Slashdot Mirror
Spider-Man, Star Wars and the Power of Myth
Like Star Wars, Spider-Man has the classic elements of a successful myth. A typically American story, it's less pretentious and hyped than Star Wars and more accessible to kids and die-hard comic book buffs, who remember the great, golden age of Marvel Comics. I'm one of them, I was there.
The old form still has legs. One film analysts told the Wall Street Journal last week that with the success of Spider-Man, the blockbuster bar has been raised. In fact, he said, this movie has changed Hollywood's perception of what a blockbuster is. That makes it interesting for George Lucas, next up at your local megaplex.
It's tough to explain, in the age of cable, gaming, the Net and the Web, just how central comics were for years to a culture of brainy, nerdy, alienated pre-Net teenage boys. Now, hostile jerks can flame people on the Net. Before, they could only read sci-fi books, build model planes and erector sets, but mostly, feast on comics and dream of becoming more powerful.
In the 21st century, they can download, program and game, but in the 50s and 60s, comic books and rock-and-roll were prominent among the few accessible forms of popular culture for individualists with brain cells, a cheap, simple pleasure that cost a dime, then a quarter. How shockingly primitive when compared to the world of the computer nerd or hacker.
Mainstream culture was dull, religiously appropriate and homogenized. Comic books and rock music were rebellious, subversive and naturally came under murderous fire from parents, teachers and politicians.
Before, they could only read comics and fantasize about becoming more powerful. Elaborate ratings systems and restrictive codes eventually suffocated the comics' angry, biting spirit and made them as bland as network TV -- a cultural loss and free-speech outrage heading soon to a computer near you -- but not before Marvel and other comic creators cranked out some classic yarns, from Spider-Man and Batman to the X-Men and other superheroic tales.
What makes these stories so popular and enduring? Perhaps because they all embody certain themes. There's the split-personality hero, usually a nerd who acquires great powers but at enormous cost, who always gets something and loses something. He gets to zip along past New York City skyscrapers, for instance, but we know he isn't likely to end up with the girl. Or, he lives in a mansion and drives a Batmobile, but he's depressed and lonely. Or he's a mutant wolverine with fingers of steel who can't ever have a casual beer with his pals.
He cherishes his powers, but we know he can't ever be comfortable with his life. Robert Kane's early Batman: The Dark Knight was disturbingly dark and angry before the moralists turned comic books to bland mush. Few people remember that Kane ended his first Batman series with our hero giving up on life and essentially committing suicide by turning himself into the famed Arkham Asylum, where villains from the Joker to the Riddler were being held.
Stories like Spider-Man and Batman also have a uniquely American and, until September 11, old-fashioned sense of civics. Spider-man's motto is "With great power comes great responsibility, " a bizarre notion even to hackers. Wouldn't that have seemed clunky before the terrorist attacks? Now it has a certain resonance.
Batman's Bruce Wayne, along with the Superhero stars and any number of X-Men, never shirk their duty to the public, even though the fickle populace is sure, at some point, to turn on them. No matter how tempted, they are, they do what they're supposed to do.
The late teacher and mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote that myth was still one of the powerful forces in the world. The origins and power of myth are still central, from the comic book lover to the hacker. The success of revived yarns like Stan Lee's Spider-Man, while they rarely seem to take themselves as seriously as their fans take them, is amazing, and proves his point. We seem to constantly be turning backwards to myths for inspiration and entertainment, while we are busy making the myths of tomorrow but don't really know which ones will take.
The Spider-Man story is pretty basic, especially when compared to the lumbering twists and turns of Star Wars: wimpy outer-borough kid contracts enormous powers, learns to use them wisely and well, faces terrible danger, sacrifices much.
Peter Parker isn't as deep as the Skywalker brothers and Uncle Ben is no Obi-Wan. But as the box office receipts demonstrate, the writers at Marvel comics have held their own when it comes to myth-making. Sometimes, simpler is better.
The answer is simple: advertising.
JonKatz, if you looked around you would have seen how much advertising and tie-ins there were to these movies.
I do not think they in any way qualify as modern myth. Something more likely to have that honour is `Lord of the Rings' (the book, not the movie! I hated the movie).
