The Valley Girl: Where Comics Meet Reality

I'm a huge fan of comics. In most of my social circles that’s looked upon as either really cool, or really geeky. With other comic book fans, I sit for hours discussing themes and role-playing about whom we could be in real life based on our personal attributes. I've been told that I somehow represent the duality in the She-Hulk, timid in most situations, but not to be messed with when angry.

Personally, I take a great deal of offense in being compared to an Amazonian, green, and angry girl, but apparently that's who I am, as decreed by my other comic book aficionado friends. Well, thank God comic book super heroines are hot at least. It is the number one comic book rule, after all!

My affinity and huge interest in comics makes me look geeky, and a sort of escapist, but you see I am making up for lost time. I got into comics much later on in my adulthood as comics were viewed as trash in my conservative household. My copies of Betty & Veronica, Dandy, Beano, Mad, Gila-Gila were always ceremoniously dumped the moment the hidden stash was found. My mother took the view that comic books were a waste of time, and that I would be better off spending time doing something more productive, like studying.

Now, with my own income it has become slightly less of an issue, and I am beginning to savour the fruits of being a working girl. Not that sort of working girl, but you know what I mean. Comics are to me what, television or shopping is to some, a form of escape from the drudgery of life.

In its illustrations and words, I get to escape into a world where there are clear lines between good and evil, where the goodies are clearly defined from the baddies and where good always triumphs over evil. In tight fitting spandex over rippling muscles and great hair, of course.

My personal favourite has always been the anarchist V, made popular by the shoddily made film V for Vendetta, which in my purist comic fan belief denies the weight of the graphic novel and its intricacies. My favourite writers Alan Moore and Frank Miller, have explored many such themes as the struggle between good and evil, of being a hero, loved by some, hated by many and the eternal battle between doing what is right by others and what is right by oneself.

The recent film, The Dark Knight with Christian Bale as the Batman, and Heath Ledger as the reinvented darker, more psychologically disturbed Joker is testament to how comics too can exemplify real life events. In the movie, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), the new young, up and coming district attorney in Gotham city is heralded as the change that Gothamites want to see in their city, teaming up with the Batman and the police to fight crime and take down the mob. See, even in comic books there seems to be a need to reconcile fact and fiction, that even comic book city dwellers yearn to see mob bosses and corruption come to a grinding halt.

In this movie, Batman yet again struggles with quitting what he does, and letting Harvey Dent continue his good work, as being Batman comes with a great deal of responsibility. The movie explores Batman's need to be accepted and to be loved by the very people he intends to save, and their constant rejection or skewing of his persona as a public figure.

Ledger delivers possibly his best performance in his entire acting career that has led to many suggesting a post-humous achievement award, perhaps even an Academy Award. The Joker is dark, twisted, and represents a sort of moral decline only possible when one’s conscience has given way, or in this case shows signs of not even existing. He functions with no rules, and no fear and it becomes his ultimate strength in his inexplicable madness.

To compare the events in the movie with the current events we are faced with on a daily basis would not be too difficult. The Malaysian national climate is faced with a great deal of worrying occurrences, some in ridiculously, lurid details. I can hardly remember when sodomy and the Penal Code have been quoted in such constant amounts. (Oh, wait! It was ten years ago!)

There are elements of intrigue, drama, courtrooms, the hopeful promise of the execution of justice, explosives, ‘interrogations,’ high-powered public figures, sex (‘against the order of nature too!’), murder, and much more. The only thing lacking thus far has been a masked vigilante, although balaclava-clad policemen will suffice for the time being as far as costumes go… you get my drift.

In all this, it is my hope as a Malaysian (and an ardent comic book fan) that we the public stick as close to the acquisition of truth as possible. That we don’t breakdown and let fear take over us once more, and that we hope and pray fervently that good will indeed triumph over evil, and most of all that we do ourselves and this beautiful nation justice.

Text Michelle Gunaselan

Send Michelle mail at meeshlet@gmail.com