| |
|
Looking over the two recently-linked threads from back in the day, and thinking about people's issues with portrayals and character types, stereotypes, and treatment: I think the important thing is that (a) Morrison's big on everybody being a stereotype, and in fact, several stereotypes at once, and (b) one major point to the series, climaxing in that last issue with our newest Invisible, is that the best thing to do is not define yourself solidly, but let other people try and box you, so that you aren't locked to their box. We are dis-invited to analyzing and judging Lord Fanny or Helga or Jack Frost based on their backgrounds or steretypes, as it is almost demanded of us to judge them and treat them based solely on their own self, their own actions and reactions. We can't do a 'they listen to this kind of music because they're...' or 'they react this way because of social expectations and political...' and so on. Being in a shitty situation does not excuse shitty behaviour. The best moments are those handled with class, with dignity or decency, and the vindictive, asshole moments are clearly presented (after some eroto-violent misleads and a downward spiral of blood and assholity) as unnecessary and unbecoming. Thus, KM rethinks his positions (more than once) and becomes the yuppie terrorist. Boy walks off without a need for justification or revenge. Mister Six sheds identities, reclaims some old ones as necessary or enjoyable. Because King Mob isn't just a baldy guntoting mass murderer in a cool jacket. Boy isn't dramatic vengeance-seeking Ultimate Black Woman cop-gone-sour. Just like you can't look at people in life and tell them to pick a path, a pre-established and rigidly defined path, and get in-step already. Then, stay there and never deviate. That's the Outer Church method, there, not the ultimate lesson or realization.
I don't have a great problem with Fanny's being abused, assaulted, and otherwise spat upon and mistreated by assassins, psycho-ghosties or cowboys at breakfast. The point is that she never lets any of that make her a bitter old asshole. Ever. Spiteful and cocky? Sure. A little snippy sometimes, given, but even when she puts a shoe in Orlando, it's not anything to do with being horribly angry and hateful, and she doesn't go on to, y'know, smash random people in the face or rob liquor stores at gunpoint, because she had a bad life. She goes dancing. Fucks some gorgeous mumbly fellow. Pulls the wig down off the shelf.
That's what identity is about in 'The Invisibles'. It's not about telling someone they have to, for example, only be sexually attracted (or active) with one specific gender. Not about insisting a whiteboy dating a black woman several years older than him is more about race than age, or about Britain vs America, or what have you. Nor, demanding that Sir Miles me an absolute unrepentant permanent asshole from moment one. Miles, in the end, was a very sad case, not a damnable one. None of them are damnable, really. Glorious or pitiable, or both, but there's not a case to be made, using the series' moral structures, for insisting X can't listen to Y or A can't look at B lustingly.
In the end, especially with how KM's whole corporate activities are going, it's better to sell than to force. People will, ostensibly, play 'The Invisibles' because people like to play games, not necessarily because somebody's put a gun in their face and told them to change their life, change sides, and rethink existence to be just like them. Just like them. That's the trap it takes the whole series to get through, and really comes up in Vol. 3, with KM's admiration of Jack. Because he really is, in many ways, building Jack into being just like him. And while Jack Frost is early on seduced by many of the forefront King Mob traits, in the end, he makes his own tracks.
That, I think, is where Jim Crow's detournement and his revision of the first 'Doctor Who' ep come into play. It's also why he's better in the second volume, which is all about falsity and play. In the first series, there are a few stories that are deliberately (rigidly) themed, including Boy's origin, the crack-zombies, and the lovecraftian thing-from-the-mirror... and their all very socio-economic, as well, in ways that are totally misleading. These are false representations. We know they're false, because we've already been through 'Arcadia' presumably. The situations and reversals are not false to the characters, but really, having your daughter betray you, or someone who thought you were on the level with... having friends or partners betray you, the loss of siblings or friends... these are painful enough that your initial pain or shock always makes them seem very real, the initial reaction is so big it seems truthful. When, in fact, if we take the distant-view, the long-view of all these, the initial reactions are almost always false. Boy's judgment of her brother, her opinion of police, for example, or of her home life are all intensely misleading. But, they seem reasonably true and plausible to her, at the time, and to us. So, too, our dear shoggoth-food hidden agent, who is, in the end, a servant. He's quite convinced himself he's beyond all that and part of something glorious and impactful - and he is, dammit - but at the same time, he's just a tool.
These are all things that need reviewing from the long-view, the complete intake revealing that the reversals and judgments initially perceived may be incomplete or misdirection.
In the end, even characters Morrison may've intended to condemn, at least to death, get up and walk away on panel, like Roger. Helga writes herself a broader and longer position in the series, because she's not just Six's girlfriend. Nobody's just somebody's lover.
(I've ruined the storyline-by-storyline model for these threads, now, for which I apologize. Still, hopefully this has some place here, and presents something interesting or useful, otherwise unnoted.) |
|
|
