Who's Who In The CBU Update 2008
Who are... Park and Barb?
Barbara Lien-Cooper writes the comic GUN STREET GIRL at Panel 2 Panel, was an original founder of Sequential Tart, is the managing editrix of the 2004 Eisner award-winning print magazine COMIC BOOK ARTIST, and was named by Mark Millar (The Authority, Ultimates, Wanted) as one of the three most promising new talents in the next wave of comics writing.
Park Cooper started writing about comics at the now-defunct DC FANZINE website.
American Horror Clichés I Just Don’t Get
I’ve mentioned some of this stuff before here and there, but with the continued popularity of American horror films, I wanted to spout off on clichés a bit. It’s, well, just something that I, as a horror fan who’s written some horror comics herself, likes to do.
Let’s start with an example that I sort of thought had died the death, but I’ve seen revived lately in cheap, Independent horror films as of late. Five or so teenagers, just for the hell of it, not for a reality television show or a fraternity pledge or even to fulfill a condition in a dead rich uncle’s will, decide to spend the night in a haunted hotel/motel/hospital/ nuthouse/mansion/amusement park/forest/holiday camp, etc. Okay, we know from YouTube that sometimes, people are just foolhardy. It’s not that young people never think of taking foolish risks. It’s just, since when do teenagers like the idea of being away from electricity and other luxuries of modern life, even for a night? I just can’t see any young person signing up for the idea of sleeping in musty, dusty surroundings without air conditioning and/or central heating (depending on what season it might be), no internet connection, no cable, no video game unit, etc. Stupid, foolish risks like staying in the place where every last person has been rumored to have been murdered by a ghost, sure, I can see that. But no teenager in his/her right mind is going to want to be inconvenienced.
Or, take The Haunted variation on that “stay in the place” cliché. Five or so ghostbuster/psychic investigator types spend days and nights at ye olde haunted mansion as residents. They don’t have a Priceline hotel room ontap in case they find that three AM is when the ghosts start vomiting acid on their victims or whatever. Residents, I ask you! Now, there are a lot of ghost investigators out there, with some great high tech equipment (which you rarely seem to see in horror films, for some reason), but they don’t take up residency in the house of madness, do they?
Okay, and here’s the other thing that gets me about abandoned you-name-its. America is the land of tearing stuff down in favor of building something else. It’s not like Europe—we have almost zero historical value worth keeping, percentage-wise. “The old haunted amusement park? We can’t tear that down—that’s where Teddy Roosevelt met a certain little lady named Ruth Harkness and her baby panda and…” --No. Yet these haunted atrocities are allowed to stand, just waiting for their next victims. Someone must own these properties. Someone must know that a haunted house is an attractive nuance and that if a bunch of kids go to the house and get killed, the property owner is going to be in for a hefty wrongful death/negligence suit. Someone must know, further, that a bulldozer or a bit of dynamite (heck, even a match) could make said attractive nuisance go away. Yet, there said nuisance is, ugly and evil and haunted as ever when that land could be made into a handsome strip mall. Where’s a local Sprawlmart when you need it?
In a related vein, so to speak, how about the one where the skeptic with his/her own inner demons goes into a situation, whatever it might be, and finds out, way too late for his/her personal safety, that the supernatural is indeed real…and gunning just for that skeptic. Now, that cliché isn’t so bad…except that the skeptic always makes sure that he (let’s keep it at he, as I’m tried of he/she for the moment) is totally alone with no real back up. Either he’s alone or is easily separated from his team. Oh, yeah, it’s Mr. Skeptic, I only believe in science, not the supernatural, but he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his personal safety or having other people to help him, other eyewitnesses so he can say, “It’s not real. And my team of crack investigators can show you the proof?” You just get the feeling that these guys are cut from the same cloth as the sci-fi scientist that discover a formula and the second someone says, “Ha! Ridiculous!”, said scientist shoves the formula right into his veins with a hypodermic! Heck, no wonder these guys never get any research grants. They don’t know thing one about the rules of scientific inquiry. As much as I love Robert Louis Stevenson, he did the world a great disservice, in a way, with the otherwise wonderful Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde, when the good doctor didn’t even try the formula on a stray dog or cat before doing the stuff himself.
Speaking of foolish skeptics, how about the parents that never believe the curly haired kid that claims he/she sees a ghost? Now, I admit, children have imaginations and imaginary friends. It’s not a cliché that the parents are a little skeptical of a child’s pronouncements. But the parents in these films don’t even think to themselves that maybe they should watch Curly Top a little more carefully in the future and monitor his/her imagination a bit more. They never think that Curly Top having a conversation with said imaginary friend along the lines of “I’m not helping you and your minions out of that dimensional porthole” or “I’m not killing Mommy and that’s finally” isn’t at least a sign that the kid needs, if not an exorcist, at least a good head shrinker.
