Bruce Wayne / Batman

Growing up, Bruce Wayne was an attractive young man. With the frame of a sprinter, and a chiseled jawline that would make a Romney son jealous, Wayne couldn’t help but draw the attention of both females and males alike.

And secretly he loved it. He loved it when the girl at the counter would bat her eyelids at him, or when the man in the stall next to him would take a sideways glance that pushed the boundaries of acceptable male heterosexual urinal relations.

Sometimes, long after Alfred had turned in for the night, Bruce would stand in front of his full-length gilded mirror and stare at himself for hours: neglecting to ask introspective questions about the death of his parents, instead distracted by the raw power and rippled lines of his hard, male physique.

He soon realised that good looks and fortune couldn’t bring happiness, beginning a lifelong quest for answers. The obvious place to start was the death of his parents, reflecting his belief that the family unit was key to a stable society.

Through his investigations, he began to build a political consciousness. The state had failed his parents and now it was failing millions of other Americans by squandering money on inept policing and failed social policies that were destroying traditional notions of the family. And how was Gotham’s over-inflated bureaucracy paying for this? By saddling successful businesses like Wayne Enterprises with an ever-growing list of company taxes.

He decided that the only way to fix things was to do it himself. So he stitched together his first batsuit and donated to the Gotham City Republicans, beginning a relationship with the G.O.P that would last to this day.

However, while Wayne was happy to influence politics indirectly, he never contemplated running himself. As an introvert, the idea terrified him – too many unanswered questions remained about his identity to risk the day-in-day-out scrutiny of the 24-hour news cycle.

Hints of the truth would surface over time – through his alter-ego Batman. As Batman grew to love the feel of rubber against his skin, so did Wayne. As Batman began mentoring a young Robin, Wayne found himself appreciating more and more the youthful vitality and teenage bravado that the boy brought to his life.

But instead of embracing the truth, Wayne ran from it.

He poured his attention into Wayne Enterprises and strengthened his ties to extremist elements of the Republican Party. He would host lavish fundraisers, espousing homophobic diatribes to any Party powerbrokers who would listen. Later, as the Dark Knight, he would don his batsuit and vent his frustrations through ugly acts of violence towards downtrodden “criminals” before returning home to drown his sorrows.

This year Wayne Enterprises’ Super PAC has been campaigning strongly for Rick Santorum, under directions from Bruce Wayne himself, who sees the Pennsylvanian as the best hope of advancing his pro-family, anti-gay agenda.

But even if Santorum was to secure the Republican nomination – and eventually the presidency – deep down Wayne knows that his sense of unease would linger. For no matter how many gay marriages Santorum prevents, or how many criminals Batman apprehends, the true cause of Bruce Wayne’s unhappiness remains unresolved…

Jessica Fletcher

Cabot Cove, Maine, USA.

High salaries, self-funded retirees and economic comfort.

A strong social conscience and a history of liberalism.

A town in crisis.

While the 80s and 90s saw the federal and state governments wage a hard line war on drugs in big cities and focus on cleaning up violent crime, the people of Cabot Cove suffered. This sleepy little fishing village with a population of 3,500 had a murder rate higher than Johannesburg – with more 2% of the populace falling victim to foul play.

This is a story about a town, its social problems, and its saviour: Jessica Beatrice Fletcher.

Fletcher began life teaching at Cabot Cove High. It was there that her disillusionment with the government began. Funding was down, students were going without what they needed, and teachers like her were left without the means to educate.

She frequently dipped into her own pockets to buy reading materials and lamented that her colleagues didn’t do the same. She was pro-community and felt frustrated by the lack of funding and intense bureaucracy she faced in trying to get any good done. Her vote for Carter in the 1978 Presidential race was the last time she would cast a vote for a Democrat for many, many years.

The 80s saw Fletcher’s economic circumstances change significantly. The success of her critically panned but best-selling novel, The Corpse Danced at Midnight, elevated her into a higher tax bracket. She welcomed the tax cuts from the Reagan administration, but still gave generously to charities supporting inner-city youth. “We need to do this,” she would often tell her good friend, Sherriff Amos Tupper, “because the government sure as hell will not help these kids out.”

It was her own motivation and disillusionment with government bodies that compelled Jessica to take matters into her own hands. Cabot Cove’s law enforcement and local government were at breaking point – with unlikely, isolated incident murders plaguing the community and causing confusion and widespread moral panic.

