21
May
20
May
Cory Morgan, author of yesterday’s aforementioned witless post about being opposed to funding gender reassignment surgery, has responded in similarly witless fashion. Suffice it to say he starts off with a reference to Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons – fresh and original! – then goes into a comparison between transsexuals and comic book fans which I am sure had his blog audience rolling in the aisles, except all the comments I see on it seem to be from people I know found him through me and they aren’t so much his audience as they are a newfound crop of antagonists. Although I’m fairly sure he’s happy to get any attention he can manage.
But I don’t really care about his insults about being a comic book fan (OH NOES, THE RIGHTY BLOGGER SEZ I AM A SEXLESS NERD, MY LIFE, IT IS LAID BARE). What I do want to briefly take issue with is this:
A line gets crossed when one is asking me as a taxpayer to fund their pursuits however. I do not and never will support public funding for surgery that simply is not medically required.
Gender reassignment surgery – even in private care situations – is not handed out willy-nilly because of the enormous liability issues it presents (and it is right and proper that those liability issues exist for such a serious, life-altering elective procedure). That’s why there are only eight to ten surgeries performed in Ontario per year.
And those surgeries are medically required, the same as pharmaceutical therapy is often required for those with mental health issues. Does Cory Morgan take issue with poor people being prescribed anti-schizophrenic medication? Anti-depressants? Mood stabilizers? After all, it’s entirely possible for people to function – for a given definition of “function” that is not very functional, but oh well – without those drugs, which artificially alter one’s neurochemistry to an extent that the differences between it and surgery are merely semantic.
They will just be, at the very least, chronically unhappy, anxious, and depressed. But they’ll be alive!
And transgenderism isn’t simply a mental health disorder. Know how I know that? Because we used to classify it as one, and tried to “cure” transsexuals of wanting to be a different gender, and it didn’t work. It simply resulted in greater anxiety and depression, and their psychological costs fiscally outstripped many times over what the surgery would have cost. Where gender reassignment surgery is necessary – and, again, it is worth noting that it is only necessary in a tiny number of cases – it is considered so because it is the best way to ensure that the patient enjoys the maximum and highest quality of life that is available to them, the best way to reduce their suffering and anguish to a minimum.
I would further note that my experience in this area is far from academic, because a friend of mine is transgender. She (male-to-female transsexual) actually works at one of the comics shops I frequent, which I am sure would make Cory giggle over his comparison once more. (Although I’m pretty sure she gets laid more than he does, and also has better clothing sense for that matter.) I’ve known her long enough that I knew her when she was still using her male name reluctantly, because she was scared of how people might react if she used her chosen female name, and when I confirmed by asking her if she was transgender, I said “so why didn’t use just tell me to call you (female name)?” and her expression was visibly relieved.
That relief is something for which that people should not have to work. That is why gender reassignment surgery is indeed medically necessary in certain cases. People deserve the right to feel comfortable in their own skin, and if medical intervention is necessary, then so be it.
20
May
20
May
But what the hell – it is awesome.
20
May
So last week here in Ontario, the Health Minister announced that sex-reassignment surgery would once again be covered by our public health system, ten years after the Mike Harris Tory government delisted it and forced the required procedures into private care.
For my money, this is unequivocally a good thing. People in need of gender assignment are rare (the estimated need for these surgeries in Ontario, a province of thirteen million people, is eight to ten surgeries annually), but differing gender identity is a tragic and indeed horrifying condition. I don’t mean “horrifying” as in “disgusting,” but in that the idea of having to live one’s life knowing – not believing, knowing – that your body and entire identity are both completely flawed is one that is both thankfully alien and exceptionally terrifying to me. I am enormously grateful that my gender identity as a dude is secure and that I never, ever have to worry about deep down feelings that I shouldn’t have a dick.
