"Watchmen" Fanatic Derangement Syndrome... (Debbie Schlussel responds to critics)

debbieschlussel.com ^ | March 5, 2009 | Debbie Schlussel

[EveningStar]

I guess I shouldn't be amazed at the number of slacker ignoramuses who are up in arms about my frank review cutting down the absolute crap they worship a/k/a "The Watchmen", coming out in theaters late tonight. The e-mails they send me and the comments they make about how "deep," "edgy" and "profound" this vile piece of trash (which is none of these) reminds me of the blind statements of followers of Jim Jones. And we all know what happened after they drank he purple Kool-Aid. If only this movie could achieve that result, it would be the most fantastic exercise in natural selection ever conducted in America.

[JSDude1]

No, and I don’t intend to, I don’t want to put that trash in my mind.

[Future Snake Eater]

Then how can you make the slightest judgment on it based on an hysterical rant from a woman who, just from her plot synopsis, obviously didn’t even pay attention? Violence without context is gruesome and horrible.

Context makes a big difference. She provides none of it. If the movie just doesn’t interest you, or you’re familiar with “Watchmen” and just didn’t like it or aren’t into it, that’s one thing. Rejecting it as “trash” simply b/c some crazy woman says you should is just dumb.

[Sir Gawain]

Because there are no tentacle rape monsters in real life?

[Borges]

Define ‘glamorously’. Lolita describes pedophile tendencies in beautiful language. A sympathetic character doing it? All great fictional characters are three dimensional and therefore ‘sympthetic’ to some degree.

[a fool in paradise]

If only you'd called your product a "graphic novel" and added scenes of Archie raping Betty and Veronica and Jughead sawing off Reggie's Arms, you'd be in businesss.

It's been done, sort of....

Harvey Kurtzman made one of the first "graphic novels" (an original work for sale in collected form, unlike Watchmen which was serialized).

He had "the Jungle Book" and followed it with further tales of one of the characters, Goodman Beaver. Goodman Beaver commented on contemporary society (including episodes where he met with S*P*RM*N, questions the whole hero ethic, and Brando, where he gets a gun). He also met Archie Andrews and the Riverdale kids (sort of) in Goodman Beaver Goes PL*YB*Y, the kids are in college now and hip to the Playboy lifestyle (including a depicted orgy), in the end they sign their souls over to the devil who is revealed to be Hugh Hefner). The Goodman Beaver tales were collected (in the 1960s) as The Executive Comic Book.

Article about it (with pdf link) here...

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/16/will-eder-and-harvey.html

And don't forget that Alan Moore included a reference to one of the female characters in Watchmen being mocked in a "Tijuana Bible" (8-pager porno comic).

[steve-b]

If only you'd called your product a "graphic novel" and added scenes of Archie raping Betty and Veronica and Jughead sawing off Reggie's Arms, you'd be in businesss.

Wow -- her issues run deeper than I suspected, and that's saying something.

[Borges]

They exist. They’re all around us. Look out behind you!

[a fool in paradise]

I know it isn’t Shakespeare, but the graphic novel The Watchmen was included in Time’s 100 Greatest Novels of All Time.

Time is owned by Warner Brothers. So is DC Comics.

I read Watchmen when it came out. It is not one of the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time.

[a fool in paradise]

I too am willing to give Watchmen (the comic) artistic merit. But I don’t swallow the hyperbole that it is the greatest comic ever or one of the 100 greatest novels EVER!

[editor-surveyor]

"A king is an ethnarch, sworn to defend his people and the unchanging Christian Faith"

Had you cracked your Bible open a little more often, you would read that of all the kings that Israel had, only three were Godly; the rest were idolators.

[steve-b]

I saw that list. It was basically the "how to turn a young person into a lifelong secular humanist with mental problems" list.

A quick perusal and excerpting of the list of classics of mentally problematic secular humanist literature:

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lord of the Rings
1984

[a fool in paradise]

Please post a review, Debbie seems a bit deranged today and I would like another opinion.

Dr. Manhattan, Meet Dr. Hollywood (Watchmen review) (Houston Press Published on March 03, 2009)

[editor-surveyor]

Work on your reading comprehension.

[Mr. Silverback]

There’s a context in this movie that makes the on-screen dismemberment of a six year old necessary? Lay it on me!

[a fool in paradise]

Grindhouse is admittedly trash culture. The exploitation films of 42nd Street (when it was sleazy) and drive-ins.

Has the same cultural artifact relevance as an ancient dildo.

[editor-surveyor]

"If only you'd called your product a "graphic novel" and added scenes of Archie raping Betty and Veronica and Jughead sawing off Reggie's Arms, you'd be in businesss."

Some here would have us believe that Columbine and VT really didn't happen.

[B-Chan]

They knew that as Kings go, you get more bad ones than good.

Malarkey. Far more innocent blood has been shed by "presidents" and "premiers" and "parliaments" acting in the name of the People than by any Christian king acting in the Name of God. I defy you to back up your assertion with evidence.

[Mr. Silverback]

BTW, you didn’t answer my Band of Brothers question.

[razorboy]

It’s the event that made one of the heroes crack. He had been working on the case of the abduction of the kid, got very personally involved, found the kid but too late, and snapped. He stopped being Kovacs (his real name) and started being Rorschach (his hero ID), but a new more brutal often literally “take no prisoners” Rorschach.

[editor-surveyor]

Tut, tut, - plagiarism isn’t nice ;o)