The fetishisation of depressed men

It’s not the nicest thing to say nor is it the most flattering, but there are women who do fetishise otherwise depressed or traumatised men. Like they want to fix them or something, without knowing that living with somebody who’s mentally ill isn’t always easy. Not saying this to demonise them but that they can be pretty reckless due to how sick they are, it’s not just them not feeling good but that they are legitimately ill. Even if they try to put themselves together for as long as they can, it’s a struggle whenever they cope with ongoing depression or something.

J pretty feel that PD James’s Adam Dalgliesh is a deeply depressed man, or at least some of his traits are reminiscent of depression. But that’s me having two depressed relatives, one of them manages to get by in life to have a stable job. Even then they sometimes have this aloof, zombieish air and sometimes dislike things because they lose pleasure in them due to depression. Another relative of mine tends to be rather aimless, detached and so depressed as to be jobless for a long time. Depression is not easy to live with, whether if you have it yourselves or not.

Adam Dalgliesh seems like he has depression since there seems to be two events in his life that caused his brooding, namely losing his family members and then a breakup. Even when he started dating Emma Lavenham, he still struggled to see her which gives me the impression that he sometimes lacks motivation in life to achieve a goal like that. Aimless, even. This could be my opinion but like I said, I have two depressed relatives and depression should neither be demonised nor fetishised. If having a fever is neither demonised nor fetishised, the same should go for depression as they’re both recurring sicknesses.

But because depression is a mental health issue, it’s harder to see it for what it really is. That’s why we get demonisation and fetishisation, both of them don’t do the illness any favours when they occur in fiction at all.

So behind the times

If Hollywood and other film industries are beginning to not only adapt video games in earnest, but also where these adaptations have become critically acclaimed in any way then it’s something DC and Marvel should wise up to. Maybe their own parent companies are trying to keep them relevant as much as they can, but when video games are becoming a hot IP farm for film studios then it’s something future superhero creatives would have to be attentive to. Instead of trying to pitch a superhero story to a comics publisher, it would be wiser to pitch it to a game publisher but that’s not all.

It would have to be approached from a different angle, so different as to be largely unprecedented in superhero adaptations. I’m actually thinking something more in the lines of Alan Moore’s Top Ten (yes, that Alan Moore) where all the superheroes there are actually involved in law enforcement, so that’s an angle that’s possibly rarely, if ever, done in superhero adaptations and one that’s fresh enough to be interesting to outsiders and newcomers. If they’re used to the whole superhero being a costumed vigilante with a stage name thing, a new approach would be refreshing enough to be novel.

But one must also do market research to be able to keep up with the times, especially if today’s generation might not be that into superheroes. Like if today’s youths are more into anime like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and One Piece (speaking from personal experience), than they are into DC and Marvel superheroes with the latter becoming cheugy, then one would have to accept and consent to being influenced by either one of those two to remain relevant in the market. So I’m definitely going for a Jojo influence since it’s something I’m more familiar with, also it can help refresh the superhero genre for this game.

Though other influences are needed to make it actually fresh and interesting, some of it’s my own personal preferences and some of it’s based on what I’ve observed with my younger relatives. If superheroes risk being kind of outdated and out of touch with today’s youth, yet companies still want to keep those characters then they have to really find a way to make them appeal to today’s generation. Somebody like Joe Casey, when working on the Wildcats strip, had a good idea where he went on saying that to make the superhero genre relevant it can’t always be predicated on glorified pro-wrestling stories, but to look forward to a future with little regard for nostalgia.

Or something like that but you should get his point by now, which has gotten telling because of the possibility that not only are video game properties becoming more and more widely adapted by Hollywood and also critically acclaimed, but that the superhero genre might become irrelevant to today’s generation especially if they are more fond of anime properties like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Dungeon Meshi (even if it needn’t to be either one or both of them) that a new influence’s needed to keep something fresh and appealing to them.

But this means that both DC and Marvel are actually behind the times or curve or something, even with their best efforts that if Zoomers are more into something else altogether then Disney and Warner Bros would have to act soon. Actually Disney is catching up with the times in some way, especially by buying stake in Epic Games upon realising how lucrative video gaming is. It did venture into video games before, with things like Epic Mickey among other things. Because video games are beginning to receive well-received adaptations and successful ones at that, that Disney’s giving video games a second chance is saying.

Video games have become the hottest IP farm these days, or at least one of the hottest since Mattel’s Barbie has been adapted into a successful live action film. One of the songs associated with it, ‘Dance The Night Away’, has even been played on radio should tell you something. Both of them are playthings but they’re lucrative playthings at that, so it’s something many film studios are beginning to take advantage of.

