Daredevil and Media Stuck-in-Amber Portrait of New York
The French filmmaker Francois Truffaut once theorized that there will never be a truly anti-war movie because the visual nature of film would always make violence aesthetically appealing and seductive.
A related cinematic problem that I’ve noticed is that film finds ways to make immoral messages and characters seductive and cool. Travis Bickle is supposed to only be a hero in his own head, everyone else is supposed to think he is absolutely nuts, but this hasn’t stopped millions of people (usually young men) from hanging up Travis Bickle posters on their walls and launching into the “Are you talkin’ to me?” monologue that is supposed to be the apex of Bickle’s mental breakdown. Other famous examples of cautionary-tales-turned-idols are Al Pacino’s Scarface and Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko; especially the latter’s “Greed is Good” speech, which became the mantra for a million guys who dreamed of life on Wall Street.
Vikram’s Post on Bad-Apple Policing gave way to a mini-thread about how and why people still think we live in a dangerous world even though crime rates are in serious decline across most of the United States. Most of the blame was laid on Fox and/or the Nightly News but I think fictional media offers a much better explanation for why Americans seem to think we are constantly one step away from Mad Max.
The Daredevil TV show is the latest addition to the Marvel Universe. Matt Murdoch was blinded in an industrial accident as a boy and he compensated with improvement in rest of his senses. He is a criminal defense attorney (for the truly innocent only) by day and a vigilante by night.
What I noticed immediately about Daredevil is that, according to the media, it is always 1981 in New York City. The technology might change (there are tablets and high-speed internet in Daredevil) but socially New York is rampant with vice, corrupt unions, working-class white ethnics (Murdock’s dad is a proud Irish-American soul and probably would have raised his son on the South Shore of Long Island or in Rockland County in reality), and organized crime. The same is true on the various versions of Law & Order. Sitcoms probably offer a more realistic portrait of life in New York than dramas right now.
Daredevil tries to explain this by connecting the show to the broader Marvel Universe. Daredevil starts soon after the first Avengers movie when Manhattan was ripped to shreds. This conveniently lets the show turn Hell’s Kitchen from an expensive neighborhood to the old rough-and-tumble neighborhood it used to be. Daredevil’s first act of heroism is to save a group of young women from a white-slavery ring run by Eastern Europeans. The audience even sees the gangsters throw the girls into a shipping container. I found this storyline eye-rolling especially when the head honcho just sits in his chair as Daredevil pounds the shit out of his thugs.
Comic books and media inspired by them are a big business and one that seems to keep growing. The issue is that they seem unable to get out of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight vision. Comic Books want to be taken seriously and the short hand that they are using for this is being portentous. Clark Kent’s Superman was light, charming, and witty. Zack Snyder’s Superman is brooding and no-fun. The original Matt Murdock was a happy-go-lucky and wisecracking kind of guy. Same with Peter Parker, who was filled with New York sarcasm. Now everyone seems to exist in a perpetual depression and brooding nature like a mediocre performance of Hamlet.
The other big issue with Daredevil is that the acting is kind of off. Christopher Cox feels awkward as Matt Murdoch, like a kid who is wearing a suit for the first time and is unsure of what to do or how to stand. The actor playing Foggy Nelson is all too aware of being the comic relief and hams it up a bit too much. This makes the dialogue of Daredevil seem more wooden than it actually is. The other performances were also off, nothing horrible but it was noticeable.
Well unlike a kid like you i remember the 80’s, even the 70’s. The thing is, crime was a problem and there was plenty of fear of it. But the worst places were in the inner cities. Most people watching the movies or hyper violent revenge fantasies like Death Wish or the far grosser examples in the 80’s ( Stallone’s Cobra is just one example) didn’t come in actual contact with that violence. In my mild suburb of NY there weren’t roving murderous gangs, although roller skating or bat wearing gangs like in The Warriors would have been cool. People were terrified of violence that they didn’t come in contact with. The fear of violence for most parts of the country was ginned up paranoia and latent fear of social changes that started in the 60’s. To be fair for people actually living in some big cities crime was an actual tangible issue instead of just movie fodder.Report
When I was in junior high school in the mid-1970s I used to routinely take city buses alone to go to the big downtown library. Sure, this was San Diego, but still… The trip took me through (and to) some not-so-nice parts of town, but I don’t recall ever feeling myself to be in danger, and my parents clearly had no serious qualms. I think that the fear of violence was much more abstract than real.
