The Lost Opportunity in Zero Dark Thirty

In turning the evacuation of six American diplomats out of Teheran in 1979 into a Hollywood movie, Argo had to distort the historical events, as I discussed back here. There simply could not have been a mass-market movie any other way.

In contrast, the historical distortions of Zero Dark Thirty are less apparent but also less necessary. The major issue, which has reached the level of critical letters from a bipartisan group of US Senators, is whether torturous interrogation methods led to information necessary for finding Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Much of the historical record is secret and debated, but there have been enough revelations to say that Zero Dark Thirty skews reality.

The movie opens with a harsh, extended torture-interrogation scene, the first that heroine Maya watches. As Steve Coll in The New York Review of Books explains:

There can be no mistaking what Zero Dark Thirty shows: torture plays an outsized part in Maya’s success. The first detainee she helps to interrogate is Ammar. He is tortured extensively in the film’s opening sequence, immediately after we hear the voices of World Trade Center victims. Ammar’s face is swollen; we see him strung up by ropes, waterboarded, sexually humiliated, deprived of sleep through the blasting of loud music, and stuffed into a small wooden box. During his ordeal, Ammar does not initially give up reliable information. After he has been subdued and fooled into thinking that he has already been cooperative while delirious, however, he gives up vital intelligence about the courier over a comfortable meal.

Some viewers might regard Ammar’s final confession in the midst of warm hospitality as an example of torture that did not work, or worked only partially. In fact, this sequence of the film depicts precisely how the CIA’s coercive interrogation regime was constructed to break prisoners…

Another prisoner gives Maya information while telling her, “I have no desire to be tortured again.” Coll concludes, “In virtually every instance in the film where Maya extracts important clues from prisoners, then, torture is a factor.” Those particular detainees are fictional composites, though the movie refers to other, real prisoners, such as “KSM,” or Khalid Sheikh Muhammed.

I think Zero Dark Thirty also suggests that the torture is horrifying, undesirable, even possibly harmful to everyone involved. It seems to burn out Maya’s mentor from the first scene. There’s a strong but implicit theme that Maya’s dogged, generally nonviolent techniques are better. In essence, the movie implies that she and her CIA colleagues have to grow beyond the violent interrogations. But the movie leaves out historical details that would have strengthened that theme.

First of all, the movie doesn’t show Maya or other investigators being thrown off by false leads that prisoners offered just to stop torture. It shows other sorts of dead ends and a sneak attack on Maya’s agency by Islamist terrorists. But Zero Dark Thirty ignores the drama inherent in one powerful argument against torture: it doesn’t produce reliable information.

Though the movie shows Maya debating with her colleagues and higher-ups about her conclusions, it never shows how some officials, notably the FBI, objected to the use of torture. The filmmakers bypassed that source of drama and the chance to show character growth.

Furthermore, Zero Dark Thirty presents torture sessions as directed, indeed improvised, by a CIA agent in the field. It doesn’t show the whole bureaucratic apparatus that our government built around the practice, with lawyers, psychologists, and physicians involved in planning and supervising interrogation sessions. Some intelligence professionals have called that inaccurate. The narrative effect is that Zero Dark Thirty insulates its audience from how the harsh treatment we’re seeing isn’t the tactic of one desperate agent but the considered policy of the US government.

I call those omissions unnecessary because a more accurate portrayal could have been just as dramatic, perhaps more so. Until the final raid on Abbottabad, the movie gets its drama from Maya’s push against her agency’s entrenched thinking, her struggle to find useful leads in a haystack of vague hints. Showing her come to doubt the value of the torture policy and struggle with false leads would have fit right into that storyline—and presented a more accurate history.

Reimagining Oz Today

Today is the official publication date of Oz Reimagined, an anthology edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen. As io9 reported last month, the individual stories in this collection will also be on sale as Kindle Singles.

Among the contributors, Jane Yolen wrote “Blown Away,” which has the sell line: “What if Toto was dead and stuffed, Ozma was a circus freak, and everything you thought you knew as Oz was really right here in Kansas?” Way to sell the magic, Jane!

Dale Bailey’s “City So Bright” is summarized as “Marxism comes to the Emerald City.” Didn’t it already?