I'm confused tho, what's Katz conclusion about why spider-man succeeds where the Star Wars saga is failing?
...that Spider-Man will have a significantly larger opening weekend than AOTC, because AOTC is opening on far fewer screens. The only valid comparison will be what their total gross is once they've had their runs.
Incidentally, there is concern in the press that Spider-Man may peak too early because it opened on so many screens; however, I'm sure it was intentional, as they knew they had to make as much money as possible in the two weeks before AOTC opened.
more accessible meaning that it will resonate more with them. The kids will identify more with Spider-Man and feel closer to the story. The comment has nothing to do with ratings or the ability to get into the theatre.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
stop starting your sentences with "or" or "but", jackass.
I went to see Spider-Man because I've loved the character since I was a kid. I've since recommended the movie to anybody who wants to know because I liked it. Yes, Spider-Man was heavily advertised. None of that made any difference to me.
Obviously advertising can make a big difference in the popularity of a product, but if you would bother to read any Advertising 101 textbook you'll find out that advertising is most effective for differentiating products that have litle difference. That's why there's so much advertising for laundary detergent: they're all the same. Movies may appear to be very different to movie fans, but in terms of consumer perception movies are almost a commodity: they are one of several options for a weekend's entertainment. Lucas could have done no advertising whatsoever for AOTC and all the Star Wars fans would have still showed up with their plastic light sabers, but the general public who simply want to know what to do for a date or some time with the kids would have ignored it.
(There are also other intentions for advertising besides product differentiation. Insert standard AIDA lecture here.)
So now I put the question back to you: you've spent your money on products before. Do *you* only buy products because of advertising? If not, whty do you assume everyone else is an advertising drone?
Miko O'Sullivan
Katz posted something reasonable!
It wasn't that reasonable. Note his following comment:
Peter Parker isn't as deep as the Skywalker brothers and Uncle Ben is no Obi-Wan
Clearly, Katz wasn't paying attention to some of the more subtle aspects of the Spider-man movie. The movie was Christ metaphor. He seems to have missed the Green Goblin's attempt to persuade Parker to join him (symbolic of Satan's tempting of Christ, offering him the whole world if only he would join forces with him). There was also the stigmata and shed blood, as well as a few more obvious biblical references for the clue-impaired (Goblin's attack on Aunt May, and his insistence on her finishing the prayer to state his nature).
And this doesn't even cover the Goblin's demonic dualism (he died from the nanogas. Was his powers the result of the gas? Or demonic possession of his corpse?) Notice his discussions with "himself"; there are clearly two personalities, and one of them is not merely a distortion of his former self, but a new entity altogether. Notice how he bows before it (the mask scene) and begs (unsuccessfully) for it not to use his body to perform its evil desires.
And that doesn't even go into the rejection of false dichotomies (the "will you save the woman you love or the innocent children?" choice). Parker's refusal to make that choice would be a great lesson for many of us, since similar false choices ("ban guns to save the children", "abandon civil liberties to protect ourselves from the terrorists", etc) confront many of us these days.
Spider-man may not have been even remotely a perfect movie, but to suggest that any random star wars movie has more "depth" is laughable.
In 1939, Gone With the Wind grossed a total of about $192 million ..adjusted for inflaction, it made about $2.3 BILLION DOLLARS.
i es.html) for my info.
In 1997, Titanic grossed about $600 million...adjusted for inflation...$0.6 BILLION.
So..Gone With the Wind made 3.83 TIMES AS MUCH as Titanic...
You wonder why they don't do things in terms of tickets sold don't you? They just keep increasing the price of movies so they can say last year's movie beat the year before's.
And yes, I do realize that these aren't opening week ticket sales; they are the total income for the movies.
I used this: Site (http://history.acusd.edu/gen/filmnotes/costs-mov
...sigh...you'd expect the Slashdot crowd to realize this...but since we're talking about Katz...I guess it slides.
John Katz, couldn't you have looked past the first goddamn paragraph of the NYTimes review of AOC to find some catchy word to snip? I mean, my God, the NYT review was announced on slashdot today?
