So no doubt, if you are a regular reader of my blog, you
understand my affinity for Captain America. I have mostly looked at Steve
Rogers’ Cap, but really it is the character itself in all its incarnations. I
have enjoyed Sam Wilson’s time as Cap. This is why I think it is important to
address a topic related to the recent controversy from a different angle,
mostly because of writer, Nick Spencer’s reaction to all of the backlash.
On April 21st, Spencer posted a series of tweets
aimed at quelling the controversy by defending his right to do what he would like
as a creator.
The first part of Spencer’s argument I partially addressed
in my earlier blog on the matter: Why Captain America's Origins Matter. To some extent, he’s
right. The stories we tell right now are important. We need stories to help
guide the way. The job of the artist is to hold the mirror up to nature and ask
the tough questions. He’s right. The job of the storyteller is to challenge and
test us. We are a nation divided, and we shouldn’t shy away from telling that
story. However, to counter his argument, our distaste for this story arc isn’t
about escapism; it’s about giving hope to the resistance. This feels like a
punch in the gut, especially when we have two Captain Americas and only one is
on our side. I think he feels like he is making some profound statement about
the undercurrent of racism and fascism that hid in dark corners until the Trump
era. The truth is that it wasn’t really that hidden if you really opened your
eyes. Trump didn’t make America more racist or more fascist. He helped make it
seem more socially acceptable so people are being more aggressive about it, but
it was always there and always visible. There were many who lived in a bubble
who felt that these issues were gone, but I think it was more of a case of
willful ignorance rather than it being too hidden from the average person.
However, I want to focus on the second part of his argument.
He seems to be arguing that by asking him to stay true to
the symbolic nature of the character that we, as the audience, are putting the
character into a glass case. I would argue that this is not what we are asking
at all. When Ed Brubaker took over as writer for Captain America, we did get a darker feel to Steve Rogers. This Cap
didn’t always have all of the right answers, and he did struggle with his
decisions to do the right thing. It wasn’t the Cap of old that just always knew
what the right thing to do was. When he found out that the Winter Soldier was,
in fact, his best friend, Bucky Barnes, he struggled with what he should do
about the situation. Looking at the older Cap comics, this might have been less
of a struggle for him as Winter Soldier was a threat in a different version.
However, Brubaker gave us a more human Captain America, one who struggled with
emotional entanglements and sometimes reacted out of pure emotion rather than a
rational sense of right and wrong.
Spencer continues to talk about the character determining
the symbol and not vice versa. This is an oversimplification. Symbols and
characters actually have a symbiotic relationship as they develop. At first, it
is true the symbol comes from the character. However, as time goes on, it is
actually the symbolic nature of the character that can drive certain character
decisions. This is especially true when working in a series of works. If you
have established early on in the narrative, say in book one of a series, the
symbolic nature of the character, then to deviate from those characteristics in
book five, would be an error in narrative structure. It would be tantamount to
breaking the “Chekhov rule” by placing a gun on the table in the scene and then
never using it.
This argument also negates the influence of the audience on
the work. Spencer seems to subscribe to the fallacy of authorial intent. This
particular fallacy sees the author as “God” and suggests that the author’s
intent in constructing a narrative’s meaning is superior to all other
interpretations of the work. He doesn’t seem to recognize the ability of the
audience to reject the point that he is trying to make because it is
incompatible with their own expectations and understanding of the works. He
wraps his authorial intent in the idea that it would be a disservice to the
creators to not tell the best story that he could tell.
This is the final point that I want to address and really
the heart of the entire issue. When learning how to write, we are first taught
grammar rules. Of course, we tend to throw some of those grammar rules outside
of the window when we are writing for non-academic purposes. However, as a
reader, I can always tell if someone is breaking the grammar rules because they
don’t know the rules to begin with or if the rule is being broken with purpose.
This is the key I think to good writing. It’s fine to break the rules of
grammar. Sentence fragments can be effective tools to convey emotion or the intent
of the dialogue. We don’t all speak in perfect grammar, so having something
like a pronoun-antecedent error (i.e. using “they” when it should be “he/she”) can
be necessary to replicate realistic speech patterns. The point is that in order
to make a break in the rules meaningful it needs to be clear that the writer
understands the rules that he/she is breaking in the first place. Otherwise, it
just comes across as lazy writing.
So how does this translate in the world of comics? Well,
each character narrative has specific rules attached to it. These are often
character traits that help define who the character is. When Sam Wilson as
Captain America decides to side with the Black Lives Matter movement and
release footage of an African-American superhero, Rage, being beaten by the
police without provocation and when he was innocent of any crime, it is
breaking a rule because it means something. Of course, we tend to think of
Captain America always siding with the side of justice officials such as the
police. However, in this case, it wasn’t the most just thing to do, so Wilson’s
Cap broke this rule in order to do what is right in terms of social justice. It
meant something that Wilson’s Cap decided to break with the blue line and
uncover the corrupt and unjust behavior of the police force and fight for Rage’s
innocence.
Let me use an analogy. When we are first being taught to
color, it is emphasized that we color inside the lines of the picture. Also, we
are encouraged to use realistic color schemes. However, as we age and develop
an artistic sensibility, we begin to see that we are more inclined to color
outside of lines with purpose. When Picasso went into his cubist phase, he didn’t
just decide to take represent people using basic geometric forms. He broke the
rules of realism in order to show an object from various angles. It was meant
to replicate the various points of view a viewer has on an object and how
looking at an object from a different angle or perspective shapes our
understanding of the object.
In this case, there doesn’t seem to be any clearly articulated
reason behind breaking the rules that govern the Marvel world of Steve Rogers
other than it’s the story that Nick Spencer wanted to tell. He didn’t feel like
telling an interesting story within the confines of the established parameters
so instead decided to go outside of them. This can be powerful if done
correctly, but right now, it just appears to be laziness on his part. It is
much more difficult to write within the rules than to discard them completely.
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