Tonight, WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" aired a segment centered around Silk Road's EPIC program and "Mosque Alert," its coolest online project. WTTW also interviewed me for their website, and I was honored to answer all their questions about EPIC and its connection to "Mosque Alert." The interview can be found here. This coursework is a blast to teach, and I couldn't be more excited to be a part of a really important conversation between young artists and their peers.
For those who don't know, I work as a teaching artist for the amazing Silk Road Rising, a theatre company that tells stories through primarily Asian American and Middle Eastern American lenses. I was fortunate enough to join up with the company last year, when it started a new education program entitled EPIC (or, Empathetic Playwriting Intensive Course). With EPIC, I was tasked with organizing and implementing an educational playwriting program that motivated ten to twelve year-old students to write socially conscious plays about conflict resolution between Muslim Americans and the more dominant, white culture. I taught a pilot version of the curriculum last winter and spring, and will be working on the program again this coming fall, bringing it into the Chicago Public Schools for (likely) junior high-aged students.
Tonight, WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" aired a segment centered around Silk Road's EPIC program and "Mosque Alert," its coolest online project. WTTW also interviewed me for their website, and I was honored to answer all their questions about EPIC and its connection to "Mosque Alert." The interview can be found here. This coursework is a blast to teach, and I couldn't be more excited to be a part of a really important conversation between young artists and their peers.
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When I was in sixth grade, my family bought me a copy of Bulfinch's Mythology, perhaps rightly assuming I would spend several years of my life studying literature and narrative structure. I remember the first time I opened the bulky volume; I immediately flipped through the pages to find the Greek mythology section. I loved everything I'd read in the past about Hercules and his twelve labors, so I quickly sat down to read what I assumed would be more tales of derring-do. Instead, I read stories about gods twisting mortals to tragic ends. Instead, I read about Pandora. For those who don't remember, Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods (specifically wise Athena and smithy Hephaestus, under instructions from Zeus). She was forged from the dirt of the Earth, and delivered to the world of man as retribution for Prometheus' earlier theft of fire; Zeus intended her to be a "beautiful evil," whose descendants would torture humanity for untold eons. Long story short, Pandora arrived on land, opened a jar she shouldn't have, just because she was curious (as well as deceitful, 'cause you know, WOMEN, amirite?), and thus unleashed a multitude of sins meant to plague the planet. After reading this tale, I put the book away for a good month. Even at eleven years of age, I remember disliking the idea that a lady might be the cause of all humanity's problems, through no extreme fault of her own. Of course, this wasn't the first time I'd heard such a story. Eve ate some forbidden fruit after being talked into it by the devil, and corrupted Adam. Just taking one bite led to original sin, Cain and Abel, and all the pain women experience in childbirth. Geez, ladies can't catch a break when it comes to hypotheses about where sin comes from, eh? Fast forward to last week. DC released Pandora #1, as part of its exploration of the "Trinity of Sin" that apparently might end the New 52 (or something?). I've already expressed my thoughts on one part of the Trinity, i.e., Phantom Stranger, otherwise known as Judas -- so I believe it's safe to bluntly admit I didn't have high hopes for Pandora as a character. First off, there's the name, which carries all the victim-blaming baggage you could ever want. Second, she's been creepily appearing in panels all over DC's comics line, leading many to believe she caused the universal reboot, and exists merely as an editorial reverse rip cord, to be pulled if DC starts making less money on their books than projected. However, Pandora #1 promised to shed a little light on this woman as a flesh-and-blood character, so I felt duty-bound to put my judgment aside, and embrace whatever DC wanted to do with the lady. Turns out, all the company wants to do is retread Pandora's original myth. Like, seriously, the first part of the book involves ancient-times Pandora running off to the woods and picking up some weirdo skull, which opens her third eye or something, thus releasing monstrous sins upon the world. Once again, a woman unleashes ALL the evil in the world, just because she is curious about something! As if losing her entire village to evil ghosties wasn't enough, she's brought before a tribunal of magic dudes (and one dudette), who tell her she's doomed to walk the earth and watch what her sin children do. Whether or not they take corporeal form seems to change throughout the issue, which spans Pandora's walk through time. Here's where DC adds a little flavor to the myth. See, after a while, it gets tiring to witness what the sins are up to (eating people, inciting the Crusades, stuff like that), so Pandora decides to act, rather than accept her terrible reputation. One intense combat training montage later, she's equipped with a pair of magical guns that