Stockholm is Beautiful This Time of Year
July 7th, 2009 by Esther Inglis-Arkell | Tags: DC comics, Gail Simone, Secret SixIn Secret Six #11– oop, spoilers.
In Secret Six #11, Artemis, an Amazon has been captured by a group of slavers for whom the Secret Six are working. As a group of them are putting her in her cell, it becomes clear that they are going to rape her. Things are looking bad, until one man, a supervisor, comes in and disperses the men, telling them that they will receive his ‘disciplinary recommendation’ in the morning.
He then offers her water, and tells her that she can pursue action against the men who tried to rape her.
She tells him that he’s worse than the other men, that he harbors delusions that he is a good man despite what he does, ending with “I’ve seen your eyes, and on the whole I believe I would prefer the company of the filth you sent away.”
It’s a strong stand. Most people would be grateful for an ally, even a limited one, in such a harsh environment. She shrugs off help.
It’s the right stand, too. Perhaps it isn’t clever, practically speaking, to alienate someone with power over you, but to be grateful to one’s captors for not raping you as well as kidnapping you is stomach-turning.
It’s also a stand that the very same issue of Secret Sixseems to negate. At the very beginning of the issue, Deadshot has murdered a woman who was escaping from the slavers. They are about to cart her body away, and he insists on picking the body up himself. He is so adamant that he nearly starts a fight with the slavers. It seems unusual behavior (I suspect shenanigans.) but within the text I think we’re supposed to read that Deadshot feels responsible and is in some symbolic way making it up to the woman. Obviously, feeling slightly bad after you have just gunned someone down doesn’t redeem anyone, in any way. But that is the sentiment the issue is going for.
That is, in fact, the sentiment that the series is going for. The Six are horrible, horrible people who do unimaginably cruel things. And we like them. Why? Because often, they’re just a little bit better than the other guys.
It doesn’t stop at this series. Some men psychologically torture prisoners in Secret Six, and we hate them. Batman beats, terrifies, and tortures information out of people all the time, and it doesn’t give us pause. He does it to fight crime, after all. He’s a good guy.
In fact, how many movies or television series are there out there about thieves, or robbers, or murderers who we sympathize with because they occasionally show us flashes of nobility? Quentin Tarantino makes a career out of making us like not-quite-as-bad-as-the-other-bad-guys. The Dollhouse series still makes feeble attempts at getting us to sympathize with the people in charge. And of course, I’ve written before about how it works, dramatically, when the unbelievably brutal older guy holds back his natural cruelty to become a mentor for a cute little kid.
I can’t fault any of this. I can site examples of it off the top of my head because I consume it and I enjoy it. And I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
However, whenever people talk about Stockholm Syndrome, abuse victims coming to like and identify with their abusers, they shake their heads in disbelief. Implicit in this disbelief is the idea that we unbrainwashed few are different. We won’t be as easily swayed. We will keep our heads. I think, looking at the culture around us, that it is pretty obvious that we’re deluding ourselves.
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Without Stockholm Syndrome, we would not have our current celebrity-obsessed culture.
Having said that, I can’t tell whether we or the celebrities are the victims.
I think you’re really on to something here, especially when you write that “[t]he Six are horrible, horrible people who do unimaginably cruel things. And we like them. Why? Because often, they’re just a little bit better than the other guys.” Very true.
This is something that I’ve philosophied about myself on occasion. Fiction (especially in the 20th Century) is rife with characters who function in this manner. When their actions are viewed objectively, characters like, for example, James Bond, John Constantine, The Punisher and The Authority aren’t really heroes, they just appear that way to us because the people they fight are so much worse than they are (you could even make this argument for Achilles, Robin Hood and, as you astutely did, Batman).
What is especially interesting in this case is that The Secret Six aren’t even portrayed to be ‘good guys,’ like the characters I’ve just mentioned (well, except for The Punisher). In their series, there is no (or, at most, little effort) to hide their villainy, and like you say, we still like them.
