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(upbeat music)
- What's up, guys? Michael here.
Today, we're going to talk
about the off-kilter superhero show that dares to ask:
Is it totally chill to do a bunch of murders,
as long as it's for some greater purpose?
Yup, HBO Max's Peacemaker.
The James Gunn TV series
takes The Suicide Squad's most deplorable character,
and makes him the center of a rag-tag gang
of special operatives,
who we somehow end up rooting for by the end.
The show has plenty of Gunn's signature humor.
- I wanna take you home and play with you like GI Joes.
Just don't (bleep) Chewbacca.
Here's a little-known fact.
Wookiees have teeth on their asshole. That's canon.
- And over-the-top violence.
(gunshot fires)
But we think it's also asking
an interesting question, specifically:
Is it okay to kill as long as it's in the name of peace?
To be clear, Wisecrack is not endorsing murder in any way,
shape, or form.
So, let's explore in this Wisecrack Edition
on Peacemaker: Peace, Love, and Bullets.
(alarm blaring) And, as always,
spoilers ahead.
But before we dive in,
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And now, back to the show.
Let's start with a quick refresher
on John Cena's Peacemaker.
The character, who made his on-screen debut last year
in Gunn's "The Suicide Squad,"
has a pretty straightforward ethos.
- I cherish peace with all my heart.
I don't care how many men, women,
and children I need to kill to get it.
- [Michael] And by the end of the film,
it was clear that, for him,
fighting for peace means murdering your own comrades
to cover up the violent secrets
of your government's dirty deeds, among other things.
It was clear that Gunn was using the character
to comment on both the murderous exploits
of our favorite superheroes
and the logic they use to justify
their astronomical body counts.
Peacemaker isn't the first modern superhero
to ponder whether or not it can be ethical
to commit violence,
and violate human rights in the name of the greater good.
- What if we aren't as safe?
- But if next time, aliens roll up to the club,
and they will, they couldn't get past the bouncer?
- But to really understand the history
of good guys doing violence,
we have to go all the way back to St. Augustine.
No, not the historic Florida city
where I took field trips in high school,
the theologian and church father who is credited
with inventing Just War Theory.
This is the idea that,
because God gives governments power for good reason,
it can be ethical for those governments
to wage war under certain conditions.
And this theory has helped many a nation justify many a war.
According to this theory,
the criteria for a Just War includes:
Last Resort, force can only be used
after all peaceful options have been exhausted;
Legitimate Authority, i.e.,
a just war can only be pursued by a government;
Just Cause, war needs to be in response to some wrong,
or attack, suffered;
Probability of Success,
there needs to be a rational possibility of winning;
Right Intention, the aim of war needs
to be the re-establishment of peace;
Proportionality, the violence inflicted needs
to be proportional to violence suffered;
and Civilian Casualties,
innocent victims should never be the target of war,
and soldiers should avoid harming them.
Now, if we were to use Augustine's criteria
to evaluate the antics of Peacemaker and Co.
in "The Suicide Squad" film,
it doesn't seem like they're waging a pure and holy war.
For one, they violate the Last Resort criterion,
using violence first,
rather than exhausting all other options.
Then again, you probably don't want Harley Quinn
engaging in diplomacy.
What's more, it arguably fails
on the legitimate authority front.
Peacemaker's actions don't seem to be tied
to a legitimate government authority,
as Task Force X functions more as a sketchy black ops squad
rather than, say, the Department of Defense.
And of course, there's no proportionality happening,
as Peacemaker seems unlimited in his violent potential,
even when it comes to his coworkers.
I guess this is what happens
when you don't have an HR department.
And throughout the film,
we never get any indication he is concerned
about his actions being anything less than just.
But in the new series,
Peacemaker seems more doubtful about his own motives,
and is openly haunted by memories of killing Rick Flag.
Right off the bat,
we see Peacemaker being grilled by a janitor
about his suspicious killing tendencies.
- Oh, Peacemaker!
- Yes.
- You're that racist superhero.
- No.
- You only care about minorities, man.
- Later in the series,
he finds himself unable to pull the trigger
when tasked with assassinating a whole family,
including their two children.
- Peacemaker, take 'em out.
- Even kids?
- [Man] Yes.