she starts whipping around in modern-day Aleppo. Let's think about that for a bit. Two years ago, DC revamped its line of books to be grittier tales centered around the alienation of heroes from humanity. That, I can accept, even though I believe the company's characters work better as aspirational icons, not money-grabbing cynics. What I can't accept is the company's tone-deaf approach to interacting with the real world. It's already a pretty stupid move to alienate female readers by retreading an outdated "women bring about evil through no choice of their own" idea. It's an even dumber one to bring a magical character into a conflict as in-progress as what's going on in Syria. Especially given what happens there: That's right. Pandora uses her pistols to mete out justice -- not on the sins who possess people, but on the possessed people themselves. The man Pandora kills in these panels had shot her previously, so self-defense could be argued. But she leaps to the rooftop and aims for the angry sin soon after taking a human life. So what's the deal here? Are the sins taking bodily form? Can she kill them? Or is she just adding to their body count because there's nothing else to be done? If it's the latter, how dare writer Ray Fawkes set this scene in the middle of a massacre. He's a gifted writer, smoothly gliding from era to era here. But how ANYONE thought it would be a good idea to take this time tourist through a war zone, without examining WHO Pandora was acting against (Is this man part of the rebellion or government forces, for instance?), or the consequences (WHO exactly is sinning here? Or is it all people who happen to be struggling in Syria? The Puritanical nature of DC Comics these days is already grating -- but why not throw cultural judgment into the mix as well, huh?), is mind-boggingly irresponsible. And moronic. That this comic could trumpet a heroine trying to redeem an unintentional mistake, while devaluing life to such an audacious degree, stymies me. Am I supposed to accept a stereotype of a character, as long as she's a badass?
If so, Fawkes and company move us along too briskly to pass judgment. No sooner has murder been committed than Pandora is given the keys to her salvation; she must get Superman to open a box that will apparently solve her sin-wrangling problem. So all the questions and concerns just raised don't matter. I'm supposed to move on. But how can I when my intelligence and heart are being completely pushed aside in favor of plot and forward momentum? I'm already being told on a daily basis I don't matter to DC because I'm a woman. I'm not going to sit by and accept bullshit like this because it's edgy. And if you wanted me to care about Pandora and her redemption, you failed, DC. On any number of levels, you failed. I am not even sure you understand redemption as a concept, since "Man of Steel" makes Superman into Jesus, when Superman's arrival on earth has nothing to do with redeeming humanity, but inspiring it. With this killing, you reveal yourselves, though. The truth is, you are a corporation that doesn't give a shit about people, which shouldn't surprise me, except you keep finding new ways to cash in on insecurity, tragedy, and female-bashing. When folks tell me comics are childish, I counter with examples that prove it is a medium that can be child-like in its imagination and wonder, while pointing out more mature work that explores complex emotions and ideas. Is it any wonder I have no real recommendations from DC these days? Most of its books right now are the very definition of childish -- silly, thoughtlessly consequential, and simplistic. Just like that Pandora myth I read so long ago. There is a lot to be written about in the comics world from this past week. I could spend time rhapsodizing about the latest issue of Hawkeye, which featured engrossing artwork that put Clint Barton's dog Lucky (or, Pizza Dog, depending on who you ask) front and center, both in terms of plot structure and point of view. I could go on and on about how much I love Brian Wood's X-Men, which features a powerhouse cast of women, who wear all their clothing and display a level of care that's refreshing but rare in superhero comics. Or I could talk about how well-calibrated the artwork in Young Avengers is, where a series of panels of someone answering a phone provides impressive amounts of movement across a page. Then there's Kitty Pryde taking back the "M-word." I could talk about all of that, with pleasure. But I can't, because I'm stuck on Daredevil. Mark Waid and Chris Samnee finished up a two-year arc last week, and its ending made me rethink everything I've been praising about the series. In May, Waid revealed the person gaslighting Matt Murdock was none other than deadly assassin Bullseye, and I had to admit, I was a little sad to see the psychopath return, as I've been loving the cheerier version of Daredevil on display since 2011. The darkness continued this month, when Matt is forced to face his foe, whose last tango with our hero left him practically senseless. This set of panels, among others, tripped me up. From the start, I'd bought into a particular tenet of this book, the part that displayed the individual perception of disability (Matt's), that showed how grappling with difficulties could make a person stronger. But here I was, faced with Bullseye's "incapacities," and there was no attempt to spin them in a more positive light. Let's be clear: I know there is not a lot of joy to be found in losing the use of one's body. You have to work to find it. I feel like I've done that work, and