Let’s also include in there the really evil child of Satan kid that doesn’t laugh or smile. Or, maybe he laughs instead of cries when psychically gifted old aunt Stella dies of that traumatic head injury that just had to have been an accident---even though Aunt Stella begged the parents to keep little Simeon away from her because he’s evil (they didn’t listen) just a few days before.
Parents, get this kid a check-up at the very least!
Or, how about, just in keeping with the “what are you thinking?” type clichés, we examine the “chosen one” cliché. A priest or a former cop or a doctor or a psychic or someone who doesn’t on first blush sound insane tells a lead character who’s had some funky things happen to him/her lately (psychic visions, werewolf bite, vampire attack) that he/she IS actually psychic/a chosen one/cursed/blessed/part of evil’s scheme or the one who can stop said scheme. And the lead character, get this, blows the bearer of the news off, saying said messenger is crazy and it’s all a dream or something.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some pretty weird things happen to me in my life (some even a bit supernatural in nature), but I have never, ever, ever, no matter how much weirdness I’ve encountered, been unable to distinguish between reality and dreams. I mean, sure, I’ve had dreams that I thought were real, but I have never had a waking reality that I thought was a dream. Because, you know, the inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality is one definition of insanity. And, most people don’t go insane at a moment’s notice such as these lead characters think either they must have or the messenger must have. (As a side note, I’m on the fence about the cliché about the Lovecraftian-type lead character who sees horror and goes mad. While I’m pretty sure that’s not how the human mind works exactly, who is to say that post-traumatic stress disorder didn’t work on the protagonist in exactly that manner?)
What’s more, if one has just had a supernatural/magical experience and someone shows up who isn’t, on the surface of it, insane or fanatical, if said person comes up in a calm, reasonable voice, says something that sounds highly improbable (like, the public library is demon central or whatever), one might, while still being highly skeptical, be willing to hear the person out. That’s especially true if one has just seen an attack of spooks, monsters, or ghouls. Instead, the cliché is, the lead character insults Mr./Mrs. Jeeves, walk away, gets into life-threatening trouble, gets rescued by Jeeves, and only then will our protagonist listen to the explanation we could have gotten to ten minutes earlier if only he/she had said, “Okay, I’ll bite. Why are there what seem to be demons after me in the first place?”
Okay, I can understand that we, the audience in horror films, are smarter than the characters in the film. We have more information than they do. We, for example, know that it’s a horror film in the first place. We’ve probably seen the creature rise from the grave. I can even understand that the characters can’t hear the spooky music that tells us, but not them, that they shouldn’t go into that room.
But what I can’t understand is why horror characters don’t know the same horror mythology that even non-horror fans know. Everyone has seen a horror film or a horror film spoof in their time. Everyone knows who Jason, Dracula, Rosemary’s Baby, the Wolfman, etc. are, including their weaknesses. No one can avoid elementary horror knowledge. Except, apparently, characters in horror films. Even non-horror fans know that when someone is completely drained of blood because of two pinpricks around the jugular vein and no other sign of violence, we’re probably dealing with someone who (if isn’t actually a vampire) thinks he/she is a vampire. Yet, even in modern horror, we get the “it must have been a wild animal ‘coz there’s no such thing as vampires” cliché. No, in the real world, there are no vampires. But, in the real world, we have the smarts to at least wonder if the killer might at least be acting like a vampire. We in the real world will at least get out our crosses and our silverware, not because vampires are real, but because if a crazy person is acting like a vampire, he/she will probably react psychologically to things that ward off vampires. We feel, hey, it’s worth a shot. We feel, even if it’s not a monster, a silver bullet to the heart will kill just about anyone out there, except maybe a zombie (use the second silver bullet and aim at the head if that’s the case). But horror characters, who we assume live in the same sort of culture we do, are willfully ignorant of horror mythology…or consciously choose to ignore it.
Ignoring horror mythology drives me craziest. More than characters who have no fight or flight reflexes. More than teenagers that have sex at the summer camp where the killer only kills people who have sex. More than the female who doesn’t abandon her high heels and tight skirt and just run---only to twist her ankle in the woods and get killed (chica, what did you think was going to happen to you in those three inch heels, anyway?). More than the characters that split up to search the house, even after discovering that the killer has preternatural strength. More than weak, helpless female victims.
I suppose expecting horror characters to be intelligent is a forlorn hope. But is it too much to ask that they know about the same movies we in the audience know?
Messages from Park and Barb:
Let's try keeping this short: Wicker Man Studios has re-launched its website, so anything you might need to know should be able to be found here:
http://www.wickermanstudios.com
Including Gun Street Girl, now running at only two places: the Wicker Man Studios website, and at Graphic Smash: www.graphicsmash.com.
Also, I'm STILL actively looking for anyone who wants to come do reviews or what-have-you for MangaLife-- as seen here:
http://www.mangalife.com/features/MissionStatement.htm
This includes anime and relevant video games, too, not just manga. But for manga, me getting review copies sent to you is a strong possibility.
Okay that's all for now, please look forward to next time--
--P