- Mind you, these children are possessed
by alien butterflies,
but shooting a kid is still a, still bad,
it's just a bad vibe.
Here, Peacemaker struggles with some Just War criteria,
including civilian casualties
and having the right intentions.
Soon after, rather than killing the leader
of the butterflies, Peacemaker keeps him in a jar,
and feeds him alien goo.
But it's much less fashionable these days,
as questions of war have now largely transitioned
into matters of national security.
The current theory used in international relations
to understand how states justify violence
is called Securitization, or, Security Theory.
Now, the Just War method of evaluating the goodness
of bombs and bullets was all the rage
in the first part of the 20th century,
as Democratic nations were responding
to large-scale fascism and genocide,
but it's much less fashionable these days,
as questions of war have now largely transitioned
into matters of national security.
The current theory used international relations
to understand how states justify violence
is called securitization, or security theory.
Now, the Just War Theory sought to understand
what responses a government could take
after they were already under some type of attack.
In contrast, securitization is all
about the national security measures a state can justify
based on potential future threats,
ostensibly to keep its people safe.
It's like if there are reports
that another nation is developing some new type
of high-powered weapons.
Under securitization, even if these weapons
haven't been employed yet,
states might use the specter of these threats
to justify preemptive countermeasures.
In this way of thinking,
the response is to what might happen,
rather than to what
has happened. (gunshots firing)
Like how America invaded Iraq based
on speculative threat, (airplanes zooming)
rather than in response to an actual attack.
Or how the speculative threat of future terrorism led
to the passing of the Patriot Act,
which many argue violates individual liberties
and freedoms in the name of security.
For scholar Mark Neocleous,
the "logic of security lies not in a vision
of freedom and emancipation,
but in a means of modeling the whole
of human society around a particular vision or order."
Under the traditional Just War model,
violence was only necessary to protect a state from attack.
But under securitization,
states can arguably use perceived threats
to create systems of order.
This can lead to citizens being forced
to surrender themselves to the will of the state
under the guise of protection and security.
Measures like these can make the line
between right and wrong a little murky.
And this seems to be at the heart
of Peacemaker's original ethos,
as a number of militaristic sins can be forgiven
under the guise of security,
i.e. preventing potential threats,
which becomes another way of saying peace.
Including things like murdering civilians
who just happened to be in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
But for Mark Neocleous,
often the security offered is just a way
to conveniently suspend the law:
"The idea that the permanent emergency involves a suspension
of the law encourages the idea
that resistance must involve a return to legality,
a return to the normal mode of governing
through the rule of law.
This involves a serious misjudgment
in which it is simply assumed that legal procedures,
both international and domestic,
are designed to protect human rights from state violence."
According to Mark Neocleous,
the effect of securitization is often creating a type
of permanent emergency that suspends the law momentarily,
with the promise that
this temporary suspension (siren wailing)
will help us get back to the normal mode
of governing through the rule of law.
But according to his critique,
this involves a serious misjudgment in which we assume
that the law is designed to protect our rights
and freedoms in the first place,
rather than simply to give the state more power.
The idea here is that if the end goal is a return to normal,
and in particular,
a peaceful normal, (gunshots firing)
then violence can be easily justified.
And this logic seems to be one that Peacemaker,
and other members of his team,
are wrestling with throughout the series.
We see this logic of securitization in "The Suicide Squad"
when the team is initially under the impression
that their mission is for the sake
of taking down some bad guys, and one giant alien monster,
who could potentially kill a bunch of people.
(dramatic music) (people groaning)
(monster thuds)
But it's later revealed
that they are simply covering the tracks
of the US government, who are behind the whole thing,
to begin with.
- Child, your government didn't send you here
to protect the world from alien technology.
Your government sent you here to cover up their part in it.
- And while this reveal eventually turns most
of the team against the government
for the sake of protecting human life,
Peacemaker doubles down, as for him,
protecting American secrets and preserving peace
are one and the same.
And the series has a similar vibe early on,
as the team's mission is motivated
by the same logic of security,
even when they're largely left in the dark
about why they are actually taking out the butterflies.
Which, again, are alien butterflies
that embed themselves in human brains
to control their bodies.
But the simple logic remains:
(gunshot fires) These butterflies are
a speculative threat to national security,
and must be taken out at all costs.