Cue the free range kids discussion.Report
I guess this is the downside of Marvel using “real” cities in its stories – no matter the year, Gotham and Metropolis can pretty much be as gentrified/safe or as run-down/crime-ridden as the current story needs.
If you use NYC or Chicago, they need to somewhat track to the reality of the year you are using for your story.
(Speaking of time-dislocation in media, I mentioned that I watched the original King Kong with The Boy the other day. When the natives grab Fay Wray from the boat and take off, he asked if she would just call for help on her phone.)
(Also, watch Agent Carter, for a fun depiction of post-WWII NYC).Report
The upside to using real cities is that at least you have a constant geography and infrastructure worked out.Report
Consistency is the Green Goblin of little minds.Report
And Kulthea doesn’t?
The upside to using real cities is it allows you to be lazy. I suppose it takes a good deal of work to create a plausible city…Report
Yeah, especially for longer stories, I don’t think you want to lock yourself in with specific geographies like that, unless geography will be frequently important to the story (something that aspires to “real world” obviously, OR something that is going to consistently involve character travel or troop movements, like Tolkien/GRR Martin).
Nobody knows WHAT the hell the actual geography of Sunnydale or Springfield or Metropolis or Gotham looks like, so the storytellers can throw stuff in as needed and wring them dry.Report
There are some informal cues, at various points in continuity. The Atlas puts Gotham in New Jersey, and Metropolis in what must be a very, very different Delaware.Report
But even if you know, sort of, where the *city* might be – you still don’t really know how big it is, and where its good and bad neighborhoods are, and its current socioeconomic status with any certainty beyond whatever the storyteller wants it to be. So you can still have Batman in the “gentrified” area of Gotham, or the “ghetto” area, just by using the neighborhoods you have previously established, or establishing a brand new one as needed.Report
I think the Atlas has populations, too. Though a lot of it makes no sense.
Comic book writers need better liberal arts educations.Report
Oh, that’s good for a laugh! Particularly when we’re talking about daredevil.
Perhaps if their training was better in math they’d have better ideas of effective populations?Report
I always interpreted Metropolis as being in the five boroughs of New York City as a landlocked city, even though some depictions do give Metropolis a waterfront. Basically, imagine if Kansas had enough people to hold a big city of eight million. Gotham always seemed to be more like Chicago than New York to me.Report
I’ve always thought of Metropolis and Gotham as NYC on the shores of lake Michigan and Chicago at the mouth of the Hudson, respectively.Report
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the same as our universe. I do not see any reason to expect the MCU New York to be the same as our New York.Report
Artistic licensing?
I think I see a new stream of revenue for the state coming into focus . . .Report
Daredevil starts soon after the first Avengers movie when Manhattan was ripped to shreds.
Oooooooh. I didn’t get this at all.
I thought it was after 9/11.
Christopher Cox feels awkward as Matt Murdoch and like he is unsure of what to do or how to stand like a kid who is wearing a suit for the first time.
For the record, I have it on good authority that you and I are not in the target audience for Christopher Cox.Report
They were coy about the incident (copyright issues?) but it is clear that it was about what happened in the Avengers movie because they talked about all of Manhattan nearly getting destroryed.
I guess people don’t know this but 9/11 occurred on a really small parcel of land. Hell’s Kitchen is far away from the financial district.
If you are referring to Christopher Cox being a sex symbol/leading man, he can still be one and be a good actor.Report
Out here in the sticks, we just kinda assume that NYC is just a melange of construction over the ruins of buildings destroyed by terrorist attacks and people mugging each other.Report
In fairness, they’ve long been trying to transition away from a mugging-based economy.Report
Tell that to the loosie vendors.Report
You know you’re dealing with New Yorkers when someone says that two things that are about 4 miles apart are far away from each other.Report
That is a big distance in terms of New York geography.
Do you have a problem with that?Report
It’s not a big difference anywhere to anyone but New Yorkers. It’s an hour walk, maybe, from Hell’s Kitchen to the WTC. Hell, depending on where you are in Hell’s Kitchen, it’s a nice walk, too, along the Hudson.
One of the things that always amuses me about New Yorkers (even those who aren’t actually from the City) is how they distort distances because there are tall buildings and all those people and the grid plan. Really, it’s just the grid plan. The results are things like R. thinking New Jersey is a giant state. It’s not impossible that people in Hell’s Kitchen could hear some of the events on September 11, it’s so close.