But of course, there are always going to be assholes. This is nothing new. But what gets me – what really just fucking gets me – is that these juvenile fuckwits can’t just go ahead and say, straight up, “we’re bigots.” They can’t just say “you know what, I fucking disapprove of gender reassignment surgery. I think transgenderism is bullshit and people who need sex change operations are crazy.”
You know why they don’t say that? They don’t say it because they are goddamned chickenshits.
Consider the enormously stupid Cory Morgan, who prefaces his photo-essay on how he will chop a guy’s dick off for $200 (of course, there’s no question of what he does for a female-to-male transsexual – I mean, you’d think he’d come up with some amusing photo-essay involving a series of dildos! Such stunning lack of work ethic) by attempting to justify his dislike of publicly funded gender reassignment surgery on fiscal grounds:
it has been pointed out that the de-bonings will only cost around $20,000 each. That must be comforting to people dying on waiting lists in Canada’s increasingly unsustainable socialized healthcare system. I would hate to be the nurse who has to explain to somebody; “I am sorry sir, we will have to delay your bypass surgery a little longer, the operating room is occupied by a man getting his weiner removed.”
Now, first off, 10 surgeries at about $20K each is a whopping $200K per year cost to the taxpayers of Ontario, and out of the approximately $34 billion Ontario spends on health care yearly represents a staggering .0000006% percent of the total budget. Compare to the estimated $1.8 billion dollars that the province spends treating smoking-related illnesses and it seems like kind of a bargain! And, of course, Cory overlooks that performing a gender reassignment surgery requires a highly specialized reproductive surgeon, who probably isn’t going to be doing any heart surgery any time soon.
Kathy Shaidle, on the other hand, justifies her complaining about “fake twats” by first snidely mentioning that Health Minister George Smitherman is TEH GHEY, then making an appeal-to-authority argument, linking to Paul McHugh. Paul McHugh, for those not aware, has essentially kept his psychological career alive despite completely disagreeing with any treatment or diagnosis made after 1970 by becoming the poster boy for dipshits like Kathy to link to. “HE WORKS AT JOHNS HOPKINS!” they scream. Which is true. In fact, he worked at Johns Hopkins when he decided not to reveal the identities of confessed child molesters to the police and concealed incidences of child rape. But, what the heck, it was only child rape!
Shaidle and Morgan are of course both blitheringly stupid and evidence of the continuing Americanization of Canada’s extreme right wing, but it’s worse than that; they’re simply unwilling to come right out and say “we don’t like transgenderism.” Shaidle, ironically, followed up her weaselly little slam by posting once more about Mark Steyn and the horrible injustice he suffers from having people say he’s a fucking bigot. She’ll complain endlessly about how free speech is quashed in Canada, but she’s not exactly eager to get up and engage in it by saying what she really, really wants to say.
Because, again: they’re chickenshits.
19
May
My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.
19
May
Now that Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for president in all but name, the nation turns to consider his nominee for Vice-President. Who should fill the role? There are, of course, many possibilities.
John Edwards
PROS:
– shared message of change and battle against entrenched corporate interests in Washington
– leading progressive figure in the Democratic party
– strengthens Obama’s support with white males
– helps in North Carolina, a potential swing state
– nice hair
CONS:
– track record of not quite, like, you know, winning elections
– suffers in the vital “people who hate sons of millworkers” demographic
Senator Jim Webb
PROS:
– helps in Virginia, a large swing state
– also helps with white males
– will energize Democratic fundraising across the board when he asks Veronica Lodge for help in the election
CONS:
– not exactly a pro-women’s rights candidate
– seen by many as too conservative a Democrat for such an important position
– will attract the attention of notable political dirty trickster Reggie Mantle
Senator Joe Lieberman
PROS:
– makes Obama look much, much taller
– theoretically helps with independent voters
– reassures voters that unpleasant-but-survivable status quo will remain essentially untouched
– his nomination would ensure that David Broder, David Brooks, George Will, and Mickey Kaus would all get such massive erections that they would die of lack of blood flow to the brain
CONS:
– is Joe Lieberman
– no, seriously, is Joe Lieberman
Alice Cooper
PROS:
– will introduce America to desperately needed alternative diets, IE, eating a snake live on stage
– no way in hell anybody tries to assassinate Obama now
– campaign will be the first campaign in history to have good theme music
CONS:
– campaigned against John Kerry in 2004, could depress base
– “School’s Out” evidences dangerous potential for interest in school privatization, which could hurt campaign with teacher’s unions
– may steal Michelle Obama’s mascara
Optimus Prime
PROS:
– heroic
– beloved by millions of people
– doesn’t need his own Secret Service detail, as he is a giant battle robot
– can voice over his own ads and it will be awesome
CONS:
– Energon needs may betray problematic views on energy policy
– although technically able to assume presidency on grounds that adoption of current big-rig transformed form counts as a “rebirth” and it happened on American soil, expect a court challenge to his viability
– predictable target of negative ads: “How Do We Know He Will Not Go Insane And Try To Exterminate Humanity?”
