Blog

Racism and sexism have long been an unfortunate undercurrent beneath Hollywood that the industry has yet to fully purge. The recent Academy Award nominations brought those controversial, rage-fueled waters back to the surface. While there are many inane reasons for sparse female roles and racial diversity, one of the consistent root causes has been the perceived lack of compelling, commercially viable material that could directly tackle the issue.

Balderdash, I say!

Y: The Last Man, the acclaimed comic from Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, brought me back to comics after a decade away. It tells the story of Yorick Brown and his capuchin monkey Ampersand, the last males on Earth after a mysterious plague suddenly kills anything with a Y chromosome––human and animal. Thirteen years after its initial release, Y still boasts a rabid fanbase and scores of critical accolades. All it needs now is a progressive network like HBO or Starz to step in and breathe life into what could be one of the great television experiences of our time.

Y has a rare blend of strong and diverse female characters, a high concept world with a balance of action/drama for mass appeal, and a cinematic style that naturally lends itself to TV. If the success of The Walking Dead is any indication, a series based on Y could be the unmitigated hit necessary to push Hollywood in the right direction of equality.

Alas, Poor Yorick! You’re…Alive?!

If there’s one thing Y has in spades, it’s complex roles for women. Yorick is the main character, but what’s so special about him? Nothing. That’s the point. He’s an overeducated, under skilled millennial and escape artist who wants to find his girlfriend. Most men in his position would flaunt their bachelor status and sow their seeds across the country, but not Yorick. The naïve, funny, often bumbling protagonist may be on a noble quest for love…but he’s not a hero. He’s a chance survivor and knows that he can’t fix the world; he’s just a potential vaccine––a MacGuffin. The briefcase in Ronin.

The women around Yorick are the real heroes of Y: The Last Man. Every woman he encounters (many of different ethnicities and nationalities) is unique, brilliant, and flawed in her own way. Yorick’s closest companions, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann, save his life on a daily basis and teach him what it means to be an adult. A man. A hero.

355 is a gruff, deadly secret agent assigned to be Yorick’s bodyguard, more a nuisance than a mission for an asset of her caliber. After losing her family, she was recruited by the US government and buried her past. She became a weapon with a number instead of a name. But in all the violence and death she encounters while protecting Yorick, 355 begins to remember who she was and what she sacrificed––her humanity.

Dr. Allison Mann is a half-Chinese half-Japanese immigrant and genius geneticist so bitter and estranged from her parents that she changed her surname to a tacky, faux-Asian moniker. Her work in human cloning research is groundbreaking and unethical but imperative to the future of the human race. Along with 355, she has to escort Yorick to her lab in San Francisco to determine how he and Ampersand survived the plague. Stiff, impersonal, guilt-ridden and lonely, Dr. Mann guards her heart above all.

The closest character to a constant villain in the story is Alter, an Israeli soldier so dedicated to her country and mission that she will kill anyone––friend or foe––to see it through. She is a foil to 355, becoming less and less human while tracking Yorick, but her conviction never wavers. Alter is as dangerous as they come.

There are far more characters than Yorick and his friends, each one fleshed out with nary a cliché in sight. Many LGBT characters are also highlighted naturally within the world, not exploited as stunt casting. Simply put, there are more exciting opportunities for actresses in Y than almost any other intellectual property out there.

Big Action, Bigger Heart

The most prominent leading roles for women tend to be in independent dramas far from the type of fare that attracts the blockbuster demographic. A smaller audience means less money generated and less exposure. Y has a bankable, exciting concept that would attract men and women, drama and action fans. It’s a thrilling, mature adventure with a generous share of sex, violence, and language that feels real without becoming gratuitous. Brawls atop moving trains, submarine warfare…and did I mention ninjas?

Seriously, who doesn’t love ninjas?

The post-apocalyptic world of Y is defined for the reader through the daily struggles of Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann as well as the women they encounter who have adapted to survive. This is a world where a former supermodel collects the bodies of dead men in garbage trucks to trade for food, where a militia in Arizona controls I-40 and has halted all East/West trade, and where violent, feminist extremists called Amazons cut off their own breasts and burn down sperm banks. It’s a dangerous, morally compromised world, and the ladies in it are tough. As. Nails.

I’m a sucker for intense action, but the spectacle of Y is only gravy. The meat and potatoes, what keeps you reading and resonates with your soul, are the relatable character interactions and dramatic arcs that blossom from the extreme scenario. Amidst all the chaos, the core narrative of Y is about family, friends, lovers, and how all of those titles interweave as everyone searches for a place to belong.

For meaning in their lives.

For a connection to something––anything––beyond the misery of loneliness.

The same hopes and fears that Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann struggle with are found every day in our own lives. Y’s emphasis on those primal and universal themes is a triumph that guarantees a devoted audience across multiple demographics.

An Apocalypse Tailor-made for TV

Y was never successfully developed as a film for good reason: there is too much content for two hours. The road trip format, pacing, cinematic panels, and the natural time passage over 60 issues feel like a map for a television adaption. As it stands, Y could have a focused four or five season run with a clear endgame. No fat, no meandering, just brisk forward momentum in every episode.

Reading Y feels like watching TV. In the first issue, the half-hour preceding the plague is broken down minute-by-minute across the world. Planes fall out of the sky. Animals keel over dead. Power plants melt down. The action sequences play out hit-by-hit across multiple panels like camera angles, moving your eye as if the art is in motion. Even quieter moments retain a distinct visual style, such as 355 and Yorick just chatting only for the next panel to pull back and show that they are sitting on the edge of a mountain.

Page after page, you won’t want to stop “watching.”

The dialogue also avoids dry exposition in favor of the modern wit, snark, and charm popularized by Joss Whedon in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yorick makes up for his lack of real-world skills with charisma and pop culture references, which usually fall flat on his companions with hilarious results. His snappy back-and-forth relieves the tension and is also a defense mechanism that, while entertaining, hides a much deeper pain.

“I didn’t think you had hobbies, 355. Other than, you know, cleaning guns and sharpening knives and…well, generally just fidgeting with things that kill people.” – Yorick

Other storytelling techniques would prove effective on TV as well, such as the use of flashbacks. Like in Lost, carefully inserted flashbacks shed light on the main characters, allowing us to see who they were before the plague. The deeper, theoretical implications of the story are carefully dolled out and moderated to avoid turning off the reader with dense, pseudo-science babble.

Y knows how to teach without preaching while exploring intelligent themes like destiny, womanhood, bioethics, evolution, and philosophy.

The Walking Dead, Buffy, Fringe, Battlestar Galactica, Lost––Y deserves a chance to be among these ambitious, genre greats.

Time for a Change

Instead of the endless arguments and articles on Hollywood’s failures, I want to see people championing for change with solutions, not criticism. Y: The Last Man is a successful property with mass appeal, heart, and intelligence to back up the spectacle. The diverse cast of women would be unprecedented on television, and the adaptation process is practically laid out in the comic. Y is an amazing achievement in its own medium that could begin to mend the anger and –isms that have held Hollywood back for too long.

Y: The Last Man doesn’t need Hollywood…Hollywood needs Y.

Readers: how would you want to see Y adapted? Should it adhere to the comic’s narrative or be a looser exploration of the world?

Comment below!