This series and Wonder Woman combined have put an end to any faith I had in Gail Simone to deliver a good story 50% of the time. From the very moment that a Knockout-lookalike popped out of a cake, Secret Six has been childish and awkward, like Bane meets Hello Kitty meets true crime meets a twelve-year-old girl who draws horses on her Trapper Keeper.
When that stripper reappeared as a love interest, I put the book down for good and pretty much swore off Simone.
@Derk van Santvoort:
“What is especially interesting in this case is that The Secret Six aren’t even portrayed to be ‘good guys,’ like the characters I’ve just mentioned (well, except for The Punisher). In their series, there is no (or, at most, little effort) to hide their villainy, and like you say, we still like them.”
This is true. But because they’re villains, I don’t know whether it’s because we like them because they’re just that little bit better, or whether we enjoy putting ourselves in their places because we can shrug off morality without feeling the consequences. One of the major parts of Stockholm Syndrome is believing that the abuser isn’t a bad person, or has a good reason to do what they do.
@Jbird: Really? I love Secret Six, despite it not being the kind of series I generally enjoy (having violence, villainy and torture). And I’m a huge fan of Gail. I guess you’re not into her brand of storytelling?
I didn’t love the stripper bit, and I never read books about the bad guys, but I like what Gail does (and Nicola — I really like her art, which is rarely mentioned when people go on praising or criticizing Simone) with the book. Gail has a lot of specific talents as a writer (characterization and humor being most often mentioned), and while the whole doesn’t always gel perfectly, I think she always serves up something interesting.
Tangent — I thought the current WW storyline ran too long, feeling padded not to fill out the trade, but in an attempt to make the stakes and scope seem larger. Still, while I quibble about the Diana Prince identity Gail was saddled with, and the Nemisis thing (he’s never been presented as a worthy suitor) and yet another apparent change to the status of the Amazons or Diana’s relation to them, overall I think that’s a fine book, too, and I’m always eager to get ahold of the next issue.
@Jbird: You just KNOW she’s going to refute your point in an intelligent and witty way before this week is over.
We need more writers like Gail.
Incidentally, I liked the use of the stripper character in SS because it’s one of those rare times that a sex worker is shown to be a human being in mainstream comics, something I can only recall happening, off the top of my head, in Gaiman’s Sandman: Brief Lives. She talks nicely to people and philosophises about life and goes out on dates.
I’m not exaggerating with how badly people in that terrible business are treated in mainstream comics. Look at just last week: Marvel decides to demonstrate the character flaws of Venom by having him pick up hookers, check that they have no relatives, and then devour them. In TWO separate comics, no less, one promoting the company’s flagship character. You had that sort of crap in a cheap TV series or bestselling thriller, there’d be an uproar.
You gotta do better.
@Jbird: “Secret Six has been childish and awkward, like Bane meets Hello Kitty meets true crime meets a twelve-year-old girl who draws horses on her Trapper Keeper.”
ROFL! That’s the best description EVER. Right on. I never knew what it was about Secret Six that made me uncomfortable. Now I do. Grin.
*Are* the Six better than “other guys” simply because they make pretensions of morality? That’s the question the series comes back to for me. Because I don’t know that any of the Six are that much better than the rest of the B & C-list Supervillain community. We just see their perspective, and somewhere along the line that’s translated into them being protagonists.
“The Dollhouse series still makes feeble attempts at getting us to sympathize with the people in charge.”
I think they work, at least to the extent they are supposed to. Now, I’ve only seen up to episode 8, but I CAN sympathise with DeWitt and the rest of the staff because, quite simply, no one is a hero.
Echo is the protagonist, but she got her boyfriend killed. Paul is trying to bring down the Dollhouse, but really, he’s just playing out an adolescent sex/rescue fantasy with Caroline/Echo. Boyd has a kind nobility and honour, but he still works for the Dollhouse, which completely undercuts it at the same time.
The rest of the Dolls are hiding from the consequences either of their actions or what they have experienced. In the end, as Joss said in many interviews, everyone is compromised. So, sympathising with Topher’s social ineptitude makes as much sense as lamenting Ballard being suspended from the FBI. If we can believe Boyd thinks he’s doing good, then we can believe DeWitt thinks she’s doing good.
