Whether he be an Angel of Death, a Frankenstein's Monster, or the U.S. Government's new War Machine, Frank Castle will always be known as The Punisher. But today we're not talking about who he is or who he isn't, we're talking about the effect he's having on the world. For better or worse.
Let's start by summing this character up as quickly as possible. Frank Castle was a soldier for the U.S. military. He fought in a few wars and when he made it back to America to see his wife and kids, they were killed in the crossfire of organized crime. Frank realized his war hadn't ended, it simply moved-and now it was personal. Using all his training from the military, Frank gathered his tools of violence and waged a one man war on crime. Using criminal's own methods against them. The Punisher clashed against the norm of modern Marvel Comics characters: he didn't have powers, he didn't always do the right thing, and above all else he murdered. Not as a last resort, but as the only option. People like the Punisher because he is simple, he is terrifying, and all he does is kill bad people. Plain and simple. But in recent times it has not been good to be a Punisher fan.
One story that rings in my head was one I reported on The Weekly Flip a few months back. This small-town police sheriff used tax-payer dollars to detail his police cruisers with the Punisher logo and the phrase "Blue Lives Matter". Upholding the lives of police officers wasn't the issue, the issue was the logo being used was one of a vigilante who murders criminals without trail. Add to that the growing feuds between police officers and the "Black Lives Matter" movement and you have a bad looking purchase on your hands. Yet again we see a bad time to be a fan as a few days prior to writing this post, there was a shooting at a club in Las Vegas. Due to that shooting, Marvel Comics and Netflix have pushed back their Punisher Netflix series, feeling it was in bad taste.
I post this not to make those two events any less serious. During those shootings my step-father was in Vegas only a few blocks away. As for the police and black people, in my opinion any life taken is an abomination. If someone is guilty they should face imprisonment, if someone isn't guilty they should be let go. That simple. Now where the importance of a fictional comic book character comes in is where I raise my voice.
The Punisher is not a role model, The Punisher is a power fantasy. The fantasy of eliminating evil from the world bullet by bullet. The fantasy of disregarding the law and taking action and doing all the destruction you can do and still being human. The Punisher is not a mutant or a monster or an alien or anything. He is as flesh and blood as you or me or the people he kills. To see him as a role model is to admit to your darker desires, to submit to the taboo of an unjust world. The Punisher is no less a criminal than his victims, so to take this character and use him to represent your people or your morals or your strength is to relate to a man who kills people because nothing else works. That type of worship may work for the mentally stable, the individuals to weak or smart to use those lessons from Frank Castle, but to apply it to a police force is a misuse of power and a misunderstanding of the character's purpose. If you wanted a soldier to represent you that's what Captain America is for.
But without overdoing it-I don't think the character should be any less appealing to people following the events in Vegas. The move to delay The Punisher's show was done out of sensitivity for what happened, but no matter how real and how grounded The Punisher may be, he isn't real. People like him may exist, but not the way you think they do. The people who kill with or without purpose can never match the intimidation of The Punisher, the capability or adaptability of The Punisher. People who kill without fear can die, and when they do they go away forever. But The Punisher is a comic book character. Popularity keeps him from dying and popularity is what brings him back from death. We should not let the fear of the world we live in change how we feel about the fiction we read. Just because comic books have changed as our world has does not mean we should let our world change us as well. Fear is the ultimate enemy that we all must conquer. Whether we are Superman, or The Punisher, or brave Americans who get back up when he pushed down.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment