Will Brooker

Star Wars premiered in 1977 and was an unexpected smash. 25 years later, that original Star Wars generation has grown up and become lawyers, booksellers, truck drivers, filmmakers and even academics. In Using the Force, Brooker (one of the aforementioned academics) attempts to track what the whole Star Wars> saga has meant to his generation and to speculate on what it might mean for later generations.

There is an inherent danger in academics writing about popular culture. Some are too far removed from that culture to be able to portray an accurate picture of it. Others understand the subject just fine, but are unable to communicate their ideas to a general audience. Brooker addresses both of these concerns in his introduction, telling us of his own Star Wars fanship and promising to keep a more general audience in mind. Was he successful? For the most part, yes.

Brooker is a geek, who genuinely cares for the Star Wars saga and its related products and for the community of fans. He takes great pains to present a clear and honest picture of the fans he interviews without mocking. This choice to be as even-handed as possible to all of the participants is both admirable and necessary for an academic work to be taken seriously, but I have to admit that I missed the sense of fun to be found in something like Trekkies, which highlighted some of the odder Trek fans without making fun of them. Well, not much, anyway.

The book is overflowing with footnotes and endnotes and bibliographies and all of those things that make a scholar’s heart go pitty-pat, but Brooker’s prose is both informative and accessible. He also has a sense of humor; you’ll definitely get that thrill of recognizing a fellow geek. His transcript of a group of 20-something Brits who’ve gotten together to watch The Empire Strikes Back is well worth a read; it’s both hysterical and embarrassing. I know I’ve been at that party, and I suspect most of you have, too.

Brooker also makes some interesting observations about fanfic writers and fan filmmakers and the “official” reaction to both from LucasArts. It’s no real surprise that 90 percent of all Star Wars fanfic writers are women—that’s true of fanfic pretty much across the board. It’s also not surprising that an equal percentage of the filmmakers are men. What interested me was Brooker’s observation of the support of LucasArts for the filmmakers (within certain rigidly-defined parameters) and the utter lack thereof for the fanfic writers. He doesn’t say that LucasArts (and therefore, Lucas himself) is misogynistic or homophobic, but it is interesting to speculate about why one form of fan expression is so much more palatable to the Powers That Be than the other.

Brooker paints what feels like an accurate portrait of a subculture, and he makes a pretty convincing argument about the Star Wars saga as a cultural touchstone. But was that ever really in doubt? Perhaps I’m too biased—I’m part of that Star Wars generation, as are most of my friends, so it feels a bit like preaching to the converted. Most of the observations that Brooker is making about Star Wars fans in particular seem to me to be applicable to fandom in general. Goodness knows I know Trekkies/ers, Xenites, X-philes and even Rocky Horrorites (Rocky Horror-ists? Rocksters?) who act in similar ways.

Using the Force is an entertaining read. I have some quibbles about his overall points applying only to Star Wars, but I did enjoy reading the book, and I certainly recognized myself and some friends of mine in Brooker’s descriptions. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you should definitely check it out, if only for the staggeringly complete list of Star Wars-related websites.
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This book is a good examination of Batman's impact on society, but more than that it takes a good look at the impact of all comics. The author addresses issues of Batman's creation and his creators, war, propaganda, camp, homosexuality/homophobia and more.

He's very knowledgable and it's an interesting read, but after finishing it, you can't help but feel like Brooker had an agenda.

He seems to strongly defend the two most embattled topics of the Dark Knight - the 1960s TV series, and the question of his sexuality. It's one thing to be objective and fair in reporting these issues, but Brooker easily spends more than half his time explaining why the 1960s series wasn't as bad as we collectively remember it, and why Batman could be gay.

More than that, not only does he suggest that it's possible that Batman is gay, he suggests it might add more dimension to the character by opening him up to more situations. He quotes message board posts (a questionable form of research) and attacks any poster as "homophobic" if they try to assert that Batman is not gay.

Booker can spend all day examining the fictional life of Bruce Wayne off the page/screen, but that doesn't change the fact that Bruce Wayne HAS NO LIFE off the page/screen. We can only take him on what we have seen released from official sources (ie: DC Comics and WB). He reads a lot into subtext, which is fun, but that doesn't always mean it's the intended reading. I can apply political, religious and feminist readings to FRANKENSTEIN, but that doesn't mean it was Shelley's intention.

Regardless, Brooker is very knowledgable and informed, but the time he spends defending the two most embarrasing moments of Batman's history leads one to question his entire thesis -- especially when you take into account Brooker's own sexuality.

You'll feel like he had an agenda to promote.… (mehr)