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THE Daily OBSERVER Friday, April 7, 2017
Gotham City’s Finest The story behind Batman’s billion-dollar franchise Shannon Ridge Court
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t was during the summer of May 1939 that a ‘Caped Crusader’ made his debut in Detective Comics No. 27 for a throwaway price of 10 cents which ‘included 64 pages of action. Begining with just a six-page feature in Volume I, the world will celebrate his 78th year of existence this May with much fan-fare -across the world. In February 2010, a copy of Detective Comics No. 27 was sold for more than $1 million: $1,075,500. But what makes Batman, as a character and franchise, so relevant even today? Batman happens to be such an influential superhero that Forbes estimated Bruce Wayne’s net worth at $9.2 billion and listed his company Wayne Enterprises as having an annual revenue of $31.3 billion as of July 2015 as part of the Forbes Fictional Fifteen. This placed Batman as the third richest superhero in the comic universe. Batman’s creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger created an eclectic universe of characters, both good and evil; to make the readers think about the society they live in. When Batman appeared for the first time, it was a period of global unease where America was going through economic depression while Hitler was on the rise in Germany. The ‘silent guardian’ was portrayed as a dark knight emerging from the shadows, someone who had to earn his ‘superhero’ status unlike Superman who had alien origins, superpowers and foster parents who inspired him to use his powers for good. He spends his day surrounded by monsters that abuse, torture and kill. Friedrich Nietzche once said: “He who fights with monsters should be careful, lest he thereby become a monster.” In order to separate himself from those he hunts, Batman draws a line, a line
where he does not kill. It served as a psychological reminder to him that he was not like the monsters he hunted. By 1940, Batman editor Whitney Ellsworth realized that young children were reading it and that Batman shouldn’t be using a gun. “As he is driven to crush crime, he is not a
killer,” said Jeff Parker, one of the Batman writers on a PBS special. This human quality to exercise discretion in a logical way is what makes Batman relevant even today. A California clinical psychologist Robin Rosenberg evaluated his mental state in her book ‘What’s The Matter with Batman? An Unauthorized Clinical Look under the Mask of the Caped Crusader’ and calls him the “poster boy for posttraumatic growth”. Scholars of popular culture like Lawrence M Friedman have argued that popular culture has something to tell us about society’s norms of right and wrong, good and bad. To balance the righteousness of Batman, the Joker was introduced as his arch nemesis in April 1940. His philosophy and mission is to disrupt civilized society’s sense of “illusory superiority”. He considers morality and structure as silly due to the inescapable fact that we’re just impulsive apes. In between the Batman and the Joker, resides TwoFace. Harvey Dent as Two-Face is a manifestation of the inner turmoil between good and the bad, the right and the wrong. Also called The White Knight, Harvey Dent represented the choice everyone in society and culture has of what path to go down in life. He was created to mirror the real world each of us faced every day, flipping an internal coin constantly. Besides video games, amusements parks, comic conventions and merchandise, the Batman universe found itself on the silver screen with numerous re-boots of the franchise. While Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin starring George Clooney as Batman was a disastrous two-hour long toy commercial, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy is hailed as one of the best representations of the comic as Nolan delved into the darker, real and more complex side of Batman, The Joker and Bane.
Trump’s Goofball Presidency In a role reversal, late night TV hosts make sense of nonsense Phalguni Vittal Rao
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rom the time the real-estate mogul Donald Trump announced that he would run for the President of the United States of America (U.S.A.), he has provided greater fodder for American comedy ever since. Two days ago, Comedy Central announced a new series The President’s Show hosted by @LateNightDonald. The show has been created by wellknown Trump impersonator Anthony Atamanuik who will play the U.S. President while Pete Grosz will feature as his sidekick, Vice-President Mike Pence. Seth Meyers of The Late Night with Seth Meyers had been talking regularly about Donald Trump and the elections for 18 months before the results were announced in November 2016. Back in 2011 at the White House Correspondents Dinner, Seth Meyers poked fun at Donald Trump’s saying that he would run for President as a Republican and remarked he was surprised since he assumed “he would be running as a joke”. Who knew 5 years later, the joke turned out to be true? Trump’s outlandish behavior coupled with a bizarre way of handling a political position has on one hand left mental health professionals arguing about his mind while American TV hosts have increasingly used their medium to push comedy towards activism. On the last episode of Last Week Tonight in 2016, John
Oliver made an impassioned plea to the people, “We need to stay here and fight.” It was a striking monologue, not just because of the message it carried but because it didn’t carry as many jokes as it usually would. It was funny in parts but for most of the time, it was sad and earnest. Sim-
ilarly Seth Meyers, Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert and others spoke in solidarity for a better future when the U.S. elections were declared. Kate McKinnon opened Saturday Night Live (SNL) with a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah following which Dave Chappelle at the end of his monologue said, “I’m wishing Donald Trump luck and I’m going to give him a chance. And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one, too.” There have been hilarious takes on President Donald
Trump’s administration. Of all shows, SNL has been parodying the Trump administration with panache and perfection. Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump with the pout and the accurate hand gestures took the viewers by storm. However, Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer, the White House Press Secretary parodied Spicer as the angry, gum-chewing man at the podium who blamed the media for all the “fake news”. McCarthy looked the part as the petulant, truth-bending White House mouthpiece in her caricature. In addition to this, SNL showcased Kate McKinnon as Jeff Sessions set against the backdrop of a scene from Forrest Gump. Apart from the above, Stephen Colbert on The Late Show opened with a Muppetinfused mash-up parody video which showed Sean Spicer singing his favourite word: ‘Phenomenal’. Following the failure to repeal Obamacare, Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show suggested a few titles for news books to be written by the President such as ‘How To Lose Friends And Influence No One’, ‘The Giving Up Tree’, ‘To Kill A Healthcare Bill’, ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Golf’ etc. Criticising Trump’s decision to include his son-in-law Jared Kushner in key policy positions, Stephen Colbert said, “Kushner will become the head of something called the Office of American Innovation. Vague. But better than the original title, the Bureau of Obvious Nepotism.” In another episode of The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon noted that the White House was archiving all of Donald Trump’s tweets. “That way future generations can read Kennedy’s journals, Lincoln’s diaries and Trump’s insults about Arnold Schwarzenegger,” he said.
