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THE LAW IS A ASS for 01/30/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 80
Originally written as installment # 69 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 632, December 27, 1985 issue
This one was a watershed.
Persons connected with the M*A*S*H TV series called the first season episode, "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet" (in which Hawkeye's childhood friend is killed causing Hawkeye to have a crisis of faith), a watershed for the show. It was the first episode which featured the strong anti-war sentiment for which the series is remembered; the first episode of a decidedly serious tone.
Installment # 69 was such a watershed for me. After two years of dealing with legal aspects of comics in a lighthearted manner -- we were, after all, talking about comic books--I read Web of Spider-Man #'s 11 and 12, the November and December, 1985 issues. The stories outraged me. I knew that the message implicitly conveyed in the stories demanded a response. I also knew the response could not be properly delivered in the light, conversational, humorous style I usually employed. I took a chance and wrote a decidedly serious column, hoping the abrupt departure from my usual style would not offend those who were expecting something different from me.
Don and Maggie Thompson, the editors of Comics Buyer's Guide, liked the installment so much, they rushed it into print before two other installments, which I had written earlier, which they had on hand, and which were already set in type. I received numerous compliments that it was the best installment I had written.
I had seriously underestimated my readers. I've done several more installments dealing with serious subjects since then. I try not to repeat my mistakes.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 80
by
Bob Ingersoll
And then, twenty-one and one-half years after someone grabbed her off a New York City street at 3:55 in the morning of March 13, 1964, two point one five decades after someone slowly butchered her with a knife for thirty-five minutes in New York's Kew Gardens section while she screamed and screamed and screamed for help right outside of her own apartment building, seven thousand eight hundred fifty-some days after someone raped her in the apartment building vestibule not caring--perhaps even enjoying the fact--that she was already half-dead, one thousand one hundred eighteen plus weeks after thirty-eight people--all of them neighbors some of them friends--witnessed the savage rape-murder and drew their curtains so they wouldn't see or closed their windows so they wouldn't hear or turned their backs so they wouldn't know or pulled their La-Zee Boys closer to the window so they could watch in comfort but did not call the police because they didn't want to get involved; Kitty Genovese died again.
Kitty Genovese is, or rather was, a real person. She died in exactly the manner and on exactly the day described. Sadly, we have learned nothing from her slaughter.
The tragedy of Kitty Genovese compels some. Harlan Ellison wrote an award-winning story about it entitled, "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs". Hollywood made Death Scream, a TV movie staring Art Carney as one of those who turned away and did nothing.
But for most Kitty Genovese is an embarrassment, something they would rather discard along with the morning coffee grounds. To them she is not the sacrificial lamb of Me Firstism taken to some perverse extreme. She is just another unfortunate victim of a terrible crime and some terrible circumstances which they assure themselves could never, never happen again.
Except that never is such an awfully long time. Except that almost exactly ten years after Kitty Genovese was slaughtered, another attractive young girl was attacked and knifed and killed on the same Kew Gardens street where Kitty Genovese died; another unfortunate victim of a terrible crime who also screamed and attracted the attention of her neighbors--many of whom had also heard Kitty Genovese's screams--neighbors some of whom watched, most of whom turned away, but none of whom helped in any way, because they still didn't want to get involved.
Except that short years ago a woman was grabbed and raped on Public Square in the center of Cleveland, Ohio, while passers by passed by on their way to catch their buses. And did nothing, not wanting to get involved.
Except that in New Bedford, Massachusetts a woman was beaten and raped on a pool table in a bar, while some of the patrons cheered the rapists on and the rest either fled or sought to hide in their beers.
Except that it does happen again. And again. And again.
And each time it happens again, each time we fail to remember and to learn from that incident of March 13 some twenty-one years ago; Kitty Genovese, the unfortunate victim of a terrible crime and terrible circumstances which we assure ourselves could never, never happen again, dies again.
And what killed Kitty this time was Web of Spider-Man #'s 11 and 12.
Strong words in response to a simple comic book story? Perhaps. Except that it was not so simple a story, it was an insidious, even evil, piece. And no words are strong enough to convey my contempt for it.
Three punks--only the fact, that if I put my true opinion of them into words this paper wouldn't be able to print those words, prevents me from describing them more accurately--rob a Laundromat at gun point. Accomplishing that, they then set out to rape the female attendant. Just three high-spirited boys out for a little fun. Only the intervention of Peter Parker, who didn't have enough time to change into Spider-Man, prevents this second crime from occurring.
As a result, Peter is hailed as a hero by his neighbors, who are tired of the rampant crime in their neighborhood. As a result, they decide to become involved by forming neighborhood watch groups, which patrol the area looking for anything unusual, so they can report it to the police if they do see it.
