I watched Watchmen, I thought it was quite good. I never really rated the source material though.
The film made me think about vigilantism as a whole. I decided to look into it and extracted the below definition from a well-known, often vandalised online encyclopedia:
"A vigilante is a person who violates the law in order to exact what they believe to be justice from criminals, because they think that the criminal will not be caught or will not be sufficiently punished by the legal system."
A vigilante by definition, is exactly what the vigilante works to prevent. It's this contradiction that has me scratching my head and wondering, how do comic writers manage to evoke credibility from these kinds of people? These people are as bad, if not worse than the people they seek justice from.
Most real-life vigilantes live in council estates, they're the fuck-mouthed dregs of society. They drink in fug-filled pubs and scorn immigrants and liberalism, flaunting their lack of education as if it is in itself a liberation from the confines of do-gooder indoctrination. Their short-sighted condemnation of every miscreant in the country merely highlights their lack of forethought...without criminals, they are nothing...their complaints are void and they have to live in their shitty house, with their shitty family until they can blame their shitty lives on someone else.
I googled 'vigilante' and this was the second hit
I hate thug mentality, I hate how lesser humans rally together for issues that ultimately have no influence on their lives. It's unnatural, it's offensive. A mix of flamboyant posturing and sociopathic ignorance. I do enjoy the drivel the above site preaches, some armchair hard man thinking he can solve the world's problems with glorified witch hunts...Notice the varied outcomes of actual bodily harm that make up the site's border. Quaint, wouldn't you say?
Real-life vigilantes are pathetic rejects of the Dirty Harry generation, a time too young to have experienced the 'better' times they reference in their incompetent overtures. So why isn't Batman comatose on a sofa in a council house somewhere, with a heavily-circled copy of the Sun newspaper lying open next to 6 empty cans of cheap lager?
Because that wouldn't sell comics would it?
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I think Rorschach was the best character in the movie and they do show that, realistically, as a vigilante, he's kind of not all there.
ReplyDeleteI've never actually seen any vigilantes out beating up drug dealers recently, but I'll be sure to alert you if I do.
It doesn't feel right bringing up the Watchmen without mentioning Doctor Manhattan's blue genitals.
That's better.