But complaining would get you nowhere, thought Fletcher. “Sometimes, we Americans have to roll up our sleeves, and get the job done,” she cried.  “If I see an opportunity to help out my community, I’m going to do it – I’m going to shoulder my burden. We don’t need the government to save us and we certainly don’t need their red tape to hold back the cleaning up of Cabot Cove.”

This is the attitude that made America what it is today… and the attitude that compelled Jessica Fletcher to solve 268 murder cases, armed only with her intuition, charm and matronly instincts.

In the mid-80s, Fletcher became associated with local political groups and began campaigning for local Republicans in Congress. Using her sizable network and celebrity to endorse candidates, she secured the election of several Republicans, always careful to stay away from the crazies and focus on good, fundamental centrists with their hearts in the right place.

She even stepped into the fray, answering the Governor’s call to fill in for an unfortunately deceased Congressman for a few weeks – such was her respect and pull in the local party. That was as close as she’d ever get to ins and outs of the machine, and her brief encounter with the inner machinations of Maine’s legislature left her as befuddled and cynical as ever.

Jessica Fletcher made the world a better place. She saw problems and she fixed them – consequences be damned. She was a Republican, an American and a hero, and the people of Cabot Cove salute her today.

Kath Day-Knight

When Kath Day-Knight voted for Kevin Rudd in 2007, it was the first time she had voted Labor.

“To be honest, I’m a swinger – when it comes to voting at least,” she says with a giggle.

“But when I saw K-Rudd on Sunrise with Mel and Kochie, he just came across like such a down-to-earth guy. I’ll tell ya, he gave my sauce bottle a fair shake!”

Kel was also caught up in the hype of the Kevin ’07 campaign, and produced a special commemorative sausage for the election: a combination of Darling Downs beef, Chinese five spice and cheese.

However, on 24 June 2010, Kath woke up to Mel and Kochie reporting that Julia Gillard was going to challenge Kevin Rudd for the Prime Ministership.

“I couldn’t believe it! I just felt that it was undemocratic you know? And after everything he’d done for us Indigenous Australians.”

After the election in August 2010, Kath gradually began to come round to Prime Minister Gillard. She was proud of the fact that Australia had a female Prime Minister, and one with whom she could closely relate. In Gillard, Kath saw a fellow footy fan (albeit for the wrong team); a  woman who shared her love of shoulder pads. In Tim, she saw a little of Kel.

But all the time there was a niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

“I guess I just felt that Kevin hadn’t been given a fair go you know? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to vote for Tony Abbott, who’s such a negative nancy. But Julia’s just not floating my boat anymore.”

Kath says she’d vote for Kevin “in a heartbeat” if he was to come back for another go, which she compares to Ben Cousins’ return to the AFL to play for Richmond – but without the history of drug abuse.

Her daughter Kim on the other hand can’t see what all the fuss is about.

“Mum and Kel are such Kardonnay Socialites. They forget that Labor brought in the bloody carbon tax. Cujo’s food’s gonna go up $40 a bowl – Brett’s done the sums.”

Mr Bean

“There is no such thing as society: There are individual men and women, and there are families.” – Margaret Thatcher, 1987.

Historians are divided on the impacts of Thatcherism and what sort of Britons it produced.

On one side are those who view Thatcher’s Homo Economicus Britannia as a positive creation: a creature who thrived in the open market, success assured with the right mix of entrepreneurial savvy and raw hard work.

On the other side are those who say that Thatcher’s Britain produced a generation of sociopaths: unable to relate to their fellow human beings, cruel and single-minded, whose pursuit of their own self-interest could easily lead to calamity.

Mr Bean was a solitary man of few words. With an almost alien inability to relate to other humans, he instead found friendship in a brown Teddy bear.

Neither a successful High Street banker nor a hardened coal miner, as Thatcher’s labour market reforms kicked into gear, Bean moved between a series of low-paid jobs in London’s services sector.

But this didn’t bother Bean, who seemed resigned simply to drift through life. Realising his inability to influence the bigger picture, he instead focused his attention on solving the little things in life: purchasing the right toothbrush through trial and error, or changing into one’s swimming trunks without taking one’s trousers off.

On his meagre income, Bean made do – stealing Christmas trees helped. He even managed the occasional holiday.

