Quote: Finally, lets look at Watchmen again. I was thinking about this last night. Working backwards, Dr Manhattan's decision to return to the Earth was based upon his realisation that human life was chaotic terrain and worthy of preservation and study. Silk Spectre's life was chaotic terrain because, amongst other things, she was the daughter of the Comedian and the original Silk Spectre. She works this out when she thinks about the Comedian's comment (amongst others) that he raped her mother "Only once." The comedian did rape the original Silk Spectre, but only once - the second time they had sex, it was by consent, and she conceived her daughter. So was the rape necessary to this plot (other than merely to show Comedian as a bad ass)? I think so. There might have been other ways to reach that point, but this was undeniably clever.
But couldn't the argument be made here that this example also shows rape as being potentially appealing to the adolescent male readership? The rationalization of the Comedian raping her mother "only once," could be seen to infer that rape is a justifiable way to begin a relationship as not only did Comedian and the original Silk Spectre then have consentual sex, but also implies that both mother and daughter forgave him afterwards? "Oh, it's ok, he only did it once. After that it was consentual." WTF???
No, that's not my point. The consensual act of sex doesn't somehow erase the rape, or justify it.
This fourth argument deals with the point that the rape was essential to the plot. For Watchmen, it was - or at least, it had some other foundation than mere shock value. With IC, the rape was mere shock value. Dr Light could have incinerated Superman with red sun radiation, and be lobotomised as a consequence. My point is that the rape served no real plot-related purpose that could nto have been substituted by another scenario.
Quote:
And if you think adolescent males don't have access to Watchmen or Vertigo books, you're fooling yourself. In fact, videogames such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt (and several more) are readily available to kids and quite a lot more graphic and explicit than anything seen in ID Crisis.
I've said in the ID Crisis threads before, yes they should have a mature readers label on these books. But even then, kids will still get their hands on them if they want to. You put in Vertigo, they can still get it. I was buying Vertigo books as a teen (and stuff a lot more graphic, as well).
You mix two of my arguments. The first argument is that really young kids (younger than horny teenage boys) will be induced to buy IC because of the shared characters with JLAdventures.
The second argument is that horny teenage boys read JLA as a fantasy, and now rape has become part of the heroic fantasy. Sure, they might read Preacher, for example, but that is an adult comic without the same quality of heroic fantasy. Preacher isn't a fantasy in the same way: Jesse Custer doesn't have huge muscles, fly, and be in a team filled with women with jutting breasts. Jesse has explicit sex, but in the context of an adult fantasy.
WTF???
