#to represent how their story starts dire and then ends happily

[rapunzelthecorgi]

My love

[gamersgrp1]

Diving into MACARTHUR by Bob Ong

         Macarthur is a book published by famous author Bob Ong from 2007, this was the author’s first ever work that went for a different path as Bob Ong is known to be a more humorous or comedic type of writer. However, this work went more serious and poked on the lives of the slum community here in the Philippines. The Cover of the book is actually referencing a part in the story with the blurred out red image of a toilet in the background covered by the huge text that says MACARTHUR. The story is about 4 friends being Cryus, Noel, Voltron and Jim. The characters have their own personal struggles throughout the story such as Jim having to take care of  family and Cyrus who has to take care of  grandpa’s medical bills. The story was fun to read with its funny writing and fun moments but what makes it more deeper is that this pokes much more deeper into the lives of people in the slum. With the 4 characters symbolizing a life of a filipino in the slum. The Philippines is in fact known to be one of the most wholesome countries in the world. But the harsh reality the people have to sweep under the rug is that the country has some massive problems such as poverty.

     Bob Ong is known to be a controversial writer amongst the literature community in the Philippines. Although a very famous writer in the country. The true identity is yet to be known to the fans. The way he tackled this specific problem of the Philippines that is poverty is quite special. The story really went deep on how life goes by in the slum. Including youth having to tackle drugs and authorities having a dark side to them. Though the story has some really sad moments. These moments in the real world are not as unique. These sad moments in the story are typical in the slum community due to how lackluster care has been given to this side of the community of the Philippines.

        The book delves deep as to how relationships in families are incredibly weak because of poverty. Noel’s family are always at constant fights against each other for some of the smallest reasons whether that be misplacing of valuables or even small misunderstanding. The family at one point in the story even kicked Noel out of the house out of anger, after going through so much though the thing is, Noel was innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was just mentally tired of being the person of blame for everything going wrong in the family. Like when his sister was looking for certain valuables and immediately pointed the finger to Noel without giving him a voice to speak out. Though in the end the family reconciles and reunites with a better and stronger relationship. The way the book described what happened during these parts of the story would touch certain people’s hearts as some families in that community could wish for a better family or a better life as a family. But most of the time it all goes back to poverty.

     Not everyone is rich and privileged, not everyone experiences such luxury or any creature comforts, not even everyone gets to eat three meals a day, the Philippines is among the countries that is suffering from such poverty.So much to the point where innocent people would grow desperate to the point of drastic measures. Such an example is Cyrus from the story taking someone’s necklace and swallowing it to hide the evidence just to be able to get money from it, all so to take care of a loved one’s conditions.  Such a thing happens in real life as well, and the story just depicts that very well. Considering that the author is the comedic type, the author veering into this area of a sensitive topic is surprising, as it tackled the topic in such a way that more people would be- -aware of the other side of our country’s people, the slums, crime committed due to desperation

       It also talked a bit about how sometimes, the government authorities that everyone looks up to and trusts a lot, have a dark side in them as well as how the more fortunate people have an advantage in society. This was shown when Cyrus was being interrogated after being captured by the police for robbing a woman’s piece of jewelry. The lady quickly blamed Cyrus even though they haven’t given him a chance to defend himself just because of his status as being in poverty and immediately got thrown to jail. And then later on in the story, Cyrus was being used by a government figure most likely a cop as a side source of income using Cryus’ ability to be quick and agile, the cop told him to hand all the valuables he stole to him. This then led Cyrus to be so scared whenever a sign is shown that the cop is nearby and awaiting his bonus income, he would swallow way more non edible material than what his body could handle before including a few packets of drugs and even 1 whole ring of a necklace, adding the fact that Cyrus in the story is the youngest out of the four. It's so unfortunate to hear about this because the youth should really be focusing on their education and their future endeavors. But with the lack of money and power, the youth are stuck in a loop of having to strive to just barely survive in life. Since the youth can’t really do much and not get a job because they don’t have an education, they resort to very dark measures to be able to only afford as much as a basic meal you can get in a fast food chain. It’s also sad seeing how the law figures represented in the book are not what you would expect, society places all trust onto them, always praised for, always reliant for, so much that they would take advantage of it and use it for personal use instead of doing what is right.

     Lastly, it tested the bond and the trust with people. How far one would go to have their bond to be intact and just how long can their patience last as a relationship. During the story, Noel was the punching bag of his family. Even being innocent, his sister if not always blames him for any personal item of hers going missing even with Noel stating clearly without any lies that he has never seen this item before, their mother Aling Sally has been taking and suppressing all her sorrow and anger over the days of non-stop conflict between family members for even a slight mishap at times. Until one day, his sister Lyla’s watch goes missing, after his mom asking him if he recalls seeing it before, he finally snaps. Out of anger, he rushes downstairs, finds Lyla and finds the nearest plastic chair. And without hesitation, he throws it directly at Lyla after not being able to handle it anymore. The tension rises as soon as he starts rushing towards Lyla to start hitting her, the rest of the family then gets involved. After a short time, it stops, but Noel or anyone in the family wanted to witness what just happened, his younger sister has never seen them being as how they were a few moments ago, the already exhausted father unleashes his anger to Noel after that fight and forces him to move out of the house and as well as pouring continuous negative comments on Noel such as “you are a hopeless person” out of anger. But at the end of the story, after what went on with Cyrus, the family make a mutual agreement and they reconcile again living happily ever after, with the dad even offering him to eat with them. The story really tested everyone’s patience in a relationship and as to how far it can go during tense situations. Oftentimes in reality, it's either they break up and never try to reconcile again, or they would forgive each other, but there is still conflict inside them. Deep down inside, they would probably have something they would like to express to the relationship but with the stabbing thought of the other side of the relationship not being able to accept it and tear down the relationship. How long can your relationship go without being brutally honest to each other? Are you even willing to try and express opinions on the relationship?  Is the relationship healthy on both ends? And if so, how would you go about it?

     To Conclude, the story dwells deep into the morbid reality of the Philippines’ situation with poverty and how bad it has become these days to the point where even the youth, the new generation of families in there have to deal with these situations early on in their life, leading them into going through dark routes in their lives cycling to the next newer generation and the process repeats for generation to generation. Unless the government finds the time to handle the situation with more care, then the Citizens of the country will have a dark side to sweep under the rug for a long time. To anyone that is interested in looking at the book. It’s a genuinely good book to read, with its writing style and pacing on how it deals with a dark topic that being poverty in the Philippines. It also showed the test of relationships whether that be friends or even family and how far would you go to do what it takes to be satisfied in life during very dire moments in life. With the comedic lines and moments with also this sudden blend of seriousness would honestly become even someone who doesn’t read much an instant favorite even if they don’t read much if they take their time to read it

[sweetsmellosuccess]

