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This isn't normal, either
Jun. 23rd, 2020 07:12 amI had a couple of stressful weeks - not in a bad way, I hasten to add, but there was a lot of work to be done - so now and then, I dipped into popcorn tv, so to speak, which in my case was the first season of The Flash. (Having encountered the titular character in the Supergirl crossover episodes.) And by and large, it fulfilled its purpose of giving me some charming distraction. But one aspect, which isn't particular to The Flash, kept nagging at me, precisely because the more I think about it, there more it seems to be everywhere, and it's this: when exactly did it become normal that the heroes of the show - and not grimdark type of antiheroes,mind - keep various foes with supernatural abilities in tiny, tiny prison cells without any visible hygeniec facilities, and of course wiithout any preceding trial or any kind of legal justification?
I mean, there's always been Arkham Asylum (usually for villains to break out of), I know, but as far as I recall Gotham - which is meant to be a dark city - does go through the bother of legalities before sending people there. But when, on the Marvel side of the force, both in the comics and the film version of Civil War there were (still government run) prison sites for the meta humans off shore, this was meant to come across as disturbing. Otoh,Agents of SHIELDS is cool with its main characters keeping prisoners this way. (Not just if they have supernatural powers.) In Supergirl, our heroine works with a black ops organisation that imprisons various of her defeated foes this way, and in The Flash (first season), our hero puts his in the basement of his billionaire sponsor, essentially. Moving out of the franchise, the series Sanctuary has our heroine and her team offer both protection and imprisonment (depending on the supernatural being in question), and while that's at first done with some loose government connection, and later not so much, in neither case did I spot someone's lawyer ever visiting the facilities in question.
I mean, I get some of the Doylist logistics here: the creative team doesn't want to kill off every single villain (especially in canons where the main characters are supposed to be optimistic, humane heroes), and they've established that the villains in question have abilities that would allow them to break out of normal prisons easily. But even the X-Men movieverse, which isn't supposed to present a mutant-friendly environment, lets the government solve this in the case of a captured Magneto in both the original movies and the prequels by locking him up in a specially adjusted facility after a trial. (And everyone knows where he is.) Since the first round of X-Men movies predate 9/11 and the prequels are set earlier than them, I'm now wondering whether this current tendency to just accept that good guys have the right to deprive bad guys of any civil rights whatsoever - without this meaning to characterise the good guys in question as morally ambiguous, mind - is a by product of the post 9/11 development. Not that black ops sites weren't run before, in both pop culture and reality, but the people running them were usually not depicted as a bright and cheerful lot.
Yes, no one expects much realism from superhero shows. But. In season 2 of Babylon 5, one of my favourite episodes, In the Shadow of Zh'adum, has Garibaldi - who definitely sees himself as a law and order man and also is pro death penalty - quitting his job when Captain Sheridan insists on first arresting Morden and then keeping him locked up without being able to charge him with anything. Now, the audience knows that Sheridan's suspicions are indeed correct, Mr. Morden is Up To No Good, and does have information on what happened to Sheridan's wife (which is why Sheridan does this to begin with). How Sheridan acts in this episode is still depicted as wrong by the narrative, one of the few times the show does this to its leading man, and Garibaldi's reaction - the refusal to keep following an order he perceives as unlawful and unethical - as right. (That his aide Zack Allen then complies with Sheridan's order fits with Zack's development at this point of the show.) What I'm getting at here: it's entirely possible to make a sci fi show (or fantasy) and still recall, if said show isn't given an historical setting, that human rights aren't a privilege revoked when you're a villain. At least not if you simultanously want your heroes to come across as defenders of justice.
I mean, there's always been Arkham Asylum (usually for villains to break out of), I know, but as far as I recall Gotham - which is meant to be a dark city - does go through the bother of legalities before sending people there. But when, on the Marvel side of the force, both in the comics and the film version of Civil War there were (still government run) prison sites for the meta humans off shore, this was meant to come across as disturbing. Otoh,Agents of SHIELDS is cool with its main characters keeping prisoners this way. (Not just if they have supernatural powers.) In Supergirl, our heroine works with a black ops organisation that imprisons various of her defeated foes this way, and in The Flash (first season), our hero puts his in the basement of his billionaire sponsor, essentially. Moving out of the franchise, the series Sanctuary has our heroine and her team offer both protection and imprisonment (depending on the supernatural being in question), and while that's at first done with some loose government connection, and later not so much, in neither case did I spot someone's lawyer ever visiting the facilities in question.
I mean, I get some of the Doylist logistics here: the creative team doesn't want to kill off every single villain (especially in canons where the main characters are supposed to be optimistic, humane heroes), and they've established that the villains in question have abilities that would allow them to break out of normal prisons easily. But even the X-Men movieverse, which isn't supposed to present a mutant-friendly environment, lets the government solve this in the case of a captured Magneto in both the original movies and the prequels by locking him up in a specially adjusted facility after a trial. (And everyone knows where he is.) Since the first round of X-Men movies predate 9/11 and the prequels are set earlier than them, I'm now wondering whether this current tendency to just accept that good guys have the right to deprive bad guys of any civil rights whatsoever - without this meaning to characterise the good guys in question as morally ambiguous, mind - is a by product of the post 9/11 development. Not that black ops sites weren't run before, in both pop culture and reality, but the people running them were usually not depicted as a bright and cheerful lot.
Yes, no one expects much realism from superhero shows. But. In season 2 of Babylon 5, one of my favourite episodes, In the Shadow of Zh'adum, has Garibaldi - who definitely sees himself as a law and order man and also is pro death penalty - quitting his job when Captain Sheridan insists on first arresting Morden and then keeping him locked up without being able to charge him with anything. Now, the audience knows that Sheridan's suspicions are indeed correct, Mr. Morden is Up To No Good, and does have information on what happened to Sheridan's wife (which is why Sheridan does this to begin with). How Sheridan acts in this episode is still depicted as wrong by the narrative, one of the few times the show does this to its leading man, and Garibaldi's reaction - the refusal to keep following an order he perceives as unlawful and unethical - as right. (That his aide Zack Allen then complies with Sheridan's order fits with Zack's development at this point of the show.) What I'm getting at here: it's entirely possible to make a sci fi show (or fantasy) and still recall, if said show isn't given an historical setting, that human rights aren't a privilege revoked when you're a villain. At least not if you simultanously want your heroes to come across as defenders of justice.