More controversial, perhaps, is Orson Scott Card’s “Off to See the Emperor.” Not because of its approach to reimagining Oz—“Frank Baum’s son has the real experiences that his father later fictionalized.”—but because Card has become increasingly notorious for his homophobic writing and activism. Some Superman fans are dismayed that he’s scripting a story for DC Comics. Will Oz fans want to buy a book that includes Card’s work?

The Evolution of Carrie Kelley

Earlier this month, Brian Cronin’s “Comic Book Legends Revealed” series at CBR discussed how Carrie Kelley, the possible future Robin of The Dark Knight Returns, emerged from the interactions of three highly praised writer-artists of the 1980s.

The history begins in 1982 when Jaime Hernandez drew his character Maggie Chascarrillo as Robin for The Comics Journal. That was only a year after he and his brother self-published their first Love and Rockets issue, but they had been picked up by Fantagraphics, also publisher of The Comics Journal. This art was therefore, I suspect, both promotion and a dig at mainstream comics.

Three years later, Frank Miller was planning what became The Dark Knight Returns when he shared a plane flight with fellow comics star John Byrne. Miller described that conversation in an introduction to his book’s 1996 reissue:

1985. At 30,000 feet. I talk to cartoonist John Byrne about Batman. John talks to me about Robin. “Robin must be a girl,” he says. He mentions a drawing by Love & Rockets artist Jaime Hernandez of a female Robin. To prove his point, John provides me with a pencil sketch of his own.

Byrne called that a “napkin-sketch.” Here’s his tribute to the characters Miller eventually designed from 2008.

At the time, Miller was apparently not even planning to use Robin. “But then,” he wrote, “one day, I pictured a little bundle of bright colors leaping over buildings, dwarfed by a gray-and-black giant…and there she was. Robin.”

Miller tweaked the established Robin design to be even more bright than before. Carrie had the red hair that DC’s licensing department didn’t allow the first Jason Todd to keep, and she wore it swept upwards for more prominence. Instead of a dark domino mask, her eyes were covered by sunglasses with light green lenses.

The contrast in that Dynamic Duo, brightly colored versus dark gray, contributed to some of The Dark Knight Returns’s most iconic pages, such as this splash page priced at more than $100,000 two years ago.

As for Byrne, in 2005 he wrote on his website’s forum:

Some of you may recall that it was on a plane ride home from Altlanta that I suggested to Frank Miller some of the elements that became his female Robin. Those which he didn't use, I used in Radio Girl.

Radio Girl was the Cold War–era sidekick to the Torch of Liberty in a superhero universe that Byrne created in the mid-1990s.

A New Voice for OIP Derangement Syndrome

Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, has quickly made himself into the prime champion of OIP Derangement Syndrome in the U.S. Senate. Specifically, the type that manifests itself in making wild claims without evidence about President Barack Obama and anything associated with him.

Jane Mayer reports for the New Yorker reports that in July 2010 Cruz told a home-state crowd that Obama “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School” [there is no such position] because ”there were twelve [law professors] who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

Cruz presented no evidence for that wild yet specific accusation. Charles Fried, a prominent Republican at Harvard Law School who actually mentored Cruz, scoffed at all parts of his claim, from the lack of other known Republicans on the faculty to the idea that any of his colleagues wanted to overthrow the government.

During committee debate on the nomination of former senator Chuck Hagel to the Secretary of Defense, Cruz declared: “It is at a minimum relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea.” Cruz of course presented no evidence of either possibility. Even his fellow Republicans chided him.

Cruz also said that “Hagel’s nomination has been publicly celebrated by the Iranian government.” He couldn’t provide good evidence to support that claim. Politifact gave Cruz’s statement its worst rating, Pants on Fire.

In January Cruz told a right-wing audience that Hagel and John Kerry, now secretary of state, are “less than ardent fans of the U.S. military.” Cruz presented no evidence for that claim, either. Nor did he address the evidence that both men volunteered for military service while the US was at war. Cruz, in contrast, has never served in the military; he spent his early twenties at Harvard Law School.

I Don’t Think We’re in the Emerald City Anymore

This place would have totally confused me when I was a ten-year-old asking my parents for anything related to the Oz books.

