On Heroes and Currency
I’ve been scrounging for money lately, and I managed to dig up a handful of vintage 1979 Susan B. Anthony dollars. These coins are freaking awesome. Observe the tails side:
That’s a goddamn EAGLE ON THE MOON.
Nothing captures the late Cold War experience like the Susan B. Anthony dollar. Even when doing something extremely boring, like stamping some forgotten women’s rights figure on a coin no one will ever use, America sent an eagle to the moon, photographed it, then put that shit on the back of said coin just to show those godless Soviets that we mean business. Eagles need air. There is no air on the moon. We killed that eagle.
What was this article about again? Oh, right. Watchmen.
Mars sucks. Not enough eagles.
I used those Susan Bees to buy a ticket to see Watchmen (finally) at my local cheap-o theater. I liked it okay, but the way the film version played up the book’s Cold War commentary came off as pretty dated. (The Susan B. Anthony dollar, on the other hand, is timeless.) Also, I’ve always felt somewhat ambivalent towards the original book, so the slavish loyalty to the original (except, of course, its ending) didn’t impress me much.
Why am I ambivalent? The way Watchmen turns from detailed character studies and smart genre satire into a campy whodunit with a diabolical super villain just doesn’t sit well with me. I know that by writing the book this way, author Alan Moore is expressing his own ambivalence towards the question “would having superheroes actually be a good idea?” but turning his work into the very thing he’s criticizing is a little too meta for me.
See this film.
Or maybe my ambivalence extends from knowing that there’s another, way awesomer movie about heroes and hero worship already out there. I’m speaking of course about Zebraman. Directed by Takashi Miike (Audition, Happiness of the Katakuris, etc.), Zebraman teaches you that anyone can have super powers, if only they believe in themselves. That’s right, with the right attitude you can shoot laser beams out of your eyes and command the loyalty of sea creatures. Now that’s a message I can relate to.
Tags: superheroes, takashi miike, watchmen
March 31st, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I agree. The whole postmodern morality play thing started to grate on my nerves after the first 20 mins.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Please tell me that zebra is fighting a shrimp.
April 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Close! It’s a crab. I believe that shot is from the fictional television show within the movie. The monsters the “real” Zebraman fights are slightly better looking.