Mick's (UPDATED WITH APOLOGY)

Today I finished assembling and painting this Old West building. I decided to style it as a hole-in-the-wall bar, run by an Irish immigrant. 

EDIT: Sean rightfully points out below that "Mick" is often used as a slur against the Irish. I knew this, but had somehow completely forgotten it when I painted the building and blogged about it. I apologized for this embarrassing mistake in the comments, but I repeat it here for posterity: I'm genuinely sorry for my thoughtlessness. I'm leaving this post up as a reminder to myself to be smarter about this sort of thing. 

Some Thoughts on Bright Victory

 

In Mark Robson's Bright Victory (1951), Sergeant Larry Nevins (Arthur Kennedy) is blinded by a Nazi sniper and returns home to adjust to an entirely new way of living. Kennedy is great in the role, believably bitter in the first act, but growing in confidence as he learns how to navigate without sight. 

Of course there's a family waiting at home, and his girl, Chris Paterson (Julie Adams). But romantic complications arise during Larry's rehabilitation, when he strikes up a friendship with the beautiful and compassionate Judy Greene (Peggy Dow). He also forms a close relationship with another blinded solider, Joe Morgan (James Edwards), who happens to be black. These intersecting relationships - along with, in the second and third acts, his parents, Judy's family, and Chris' family - inform Larry's journey through blindness, his shifting ambitions, and his growth as a human being. 

I was ready for Nevins to have to choose between Peggy and Chris, and that particular love triangle plays out as you might expect--but it's not pat, and for part of the film I thought my expectations might have been subverted. More interesting is the relationship between Nevins and Joe Morgan during rehabilitation; both men were raised Southern, and, well, Nevins was raised with some racist ideology, and he unthinkingly uses the n-word while palling around with Joe--not knowing, of course, Joe's race. This predictably ruins the friendship, and I was, frankly, shocked not only by the use of the slur, but the frank and honest reaction to it and even Larry's insistence that he didn't do anything wrong. It takes the rest of the film for Larry's guilt and embarrassment, and the fact that he misses Joe, to percolate, and when he's finally reunited with his parents, the film is just as frank in showing how he became racist--via his parents, of course, revealed through some offhand comments from his mother, which somewhat sours the family reunion. 

And yet, this touchy subject matter is handled well, with Larry getting know know his parents better, his parents - or at least, his father - recognizing that the world is changing or at least needs to change. And it's not just about the racism; his parents try to hide it, but they're not exactly delighted that their son has come home blind. There's a lot of talk in the film's first act about how love will overcome everything, but Robson's direction, the screenplay, and the performances demonstrate that none of this is easy for anyone involved. 

In the end, Larry and Joe make amends and Larry and Peggy get together, with Larry going off to law school to begin the next chapter of his life. Yes, it's a happy ending, but it feels earned. 

Oh, Rock Hudson appears in the opening minutes of the film as a sadly doomed soldier, felled during the same attack that blinded Larry Nevins. Even with just a few lines, Hudson's charisma and presence shine through. He's very natural even in this bit part. 

And as a fan of Gilligan's Island, it was lovely to see Jim Backus in a solid supporting role as Peggy's brother-in-law and supportive friend to Larry. It's always a thrill seeing one of the Castaways in their earlier roles, before the island typecast them forever. Hmmm--typecastaways? 

One final thought--how lucky was Arthur Kennedy to have Julie Adams and Peggy Dow play his love interests? Both women are stunningly beautiful, inside and out. Must have been something. 

LegalEagle on Carnage at Lafayetted Square

I've been subscribed to LegalEagle for a while because I enjoy the host's sense of humour and the way he dissects legal drama in popular culture. LegalEagle also provides commentary on real-world cases, and today he offers a passionate, sincere reading of Trump's tear-gassing of protesters in Washington, DC. Western democracy is in terrible, terrible danger. 

Blackout Tuesday

 

Segregation on Krypton

A few days ago, Jeff Shyluk and I were poring over maps of Krypton as part of a project we've been discussing. I came across this old map of Krypton, and we exchanged some wry, sad commentary about "Vathlo Island--Home of Highly Developed Black Race."

