[Wham! ] Hey, uhh, question: Why do we think realism is dark? Reality is a lot of things but uniformly terrible isn't one of them.
But when movies or comics strive for realism, for some reason, this always manifests as dark, gritty action and truckloads of misery. Real life isn't generally like that. So why?
Well, the answer is the realism isn't reality. Realism is basically shorthand for acknowledging generally ignored negative consequences. A superhero going to court for damages isn't in any way darker than a supervillain enslaving an entire country.
But the first feels awful while the second is practically a weekly event. Unexpected consequences in a medium that doesn't generally support them are off-putting and because the consequences tend to be negative, the emotional response is also negative. The thing is in fiction, the only consequences that exist are the ones you want to exist.
It's why the fragility of the human spine only exists for two panels in that one Spider-Man comic and is never addressed again once Gwen Stacy is properly killed off. It's why Bruce Wayne's bizarre spending habits are never noticed by anyone looking over his financials. What we've dubbed realism is nothing more than the inclusion of consequences that are generally specifically ignored for the sake of a plot.
It makes it feel less idealistic and more grounded, at least when it's done right. Now the interesting thing is realism didn't start out that way. It was a 19th century idea that basically introduced a slice of life to the world and it was actually pretty realistic.
19th century realism avoided artistic convention and supernatural wackiness in an attempt to accurately portray, uhh, reality. And it was so boring so the term evolved. Now if a writer or director says they're striving for realism, it basically means they're taking an unrealistic premise and examining consequences when the premise is viewed through the lens of reality.
But that lens is actually three lenses all stacked together. After all, writing realistically is more than just one thing. There's the first level which is realism in relation to our reality: How does physics factor into it?
How did the genetics work? Etc. In superhero mediums, those tend to be hand waved because explaining how a character can fly or shoot lasers is generally more trouble than it's worth.
But in, say hard Sci-Fi, they're examined very closely. The second lens is realism in-world. The world you're writing will have its own paradigm.
This is the level that examines the consequences that naturally arise from there. If you live in a world with superheroes, what's your daily commute like? Do you have an alert app for when there's a battle in your neighborhood?
Are there DIY life hacks to give yourself superpowers? What's it really like to live in the world you made? The third lens is the most obvious because it tends to cause character drift over time.
This is the lens of reality in terms of psychology. Now what that means varies based on when you're writing. Nowadays, when you want to portray psychological realism, you give a character PTSD.
Tony Stark, Batman, police detectives. Even kids cartoons have been examining it. Before PTSD, the go-to psychological issue was alcoholism.
Again, Tony stark and hard-boiled detectives. In fact, it's kind of the modern fashion to give your characters PTSD after they've been through something sufficiently rough. And you can see that most strongly in the character of Batman because it's a new development.
Batman as a traumatized vigilante haunted by the death of his parents is a recent thing. It sounds crazy because, of course, having dead parents is Batman's most recognizable trait. But in his initial characterization, he wasn't traumatized.
He was motivated. He went through something horrible and decided he would devote his life to guaranteeing that nobody would have to go through something like that ever again by dressing up like a bat and punching crime in the face. The modern version where the death of his parents haunts him and twists him into a night stalking monster is recent.
And you know something? This is all Alan Moore's fault. Much as I appreciate the killing joke, it unintentionally sparked the idea that deep down, Batman and the Joker were the same That they were both broken men driven by a personal tragedy beyond the limits of sanity.
But Alan Moore didn't mean for that to be the takeaway from the comic. And the killing joke of the Joker is wrong. His premise that all it takes is one bad day to become exactly like him is blatantly disproven, both by Jim Gordon and by Batman.
And you know what? Comparing dressing up like a bat and fighting crime to repeated acts of domestic terrorism each with absurdly high body counts is not fair. One of those things is psychotic, the other's a thing that every kid wants to do.
You decide which is which. The idea that Batman does what he does because he's cracked completely defeats the purpose of his character. He does what he does because he knows what it's like to be powerless.
So he takes it upon himself to be the power that helps the powerless A good sign of whether or not your Batman is being characterized properly is as follows: Could you picture this Batman comforting a scared child? If yes, congratulations! This is a certified Batman.