TIFF 2020: Days 5 & 6

Films: 5

Best Film of the Day(s): New Order

Good Joe Bell: Or, The Education of a Straight White Father. What Reinaldo Marcus Green’s film lacks in depth, it tries hard to make up for with earnestness. Mark Wahlberg plays the real-life father, who was in the process of walking across America in honor of his gay son, who committed suicide after being badly bullied in his smalltown Oregon high school, before he was accidentally hit on the road and killed in Colorado, six months into his planned two-year sojourn. The story is cut up between the present, with Joe on the road, doing terse speaking engagements (as Wahlberg plays him, the taciturn Bell isn’t much for public speaking), at local high schools and churches, and flashbacks to the past, as his son, Jadin (Reid Miller), attempts to get through his high school experience while being the subject of bullying, both in-person and via the Internet, until he reaches his breaking point. The message is certainly resonant, and Miller plays Jadin with the right amount of heartbreaking pathos, but Green’s film feels unnecessarily mechanized in order to put Joe front and center of the story (using a hallucination of Jadin at the beginning, which allows Joe to interact with him feels more than a little manipulative). Bell, with his quick temper, and impatience for anything that’s not directly to do with him, is a reasonable stand-in for exactly the type of straight white male who should be watching the film (but more than likely won’t). Wahlberg is gifted at playing this sort of character, who wants to have the full attention of everyone any point in time he chooses (“Did you hear what I said?” he asks incredulously after making an announcement and not receiving the proper praise for it). He’s a complicated dude, which the film alludes to without entirely capturing: He’s ready to fight at a moment’s notice, but shies away from directly confronting any of Jadin’s tormentors; has the good intention to take action to draw attention to the problem, but doesn't seem the least bit prepared to give a speech that really makes an impact (one detail the film does make work: His manner of saying “I love you” to his wife or sons, but only as a way of getting them to say it back to him). Connie Britton plays Lola, Jadin’s mother, a largely thankless role as the nurturer of the family, loving both her sons (Jadin’s brother Joseph is played by Maxwell Jenkins), and staying supportive no matter their father’s attitude. Near the end of his journey, as Joe begins to see the true folly of his ways, he meets a Sheriff (Gary Sinise), whose oldest son is also gay, which allows the two men to sit on the front porch of the sheriff’s house and contemplate the ways in which their lives didn’t go as expected. It’s clearly meant for the kick-ass Wahlberg audience (as Jadin says earlier in the film, they’re the actual problem), but I very much doubt they will be heading in droves to see it.

New Order: Meet the new boss, only in Michel Franco’s damning portrait of a society locked forever in cycles of oppression, revolution, and new oppression, it makes no difference who you are, what your belief system is, or whether or not you subscribe to a moral set of ethics. After an ominous opening montage of imagery largely taken from the film to come, we shortly begin at a resplendent wedding held at the city manse of a wealthy businessman for his daughter, Marianne (Naian Gonzalez Norvind), and her betrothed, Alan (Dario Yazbek Bernal). As Marianne’s mother, Pilar (Patricia Bernal) happily secrets away the envelopes carrying the new couples’ gift money in her safe, and rich and powerful families co-mingle, the distant danger of a furious revolution, lead by violent rioters raising up against the economic disparities of the city, seems at first to be light-years away. Until it isn’t. As rioters infiltrate the house, with the help of an insider, chaos reigns and bullets fly. The next morning, many people have been shot, the house has been utterly pillaged, and Marianne has been taken hostage by a rogue group of military, who snatch up wealthy-seeming refugees and hold them for ransom at an undisclosed outpost. By film’s end, Franco, working from his own screenplay, leaves no man, woman, or child unmarked. The wealthy are callous and vain, the rioters bloodthirsty and cruel, the hostage takers unbelievably greedy and horrible, and the righteous vanquished by further corruption at even higher levels of power. It’s a bit like the ending of a Coen brothers picture (Burn After Reading comes to mind), in which all loose ends are closed, and few, if any, people are any the wiser for it; only, there’s nothing the least bit arch in Franco’s thrown gauntlet: We aren’t spared the worst of it by indelible Coens’ proxies. We are all to blame, it would seem, and it has nothing to do with original sin: Our conniving, violent nature will undo any and all attempts to curb it. Insatiable avarice is our continual undoing, washing over us like the green paint the rioters hurl at passing cars and pedestrians, marking them as the enemy. In Franco’s thunderous film, nobody emerges unscathed; we’re all set on fire.

Wildfire: It’s a hoary Hollywood staple to substitute individuals as emotional stand-ins to capture the direness of historic catastrophic events, scaling everything down so we care more about the couple in star-crossed love than the war going on all around them. In Cathy Brady’s Irish drama, however, a pair of sisters are reunited after a year’s absence in the North Ireland bordertown in which they grew up, products of the uneasy peace, post-Troubles, in which everyone is meant to get along as one country, though hard feelings still abound. Kelly (Nika McGuigan) returns to the staid home of her sister, Lauren (Nora-Jane Noone), after taking off on her own the year before, and, by all appearances, living as a vagabond. Initially thrilled to have her sister back, Lauren is also still angry with her for taking off suddenly and not making any contact since. When the girls were little, their father was killed in a political bombing, and their mother might have committed suicide as a result (the car accident that killed her was, apparently, suspicious). Left to their own devices, then, they developed a fierce protective shell against any outsiders, including, it turns out Lauren’s increasingly concerned husband (Martin McCann), and longtime family friend Veronica (Joanne Crawford). The film changes gears when Lauren finally accepts Kelly again, and the two reform their partnership as intense as it was before. As the film points out, in a real sense, they are all each other truly have in the aftermath of their tragic childhood. The film clicks better into focus as well in its final act, when the sisters are reunited against all comers, and the world around them is better revealed for what it is: They represent the schism still very much a part of their community that no one else wants to see. Instead, people hang about in bars, or at work, nursing the bitternesses and hurts of the Troubles in private, and putting their public energy to getting along. Kelly, with her wildnesses and significant impulse control issues (trying to teach a young boy how to hold his breath underwater is, perhaps, not best accomplished by holding him down until he begins to panic), is at least honest with her feelings, open to her various wounds, and refusing to put the past behind them. Their mother gets referred to as “crazy” in the town’s estimation, but it’s more likely she, like her two daughters, represents the clear-eyed view of someone who refuses to live in denial.

Concrete Cowboy: Philadelphia as an open prairie has a nice vibe, and Ricky Staub’s film about a troubled teen who mother takes him from Detroit to where his father, an urban cowboy, lives in North Philly in hopes to setting the kid straight, is made with genuine care and gets solid performances from its mixture of professional and amateur actors. If this sounds like faintly damning praise, it’s only because despite its strengths, it still feels like a great set-up in search of a suitable story. Based on the real-life Fletcher Street stables (and the novel from Greg Neri), in which locals on the rough streets of the city shelter and take care of a group of horses for the sheer love of riding, the story follows the difficult maturation of Cole (Caleb McLaughlin), a decent enough kid, but searching for his place in the world, and the tough-love tactics of his dad, Harp (Idris Elba), a longtime cowboy, who hasn’t been in his son’s life in more than a decade. Cole starts out hating everything about his new situation, from Harp’s barebones lifestyle (not only are the cupboards empty, and the fridge filled with nothing but Coke and Bud Light, Harp keeps one of his horses in the living room, sharing it with his son), to being forced to muck the stalls out at the stables to earn his chance to ride, takes up with an old friend, Smush (Jharrel Jerome), a charismatic kid caught up in the drug life. Naturally, Cole’s choice comes down to which sort of life he wants to have, his father’s hardscrabble but honest approach (made more attractive when Cole develops a bond with his own horse, Boo), or Smush’s push for increased market share and more money to buy his own piece of land out West. Shot on location in North Philly, and around the city  —  one shot, in which Cole sits astride boo in full silhouette against a mottled purple sky, the lampposts standing in for saguaros, hits just the right note -- Staub’s film has a properly gritty texture, and the use of some of the real Fletcher cowboys adds further verisimilitude, but the story moves predictably enough, beat-by-beat, that it doesn’t hit with the potency it might have been capable of with a less predictable narrative arc.  

In a year of bizarre happenings, and altered realities, TIFF has shifted its gears to a significantly paired down virtual festival. Thus, U.S. film critics are regulated to watching the international offerings from our own living room couches.

[random2908]

Seen on Twitter, https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/1035196520918863873?s=21

a transcript of the tweet thread (tweets quoted within are italicized including links) since I could only otherwise find difficult-to-read screenshots:

A while back, I tweeted that in case anyone isn't clear, we are well past the "first they came for" point.

This is a big story and I'm not sure it's possible for it to get enough attention.

In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings.” Article: http://wapo.st/2PNIf68

I'm sure the "no need to panic" brigade would want us to point out that this affecting "only" hundreds or thousands of Latinx Americans living in a narrow region along the border.

But.

First of all, that's too many people.

Because...

Because here is the thing about due process.

Everybody gets it, or no one really has it.

And from the moment the Trump regime decided it just doesn't apply to "illegal" immigrants, we were always heading here.

Some (white) people replied to suspension of due process for non-citizens by saying "Well, I could prove my citizenship easily." But how do you do that when you're not entitled to any process to prove anything?

If we passed an amendment to the Constitution saying that Constitutional protections don't apply to waterbed repair technicians named Sleven Trusbucket, all the government would have to do is say that's you and you would be out of options for proving them wrong.

And to the sort of person who is sure that life operates on formal logic and strict proof, the sort of person who is sure if they can present the right argument just the right way they can convince anyone of the truth of anything, it feels like there must be some way around that.

But that's part of the horror of a situation like this, part of why Kafka's The Trial is so viscerally uncomfortable to read. The proof does not matter if no one is bound to accept the proof. It feels like it should. It always feels like truth should matter, proof should matter.

Now I said long ago, and again at the head of this thread, that we're past the point of "first they came for". For most of the people reading this, they're still not up to "they came for me", and probably won't be for a while. They're working to expand the ranks of "non-American"

They redefined huge swathes of undocumented immigrants -- including ones working with the system to fix their status -- as "criminals" and "gangmembers" and "animals". They slammed the door in the face of immigrants with papers, finding pretexts to call them "illegal".

They started revoking the citizenship of naturalized citizens for whatever excuse they could find, and the next step is to strip citizenship of natural born citizens who don't fit their profile of a Real American.

Right now their excuse for doing so is restricting them to people born in a border region but the excuse will widen and so will the scope of the action.

And they aren't just moving in one direction here. They've been revoking the passports of trans people while all this is happening.

Now, the flipside of revoking citizenship and "deporting" someone is: the United States cannot bestow citizenship for another country. Just because the man in the low castle thinks someone looks "Mexican" doesn't mean they default to that when they lose US citizenship.

There's been a lot of talk on Twitter about the dangers of statelessness, in regard to Canada and ending birthright citizenship (something the Trumpers would love to do if they can swing it.)

People who lose their citizenship are thrown into a legal limbo, effectively becoming unpersoned for many purposes.”

Tweet/ https://twitter.com/bashirmoham…/status/1033585831544410112… “I am shocked and disturbed that the Conservative Party of Canada voted to end birth right citizenship in Canada.

I say this as someone who was born stateless - legally without a country. I'll tell you my story and why this is move is so reckless and dangerous.”

And while nationalists whip up fear of the foreign, they hate and despise the stateless even more. They're deliberately making the "immigration crisis" worse.

Nazi apologists will be happy to tell you that the great humanitarian Hitler tried so hard to get Jewish Germans settled happily and healthily elsewhere but that no one would take them in, thus leaving him with a problem in need of a final solution.

So what's going to happen when Trump has stripped citizenship from everyone who doesn't "look American", doesn't "look like they should be voting", but there's nowhere to deport all these people, no home country for them to return to?

And maybe you're thinking that we don't have the resources to actually disenfranchise and denaturalize *everybody* who doesn't "look American" buuuut the magic of not giving due process is they don't have to.

If you knew that people whose last names are in the same language as yours are getting rounded up, stripped of rights, and arrested when they go to apply for or renew a passport... how dire would it have to be, before you'd dare try?

And then what if it expands to, say, people showing up at polling places? DMVs? Hospitals?

What if it goes on to the point where "everyone knows" that people with certain names and/or skin tones aren't really citizens and don't have to be afforded any particular rights?

Before the SCOTUS struck down sodomy laws, in a lot of states being seen as gay could be used to justify just about any level of discrimination. Gay couple needs an apartment? "We can't make landlords rent to a criminal if they don't want to." Were the couple ever convicted? No.

But ~*everybody knew*~ what gay people got up into their bedrooms was illegal, doing illegal things made you a criminal, and being a criminal was grounds for termination, eviction, expulsion, exclusion.

Or if you want to see what the future of law enforcement looks like in a fascist state, look at the standards used to arrest and prosecute sex workers.

For years now, in the land of Innocent Until Proven Guilty, you could be arrested for "suspicion" of a victimless crime because of entirely legal materials in your purse and entirely legal conduct within a place you had every legal right to be.

The actual ideal is that the cops could know you're a sex worker, could know for a certain fact that you're engaged in sex work, but if they couldn't prove it then you are an innocent in the eyes of the law. That's how it's supposed to work and how it works for some crimes.

Everyone in town can know that J. Doe up on the hill beats his wife and kids but if the cops can't prove it they will tell you nothing can be done, and proof has to be more than the fear in their eyes or bruises on their arms. Or even him "allegedly" bragging about it.

Meanwhile they'll pick people up off the street for ~*suspicion*~ of sex work and "prove" it through entirely circumstantial means, none of which points to actual lawbreaking.

Now here's the crux of that: being able to claim that any woman carrying condoms (for instance) is a sex worker doesn't mean they detain everyone and make them turn out their pockets.

It just gives them a tool, a weapon, to use when they feel like it.

And that's the future of policing. Increasingly broad rules that could apply to increasingly wide swaths of the population, that can be deployed by the authorities when someone "looks" like they might be trouble, much less starts to actually make any.

They practice these techniques on populations they think they can get away with practicing them on, and when they do get away with it, they start looking to expand.

Cf. stop and frisk in New York City, where white kids were more likely to have marijuana but less likely to be stopped and ordered to turn out their pockets. It was a tool of control.

Obviously I'm talking about practices that go back years before when Trump came to power. He's part of a progression, not the source.

And if you want to know where the progression is heading, just look at how the law has treated people on the margins since the year seventeen seventy forever.

That's where we're heading.

And I don't think enough people are alarmed enough by this.

I saw somebody QTing the Washington Post story at the head of this thread with "And Democrats want to tell us to vote every two years like that's enough."

It's not enough. But we haven't been voting every two years, and that's part of how we got here. Just part. A crucial part.

I think we should add this (specifically: stripping people near the border of citizenship) to the things we call our representatives about, especially but not only if you're in Texas. And if we can vote in a Democratic majority we'll have more tractable reps to yell at about it.

Tweet/ https://twitter.com/herhandsmyh…/status/1035206932938801152… “Plus: we have to start somewhere. Voting every single time is an essential step.”

Essential. Necessary. Not sufficient, but necessary.

A scary thing in all of this: the wave of revocation of trans passports I alluded to upthread doesn't appear to have *originated* anywhere. Select federal employees just decided it's time to start doing it.

I can't tell you from the outside which escalations of "enforcement" (to abuse the term) against immigrants and what I guess are "accused immigrants" among citizens were also spontaneous decisions made at the level at which they occur but I'm sure some of them were.

What I'm saying is, there have always been people within the federal enforcement apparatus and bureaucracy who were waiting for favorable winds to launch their warships.

Tweet/ https://twitter.com/queer_i_am/status/1035207525363200001… “Anti-homeless laws are also a really good example, especially because they target actions _everyone_ does. Pull over after working a night shift to nap and avoid an accident? Illegal.

I stopped to watch a cop once and he got in my space and threatened to take me in on loitering.”

See also: anti-loitering laws. A law against existing in space. Used to run off white kids who aren't driving business, run in anyone the cops feel like making a criminal. Not enforced against anyone ~*respectable*~, who "belongs".

With so much of this enforcement being subjective and self-directed, it is also decentralized. Which makes it harder to block or even attack.

Bank involvement in forfeiture/seizure of assets. (h/t @herhandsmyhands) This should scare you.

Tweet/https://twitter.com/sacbee_news/status/1035172325463736320… “Bank of America freezing accounts of customers suspected of not being US citizens : https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article217567300.html

I know people are waiting for a point where it feels real, where it really feels like Nazi Germany. That point is going to be too far along to have any practical chance of stopping it.

Instead it's going to keep happening piecmeal and every time it happens, those who sound the alarm will be met with "You're overreacting, this isn't like a law against Jewish business ownership, this is only affecting a specific group of people in specific circumstances."

Relax: The monster's not eating your whole body, it's just eating one bite at a time.

The piecemeal, self-directed, subjective nature of these actions makes them harder to fight. Bank of America, the State Department, and DHS are all saying the same thing when questioned on this: "This is the same policy we've always followed." It's just being applied differently.

"We've always exercised discretion..." but now it's being exercised in different directions, towards different ends.

Someone asked what to do, besides be scared:

Make a lot of noise. If we are silent, we are complicit. If the only voices heard are those who support what's happening, they can claim universal assent.

If you work in a workplace, try telling your coworkers, "You know, they're taking citizenship away from people who live near the borders. If they can do that to anyone, they could do that to us. I don't think it's right." You don't have to make it partisan or anti-Trump.

Yell at your elected representatives. Democratic politicians should be aware that the GOP is reshaping the electorate in their favor. It's cynical, but they have to care about that.

Tweet about it, share it on social media. These things are not sufficient but they are necessary.

Vote in November. Same.

I know it feels like making noise isn't doing anything except complaining and we're taught that talk is the opposite of action but I promise you: talk is an action. When there is enough of an outcry they back down. Not all the way always. But slowing and mitigating damage helps.

[lizziebeadleportfolio]

Representation of my own perfume print ad"So Serene"

This task included making my own print ad for a perfume bottle i created. To do this i used my own photography, graphics and photoshop.

The denotation of this print ad media campaign is displaying a girl at a dreamy beach with a light background sunset. She is standing on a pier to the far right with good posture looking down at the perfume bottle in her hand. There are cute fairy lightings hanging in the top corner. She is dressed up all fancy for a night ahead of her with her costume being a lacy burgundy red evening dress. It addresses both, the fragrance name “so serene” in a black feminine font along with the slogan “calm, in the crowd” in a smaller font beneath it. This handwriting is swirly and very attractive to the target audience as its very eye caching as I complements well with the image. This makes it easier for the public to discover the perfume as it stand outs amongst the light colourful background. The gold logo “LB” makes the fragrance more classy and appealing. Furthermore, there is a bunch of social media apps and links to where the audience can discover more. The perfume bottle is a glowing light pink clear bottle with a fascinating gold and white swirly bottle top and it’s in a triangular prism form. The name of the perfume bottle is also stated clearly in dark pink on the bottle itself to make the advertisement top priority. The sweet floral scent is for those who like light fragrances.

However, the image has a further meaning so therefore the connotation is that the girl came to this beautiful place to put her mind at rest and ease her conscious with the therapeutic sounds of the waves. This ad is portraying a confident sophisticated calm girl. The top swirly bottle cap implies an image of waves shifting around to create a peaceful edge. The sunset is effective as it signifies another ending to a day meaning putting all the dire things behind us and let your thoughts relax. Furthermore the sunset is a beautiful aspect generally making people calm indicating a happy ending. It suggests that if you use this wonderful perfume you will magically feel hundred times better as it immediately will release any kind of stress. The audience will get the impression that you will turn into someone like the elegant model in the ad.

Although direct address is not used its very effective how she’s looking at the perfume as its the main topic for the ad meaning all her attention is purely focused on the product implying she has a lot of confidence in the perfume.

The lighting of this image is mostly pure natural lighting of the evening sky. Although the scenery is quite light it is dim and shady compared to the rest of the image so the fragrance bottle will stand out more. However the perfume has a glowing edge to it to make it stand out a lot against the background. Also the fairy lights are bright to suggest an evening party atmosphere.

The main image is a girl in the foreground holding her perfume fragrance in a beautiful island. The girl is a typical modern stereotype who looks very unique with her gingery brownish hair. Her pail skin with freckles complements the vulnerable touch. She follows the criteria of having good posture, skinny, tall and beautiful look to entice the audience so they aspire to be just like her. Also her gorgeous look contrast with the delicate touch of the perfume fragrance.

The medium shot shows from the waist above, screening the sea, sunset and pier in the background. This is an effective shot as it shows the model and the perfume which are the two most important aspects. Moreover, this shot show detail meaning there’s more intimacy with the audience. The camera shot is slightly below eye level which suggests a more friendly tone and she has more power over the audience which is true as the audience is looking up at her to have faith in this product.

The mise en scene is based around a girl who easily gets stress in different atmospheres she’s not comfortable with. As soon as she finds the perfume bottle she suddenly feels perfect and confident and struts back to the party pier with a massive grin on her face.

I believe the social grade classification for this perfume is for people under the category B and C1. I believe this as people under these categories are willing to pay for luxury items. The lifestyle grouping is based for mainstreamers as it helps their security knowing that it has a fan base, it’s very popular and well trusted from the amazing advertisements. They also may be succeeders as the perfume story is that the character suffers from stress and the spray releases her stress. Stress mostly comes under this category as they work hard to get their money and they are able to afford a luxury item like this and they deserve a reward.

The uses and gratification is for the adverts to inform the audience about the new upcoming perfume which may influence discussions of social interaction of this new product with family and friends. Customers may use this perfume to boost their self-esteem as there feel more confident if they smell nice as they will probably get a lot more attention. The language used for the adverts will make the target audience want to go out and buy the perfume as they have been influenced and persuaded. Also the ad will be entertaining attracting more future buyers for the institution.

The institution has recently been introduced and is called “LB” and it’s a luxury brand. The institution use no celebrity endorsement but use ordinary people instead as this story is just about ordinary people who deal with stress. Both the print ad and the storyboard act together in synergy as the sequence finishes on the pier in the storyboard which is where the print ad is shot. The target audience is for teenagers and early 20s who are mostly students as firstly the model in the image is a teen therefore the audience has to also be around that level. Secondly, people who are typically stuck in these stressful situations are teen’s as they are still experimenting. The sunset suggests it’s an evening perfume however it also can be implied that you can spray it whenever you’re feeling down. The slogan is “calm in the crowd” which a lot of ordinary students will love as there is a lot of worrying stressful situations like overcrowded parties, anxiety and exams. Also the audience is in education so they are unlikely to have a highly paid job yet so it’s important the bottle is priced at a standard price.

The primary audience are for those who are interested in the perfume and want to buy it therefore meaning they are the target audience. However, the secondary audience are for the people not buying the perfume for themselves but they are buying it for the primary audience person. The ad will engage all type of audiences as someone could be buying it as gift as it good to make advertisements look good in any possible way.

The Storyboard starts in an overcrowded dark party room, however, the shot starts to get blurry and one girl stands out as she looks terrified and anxious so she exits the building. The character is wearing the average jeans and a basic top like any ordinary person. The next scene is her running on the streets toward the pier where she realises in the distance a glowing perfume floating into the sea shore. She dashes towards it out of curiosity and she slowly picks it up and sprays it and instantly she has a party gear out fit on and her spirit has changed. She is wearing a burgundy lace elegant dress to show off her posture. Out of the corner of her eye she spots a party on the pier and is instantly intrigued so she confidently struts in and has a blast of a time. The final sequence is her happily dancing and then suddenly shifting her position of her head to directly say to the audience “be your calm in the crowd”. She turns back and continues dancing with everyone. Then suddenly the image fades out into a white screen and the perfume bottle is enlarged with the advertisements to the side like the tittle, the slogan and the social media. The slogan represents that in any stressful situations you can be calm with the perfume. A feminine voice reads out “so serene” instantly when the writing is type onto the white screen.

Both my print ad and storyboard show many similarities being that the same fragrance bottle, model and location are used. This shows that there is synergy between the two different media convention to create a better advertisement and it also makes the product stronger in popularity as there is a strong connection. Both contain the same name “so serene” and same slogan “calm in the crowd” to create a better message. My storyboard has a scene showing the print ad which is relevant for the audience to see so there can be a contrast and link between the two. The adverts portray a feeling of pretty scenery and therapeutic sunset. Although, in the storyboard it does show a very violent scene at the party to show what it’s like without the perfume in your life.

[mothermaidenclone-blog]

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 or Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves

I came into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 expecting an irreverently fun film filled with witty quips and near constant mild violence, and I was not disappointed. However, I was caught unawares by how emotional some parts of this film are and also by the complexity of the characters in a franchise whose main selling points involve swearing animals and eighties tunes. Just because the eponymous guardians now share a mythical destiny it doesn’t mean that all of their relationship issues and personal traumas are immediately fixed, which was important to see.

*Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 spoilers follow*

The film starts with yet another beautiful female alien falling head over heels for Peter (Chris Pratt) for no real reason, and I thought that was going to set the tone for the rest of the story, but thankfully it was an isolated incident. Peter’s affections are focused solely on Gamora (Zoe Saldana), whose own feelings seem somewhat more complicated. She obviously likes Peter, but it unclear to what extent exactly, and due to her horrific history of abuse at the hands of Thanos, it is no surprise that she is unwilling to open herself up to that kind of intimacy and possibility for further pain. Therefore, it makes complete sense that she remains guarded and I’m personally very glad that she doesn’t end the film in Peter’s arms.

The person that Gamora chooses to pursue a relationship with in this film is her sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan). At the end of the film, Peter gives a speech in which he says, “Sometimes, the thing you’ve been looking for your whole life is right there beside you all along.” He turns to look at Gamora, obviously as an expression of his romantic feelings towards her, but she immediately leaves to try and reconcile with Nebula, realising that she is the most important person in her life. Her parting words to Nebula are, “you will always be my sister.”

Sister, however, is a very loose term here for the birth-daughter of a genocidal maniac and the girl he took prisoner after murdering her real parents, both of whom were subject to mental and physical torture at his hands. In the first film, Nebula was a bit of a one-dimensional vengeance machine, a ready made antagonist running on the vague fuel of jealousy and hatred, but the specific horrors of her past are revealed in this sequel, making her motives clear. It turns out that Thanos pitted them against each other as children and every time Nebula lost a fight to Gamora he replaced a piece of her with machinery. Gamora managed to escape these horrors and find herself a new family but Nebula, having been disappointed by Ronan in the previous film, has been left to rattle around the galaxy alone with nothing to do but stew in her own anger and single-mindedly pursue vengeance. Therefore, it is no surprise that she spends most of the film trying to blow Gamora up and only after another cosmic apocalypse is narrowly avoided does she have the strength to face Gamora and admit, “I just wanted a sister. You were all I had, but you just needed to win.” Once again, this is a realistic representation of someone who has experienced dire and repeated trauma - of course she isn’t going to run to Gamora with open arms straight away, nor is she going to immediately take her up on her offer to join the Guardians of the Galaxy. However, they do share an embrace, which shows the beginnings of a recovery, leaving the audience not with an and they all lived happily ever after - there is no magical instant healing, but the arguably more satisfying resolution that things are organically starting to get better.

The other main female character (we get three? What a treat!) is Mantis (Pom Klementieff). Seemingly not wanting to break the streak of everyone having a turbulent past, Mantis has been living alone on a planet with a man literally called Ego (Kurt Russel) who has been using her pretty much as a tranquilliser and forcing her to abet him in repeated entrapment and murder. Unsurprisingly, she appears to have basically no self-esteem. Once again, a road to recovery is presented, this time in the form of Drax (Dave Bautista), with whom she begins to develop a friendship - possibly the first of her life. Drax is very supportive, telling her, “You don’t have to believe in yourself because I believe in you”, as well as asserting that she is beautiful on the inside. However, the latter is because he also calls her “disgusting” and makes retching noises at the thought of a sexual relationship with her. Their platonic friendship is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t need to be justified like this - two adults of different genders are allowed to have a loving friendship separate from sex for reasons other than finding each other physically repulsive.

In addition to being presented as three dimensional people, the women in this film are also well represented visually. None of their costumes are too ridiculous by superhero movie standards and in fact we see more male semi-nudity due to Drax being constantly shirtless and Peter taking his top off at one point for no real reason other than a display of his body apparently. Furthermore, Nebula and Gamora (particularly the latter) repeatedly show remarkable displays of physical strength and Mantis has the unique and valuable power of being an empath - they all have skills and abilities that the men simply do not possess.

Overall, the women in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2  are presented as complex human beings. They are recovering from traumas in their past, meaning that sometimes they make bad choices, but sometimes they save the day. They are strong and capable but also allowed to show emotions, and not just romantic love for the leading man but sisterly affection and platonic friendship. The same can be said of the men; everyone is treated as a three-dimensional human being with flaws and feelings, even the talking raccoon and sentient tree.

And now for some asides:

I was not expecting to cry at this movie, especially not at the line, “I guess David Hasselhoff did kinda end up being my dad after all.” I can tell that one’s going to get me every time, it’ll be up there with, “I am no man” in Return of the King.

I cannot wait to see the lady Ravager gang, please do not tease me with that then leave me hanging.

I love how much of a point they made of not killing people at the beginning because the whole gold fleet was remote controlled, then they straight up murdered everyone on that Ravger ship, nice try keeping it child friendly.

I don’t care how much of a marketing ploy it is to sell tiny plastic trees, baby Groot is the cutest thing in the universe.

[easyfoodnetwork]

Getty Images Confronted with growing losses from the pandemic, restaurant owners face personal ruin This is Eater Voices, where chefs, restaurateurs, writers, and industry insiders share their perspectives about the food world, tackling a range of topics through the lens of personal experience. First-time writer? Don’t worry, we’ll pair you with an editor to make sure your piece hits the mark. If you want to write an Eater Voices essay, please send us a couple paragraphs explaining what you want to write about and why you are the person to write it to voices@eater.com. Earlier this month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced a four-phase approach to reopening our state’s economy. For restaurants in Seattle, this means a couple more weeks of to-go and delivery only, followed by an undetermined number of weeks at 50 percent capacity, then 75 percent capacity, and so on until full service is allowed. Similar announcements are being made throughout the country. While we can debate their logic and safety, what isn’t being addressed is what will happen for the number of small, independent restaurants that won’t be able to make it that long or have already closed permanently. These closures will not only shape the culture and community of the cities they inhabited, but also the lives of their owners, who could face personal financial devastation as a result of closing their businesses. This isn’t fair. When I started hearing about a potential global pandemic and began to see mandatory restaurant closures in China and Italy, I knew exactly what many of these restaurant owners must be feeling. As a two-time (now ex-) restaurant owner, I can still feel the visceral dread in my stomach of what one weekend’s lost sales would mean for our bank account — to say nothing of being closed for weeks, or even months. As I watched the situation unfold, I felt an immense amount of guilt for how grateful I was to no longer own a restaurant, but I was resolute in my commitment to help owners get support in any way that I could. In addition to brainstorming solutions for the restaurant group I now work for, I was thankful to be asked to join the advisory board for Seattle Restaurants United, a coalition of small, independent restaurants in the Seattle Area. But it wasn’t until I was on a Zoom call for that advisory board, discussing how we could help restaurants pay (or avoid paying) their bills in the upcoming weeks and months so that they won’t have to close forever, that a board member pointed out what should have been obvious to me much earlier on: Some of these restaurants owners want to close, but can’t. Tired of living on razor-thin profit margins for years, they simply cannot accept being thrown into further debt that they could possibly never escape. They don’t want to pivot to delivery or takeout or whatever model we agree is the best. Some of them cannot reconcile reopening their restaurants with the knowledge that they could be putting themselves or their employees at risk. They want out. The problem is, it’s not that simple. What very few people realize is that when restaurant owners open their businesses, many of them forfeit their exit plan. They collateralize anything they have to get a little more cash. Margins are so thin that they end up putting up their houses, their cars, anything for a lease or a loan, and sign personal guarantees for all contracts. In some cases, walking away can mean personal financial ruin. And so right now, in this time of chaos and terror, our local, state, and federal governments must do what is right and pass legislation releasing these small business owners from their business liabilities, namely their commercial leases, SBA business loans, and any past-due sales or business taxes. I say this having lived through something similar myself, twice. Having narrowly avoided the same issues so many restaurants face right now, I am in the unique position of knowing not only how much they truly need our government’s help, but also why. Restaurateurs are seen as cowboy entrepreneurs with glimmers in our eyes who have no one to blame but ourselves when we fail. Over the past decade I opened, operated, and sold two successful restaurants with my husband. When people ask about it, I usually give them the nice version: We had a beautiful dream that we made happen with equal parts hard work, perseverance, and faith, and then eventually our priorities changed, we decided to sell, and we’ve lived happily ever after. It’s what people generally want to hear and it’s much easier than telling the truth. Telling the truth would mean talking about the pit that lived full time in my stomach, churning over how we would pay for this week’s payroll, or this month’s sales tax, or rent, or a broken sink. It would mean talking about how I cried in my office after an employee called me a bitch for requiring that he know our wine list, screaming profanities at me as he left the building. It would mean talking about how I felt like I never got to see my kid. My feelings sound like complaints, because they are, and I can tell you from experience that no one wants to hear a restaurant owner complain. There is a special disdain reserved for dreamers who complain about their dream. Restaurateurs are seen as cowboy entrepreneurs with glimmers in our eyes who have no one to blame but ourselves when we fail. After all, this was my choice, and everyone knows restaurants are hard. I knew that going in, didn’t I? Even now, writing this, I feel shame for admitting how much I struggled. The fear I felt constantly is a secret that we restaurant owners keep hidden. In public, we share it with each other through subtle glances and knowing smirks. In private, we text each other that we don’t know how much longer we can keep it up. We all know better than to say it out loud and potentially invite the ire of the public or even worse, somehow give the words the power and make it all worse (restaurant owners can be very superstitious). Let me be clear: Restaurant owners love what they do. There is no other reason to do it; they certainly don’t do it for the money. Their restaurants are most likely the loves of their lives, and fear and anxiety simply come with the job. If anything, the fact that they live with so much discomfort and yet still wake up and go to work every day is a testament to how much they love their restaurants. But sometimes, love isn’t enough. About a year into opening our second restaurant, Mean Sandwich, I found myself sitting on my couch at home in the middle of a beautiful day, having what I thought was a heart attack. It was our one day off, the day we were supposed to use to relax and spend time with our 3-year-old daughter, doing crafts and going on walks. Instead, as I felt my chest get tighter, I laid down and yelled to my husband, “Babe, it’s happening again. It feels like I’m going to die.” It was a panic attack, one of many I had during that year. I felt trapped in our restaurant, which wasn’t making enough money to support our family despite its outward success, and on whose income we relied to pay the mountain of debt we had signed on for in order to open it. We had maxed out all of our personal credit cards because we still couldn’t afford to pay both of our salaries, as well as our business cards to pay for improvements to our little restaurant’s backyard. Our business lease was iron tight and personally guaranteed by both of us. We had taken out an SBA loan to open the restaurant, and the monthly payments were nearly as much as our rent. We had no savings whatsoever, so closing the restaurant almost definitely meant having to declare bankruptcy and immediately move in with my parents. It had also taken a toll on our personal life; sometimes it felt like the only things holding our marriage together were inertia and denial. I could feel the noose around my neck tightening every day, and the tighter it got, the less energy I had to find a solution. So I drank and cried and panicked. My story has a good ending: Eventually, like we had with our first restaurant, Thirty Acres, we put Mean Sandwich up for sale and found a buyer, through a friend, who wanted to keep it alive. I cried when we finally sold it, but they were tears of pure relief and gratitude. We had escaped by the skin of our teeth, neither unscathed nor debt-free, but we got out, and I could barely believe it. Although I still grapple with how to move beyond the shame of the mistakes I made, we are better every single day. Restaurant owners do not deserve to go bankrupt over this. Faced with that as their only option, some will choose a more dire one. But while I may relate to what restaurant owners are experiencing during this nightmare, I also recognize the ways that we are different. You see, I got myself in my predicament with our restaurant. I chose to open it and I chose when I was done, and thankfully, it worked out for me. These restaurants aren’t closed because their owners fucked up. Most of them were doing everything right; they were working harder and under more pressure than any of us can possibly imagine. Before they saw their sales start to dwindle and were told to shut down by the state, they were paying their bills and their employees, often providing health care and sick pay, creating places for their communities to congregate, and everything in between. They do not deserve to go bankrupt over this, and trust me when I say that faced with that as their only option, some will choose a more dire one. We can’t let that happen. Instead, these restaurant owners deserve to be told this wasn’t their fault. And then, if they want one, they should be given a way out. What would that look like? First, restaurant owners must be released from being held personally liable for their commercial leases if they have been impacted by COVID-19. While these leases represent private contracts in which the local government does not usually have the authority to intervene, this pandemic clearly represents an abnormal circumstance for which exceptions must be made. We’re already seeing this in the form of proposed bills such as New York City’s 1932-2020 (which the city council passed last Wednesday) and California’s SB 939. Both bills prevent landlords from holding commercial tenants personally liable in the event that they have to close due to COVID-19’s economic impact. They are a good start, and we need to see this type of legislation nationwide. Small-restaurant owners cannot be expected to pay for these leases for the entirety of their terms or even until the landlord is able find another tenant, whenever that is. Even those owners fortunate (or wise) enough to have “good guy guarantees,” which release them from having to pay out the entire lease term as long as certain conditions are met, are still usually beholden to paying landlords a minimum of three to six months of rent in addition to any rent they are behind on. Second, in addition to their current offer to defer loan and interest payments for six months, the Small Business Administration must forgive all existing business debt for restaurants that decide to close. There is no reason a restaurant owner should face bankruptcy when those loans are supposed to be secured by the SBA. And last, federal grants should be provided to restaurants that are unable to open — without concern for how likely they are to reopen — so that they can pay any employees they have been unable to pay for past work as well as pay for any unpaid sales or business taxes. To naysayers who might say this is too far-reaching, I would point out that just as it is unfair that restaurants were told to close indefinitely without any imposed fixed expense relief, it would also be unfair to let restaurants close without ensuring support for the rest of the ecosystem that relies on them. Now is the time to consider holistic approaches to the problem, rather than solutions that simply shift the problem onto others. These restaurant owners haven’t done anything wrong. They stepped up and closed their doors for the safety of their communities and it ruined them. It isn’t fair that we leave them to deal with cleaning up the mess on their own. But they don’t need a handout, or your pity. What they need instead is a large-scale solution tailored to the restaurant industry. They are hard-working and creative entrepreneurs; give them an inch, they will make it into a mile. But for those who are done, who don’t have any energy left to pivot, who are facing down months of bills and debt while they wait for a workable solution that may never come, we need to offer an escape hatch. Trust me: They will figure out what to do next. Alex Pemoulié is a Seattle-based writer and the director of finance for Sea Creatures restaurant group. She previously owned and operated two restaurants, Thirty Acres and Mean Sandwich, with her husband. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2LEmYLo

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/05/some-restaurant-owners-want-to-close.html

[xeford2020]

Battle of the Superheroes: DC vs. Marvel

DC’s superhero stories, like this 1961 issue of The Flash, invariably ended happily—with problems resolved and loose ends neatly tied up. THF305327 Marvel superheroes often questioned both their superpowers and their general existence, as suggested on this dramatic cover of issue#50 of The Amazing Spider-Man.* The Flash, the Hulk, the Thing; Batman, Ironman, Spider-Man; the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy.  On and on it goes.  The list of comic book superheroes can seem almost endless.  How do you tell them apart?  To get you started, it helps to know their origin—their company of origin, that is.  With a few exceptions, all comic book superheroes trace their origins back to the talented writers and artists who created them at only two companies—DC and Marvel.  From their beginnings, these companies differed radically in their approach to superheroes, and these differences can still be discerned today.  Superman comic book, 1951 THF141569

DC Comics

Comic book superheroes originated back in the 1930s with Superman.  This superpowered alien was the brainchild of two shy but talented teenage boys from Cleveland, Ohio—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.  Pooling their drawing and writing talents, they devised the story of a he-man they simply called “The Superman,” who crash-landed on earth from another planet.  To keep his true identity safe, Superman needed to adopt a secret identity.  Enter Clark Kent, a meek, mild-mannered reporter with a personality remarkably similar to the two boys who had created him. 

Siegel and Shuster originally thought their character would lend itself to a great newspaper comic strip.  But they had no luck selling the idea to newspaper publishers, so they reluctantly agreed to sell their story in 1937 to the just-formed Detective Comics, Inc. (later shortened to DC).  Comic books—especially those featuring single characters rather than simply being collections of comic strips—were as yet an untested medium and both the young creators and the publisher took a risk.  Superman first appeared in Action comics (published by National Allied Publications, another corporate predecessor to DC) in June 1938.  Surprising everyone involved, he was immediately so popular that the publishers decided to feature him in his own comic book the very next year.  This marked the first time a comic book was devoted to a single superhero character. 

During the hard times of the Great Depression, Superman’s unprecedented popularity can be attributed to both his secret and his super identities.  Clark Kent represented the regular, unassuming common man that people could relate to, while they could happily dream and fantasize about being as infallible and invincible as the larger-than-life Superman. Wonder Woman comic book, 1948 THF141561

The formula was potent and durable.  Superman established the essential vocabulary for all DC comic book superheroes to come.  He, like superheroes who came after him, represented courage, humility, steadfastness, and a natural sense of responsibility to serving others in need.  He placed lofty principles above personal advantage, seeking nothing for himself.  As the Great Depression shifted to the patriotic World War II era, new DC superheroes like The Flash and Wonder Woman similarly placed the greater good above their own personal needs.  They never questioned their role in defending American democracy.  And, following the DC formula, they always triumphed in the end. During the late 1940s and 1950s, young readers were more likely to purchase a comic book about the humorous adventures of teenager Archie Andrews than one about a superhero. THF141542

During the 1950s, sales of comic books declined, especially those about superheroes.  Not only were adults concerned about the harmful effects of comic books on children, but superheroes seemed to lose their sense of purpose.  During the war years, it had been easy to know which side they were on.  What were they fighting for now?  Who exactly was the enemy?  Only Superman’s popularity continued apace, due to the popular TV series, The Adventures of Superman, which aired from 1951 to 1957.  It was through this series that the American public came to know Superman as championing “truth, justice, and the American Way.”  The Legion of Super-Heroes, a group of super-powered teenagers who join together to fight villains in the 30th century, have been popular DC superheroes since 1958. THF305330

By the late 1950s, DC superheroes were making a comeback, with both new and revived characters and a host of new supervillains for them to face.  New stories were created to fit the times, usually focusing either on scientific advancements (always seen as a positive force) or science fiction.  DC superheroes were competent, in control, and single-minded in their devotion to simply being heroic.  They solved any problem they encountered in a well-ordered world—a world that, for each character, had to be internally consistent.  Stories were comforting, positive, optimistic, reassuring, rational, and moral.  Superheroes used their powers responsibly, inevitably siding with established authority. This DC series, which started way back in 1941, featured Superman and Batman teaming up to battle villains. THF305328

The popularity of DC superheroes continued through the 1960s, spiking again with the trend-setting Batman TV show (which aired 1966-68), as well as their being featured on Saturday morning cartoons, in Broadway productions, and through related merchandise.  By this time, DC had settled on a standard and successful formula for its superhero stories: colorful and dramatic covers that grabbed kids’ attention, then a focus on plot development that would inevitably lead to a happy ending.  Little room was left for developing individual characters.  The editors at DC felt that this formula appealed to kids and young teenagers—their core market.  Why mess with success? Tales to Astonish #60, from 1964, featured two stories of classic Marvel superheroes: Giant-Man (introduced in 1962 as Ant-Man) with his female partner the Wasp, and The Incredible Hulk, re-introduced after his own series had been cancelled the previous year. *

Marvel Comics

In the late 1930s, following quickly upon the success of Superman over at DC, Timely Comics (later to become Marvel) introduced The Human Torch and Sub-Mariner.  The ultra-patriotic Captain America followed them during the World War II era.  But Marvel superheroes truly came into their own in the early 1960s. 

