Top 10 #2: Blind Justice

[superboyprime]

"I remember being a kid in the early 60s. And Batman got a computer. He put in facts and got punch type. Mr. Fantastic, Man from Uncle, all these superheroes got computers. It was part of their super powers. Now everyone has computers. And soon we’ll all be hovering, if forecasts are to be believed. Compared to where we were in 1960, we are all super heroes now, and we still can’t solve our problems. We still have disasters even though we can sum up more computing power than even Isaac Asimov imagined. That’s the appeal of Top 10. It’s a fantastic city full of unbelievable people, what a modern urban city feels like." - Alan Moore

Comments

[captainbellman]

I do not miss Shockheaded Peter.

[laughing_tree]

I feel Moore took the easy way out a bit with Pete, making the obvious loser of the cast the one who's a bigot. I mean, I get it. We want the readers to equate pathetic and bigoted. But at the same time, part of the reason we're in the mess we're in today is because so many are unwilling to confront the fact that people who are likeable, admirable, impressive, or cool can be prejudiced.

[sadoeuphemist]

Sorry, what? In these scans alone one of the characters says "you think she's a lez," and refers to her partner as an "Asiatic" (?), and the other guy asks "you another of these dyke feminists?" It seems like there's a good deal of bigotry baked into the background of this setting. (Which, like, yeah, it's a cop story.)

Like, I've never read Top 10, I don't know anything about Shockheaded Pete, but I don't see anything wrong with him in these scans.

[laughing_tree]

I'm not talking about these scans but later in the series, when Moore picks Pete to be the cast's designated Bad Bigot. There were other choices who would arguably have been more natural fits for the role (like the two you mention, given their comments this issue), but Moore went for the loser over the likeable characters.

[sadoeuphemist]

But there are still other bigots in the cast, so I don't get what your point is. I mean, the Bad Bigots in real life tend to be incredible losers anyway, because they don't have the redeeming characteristics to distract from their bigotry. Open white supremacist advocates, for example, are always irredeemable losers, whereas casual down-low white supremacists can mostly get away with it without calling attention to themselves.

[laughing_tree]

But Moore never addresses that casual, low down bigotry. It either goes completely unremarked like it’s no big deal or gets treated in a “haha, that wacky un-PC Officer Smax” way. The only time he acknowledges bigotry *as an actual problem*, he conveniently puts it in the form of this complete loser that no reader likes anyway. I would have preferred a story that acknowledges that, hey, just because we find Smax funny and likeable and a cool dude, that doesn’t mean his bigotry (and that of people like him in the real world) isn’t a problem.

[kd_the_movie]

This. For those who dont realize it, the whole "are you a lesbian?" thing is meant to be a running gag while Shockhead Petes bigotry toward another officer (later in the series ) is meant to be "actually bad"

[alicemacher]

It's long been a pet peeve of mine that many fiction writers, regardless of medium, take the easy way out when portraying bigotry. Either they, as you say, put bigoted opinions only in the mouths of unliked losers, or they make the bigots white supremacists with white hoods or swastika tattoos, spouting the most extreme "kill 'em all" hate speech.

Why is that the easy way out? Because it avoids exploring the various, more subtle and often unconscious/unintentional forms of prejudice many of us participate in. And it avoids making the audience uncomfortable and defensive about it. So much easier to present pathetic losers or blatantly obvious neo-Nazi types as the only sources of bigotry, so we the audience can pat ourselves on the back for not being like them and therefore not being part of the problem.

[deathcrist2000]

Also the whole excuse (I forget his name so I'm calling him) Sargent Dog Cop uses to excuse seeing Li naked due to his colorblindness (he's a dog, it's like a non-furry seeing a dog naked) that turns out to be complete BS is kind of icky and treated as a joke in the narrative. I like the series and all, but that moment always rubbed me the wrong way.

[jeremyp]

The situation with Li and Sarge seems really forced and downright ridiculous. Even in the real world there are people who are colorblind (and dogs actually CAN see some colors) and technology exists that would likely filter our her pigmentation. Does every colorblind person Li meets have to point it out to her, and then somehow avoid looking at her? That doesn't seem realistic or fair.

Also, in the Top 10 world their must be lots of people whose perceptions aren't based on our standard reception of light and colors. Are all of those people required to stop her and say "Just so you know, your light pigments don't obscure your body for me?"

Wouldn't she already realize all of the above? Especially since she was created by people that must of thought about how she would interact with society? And she went through some sort of police training, that should at least acknowledge the existence of different kinds of sensory systems.

She's also willing to accept that this is a super smart dog who can, and is therefore heavily modified from a standard dog, but it doesn't cross her mind that maybe his modifications included developing color vision? In this case that's not true, but it certainly could have been. She shouldn't blame him before finding out.

Finally, if the story is going to play Sarge's senses "realistically" by making him colorblind (and that isn't actually true - dogs can see some colors - http://www.akc.org/content/entertainment/articles/are-dogs-color-blind/) it should follow through on on the idea - a dog's primary sense is their sense of smell. If he is attracted to humans it should be based much more on how they smell than how they look. A dog, no matter how smart, is unlikely to find the human body particularly attractive.

Someone like Li might actually be the least attractive entity to someone like Sarge because as a bioengineered person she might not smell anything like a conventional living being (human, dog or otherwise) that would have hormones, bodily odors, etc.

If the scene is supposed to be funny it isn't. If it's supposed to be some odd lesson about consent or sexual misconduct it seems forced and ill thought out.

[jeremyp]

I meant to add - if a character was truly color blind, and couldn't detect Li's coverage, then they might not initially have any awareness that she was even trying to simulate clothes - because they can't see the color patterns at all - they might think she's simply choosing to be naked.

Considering how unique the town is, having some people who walk around naked seems like a pretty minor personal quirk.

[laughing_tree]

I love the guy's work, but inappropriate jokes is kind of a pattern for Moore. In the first LOEG, the Invisible Man impregnating school girls was played for laughs.

[wizardru]

Was that meant as a joke? I know it was a reference to some bawdy 'girsl school' stories of the period, but I assumed it was an example of how Griffin was a horrible person, not wacky hijinks.

[laughing_tree]

It read as both to me.

[sadoeuphemist]

Wait, is that supposed to be the joke? It doesn't even make any sense. Being colorblind doesn't mean you see all colors as one uniform indistinguishable shade. He'd still be seeing the same patters, except in shades of gray or whatever.