Frank Miller: Occupy Wall Street 'Louts, Thieves & Rapists,' Comic Writer Says

[roguevalley]

Frank Miller has spent much of his famed comic book writing career creating dark, urban dystopias, but the groundbreaking scribe has little regard for the chaos he says reigns at Zuccotti Park.

The man behind such famed comic series as "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns," "Sin City" and "300," in fact, is entirely against the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"'Occupy' is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness," Miller wrote in a blog entry last week. "These clowns can do nothing but harm America."

Though, for the most part, the participants in the now-global Occupy moment have protested the imbalances of the economy, corporate fiscal abuses and government officials' close ties to Wall Street, Miller mentions the War on Terror in his slamming of the nascent movement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/13/frank-miller-occupy-wall-street_n_1090790.html

What a big mouthed coward. Read it all at link.

[mdmc]

1. batman would beat occupiers silly

`

[Angry Dragon]

2. Jesus Christ would be leading them or at least in the front

and he would turn Batman into a joker

[Blue_In_AK]

15. I agree with that.

I was watching a three-part Discovery series the other night called "Who Was Jesus" or something like that that showed what a true rabble-rouser he was. I like radical Jesus a whole lot better than that guy the right talks about all the time. I loved the part where he went in the temple and turned over the tables of the money changers. It seems so appropriate to today.

[Prophet 451]

24. Miller would turn Batman into The Punisher

In fact, if you've read Dark Knight Strikes Again, he pretty much did.

[MurrayDelph]

33. He destroyed the Spirit

which was what I expected once I heard his name was on the project. The Spirit was a spoof of noire.

Miller can't do spoof. He even made Robocop darker.

[Prophet 451]

34. I've managed to avoid the movie

but I had heard it was an awful insult to Eisner's original.

[arcane1]

3. They just filmed some of the new Batman movie near OWS

It will be interesting to see how that fits in to the film itself.

[Azathoth]

8. Given the not-so-subtle right-wing undertones of the previous film

I wouldn't count on a positive portrayal.

[Hippo_Tron]

31. I didn't sense a whole lot of right-wing undertones in the previous film

And the first film had quite a few left wing undertones regarding the military industrial complex, and on the theme of vengeance vs justice (which is what the death penalty debate is really all about).

At the end of the day, I don't think there's a whole lot of political statements in the film. Yes he tortures the Joker and you can read into that as condoning torture. But The Joker was also pretty much a masochist and was laughing the entire time that Batman was beating the crap out of him. At the end of the day, all it did was waste time that he could've been using to save his friends.

It's a thrilling super-hero movie that's way out in fantasy land, even though it takes place in something similar to "our world". My guess is that he's going to just be jumping over the OWS crowds and that will be it.

[Azathoth]

38. TDK is replete with right-wing war-on-terror moralizing

One of its fundamental themes is the sinister sophism that true patriots are the ones who are most willing to violate all the freedoms they claim to protect. Rampant evil and chaos and terror and ticking time-bombs lurk around every corner, and the only way a strong hero can fight back is to resort (reluctantly, of course) to illegal spying, torture, and more. And because the hero is a billionaire "job-creator", he is morally righteous and we can trust that he will never abuse his ability to violate everyone's rights.

As I recall, several reviewers noted when the film came out that it was a not-so-subtle allegorical defense of the Bush administration.

[Hippo_Tron]

40. Again, that's your interpretation (and the interpretation of the reviewers)

I watched the movie and saw a very different approach to these issues, namely that there are no overt political statements, only exploration of the issues (and again not as a primary goal, but as a way to relate a fictional story a bit more to our world).

Remember that for all of the torture and illegal spying Batman does, this isn't a film where everything gets wrapped up into a nice little box at the end. The Joker turns Harvey Dent into a murderer and thus corrupts Gotham's symbol of hope. Batman tortures and and spies his way into capturing The Joker, but really The Joker still wins, no matter how much torture and spying Batman uses.