– likely Megatron endorsement of John McCain in response
13th President of the United States Millard Fillmore
PROS:
– adds disaffected Whigs and Know-Nothings to Obama’s crossover appeal
– counters Obama’s perceived weakness with white males by appealing to vital slave-owning demographic
– has already taken over from one President, so ready on day one should Obama die of “hypothermia” (wink wink)
– “Millard Fillmore” one of the rare names which makes “Barack Obama” sound downright normal
CONS:
– has been dead for 134 years
– probably smells pretty bad now
A Kitty
PROS:
– Awwwww! Lookit da kitty!
– KITTY KITTY KITTY KITTY KITTY
– Whosagoodboynow? Whosagoodboynow? YOU are! Yes YOU are!
CONS:
– no, you can’t have any of my tuna
– seriously, get away from my food, cat
– aw, dammit, I thought we litterbox-trained this little bastard already
Monsieur Ting!, Mime Extraordinare
PROS:
– will revolutionize energy policy by teaching America to harness “invisible wind” power
– will never, ever say anything embarrassing to the campaign
– and yet, remarkably eloquent!
CONS:
– predictable “France-lover” attacks
– tendency to get stuck in invisible box
– tends to see world in black-and-white
Dr. Perry Cox
PROS:
– antiwar credibility: opposed war from beginning
– almost always right about everything
– gives additional credibility on healthcare reform
– likely to be absolutely overpowering in vice-presidential debate
CONS:
– kind of a jerk
– personal life (unmarried common-law relationship with two kids) somewhat colorful for a potential nominee
– predilection of calling Obama “Newbie”
M’Kha-ane, AKA “The Martian John McCain”
PROS:
– Sacrificed greatly in Spleeg-Vurtm War, was in Spleeg prisoner of war camp for 27 astrocycles but did not talk; shows character
– Telepathic powers of great tactical value to the campaign
– Will bring a lot to the table in interplanetary trade agreements
– makes Obama seem less exotic
CONS:
– religious beliefs (member, Church of Xygyyszzz the Conqueror Undying) may prove thorny issue in campaign
– refuses to share vital raygun technology with Army researchers
– feeds exclusively on juices found in human spleen
– cannot lift arms above head due to differences in Martian anatomy
The Entire State of Ohio
PROS:
– guarantees crucial swing state of Ohio in November
– earns points with neighboring states which will feel more important
– two words: fried cheese
CONS:
– Ohio kind of sucks
– you just know Florida is going to get jealous
– difficulty of fitting entire state into Naval Observatory
Lex Luthor
PROS:
– captain of industry, genius scientist
– swings Kansas firmly into Democratic column
– can fund many downticket races on his own dime if asked
CONS:
– may force Superman to support Republican candidate
– obsession with Kryptonite collection worrying
– serial cake theft evidences potential kleptomania
An Enormous Sundae
PROS:
– gains support of entire dairy industry
– as well as corn industry (syrups)
– is extremely delicious
CONS:
– promotes unhealthiness in American diet
– may alienate millions of lactose-intolerant Americans
– engages partisanship in base, who would prefer to see Gigantic Stack Of Waffles as nominee instead
Kcarab Amabo, AKA The Mirror Universe Barack Obama
PROS:
– All of the genius and inspiration of Barack Obama
– Just as likeable as Barack Obama
– In a pinch can replace Barack Obama if he shaves his goatee
CONS:
– Evil
– Like, whoa, totally evil
– We are so not kidding about the evil
SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON
PROS:
– yep, there are some
CONS:
– yep, there are some
19
May
And that was Jimmy Slyde at seventy.
