As regular readers of this column know, I have a soft spot for misunderstood populist leaders such as Star Wars orchestrator Senator Sheev “the Worker’s Friend” Palpatine, Amity Island shark-truther Mayor Vaughn, handsome and authoritative religious icon Big Ted from Play School and, of course, Wilson “the People’s Pal” Fisk, arch-nemesis of the masked vigilante Daredevil and, as of last series, mayor of New York (in the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
Ah, Wilson Fisk and the way he might look at you, with his big roundy head like the moon and his big roundy body like the sun and his nice white suits and his gently and genteelly autocratic ways and his love for his city and his wife (the Kingpin is a wife-guy) and his hatred of Daredevil – who is, in fairness, a bit of a dose.
Daredevil: Born Again returned to our Disney+ devices this week, and it reminds us that there are two social models left for the United States to choose from. There’s the one embodied by the beloved bulky crime boss (Vincent D’Onofrio): tackle social problems with public-private partnerships (crimes) and no-nonsense policing (also crimes). And then there’s the one embodied by alliterative attorney Matt Murdoch (Charlie Cox): dress up in leather and violently assault people down the docks.
I know who I’m going to vote for. I get that all contemporary thought is nowadays filtered through the prism of the big three franchises – Marvel, DC and Star Wars – and in this context Daredevil: Born Again is what we get instead of political drama. The days of The Wire are long over.
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Fisk is clearly meant to be seen as an avatar for Donald Trump. But it’s a Pollyannaish perspective. At several points we are meant to believe that if only information about his wrongdoing were made public, the people of the Marvel universe would be appalled and Fisk would be dragged from office.
In reality, when terrible things are revealed about Trump, his supporters go, “That’s what we voted for!” and his opponents go, “We’ve had our lawyers look into it, and it turns out that crime isn’t actually illegal,” and all the apolitical folk in the middle shrug and say, “Grok, is this true?” or, “Is there a meme that could explain this simply before I forget about it?”
The Marvel Cinematic Universe opponents of the fictional Fisk have a more can-do attitude to social ills than the doomed denizens of our world. Sadly, that can-do attitude is largely represented by dressing up in fetish gear and punching those social ills in the face.
Yes, there isn’t a problem on Earth that Daredevil, a bleeding-heart liberal, won’t leather up to punch. And of all the bad things Fisk has done – weaponising the police, personally enriching himself – the one the show is most exercised about is his persecution of masked cosplayers who take the law into their own hands.
It’s hard not to side with Fisk on this. Far be it from me, a writer with the woke Irish Times, to kink-shame anyone, but I have to ask: Daredevil, is this violent leather play really a stable basis for social change?
Another problem with Daredevil: Born Again is that that punchy fetishist Matt Murdoch isn’t half as compelling and charismatic as the populist daddy figure Fisk. Vincent D’Onofrio somehow makes being a looming criminal demagogue who is filled with violent rage seem heartbreaking and relatable while Charlie Cox, in contrast, makes being a gimp-masked pugilist who likes to violently assault criminals seem, well, just like I made it sound.
In the new series he is assisted by a former baddy named Poindexter (presumably his pals Nerdlinger and Dorkmeister weren’t available), who also goes by the name Bullseye and who, in episode two, helps Daredevil by killing a bunch of cops.
There are two tones Marvel likes to use in its TV shows: wisecracking and winking (Loki/Hawkeye) or whispering and grunting (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier/Secret Invasion). Daredevil: Born Again is definitely in the latter camp. It’s a show in which people love to hang out on rooftops, whispering and grunting.
When D’Onofrio does so, it somehow adds to his gravitas. With Cox it just reinforces my strong suspicion that the costume and the violence are a sex thing for Daredevil.
On The Hunt: Prey vs Predator (Channel 4) members of the public end up hunting the deadliest prey of all: middle management. Yes, the cast includes such modern career marvels as a “marketing director”, an “environmental project officer” and a “logistics co-ordinator”. You can learn a lot about the contemporary working world from the jobs people have on reality television.
Thankfully, there is also a beauty and lifestyle influencer (I’m beginning to see most small-business owners as more capable than anyone who works in a corporate bureaucracy), as well as a 70-year-old former model. “When you get over a certain age as a woman, you are invisible,” she says, much like the predator from the film Predator.
The Hunt is a game in which people are divided into two teams, dressed up like the guards on Logan’s Run, and one team is put in pursuit of the other across a forest landscape. “Hunt or be hunted: it’s the stark choice at the heart of the natural world,” a grim voiceover says. Can mice, rabbits and ducks suddenly choose to turn on their larger, toothier oppressors? Perhaps with weaponry? Maybe if they band together in a loose alliance of tiny critters?
Much like Celebrity Bear Hunt, in which Bear Grylls hunted middle management across a different wilderness, this isn’t a real hunt at all. Nobody is actually eviscerated or eaten. It is, in fact, just a game of hide-and-seek. The programme should really be called Hide-and-Seek for Adults Who Are Having a Bad Time Because of What’s Happening in the World.
As they evade capture, the “prey” undertake tasks during which they win money, much like prey do in the wild. When a predator catches one of the prey, the predator takes that money and the two then switch places. (You’ve no doubt seen hawks and field mice do this.) The prey can, later in the episode, vote one of the predators off the show. (I’m sure David Attenborough has dealt with this process in his nature documentaries.)
Anyway, it all leaves plenty of room for alliances and rivalries and betrayals and all that other good stuff.
Ultimately, the winner of the game will walk away with a £100,000 in prize money. That amounts to about quarter of a three-bedroom terraced house in Fairview in Dublin or an eighth of one in Walthamstow in London.
It feels as if reality-show prizes have been deflating in recent years. By the time the war is over, reality-show prizes will no doubt be reduced to some dried food, a jerrycan of oil and some religious pictures. We’ll be happy to have them.