If not, I'm afraid you instead have the Punisher in a silly hat. And speaking of Alan Moore, let's talk about Watchmen because that book is single-handedly responsible for realism being modern shorthand for grimdark and misery where "grimdark" is a blanket term that covers amorality, gratuitous violence, and a general bad time for all involved. See, whenever a book becomes popular to an unprecedented degree, it either spawns off a genre of imitators or alters its existing genre for the same reason.
It's popular so people want to do what it did. Watchmen was a miserably unhappy re-examination of a bunch of thinly veiled DC expys where Alan Moore sat down with the character premises and thought through what they'd actually do. DrManhattan is a literal, physical god with perceptions far beyond the human norm.
He sees the universe on a scale no one else can match so he's weird and distant and terrifying. But when explicitly reminded of his inhumanity, he flips out because on a very real level, he misses being human. Rorschach stares into the abyss and it breaks him, causing him to abandon all pretenses of humanity and become the mask.
Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world, sees the darkness of humanity and rather than breaking under the strain, constructs a solution that for the alleged good of humanity as a whole, sacrifices both his own morals and 50% of New York City. A good chunk of the book is devoted to showing us the failure of humanity, the dregs of the population, and all that nasty stuff. It looks like the pinnacle of modern grimdark, an onslaught of misery and realistic examinations of the dark face of humanity.
BUT! But the book is subverting this! Because in the middle of all the broad-strokes definitions of humanity is corrupt and cruel, you know, in between all these living gods' making decisions about humanity as a whole for the greater good, the book shows us little moments of the good amid the bad.
It's a little thing but a very deliberate inclusion. Alan Moore, for all his love of gritty realism, very deliberately shows us some kindness in the lives of ordinary humanity. Kindness that Ozymandias and DrManhattan can't see, can't take into account because they don't exist on that level.
You know that comic within a comic, "Tales of The Black Freighter"? It's read by this kid named Bernie who keeps coming back to a newsstand owned by an old guy also named Bernie And their interactions are small everyday things but they're kind. Old Bernie gives young Bernie his hat when it's raining, gives him the comic for free, just strikes up friendly conversation with the kid.
And when Ozymandias puts his plan into action and kills half of New York with a telepathic space squid, both Bernie's end up dead but old Bernie is shielding young Bernie with his body, in an attempt to save him. They're pretty much strangers but Alan Moore, king of the grimdark, very deliberately shows us that basic human kindness is alive and well. And more importantly, that these godlike superheroes are failing to see it.
And then, Watchmen gets popular and suddenly DC's Grimdark City because all these writers missed the point. They thought they were emulating Watchmen but Alan Moore didn't write Watchmen as a self-indulgent angst fest on the failure of human condition. It was an examination of the flaws in superheroism as seen through the lens of realism of ordinary humanity.
But instead, we get angsty superheroes completely failing to remember why they superhero at all. Not to open a can of worms or anything, but let's take a tentative look at the DC cinematic universe, specifically their portrayal of Superman. This is a superhero who has never shown a motivation to protect humanity.
It, honest-to-God, feels like the writers forgot to give him a reason to do what he does. In Batman v Superman, it's supposed to be a big thing that the people have turned on him and he loses his public favor but we've never seen any evidence that he had public favor. We never see any ordinary people doing anything that had convinced Superman that they were worth his time.
Everyone is a jerk! His parents tell him not to help people because the world's not ready for him and then they tell him not to help people because they don't owe him anything. And frankly, all we see are people being angry and ungrateful for reasons the movie forgets to solidly establish.
When did this become humanity? When did this become Superman? Well, the answer is when we decided that realism meant everyone had to be a terrible person all the time.
Superman is the hero that inspires the world to be better; he can't do that if he himself is not better. And if they wanted to tell that story, they could! It could have Superman as his usual paragon self, dealing with a world where the entire human population is at its lowest point.
Selfish, and greedy, ungrateful, and all that good stuff and then Superman doesn't give up on them. He still saves them, even if they don't thank him because Superman is the hero that saves everyone. And that inspires them to be better because he's leading by example.
But because the reality of grimdark filter is so strong, we don't get that Superman. We get a grumpy, emotionally destitute bargain bin Batman who begrudgingly saves humanity with no regard for casualties and no motivation to protect humanity beyond his girlfriend. And that's another thing: one of the tenants of modern realism is that all motivations have to be petty.