Not to mention the fact that a movie with a black and white right wing agenda wouldn't have a convicted criminal display moral superiority over a prison guard, as it does when the guy on the prison ship throws the detonator off the ship. Nor would it even bother having the woman in Gordon's unit who informed the mob, convincingly tell two-face that she did it out of financial desperation because she couldn't afford her mother's health care bills.

It will be interesting to see where the third film goes with all of this.

BTW, they opted not to film at OWS.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/11/15/occupy-wall-street-dark-knight-rises/

[villager]

4. He's certainly fallen since the critiques of Reagan embedded in "Dark Knight"

n/t

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. Yeah, I thought that might be reflective of his overall political stance.

(Disappointed!)

[Withywindle]

6. I wish this surprised me more than it does.

But there's always been a lot of machismo and misogyny in Miller's writing, which often is a red flag for an overall lack of empathy. There's also an authoritarian streak that creeps me out.

Does he write good, gritty pulp stuff? Sure. But I also kinda cringe to see him mentioned in the same breath as people like Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison and Alan Moore - Miller just doesn't have that sense of human complexity. Miller has this sort of gratuitous brutality that puts me off.

[WCGreen]

7. That's was always my take on Miller...

I think he is nothing more than a cranky misanthrope who has a dark vision of society.

Other than that, it's a refreshing take on the comic book characters and shows the flaws.

The Batman is nothing more than a vigilante, after all.

[gulliver]

9. Yeah, Miller's vision for America is so attractive.

Miller is one sick bastard. Interesting work, but strictly, strictly comic-book level mentality. His world view is usually asinine. Once you suspend disbelief a lot you can get a sort of visceral charge out of it. But you just have to remember where the shore is so you can get back from that dark, minor key ultra-fantasy. Miller may have forgotten the way back.

[Malikshah]

10. Mr. Misanthrope at it again. No doubt some of his fanboys will follow along in the

most pseudo-intellectual sycophantic masochistic fashion. We've all seen the types. Thriving on carefully worded d-baggery.

I do know of some of his older fans who've written him off...they see through his sociopathic desire to go against the grain and be the ultimate hipster curmudgeon. Trite and tiresome is his watchword of the day...

[Prophet 451]

25. Count me as one of them

I loved his runs on Batman and Daredevil but since the mid-nineties, he has fallen hard.

[MisterP]

11. and you're Dave Sim, except too stupid to be even a misogynist

[MrScorpio]

12. This is nothing new for Frank

I'm not surprised at all.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. I saw the movie of "Sin City". All the fucking pseudo-hipsters were drooling over it.

I thought it was like being pummeled in the face for two hours with a cartoon steak. Pure crap.

[Withywindle]

32. That was the point where I stopped following his stuff at all

Anyone who hates women that much isn't going to have much of value to say to me, and there's plenty of work out there that's more pleasant and more illuminating.

[deutsey]

14. Yeah, big surprise.

:eyes:

[evilkumquat]

16. Miller has had moments of pure genius...

...but he is way past his prime.

"The Dark Knight Strikes Again" was almost insultingly bad to those who loved the original (and Year One).

Showing his true face, he's dead to me now, just as much as Dennis Miller, Victoria Jackson, Gallagher and David Zucker.

[Cowpunk]

26. I still wonder about Victoria Jackson

She could be the Andy Kaufman of wingnuttery.

[spanone]

17. 'putrid false righteousness' ...frank, whoever you are, fuck off

[girl gone mad]

18. He got his ass handed to him in the comments.

Brutal stuff.

[carrowsboy]

19. This is really depressing...

Check out these comments on Comicbookmovies.com.... Very disheartening.

http://comicbookmovie.com/fansites/debbiedowner/news/?a=49786#comments

- good job frank. bout time someone said something about these lazy ass people who complain about money when they should just go make it them shelves. since when has it been cool for hating on people who lived out the american dream?
The Arab countries have been trying to destroy Israel for 1000s of years.