The Comics Code Authority stamp of approval THF141590 (detail)

The public attack on comic books in the 1950s had put a damper on the comic book industry, forcing several companies to go out of business.  It was risky even being in the business at the time.  But partly because he figured he had nothing to lose at that point, talented Marvel writer (and later visionary editor) Stan Lee tried a new approach to superheroes that would change the course of comic books forever.  He decided he could work within the constraints of the industry’s new self-censorship board, the Comics Code Authority, while at the same time dealing with more serious topics and stories.  This Marvel Collectors’ Item Classics from 1965 marked the first time that early classic Marvel stories were reprinted—in this issue, Fantastic Four #2 (January 1962); The Amazing Spider-Man #3 (July 1963); the Ant-Man story from Tales to Astonish #36 (October 1962); and Journey to Mystery featuring The Mighty Thor #97 (October 1963). * The new superheroes that Lee created had relatable personalities, human flaws, and real-life problems.  Their stories were purposely aimed at a new audience of older teenagers, who were wrestling with their own insecurities and feelings of alienation.  These stories also questioned the scientific advancements of the Atomic Age that DC had embraced as positive forces in people’s lives.  What if science ran amok?  What if things went horribly wrong? What if there were dire consequences?  Many Marvel superheroes, in fact, gained their superpowers because of horrific scientific accidents.  Even though the Human Torch and the Thing were both members of the Fantastic Four, in this issue of Strange Tales from 1964, a villain named the Puppet Master manipulated them into fighting each other. *

It started with the Fantastic Four in 1961—Lee’s answer to an assignment to come up with a team like DC’s recently created and very popular Justice League of America.  Lee had long thought that typical superheroes were too perfect, that “the best stories of all…are the stories in which the characters seem to be real.  You feel you know them, you understand them, you can relate to them.”  This “Fantastic” superhero family had four distinctive personalities.  Furthermore, they did not act like the polished, restrained, polite superheroes with which comic book readers had long been familiar.  They argued, mistrusted each other, had tempers, expressed opinions, led complicated lives.  Rather than the public cheering them on in the stories, people feared and were suspicious of them. 

The Fantastic Four were a revelation—like no other superheroes that had come before.  Older teenagers—for whom DC superheroes had come to seem shallow and one-dimensional—found them original, realistic, exciting.  One fan remarked that turning from the Justice League and Superman to the Fantastic Four was like “stepping through a gateway into another dimension.”  The Green Goblin, one of The Amazing Spider-Man’s most hated enemies, planned to reveal Spider-Man’s secret identity to the world in issue #39 from August 1966, but in the process, he dramatically revealed his own true identity. *

Marvel quickly followed the popularity of the Fantastic Four with The Incredible Hulk (1962), who not only turned into a brutish monster as the result of a nuclear accident but didn’t even look, act, or sound like a superhero.  In 1963, Marvel introduced its most quintessential superhero—The Amazing Spider-Man, an ordinary teenager beset by ordinary teenage problems who, having acquired super-powers after being bitten by a radioactive spider, only reluctantly sets out to fight crime and villains. Dr. Strange, introduced in Strange Tales in 1963, gained his own title in 1968 and made regular appearances across the Marvel universe. *

A quick succession of superheroes followed, each character with his or her own manner of speech, personality, values, and quirks.  By the late 1960s, Marvel had woven together an integrated mythology of all its superheroes, in which stories continued, superheroes made guest appearances in others’ stories, and characters could be heroes one day and become villains the next (and vice versa).  Marvel’s The Silver Surfer was introduced as a tortured soul, permanently exiled to Earth on a surfboard-like craft as punishment for betraying the evil Galactus on his home planet. *

The Marvel formula, as laid out with Fantastic Four in 1961, became the standard.  Stories and characters often focused on alienated and even neurotic individuals with character flaws, inner struggles, and personal grudges.  Endings weren’t always happy or satisfying.  Superheroes didn’t always get along or leverage their powers to help others.  In Marvel superheroes, readers recognized their own failings, struggles, and anxieties.  As opposed to DC’s black-and-white world, the Marvel world was gray—more like the real world. This DC comic book series, about a group of misfit and alienated superheroes, was conceived in the Marvel mode but was never as popular as Marvel’s stories of similar outcast groups of superheroes like The X-Men. THF141602

Since the 1960s, most superhero stories in comic books have become darker, more complex, and more serious—often tackling social issues with a gritty realism.  This trend has brought DC and Marvel stories, characters, and mythologies closer together in content and tone, though the differences between them are still definable because these are so deeply embedded in their DNA. The King Kon Comic & Fantasy Convention, which ran from 1984 to 1986, was the first regular comic book convention in the Detroit area after the demise of the multi-genre Detroit Triple Fan Fair (that had run from 1965 to 1977).  King Kon was a predecessor to the current annual extravaganza, Motor City Comic Con, which began in 1989. *

Superheroes can now be found pretty much everywhere, from Comic Cons to an expanding array of movies, TV shows, mobile games, action figures, and other merchandise.  Their worlds are constantly growing, expanding, and changing.  It’s easy to get confused.  But don’t worry. If you’re trying to make sense of it all, start with the superheroes’ origins.  Are they DC or Marvel?  Knowing that will set you off on the right track.

Donna R. Braden is Curator of Public Life at The Henry Ford.  See her other blog posts, Hooked on Comic Books and Comic Books Under Attack.  Items marked with an asterisk (*) are from the author’s collection.

#1 Ford Daily | Đại lý – Showroom ủy quyền Ford Việt Nam 2019 Ford Daily là showroom, đại lý Ford lớn nhất Việt Nam: Chuyên phân phối xe ô tô FORD như: EcoSport ✅ Everest ✅ Explorer ✅ Focus ✅ Ranger… info@forddaily.com 6A Đường Trần Hưng Đạo, Phường Phạm Ngũ Lão, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh 711240 0901333373 https://forddaily.com/ https://forddaily.com/xe/ https://forddaily.com/dai-ly/ https://forddaily.com/bang-gia/ https://forddaily.com/tra-gop/ #forddaily #dailyfordhcm #fordshowroomhcm https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ford+Daily/@10.7693359,106.696211,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x1f188a05d927f4ff!8m2!3d10.7693359!4d106.696211