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There has to be some New York :: rest of America version of the old “An American thinks 100 years is a long time, a European thinks 100 miles is a long way” chestnut.Report
You get them out of New York for a little bit, and they start to develop a reasonable sense of distance, but you put them in Manhattan again, and suddenly NYU’s light years away from Chinatown.Report
@chris
unless you’re doing it for the exercise, you should not be walking for an hour just to get to a place. 4 miles, which translates to about 6 km is a good distance. Its the rest of you who live out in the middle of nowhere who have your distances all wrong.Report
Hear and see? Yes. Get physical damage? Not at all.Report
In all fairness, distance really does mean something different in dense urban places than it does in less-dense cities and suburbs.
I live in Manhattan and both my wife and I take public transportation to work. It takes about the same amount of time for her to get 5 miles downtown as it does for me to get 30 miles outside of the city.Report
Oh sure, it takes a while, which is why their sense of distance is so distorted. I mean, I can walk that 4 miles in about the same time in Manhattan and in my Northwest Austin neighborhood, so it’s the same distance. There are just more people in the way, and more transit stops, so wheeled transport takes longer there.Report
@chris Can you? One thing I noticed soon after settling in Portland, OR, after many in years in Manhattan is that generally it takes longer to traverse the same distance on foot here than it did in New York City. There are some parts of Portland where the difference is negligible — mainly downtown and some of NW Portland — but in the rest of the city you have to wait longer to cross streets, walk out of your way to get from A to B, and push a lot of buttons to activate signals. Plus, construction sites are allowed to close off the whole sidewalk and don’t have to put in temporary walkways — you are supposed to cross the street to continue travelling in the direction you want. That doesn’t happen in Manhattan — there is always a temporary walkway.
In my experience, a four-mile walk in Portland takes noticeably longer than a four-mile walk in Manhattan.Report
In NY people dont’ waste time pushing buttons for signals to walk. Heck they often don’t wait for traffic to completely stop before walking.Report
Ah yeah, I can imagine that’s true in some places. Manhattanites are also more experienced pedestrians, and with pedestrians, than most non-Manhattanites.Report
@chris I think the surface walked matters greatly.
Four miles in the woods is nothing for me; I do that nearly every day, weather permitting.
Four miles on pavement cripples me up for days; the surface is too hard and unforgiving, all the shock goes to the joints and spine. Equally as bad, four miles on snow or sand can be distressful, unless it’s a distance you’ve worked up to slowly, for they’re too soft and use muscles not normally used walking.
The surface matters greatly to one’s ability to do distance.Report
4 miles bashing through jungle is hell.Report
Says you.
Have you ever bushwhacked through the jungle? (I have in Central America. Biggest concern was snakes dropping on you.)
But I’d still rather bash about in the jungle than the concrete jungle for many miles. Any day. I am not a city girl.Report
Yes, I have. During my active service days when we went on exercise in Thailand.Report
Oh certainly, especially people with leg or back issues. I walk about 10 miles per day, just as part of my daily activities (walking to and from the bus, walking to the store, walking to see neighbors, and so on), almost all on sidewalk and street, but I realize that I’m both lucky and benefit from having been a heavy walker for much of my adult life.
I go through shoes like it’s my job, though.Report
“You know you’re dealing with New Yorkers when someone says that two things that are about 4 miles apart are far away from each other.”
Speaking of Law and Order, they made a big deal around the middle of the original series run that Chris Noth’s character was way way way *way* out there in Staten Island, calling that story “Exiled”.Report
Staten Island feels far away from the rest of the city. It is a bit of different world and in work terms for cops might as well be Iowa.Report
Because of the communications infrastructure problems on 9/11, I wasn’t able to get in touch with my mother (who lived in Oregon) until that evening. (I did try!) But I wasn’t too concerned because I lived in Chelsea in the West 20s and the WTC was so many neighborhoods away that I figured she would know that I was fine. I mean, you had to go through the West Village, Tribeca and much of the financial district before you got to the WTC. It might as well have been a different city.
Of course, I was wrong and she spent most of the day in a panic. That’s when it occurred to me that as far away as the WTC felt to me, it was actually only about two miles.Report
@jaybird & @saul-degraw For the record, it’s Charlie Cox, not Christoper Cox. I think the latter was the former head of the S.E.C., which is a different kind of Daredevil.
In any case, I think the actor is fine, in all senses of the word.Report
Is your commentary more on set design, or plot design? (it’s not clear to me). I haven’t seen Daredevil, but we’ve discussed on these pages the set design of Gotham (which I’ve seen the first half of), and it’s melange of art deco era iconography, 70s-80s ‘urban grittiness’ and circa 2003 technology used by the characters. So it’s possible they just picked the 80’s urban gritty look (based from your description, this could be a wrong characterization) because it still says “New York” to just about everyone.