- Miller is pretty much right. Anyone who has actually done any real research on OWS knows it. It's just the same clueless airhead 60s Marxist types running around spouting off without having any idea what they're talking about.There are some normal people involved, but for the most part it's the usual suspects. And anyone who thinks these people (the usual suspects) want jobs is living in a fantasy world. They have repeatedly turned down job offers in favor of goofy lefty utopia where health care is "free" and there's a "guaranteed living wage regardless of unemployment status" and all idiotic crap. This is little really to do with bad, bad, bad corporations (spare me)- which by the way make the clothes, iPhones, tents, food, and everything else OWS uses. This is about the Loony Left acting like, well, the Loony Left.

- Funny stuff. When this article 1st hit, all the children & liberals jumped all over Miller. Now it seems all of the adults and ppl with information & the attention span to type more than 2 sentences have shown up with rational posts. Logic wins out.
This is why the occupy movement is garbage. They're upset that rich people are firing dudes and blah blah blah. So they want the rich dudes' money. Who do you think pays your salary!?!? The rich dudes! If you take their money, they won't have any capital to expand their business and hire any of you socialistic bums. You want a job? Stop knocking on your boss.

- Frank Miller hit the nail on the head. This movement is full of narcissistic brats and bums who refuse to get jobs. Yes unemployment is extremely high, but just like Greece and Italy, we only have people in government who embrace socialist principles or Keynesian economics to blame for that. Additionally, those illegal immigrants (illegal, not undocumented) who are taking the low wage jobs are contributing to that. Here's a thought though, instead of marching on Wall Street, they should be marching in front of the White House. Instead of worrying about how much the rich are making perhaps they should be thinking about what they can do to earn money. Instead of expecting handouts they should be finding ways to feed themselves. The difference between our generation and my grandfather's is that they would would work as many jobs as they had to as long as they could feed themselves and their families. I bet tons of these people have degrees in history, philosophy, or feminist studies and tons of loans and are wondering why life is so unfair.

- Socialism. Favorite economic system of the lazy and despots everywhere.

- Socialism was tried once here. The original mayflower settlers set up the colony based on socialism and collectivism. Most of them starved until they reorganized into a capitalistic system. Ask anyone from the old eastern block how socialism worked for them.

- As far as Republicans being Nazi, remember the Nazi party is actually called the national SOCIALISM. It is far closer to the beliefs of current Democrat/Liberal then Republican.

[samsingh]

28. i used to be a fan - no more

you're dead to me miller

fuck off

[Norrin Radd]

36. Comicbookmovie.com attracts that sort of fan brought

into comic book reading by the sub-Watchmen grim 'n gritty stuff and pandering misogynistic cheesecake garbage of the late 80's, early 90's. Basically, sexist, racist jerks who probably picked on the so-called sensitive "geeks" in school. I never understood why these sorts of people read superhero comics, when, clearly, their behavior and attitudes would be abhorred by superheroes, if they really existed.

[FarLeftFist]

20. HOLY SHIT! Did you see the first comment on his board? Check here:

http://frankmillerink.com/2011/11/anarchy

Scroll down, read 1st comment. Epic.

[samsingh]

29. there are some negative miller comments there

at least some people can think

[Thinkingabout]

21. Paranoia is setting in

As long as the 1% bunch can keep their puppets going it will be easy for so few to control so many. Just allow Faux news to continue to tie any event possible to the Occupiers. They are indicating it is backed by Muslim and a revolt is near at hand. At first they was trying to say there was mispelled signs which we know was the Tea Baggers and every one is dirty, having sex in the open and on and on.

[slay]

22. Bleedingcool.com has a nice collection of responses by fellow comic writers:

I like Gail Simone's the best.. lol

Comics Industry Issues Retort To Frank Miller. Including Batman
Submitted by Rich Johnston on November 12, 2011 – 6:27 pm

"Earlier today, Bleeding Cool ran Frank Miller’s take on Occupy Wall Street, and noted some of the comments on his blog (now closing in on a thousand), and how they were mixed in response.

