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...is still a comic book

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Huge hoopla over the impending release of a film called “The Watchmen,” apparently the latest in a never-ending stream of film adaptations from comic books. But wait! You're not supposed to call them comic books any more. The trailer for the movie shouts that The Watchmen is the most critically acclaimed graphic novel of all time! Ahem. Really? Isn't a graphic novel a book with some pictures in it? When did comic books get this fancy new handle? An article on CNN.com interviews such pop-culture icons as Kevin Smith (of Clerks fame) and David Lindelof (a producer of “Lost”) who explain. the monumental importance of the comic. Apparently, The Watchmen played with the superhero genre by introducing heroes who were neither heroic nor particularly sympathetic and added some sex. Today's young star directors and producers were in their early teens at the time. Slavish devotion ensued.

I have not read The Watchmen. The movie trailer looks as though it is a pretty well made super hero flick. I may even download a torrent file of it from an undisclosed location eventually. What makes me giggle is how people attempt to elevate a fun, escapist couple of hours at the movies to an important cultural moment. Kevin Smith is quoted as saying: “You have to understand, we've been waiting for this moment for years! This is it, man! This is the pinnacle!” Pinnacle of what, exactly? Lindelof remembers that reading The Watchmen represented his coming of age. Perhaps it did, but what an impoverished coming of age that would have been.

The adultation for the movie displayed by such pop culture arbiters as Smith and Lindelhof sounds to me like a cry to be taken seriously. Let's call it the Quentin Tarantino syndrome. Victims of the Tarantino syndrome become scholars of pop-culture elements, amassing enyclopedic knowledge of such arcane topics as Storm Trooper costumes, '70's children's cartoons, and in rare, acute cases, the Klingon language. Tarantino himself puts his mastery of pop film genres to good use by creating updated homages to the movies he loves, often to hilarious effect. Throughout his work, however, there is a yearning to be recognized as a great filmmaker. The Kill Bill movies, his studies of the Kung Fu and Western genres are so painstakingly researched and executed that they resemble a doctoral thesis on the subject. This fact has not been lost on academics. Major universities now offer all sorts now offer courses in parsing Madonna's subversion of gender and describing the Zeitgeist through Indiana Jones alongside Wallace Stevens and J.D. Salanger.

I'm not interested in a cultural elitist argument; I'll admit to watching “Lost,” and even paying for the privilege on Itunes. That doesn't mean, however, that I think my taste in TV is worthwhile. I recognize that I have a taste for crap. I view my network TV serial of choice as entertaining, mindless television. I harbor no illusions that it is a classic in any way. While TV or a new movie sometimes provokes emotional or intellectual responses in me, they can't be compared to what I feel when I read good literature or see an inspired play. When pop culture impresses me, it's always in the context of: “wow, that was pretty good for TV!” What about other people my age? It seems that the Tarantino crowd is arguing that pop culture deserves a place alongside art and literature that stands the test of time. Could it be that for these people reading “The Watchmen” provokes the same emotional response and understanding as “Of Mice and Men?” If the answer is no, then these guys are missing out on a good part of what makes us human. If the answer is yes...? What do you say about someone who has actually built a life around Star Wars?

Perhaps the Tarantinos aren't to blame. Looking back at the last thirty years, who are the cultural giants of the English speaking world? Please don't say David Sederis. The recent death of John Updike was treated as a major earthquake in the literary world, but I remember books in the Rabbit series being greeted as popular fiction, something to read on the beach, certainly not life-changers. Pynchon is supposed to be the new James Joyce. Do we really need a new one? Our film directors spend much of their time paying homage to earlier works. Fewer people than ever go to the theater. People will pay $150 to see the Rolling Stones, (who are perhaps old enough now to be considered “classics”) but find $40 for an opera ticket out of the question.

In the absence of significant cultural icons, it's no surprise that today's cultural arbiters are sifting through pop culture to explain how they feel. In one sense this is perfectly reasonable. Everyone is influenced by what they read or saw. The Tarantino generation (and I certainly count myself among them) has been influenced and impoverished by an ocean of action figures, action movies, and action-packed video games. These experiences define us. They are all we have. Smith and Lindelhof can be pardoned for their excitement about the movie version of “The Watchmen.” It is a classic of our time. But that classic is not a graphic novel, because a graphic novel is still just a comic book.