If it’s plot design, the use of white ethnics is probably (like it is on Law and Order) to avoid Unfortunate Implications/Report
melange
jinx!Report
Both but largely plot with levels of violence.Report
Ok, but as Jaybird said in the other thread, the main point of the superhero genre is a plot where punching something becomes an acceptable conflict resolution mechanism. A superhero story without violence – in both background and foreground – is like a vegan chicken parmigiana dish.
Also, on this
“The other cinematic problem I’ve noticed is that film finds a way to make immoral messages and characters seductive and cool.”
yes, Murdoch is technically a vigilante in his Daredevil role, but is he truly an anti-hero as is all too common in works created today? There’s a difference between chaotic good and Tony Soprano. Plus, if he is being played as a melancholy killjoy as you say he is, is he really seductive and cool?Report
Chicks dig melancholy killjoys.Report
Superhero stories are basically conflicts mythological conflicts about gods and heroes fighting in a modern era. Like the myths of old, conflicts tend to be resolved by a combination of violence and trickery. Given that this is the case, I fail to see how you can depict a clean, safe, and expensive New York in superhero story. This is especially true for a character like Daredevil who always tended to fight against the more realistically motivated super villains in the Marvel universe. Without grit and crime, Daredevil is obsolete.Report
Oh, I do believe I could spin a few tales… might be a little more realistic than you want to admit, though.Report
This is pretty much the case. Hell’s Kitchen is what it is because it has to be.
Law & Order’s New York is actually pretty different, for the most part, and not as divergent from our current timeline except that every national story seems to have a doppleganger incident in New York and murder is mostly a rich white person thing.Report
Great Britain is a more dangerous place on any UK cop show than it is in real life.Report
Santa Barbara has at least one murder per week.Report
As did Cabot Cove, ME, for a spell.Report
So did Columbo.Report
Maybe we can lower the crime rate by getting rid of detectives.Report
Given the number of crimes committed by detectives, this might actually work.Report
remember midsommer murders? Its a wonder that there was anybody left in the sleepy English village of midsommerReport
It’s all the damn vampires.
Wait, no, that’s Santa Carla.Report
Or Sunnydale.Report
Fun fact: Sunnydale actually is Santa Barbara. A weird distorted Santa Barbara, but Santa Barbara nevertheless. We see maps of Santa Barbara in the show labeled ‘Sunnydale’, and stated distances to other cities work.
I’ve always wondered why I’ve never stumbled across a Psych/Buffy crossover fanfic. We know other dimensions exist on Buffy, although none of them appear very ‘parallel’. Maybe it’s a timeline problem…by the time Psych starts, Sunnydale no longer exists.Report
Plus, what need does Psych have for a dimension of only shrimp?
To the OP’s point though, Sunnydale, as a fictional town, can have any geographic or socioeconomic features the current story needs. Lord knows the number and location of cemeteries seemed to shift over time (at one point they sort of lampshaded the idea that the town has, for obvious in-universe reasons, an abnormal number of graveyards).Report
@davidtc , Sunnydale isn’t directly next to the ocean, though. Santa Barbara’s beachfront is a pretty distinctive feature of the town.Report
In Psych, Santa Barbara isn’t even Santa Barbara, it’s a small town outside of Vancouver called White Rock. Interestingly, The X-Files did some filming there too, so you could do some Shawn, Gus, Scully, and Mulder stories.
Scully doesn’t believe that Shawn is psychic, of course, or that Gus is named Longbranch Pennywhistle. Mulder believes both.Report
I’d much rather see more Vegas than 1981 NYC. That’s just drear and drab, man.
Judging from the stories I get out of NYC, there’s still plenty of crazy
(white slavery isn’t exactly 1981, it’s more like every day ever.)
I mean, they could do 2005 Detroit, which has a bit of grit, and a really unsettled populace.
That’d actually be fun. Imagine having to deal with the moral issue of Adult Gangs Emulating Superheros,
and claiming they’re Protecting People.Report
Oooh! Give them badges and uniforms!Report
Yeah, that too. It’s one thing to have corrupt cops, it’s another to have cops behaving as they see superheroes doing — all with the iron idea that they’re doing good. After all, everyone cheers the superheroes… and who didn’t join the police to be a hero?Report
Reno 9-1-1 was always my favorite TV cop show.
It’s the drama. The realistic portrayal of police officers as real people. The ingenuity called for by the average patrol officer to deal with violent criminals.
Top-notch.Report