In Man of Steel, Superman travels the world looking for a purpose in life and finds one when he runs into Lois Lane. Sure, his alien dad tells him he was sent to Earth to guide its people but that's not a motivation. It's a stated purpose.
Hey, Superman. Why do you save people? Well, my dad told me to.
No! That's weak as hell! And in BvS, he drops that as soon as the people he's trying to save get slightly saltier than average.
And he only unretires himself because Lois gets kidnapped. He is literally only Superman because of his girlfriend. That is a shamefully small reason to want to save humanity.
Although, it certainly helps explain why he doesn't seem to care when buildings fall on other people. But anyway, grimdark realism is guilty of a bigger crime than mangling two of my favorite superheroes. It takes away the emotional variability of the story it's being used in.
If everything is dark and terrible all the time, you can't really make things worse. When you want your readers to feel the desperation of a situation gone way bad, you can't. There needs to be some hope in the world if taking it away is supposed to mean anything.
A non-stop parade of misery is inevitably going to overshadow the one moment you really want to make your audience feel bad about. Let's regress back to middle school for a minute and do a little compare and contrast over here. Right now, our dueling examples are Batman v Superman and the Batman Beyond movie Return of the Joker Now in BvS, the obvious wham moment is the death of Superman.
I mean, it was the biggest deal in DC comics for a really long time. He's the symbol of hope for an entire world. His death has to hit the audience where it hurts, right?
Well, I can't speak for everybody but this is a rough recreation of my reaction the first time I watched that scene. "I love you" Ok "No, Clark. Don't.
. . " Give the spear to Wonder Woman Give the spear to Wonder Woman!
"I'm alright" Just tag out with her; she's right over there! "No" [Inspirational Music] Clark, Clark, come on, dude, come on! [Inspirational Music] Tag out!
She's right there! [Inspirational Music] [Roar] Ok [Inspirational Music] (Bored) Oh, wow, I forgot he was in this movie. [Inspirational Music] It's killing you.
Why are you holding it? This was not the only option! [Inspirational Music] [Stab] Ugh [Inspirational Music] [Revenge stab] (Sarcastic) Who could have seen this coming?
[Inspirational Music] I can't believe this movie made bank. [Inspirational Music] (Sarcastic) Oh, no, I'm sure he's gonna stay dead. I seriously doubt that was the desired response to what was clearly meant to be the darkest moment in the movie.
Now, let's compare it with the darkest scene in Return of the Joker which is a flashback that tells us how and why the Joker died and why Tim Drke stopped being Robin. First off, for context, this takes place in the same timeline as Batman the animated series, which although it had its dark and tragic moments, managed to keep up a general sense of levity. Batman himself was by far the most serious character but he was contrasted by Batgirl, Robins One and Two, Alfred, and even his enemies.
But the darkest moment in that timeline is shown by a flashback in Return of the Joker where basically, the Joker took it into his head to kidnap and torture Tim Drke (the second Robin in this timelime) for three weeks, brainwashing the poor kid into being just like him. Tim ends up snapping and shooting the Joker, straight up killing him and then he breaks down in tears. It's horrifying to watch because it's unthinkable in the context of the show.
Tim was the. . .
the sidekick. He was fun, cracked jokes, and. .
. and he was a kid! And because it's unthinkable, it's horrifyingly effective.
It's an emotional gut punch that could only be achieved because the established tone was nowhere near that dark. The trend towards grimdark gritty realism is crippling DC's ability to emotionally invest its audience. We should be mourning the death of Superman, not calling him an idiot.
Now, the emotional gut punch is a powerful tool when used correctly But if you're too blatant about it, it can start feeling like author manipulation. Gwen Stacy's death was tragic but given that she died from physics that Marvel had up until that point been soundly ignoring, it also kind of felt like the authors were cheating. Abruptly deciding to acknowledge reality without precedent can be effectively jarring.
But it can also draw attention to the hand of the author. If the realism feels contrived, it loses its weight. Whatever you're doing, you kind of need to have internal consistency to do it effectively.
Anyway, yeah.
