Not So Comical

By Blair Jackson
Editor

Maybe it’s the recent reboot of The Justice League comics. Maybe it’s the Occupy Wall Street movement. Maybe it’s the death of Steve Jobs. Maybe it’s all of these things that are causing me to, like a child-sage, seriously ponder the possibility of super heroes and super villains.
Throughout our nation’s history, Nazis, communists, and terrorists have all played the arch-villain role in popular culture. The villainization of a group is a complicated process that draws from media influence and national propaganda as well as personal experiences and inherent cultural values. The result is often an oversimplified stereotype of a group’s worst qualities.

There is security in this flat, one-dimensional portrayal of evil — because it is obvious, to any onlooker, that Good will always win. These frightening, but ultimately unthreatening portrayals, are mere shadows of the real villains — Hitler, Stalin, Suddam Hussein,  bin Laden — who live on as such enormous proponents of evil that our culture finds immense satisfaction in thwarting them, time-after-time, via movies, comic books and video games.
I have no doubt that combating these enemies in person is a much more complicated, much more visceral experience than the cathartic (ever-triumphant) war that wages within the pages of comic books and other outlets of popular culture. A face-to-face confrontation with another human is much more difficult than defeating a Bad Guy in a video game.

The difference between a Super Villain and a Bad Guy is that the Super Villain retains an element of humanity that empowers him to succeed and that drives him to challenge and destroy his opponent. In this way, the Super Villain and the Super Hero are alike.

So how do comic books translate to reality?

Batman and Lex Luthor have the same power-base — money, information and technology — but one fights for “Good” and one fights for “Evil.”

The question is, what exactly is “Good”?

As I mentioned before, villainization is a complicated process. Consider the Nazi’s villainization of the Jews. Identifying a group as a total threat incites fear and action (often violence) that is considered the necessary means to protect the interest of the (potentially) vulnerable group.

I am not suggesting that as Americans we have villainzied an innocent group of people, but instead would like to venture that the terrorists we face have villainized our culture in a similar processing of fear and values. We are all human.

I will dare to say, billionaires are people, too.

I think it is fitting that Steve Jobs should be mourned in the midst of protests against multinational corporations and their influence in the government. He was a true entrepreneur, and he lived the American Dream. (How many protesters are using iPhones to communicate and organize?) I would typecast him as a hero, not because of his wealth or his philanthropy, but because of the tools he provided the world.

Thanks to social media moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, networking, organizing and sharing information is effortless. These are the heroes of our generation because they have given us power. But they have also given conglomerates access to the most personal attributes of our identities, creating new avenues of marketing tactics. Though advertising is a large part of social media, the original framework supports a world in which money is not the only commodity — a world in which the transfer of information and ideas is a currency in itself.

Communication is the new power of the people.

It has occurred to me that perhaps Super Heroes don’t exist as individuals, but instead as groups of people. When one person is given total power, a co-dependency is created. After all, isn’t the weakness and corruption of Gotham perpetuated by Batman’s interference? Why should they become better citizens if there is always someone there to save the day? Why should they look within?

True heroes share themselves with the world. True heroes strengthen individuals and communities. True heroes give.

The Super Villain is another story. Consider bin Laden — a son of an oil tycoon — who was obsessed with avenging Islam against America. He had enough money to help arm a fringe group of extremists and orchestrate an attack on U.S. soil. He even attempted to purchase nuclear weapons and supplies, but was swindled by his suppliers and ultimately silenced by a bullet.

The effects of al-Qaida were amateur compared with what billions of dollars paired with the right information and technology could do. If, at the height of his power, bin Laden had been able to secure weapons of mass destruction, the economy would be the least of our worries right now.

Is there a Lex Luthor waiting in the wings, preparing to scoop up disenfranchised youth as mercenaries of knowledge and technology? Could the lines between good and evil be drawn so lightly in America that we could be fooled? Is the possibility of an internal Super Villain a reality?

I know it’s bordering on the fantastic.
I know it seems like a silly comic book scenario.
But the topic of billionaires, greed and power has my mind spinning with possibilities.

