Batman 1943 - a young fans reaction in Thrills and Chills Forum

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Batman 1943 - a young fans reaction

Author	Comment
Joe Karlosi		#61	[-]
Apr 28 08 4:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've just started the 1943 Batman serial. I've watched the first two chapters (one each Sunday). Not too much to go on at the moment, except I love Naish and the Bat Cave is cool.
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HalLane		#62	[-]
Apr 28 08 5:18 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Let us know when you spot Eddie Parker, Joe!
LGravy		#63	[-]
Apr 29 08 11:29 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	A chapter a week. Good for YOU! "Not to much to go on"... C'mon. In the first two chapters, if you were downing a shot every time somebody uttered a racial slur, you were intoxicated by the end of the first reel...
Scoundrel		#64	[-]
Sep 12 08 4:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Really enjoying this one. Besides J. Carrol Naish chewing the scenery, its neat to see some of the mistakes they let fly on this one. Besides the cheap joke shop beard worn by Charles Middleton, I had to laugh out loud when in Chapter 6 the actor doubling for Batman loses a pack of cigarettes when they fall out of his cape while descending the fire escape. It's also nice to see some of the Strickfadden equipment in Daka's lab.
Grant.eve6mediahq		#65	[-]
Dec 22 08 3:50 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	cabmangray wrote: But it all fell on deaf ears. This young turk will continue to enjoy the rest of the serial as a comedy. There's one reason I sympathize with that, but it's kind of a drawn-out reason. I think (and it seems to be a real minority opinion) that in some ways this habit of calling something a "product of its time" really gets out of hand. What I mean is, it can lead to a kind of condescension, where people go easy on something in an earlier piece of entertainment that they'd just plain HATE in a current one. Of course, anti-Japanese stuff in something made during the war is an exception even to ME, but I mean something much more general, where people constantly let something off the hook because of its "simpler time" and so on. That's what I mean by saying it SOMETIMES becomes a kind of condescension. It's a pet peeve with me, so maybe I exaggerate it, but often I'd rather hear someone just plain HATE something from an earlier decade than use that "product of its time" qualifier.
TServo4		#66	[-]
Dec 22 08 5:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Say what you will about the threadbare budget of the BATMAN serials-- they're the closest interpretation to the comic books than any other. Batman doesn't drive a souped-up Batmobile, he drives a big ol' Buick. The focus isn't the inner struggle of Batman (a subject introduced by Marvel in the '60s and is completely cliched now), it's about gruesome villains and beating the shit out of thugs. And don't throw that "racist" garbage at me. Stereotype villains still plague our and everyone else's media. In this country, the bad guys aren't Japanese anymore, they're middle-eastern terrorists and North Koreans. The faces have changed, but the ideas are still the same. And don't think that Americans aren't and weren't ever portrayed as baddies in other countries (try looking at these Korean propaganda posters from recent years!) I've been running the first BATMAN serial on the big screen at my film shows on a consecutive basis now for several weeks and people love it. There's a cornball aspect to it, but to overall entertainment is generated from the subject matter, not condescension on the audience's part. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY
Grant.eve6mediahq		#67	[-]
Dec 22 08 10:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	You're very right. In just about every country there's always some other country that it's all right to label. Heck, there are even countries it's all right to label because they won't help you fight with OTHER ones (think the whole anti-French mania).
Laughing Gravy		#68	[-]
Dec 23 08 9:09 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	If there is a serious dramatic film out there in which the narrator refers to "Towel-headed thugs who worship a false God and who are tortured by a wise U.S. government" and in which the idyllic hero refers to the villain as "crap-colored piece of filth", I haven't seen it, and that would surely be the modern equivilent of what one finds in BATMAN. I like the serial, too, but let's not pretend it is not racist. "Garbak is a tyrant who rules the planet harshly! If I can survive the perils of the Valley of 1000 Dooms and seize the Gosmik Tryglor from its legendary hiding place I will become the new leader... and free my people!" Visit us at www.inthebalcony.com.
TServo4		#69	[-]
Dec 28 08 2:25 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Racist-- yes. But beyond redemption? Because of the political guilt this country faces for its past, anything that could be labeled as racist is automatically deemed as useless. ...and don't think that there isn't racist programming in America or any other country still. Producers are just savvy enough to get around it by not using slurs or as broad stereotypes as were seen in years past. Why is it that the villains of many action shows today are foreigners? Specifically Arabic or Islamic? It's because that's the current fear of the majority of viewers. The reaction wouldn't be the same if it were a Canadian terrorist. Likewise, BATMAN is a product of its time, if not only for the fact that people in this country were scared of the Japanese nation. Whether it was right depends on whether you think political propaganda is/was a necessity. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY
rvoyttbots		#70	[-]
Dec 31 08 8:59 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	And they had good reason to be scared .
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Wich2		#71	[-]
Dec 31 08 12:26 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, things like the Rising Sun Empire's Rape of Nanking, the Phillipino "Comfort Women," the Bataan Death March, German-style eugenics tortures, and the late-in-the-war plan to dirty bomb San Francisco with spent Nazi radioactive test stuff, weren't fiction. Paranoia & phobia is one thing; but being wary about a group of folks - and from the death of Olympic athletes, through that of Leon Klinghofer & the thousands in the Towers, up to the butchery in Mumbai, Radical Islamicists have carved themselves a worthy niche - is just common sense. Happy New Year, -Craig W.
