shrekfan246 said:
DudeistBelieve said:
Like I said, i don't think it is bad writing. It all makes perfect sense to me why Bruce would do it, and why Barbra would do it.
And if it's gross, well the world is gross and there are gross people in it that do gross things.
and even from a writer perspective... barbra the girl in the fridge here. It's not her story, she's a plot point. And the story needs padding for it to have a good run time. It makes perfect sense to do something that shows Batman's connection to Barbra rather than... Showing Barbra living the life of Batgirl and why it means so much to her and how tragic itll be when thats taken from her. Hey if it was an expanded universe, then maybe I'd take issue for the decision to have them bang instead of some type of mentor bullshit but it's not. It's a one shot.
I don't think I would of had them fucking on a roof top in costume if I was writing it, but I probably would've written the relationship like that. You can call it lazy, I call it writing for your audience. After all we need justification to Batman snapping Joker's neck later at the end.
If the only way you have to establish a connection between a male and female character (or between a female character and the audience) is through sex, then yes, that's lazy, bad writing. If the only way you can justify Batman roughing up the Joker is through a sexual relationship, then that's
incredibly lazy, bad writing.
(This is why this sort of thing is a feminist issue in the first place, as it happens, because women are far more than just sex and this writing and the defense of it only perpetuates the societal stereotypes that women are sex objects.)
No it's deeper than that.
I don't look at Bruce Wayne as this guy that can get any lady he wants. This is a man that is built up, walls within walls, He wants to let people but he can't. Because he doesn't want to see them get hurt. That's like the whole major heart of his character is that the people he loves that are around him get hurt. So he keeps them at distance not only for their safety, but more importantly his.
You can call it lazy, I call it demonstrating the deeply abstract thing of showing that Barbra is within those walls in the simplest way possible so it's accessible to any moron who decides to watch it that A. Only knows batman on a superficial level and B. Probably doesn't understand their own complex human emotions.
The piece already fails under a feminist lens, I think that's quite clear. But Killing Joke isn't the story about Barbra Gordon losing her legs, she is a prop here. Theres literally no point in expanding upon her here because then? Then it's not an adaptation of the Killing Joke, it's entirely something different. That's neither bad nor good, thats just what is and the goal from the writing perspective is to adapt Killing Joke.
And we have an hour to explain in a short story why Batman ends up breaking his own rule and finally killing Joker. Which is ultimately what this short story is.
As long as were talking writing, myself as a writer? I'd more or less do the same thing, any changes I'd do would probably be completely modular. I wouldn't bother trying to make the story less sexist, because the story is inherently sexist.
If you want to think it's lazy, like we can agree to disagree, but i am curious to know how you would write it then. Knowing that you can't change the meat of what Killing Joke was, and you got say 20 minutes of filler, and the end result mind you is on Batman killing Joker.
Cause, yeah I'm probably not the best writer but I'm in a glass house and cant throw stones. How'd you book it?
