What, you may ask, does IDENTITY CRISIS have to do with manga? Not a blessed thing, as it turns out, but Troy Brownfield at Newsarama decided to devote his manga column to a defense of DC’s summer blockbuster.
Brownfield falls almost immediately into the trap of assuming that people who find the story misogynist make the same assumption about its author, Brad Meltzer. Brownfield compounds the fallacy by noting, “A little research would let you know that Meltzer is married to a woman that has worked with women who have gone through similar experiences.” So, if my partner is a cardiac surgeon I can perform bypass surgery? One wonders what James Carville and Mary Matalin might have to say on the subject of spousal synchronicity.
He cites a number of other works of fiction, books like American Psycho and the works of noted feminist Mary Higgins Clark, television shows like The Sopranos and The Shield, as proof that grisly deaths and violence against women aren’t new, as if anyone needs to be told. The problem with those examples in particular is that the violence is consistent with each work’s fictional universe and tone. It isn’t imposed out of hand to manipulative effect.
Then comes the best-selling fallacy:
“He writes thrillers that are best-sellers. This isn’t a guy that wandered in from Freshman Writing 101 and got to play with the big toys. This is a guy who built his craft over several novels – novels that have hit the New York Times Bestseller list.”
A brief glance through any best-seller list, any top-grossing movie list, any top-rated television list, will offer ample evidence that “popular” or “successful” doesn’t equal “good.” Danielle Steel is on the best-seller list, for pity’s sake. And to pull a quick quote from one of the New York Times‘ (free registration required) actual reviews of Meltzer’s books, in this case, Dead Even:
“Even if you swallow the absurd premise, the hollow banter of these narcissists is about as funny as pre-op jokes from your oral surgeon.”
Or perhaps The Tenth Justice:
“Meltzer’s dialogue is snappy, but his unlikely plot — a madcap mix of intrigue, romance and legal trivia — eventually sags under its own weight.”
My favorite line from Brownfield has to be the following:
“I’m speculating on Meltzer’s motive here, but what if his goal was to shock you?”
Gee, Troy, do you think? Another gem, immediately following:
“What if he wanted to stun you, to show you something that you’ve never seen before?”
I’m fairly sure that Meltzer isn’t the progenitor of the rape and murder of female supporting characters in comics. Its ubiquity is part of the reason people get up in arms over it.
It’s only natural that there’d be a backlash against the negative reaction so many have expressed towards IDENTITY CRISIS. It’s just an organic part of the process of discourse. Everyone is entitled to their own reaction to the book and to express it in any venue available to them. But one thing that I am perceiving amidst the backlash is the suggestion that readers who are offended by the violence or put off by the shoddy use of manipulative storytelling devices or have given it up in disgust are wrong to do so… that there’s some obligation to read and judge it in its entirety, despite the fact that the reader’s been viscerally repulsed by the early chapters.
Honestly, Meltzer can tell any story he wants with DC characters, so long as DC approves. Readers aren’t wrong for liking it or for hating it. And the fact that it’s generating polarized opinions doesn’t make it brilliant. It makes it polarizing.
And, to try and track myself back to what started this rant, I would make a request of Troy Brownfield: I read manga to give myself a break from formulaic, big-two crap like IDENTITY CRISIS. I look at sites and read columns about manga to READ ABOUT MANGA. Is that too much to ask?