end.

The movie fails here; his voice has its rises and falls throughout. There has been no contrast between Kovac’s human frailty and Rorshachs’s cold certainty. In the book however, his sudden scream, his very human demand for his end is emotionally jarring.

I don’t think this is a brave sacrifice. I think this is a study of a man who has hung his entire life upon a philosophy of absolutes. A philosophy that has no place in the real world and that it has been challenged, found wanting and that he pleads for his end.

Discovering comic characters like hidden roots

I was chatting with a friend recently about Watchmen (both book and movie). Specifically about the origin of the characters. A third, less comic-geeky but no less enthused party, asked us what we meant by the origins if not the back-stories contained in the text itself.

The characters in Watchmen as ‘ur-heroes’ of sorts; ‘proto-heroes’ perhaps. Usually when a writer tries to reference superhero history as a whole, and perhaps make a statement about the entirety of the superhero-comic genre,  they draw upon predictable, and Alan Moore is no no less guilty of this, analogs of Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman (with maybe Doc. Savage and the Spirit thrown in for good measure). The writer will create a new version of these characters, thinly disguised, and make statements about their history or meaning that could not be made directly. For example, Warren Ellis might imagine them as lovers.

What is uncommon in Watchmen is that a Superman is not included at all; which is an virtually unknown in any comics setting. Wonderwoman is referenced only in that the pornographic comics that feature the ’60’s Silk Spectre bare (see what I did, good pun, eh? 🙂 ) relation to early issues of Wonderwoman (phalluses and all). Nite Owl is not a Batman analog, as might appear most obvious. He is the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, who arguably was himself a parody of sorts; a more realistic take on what a millionaire would be like if he tried to become a caped crusader. Moore was deliberately drawing on the lesser known superheroe comics of the ’60’s and ’70’s, as befitted his setting.

But we knew this and agreed on it. Rorsach had us talking though. He referenced Mr.A, and old Ditko character I was unfamiliar with. I thought more of the Question, a character I knew from mid-90’s DC and also from Frank Miller’s DK2. What prompted me to look Mr.A up was my friend mentioning Ayn Rand and Mr.A’s worldview of absolute goodness and absolute evil; no shades of moral grey. I remember the Question being criticised for his reliance on Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged to guide his every motive in DK2.

Rorshach

So, I googled Mr.A and Ditko and all things and discovered that Ditko had created both Mr.A and the Question. (Ditko is one of the secret masters of the comic world; he is little known to those outside of avid readers but his creations underly many very popular well-known characteres and settings). Indeed there is even the assumption that he intended the two to go together, Question & Mr.A. That, after his co-creation of the icon Spiderman, he went on to work on the otherwordly Dr.Strange. That his work slowly crept further and further toward a brutal right-wing politic and that, after studying Ayn Rand, he created Mr.A and later the Question to espouse his new, and I would say simplistic (though I’m sure Rorshach would say essential), worldview. As Rorschach himself explains: “there is good and there is evil, and evil must be punished. Even in the face of Armageddon I shall not compromise in this.” Moronic I’m sure most would agree but, I must admit, quite beguiling in its certainty.

I’m reminded of the Bowie track, ‘Law (Earthlings on Fire)‘, and the line, “I don’t want knowledge. I want certainty”.

Rooting deeper still into the web I happened upon other pop culture references to Mr.A. Hoosier released a song called ‘Goodbye Mr.A’ (video below) and still deeper, bringing the epistemological search in a full loop, Alan Moore recorded, with the The Emperors of Ice Cream, a track called, obviously enough, ‘Mr.A’.

… I love comics. I love the layers and layers of intertwining creators and characters.

… A tangential point (though I’m unsure if I really had a point above) perhaps is Dr.Manhattan. Where does this character come from? Intuitively I recognise the idea of the ‘absolute’ superhuman; so advanced as to be unknowable. This has been touched off time and again in various cosmic stories from both DC and Marvel. But… It’s Watchmen. Moore’s drawing on something specific. I’ve heard Captain Atom mentioned… But I’m not sure I buy it… not entirely anyway though I realise the obvious similarity in their back stories. Perhaps, as Grant Morrison pointed out with the Captain Adam character in Final Crisis, Moore intended Dr.Manhattan as something of an ending to the idea of the superhero. The Omega to Superman’s Alpha. Any ideas?

“There’s a hole in your logic
You who know all the answers
You claim science aint magic
And expect me to buy it“

I’m watching the Watchmen

I’m sure, by this point, that people are at least passingly familiar with history of this project. Based on the seminal comic released in 1986 by luminary Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons, the movie has been in preproduction purgatory for two decades.

I am, as you may have guessed, a fan. Full disclosure at a moment like this is essential :-). The story is important to me. I grew wiser on its morals. Knowledge of this esoteric pop culture icon was , to quote another blogger, ‘the handshake of my youth‘. So I went into this with the pedantic eye of a purist. Surprisingly it was not a departure from the text that disappointed.

Zack Snyder cut his teeth directing Frank Miller’s 300 and, unfortunately, he brings the same aesthetic to bear on Watchmen, perhaps assuming this is what a mature comic looks like. Miller, while a writer I very much enjoy, tells brutal tales often accused of glorifying misogny and facistic violence. It is an irony that his aesthetic creeps into a fable designed to harshly critique these very things. The violence of the comic is made more extreme and dwelt upon in almost pornographic slow motion. It is lurid, unnecessary and fantastical. This is the directors most telling error. The characters on the page are frail, pot-bellied, impotent, easily-tired, and importantly all too human. The fantastical nature of their violence on the screen removes them too far from their human weaknesses. I have difficulty reconciling the sure-footed superhuman who can crash through ceilings and dispatch 20 foes with casual ease with the aging impotent man who sits worried for the world amid his dusty trophies. This dichotomy is, of course, central also to Moore’s text but here all subtlely is lost to Snyders puerile leering gaze. And this is perhaps my central point. The facts of the story are there, Jon’s difficult distance from humanity, Walters horrible past and Eddie’s view of the world terrifying due to its alluring accuracy but… I feel that Snyder misses these themes and all he sees are ‘cool superheroes’.

It is this approach that grates. At times the the adherence to the book is too slavish. A line that that compels in a cartoon text box falls flat and conceited onscreen; “What happened to the American Dream?” “It came true”. The difficulty most of the cast, with it has to be noted some real exceptions, have with this acting thing also disturbs the audiences involvement. The variations in Rorschach with and without mask are gone. The villains accent teeters further and further toward that of a camp nazi, climaxing as the denouement is reached. The differing philosophies of the heroes are lost as all veer toward ultraviolence and ‘comic book cool’.

When we left the cinema I made the point that ‘It was like a badly told joke’. In retrospect this is a bit unfair and was a rude comment hastily made. It’s not a bad film. It’s entertaining and the source material is intact enough for great lines (‘I’m not locked up in here with you. You’re locked up in here with me’) to shine and some of the themes of death, age, fear, impotent rage, and nihilism to peek through. But I felt that Snyder was retelling a great joke passed to him by a friend. He got every detail, remembered all the lines, but just can’t deliver a well-timed punchline. Here, all the details are lovingly enshrined but the point, I feel, is lost.

Good soundtrack though 🙂