18
May
If you took the writers at NRO’s “the Corner” to Iceland, they would spontaneously combust.
15
May
I had a “Movies You Should See But Have Not Seen (Because They Are Good)” in the queue for next week, and now I have to write something else, because Pajiba went ahead and did an excellent column about the merits of Sneakers.
BASTARDS!
15
May
Every Thursday, mightygodking.com returns to the pages of Who’s Who, the classic 1980s DC comic book encyclopedia of their characters. Every week, a character shall be judged on the only scale scientific enough that matters: the Rex The Wonder Dog scale of fantasticosity.
The DC Universe is not, let us be honest, one that is famed particularly for international criminal/terrorist groups. Marvel Comics has HYDRA, AIM, the Hand, the Maggia, Roxxon, and of course all the splinter groups that come along with those big, important evil ones – so that whenever a Marvel comics writer needs a villainous terrorist with a psycho-death gorillabot, he can just invent Radically Advanced Ideas in Destruction or Maliciously Advanced Ideas in Larceny or Transformative Realizations Of Advanced Ideas in Nanorobotics and the reader will instantly know “oh, it’s just AIM again, except not.” And this is fine, although they never really explain why the guys in AIM dress up like evil beekeepers.
Meanwhile, DC has tried time and again to invent their own equivalents of these same groups, and almost universally they fail. With the exception of the League of Assassins – which mostly gets by on Ra’s Al Ghul’s cred; I mean, I like Merlyn and all, but come on – they almost always end up sucking pipe. We have Kobra (“just like Cobra in “G.I. Joe,” except completely different and even less impressive”). We’ve got Intergang (“hey, are you a common criminal deluded enough to believe that sheer numbers can beat Superman? Then sign up today”). There’s The 1,000 (“like Intergang, but with a less interesting name”).
And those are the good ones. There are more terrible failed shadowy organizations in the DC universe then there are Green Lanterns, frankly. A short and not comprehensive list: the 2000 Committee, ASP, the Assassination Bureau, the Battalion of Doom, Black Ops, Cell Six, The Council, H.I.V.E., The DMT, Eurocrime, Locus, Les Mille Yeux, MAZE, the Oblivion Front, Scorpio, Shadowspire, SPIDER, The Veil, VULTURE, and no less than three separate unrelated outfits known as the Network.
Honestly, it’s kind of amazing that all these organizations manage to co-exist. Do they have their own human-resources divisions?
“So, Mr. Kelly. I see here you worked for three years at SPIDER as an arson specialist. How do you think you could help VULTURE’s accounts payable division?”
“Well, I could set the people we owe money on fire.”
“Interesting, interesting… You are aware that the health plan requires a buy-in if you want optical coverage, right?”
And then there is SKULL. If there is one saving grace to DC’s horde of indistinguishable villainous cartels, it is that they are homogenous; the same vaguely pan-Hispanarabic terrorists and criminals in every one (ah, the good old DC universe, where dusky-but-not-black skin almost always equals “evil”). But not SKULL. Simple swarthy looks are not enough for the likes of SKULL.
SKULL makes you dress up.