Laughing Gravy		#72	[-]
Dec 31 08 8:11 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	It is not "common sense" to blame one religious or racial group as inherently bad or to "be wary" of them. It is, however, racist. "Garbak is a tyrant who rules the planet harshly! If I can survive the perils of the Valley of 1000 Dooms and seize the Gosmik Tryglor from its legendary hiding place I will become the new leader... and free my people!" Visit us at www.inthebalcony.com.
Wich2		#73	[-]
Dec 31 08 8:17 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	LG, that is clearly not what I said. But an honest question here: what would YOU do with the historical facts that I cited? Ignore them? I think that we live in a closed system, not a vacuum; and open eyes & critical faculties are to be used. Intelligently, of course. That's always the rub... Last Edited By: Wich2 Dec 31 08 8:20 PM. Edited 1 times.
Laughing Gravy		#74	[-]
Dec 31 08 8:21 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I wasn't speaking directly to you at all. I will let our fellow Monster Kids decide whether "being wary about a group of folks... is just common sense" is racist or inappropriate or whatever. "Garbak is a tyrant who rules the planet harshly! If I can survive the perils of the Valley of 1000 Dooms and seize the Gosmik Tryglor from its legendary hiding place I will become the new leader... and free my people!" Visit us at www.inthebalcony.com.
Wich2		#75	[-]
Dec 31 08 8:44 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	You did quote me. (Though you left out the parts that didn't fit your thesis, as when I spoke against paranoia & phobia.) And you did imply that I'm a rascist. (Which I bet the Kenyan, Jewish, German, Korean, et al., dear friends of this Obama-voting American mutt married to an Italian, would disagree with you on!) I'd still be interested in your answer to my question about historic fact. But as people often get quickly immature or mean in such threads, I'd be happy to talk off-list. (If you'll discuss such a serious topic without wearing a mask?) Happy New Year, -Craig Wichman Last Edited By: Wich2 Dec 31 08 8:48 PM. Edited 1 times.
Laughing Gravy		#76	[-]
Jan 1 09 2:42 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Happy new year to you too. I stand by what I typed and see no need to clarify anything I said, so I'll just reiterate that BATMAN is a serial I enjoy - but it is certainly racist. Go tell some Asian who spent years in an American "relocation camp" for no reason other than the color of his skin that we were just being justifiably "wary of a group of folks." "Garbak is a tyrant who rules the planet harshly! If I can survive the perils of the Valley of 1000 Dooms and seize the Gosmik Tryglor from its legendary hiding place I will become the new leader... and free my people!" Visit us at www.inthebalcony.com.
Wich2		#77	[-]
Jan 1 09 3:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Again, you draw WAY too much from what I wrote. I was speaking in the context of Jack's point about heavies in fiction being drawn from real life. In the '30's/'40's, it made PERFECT sense to use agents of Fascist Germany and the Empire of Japan in that role, as they were playing it in reality. And for about the last 35 years, Radical Islamicists (please note the specification "Radical"; one of my dearest friends is the daughter of a Moslem "wizard") have played a similar role in the real world, and so it has spilled over into dramas. Again, see the historical events listed above; and add, if you like, the Beirut and Kenyan bombings, the British & Spanish subway attacks, et al. All bolstered, of course, by the proudly, publicly stated goals of folks like Bin Laden about the establishment of a worldwide Caliphate, and Hamas and the leaders of Iran about pushing Israel into the sea. I used the word "wary," which bothers you so much, in the literal sense of "to be aware." Though it is statistically unlikely that EITHER any given group of old Swedish women OR young Mideastern men will cause mischief in day-to-day life, it is not potsmoking fantasy that has led writers to use the latter group more frequently in fiction. (As to the relocation camps, that was a classic example of surgery with a meataxe where a scalpel was needed; and Roosevelt's admin is FAR from the most recent to fall into that trap...) Best, -Craig Wichman Last Edited By: Wich2 Jan 1 09 8:58 PM. Edited 2 times.
zogstar67		#78	[-]
Jan 2 09 8:20 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I don't think the issue with the serial is that it uses Japanese characters as bad guys, that's completely typical of the era. The problem part comes in the very first chapter (I think) when the narrator gloats about how all the shifty Japs have been rounded up and put into camps. And I think there may be a couple of similar lines of dialogue later in the serial. It's more than a little chilling to hear. I like the serial, too. But not that particular part. Chris Herzog "THE WORLD'S QUAINTEST CLOWN" VISIT ME AT MY SPACE: http://www.myspace.com/39159010
Wich2		#79	[-]
Jan 2 09 10:32 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Chris, no debate there: A Stupid Racist Comment is a Stupid Racist Comment - whether used to describe friend (patronizingly) or foe (maliciously).
ometiklon		#80	[-]
Apr 10 12 7:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Just finised this one. And whew Batman and Robin were not the best with their fists in this...Lots of fun tho!
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Batman 1943 - a young fans reaction