Kick-Ass: Sound and Fury, Signifying Something...Almost

Ebert is right: Kick-Ass is morally reprehensible. The part he missed is the bit where that’s the entire point.

Director Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of the Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. ultra-violent comic book is a faithful recreation of the source material, with a few Hollywood touch ups to enhance the adolescent power fantasy. We view this world through the lens of dweeby Dan Lizewski (Aaron Thomas), unremarkable within even the geekiest of circles. Dissatisfied with both his day-to-day life and the injustice of an apathetic world, Dan creates a superhero alter-ego: the eponymous Kick-Ass. He is the world’s first superhero, though he’s not very good at it. In perhaps the film’s most shocking moment (if only because things haven’t gone off the rails quite yet), his first outing ends extremely poorly. But as with every good origin story, it also gives him the secret source of his hidden power: the ability to withstand a higher threshold of pain, meaning he can taking a beating and keep on fighting back. Before too long he finds himself in league with other heroes, realizing that the reason no one ever became a superhero before is because anyone who tried probably wouldn’t last too long.

Kick-Ass, both the comic and now the film, strikes a very strange middle ground. In one moment, it is a knowing smirk and wink about how superhero stories are inherently sex-and-violence fueled escapism for our most juvenile impulses, and how reality is often far less charitable or exciting. The next moment, it completely indulges in those same middle school urges for bloodshed and two-fisted (or in this case, two-handgun) justice, hot chicks and cool one-liners. At one point, Kick-Ass gets pepper sprayed for sneaking into the window of his dream girl; two minutes later, they’re sucking face. While you wait for the other shoe to drop and the dream sequence to end, the movie barrels along as if this is entirely normal behavior for two sane human beings. Kick-Ass himself describes the mindset of a superhero to be “a perfect balance of optimism and naiveté.” It is a philosophy that the movie occasionally flirts with early on, but has a slight sense of restraint that always pulls it back to Earth eventually. Once the third act arrives, it has become completely committed to the tropes of a big-explosion action story, those same clichés it was originally snickering at for being so childishly idealistic.

The other part of the disconnect is that while the character of Kick-Ass is a moderately believable (albeit extremely lucky) vision of what a real-world superhero might be like, other participants within the same film feel completely disconnected from his or any other honest reality. This is sadistic crime-boss Frank D’Armico (Mark Strong) and his gang of thugs that all talk and gesture in such a way to make the Sopranos feel blessedly restrained. At one point, they interrogate someone by sticking him in a large microwave and turning it on. It ends as poorly as you might imagine. There is Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage, who is having a TON of fun,) essentially the Punisher dressed up like Batman, and Hit Girl (adorable Chloe Moretz,) his 11-year-old daughter trained to be his sidekick and protégé. They both kill countless “bad guys” with sociopathic ease and style, while still coming off as the likeable “good guys” they’re meant to be. Even Red Mist (Christopher “McLovin’” Mintz-Plasse), who is the next generation of “real” superhero after Kick-Ass, somehow lacks the verisimilitude of the title character. Very quickly, the world of Kick-Ass less resembles the world outside the theatre doors and becomes the four-color world of Kirby, only with more dead bodies and dismemberments. It is the Golden Age of superheroes through the lens of Frank Miller, Garth Ennis, and…well, Mark Millar.

So the film is stupid hyper violence, tempered occasionally by short trips into something resembling reality as a short reminder that this is all supposed to be taking place in the “real world.” From a mechanical stand-point, it is a very well made piece of pop culture bombast with tightly choreographed fight scenes, including one single-shot scene of Big Daddy meticulously emptying a room of greasy haired mobsters that is honestly jaw-dropping. The final conflict is probably too long, and the struggle between a grown man and an 11-year-old girl shifts between uncomfortable and implausible several times. But Vaughn’s eye for clean, focused action is a welcome departure from the myriad of fussy, quick-cut Bourne clones that have overrun Hollywood in the last ten years. This is the third time that Bourne has tried to make a superhero film (he was originally penned to direct both the third X-Men movie and then Thor, both of which he had to bow out of; it is hard to imagine what he would have done with either of those franchises), but he clearly is enjoying the sort of big kid’s playground that a story like this provides him. There is a certain joyful glee throughout the film, be it a little girl swinging around twin katanas or two teenagers having quickie in a back lot. Vaughn is having shameless fun, and by the films unbridled finale, the maniacal fun is catching.

