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Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The Mundanity of Evil Nazi Hitler Bunker Porn
So I'm reading Desolation Jones #1 and enjoying it a great deal - the writing by Warren Ellis is strong, J.H. Williams' art is as great as ever - when I get to the "plot" of this first story arc. Specifically, the titular hero is asked to hunt down some homemade porn featuring Adolf Hitler.
How... silly.
And not silly as in "it can't possibly exist". That's beside the point, of course. Silly as in "this tries to be outrageous and transgressive but Don DeLillo wrote the final word on secret Hitler porn reels in the novel Running Dog over twenty-five years ago".
You know. That kind of silly.
As a writer approaching the prime of his career (a prime which started with The Names and lasted up to Underworld as far as I'm concerned), DeLillo wasn't going to settle with just throwing around the idea of Hitler making homemade orgy flicks in the Bunker. In the end, it was just a McGuffin. He used the fabled sex reel as a chance to explore Nazism as a symbology of evil, the mediation of sex (and humanity) in pornography, the military industrial complex as the standard-bearer of American ideology...
I haven't read the novel in several years, but I remember how powerful the novel's end was, when he finally delivered the McGuffin and turned all expectations upside-down.
Will Ellis do something as similar, as bold and thoughtful, speaking to the heart of the matter and not just going for shock value with this premise?
Maybe. He has used shock value to explore deeper issues in previous stories. The Hellblazer story about a Japanese atrocity exhibitionist comes to mind. His initial run on Stormwatch built up to a powerful indictment of modern politics while providing a great deal of needle-in-the-eye superhero grotesquerie. (Something continued with a secret agent twist in the excellent Global Frequency.) Planetary has provided some startling pop-cultural cross-pollination: Yukio Mishima and Godzilla and the disillusionment of post-war Japan, America's Nazi-driven space program and the Fantastic Four as examples of compromised nationalist ambitions. And of course, Transmetropolitan used future shock excess to expose how technology helps people to become more truly themselves - both the good and the horrendously, horrifyingly bad.
That said, Ellis also has occasional lapses of being too clever by half, employing superficially transgressive ideas in a manner that's meant to be shocking... but is only effective if your own imagination doesn't stretch very far. It's far too easy to come up with a combination of nasty ideas - say, semen-soaked baby-skin lampshades (extra points for the unsubtle historical allusion) - and get the desired effect. That doesn't make it deep or cool or even interesting beyond that initial reaction.
And not that chuckles can't be derived from such throwaway lines as "Everything goes better with bukkake" (also from Desolation Jones #1). But I'm holding out for more than that, especially from a writer whose shown such strength and humanity as Ellis.
Ellis often shocks for a good reason, other times he shocks just for its own sake - and for me, at least, it feels empty when he does the latter. I think part of it is Ellis trying to live up to his reputation (or, as some may contend, his self-created hype) as an angry, cutting-edge visionary. Another part may simply be the law of averages - not every twist you attempt will hit home, after all.
The Nazi porn story is a six-parter, so there's a very good chance Ellis will take the time to go past the surface shock and pomo naivete of his chosen premise. I hope he uses it to make observations different from DeLillo's, more relevant to our own times in the way that DeLillo captured an aspect of post-Vietnam America in Running Dog.
That said, for the first time in my experience as an Ellis reader (and fan), I find him standing toe-to-toe against a literary giant... and I can't help but think he's going to blink. It's not that I revere DeLillo above Ellis, but that the premise of Hitler porn is striking enough to look back to my first, best encounter with this idea.
I'm not saying certain ideas become creatively untenable after a particularly strong approach is taken. However, you have to realize if you're standing in somebody's shadow and anticipate its effect on your audience. It's like listening to a gifted singer do a cover version of a popular song - for example, Carrie Underwood's version of "Cryin'", while technically strong, paled before Roy Orbison's haunting original. (It's a frequent hazard of American Idol - don't copy the big guns unless you know you can outgun them. Too many do it anyway.)