People are pissed.
They call themselves the 99 percent, though some argue that only 90 percent of the American population is truly being enslaved by Corporate Greed.
Oh, Corporate Greed. I imagine you to be a fat cat in an Armani suit, perhaps a Lex Luthor or a Gordon Gekko, hell-bent on obtaining profits and conducting business in the skilled and silent way of the boa constrictor, crushing its prey and swallowing it whole. (Yum, money.)
These angry, oppressed people — the poor, innocent antelope (who are just trying to get a drink of water, dammit!), who are being stalked by Corporate Greed — have organized a protest called “Occupy Wall Street.”
If you haven’t heard about it, you’re not alone. A friend mentioned it to me, saying there was a media blackout surrounding the protest. With coverage from CNBC and The New York Times, it seems, instead, that there is a simple lack of interest from the media.
A poster advertising the event depicts a ballerina balancing gracefully atop the famous bull statue on Wall Street. It is an image that speaks to my Bohemian nature, ever faithful to freedom, beauty, truth and love. Thus I had high hopes when I began my research. (Ahem, even the oppressed know how to advertise properly.)
A friend of mine in Brooklyn said most people were considering the protest “a joke.” Comprised of a few hundred young people, whose only newsworthy accomplishments have been blocking traffic; making a sign garden; getting arrested; getting pepper-sprayed; welcoming a few celebrities (Susan Sarandon) and receiving signatures for petitions — I must say that I am fairly disappointed.
Their website is a social media log, a play-by-play of their every move.  Their mission is as follows: “Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.”
But what do these statistics mean? What do the organizers of Occupy Wall Street propose as a solution?
Without a parallel resource for educating the masses, and with no plan for change, the protesters seem like a bunch of cry-babies who want an Arab Spring so they can afford a plasma television. Claiming you just won’t stand for something is about as effective as pouting.
The truth is, these protesters are as much cry-babies as the workers of Wall Street are boa constrictors. As disorganized and naïve as they seem, it’s good to see that the younger generation has begun to flex its revolutionary muscle, and the mistakes of this first attempt will prove a sturdy foundation for the next.
The big issue of concern for the 99 percent is wealth distribution inequality. It’s the new class warfare: the mega rich versus everyone else. In Arkansas, there are six billionaires, four of whom were included in the Forbes Top 25 list for billionaires of the world in 2011.
On the other hand, Arkansas has the eighth highest poverty rate in the nation. Is it something to take to the streets about?
With our communities benefiting so greatly from Walmart and other corporations, it’s difficult to demand more from them. I would feel like a spoiled child, to say “Crystal Bridges isn’t good enough! I want you to pay my student loans and my car insurance.”
But there is something chilling in the disparity of incomes, especially comparing the increase in Arkansas billionaires’ net worth over the past three years to the recent increase of poverty in Arkansas and across the South.
Severe inequality of wealth is a trend across America, and the statistics are difficult to swallow. Consider these numbers from the book “Feudalism — Alias American Capitalism”: “The richest one percent of Americans possess more wealth than the combined wealth of the bottom ninety percent.” (A-ha, so this is what the protesters on Wall Street are so upset about.)
Here’s another statistic from a 2010 article by David DeGraw, “… the United States already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world prior to the financial crisis. Since the crisis, which has hit the average worker much harder than CEOs, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns over 70 percent of all financial assets, an all time record.”
It’s definitely food for thought. (Yum, knowledge.)

Hey, Fayetteville.
It’s me again — Blair, or Miss Jackson if … never mind.

The Powers That Be have asked me to write another article, introducing myself to the public — again.
“WTF? Like people really want to hear more about me,” was my silent response. But I was offered this advice from someone whose professional career has spanned more years than I’ve been on the planet, so here it is, Introduction Part Two.

I’m sure you’ll see me bopping around town with my notebook in hand, asking the questions and taking the photographs. I may run into you or dance into you on Dickson Street, especially if blues music is involved. If you are a patron of Common Grounds you may recognize me from my brief stint as a server there.  Sorry if I forgot your side of ranch dressing or that third refill on your sweet tea. My bad.

If you want to know my agenda, it’s really quite simple. I want to tell the stories that make you think, that make you feel, that make you laugh. When I’m chasing that beat, yeah, I’m doing it because I love it, but I’m also doing it for you. If I write a story it’s because I think we both need to know about it or because I think we will both laugh about it. I might even write something that pisses you off every now and then, but hey, it goes without saying that you’re going to piss me off, too. That’s the way conversation goes.

Conversation — that’s where the story gets a little bigger because my story doesn’t just involve me anymore. It involves you too.

Enter social media. Sure, it’s a great way to send a really bitchy passive-aggressive message to a roommate or to stalk your ex-girlfriend (or the girl you met last weekend who made the mistake of giving you her last name) or even to find out what the word around town is. But given the chance to evolve past the petty melodrama, social media is a vehicle for the individual voice to reach public domain.

