BLANKMAN (1994)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair* 
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: (1) *psychological, sociological,* (2) *psychological*


"A black man would rather miss than look bad."-- Woody Harrelson's character in WHITE MEN CAN'T JUMP.

I can't say I found BLANKMAN very funny, but as the above illo shows, the two black stars (Damon Wayans, David Alan Grier) don costumes that make them look REALLY bad.  That does demand a special sort of *chutzpah.*

The film has its most amusing moments toward the start, when Wayans' Darryl and Grier's Kevin are seen as children, geeking out over the 1966 BATMAN show while trying to watch it on a malfunctioning TV set.  Then the two kids quickly grow up-- or at least one of them does, mentally speaking.  Kevin becomes a normal guy who works for a television news show, where he lusts after anchorwoman Kimberly (Robin Givens).  Darryl remains frozen in geekhood, working on various absurd and worthless inventions while being supported by Kevin and cared for by their grandmother.

Crime, under the control of mob boss Minelli (Jon Polito), runs rampant in a city where the police are both lazy and chicken-hearted.  Darryl and Kevin's grandmother practices social activism and gets rubbed out by Minelli's thugs.  The more childlike Darryl takes her loss harder than Kevin does, but he also has the more proactive response.  Though he can't fight, he does possess enough science-knowledge to design a bulletproof superhero costume for himself.  He succeeds in his first crimefighting efforts by luck and gumption, but when he attempts to tell people his hero-name is "Blackman," he's misunderstood and the press dubs him "Blankman."  Darryl invites Kevin to join him as his crimefighting partner.  Kevin declines.

To Kevin's dismay, crusading reporter Kimberly falls for the mysterious stumblebum superhero.  But when Minelli's crooks stage a trap for Blankman, Kevin steps up, dons his costume, and uses his karate-skills to fight alongside his dotty brother.  Darryl does have a few oddball inventions that help them out: some funky jet-skates, a bomb-sniffing robot made from a old washing-machine.  These, being slight improvements on then-current technology, would be subsumed under the phenomenal category of the uncanny, except that the bulletproof costume qualifies as a marvelous invention..

Though the script validates the wishful thinking of childhood, the theme isn't pursued with any rigor.  Polito's Minelli is, though not a supervillain, slightly bigger-than-life: he boasts of wearing pure satin clothes when he robs a bank and rises to the comic-book model by constructing a death-trap for the captured heroes.  Givens plays her Lois Lane role straight, which allows her to be a decent foil to Wayans' antics.  The most interesting theme suggested by the sibling rivalry between Darryl and Kevin.  This has less to do with their sexual competition for some Freudian mother-figure (though Kimberly does echo the grandmother's social activism) than with the fact that Kevin has to be the "father" in the relationship, trying to force his simple sibling to grow up.  Darryl, the "fantasy-principle" to Kevin's "reality-principle," rarely shows overt resentment toward Kevin, although I did find it significant that Kevin gets shot, albeit nonfatally, because Darrly neglects to tell him that his superhero suit ISN'T bulletproof.