even still, I have moments of complete frustration with my inability to hear things, usually when my hearing aid is in the shop. Surely, that disappointment deserves a platform, too. And using Bullseye, a completely unsympathetic character, to tell that story is certainly a unique tack. Still, I felt icky about the way his disability was portrayed throughout this final showdown. Bullseye, once a terrifyingly imaginative marksman, is now trapped in some sort of sensory deprivation tank that's keeping him alive. His only remaining sense, sight, seems to torture him, as opposed to providing him an outlet. After twenty-six issues where Daredevil's vulnerabilities were explored with sensitivity and given their due tension (particularly when they rubbed up against his super-powers), here the creative team's opinion about disability seemed flat and total. Disability became nothing more than something everyone fears, something no one should wish on their worst enemy. It's what everybody always thinks when they're not disabled -- "I'm glad I'm not them." In only twenty-two pages, everything I'd cherished about Matt's sunny approach to his limitations was shown to be wrong, in Bullseye's experience. I tried to believe that philosophical differences were being demonstrated here, except that given the chance to save Bullseye from getting acid in his eyes, Matt isn't fast enough. Stalwart friend Foggy asks Matt if he was too slow on purpose, if he didn't allow Bullseye to be blinded. Here's how Matt responds: Matt only admits he did the right thing. He did the right thing by possibly incapacitating Bullseye further, thus ending the man's reign of terror. He did the right thing by inflicting a negative on someone. This makes for great storytelling, I'm not arguing that. It makes Matt a shaded protagonist. But here's my problem. Till now, blindness was never seen as a total negative in this book. It had its challenges, but we saw again and again how Matt rose to meet them. So having him maybe inadvertently inflict it on someone with the intent of disability only causing endless harm, to me, derailed the entire purpose of valuing and embracing Matt's perceptions. It derailed the whole philosophy Waid and his editors have been building from the beginning. It derailed the whole book. I reread this issue about five times, searching for some other way to look at things. I couldn't find myself and people like me cast to the side after all these months, I wouldn't accept it. Ironically, it was in peering deeply at the book that I truly understood Bullseye's perception of the world and his disadvantages. It came during his discussion with Daredevil about being built into his tank, where he describes how he handled being mostly senseless ... It was this moment that allowed me to gasp relief. By seeing through Bullseye's eyes (the best books right now often move us through various points of view), I understood that this issue WAS a debate about how one views his/her limitations! In fact, the whole run of the book has been about that. We've watched Matt lose -- then super-regain -- his senses, and work with what he has, regardless. We've watched him discuss his response to initially losing his sight, and how he recovered from that. He's often joked about how being able to see would keep him from doing half the crazy things he attempts. And while he arguably traps Bullseye in blindness, he's only using a prison the villain already built. These panels prove it.
Matt lost a sense, and became a champion of the little guy. Bullseye lost sense, and did everything he could to manipulate and destroy those around him. By showing the audience how single-minded and despairing Bullseye allows himself to be in new circumstances, Waid and Samnee demonstrate how outlook is formed by how you respond to your weaknesses. Truly, it is all in how you look at it. This idea is reinforced by the issue's ending, when Matt reminds Foggy that at one point in the arc, Mr. Nelson thought his law partner was crazy. Foggy responds, "I don't think you're crazy, Matt. I think you're fearless." Fearless, because Matt faces obstacles, and chooses to see them as opportunities. Fearless, because he is disabled, and uses the unique perspective that gives him to build a better life. Fearless, because he may be the only superhero out there right now whose limits are shown to be his strengths. (Though I was happy to see Brian Michael Bendis give Echo the non-death coda she deserved last month in Daredevil: End of Days.) So here I sit, shaking my head at losing faith in Mark Waid and company for even a moment. If you're not reading Daredevil, you absolutely should be. It's not the flashiest book that Marvel's putting out at the moment, but it may be the most revolutionary. Daredevil takes everything you think you understand about the five senses, then proves how you can survive with or without them, an idea rarely posited by anyone in practical society. More importantly, in the book's view, those with disabilities are no more victims than anyone else struggling with something. It's how you approach that struggle that gives you strength. For me, that's something I can draw power from. That's a philosophy we could use more of in an age when it often seems to make more sense to sweep disability under the rug than examine it in the harsh light of day. |
Playwright News & Musings on Comic Book CultureCheck this page for updates on Sarah's writing and thoughts on a great many topics, including but not limited to superheroes and disability. Archives
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