A few of his fellow comic book professionals had something to say on Twitter as well. Here’s a selection. They are rather less mixed.

Gary Erskine - Frank Miller is encouraging the Occupy movement to enlist ‘for the real thing’? Maybe he should show them by example then? Will Eisner did.

Ron Perazza – Thinking back on it, Frank Miller’s writing is filled with the glorification of right wing militant politics. Shame his reality is the same."

more: http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/11/12/comics-industry-issues-retort-to-frank-miller-including-batman/

[Prophet 451]

23. *sigh* Frank was a player once

Go back to the mid-to-late eighties and Frank was an amazing writer. His take on Batman in the "Dark Knight Returns" and "Year One" books brought the public awareness of Bats back from the camp of the TV show, back towards the pulp-inspired loner he had been to start with. His run on Daredevil rebooted Matt Murdock from a character no-one really cared about to a troubled hero who was, if anything, even more conflicted than Batman. The first few "Sin City" books, while they had their flaws, were an interesting attempt at doing noir in comics.

Sadly, sometime in the late Nineties, Frank started to lose his mind. The "Sin City" books went from being hard-boiled noir to being troublingly misogynistic (or maybe that was always there and we hadn't noticed before). And then 9/11 happened and he was one of those who seemed to lose what sense he had left in the aftermath. His follow-up to DKR (the Dark Knight Strikes Again) was atrocious and the digs at Reagan in the original were replaced with what seemed to be a call for super-powered fascism (an idea far better explored in "Squadron Supreme" and "The Authority"). Whole essays and vlogs have been devoted to how awful DKSA was. Badly-drawn, badly-plotted, stilted dialogue and a climax which included virulently homophobic dialogue (out of character for Bruce). Then he added to it with the notoriously awful "All-Star Batman & Robin", a work so rampantly terrible that Miller now tries to claim it was parody (this would be more convincing if he had ever called it parody prior to the backlash or if it wasn't clearly on the same lines as DKSA).

Over the years, Miller has gone from being a vaguely liberal (or, at least, anti-Reagan and humanist) writer to a wildly conservative one. Even that wouldn't necessarily be so bad but he has been prone to the same curse as most conservative writers in comics (and comedy): He keeps shoving his views into the story even when it makes no sense. Batman has always been a small picture hero and, while he rooted out corruption in Gotham, he was largely apolitical in the larger scheme of things. Batman wouldn't attack OWS, he just wouldn't much care either way. As a character, Bats simply regards national politics as not being his jurisdiction. Superman has always been fairly liberal, not the caped dictator Miller turns him into in DKSA. Bill Willingham (Fables) has the same problem. I knew he was conservative when I started reading Fables and I could put up with the pro-Israel bandstanding but when the main characters stop to lecture the reader for two pages on gun control, I reserve the right to call "foul". Conservative writers in comics seem to have the idea that the rest of the industry is so liberal (it's not, it's a business like any other) that they have to cram their politics into everything they write. And they do it with characters that make no sense. The Punisher is a character you can get away with this stuff with, so is Daredevil to an extent. Batman is not.

[saras]

27. What do you expect from someone who believes that superheroes have to be dark?

[a simple pattern]

30. Batman is a 1%-er asshole.

Spiderman, now there's a man of the people.

[Norrin Radd]

37. Bruce is more of a "tax me more" sort.

[Marr]

35. One of his fellow comic book writers recently said he'd have a lot more respect for Miller if

he 'gave up the whole big money/comic book thing and put his ass on the line with the soldiers who are out doing the things he says are so noble and worthwhile'.

I adore some of Frank Miller's work (his earlier work-- everything he's done in recent years is utter shit), but he really is a right-wing loon.

[AverageJoe90]

39. I liked 'Sin City', but...............

Obviously, something really changed this guy.......9/11, perhaps?