The Land of Oz and Dorothy’s Place is a store in North Haven, Connecticut, that’s been open for thirty-three years. As the local Patch explains, it’s “a smoke shop and adult novelty store that…offers a variety of adult toys, movies and gag gifts.”

This Land of Oz is in the news because it was recently purchased by Monsignor Kevin Wallin, allegedly as a way to launder the proceeds of dealing methamphetamines, though he may also have been a customer.

Beautiful Wickedness

This artwork is from April Murphy, who explains:

So I signed up to be in a show dedicated to the Wizard of Oz. Seemed like a fun theme to work with as the film has so much wonderful imagery. I committed to doing two pieces. Once I got started, the obsession set in. I’d finish a piece and say “That’s the last one” … and then I’d think of something else I wanted to draw. Ended up doing eight pieces for the show and just had a blast creating this art.

All eight movie-inspired images can be enjoyed at Murphy’s Mardi-Art site and Etsy store.

The Artful Dodger’s Back. And This Time It’s Personal

Toward the end of Oliver Twist, the police arrest Jack Dawkins, alias the Artful Dodger, for stealing a silver snuffbox from a gentleman’s pocket. One of his colleagues, Charley Bates, comments: “To think of Jack Dawkins—lummy Jack—the Dodger—the Artful Dodger—going abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box!”

“Going abroad” refers to a sentence of transportation to one of Britain’s penal colonies, most likely Australia. Charles Dickens never actually shows the Dodger’s sentencing, but his youth makes him an unlikely candidate for hanging (yet). Instead, we can imagine Jack Dawkins starting a new life in the antipodes, perhaps even becoming the gentleman he’s always styled himself to be.

But the Guardian reports a movie studio is imagining a different future for the Dodger:

Titled Dodge and Twist, studio Sony's revisionist take follows…a more comedic approach and is based on an original screenplay by Cole Haddon, writer of the forthcoming US TV series Dracula. The film will portray the two characters as rivals on opposite sides of the law in Victorian London during an episode in which someone tries to steal the crown jewels. The script is based on an original idea by producer Ahmet Zappa, son of rock legend Frank, which is said to be influenced by the success of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films.

This isn’t the first time imaginative dramatists have invented new fates for the Dodger. In the 1968 Oliver!, of course, he and Fagin escape arrest and enjoy the movie’s final number.

More to the point, in 1980 British television came up with The Further Adventures of Oliver Twist, in which the title character goes off to a posh boarding school and there finds Jack Dawkins, of all people. The two boys end up back on the dark streets of London. That story also appeared as a paperback novel and a comic.

Australian television gave us Escape of the Artful Dodger in 2001. That story transported the Dodger to Australia, but also sent Oliver there in more respectable fashion. Once again, Oliver ends up on the wrong side of the law, and the Dodger helps him out.

Those latter-day sequels, like Dodge and Twist, recognize that Oliver without the Victorian underworld to threaten him is a bourgeois nonentity. At the same time, the Dodger’s class-conscious thievery isn’t that endearing unless he’s got a little mate to reluctantly look after. It’s a natural buddy movie.

In fact, British writer Tony Lee worked on a story called Dodge & Twist for years, first as a graphic novel with Paul Peart-Smith (PDF download of preview from 2007) and then as a self-published prose novel (two-chapter preview from 2011). It shows Oliver, having lost his money, meeting Jack, back from Australia—and we’re right back in Dickens’s world.

Zappa’s story is set twenty years after Dickens’s novel; Lee’s is set twelve years after. Zappa’s story uses the crown jewels as the maguffin; Lee’s uses the Koh-i-noor diamond. The Hollywood Reporter said Lee’s take was “more serious.” Lee said he discussed his idea with Zappa a few years back. Isn’t the public domain delightful?

Crossover Events

I hadn’t realized that in December 2011 Ross converted his blog about imaginary issues of The Brave and the Bold (featuring Batman team-ups) into imaginary issues of Super-Team Family, featuring team-ups of any superheroes.

Which of course means more opportunity for Robin. Since Ross uses the grown-up Earth-2 Robin’s short-lived chest emblem as his own avatar, I assume that was part of the appeal for him, too.