Ultimately, though, Kick-Ass is a well-crafted, mindless roller coaster ride that is supposedly about how mindless roller coaster rides are a child’s fantasy. It just plays a tad disingenuous when it is clearly enjoying itself quite this much. The term “Kick-Ass” doesn’t just signify the title character, but the entire mindset that fuels the film; it picks up speed, barreling forward with increasing disregard for thought, reason or purpose with the sole purpose of kicking ass. Which is a worthwhile goal unto itself (Tarantino has made a career of doing just that), but the opening moments of Kick-Ass also seem to suggest a desire to offer a RoboCopian sense of self-satire, only to never fully commit to that. Instead, it acknowledges that it is ridiculous before fully embracing that identity and relishing it. In the process, it becomes a slick, occasionally edgy explosion of action and cursing instead of something truly special.

The Films of Brad Bird

Paul O'Brien, one of my favorite cultural bloggers, in his review of Ratatouille commented that the Brad Bird's two Pixar films are essentially a celebration of "well-founded elitism." The argument goes something like this: both The Incredibles and Ratatouille are about what can be described as supernaturally gifted people/animals that should not be ashamed of their gifts that they've been given and "true excellence should be celebrated."

All of that is certainly an interesting view of things, but I also can't help but think it is also a bit short-sighted. Yes, both Remy the Rat and the Parr family are displayed as being exceptional. But they also aren't shown as being perfect, or necessarily better than anyone else. The Parrs especially are shown as being jealous, self-obsessed and otherwise human throughout the film. Yes, they are heroes, and yes, in the end they do the right thing. But to say that they are elite or in some way elevated from common people seems to miss the point somewhat.

The Incredibles' core is about not merely taking charge of those exceptional qualities, but using those gifts towards bettering the world. To use the classic Stan Lee axiom, the Parrs learn that with great power, great responsibility isn't far behind. When Mr. Incredible sees victimization, he can't help but think that he should do something. There is a core somewhere in him, beneath that narcissistic streak (his own elitist tendencies) is a person called to selfless service of the world. Within the model of the superhero, Mr. Incredible serves as an example of doing the right thing with the ability you've been given.

While Ratatouille is certainly less flashy than Incredibles, it is no less prophetic in its charge to better the world in any way that you can. Remy the Rat is a gifted chef, due to his amazing sense of smell and taste. He is also an outcast; his rattiness causes him to be a reject due to his refined tastes not exactly being appreciated within his clan. So like many artists, he has to find his own place in the world, and figure out a way to express himself somehow, a wanderer without a home.

He finds his soul mate in Alfredo Linguini, the nervous but well-intentioned garbage boy who also has no family any more. Alfredo, who has no skill in cooking (like most of us, I'd assume) , needs a job, and has his last chance in the kitchen of the late Gusteau. Soon, a symbiotic relationship is created: Remy gets a home and gets to do his favorite thing and cook, Alfredo keeps his job and starts to get some fame. Remy and Alfredo help each other, and in the kitchen Remy quite literally moves Alfredo, reflecting the way some believe that people are "moved" by the spirit. Remy serves as a guide to Alfredo's hand, helping him to make excellent food for people.

But haute cuisine is really an elitist skill, isn't it? There is certainly a celebration of foodyism throughout the film, as well as a not so subtle condemnation of mass-produced frozen food. But what is more life-affirming, to say nothing of life-giving than food? It is one of the staples of human existence and community; there are several scenes throughout the film, including one prodigal sonesque party among the rats upon Remy's return that show the gathering of people around food; it is what initially binds Remy and Alfredo together.

As if to make the point, the film ends with the heartless Anton Ego being fed "peasant food," the titular dish. Instead of taking notes and critiquing the meal, he has a flashback to his childhood and how his soul would be lifted when his mother fed him. Food binds us, makes us human and keeps us alive. Remy's skill is feeding people, which is one of the things that Christ calls people to do: feed the hungry. Ratatouille may never feed the physically hungry, but he sees a hunger and emptiness in Anton Ego that needs to be fed as well.

Strange Days

"Memories were meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."

I first encountered Strange Day during a “Women Making Films” class at the University of Iowa. Within that context, the film devastates; a meditation on the roll that women have played in popular film and their victimization in American society, there seems to be little redemption in its narrative. The film’s most infamous scene is a rape scene shown from a first-person perspective, not exploitative but functioning as an indictment of the audience. Both director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter James Cameron seem to be asking the audience, “How can you live with this? How can you look away? What if you couldn’t?”

