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sistermagpie Jul. 26th, 2010 11:55 pm)
sistermagpie Jul. 26th, 2010 11:55 pm)So I saw Under the Red Hood and liked it. Jensen Ackles is kind of my Jason now and NPH, well we knew he'd be awesome. It's funny how that story makes such a good standalone, yet in the comics in general Jason continues to seem neither here nor there. The movie benefits from having no confusion on this score--Bruce failed him, and he's now his worst nightmare. They even get to polish up the story of Jason's death and resurrection so that they are no longer distractingly confusing and stupid.
Sometimes I think one of the issues with Jason is that sometimes when people like the character they want him to stand for something I don't think he was ever meant to stand for: a challenge to Bruce's philosophy of not killing. Many readers argue that Batman should kill, due imo to a combination of comics getting ridiculously violent and overly tied to continuity at the same time
But is Jason meant to be an in-universe voice for this argument? I don’t think so. And not just because this is Batman’s universe and everyone else is just living in it, but because Jason isn’t up for a philosophical debates with anyone. Jason is about the opposite of thinking: he’s all emotion. Bruce has thought through his own stance on killing enough that it’s there no matter how emotional he gets. Jason talks a lot about how criminals should be killed because the only way to protect people is to become more like the criminals, but when given the chance to kill the Joker he doesn’t do it either. He wants Bruce to do it to prove that he loves him. There’s Jason’s priority right there: getting attention from Bruce if he can’t get emotional satisfaction.
People get understandably annoyed when Jason’s anger and recklessness as Robin are overemphasized, especially when he’s described as getting himself killed with it. But I think the reason that happens is that that’s the Jason that resonates the strongest. Angry and dead, that's Jason. Not because it was his fault he died, imo, but because it's blaming Bruce in a more specific way. It’s not just that Bruce was responsible because Jason was Robin—leading to the dead end that Robin shouldn’t exist. Instead it’s about how Bruce specifically failed Jason. What did he see and fail to see in him? And it keeps coming back to anger, often anger acted on instead of spoken. Jason was even a symbol of the anger and misunderstandings between Bruce and Dick that Bruce refused to talk about. Hmmm...now that makes me think about how it's interesting that Jason feeling like Bruce didn't prove his love when in the current versions Bruce and Dick were feeling that way about each other at the time!
This also gets into another criticism people often have with Jason, the seeming connection between his being from the underclass and being the “bad” Robin. To me it's more that Jason had been betrayed by the world a thousand different ways by the time Bruce met him. He had a personality already more prone to brooding and anger (like Bruce) but had been treated worse. Once he was settled with Bruce his never-resolved issues were bound to come out. Bruce’s own life was more like Dick’s, despite their different personalities.
Jason isn't a walking challenge to Bruce's ideas. He's more like a piece of Bruce's emotions and fears running around blowing things up like an angry child. That Jason was trained by Bruce and now seemingly abandoned just encourages that impression. He was attracted to Jason way back when, but now can’t deal with the emotions he brings up and turns away. He behaved similarly with Dick in the past. (Tim’s in some way the “safest” Robin for Bruce in that way.) Jason also provides similar emotional challenges to the other boys, though: He mocks Dick's image of himself as being a good big brother, he mocks Tim's view of what it means to be Robin. None of them ever give a moment's thought to his views on crime fighting--they might admire some of his methods and plans, sure, but he's never made them question their mission in favor of his. If Jason is a threat it's an emotional threat. The others might not ever become Jason in terms of being a crime lord with a bag full o'heads, but they could have been their own version of Jason if they'd died. Bruce is so not ready to deal with that. I think that's why the movie makes a point of starting with Bruce and Dick--and even includes that moment where Bruce, almost as if he's already sensed the truth about the Red Hood, thanks Dick for running after him all night.
Sometimes I think one of the issues with Jason is that sometimes when people like the character they want him to stand for something I don't think he was ever meant to stand for: a challenge to Bruce's philosophy of not killing. Many readers argue that Batman should kill, due imo to a combination of comics getting ridiculously violent and overly tied to continuity at the same time
But is Jason meant to be an in-universe voice for this argument? I don’t think so. And not just because this is Batman’s universe and everyone else is just living in it, but because Jason isn’t up for a philosophical debates with anyone. Jason is about the opposite of thinking: he’s all emotion. Bruce has thought through his own stance on killing enough that it’s there no matter how emotional he gets. Jason talks a lot about how criminals should be killed because the only way to protect people is to become more like the criminals, but when given the chance to kill the Joker he doesn’t do it either. He wants Bruce to do it to prove that he loves him. There’s Jason’s priority right there: getting attention from Bruce if he can’t get emotional satisfaction.
People get understandably annoyed when Jason’s anger and recklessness as Robin are overemphasized, especially when he’s described as getting himself killed with it. But I think the reason that happens is that that’s the Jason that resonates the strongest. Angry and dead, that's Jason. Not because it was his fault he died, imo, but because it's blaming Bruce in a more specific way. It’s not just that Bruce was responsible because Jason was Robin—leading to the dead end that Robin shouldn’t exist. Instead it’s about how Bruce specifically failed Jason. What did he see and fail to see in him? And it keeps coming back to anger, often anger acted on instead of spoken. Jason was even a symbol of the anger and misunderstandings between Bruce and Dick that Bruce refused to talk about. Hmmm...now that makes me think about how it's interesting that Jason feeling like Bruce didn't prove his love when in the current versions Bruce and Dick were feeling that way about each other at the time!
This also gets into another criticism people often have with Jason, the seeming connection between his being from the underclass and being the “bad” Robin. To me it's more that Jason had been betrayed by the world a thousand different ways by the time Bruce met him. He had a personality already more prone to brooding and anger (like Bruce) but had been treated worse. Once he was settled with Bruce his never-resolved issues were bound to come out. Bruce’s own life was more like Dick’s, despite their different personalities.
Jason isn't a walking challenge to Bruce's ideas. He's more like a piece of Bruce's emotions and fears running around blowing things up like an angry child. That Jason was trained by Bruce and now seemingly abandoned just encourages that impression. He was attracted to Jason way back when, but now can’t deal with the emotions he brings up and turns away. He behaved similarly with Dick in the past. (Tim’s in some way the “safest” Robin for Bruce in that way.) Jason also provides similar emotional challenges to the other boys, though: He mocks Dick's image of himself as being a good big brother, he mocks Tim's view of what it means to be Robin. None of them ever give a moment's thought to his views on crime fighting--they might admire some of his methods and plans, sure, but he's never made them question their mission in favor of his. If Jason is a threat it's an emotional threat. The others might not ever become Jason in terms of being a crime lord with a bag full o'heads, but they could have been their own version of Jason if they'd died. Bruce is so not ready to deal with that. I think that's why the movie makes a point of starting with Bruce and Dick--and even includes that moment where Bruce, almost as if he's already sensed the truth about the Red Hood, thanks Dick for running after him all night.