So, /. readers, from which articles did JK cut and paste to get his Spidey-man ideas?
Katz can't write well or, if he can, he chooses not to in all of his writings that I've read. I'll grant you that he has a certain knack for artistically wrapping words up in today's style and making his writing and the events that he writes about sound more profound than they are really. However, the mark of a good writer is to communicate well and to shed some light on a subject. Katz fails miserably on both counts. His thoughts are clouded. His premises are often, undeniably, incorrect. His conclusions are often wrong, misguided, or completely unclear. Katz can't communicate anything clearly, never mind persuade. Jon's writing lacks any significant insight on anything. What's more, besides just being a hack, he's insincere. He is constantly jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon and cloaking his words in that certain vagueness to cater to his audiences' fickle cause du jour. I, for one, can't respect Katz.
Have you ever read "Hero with A Thousand Faces"? I kind of doubt it as you would realize that Campbell plays on the work of Carl Jung and examines myths from the point of view of the collective unconcious. Your comment about him being "a dead white guy" and "attempting to shoe-horn other cultures[...]into western style myths" is ludicrous.
He examined different cultures myths and merely showed how they were similar through a series of basic rites of passage that heroes pass through.
and it ain't spelled CHOMPSKY!
John Katz:Like Star Wars, Spider-Man has the classic elements of a successful myth.
Did I miss the part where he listed these classic elements?
John Katz:The old form still has legs.
Again. What form.
John Katz:Before, they could only read comics and fantasize about becoming more powerful.
Who is they? If your talking about the huddled masses of geekness, then I'd like to know under what pretensive storm of insight that we have become more powerful.
John Katz:Or he's a mutant wolverine with fingers of steel who can't ever have a casual beer with his pals.
Do you even read Marvel comics? I'm going to assume you mean wolverine. Who, BTW, is not a mutant wolverine, but a mutant human named wolverine. And his claws are retractable. Of course he can drink beer with his friends. Of course a long time reader such as yourself should be able to count the number of times on one hand that we've seen Wolverine drink beer. He smokes cigars and drinks the occassional hard liquor. My guess is Canadian whiskey. You do know he's from Canada, right?
John Katz:Stories like Spider-Man and Batman also have a uniquely American and, until September 11, old-fashioned sense of civics.
Huh?
John Katz:We seem to constantly be turning backwards to myths for inspiration and entertainment, while we are busy making the myths of tomorrow but don't really know which ones will take.
Again, could you please explain what Myths you are talking about. You mean mythology like Greek, Norse and biblical tales? Please show me where in the bible I can find a masked superhero with arachnid powers.
Actually, Lucas has implied that Star Wars was based on Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress as well as eastern mysticism. Don't forget that he was a film student, and as such was exposed to a lot of film theory, literature, etc.
It seems to me that every great story has "deeper meaning", whether you like it or not, because it reaches for the "universal", that which is shared by all of us. In the best SW film to date, Empire Strikes Back, that deeper meaning was that each holds the seed to evil within itself, and that greed, ambition, wrath and general egotistical behavior lead the way to the dark side. That's actually very close to a buddhist viewpoint, and I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas consciously put that in - not to mention the fact that "the Force" as described by Yoda (the archetype of the old eastern sage) is strikingly similar to the Tao as described by Chuang Tzu.
I don't understand your hostility. The fact that there is some deeper meaning, one which has already been covered in ancient myths (they nearly all have!) to a work of art does not take away from it's entertainment value. I personally thing it adds to it, even when the filmmaker isn't consciously aware of its presence.
Reminder: find a new sig
hmmm, the real spiderman story seems anything but simple. Having the love of your life kidnapped by a crazy billionaire, and then by his son (a former good friend).
Getting a super alien bio-suit, only to find out that it's eating you alive (well kinda) and then to have it show up on your ol' pal eddy brock turning him into your worst nightmare.
Having all sorts of crazy mutations and trying to work as a photographer for a guy who hates your guts.
Sure maybe if you just read one issue, it doesn't have all the crazy plot twists. But if you look over the whole spiderman story (as you should with the Star Wars story) it is filled with many suprises and lots of other funky stuff.