Thus I was shocked when our professor argued that the film’s primary theme is one of hope. This movie? The film where almost every single woman is either a victim or a leech? The film where the MacGuffin of the plot is a snuff film of a prophetic African-American rapper, recalling both the Rodney King beating and the killing of Tupac Shakur? Strange Days is a futuristic film noir written by one of science fiction’s most skeptical and cynical voices. So how can it possible be a story about hope?

There are two central characters of Strange Days. The first is Lenny Nero (played with contagious nervous energy by Ralph Fiennes), a former police officer turned drug dealer. Nero is like his namesake in the sense that while Los Angeles is quite literally burning down around him due to ongoing racial riots, he is still peddling his product to the underbelly. To raise the stakes even higher, Nero’s drug of choice is SQUID recordings, the memories and experiences recorded and sold to Nero for duplication. As Nero explains to a potential client, “this is not ‘Like TV, only better’…this is a piece of somebody’s life,” completely realized as if the user was in the skin. In a very scientific sense, Nero buys and sells souls in a city where no one has one.

Of course, Nero is every bit of Faust as well; he’s been recording his own life for years and often replays his favorite memories in his moments alone. When he is with his clients or his friends, Nero is cool, confident and charismatic; alone, he’s lost himself. He lives in a perpetual state of nostalgia and sentimentality. We see him reliving a romantic evening with his girlfriend Faith; through this (admittedly heavy-handed) moment, we realize what Nero misses. He is a man searching for his Faith, both the woman who left him and his belief in the inherent goodness of people. But living at the bottom can make it hard to see the sun.

The second main character is Los Angeles itself. Every character that Nero encounters represents different aspects of the city’s tortured soul. The crooked police, the prostitutes, Nero’s clients, Nero himself: everyone is searching for their own personal salvation. The city is cast in fire and smoke. The only person we see who has risen is Mace, a single mother who protects Nero, despite her better judgment.

In the end, it is Mace who sees that both Nero and Los Angeles aren’t beyond saving. She knows the good man that Nero once was (he was there when the father of her child was arrested); and she knows that Los Angeles doesn’t have to be the same forever, that just as the millennium is coming to a close, so is the old way of things. It is by Mace’s actions that the truth about Jeriko One are revealed and on a personal level, she convinces Nero that he needs to stop living in the past and try to live for the future, for what she calls “Real Time.”

In the final moments of the film, Nero and Los Angeles find themselves facing both their past (the truth about Faith or the brutal killing of Jeriko One/Rodney King) and facing their future, not with fear but with a certain boldness. And by entering the new world, what the film calls 2K, both Nero and Los Angeles are saved from themselves.

Cameron, when asked why he wrote the film, puts it best: “I…wanted to do a…redemption motif. I always had in mind the fate of this one guy, Lenny Nero, and his ability to find what’s right and what’s wrong. If one person can elevate themselves or redeem themselves, then…we all can.” This is the core of the hidden hope of Strange Days: that none of us, even the least of these is beyond hope, beyond a new start and a new self.

A blog is born...

Consider this a statement of purpose.

This blog is an experiment of mine. I plan to use it as a space where I can post my thoughts and critique on the ongoing conversation between personal spirituality, the mission of the church and the shared narrative of American popular culture. I hope to make these writings both accessible and thought-provoking. I aim to challenge both the reader and the author (that's me) on the understood and accepted boundaries we have set up between the secular and religious life. My firm belief is that the role of the Christian church is not to reject the culture that it lives in, but rather to view it through a counter-cultural lens. By critiquing and dissecting our culture, we can discover new religious experiences unique of the 21st century. If we reject popular culture as unholy or irrelevant, we as believers shut ourselves out from a very important window into our shared culture.

I am indebted to the writings of Tom Beaudoin, Rodney Clapp, David Dark and Greg Garrett. Their bold and groundbreaking writing on serious religious contemplation of popular cultural is both inspiring and intimidating. I walk humbly in their footsteps and hope I can only do the trail they are blazing proud.

I am also grateful for the mentoring of Rabbi Jay Holstein, who opened my eyes to the interconnections between holy scripture and popular film and literature. I am thankful for the pastoral leadership and guidance of Dan DeLeon, Wallace Bubar and Marcus McFaul. I would not have the strength of faith and eagerness to question and learn that I have today if not for their example and ministry.

And finally, thanks be to the almighty mystery that is our God, embodied in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May my works through this blog glorify the greatness that is the Creator, Son and Holy Spirit, and may his will be done through the contemplations of my heart. Amen.



Just to give an idea of what to expect, my first short essay will be on the redemptive narrative of Kathryn Bigelow's daring sci-fi film noir, Strange Days.