As someone who collected all the original Invaders magazines (including Annuals, crossovers, and What If?), my favorite new cover might be this one, letting the kid sidekicks of that 1940s team meet the 1960s Teen Titans.

But I don’t think we need a direct replacement.

Besides, Bucky was a sensational character find of 1941.

From the more modern section, this cover definitely deserves a balloon saying, “Eep.”

(Hat tip to Facebook’s Robin Appreciation Group.)

My Gift to the Current Generation of Kids

Around 1993, as I explained in this posting, I was looking for new science activities for kids that involved soap. I tried microwaving a bar of Ivory soap and was, so far as I know, the first person to see the strange results. I published my findings in a book called Soap Science.

Twenty years later, and I’m finding online videos of families doing that very activity (and in some cases wearing eye protection, too!). In fact, those families go further than I dared to tell kids to try on their own; I couldn’t know if parents would be present or would handle the aroma. And those videos are getting tens of thousands of views.

Such a strange thing to take pride in.

McCain and Graham’s Unanswered Questions about Libya

John McCain and Lindsey Graham were among the Republican Senators who this week filibustered President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. Hagel is their former colleague and friend, and they’d said they wouldn’t filibuster that nomination. But they insist that they have too many unanswered questions about Libya.

There are some questions about Libya I’d like to see answered, too. On 14 Aug 2009, Sens. McCain, Graham, Joseph Lieberman (now retired), and Susan Collins (who voted against the filibuster) met with Libya’s dictator, Muammar Qadhafi, and his son and advisor, Muatassim al-Qadhafi. There’s brief video footage of the senators greeting the Qadhafis in Tripoli. That was part of a gingerly warming of relations between the US and Libya that began in the Bush-Cheney administration.

The 19 Aug 2009 Boston Globe reported:

“We discussed the possibility of moving ahead with the provision of nonlethal defense equipment to the government of Libya,“ McCain said during a press conference. He gave no details on the kind of military equipment Washington is offering.

Details emerged when Wikileaks released a cable from the US Embassy in Tripoli reporting on the meeting. That cable reported the younger Qadhafi’s interest in Libya being able to buy military equipment from the US and described the senators’ responses:

Senator McCain assured Muatassim that the United States wanted to provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its security. He stated that he understood Libya’s requests regarding the rehabilitation of its eight C130s [cargo planes purchased from Lockheed but never delivered] and pledged to see what he could do to move things forward in Congress. . . .

Senators McCain and Graham conveyed the U.S. interest in continuing the progress of the bilateral relationship and pledged to try to resolve the C130 issue with Congress and Defense Secretary Gates.

Those cargo planes had been mentioned in the briefing document provided to McCain and his colleagues by the State Department, which also said: “It would be helpful if you could provide congressional perspectives on lethal sales to Libya and the security commitments that must be fulfilled prior to any U.S. consideration of lethal sales.” So the senators were prepared for that topic.

After the diplomatic cables leaked, McCain denied having said the things they described. He insisted the cable was simply incorrect. McCain indeed hadn’t reviewed and cleared it at the time. But he evidently felt the press and public should accept his word that the US diplomats whose job was to accurately record and report the conversation would be wrong on important points.

As for Graham, he didn’t deny making promises to the Qadhafis, but simply said he hadn’t acted on them:

Graham chuckled Thursday when he was asked whether he’d ever delivered on his pledge to the Gadhafis to endeavor to free up the C-130s.

“We never did anything,” the senator said. “I didn’t feel comfortable pushing the Pentagon to provide military aircraft to Libya. None of us did.”

There are a lot of discrepancies in the reports of this episode: between the senators and the State Department; between the two senators themselves; and between the senators’ cordial meeting with the Qadhafis in 2009 and their insistence that the Obama administration was being too mild when it helped to overthrow that regime two years later.

Of course, none of that has to do with Chuck Hagel, who wasn’t on the trip to Libya and isn’t yet part of the Obama administration. Sen. Graham and Sen. McCain say they just want more information about Libya. I think they could start by being honest about what they told the Qadhafis in 2009. Perhaps they could be the first witnesses at a congressional hearing.