Makings of a Monster
I think, when I was discussing heroes in popular culture as terrorists, I may have touched one or two nerves, although, thankfully this blog has polite and respectful readers. Lord knows if I were writing this series for a mainstream newspaper, I'd probably be getting clobbered by now. Capt. America a terrorist!?!? Harry Potter!?!?!? And yet, in the context of their own stories, both of those beloved characters are labeled terrorists by authorities. So is Olivia Dunham, when she's in the alternate-Earth, and Buffy Summers, in the course of the canonical Season Eight comics overseen by Joss Whedon. And on V, mercenary Kyle Hobbes tells his anti-visitor insurgent allies that "we're terrorists now," after blowing up a spaceship. While I agree that none of those characters act in the interests of spreading terror as a political tactic (except maybe on V), and none of them target civilians, mostly the definition of who is and isn't a terrorist depends on who's writing the definitions. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization, certainly, but are Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan? Are Somali pirates? Is Julian Assange? Perhaps, perhaps not, and without getting too deeply into the politics or the veracity of those labels, the labels do get bandied about a lot, so much so that the label becomes devalued.
Certainly, it behooves those in authority to paint those in opposition to their goals as terrorists, which is surely about the most chill-inducing label one can bear in this particular climate. In fictions, we have the luxury of having insight into the characters. We know what drives them. We know Erica Evans has taken a militant anti-Visitor stance because she's inadvertently learned that the aliens were up to no good, or that Buffy Summers and her army of Slayers are all that stands between mankind and the vampire menace (with its newly developed PR campaign, complete with Harmony Kendall as spokesperson!) or that Capt. America is fricking Capt. America. This is a luxury of fiction, one which allows ourselves to examine qualities in characters we know as heroic in a different context, to look at both them and the culture they reflect from a different angle.
And it's telling that a willingness to stand up to authority, to rebel, is a quality that we value in heroes. It hasn't always been. It's really not so long ago, after all, that Batman was made a deputy of the Gotham Police Department. (Ah, the '50s. Such a magical age for comics.) It's an idea that goes in and out of vogue, depending on how anti-authoritarian the culture is at the moment. The X-Files was such an oddity, in its day, because anti-government paranoia was rarely handled like that in mainstream media, and was more the province of fringe media. These days, the comics have had Lex Luthor be president for a while, and while I've not watched enough 24 to be certain, it's my understanding that it, also, has had some villainous government officials, including a corrupt president. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken. Like I said, it's not my strong suit.) As a culture, no matter how peaceable or law-abiding we may be as individuals, we collectively wish for heroes who can rise up and oppose despotic oppression. You know. If it should arise. IJS. And don't go foisting this one off on the Tea Party. The left has its anti-fascist hero fantasies, too. Frankly, it's an impulse that really cuts across the American culture, even if we can't always agree on what constitutes a despot. Which is totally a different blog.
No, we like our fantastic heroes willing and able to rebel, especially when we ourselves feel powerless to do so. And we want them, like Jack Bauer, to occasionally do the dirty things in the dark that many of us would never, ever condone in real life. We like a bit of monster in our heroes.
Me? I've always been iffy on the anti-hero, even as a concept. I think Han Solo is a hero, not an anti-hero, because it doesn't matter where he begins, it only matters where he ends, and in the end, he freely and willingly puts his life on the lien to battle the Empire. Batman is a straight-up hero, willing to sacrifice himself for innocents, no matter how scary and possibly psychologically damaged he is.
But no, I often find real anti-heroes problematic. I like Wolverine just fine, in a team context, but never care for him much on his own, as it often becomes an excuse to write lots and lots of cinematic violence. And don't even get me started on the Punisher. I was OK when he was a foil to Daredevil or Spider-Man, but on his own? Not so interested. Indeed, I'm only really interested in anti-heroes when I'm particular interested in some aspect of the production, some writer or actor. Certainly, that's what drew me to Dexter.
I love Dexter, and think it's extremely well done, but it's sometimes frustrating to watch people talking about it on the Internet, because they seem to often miss the point that Dexter Morgan is a serial killer. No ifs or buts about it. The show never forgets that, but because the actor and writers find way to wring some empathy out of the character, people seem to lose track of the idea that most of his character is an elaborately constructed lie. I think, because he targets other killers, there's a temptation to try to cast him into the hero's role, when in reality, he's not terribly different from his prey. He knows this. At the end of the day, the fact that there are worse monsters than him out there doesn't actually excuse him from being one himself.
A fiction allows us to try on a wardrobe of shadows without actually buying the suit. It's a place where we can play out our darkest fantasies safely, without actually doing something horrible like, say, committing murder. And that's fine, but a protagonist isn't necessarily a hero. A hero, in fiction is a construct of the best qualities we need to face the darkness. We can snatch Dexter Morgan from a series of scenes, and conclude that he's a hero because he doesn't do that out of any nobility. He does that because he needs to kill. He's a well-channeled sociopath, and even that, inevitably, will fall down on his head. He's not Han Solo, with the capacity to change. He's not Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes, retorting "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research" to a police officer's insult, because, to once again quote Inspector Lestrade, "Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and some day, if we're very very lucky, he might even be a good one." At the point where we meet Holmes in the story, he's not a hero. He doesn't express much actual concern for the murders he investigates, he's simply intrigued by the mystery. He's merely a skipping stone away from being a useful monster. But he has the potential to change, and part of the drama of the show is that he very well might. Eventually. In that regard, it only matters whee he ends up. That door seems closed to Dexter Morgan, no matter how many times it appears it might open. Dexter, ultimately, seems doomed to be a tragedy.
