Getting the Green Goblin tattoo

[seriousfic]

If the girl with blue hair, a cut-off shirt, jogging shorts, high-heeled fishnet-stocking-boots up to her knees, and more tattoos than a Suicide Girl is questioning your life choices, it's time to go.

So in case you don't follow comics, that's Carlie Cooper, Spider-Man's girlfriend/magical adultery buddy, getting a tattoo of Spidey's racist, fascist, cop-killing arch-nemesis to piss off her boyfriend. Because she's gotten the-Jews-are-responsible-for-all-wars drunk (you know, the kinda drunk where the things you do and say have no connection to your underlying character and are completely random? PURPLE GIRAFFE 81!). It's offensive on so many levels that box_in_the_box has gotten to over a thousand words chronicling it, and we still haven't come up with a sufficient metaphor. "It's like an NYPD officer getting a tattoo of Osama bin Laden to piss off someone whose lover died on 9/11... if Osama was also a white supremacist? And abused one of the cop's best friends growing up? And was a Nielsen family and didn't watch Freakazoid?"

In case you were wondering, the entire thing is resolved when, off-panel, Carlie rethinks it and gets a tattoo of Spider-Man instead, proving that no drama can possibly overcome her protective aura of boring. That adds metafiction to the layers of offense, because seriously, last-minute second thoughts? That's like a thug getting the drop on James Bond and then not pulling the trigger because he decides to rethink his life and become a monk instead. Sure, it's not life or death, but Carlie is in the "relationship drama" arena of Spider-Man storytelling, so a conflict that high-stakes shouldn't just defuse like that if you know anything about plotting.

Anyway, I think from now on, we should use the term "getting the Green Goblin tattoo" to specify when a pairing has become so toxic that it feels morally wrong to ship them. Like, for instance, Blair and Chuck on Gossip Girl. But that's not what this post is about.

See, I've been thinking about hack storytelling (since it is, after all, my forte) and a revelation occurred to me. Relationships, like all drama, are born out of conflict. Not yelling-at-each-other or slap-across-the-face conflict (at least, not always), but simply the characters being different people, with different interests. To take an example from the greatest ship of all time, Big Barda and Scott Free, Barda's idea of a pleasant evening might be watching the big fight on HBO (and yelling at what they're doing wrong), while Scott's might be having a pleasant cup of tea (note to self: Martin Freeman as possible Scott Free?) and pondering how to get out of a straitjacket made of acid. Now, your average preteen fangirl or hack writer might say this means they're a terrible match, but the contrast makes them interesting. The fact that they're willing to compromise despite their obvious differences makes their relationship stronger, and we the audience can enjoy the irony that although on the outside they're very different, deep down, they're much more similar.


Just like Rizzoli and Isles, even though they are NOT A COUPLE AND ARE EXTREMELY HETEROSEXUAL. They just happen to end a speed dating session together, clinking their drinks, while a narrator calls them a perfect match, as many heterosexual female friends do.

Jesus, I'm still not over that.

Now, take a character like Carlie Cooper or Lana Lang from Smallville. These are characters that have no inner lives, they're created solely to be "perfect mates" for their respective heroes. And I know, I know, technically Big Barda was created as Scott's love interest and not because her awesomeness was so grand that it ripped right through the fourth wall and whacked Jack Kirby upside the head. But the difference is, Kirby was a good enough writer to see that Barda having a vastly different personality than Scott and being a strong character in her own right would make them a perfect match, while a hack writer creates a character that is just a female version of the hero. They have the same interests, they believe the same things, there's no conflict. The relationship is flat, with no obstacles to overcome. Only storytelling thrives on obstacles, so, since they're perfect for each other, the obstacles have to come from ridiculous plot machinations instead of arising organically from the characters.

So Lana and Clark will be kept apart because, say, she steals the Kryptonite power-suit that would allow her ex-boyfriend to live and can't get it off, or Peter and Carlie will be kept apart because she gets a Green Goblin tattoo. Or doesn't, because even a hack realizes that Peter would never go out with someone who has the modern-day equivalent of a swastika as a tramp stamp.

Remember how Carlie was angry at Peter for lying to her? That could create some good drama. It's organic, too... most of us would be upset if we caught someone lying to our face. But she's the perfect girlfriend, who has no character other than being perfect for him, so instead she backs down.

And that's hack writing for you.

Comments

[renshai.livejournal.com]

I kind of want to know what the very specific connotation is - is it a gang tat? Does it indicate your interest in gourds? Or is it, like popped collars and fake tans, an easy indicator of douchebaggery?

(We'll leave aside the fact that most professional tattoo artists won't tattoo drunk people.)

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Green Goblin connotations? Maybe an interest in age-inappropriate relationships and a hatred of safe sex?

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

In an earlier issue (as in, just a few months previous) of this same title written by this same writer, plucky reporter Norah Winters devoted some expository dialogue to explaining to the readers that Green Goblin tattoos have been embraced as a new symbol of white nationalism, because ... well, we never really got a reason WHY, because while Norman Osborn DID try and take over America, one of the ONLY moral crimes that he HASN'T been guilty of is endorsing racism, but whatever, the point being, this same writer already established, in this same title, that getting a Green Goblin tattoo is the new Swastika (making this a story that actually Godwins ITSELF), and yet, police officer Carlie Cooper, whom one would think would know her ass from a hole in the ground with regard to gang insignias, sees no real problem with being a sworn officer of the law and simultaneously getting inked to show her allegiance to the guy whom Marvel themselves are going out of their way to portray as the new Hitler-slash-Osama ... which is ESPECIALLY out-of-character considering that Carlie has previously been portrayed as being so uncompromising about upholding the law that, when her long-lost police officer father turned up out of the blue, she had him arrested for corruption without even a shred of hesitancy or pity (a routine she repeated with fellow cop Vin Gonzales, a friend whom she briefly dated).

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

Or that a girl has a taste for older men and will let them ride bareback.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Setting aside what she should know, and what she should feel, about the Green Goblin and Norman Osborn as a result of a) being a police officer and b) being a childhood friend of Gwen Stacy, how does someone who a) once counted Harry Osborn among her best friends, b) was raised as an adoptive daughter by the family of Lily Hollister and c) is currently dating Peter Parker not know or feel repulsed by all the awful shit he's done, including turning Harry and Peter into cuckolds with Lily and Gwen, respectively? Okay, so we've already gone over the fact that there's no way she could be ignorant of the fact that Norman killed Gwen, and to be fair, I can understand why Peter wouldn't tell Carlie about Norman showing Gwen his Osborn-face, but Lily was like a sister to Carlie, and Harry was one of Carlie's best friends, and they all nearly got killed because pretty much everyone in the Marvel Universe assumed that Lily was carrying Norman's child, which necessarily means that everyone who got wrapped up in that bullshit, Carlie included, must know that Norman fucked Lily behind Harry's back. And this wasn't even in the distant past of a story from years ago, because this was from the arc closing out "Brand New Day" and immediately leading into "Big Time," so in Marvel sliding scale terms, all this shit might as well have happened JUST YESTERDAY.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

Add To Memories > Writing

[jlbarnett.livejournal.com]

I've always prefered stories where the relationship is stable and the conflict comes from people outside it rather than the people inside it's behavior.