So when people around him complained about the increasingly fractious nature of British social relations thanks to the Tories, he couldn’t understand what they were complaining about; what did it matter that wages were not keeping up with inflation when your only major expense was petrol for your Mini Cooper? Why would you care if family benefits were inadequate when your closest companion was a stuffed toy?

In ’92, largely just to spite the whingers around him, Bean resolved to vote to bring John Major back for another term. However, he never made it to the polling booth, distracted on election day by the task of running a blue, three-wheeled Reliant Regal off the road.

After meeting Queen Elizabeth, Bean became a staunch monarchist. Unlike many people, he never supported Charles’s marriage to Diana and stood by the Queen’s seemingly cold reaction to Diana’s death. When Tony Blair began posturing around the passing of the “people’s princess”, Bean was appalled, and strengthened his resolve never to vote Labour.

Today, perhaps for the first time in his life, Bean shares something in common with his fellow countrymen: a sense of confusion as to what David Cameron’s “Big Society” actually entails and what role he, a tweed-wearing man of thrift, who has never participated successfully in any society (let alone a “Big” one), is supposed to play.

A HWTV Christmas Special: The Grinch

Every Who down in Who-ville liked Obama a lot…

But the Grinch,
Who lived just North of Who-ville,
Did NOT!

The Grinch hated Obama! The whole message of change!
Now, please don’t ask why – the reasons are strange.
It could be that he was a G.O.P. hack,
It could be that Obama’s skin was too black,
But I think the most likely reason to choose
Was the Grinch was addicted to watching Fox News.

But whatever the reason
For holding these views,
He stood there on election eve, hating the Whos,
Staring down from his cave with a sour, Grinchy frown
At the warm lighted windows below in their town.
For he knew every Who down in Who-ville beneath
Was busy now, chanting “Change we can believe”.

“He’s a Communist Muslim!” he snarled with a sneer.
“He’ll let gays get married – that’s my biggest fear!”
Then he growled, with his Grinch hairline rapidly thinning,
“I MUST find a way to stop him from winning!”

For, tomorrow, he knew,
All the dads and the mamas
Would line up at booths and then vote for Obama!
And if it was so that he won the election,
The smug liberal elites would have an erection.

And the more the Grinch thought of the Who liberal elite,
The more the Grinch thought: “They’re all fat welfare cheats!
Why, for fifty-three years I’ve owned a small business,
Now they’ll come along and want to tax Christmas!
I MUST stop Obama from claiming the post,
Or the U.S. economy will surely be toast!”

…But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
A crazy idea!
THE GRINCH
GOT A WONDERFUL, CRAZY IDEA!

“I know what to do!” The Grinch suddenly grinned,
And he made a quick website, a shirt and some pins.
And he chuckled and clucked, “My plan’s done! I’ll explain:
With these t-shirts and pins I’ll campaign for McCain!”

THEN
He loaded some bags
Full of pamphlets and fact sheets,
To hand out to voting Whos milling on main street.

The same sleigh that he’d used to steal kids’ Christmas stockings,
He rode down to Who-ville to start his door-knocking.

In Who-ville he handed out t-shirts and signs
That made fun of Democrats through short, witty lines.
On his blog he wrote pieces that blatantly lied
And made use of fear to bring voters on side:
“Voting yes for Obama would be a grave error:
With his Arabic name, he’d support Muslim terror!”

When voting day came
All the Whos made their choice.
All the Whos went to choose
Who would speak as their voice.

And when counting began,
The old Grinch watched in shock
As red states turned blue in a big solid block.
Both north Who and south Who, black purple and green Who,
Had voted the Democrats back into the White Whouse.

And the Grinch, watching Bill O’Reilly on TV,
Sat puzzling and puzzling: “Just how could this be?
He’d won with all races! He’d won with the old!
He’d won despite Biden not doing what was told!”
And he puzzled three hours, `til his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“The economy is already rot to the core!
Obama will only serve one term, for sure!”

And what happened then…?

Well… in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch’s prediction
Came true on that day.
Despite promising change with the cry “Yes we can”,
The partisan senate blocked Obama’s plans.
From health care to climate change,  schools and the war,
Obama’s ideas mostly failed to become law.
But what hurt him the most was when banks did foreclose,
And while Whos lost their jobs, CEOs’ pay? It rose.
And as Occupy Wall Street became more of a movement,
The Grinch laughed to himself, “It’s the economy, stupid!”