I can see what they were trying to do, but it seemed a little ham-fisted and the logic breaks down when you think about it. Is Hal Jordan supposed to respond differently to stimuli such as watching his father die in front of him in a jet crash as child or flying jets for a living as test pilot and experiencing the same alien green bubble because he's a White person and due to White privilege?
I was BRIEFLY thinking that all three women are the same Manhunter.
Which is I'm fairly positive I know what is worse, that it's sleeping with your mother that is worse than sleeping with your mother's elderly friend who knew you as a baby.
Which is I'm fairly positive I know what is worse, that it's sleeping with your mother that is worse than sleeping with your mother's elderly friend who knew you as a baby.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the main thing we were supposed to take from that scene.
The main thing Bernadette was trying to convey to the Guardian was not her lack of fear at the Guardian's true form, but an explanation of the Black experience in America, which might elicit different responses to stimuli, such as the green bubble, than a white person. She was, in essence, explaining a subtle aspect of white privilege in America to the Guardian.
Zoe actually does something similar in her conversation with John, when she explains why, as a WOC, she is with Macon. She tells John it is because of Macon's skin color and the privilege that provides him, and, coupled with his wealth, made her feel pretty safe.
Also, I think the two scenes together illustrate that the Manhunters apparently have a much better understanding of humans than the Guardians do.
Ok. I guess you got something different from the scene which is totally fine. I see it differently. I think Bernadette really wants power and status. After what she did to John I have no sympathy for her, her husband or for the White Privilege she feels Jordan got. The ring did not pick Jordan because he was white. It picked him because he was fearless. Shes basically making an excuse why her husband wasn't picked. So im not buying it. She blames Jordan and has passed that on to John. How did Jordan's supposed white privilege make him fearless after he saw his father go up in a fireball when he was a kid? I think the writers are writing Bernadette as a villain that makes lame excuses for her husband's failure and later uses that same excuse of white privilege to abuse her own son to the brink of nearly getting him killed. So I think its really exploring how far the audience will let her keep using that excuse.
That's so Guy.
Obviously the dad is also the Same Manhunter, but especially when they are talking to John on the Phone. Very reminiscent of Dean Cain's Superman talking to Ma and Pa Kent on the Phone in the 90s, if they were on Adderall.
I was Watching Hex a few days ago, a British supernatural drama from 2004 with a young Michael Fassbender as an evil fallen angel trying to corrupt the teenage kicks at a repressed boarding school, where the bad kids were playing "Truth or Dare" and one of the dysfunctional lads admits "I am not a virgin... I slept with my mothers friend... She wasn't that old... She was 50... But she's had the really good plastic surgery."
As always, I am a product of my environment.
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Given how obviously sinister and manipulative the supposed "Guardian" is, you'd hope she really is a Manhunter or something to explain it.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the main thing we were supposed to take from that scene.
The main thing Bernadette was trying to convey to the Guardian was not her lack of fear at the Guardian's true form, but an explanation of the Black experience in America, which might elicit different responses to stimuli, such as the green bubble, than a white person. She was, in essence, explaining a subtle aspect of white privilege in America to the Guardian.
Zoe actually does something similar in her conversation with John, when she explains why, as a WOC, she is with Macon. She tells John it is because of Macon's skin color and the privilege that provides him, and, coupled with his wealth, made her feel pretty safe.
Also, I think the two scenes together illustrate that the Manhunters apparently have a much better understanding of humans than the Guardians do.
People know my position on real world dynamics, but I really had a problem with the argument in this scene. Yes, Black people in the U.S. have a difficult time and many do live in fear every day. By that argument, women of any color also live with fears that white men, or men in general, don't. But a Green Lantern has to be able to overcome fear (or be without fear in the older days) in unimaginably horrific situations. The ring chose correctly.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the main thing we were supposed to take from that scene.
The main thing Bernadette was trying to convey to the Guardian was not her lack of fear at the Guardian's true form, but an explanation of the Black experience in America, which might elicit different responses to stimuli, such as the green bubble, than a white person. She was, in essence, explaining a subtle aspect of white privilege in America to the Guardian.
Zoe actually does something similar in her conversation with John, when she explains why, as a WOC, she is with Macon. She tells John it is because of Macon's skin color and the privilege that provides him, and, coupled with his wealth, made her feel pretty safe.
Also, I think the two scenes together illustrate that the Manhunters apparently have a much better understanding of humans than the Guardians do.
I don't think I buy that peoples race would impact people differently to a green energy bubble. I mean it's a green energy bubble made by aliens. I know I would probably piss my pants and start crying if that happened to me.
They probably should have went with the idea that how he was treated by doctors after the event when it fucked him up was more racist than how they would treat a while person who has a similar experience. A focus more on his treatment after the event than actually saying how people react to glowing energy bubbles is different depending on their race. Especially since people in real life will never have to deal with being trapped in glowing energy bubbles. Yet many people have had to deal with depression and mental breakdowns.
Jesus, how hard is this? No, not every white person would be without fear when confronted with the ring's question, but no black person would be. The difference in chances. That's the point, that's what the privilege was.
The other thing that people seem to miss is that the guardian has *absolutely no clue" what she is talking about given she is bemused she describes herself as black when she is "brown".
So you can have multiple things going on at once - an accurate description of the racial dynamic in the USA, a misread of Hal Jordan and a clueless authority figure.
So you can have multiple things going on at once - an accurate description of the racial dynamic in the USA, a misread of Hal Jordan and a clueless authority figure.