Now, unlike a lot of these criminal organizations, SKULL did not arise out of a shared interest in power and money. Rather, it arose because the Atomic Skull needed a lot of flunkies. Perhaps you’re thinking “but wait, the Atomic Skull is mostly a nobody.” And this is true. SKULL is an organization founded to serve the whims of a second-rate Superman villain. Okay, by itself it’s not that bad. For example, Kobra is pretty lame, but he’s got his own army. Which is also pretty lame, come to think. But he had his own comic! Which… you know, Kobra probably isn’t a good reason to justify the Atomic Skull having a terrorist army.
But it’s even sadder than that, because one day the Atomic Skull just said “oh, fuck this,” and left SKULL. But that didn’t stop the members of SKULL from continuing to do evil… stuff. It also didn’t stop them from keeping their original name. SKULL is like a Milli Vanilli cover band that chose to carry on after everybody found out that Rob and Fab weren’t actually doing any of the singing.
But they still have the uniforms with the skulls on them, so what are they supposed to do, huh? I mean, they’re already cutting costs. Every third meal is ramen, and when it’s not ramen they’re buying off-brand food, and they had to sell the Skullships for money so now everybody has to make do with bus passes, and Brenda cancelled the maid service so now they keep the evil headquarters clean via a chore rota. Getting new uniforms and coming up with a new name would be expensive, and everybody likes the skull motif anyway, so…
Yes, I know somebody’s going to say “but you can use them for a comedic riff on evil comic-book terrorist armies,” but the thing is that you don’t need SKULL to do that. You can just use a witless member of a GOOD evil comic-book terrorist army and it’ll be more effective (and funnier).
14
May
This week’s contribution from me at TheCourt.ca is a bit on Loving v. Virginia and its influence on high-level Canadian jurisprudence.
14
May
In a more serious vein considering superhero movies (as opposed to previously), some random thoughts about where the origin story is appropriate for a superhero movie, and where it just isn’t.
GREEN LANTERN: This is probably the last of the really good “movie is the origin story” superhero movies, because Green Lantern’s origin, when told right, is really fucking awesome. To wit:
1.) Hal Jordan in exciting test pilot plane sequence
2.) Abin Sur “interrupts”, gives ring
3.) Fun stuff with Hal using ring, maybe fighting criminals who have, say, golden battle armor for some reason (so to explain ring’s weaknesses).
4.) Sinestro-as-a-Green-Lantern shows up, starts training Hal on Earth then in outer space. Tentative student/apprentice friendship emerges!
This is the obvious first act. Then you go into the balls-out SECOND act:
5.) Trip to Korugar. OH SHIT it turns out Sinestro is INSANE, because Sinestro thinks the need to keep “order” means you need a fascist interstellar government. Plus, Hal has no way of knowing that Sinestro doesn’t represent the Green Lantern ethos, so now it’s him against ALL the Green Lanterns, he figures.
6.) So Sinestro has an interstellar battle fleet and he’s going to restore order to the universe sector-by-sector, planet-by-planet. STARTING WITH EARTH because he wasn’t impressed with it and because Hal, who is Hal, resists him.
7.) Sinestro reveals that it was HE who killed Abin Sur, because Abin Sur found out what he was doing and was trying to stop him.
8.) Sinestro uses his awesome will to strip Hal of his ring and dumps him OUT OF A FUCKING AIRLOCK into SPACE.
And finally you get the awesomer than awesome THIRD act:
9.) In the seconds before Hal dies of space death type thing, he gets picked up by a stealth shuttle piloted by Katma Tui and Tigorr. (YES FUCK YOU IT IS MY GREEN LANTERN MOVIE AND I SAY TIGORR IS IN IT.)
10.) Whoops, Sinestro finds them on Korugar and Hal Jordan uses WILLPOWER to get his ring back and they have a ring-fight which is AWESOME and Hal knocks Sinestro for a loop long enough…
11.) …for Hal to go into space and really GO TO FUCKING TOWN on the interstellar space fleet with his power ring. I am talking ten-mile-long buzzsaws, swarms of a billion boxing gloves, enormous star-devouring Bea Arthurs, you name it.