They're just two different genre's. Star Wars wouldn't do well as a comic book (which is why it sells as novel's) and spidey is great as a comic, but wouldn't be as a novel.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
Just as a sugestion: look at Ralph Nader. I find Ralph Nader not only to be more inteligent than Noam, but more effective. That's my problem with Chomsky - he just likes to tear things down, and blame his inefectivness at communicating on conspiricies and the grand spectre of the "Corporate-Boogy-Man."
Raplh, bless his little heart, gets thing done. I don't agree with him a goodly amount of the time, but he has my respect, and I wish more people were like him. Ralph also is a happy soul - he smiles, makes jokes and doesen't take things too seriously, Chomsky is a sour old house-frau by compaison, and people pick up on this. People like joyfull people by nature. Oh well:off to get more cofee. (Ralph whould be proud: Shade grown, fair-trade cofee)
PS: If you like cofee, get some Sahde-Grown, organic, fair-trace cofee even if you don't give a rat's ass about the environment, wages, or living coditions. The stuff just tastes better, and it's only 20% more in price.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Actually, I totally disagree with that.
I've been pondering over the recent success of Spider-Man myself after my review of the movie, and realized that one of the reasons that Spider-Man was so popular was because of the "geek hero" ethos that he personifies.
There's a certain pull to it. Everyone has felt like an outsider at some point (to greater or lesser degrees), everyone has felt powerful in some area that no one else it - and everyone has felt the tug of conflicting interests.
Movies like Spider-Man taps into that, and gives it a voice. It shows that sometimes, no matter how cool you are, you'll still be the outsider - and that's OK.
So I actually enjoyed reading Mr. Katz comments on the movie and the mythos behind it. Good to know I'm not the only person who "gets" the underlying theme of the movie (even if it is pretty campy at times.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
wimpy outer-borough kid contracts enormous powers, learns to use them wisely and well, faces terrible danger, sacrifices much.
Star Wars plot summary (from me):
wimpy outer-rim kid contracts enormous powers, learns to use them wisely and well, faces terrible danger, sacrifices much. Repeat.
So, what exactly is so different about the basic plot structures here? Split personality/dark and brooding hero whos powers seperate him from those he wants to be with? Hero doesn't get the girl? Yeah, remember Return of the Jedi? Never shirks on duty to the common good, even though it may cost him everything he holds dear? Yup, got that too. Maybe you mean the Orphan Hero thing... Oh wait, Star Wars has that, too.
All the myth elements you attribute to Spider-man have already been explored, repeatedly and in greater detail, in the Star Wars series, and Episodes 1-3 are following the same basic lines you've outlined as well, with a few minor twists. If spreading it out over multiple films makes it to hard for you to follow, than you have no business publishing a critical analysis of the subject matter.
I've never been a Katz basher, but come on! This so called 'comparison' is absurd.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
otherwise intelligent people persist in identifing this system of endless, mindless consumption as "their culture"
;)
Thanks for considering me to be at least somewhat inteligent
Unfortunaly, I don't think that you our I exist outside of the curent culture - grudgingly, we are products of it. Even our decenting voices are products of this culture - flawed though it it, this culture seem to al least give lip-service to differing thougts. We haven't been locked up, or beaten too much.
Anyways, my general rant on Chomsky is that he is interesting, but ot only inefective, but possibly damaging to his own cause. I gather we're on opposite sides of the political fence - but there are vast terretories of common ground for people like us to discover. People like Raplh Nader and John McCain give me inspiration that we can have a better future - people like Chomsky and Limbaugh, although great entertainemnt, just devide rational people from each other.
All too often, a good idea gets labeled by one side or the other as belonging to "that hippie Chomsky" or "that fat idiot Limbaugh." It's too bad the these lables can destroy a potentionally good idea. Noam and Rush are just to easy of a target, and discourse dies when either one gets mentioned. Anyways - at least neighter of them are taking about stupid subjects like Elisibeth Taylor, or NSYNC so perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on both.
Cheers.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Although I have not seen it myself, the Hidden Fortress DVD comes with an interview with George Lucas in which he talks about how the movie inspired him to write Star Wars.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank