Anti-Hero or Accidental Hero: The Anti-Hero is not conflicted, he is a goody-goody wuss
September 02, 2009
Characters like "Dirty Harry," and Jim McClane (Die Hard, 1988) are often described as "anti heros" since their gruff, unkempt, anti-social demeanour conflicts with their do-good, heroic image. On the face of it then, the anti-hero as portrayed by these rogue cops, is a more ‘complex’, ‘nuanced’ or, ‘flawed’ hero. Anti-heroes are, we are told, a little bit evil, or morally ambivalent, not just a bunch of unrealistically, steadfast, moral goody-goodies.
I argue here that, on the contrary, the "anti-hero," is in fact even more unrealistically idealistic, moral and "goody-goody" by virtue of their accidental nature.
First of all we hardly need to be reminded what all action heroes do; they shoot bad guys and generally destroy a lot of property in the process. Shooting people and wrecking cars are usually seen as examples of undesirable behaviour. The hero remains the target of our admiration and identification due to the existence of the bad guy (it is almost always a male) against whom the hero rises in righteous rebellion. The hero thus is always, at the outset, a degree accidental, dependant upon the entrance of the bad guy for his or her existence.
But is this enough? The best amongst us might urge a hero to back down from action and ‘turn the other cheek’. It can at least be argued that, hurting people, even bad people, is bad. To protect heros from this slur, their enemies become progressively more twisted and evil, the number of people that they threaten and that the hero must protect, progressively larger until, Flash Gordon (comic strip 1934, film 1980) and others become "saviour of the universe".
But then somewhere on the way, even this was not enough. Flash Gordon started to get on our nerves. We stopped liking him as much as we used to. We started to get the feeling that he was not such a good guy, that he is, as his name suggests, “flash”, egotistical, not so very nice at all.
Incipit the so called "anti-hero". The gruffness, the antisocial, and even irresponsible persona is merely a veneer to allow an even greater moral purity; anti-heroes, are not happy in their role, they did not want to be heroes, their heroics are accidental.
For example, the McClane character in all of the Die Hard films is an *accidental hero*. McClane just wants to go home to his wife, meet his wife’s plane, go back to bed, or retire, but circumstances, events, and some really nasty bad guys *force him to become a hero*. Paradoxically, McClane becomes even more of a hero, because his heroics are accidental.
Above all, the accidental nature of his heroism, protect him from any claim of hypocrisy. Bad guys are generally motivated by self-interest. They seek money or power, or some kind of ego boost, the fulfilment of a self-centred desire. Selfishness is at the heart of evil.
Die Hard’s Jim McClane is however not rescuing people and killing bad guys through any James Bondian desire to be suave, or because he has a big John Wayne of an ego. Jim McClane does not even want to become involved but (like Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry movies, and Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca) a situation arises where he simply has no choice but to step up to the plate. Usually a bad guy arrives at the party that he is attending, or the plane that his wife is on gets hijacked. Lets have a look at some of the scenes in which the accidental nature of the anti-hero becomes apparent.
From Casablanca (1942):
Rick Blaine: "Of all the gin joints in all the world, she walks into mine."
Rick is hiding out in Morocco. Through a series of coincidences, culminating in the arrival of his ex-girlfriend, Ilsa Lund, the embittered, cynical “anti-hero” Rick is catapulted, unwillingly, into the role of the most acclaimed accidental hero in Hollywood cinema.
From Dirty Harry (1971)
Harry Callahan: [after having reported the “211” armed robbery in progress, to the police and biting into his hotdog] Just wait till the cavalry arrives. [Alarm bell rings] Ah, shit.
This scene ends with one of Harry Callahan’s most famous lines "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?"
The same being-disturbed-at-mealtime trope was repeated in the third film in the Dirty Harry series, Sudden Impact (1983), in the scene leading up to Clint Eastwood's most famous line "make my day," though this time Harry is disturbed in his enjoyment of a black coffee. In either case, Harry Callahan allows himself sadistic enjoyment of the suffering of the punks that he is bringing to justice. We forgive him because the viewer knows that Harry did not give reign to his sadistic desire. Harry just wanted to finish his hotdog, or his coffee. His violent course of action - which if he is to take, he might as well enjoy - was forced upon him.
From Die Hard 2 (1990):
Captain (of airport security) Lorenzo: Hey McClane, I've got a first class unit in here: swat team and all. We don't need any Monday morning quarterback.
McClane: Fuck Monday morning, my wife is on one of the god damn planes these guys are fucking with. That puts me on the playing field.
McClane also notices and claims to lament the coincidence, since this is the second film in the Die Hard series.
McClane: Ah man, I can't fucking believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How could the same shit happen to the same guy, twice?
At the same time, when compared to the hero who takes action into his own hands, the anti-hero lacks the courage of his conviction. He can not step right up to the plate, actively seek a position of responsibility. In that sense he is weak, and that is why, as well as a goody-goody, I call him a wuss. This is why the most grim, gravelly-voiced, strong and macho actors must be used in these anti-hero roles.
Rouge no Dengon
August 28, 2009
This may be the first time I have reviewed a song. I can't get it out of my head. The song is "Rouge no Dengon", sometimes translateda as "Message in Rouge," by Matsutoya Yumi. Ms. Matsutoya is one of the most famous Japanese singers. She was born in 1954 and this song was released in 1975 when she was 21 years of age. She began her career as a lyricist for other artists, but became a mega famous singer, with multiple hit singles and albums, despite her less glamourous looks and contnues to record and hold sell out, 60 plus venue, tours as of 2009.
I first noticed her as the singer of "Mamotte agetai," which means "I'd like to protect you," a major hit. It struck me as strange because in the West, it seems to me, it is usually the guys that do the protecting. The song in question ends with the repeated refrain, in English, "My little darling, my little darling," (about a guy), so in this song too there is, from my British view point, a bit of gender reversal. Here in Japan the ladies do the protecting?
Here at least are the words.
To meet that guys mummy
I've now got on a train alone
Twilight falling town and rows of cars
In the corner of my eye I overtake
That guy is soon going to notice
The message in rouge in our bathroom
If you don't give up on your loose flings
I won't be coming home
Leaving, a sense of anxiety in my heart
The city fades into the distance,
Next morning in a phone call from mummy,
I will have him told off, My Darling!
That can is soon going to be stressed
The message in rouge in our bathroom
As he meets our friends will he ask
Where am I headed
Leaving, a sense of anxiety in my heart
The city clatters into the distance,
Next morning in a phone call from mummy,
I will have him told off, My Darling!
I will have him told off, My Darling!
Two types of WALL-E and Freud and Japan
July 02, 2009
There are a few movies in which machines take over the earth. In the "Terminator" series of movies, the machines get so bolshy that they decied to wipe out those irrational humans. In other films however, such as the recent Disney film "WALL-E," the machines take over, but they attempt to have the best interests of humans at heart. They are continuing to obey one of the laws of robotics, or some such.
Okay...let us say that at some point in the future, machines have taken over. They run human society. They make the laws and policies, and they make them in such a way as to make us humans happy. After a lot of experimentation the machines find that human happiness is something that we don't get used to easily. It needs practice (would you agree?). Upon this observation, and with a view to the fact that resources for producing happiness are limited, the machines decide that rather than giving humans a mediocre life for all of their lives, it is best to give us humans a period of happiness and a period of relative suffering. The machines decide that humans should spend a period of their lives that has quite a lot of suffering, and a period of our lives that is fairly happy. Bearing in mind that it takes a while to get used to happiness, the machines decide that it would be best to diivide human life (or lifespan) in the middle and make one half of it happy and one half of it more painful. So the machines decide that since learning how to have fun takes a while, and providing the resources for people to have fun requires effort, the cut human life (about 70 years) in the middle and decide that one half will contain work and the other half will contain play.
But then the machines reach a disagreement about which half should contain the work and which half should contain the play? Which would you rather?
Some of the machines decide that giving the young folk the fun time is a good idea. They reason that by so doing, young people will havve a great time and then in the second half of their lives while they are working and suffering they will be able to look back and remember the great time they had, and work to provide the great time that they experienced for the next gneeration.
Some of the machines decide that giving older people the good time is the way to go. They reason that if people suffer while they are young then it won't be so bad because they will know that they have good times ahead of them.
Making Sense of Scientology
June 11, 2009
In a manner of speaking, I am a bit of a scientologist with a small "s," in that I am kind of religious, but also I am scientist. Or I am a scientist but also I am kind of religious. I am not sure what my religion is. I am interested in more than one religion. I try to understand what religions have to say from my sciency perspective. I have spent a lot of time trying to understand what Christianity has to say, and perhaps even more time trying to make a sciency sense out of Shinto mythology. I like to think that there is truth in what Christians have to say (about people rising from the dead for instance) and what Shinto has to say (about the world being created by gods, for instance). That is hard work!
Recently I have been having a look at what Scientology has to say, particularly the more extraordinary claims of Scientology, the ones that some people like to make fun out of, about Xemu, and aliens being blown up.
Before I write about the really weird parts of Scientology, the first thing I like about Scientology is the self-analysis part of it. This comes before all the weird "space opera" (sic).
Scientologists, seem to like to get to grips with all the things that they do not like to get to grips with! That is to say, that usually there are a lot of things that we do not like to remember, and as a consequence we do not remember. Things that we are embarrassed about, things that we are ashamed of, things that make us cringe, things that make us well up with emotion. We have, in common parlance, hang-ups. We have things about which we have been criticised, actions that we do not like to admit, desires that do no like to admit to, desires that we do not know why we have, fears that we do not face, etc. From what little I know about scientology, in the early stages, initiates are encouraged to confront and examine this hidden things. They use skin conductivity as a measure of stressful hidden-ness. In other words, if I hook you up to a conductivity measuring device and ask you "We did you last hate your father" or "When did you last masturbate" or "What is your shame" or I have no idea but there are things that we don't like to talk about. We don't even know what they are ourselves. But if you are hooked up to a skin conductivity meter then there will sometimes be an indication of when the question has hit a nerve. That is to say that the meter will show when the question is one that we have difficulty facing up to. And why the hell not? Why don't we face up to everything? Why can't we speak about all these things and confess them, describe them, and leave them behind? When one faces ones fears and shames and complexes, they tend to turn to dust. Scientologists, I believe, encourage people to face up to everything. And to, in common parlance, "get over it". When I went for a personality test in Edinburgh about 22 years ago one of their members told me that they adress the fears and complexes of their members in pairs at a distances of a few inches. Imagine if someone got right in your face and talked, criticised, asked for answers to all your complexes at a distance of only a few inches. "So you have a small penis, what of it?" "you are a bald ageing twat", "You write drivel on the internet," "You are a filanderer, why?" etc.
Perhaps that is all there is to scientology in a way? I have no idea. Perhaps all they do is to un-supress people? Free people, force people to confront, all their sweaty emotions, experiences, complexes, hang-ups. Is there a person that you have ever met that can confront themselves fully? I am not that person. I am not sure whether or not such a procedure would benefit myself or not, but I have sympathy with the endeavour. To be honest, I tend to "audit" people that I meet. I am in love with self-revelation. I like that sweaty feeling in myself and others, because I believe that it can be overcome.
Leaving that aside. I am not sure if Scientologist really do address their "complexes" or not, what of the space opera? This is really weird. There are places on the internet where one can hear of a sort of "mythology" about Xenu, about aliens being blown up, and then attachig themselves to others. And about how we live in a world where peole are infested with aliens. I am not a expert on Scientoogy but the concept that we have been invaded by aliens is one that my sciency mind does not object to quite as much as it is common to do so.
Okay so that was a long preamble. What I really meant to write about is the Xenu, aliens bit. I see the story as a sort of mythology. L Ron Hubbard was, or may have been, a modern mythologist.
I want to add some more preamble. What scientology needs, its seems to me, or indeed what any religion with a mythology needs, is a theory of mythology, or a theory about language. A semiotics? Not sure. Anyway, on the face of it mythologies are generally whacked, crazy, stupid. "So a giant guy made the world in 6 days?" "So a primal couple gave birth to the world?!" Yada yada. It sounds really silly. People, like me, of a sciency persuasion, are of course inclined to think that these stories, mythologies are so much primitive trash. So, is there any way of saving mythologies? Well, I have a couple of ideas. One is more wishwashy than the other.