I hope Ellis is up to it. I know> he's gifted enough to do it. But considering what he's stacked against, I can't help but feel wary.
How... silly.
And not silly as in "it can't possibly exist". That's beside the point, of course. Silly as in "this tries to be outrageous and transgressive but Don DeLillo wrote the final word on secret Hitler porn reels in the novel Running Dog over twenty-five years ago".
You know. That kind of silly.
As a writer approaching the prime of his career (a prime which started with The Names and lasted up to Underworld as far as I'm concerned), DeLillo wasn't going to settle with just throwing around the idea of Hitler making homemade orgy flicks in the Bunker. In the end, it was just a McGuffin. He used the fabled sex reel as a chance to explore Nazism as a symbology of evil, the mediation of sex (and humanity) in pornography, the military industrial complex as the standard-bearer of American ideology...
I haven't read the novel in several years, but I remember how powerful the novel's end was, when he finally delivered the McGuffin and turned all expectations upside-down.
Will Ellis do something as similar, as bold and thoughtful, speaking to the heart of the matter and not just going for shock value with this premise?
Maybe. He has used shock value to explore deeper issues in previous stories. The Hellblazer story about a Japanese atrocity exhibitionist comes to mind. His initial run on Stormwatch built up to a powerful indictment of modern politics while providing a great deal of needle-in-the-eye superhero grotesquerie. (Something continued with a secret agent twist in the excellent Global Frequency.) Planetary has provided some startling pop-cultural cross-pollination: Yukio Mishima and Godzilla and the disillusionment of post-war Japan, America's Nazi-driven space program and the Fantastic Four as examples of compromised nationalist ambitions. And of course, Transmetropolitan used future shock excess to expose how technology helps people to become more truly themselves - both the good and the horrendously, horrifyingly bad.
That said, Ellis also has occasional lapses of being too clever by half, employing superficially transgressive ideas in a manner that's meant to be shocking... but is only effective if your own imagination doesn't stretch very far. It's far too easy to come up with a combination of nasty ideas - say, semen-soaked baby-skin lampshades (extra points for the unsubtle historical allusion) - and get the desired effect. That doesn't make it deep or cool or even interesting beyond that initial reaction.
And not that chuckles can't be derived from such throwaway lines as "Everything goes better with bukkake" (also from Desolation Jones #1). But I'm holding out for more than that, especially from a writer whose shown such strength and humanity as Ellis.
Ellis often shocks for a good reason, other times he shocks just for its own sake - and for me, at least, it feels empty when he does the latter. I think part of it is Ellis trying to live up to his reputation (or, as some may contend, his self-created hype) as an angry, cutting-edge visionary. Another part may simply be the law of averages - not every twist you attempt will hit home, after all.
The Nazi porn story is a six-parter, so there's a very good chance Ellis will take the time to go past the surface shock and pomo naivete of his chosen premise. I hope he uses it to make observations different from DeLillo's, more relevant to our own times in the way that DeLillo captured an aspect of post-Vietnam America in Running Dog.
That said, for the first time in my experience as an Ellis reader (and fan), I find him standing toe-to-toe against a literary giant... and I can't help but think he's going to blink. It's not that I revere DeLillo above Ellis, but that the premise of Hitler porn is striking enough to look back to my first, best encounter with this idea.
I'm not saying certain ideas become creatively untenable after a particularly strong approach is taken. However, you have to realize if you're standing in somebody's shadow and anticipate its effect on your audience. It's like listening to a gifted singer do a cover version of a popular song - for example, Carrie Underwood's version of "Cryin'", while technically strong, paled before Roy Orbison's haunting original. (It's a frequent hazard of American Idol - don't copy the big guns unless you know you can outgun them. Too many do it anyway.)
I hope Ellis is up to it. I know> he's gifted enough to do it. But considering what he's stacked against, I can't help but feel wary.