Even if that means some collateral kills along the way.
Of course, this gets complicated as the team learns more
about who they are actually fighting.
They eventually learn that the butterflies
are also motivated by the logic of securitization.
The only difference
is that theirs skews more toward environmentalism
than militarism or nationalism.
And this type of climate-based securitization
is increasingly becoming a real thing
in places like the EU.
After losing their home planet
to a gradually destroyed ecosystem,
the butterflies are attempting to help humans avoid
the same fate by covertly taking over
the political system
to prioritize climate protection efforts.
- The people people of Earth were
on the exact same trajectory as our people have been,
ignoring science in favor of populist leaders
who tell you that the floods and the fires
and the disease are unrelated to your own actions.
- [Michael] However, in order to do this,
they need to take over the bodies
of otherwise innocent human beings,
effectively killing them in the process.
The butterflies, then,
beg the same question that Peacemaker's actions do:
Can you justify killing people
in order to preserve the peace and greater good?
But Peacemaker and Co. appear to be motivated
to stop the butterflies based on the intel
that the butterflies are attempting to take over the planet,
and must be stopped at all costs to protect humanity.
And here, the government is using a threat
to justify extreme security measures.
Ironically, of course, that threat is an attempt
to save the earth from environmental catastrophe.
- We made a vow to make the choices for you
that you were incapable of making on your own,
to save your people, and your world.
- [Michael] Now, the Peacemaker of The Suicide Squad
would seemingly have no problem
with eradicating the butterflies
out of a militant commitment to the ideals
of the security state.
This version of the character
is just a raw embodiment of that logic.
At its most extreme,
it seems that with this version of the character,
Gunn is exploring the dark side of America's Id.
He even goes so far
as to make Peacemaker's dad a literal Nazi.
- All hail the White Dragon.
- But don't worry,
Peacemaker kills him. (gunshot fires)
Make of that what you will.
So, does Peacemaker offer any type of solution
for the problems inherent in modern securitization?
In one sense,
the show and its titular character
pretty explicitly question and criticize the type
of security measures used by contemporary Western nations.
Whether it's Adebayo struggling to understand
how it's necessary to casually kill innocent bystanders,
or Peacemaker being unable to take out children
as part of a mission,
the team is openly grappling with their loyalty
to the security state.
But by the end of the season,
the show has taken an almost fatalistic approach
to the idea of morally justified violence.
The whole team has become disillusioned
by Amanda Waller and Taskforce X,
with Adebayo going so far as to snitch
on her own mother on TV.
- It's been running for years out of Belle Reve Prison,
under the command of a woman named Amanda Waller.
- Seemingly a critique of securitization.
The show also seems to cast some doubt
on the morality of the good type of securitization endorsed
by the butterflies,
in which rights can be curtailed
and violence can be imposed for the sake
of saving the planet, and thus humanity as a whole.
Ultimately, Peacemaker stops the remaining butterflies
from carrying out their plan.
- Activate Human Torpedo.
(air whooshes)
- [Woman] What?
(woman screaming)
(creature roars)
- Not out of disagreement with their ideological position,
one he seems to agree with,
and later regrets interfering with.
- Did I just
kill the woman?
- [Michael] Rather, he does so simply because enabling them
might have led to his friends being killed.
- Why did you choose not to help them?
- 'Cause I knew they'd hurt you and the others if I did.
- And now that he's killed his Nazi dad,
and he's seemingly moved beyond his old commitment
to American security,
it seems like friendship is all he has left to believe in.
At the end of the day, the show seems to be saying,
the logic of securitization is so rampant
that we're probably screwed either way,
so in the meantime, maybe look out for your friends,
take the time to rock out on long drives,
and try to avoid being a literal Nazi.
And in doing so,
the show is also pretty transgressive
in the context of recent DCEU and MCU content.
It's forcing us to ask if maybe some
of our heroes are actually the bad guys,
and if the logic used to justify their actions
is eerily similar to the political logic
of our own societies.
But what do you guys think?
Is Peacemaker a hilarious
and violent critique of securitization?
Or, are we just trying to justify rooting
for such an odious character?
Let us know what you think in the comments.
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And as always, thanks for watching. Later.
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