Certainly, it behooves those in authority to paint those in opposition to their goals as terrorists, which is surely about the most chill-inducing label one can bear in this particular climate. In fictions, we have the luxury of having insight into the characters. We know what drives them. We know Erica Evans has taken a militant anti-Visitor stance because she's inadvertently learned that the aliens were up to no good, or that Buffy Summers and her army of Slayers are all that stands between mankind and the vampire menace (with its newly developed PR campaign, complete with Harmony Kendall as spokesperson!) or that Capt. America is fricking Capt. America. This is a luxury of fiction, one which allows ourselves to examine qualities in characters we know as heroic in a different context, to look at both them and the culture they reflect from a different angle.
And it's telling that a willingness to stand up to authority, to rebel, is a quality that we value in heroes. It hasn't always been. It's really not so long ago, after all, that Batman was made a deputy of the Gotham Police Department. (Ah, the '50s. Such a magical age for comics.) It's an idea that goes in and out of vogue, depending on how anti-authoritarian the culture is at the moment. The X-Files was such an oddity, in its day, because anti-government paranoia was rarely handled like that in mainstream media, and was more the province of fringe media. These days, the comics have had Lex Luthor be president for a while, and while I've not watched enough 24 to be certain, it's my understanding that it, also, has had some villainous government officials, including a corrupt president. (Please correct me if I'm mistaken. Like I said, it's not my strong suit.) As a culture, no matter how peaceable or law-abiding we may be as individuals, we collectively wish for heroes who can rise up and oppose despotic oppression. You know. If it should arise. IJS. And don't go foisting this one off on the Tea Party. The left has its anti-fascist hero fantasies, too. Frankly, it's an impulse that really cuts across the American culture, even if we can't always agree on what constitutes a despot. Which is totally a different blog.
No, we like our fantastic heroes willing and able to rebel, especially when we ourselves feel powerless to do so. And we want them, like Jack Bauer, to occasionally do the dirty things in the dark that many of us would never, ever condone in real life. We like a bit of monster in our heroes.
Me? I've always been iffy on the anti-hero, even as a concept. I think Han Solo is a hero, not an anti-hero, because it doesn't matter where he begins, it only matters where he ends, and in the end, he freely and willingly puts his life on the lien to battle the Empire. Batman is a straight-up hero, willing to sacrifice himself for innocents, no matter how scary and possibly psychologically damaged he is.
But no, I often find real anti-heroes problematic. I like Wolverine just fine, in a team context, but never care for him much on his own, as it often becomes an excuse to write lots and lots of cinematic violence. And don't even get me started on the Punisher. I was OK when he was a foil to Daredevil or Spider-Man, but on his own? Not so interested. Indeed, I'm only really interested in anti-heroes when I'm particular interested in some aspect of the production, some writer or actor. Certainly, that's what drew me to Dexter.
I love Dexter, and think it's extremely well done, but it's sometimes frustrating to watch people talking about it on the Internet, because they seem to often miss the point that Dexter Morgan is a serial killer. No ifs or buts about it. The show never forgets that, but because the actor and writers find way to wring some empathy out of the character, people seem to lose track of the idea that most of his character is an elaborately constructed lie. I think, because he targets other killers, there's a temptation to try to cast him into the hero's role, when in reality, he's not terribly different from his prey. He knows this. At the end of the day, the fact that there are worse monsters than him out there doesn't actually excuse him from being one himself.
A fiction allows us to try on a wardrobe of shadows without actually buying the suit. It's a place where we can play out our darkest fantasies safely, without actually doing something horrible like, say, committing murder. And that's fine, but a protagonist isn't necessarily a hero. A hero, in fiction is a construct of the best qualities we need to face the darkness. We can snatch Dexter Morgan from a series of scenes, and conclude that he's a hero because he doesn't do that out of any nobility. He does that because he needs to kill. He's a well-channeled sociopath, and even that, inevitably, will fall down on his head. He's not Han Solo, with the capacity to change. He's not Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes, retorting "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research" to a police officer's insult, because, to once again quote Inspector Lestrade, "Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and some day, if we're very very lucky, he might even be a good one." At the point where we meet Holmes in the story, he's not a hero. He doesn't express much actual concern for the murders he investigates, he's simply intrigued by the mystery. He's merely a skipping stone away from being a useful monster. But he has the potential to change, and part of the drama of the show is that he very well might. Eventually. In that regard, it only matters whee he ends up. That door seems closed to Dexter Morgan, no matter how many times it appears it might open. Dexter, ultimately, seems doomed to be a tragedy.
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