Which (finally) drags us back onto the topic at hand – and I think Paul Wilson hit the nail on the head here; we assume the Six are the “good guys” because it’s their book and their POV. I would be shocked if that assumption isn’t challenged at some point, probably very harshly.
I’m really not big on sexual assault in my superhero comics, though it’s admittedly far more appropriate for Secret Six than most.
@BringTheNoise: Regarding Dollhouse, I guess I have certain lines, and once you cross them, I don’t give a damn about your motivations. Brainwashing a woman and sending her to sexually service the guy who destroyed her life means I want you dead, even if you are conflicted about what you do. Seriously, I hope Topher, Dewitt, Boyd and now Ballard are beaten to death slowly.
@Paul Wilson: Hmm. I don’t think they’re better than Catwoman, but they seem to be better than whoever they are currently fighting in their series.
@Esther Inglis-Arkell: Ok, I’ll admit that the people in the current arc seem to be a special brand of bastard, but let’s pull six names from the first arc. If Gail Simone wrote a book about the adventures, viewpoints and backstories of say Bolt, Cheetah, Killer Shark, Lady Vic, Black Spider and Mr Terrible working together, would we be rooting for them?
In short, are the Six protagonists because they’re more likeable, or do we like them more because they’re protagonists?
@Paul Wilson: You can ask the same question about any of the heroes of an early Tarantino movie (back before he went sour).
@Stig: Yeah, but I don’t think even Tarantino would claim his protagonists were any better than the antagonists (note, I never use the word “hero”). They’re horrible people doing horrible things to other horrible people. We just get to spend more time with one group of horrible people.
@Esther Inglis-Arkell: “This is true. But because they’re villains, I don’t know whether it’s because we like them because they’re just that little bit better, or whether we enjoy putting ourselves in their places because we can shrug off morality without feeling the consequences. One of the major parts of Stockholm Syndrome is believing that the abuser isn’t a bad person, or has a good reason to do what they do.”
I think it’s certainly true that we like them because they’re better than the other guy, but when it specifically comes to our views of their villainous actions, I’d go for the latter option. There’s a big appeal in the idea of someone just doing doing what they want, especially when it’s about making someone pay who we feel has it coming (and because it’s all fictional and no one’s really hurt). It’s cathartic.
Obviously, if the characters were completely unlikable that wouldn’t work, because identifying with them becomes too difficult (imagine Carnage or The Joker in this situation!), so it also has to be a mixture of the two options. Of course, all of that would become much more problematic if The Six were to start committing real atrocities, stuff we can’t explain away for ourselves, I’m not sure if we’d like them if that happened.
@BringTheNoise: “we assume the Six are the “good guys” because it’s their book and their POV.”
I’m not sure that reasoning works. I mean, does anyone read Richard III, A Clockwork Orange or The Invisible Man and think that Richard, Alex or Griffin are good or likeable?
@Paul Wilson: “In short, are the Six protagonists because they’re more likeable, or do we like them more because they’re protagonists?”
Not to nitpick, but doesn’t protagonist just mean that someone’s the leading character in a story? I’m not sure where liking someone comes into the equation.
@Derk van Santvoort: “I’m not sure that reasoning works. I mean, does anyone read Richard III, A Clockwork Orange or The Invisible Man and think that Richard, Alex or Griffin are good or likeable?”
Well, Alex has a rather worrying numbers of fans, but I take your point. However, it does make it a lot easier to overlook the bad side of the characters.
@Esther Inglis-Arkell: As I said, only up to episode 8. That was only briefly touched upon (assuming we’re talking about the same thing), so that has really sunk in for me yet. I may reconsider as time goes on.
@Derk van Santvoort: Esther claimed the Six were “just a little better” than their ilk. I’m wondering if that’s inherant to the characters themselves or if you could take any six C-list supervillains, make them the protagonists and replicate the formula.