In my first WTF column, I mentioned the 2004 presidential election. Yes, I was upset that G.W. won again, (Granted, that was back when I thought Michael Moore was legit.) but it was the media coverage surrounding the election that appalled me to the point of an extreme “WTF?” moment. As a young, idyllic journalism student, armed with a pen and the belief in truth and dignity, I realized political coverage could never quite reach the truth because politicians themselves are, for the most part, power-hungry agenda pushers. My belief system was dismantled. To become a traditional journalist, I realized, was to become nothing more than a parrot for those I interviewed. Rehashing opinions, statistics and statements, all the while smothering my opinion to eliminate bias — not my cup of tea.

Think back to the beginning days of Facebook — when MySpace was still hot and before the invention of YouTube, Pandora and Twitter. How did you form an opinion about a political candidate or social issue? Where did you hear new music? The Internet was certainly a vast resource, but social media had yet to sweep the world, and the general public was left at the mercy of the mass media and those who funded its initiatives.

Now, I can conduct extensive research on any presidential candidate simply by typing a name into a YouTube search bar. I can listen to every documented exchange offered via the Internet, and I can research the opinion of other professionals, some of whom use social media as their only platform.

I’m a grassroots kind of gal, and social media revitalized my belief in the possibility of uncovering some semblance of truth in this world. There is a lot of talk about “liberal media bias” in conservative circles and a lot of grumbling about media moguls like Fox News on the liberal side. One of the great things about social media is that it includes the observer as part of the story, making the agenda transparent, perhaps even the topic of discussion, and for the first time, the opinions and biases of the media are part of the story, which makes its members more vulnerable to criticism but also more accessible when their viewpoints are presented as part of the human experience. The result is more of a conversation than a lecture.

So what biases and opinions can I lay on the table for you to examine?  You can always swing by my Facebook page, but I’ll satisfy your curiosity with a few tidbits of information.

I don’t have a favorite color, though I particularly enjoy wearing black. (My fingertips are always covered in newspaper ink, and black hides the smudges.) In my free time I surf YouTube for political interviews and music videos. Epic stories are most appealing to me, which is why I watch the “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” trilogies at least once a year. I have a low tolerance for discrimination, and once upon a time that attitude defined me as a liberal. Recently, however, I’ve decided that believing in equal rights for everyone is not to the left or right of anything, (considering it’s dead center in the core of constitutional rights) so at the moment I do not affiliate myself with any political label.

OK, now you know a little bit about me, the great wizard behind the curtain. If you would like to submit an opinion piece or letter to the editor for the WTF portion of The Free Weekly, send me an email at editorfreekly@gmail.com or tag a WTF tweet @freekly.  Oh yeah, that reminds me. In my first WTF column, I mentioned that the entering freshman class was 23,000. Negative, Ghost Rider, that was the entire enrollment for 2011.

Quick Note: The online version of this column is the original version.  The print version was edited for length.

What The …?!!: Aug. 18

I’m selling out.
I’ll be leaving the Free Weekly soon. I’ve enjoyed it, though I wish I’d done more and better.
I never expected my time would be so short, but I ain’t gettin’ any younger and I feel like I have to take an opportunity when I can get it.
So, thanks for reading during my time or looking at the pretty pictures or using it as bird cage liner or setting it on fire or whatever you did with it. I expect there’s more and better things for the Freekly on the horizon.
Here’s some moments you might remember from the past year:
▲ The appearance of Dan Savage’s sex advice column “Savage Love.” The column ran once and once only after it was clear many people in the community weren’t interested in some of Dan’s brutally frank language.
▲ The implementation of pay parking on Dickson Street. Only time will tell if the system is an important step forward in growing downtown Fayetteville or … something else.
▲ The opening and closing of the Whole Earth Organic Lounge in Fayetteville. Despite my meat-eating ways, the lounge was a wonderful place to hang out with the always wonderful Judy Paynesmith and the unbelievably energetic William Njager.
▲ The death of Bruce Walker, owner of Flying Possum Leather, in a fire at his shop. Bruce and his canine pal Bugsy were longtime fixtures on Dickson Street. Bruce was passionate about his work, including his patented leather guitar strap, and in the months prior to his death, a passionate opponent of pay parking on Dickson.
▲ The smoking ordinance revisited again. Smoking was once again the hot topic in Fayetteville over the summer.
Last time around, circa 2003, the debate centered on pulling smoking out of restaurant establishments in the city. After much debate, many long city council meetings and eventually a vote by residents, the smoking ordinance was passed.
I think you’d find relatively few people now who’d like to put smoking sections back in restaurants.
This year, the city council looked at extending the ban to standalone bars in Fayetteville. Because the ordinance went to a public vote, the proposal to change it needed six votes by city council members to pass.
The amendment could only muster five out of eight votes with aldermen Mark Kinion, Justin Tennant and Bobby Ferrell voting against it. Smoking remained in Fayetteville bars.