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One of the things that excites me the most about the upcoming WATCHMEN movie is how people are going to respond to it on a political level. With the success of The Dark Knight and Iron Man, it’s become very trendy to view superhero movies as political allegory, and WATCHMEN should be no different. The graphic novel is rife with social commentary and it’s just ambiguous enough to float an argument on either side of the spectrum.
What I find really cool, though, is that the once cutting-edge message of WATCHMEN is now twenty years old. Retro Political, if you will. You see, WATCHMEN, while timeless in many respects, is still very much a product of the 80s. The story at the core of the graphic novel is cold war anxiety and mutually assured destruction, and how powerless (or powerful) our costumed crimefighters are in that light.
So the question I’ve been asking is, why now?
In a day and age when we’ve got plenty of political topics to argue about, why make a movie dealing with 80s cold war paranoia? Walk through any college campus in North America and you’ll find students protesting conflicts in the Middle East, advocating gay marriage, and arguing about abortion, but when was the last time you saw someone holding a “No Nukes!” sign? What’s the point?
Well, relevant or irrelevant, audiences are definitely going to react to this film, and I think people will view the politics of WATCHMEN in one of two lights:
One, it will be a sober look back at what might have been and a cautionary tale about where we’re going, set to a wicked-cool soundtrack and awesome special effects.
Two, I think people will try to graft the message of WATCHMEN onto contemporary politics, and quite frankly I’m stoked to watch the bickering take place. There are undoubtedly contacts between the world of WATCHMEN and our own, but they’re not clear enough to make one strong argument. If you really wanted to, you could see Rorschach, the insane vigilante who wants justice at all costs, regardless of the repercussions, as an allegory for the former President of the United States. Or, you could see Ozymandias, the genius with a master plan for the world that no one else is smart enough to understand, as a depiction of Mr. Bush. Or maybe Bush is supposed to be the impotent, clumsy Nite Owl. Heck, maybe he’s the Silk Spectre.
WATCHMEN can be interpreted in so many different ways that it’s going to be a lot of fun to see how people deal with the underlying tale of superpowers on the brink of destroying the world.
What are your thoughts? Is WATCHMEN about the need for accountability from those who have appointed themselves as our protectors, or is WATCHMEN about the need for strong, decisive heroes who will do what it takes to ensure our safety?
Or, as this is the Canadian blog, is WATCHMEN about being caught in the middle of a conflict you can do nothing about and wearing flashy costumes to pass the time?