So far so good. The book is showing a positive attitude: ordinary people and what they can do to help fight crime, because they want to get involved. So far it is a good, a praiseworthy, story.
Then it turned rancid.
Robbie Robertson--city room editor of The Daily Bugle, the fictitious newspaper featured in the Spider-Man stories--doesn't want to run the story about Peter, because Robbie is opposed to vigilantism. But what does Robbie, who has always been a positive force in the book, tell the reader when he says that Peter acted as a vigilante and should not be glorified? He says, that what Peter did was wrong, because he took the law into his own hands.
What would Robbie have had Peter do: look the other way? Or leave to call the police, who--as good as they are--could not possibly have arrived in time to stop the rape which was only seconds away? Should Peter not have gotten involved and let the rape happen?
No. What Peter did was good and courageous, and oh, how I wish they had left it that way instead of implying it was vigilantism, it was wrong.
Robbie was also opposed to the neighborhood watch program, which formed as a result of Peter's act. He felt that, too, was vigilantism, was taking the law into one's own hands, was wrong. But it's not.
A neighborhood watch program doesn't take the law into its own hands. It's not Charles Bronson progressing from a .38 to a belt fed machine gun in his celluloid glorifications of vengeance. It's people watching out for other people and reporting what they see to the police. It's people being involved, so that the criminals will know what they do will not go unobserved and unreported, so that the criminals will not act. It's people caring and being responsible. No, the neighborhood watch, too, was a good thing, and I wish they had left it that way instead of implying that it was bad.
Had the story simply ended there, it would have been annoying. It didn't. They took the implicit glorification of "Don't get involved" many steps further.
The punks want to get back at Peter. So they put a stink bomb in his apartment. Annoying, yes, but harmless enough, in and of itself. Then they placed live rats in Peter's refrigerator, rats which leaped out at Peter, when he opened the door, rats which could have scratched or bitten Peter and injured him seriously. Then they assault an old lady and do injure her, so they can vandalize Peter's apartment. Then they set fire to Peter's apartment, a tool of vengeance which is uncontrollable once set and which could easily have spread to destroy the entire building or killed every inhabitant. Then, because Spider-Man is preventing their vengeance against Peter, they hire a professional killer to kill Spider-Man, only he doesn't want to take on a super-hero, so he decides to kill Peter Parker instead.
As I said, punks. Unrepentant slime whose response to every set back is to get even.
The punks get cold feet at the prospect of killing Peter. Not because they don't want Peter to be killed, but because they're the only ones with a motive to kill him, so they'll be arrested for his murder.
They go to Peter to warn him and at the same time assure him that they've learned their lesson and will, "keep their noses clean," from now on.
And Peter lets them go.
He drops the charges against them and tells District Attorney Hillman not to bother subpoenaing him, because he'll be a reluctant, thus terrible, witness. Peter's neighbors become disillusioned with their hero, so they abandon the neighborhood watch program.
And Peter is left wondering at the end, "I just wanted my life back to normal. Was that so much to ask?"
Had the punks learned their lesson, maybe the story wouldn't have so offended me. But it is clear they didn't. Tomorrow or the next day, they will return to rolling drunks or mugging the elderly, until their crimes will again become more brazen and, eventually, they will rape someone or murder someone.
Had the neighbors learned from Peter's example and continued their involvement in order to rub his face in his own feet of clay, maybe the ending wouldn't have bothered me. But they didn't. The neighbors returned to their uninvolved, "Let whatever happens to someone else happen, just so long as it doesn't happen to me" way of life.
Had Peter the courage to face up to the adversity that his noble actions caused him, the story wouldn't have infuriated me. But he didn't. He backed down. He surrendered his principles and abandoned his duty, just so his life could be normal.
And he spat on Kitty Genovese's grave!
The message that this story shouts to its readers is clear: if you act responsibly, if you get involved, if you dare to help a fellow; your normal life will be complicated, so the only solution is not to get involved and to hell with anyone else's life, because it's better that your own life stay normal. After all, is wanting your own life to be normal too much to ask?
The answer, as Kitty Genovese--or any of the other victims who followed her to the grave unmourned by those who didn't want to get involved--can tell us is, "Yes!" As long as a "normal" life includes not getting involved when a fellow is being ravaged--not even calling the police so they can help--then wanting a "normal" life is too much to ask.
Kitty Genovese only wanted a normal life, too. A job. Maybe a husband and kids. Whatever a normal life would have been for. That's all she wanted. She couldn't have it. Her normal life was taken from her at the point of a bloodstained blade, because others wanted to keep their lives normal by refusing to involve themselves in hers. Sadly, it is the others living those normal lives, who are winning.
Which means all of us lose.
BOB INGERSOLL
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