Wicked City and Demon Cops

[jburneko]

Hello,

I would like to discuss the relationship between Wicked City and Demon Cops.  I recently saw Wicked City and it was not what I was expecting.  It started a rather large argument between my wife and I.  She HATED it and I thought it was okay, although I disagreed greatly with its "message."  I'll get to this in a minute.

Afterwards, I found myself looking at the Demon Cops supplement and looking at Wicked City and tried to figure out how one came from the other.  I understand that Demon Cops is not, "Wicked City The RPG" but I assumed that they would share the same Premise.  I read The Premise section of Demon Cops and whole heartily agree that is what "Cop Stories" are about.  However, I don't see those issues in Wicked City, or rather I kind-of see them but they are virtually obliterated by the overpowering sexual thematics of the story.

Here's what I see as the primary "message" of Wicked City: Sex for pure pleasure is creepy, transgressive and well, demonic.  But sex for love and above all reproduction is empowering.

Which has nothing to do with "To Serve and Protect" so to speak.  If I ever run a Demon Cops game the LAST thing I would do is show anyone Wicked City because it would just confuse the issue.

If anyone has seen Wicked City and read Demon Cops I'd love to hear what you think.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

I hesitate to participate in an artsy-Sorcerer debate between a man and his wife.

The interesting thing for me was pulling out Demon Cops, reading my own words that identify Wicked City as the primary source material, and yet now agreeing with you, from memory, that the sexual themes are central.

So maybe this is the way to look at it. Seems to me that in that story, the cop-stuff is the necessary context for the personal/sexual themes to develop and emerge. In my primary game of Demon Cops (that's where the example characters come from), the cop-stuff provided the context for family issues to emerge.

In other words, I see the cop-based Premise as the long-term, contextual one, and whatever a given character brings in as a personal issue (very much in the Primetime Adventures sense) becomes "that story," defined as the Kicker and its resolution. At the time I saw Wicked City, the cop-stuff seemed very solid for that purpose.

Best,
Ron

[jburneko]

Hey Ron,

I can guarantee you're not getting in the middle of the argument.  We agree lock-step on what the film was attempting to portray.  The argument was merely over whether it was a good film or a poor one.

Your answer is surprisingly simple and makes sense to me.  It's true that I saw the "setup" of Demon Cops within Wicked City, I was just thrown when that setup didn't seem to carry the main issues in the film.

Thanks.

Jesse

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

As a recent convert to the TV show The Shield,* this thread has turned out to be especially thought-provoking for me since you posted it, Jesse. In retrospect, I think Wicked City falls down in the last twenty minutes or so specifically because it does focus on the local theme so much, that it basically abandons its contextual one. Looking back on my creative process during writing & playing Demon Cops, I now realize that Bio-Hunter (same director, creative team) is a much stronger movie in ending/thematic terms. I suppose I blended the two together in my mind - basic color and ideas, as well as the first half of the story from Wicked City, ultimate personal conflicts and themes from Bio-Hunter.

Best,
Ron

* "Convert" is too weak a term. My wife and I are starving hyena addicts to this show.

[jburneko]

Hello Again,

My wife and I love The Sheild too.  In fact, I almost brought it up in my first post as what I'd rather have people watch before playing Demon Cops.  Going into Wicked City I was kind of expecting something like The Sheild or any other cop drama but Anime-style and all Demony.

I break Wicked City down this way:

The Sex Theme
In the begining we hear the protagonist taking bets on whether he can bed a certain woman or not and this leads to him getting attacked by a toothy vagina demon.

The person they're supposed to protect is a letch and this leads to scenes where he's shown sucking on a woman's breast in the creepiest most "suction cuppy" way possible.  All the while the woman is saying things like, "I don't understand why you're doing this.  I'm not pregnant.  No nourishment (i.e. nothing good) can come of this."  Of course, she too, turns out to be a demon.

Most of the demons use sex as a weapon:
1) The demon who shows up at the safe house tries to rape "The Woman of the Blackworld"
2) When the Demon Agent is captured she's taken by a large tentacly like thing that makes oral sex look creepy and transgresesive.
3) Her punishment for being a traitor to the Blackworld is to be repeatedly raped.
4) Whe the Human Agent goes to rescue her, he must past a "test of his manhood" that is clearly a metaphore for sexual temptation.

Finally in the end when the human and demon have sex it's shown as sweet and tender and this leads directly to the demon agent getting pregnant which causes her to "transend" and give her the power to defeat the villain.

Conclusion: Sex for fun and pleasure is creepy and transgressive while sex for love and reproduction is good and empowering.

I found these images and metaphores so blinding that again it basically obliterates these:

Cop/Agent Issues
The human agent is assigned to work with an agent from "the other side."
Their assignment involves protecting a ward who is uncooperative and unpleasent.
The human agent is forced to choose between following through on his mission and rescuing his captured partner.
Once fired the agents discover their old assignment is following them and have to decide if this is still their responsibility or not.

This is the "last twenty minutes" part you mention where there's almost none-of-the-above represented.  The only thing I can squint to see is that it turns out that the agents themselves are the mission and now choose to accept "job responsibilites" (keeping peace between the worlds) into their personal lives: love, marriage and children.

I find the ratio between Sex and Cop Issues to be so unbalanced that its clear which one is "what the film is about" and the other kind of "what we did to keep the plot moving."

I now have to check out Bio-Hunter.

Jesse