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THE Daily OBSERVER FRIDAY, April 7, 2017
Sisterhood of the Well Heeled A networking app is helping women create a web of new experiences go ahead to scroll through a large number of profiles. If at any point you find a lady’s interests match with yours, you like it and move on. If the other person also likes your profile (the likes are anonymous) then you can go ahead to chat with her. Women can collaborate on based on their interests or just reach out to each other to form a support group across the app. Heel The World is helping build a sisterhood between women who might otherwise have never met due to their age gap, physical distance or just professional lives. The app has seen a few thousand downloads since inception and has created quite a buzz on social media. “There is a very common notion that women find it harder to be friends with other women who are not part of their cliques, and are taking down this myth down, one user at a time with Heel the World. We have seen women keenly taking an interest in writing in with suggestions on how we can improve the user experience on the app. That, according to us, is an indication of the network effect we can expect in the coming months,” said the team. “Aisle is currently an eight member team including three women who are responsible for giving regular feedback and insights which have helped us build this app that focuses on women empowering other women around them,” they added. “I have been chatting with these women who have travelled across the globe and dabbled in different careers. It widened my own perspective of possibilities. It’s quite nice to have someone outside of your comfort zone to discuss ideas with,” said Hilina, an IT professional and HTW user from Pune.
Romita Majumdar
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wo separate studies by Stanford and UCLA have proved that spending quality time with girlfriends added years to women’s life. Yet, mounting work pressure coupled with domestic compulsions and urban isolation leave many women lost and lonely without this support group in a high-stress world. On Women’s day 2017, Aisle Network Private Limited did their bit for the cause by launching Heel The World (HTW an exclusive app for the female folk to connect. “The app was not the result of any one aha moment. HTW is the result of multiple requests made by the women users of Aisle. We received suggestions from women who thought that other women on Aisle seemed quite interesting, and they were looking for a way to connect with them, network, and build friendships. When like-minded women come together, it can often blossom into valuable friendships. Like any other relationship, finally, friendships among women can now begin with a click,” said the HTW team in an email response to queries about its inception. Aisle Network Private Limited had earlier created a dating app called Aisle. Unlike Facebook and Tinder, HTW it is not a space for finding future mates nor is it a sparring platform like Twitter. Rather it provides a secure space for women to meet, strike up conversations and express themselves without the annoyance of mansplaining, sexist trolls and harassment. “This is quite interesting. I don’t think I would have met a biotechnologist in Germany or a banker who speaks ten different languages out of the blue without HTW,” says Mahima, a student from Bangalore. The process is pretty simple. You create an account; select any three interests from a variety of options and just
The Monk Who Became a Woman Tenzin Mariko tests the Tibetan community’s claim to compassion Cathline Chen
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alking around the streets of Majnu ka Tilla, a Tibetan Refugee colony in New Delhi, I came across a poster about a cultural programme in the Unite for Tibetans Association, on which Tenzin Mariko, the first transgender in the Tibetan community, had appeared as a guest. Intrigued, I decided to find out more about her. Tenzin Mariko lives in Mcleodganj as a transgender woman. She lived her entire life as a boy and a monk and then transitioned to a woman as she never felt comfortable in her own skin as a boy. Mariko was born and brought up in Bir, Himachal Pradesh with her parents and her brothers. But, a tragedy struck her family when her parents divorced and had to separate. That is when her father made the decision to take Mariko and her brother to Darjeeling to a monastery to become monks. Both of them had no idea what was in store for them. Thinking it would be a fun family vacation, they travelled along with him to Darjeeling. ”He told us that we were going to become monks and will have to take a train to Darjeeling and change a few buses. For us, it seemed like an adventure as we were just little kids and didn't know much.” She added, “My school friends always went to places and came back and shared their adventures with me. I thought it would be something very similar to that.” Her decision to become a monk was not hers. It was her father’s instead, insists Mariko. “We didn’t know what was in store for us, we were unaware of the fact that our lives would change completely after becoming monks,” said Mariko. Two years ago, Mariko decided to come out as a transgender woman in the Tibetan Beauty Pageant. “Since I was
a little kid, I always felt feminine,” she said. All the teachers and students in her school would say that she talked and danced like a girl. “I had so much femininity inside me that even though I wouldn’t walk or talk like one, but when I danced I wanted to move my hips like a girl.” Most of Mariko’s friends are still women. She didn’t have a lot of men as her friends in her circle. After moving back to Mcleodganj following a few years of monkhood in Darjeeling, she realised that she wasn’t being true to herself and that she did not want to be a monk but rather a woman. However, she initially faced stiff opposition from her family as her father was against the idea of his son being a transgender woman. “Things are better now as he has accepted me and wants me to do good and be successful and happy in whatever I do in life,” said Mariko. The Tibetan community has been surprisingly quite accepting of her decision and applauded while she came out during the pageant. Today, Mariko is a perfomer, a dancer and an aspiring make-up artist. She also is invited as a guest speaker at many Tibetan events and is respected for who she is. “I’m not where I need to be yet, but I’m grateful I’m not where I used to be,” Mariko signs off.