I believe the creators of this map were trying to be inclusive, but instead the text comes off as both condescending and segregationist. But more importantly, the map caused me to look back at my own reading of the various Superman comics over the last five decades. Here's what I wrote to Jeff, in part:

"It makes you wonder what happened to the Kryptonian East Asians, Indigenous peoples, South Asians, etc. You know, over the years I have read nearly every issue of Superman, Action Comics, Justice League of America, World's Finest, Superman Family, Supergirl, Super-Team Family, DC Comics Presents, The Legion of Super-Heroes, Adventure Comics, Super-Sons, Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superwoman, Superman Confidential, and the various one-shots, miniseries, and novels that make up the Superman canon. And in all those hundreds of comics and stories, I can think of only one non-white Kryptonian, Val-Zod, and he didn't show up until 2011, plus he's from a parallel Krypton, no less (from the universe of Earth-2, which I guess means he's from Krypton-2, though not the same Krypton-2 that birthed the original Golden Age Superman...never mind, comic book continuity is utterly ridiculous).

It's possible that there may have been non-white Kryptonians depicted in background scenes during flashbacks to Krypton pre-cataclysm, or maybe we might have seen a black or Asian Kryptonian in the bottle city of Kandor. But wow, until this email I had honestly never even considered the crazy fact that Krypton, aside from that one map reference and the very recent Val-Zod introduction, has been portrayed as an entirely white culture. WOW. That is bananas."

Naturally I don't remember every single panel of the literally thousands of comic books I've read that feature Superman; it's quite possible that some stories do indeed feature non-white Kryptonians. But aside from the above map reference and latecomer Val-Zod, I can't think of any Kryptonians of colour other than white. I'd love for other Superman and comic art fans to tell me differently...

Edited to add: Thanks to Mike Totman for digging up this 2009 story that reveals there have indeed been some non-white Kryptonians featured in the recent past. 

The Trouble with Tarzan

Over the course of the last couple of weeks I've read the first twelve of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan novels. And while I still love the fantastic landscape of Tarzan's Africa, with its magnificent lost cities and vividly painted wildlife, there's no denying that these are books very much of their time - and that time was outright sexist and racist.

Aside from the noble Waziri tribesmen, black Africans are described in the most appalling terms - to Burroughs and Tarzan, they are savage, stupid brutes, superstitious children, or at best, kowtowing servants. And even the Waziri, though they do give Tarzan a little help from time to time, are placed unfailingly in a subservient role. Women sometimes display gumption and bravery, and indeed Tarzan's daughter-in-law Meriem is a warrior in her own right, but most of the time women are merely prizes in Tarzan's world, to be stolen and rescued by men time and again.

From time to time Burroughs flirts with more progressive ideas; in The Son of Tarzan, Tarzan's son Korak falls in love with an Arab girl and Tarzan and Jane bless the coming marriage - but in the final pages it's revealed that Meriem isn't a poor Arab after all, but a lost French girl of noble birth. Burroughs comes so very close, but in the end he just can't countenance an intercultural marriage. (With exactly two exceptions so far, Arabs in the Tarzan novels are depicted as swarthy, lying knaves, interested only in poaching and slavery.)

Even Tarzan's choices are informed by racism. He goes out of his way to rescue white men and white women, and indeed the text makes it explicit that these are the correct and proper choices. It's old-style chivalry and tribalism at its worst. Tarzan is kind to his Waziri warriors but they are *his warriors in a very real sense. They are not slaves, but they are, explicitly, servants, with no agency; they exist to tend to Tarzan's vast African estate and to haul gold from the lost city of Opar whenever the Greystoke estate is running low on cash.

In a way, Tarzan is the ultimate expression of the Victorian form of racism. The white man comes to Africa with nothing; Tarzan arrives as a babe, born on the continent. (His parents are shipwrecked English nobles who die shortly after Tarzan's birth.) Raised by apes, Tarzan is quicker, faster, stronger and smarter than anyone in the jungle, even (perhaps especially) its natives. He grows up, takes and American girl for his wife, starts a plantation, staffs it with black servants, and literally steals the wealth of the continent to enrich himself. To Burroughs, all is as it should be, but to modern eyes he's accidentally created a literary indictment of the era's blinders.

And yet Burroughs' work still has value. Despite the overt racism and sexism, despite its colonialist attitudes, not to mention the wild plot contrivances and coincidences and overused tropes (Tarzan seems to get knocked unconscious by a glancing blow and tied up at least once per novel), these are still crackling adventure stories. I still can't help but get carried away by the romance of Tarzan's Africa, its great unspoiled natural beauty, its hidden dangers and yes, its beautiful damsels in distress. For sheer pulp adventure, Burroughs remains tough to beat. But these novels have to be read with a careful, critical eye.