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Originally Posted by Eliza Hodgkins 1812
You’re also approaching them with an air of condescension in this post that’s been absent during in person conversations we’ve had, so I’m a bit thrown.
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I didn't mean to condescend, especially because I don't feel condescension towards comic book as genre. I wasn't trying to imply that I don't think the genre is an art form or valid fiction. It certainly is.
What I was trying to say is that if I'm supposed to accept that a Noir-inspired film is bloated and tacky *because* it's derived from a comic book, then I don't like what that says about comic books. But I went on to say (in what seems to have been a garbled way) that I'd read comic books that didn't seem bloated or tacky at all. And just to clarify, I haven't come across a one that seemed very intent on its coolness. If it was cool, it just was. That part of my statement wasn't a slam against all comic books, but an attempted acknowledgement that, in fact, circlejerkery *isn't* the kind of thing I note in the comic books I've read.
But something about Rodriguez's film rubbed me the wrong way. It *did* seem intent on its coolness. It came across as very self-admiring-- it's Rodriguez and Miller's fanboy-on-fanboy action that bothers me, not the wrighting of graphic art and novels in general. If I participated in Sin City geekery, I may not have noted it within this film.
But I am not a part of that geekery. I don't enjoy gratuitous violence. What I like about the aged cheddar you get in a Noir all comes from cleverness-- of the characters, of the dialogue, of the way it is filmed. What I saw in Sin City didn't seem like cleverness. Rather, a depiction of brute and sex-as-commodity. Which is well and good if that kind of thing interests you.
But that's not the kind of thing that interests me... so watching that brand of geekery celebrated left me cold.
I *so* did not mean to belittle the comic book genre. I just didn't enjoy this particular sector of it.