The first, the wishy washier one, is to say that there is a problem with language: that language is not up to describing the way the world is. Saying that is easy. But when saying that in the language which you are trying to say is limited leads to enevitable contradictions. These contradictions are enough to make readers tell you to take a hike. But Wittgenstien in one of his coloured books used some good metaphors. He talked about simplified languages, more simple than the one he, and I, are using. Imagine if you are a soldier. Soldiers, according to the films I see on TV, use hand signals such as fist to say things like "advance" or "whatch out to your left" or "try and out-flank the enemy." Now imagine that there are a group of soldiers in a war, say Vietnam, and they are advancing on what they believe to be a group of Vietcong. Then one of the hand-signalling soldiers realises that that are in fact advancing upon a group of Belgian tourists who have got lost in the jungle. That hand-signalling soldier does not have the hand-signals to say what is going on. He only has the signals for "advance,(a fist)" "crawl,(a level palm)," "out-flank(a two fingered pointing motion, say)." But then one of the soldiers realises that he is walking towards a group of Belgian holiday makers, who are trying to light a barbeque. How does he signal this fact to his comrades? Well, I guess he might try and use really strange signals. Signals, like a three fingered pointing, punching, palming, wave that his comrades would say "Hey, this guy is, from the point of view of our code, making no sense." Perhaps mythologies, such as people rising from the dead, or a couple of gods giving birth to the world, or a Xenu space opera, are all similarly the result of someone trying to use a language that is limited to describe a situation that goes beyong the limits of that language.
Secondly, I have thought about parables. "Parables" as in the ones that prophets in the Bible like to use. One time there was a prophet that met a king that was stealing someones wife. Instead of saying "You are stealing someones wife and that is bad," instead he told a story about a sheperd that had a lot of sheep but all the same stole sheep from another shepard that only had a few. The story he told, the parable he told, was an irreality. There was no sheperd stealing sheep. But in order to convey what he wanted to convey he had to use a irreal story. Why is that sometimes a parable, a metaphoric story, works better than a straight forward explanation of things? It seems to me that when you are trying to explain NOT what is, but what is not, what the listener has not seen, a mistake on the part of the listener, it helps to use a NON real story. If the prophet had said "You are taking someone else's wife" then the king may have said "Yeah, sure. What of it?" and his REAL story would have had no effect. But by talking about a story that is not real, he managed to get the king to see the mistake that he king was making. I wonder if mythologies may be like parables. Stories that are about IRREALITIES that make us see the mistakes that we are making. Normal stories are about the world. Parable stories (parabolic stories?) are about the mistakes, the world that we are not seeing.
Anyway...
So, however one understands mythology, whatever theory of mythology that one takes, it seems to me that really weird stories, i.e. mythologies, such as the story of Xemu, may be communicative even if they sound like BS.
Finally, returning to the weird mythology of Scientology. L Ron Hubbard said (1) that we are infested with aliens from the deep distant past. And (2) that we need to get rid of these aliens. Well, it seems to me that a lot of "scientists" also say that we, humans, are infested with aliens. That is to say that several psychologists argue that have 'others' within the self. Freud says that we have created a "super ego," based in some way upon our father or our idea or fatherhood, within ourselves. Jung says that we have an animus, that is somehow like a group of elders, guys, that populate our heads. Jamese Herbert Mead says that we create within ourselves a "generalised other" from an amalgam of the view points of ourselves that other people have. Hermans and Kempen (in their book "the dialogical self") argue taht this other is a multi-faceted, that we have relationships with a variety of others, fathers, mothers, friends, that we model within ourselves. All these so called "scientific" theories, by more-or-less respected scientists say that there are others within the self. Also, all these scientists do not recommend that we get rid of the others. Why not? They argue that the self, the self that we have, is dependent upon the internalisation of these others.
Buddhists recommend that people get rid of their "selves." Alas Buddhists do not talk too much about what is required of getting rid of the self. As far as I am aware, there is not all that much talk within Buddhism of "in order to get rid of your (false) self you must get rid of the others." But again afaik there is some talk within Buddhism of this sort of "other-ridding" endeavour.
I listened to a L Ron Hubbard speech about Xenu on the Internet. Towards the end he spoke about how he did not (seem to)approve of Christianity in a way, in that it perpetuated fractured, or "crucified" veiws of the self. All of the "Scientists" mentioned above, (not the Buddhists though) are from the Christian tradition. It seems to me that within Christendom, it is seen as normal and preferable to remain fractured, to keep those others in the self. (BTW I am conscious of the fact that I am using the word "self" to refer to two very different things).
Anyway, I can see sense in the call to "get rid of aliens within the self," from a Buddhist perspective at least. In that respect, the space opera, the mythology of Scientology makes a little bit of sense to me.