Things like Resident Evil, Donkey Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokemon have been adapted for television and film before, but it’s only now that more and more of them are getting this critically acclaimed and even prove to be really financially successful is something we should be attentive to. Especially when it comes to changing market trends and what’s relevant to today’s generation.

I have listened to the likes of David Sylvian and The Klinik by the way.

enough about taylor swift already. reblog and tag the smallest, least known artist you listen to

Overpowered Hero

I feel some of the real reasons why characters like The Flash and Superman don’t easily lend themselves to video games, especially as protagonists, because of the fact that they’re so overpowered and some of their own villains aren’t particularly that powerful that they could easily take them out. Superman also has the additional problem of having very disparate villains, where characters like Silver Banshee could easily be part of another character’s rogues’ gallery. She’s also fairly underpowered compared to him in that she can only generate loud sounds, that unless if writers make her find ways of undermining him (and maybe they likely already did) she’ll always stick out like a sore thumb when it comes to creating a credible Superman game.

Similar things can be said of Lex Luthor where absent his equipment, he’s going to be another human up against an overly powerful demigod where if one were to do a viable Superman game with him in it he better be the protagonist. The playable character pitted against a superpowered boss, not that playable characters can’t be super-powerful themselves. But even then when it comes to playing a video game, the character has to be playable enough for the player to keep up with in any way given the limitations. Speaking from my experience playing video games lately, one has to find a way to beat time or the obstacle to get there. Superman wouldn’t be that playable as a video game character, let alone as the protagonist, because he faces so few obstacles that he could easily overcome things. Similar things can be said about the Flash at this point.

He has a lot of tangentially related abilities in his arsenal that he could easily defeat his opponents when given the opportunity, so the only way he could become a viable protagonist in a video game isn’t just to limit his powers but also turn a Flash themed video game into a survival game. Especially if he has to spend much of his time running away from characters like Captain Cold and Heatwave who are all out to kill him, that way he has obstacles to face and overcome but it wouldn’t be a game where he actually beats them up a lot. Rather it’s a game where he has to literally run for his life because somebody else will always find ways to undermine him, so it’s a cat and mouse game that he often finds himself in.

So it seems some characters don’t work particularly well for video games, but because they themselves could easily overcome any obstacle that comes in their way that they’re not particularly that playable. So with some video games at least, there’s the whole point of having to overcome obstacles in a matter of time. Or at least to solve things that aren’t particularly that easy, something that both the Flash and Superman could easily resolve because of how powerful they are. So this is why it’s so hard coming up with a good Flash or Superman game, let alone come into fruition since the one Flash game got cancelled. They’re so overpowered that they can overcome many things with ease, which is against playability.

Some people play video games as a way to overcome obstacles or resolve things as much as they can, but an overly powerful character eliminates this so the quest for a good Superman game is going to be there in some way. The problem is some fans want these same characters to be as powerful as they are in the funnybooks, but these same traits make it harder for a gamer to play as either one of them when kept as they are. A good Flash game is possible but only under certain conditions where not only would the Flash be nerfed, but that it’s going to be a glorified survival game where he’s pitted against people who’re out there to undermine him. Even if this lends itself to more enjoyable playability, it’s not something Flash fans want.

But game developers are stuck between a rock and a hard place where they want the characters to face actual challenges in order to make the game playable, but fans want said characters to be as powerful as they are in the funnybooks. The reason why Batman gets a lot of video game adaptations is that by being a mere mortal, he has many things that get in his way in order to overcome whereas a character like the Flash undermines this. Superman also has this problem and it seems some people are too biased towards these kinds of characters to see the problem as it is, if some games require a difficulty curve then neither Flash nor Superman can fulfil this.

The only way to make them amenable to a video game is to limit them, as to make them overcome things that get in their way. But fans don’t want that, even if it makes it playable.

Goth as Goth does

When it comes to Goth characters, as I have noticed before, there’s a tendency to make them either brooding or morose but also not listen to any real Goth music (as what Kai Decadence pointed out) that it’s likely their tie to Goth culture is incredibly superficial to begin with. That’s not to say Goths can’t be serious or into spooky things but if somebody can be clinically depressed without being into Goth, then somebody can be into anything spooky without being Goth themselves but that would mean Goth is its own thing. That’s something outsiders don’t immediately get about it, well anything they’re not apart of when you think about it.