12.) But Sinestro shows up for ROUND TWO and they ring-fight EVEN MORE and at this point everybody watching the movie should have an enormous erection because it will be JUST THAT GODDAMNED COOL.
13.) And then the Guardians show up and you play the “wait, what if the Guardians are on SINESTRO’s side?” to the hilt until Tomar Re and Kilowog show up and say “fuck YOU Sinestro” and Sinestro gets exiled to the Anti-Matter Universe and Katma Tui gets the power ring and replaces him and then the movie makes eleventy billion dollars.
I’m of course being exceptionally facile here, but the point stands that the Green Lantern origin story just works in a way that a lot of superhero origin stories don’t because it – much like Iron Man – is fundamentally a movie about the superhero origin story as self-discovery, about the realization of greatness (Tony Stark and Hal Jordan share one thing in common, traditionally – they’re both, as people, way above average on the “ability” scale) and the responsibility borne with it. Origin stories work as movies when the origin makes you want to root for the hero.
FLASH: Now, this is fundamentally the opposite of a Green Lantern movie right here, because Flash’s origin story is shitburgers from a movie storytelling standpoint.
1.) Meet Barry (or Wally)! He’s a decent guy! He’s a cop!
2.) He gets zapped with chemicals and lightning!
3.) So he becomes a superhero!
4.) And fights, I dunno, Gorilla Grodd or Captain Cold or whoever.
Compelling, frankly, this is not. You can layer on stuff about “it’s tough to be a decent upstanding guy in the world” but Christ, that’s a shitty movie right there because every day your audience has their own shit to go through and you don’t want to paint Barry (or Wally) as a whiner when he can run at the speed of something really fucking fast.
Does this mean a Flash movie is unworkable? Of course not, but it means you have to take a different approach. I gave Speed Racer a well-deserved heaping of shit because it was really just a bad movie, but one thing it did right is that it didn’t bother explaining why Speed Racer lived in this crazy-ass world with these crazy-ass cars driving on crazy-ass racetracks, and also why they had a monkey. The point is that if you start your movie with the premise “this is how things are,” audiences will, more often than not, be fine with that so long as you suspend their disbelief and never question your own narrative.
Applying this to a Flash movie allows us to use the strongest element of the Flash concepts, namely the heroic legacy model. In short, a Flash movie has Barry and Wally and Jay in it – Barry as the star, Wally as the sidekick, Jay as the elder statesman. You want Professor Zoom as the main villain, although you can of course throw in any number of Rogues for color. And most importantly, you establish that Barry has been the Flash for years and everybody knows him and is used to him and Jay as the elder Flash and Wally as Kid Flash.
And the movie is about Barry’s last adventure as the Flash, ultimately joining the Speed Force and becoming the lightning bolt that gives Wally his powers. (You probably want to retcon Jay’s origin just to make it closer to Barry and Wally’s for the purposes of the flick.) Wally and Jay can help defeat the Big Bad, and somewhere in there Zoom dies, but the important thing is Barry sacrifices himself to save the world. Then, at the end of the movie, Wally puts on the Flash outfit for the first time, says “The Flash lives again!” and that’s your triumphant ending right there – a hero has died, but the legacy continues.
People will eat that shit up with a fork. It’s the superhero story as Greatest Generation-style narrative of shared sacrifice and shared victory.
(And you’ll note, incidentally, that this sets up the sequel for an almost-straight retelling of Mark Waid’s “The Return of Barry Allen” story, which continues the theme of heroic legacy while being an awesome story that translates incredibly well to a filmed narrative.)
ALSO: If and when they ever make a movie for The Flash, they must set a sequence to Madonna and Justin Timberlake’s “4 Minutes,” because that would be awesome.
14
May
So I just saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and it’s good and funny and everybody in it is good and funny, but what the hell is up with Mila Kunis – Mila fucking Kunis of all people – being the single best thing about it?
THE WORLD DOES NOT MAKE SENSE ANY MORE!
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