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osprey_archerI've been trying to watch Daredevil - I've made it to episode 3 - but I'm having trouble getting into it. There are, IMO, two kinds of dark and gritty, and Daredevil is the kind I don't like, where the show takes place in eternal night and endless rainfall, with streetlamps that cast dramatic shadows everywhere -
Okay, actually, it's not the aesthetic itself that bothers me. It's very stylish, and classic film noir uses it to great effect - I watched Double Indemnity a few months ago and it blew me away. But in modern work I find that it tends to accompany a moral universe where, say, the hero can torture a guy on a roof and then toss him into a dumpster six stories down and somehow remain the hero. Bad guys deserve to be crippled for life without even the protection of due process, so it's okay! Or something like that.
Just once, I would like to see a show where the heroes torture the hell out of someone and then it turns out that they got the wrong guy. Their informant sent them after Joe Schmoe because a property line dispute left him with a petty grudge and he wants Mr. Schmoe out of the way. That would be gritty and realistic.
Okay, actually, it's not the aesthetic itself that bothers me. It's very stylish, and classic film noir uses it to great effect - I watched Double Indemnity a few months ago and it blew me away. But in modern work I find that it tends to accompany a moral universe where, say, the hero can torture a guy on a roof and then toss him into a dumpster six stories down and somehow remain the hero. Bad guys deserve to be crippled for life without even the protection of due process, so it's okay! Or something like that.
Just once, I would like to see a show where the heroes torture the hell out of someone and then it turns out that they got the wrong guy. Their informant sent them after Joe Schmoe because a property line dispute left him with a petty grudge and he wants Mr. Schmoe out of the way. That would be gritty and realistic.