I think the problem is being encased in glowing green energy and being asked by questions by aliens goes beyond the normal human experience that one can say that it is no different than if the local police came by asking him questions. Alien energy globes is the great equalizer in terms of a shared human experience.
Also I assumed you got to be fearless to be considered and if a candidate was fearless enough to be considered for the job, then racism, something he has had to face his whole life, should not be something that breaks him because he has been fearless in his life dealing with it already.
IMO they forced the metaphor and it kind of falls apart if you think to much about it. It doesn't help they made a mistake adding the mom character. This should be more of his story than hers. He was the one who was tested. He was the one who broke. He should be the one pissed and grilling Laura Linney. Instead he is just pushed to the side in the story and is made to look weak, which negates any arguments that he should have gotten the Lanterns job at all.
If they want to say something about racism IMO they should have forced more on the aftereffect like I kind of mentioned. How the doctors treat him. People refusing to believe, even though aliens being a real thing would already be known because of Hal Jordan. People thinking he is lying to steal attention from Hal Jordan who is now popular and celebrity hero.
No, because Hal's father dying in a plane crash had nothing whatsoever to do with Hal or his father's race. The plane crash was a freak accident, Hal's dad had survived many test flights before with no incident.
Yeah, you really did miss the point of the scene. Bernadette wasn't implying that she believed the ring chose Hal because he was white. If that had been the case, we might have expected the Guardian to respond by attempting to defend the ring's choice. But that didn't happen. Instead, the Guardian picked up on the racial dynamic Bernadette was describing, something the Guardian had been unaware of.
Like I said, Bernadette wasn't complaining about John Sr. not getting the ring, she was explaining John Sr.'s reaction to the bubble, and what parts of that reaction may have been, likely were, rooted in a lifetime of trauma related to John Sr.'s race. In order to explain that trauma, she had to explain white privilege, because that was something a white ring candidate would be privy to, but a Black ring candidate would not be.
The scene was wonderfully subtle, maybe a bit too subtle.
We don't know why "fear" is so important to the Guardians in this version of the DC Universe... Actually if this is HBO... Could Lanterns be set in the same DCU as Titans and Doom Patrol?
1. Each Ring, and the central Power battery has an evil parasite living inside of it, awaiting an opportunity to latch onto the fear of it's user, edging them into a murderous psychopath.
2. Yellow Power Rings are already thing, and fearlessness is making defection impossible if Green Power Ring users can't use Yellow Power Rings.
3. Fear erodes confidence, making the specific ring constructs of fearful ring users brittle or non-possible.
4. Fearless soldiers wade into certain death and die. The Guardians want a high turn over of young fearless idiots, because older lanterns with a bit of gumption start to smell their bullshit. Note how they kept reminding Buffy, that she was really very old for a slayer, even as a teenager.
5. They want liars who can talk down an invasion fleet rather than kill millions. Everyone is afraid.
6. Being literally fearless is a mental disorder, and very rare. Fairly rare? Only crazy people can use a Green Power Ring because "willpower" is nowhere on the never before mentioned on this tv show "Emotional Spectrum" so what it is, the emotion that they are actually using to power their rings is probably "Arrogance".
7. Lost in translation. Most aliens from actually developed worlds know what a Green Lantern is, and know the responsibilities of a Green Lantern, and that the complete job might be something to be afraid of, and they know the exact nature of the extremely simple test that may confront them some day to qualify for lanternhood. As a know nothing hick from the outer reaches, John SR was asked if he was afraid of God picking him up like an ant, and making him float for thirty seconds. When did Star Trek 5 come out? He probably hadn't seen it.
8. The Guardians didn't test John, it was a Manhunter. The test was rigged. They wanted him to fail, where they made John snr shit his PJs, and then recriminate for months, before they came for his son. By the way, grown men sleep naked, unless it's really fucking cold.
9. Implanted memories in John Junior by the Manhunters. None of this shit happened to him or his parents, they are fine or dead, whatever. Well before she fucked him, Zoe stuck her fist inside his brain making John more useful to her needs in a way that the guardians and Hal wouldn't notice. This means that they probably never boned, and she was just inside his brain doing surgery while John was being distracted with real time false memories of getting his rocks off.
10. Implanted memories in John Junior by the Guardians. Do you know how fricking far away the centre of the universe is from Earth? Fuck that. Alien brain Zoom. Hal Jordan student of Sinestro, cannot be trusted to rear a young Lantern in the normal ways of worshiping the Guardians. Even if his teacher was not a traitor, Jordan is still a grumpy dickhead with no respect for his elders. John is not his replacement, John is a trap waiting to be sprung on a pithy old man who is a danger to young minds, intent on polluting the next generation of Green Lanterns with "Human Nature". H.J. (Hal Jordan) is short for hand job.
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You've been thinking way too much about this.
It’s his way.
You just summed up every Star Trek fan.
John also intentionally destroyed a living planet. (they got better)
Yeah, we're all guilty of it and I wasn't making a criticism. Just taking the piss, with a wink to all of us. Guy usually shoots from the hip in his posts--I think that's the longest one I've ever seen from him.You just summed up every Star Trek fan.
Should have figured he'd be a hardcore Green Lantern fan just from his name.
John destroyed two planets? Where I am in my Lantern reading, John died and it turned out the real John was living a life on some other planet. (Don't spoil me if something has changed since.) I assume that this switch happened back in the 90s sometime?
It's a more recent (relatively speaking) comic, from 2006.
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