Take Damien Bloodmarch from Dream Daddy, he seems Goth but since he never seems that deeply tied to Goth culture that if you were to make him big into anything 1950s and have him dress in 1950s clothes he wouldn’t change much because it’s this superficial. It’s so superficial that if he was big into anything 1950s he wouldn’t change at all fundamentally speaking, so he’s another one of those quasi-Goth characters out there in fiction. Then we get to the para-Goth characters, the characters who could be Goth but are fundamentally into something else altogether. Kai Decadence has noted this where the characters who could be Goth turn out to listen to something else altogether.

It’s like the thing with Kylie from Ghostbusters, for those who do remember her at all, it’s like she’s Goth because she’s into something spooky but listens to a non-Goth band like Nine Inch Nails. She’s pretty much a para-Goth because she could have been Goth, but turns out to be into something else musically speaking. Not to mention as I said before there’s an annoying tendency to put Goth characters into anything spooky, even if somebody could like horror films without being Goth themselves. But that’s to realise that Goth is pretty much its own thing, it’s something else altogether that outsiders would easily overlook.

I guess it’s got to do with first impressions regarding how strange Goths look to others, but there are horror fans who look and dress normally and actually enjoy anything macabre. Conversely speaking, not all Goths are that big into horror themselves. Somebody could be into Goth bands but have no real interest in horror whatsoever, somebody can be into horror media a lot but no real interest in Goth music. Horror fandom and the Goth scene are very different things when looked at with closer inspection, since somebody who enjoys HP Lovecraft isn’t necessarily a fan of Siouxsie and the Banshees.

I know because there’s somebody in my life who was into this but not a fan of Goth music themselves, I listen to Goth music but have no deep interest into anything Lovecraftian so to speak. So they don’t always overlap for other people, speaking from personal experience. So is having depression where somebody could be depressed, but not be part of the Goth subculture themselves. Again I’m speaking from personal experience where the two relatives of mine who are clinically depressed don’t listen to Goth music, one of them’s more into pop and indie music. Actually it’s kind of complicated.

This other relative didn’t seem to trust Goths at first because she thought they’re suicidal until she ended up developing depression herself, despite not listening to Goth music and dressing in black that she kind of ended up like them in an ironic way. Or at least her own impression of them, Chester Bennington struggled with depression but he had no real tie to the Goth scene whatsoever. So we’re dealing with a lot of things that get caught up in popular impressions of Gothdom, regardless of these factors existing independently of one’s involvement in the Goth subculture. So Goth is something else.

I feel a lot of Goth characters are written the way they are is due to people’s first impressions of Goth, not so much having the lived experience of being Goth but the latter makes it easier to tell what’s Goth and what isn’t. If somebody could have crippling depression without being Goth themselves, then somebody could dress in black without being Goth themselves as well. It’s like that with Orthodox priests, monks and nuns where they habitually dress in black but listen to Christian music a lot. So what makes something Goth is far more specific than most people care to realise, especially if they’re outsiders.

This is why a lot of Goth characters are written the way they are in fiction, always outsiders’ impressions of Goth but not so much being Goth themselves. Somebody who’s an insider would often get things right, because they have the lived experience of being one. This is what separates the Goths from the poseurs, only a Goth would tell that something really isn’t Goth. That’s not being elitist in any way, that’s telling the truth. Just as an actual redhead would tell said character could be a real redhead, an actual Goth has a way of knowing whether if a character is Goth or not. Things outsiders will never get, because they never experienced it in any way.

Now that’s something to consider.

Outdated as ever

When it comes to appealing to younger readers and viewers, it's not that Marvel hasn't tried doing this before or even now. It certainly is trying but not in any way it likes, despite its best efforts in doing so if you believe Morning Consult. It's not that young people can't appreciate the fantastic, if things like Dungeon Meshi are any indication. But the Marvel and DC school of superheroes is something else to a sad extent.

It's not that there aren't any young people who are into superheroes at all, but it's something I've noticed with my younger relatives: they're not that big into superheroes and actually prefer either fantasy games or anime more. The fact that both DC and Marvel rely on superheroes as their bread and butter might make them too stuck in their ways in some sense, especially if they don't act fast enough when it comes to changing market demands.

But they can't risk losing their most devoted fans either, I guess it's possible for a video game about original superheroes to work. But it has to work in a way that clicks with the current audience, it can't just be fit, tights wearing characters who beat each other up. An entirely new take is needed to keep the genre fresh and also attract new audiences to its cause, otherwise it too will become outdated despite its efforts at attracting new audiences.