Finally, okay, why not just use Freud, Mead, Lacan, Hermans and Kempen, to talk about the others that are within the self? I am not sure. But perhaps the stories that these "scientists" tell do not make the situation sound weird enough. Reading Mead (Mead is pretty down to earth sort of guy) it sounds all so common place and normal and rational that one should have a "generalised other" inside oneself. Perhaps the advantage of telling people that they are infested with aliens is that (like a parable) it drives home the idea that we, the listeners, should be doing something about it: we should be trying to get rid of them.
The Mystery of the Mirror
May 21, 2009
I am reading a book in Japanese by Takano Youtarou called something like "The mystery of the mirror."
In the book the author attempts to explain why reflections in mirros are right left reversed, and not up down reversed.
He starts by summarising a lot of other explanations of why this phenomena occurs.
Then he says that there are two things going on.
But before I say what he says is going on I will mention my own take, because I want to be able to say "I have told you so", and because I think that my take will be similar, and I want to see how similar it is, and because I think that I will say something a little different.
I do think that mirrors are mysterious in a way, but more because I think that humans are mysterious or rather in error about themselves, ourselves. I am a sort of Buddhist. I think that there is a mistake going on in human consciousness, and perhaps mirrors are one way of getting to the nub of the human error. Anway....
What about images in mirrors? Are they right left reversed, but not up and down reversed? Takano stress that mirrors are mysterious because they are right left, but not up down, reversed.
First of all...
1) I have trouble ditinguishing my right and my left. When I am told to turn left or right, the first thing I do is look at my wrists, and see which side my watch is on and I know that is the left side, so I know which way to turn. I am not sure why I find it so difficult to tell which is right and left but I know I do.
2) I don't find the right left thing in mirrors very notable. It is almost like I feel it is obvious (even though I am sure that the author is right, it is mysterious).
3) I think that we don't really feel a "reversal" all the time. If I were to ask a hundred people, what appears strangely right left reversed in mirrors, then I think that there would be two answers that come up a lot.
3.1) The guy in the mirror (me) is wearing his watch on the other hand.
3.2) Writing is reversed in the mirror - mirror writing.
at the same time, (3 continued) when I look at other things (other than myself and writing), e.g. a mirror showing what is behind me, I don't really feel that it is reversed. It looks quite normal, and unreversed. If it were displayed the other way around I would be inclined to think it strange. The reversal feeling seems particularly strong for myself and writing but not for other things.
So, it seems to me that writing and me body are particularly similar in having a reversal feeling about them.
Going back to Takano Youtarou's book, I was surprised to find that he says that the secret to unravelling the mystery of the mirror is to realise that there are two things going on: one is when viewing oneself, another is when view letters (or rather these are the two examples that he uses). "Eh?" I thought.
I have read a little bit futher, where he goes on to explain the first of the two mysteries, regarding viewing onself, and here I agree...He says that when viewing oneself ones right hand is on ones right in the mirror, and ones left hand is on ones left in the mirror but from the point of view of the "the guy in the mirror" it is reversed. This reversal he calls a bodily frame of reference. If we take the bodily frame of reference of the "guy in the mirror" then things might be assumed to be reversed, but they are not.
Hmm...To be honest I thought that was the important point, and in a sense the only point. So I am not sure how he is going to say that letters are different. On the contrary it seems to me that letters and oneself are very simlar, as mentioned above. Letters and oneself are similar in that it is particularly these things that appear reversed.
He says further, that unlike our bodies, letters are *really* reversed in the mirror. A "[" in a mirror looks like "]" so this is a more real reversal, than the right-left reversal that we feel occurs because we take the frame of reference of "the guy in the mirror."
Okay the above is really as far as I have got in his book.
First of all, with regard to myself in mirrors, It seems to me that I am up down reversed too. Takano makes it clear that the mystery of the mirror is that we are right left reversed but not up down reversed.
This was the first thing that I objected to in his book. The cover of his book shows a picture of someone standing on a mirror. The feet of the person standing on the mirror are toward the top of the book. Especially bearing that in mind, it seems strange to me that he should say that we are not up down reversed.
It seems to me that whether I am standing on a mirror or not, when I look down toward my feet, at my torso and legs, my feet are toward the top of my visual field and my chest is towards the top of my visual field. I see a "Y" shape. When I look at at my torso and legs in a mirror, I see an upside down "Y" shape. This may not at first be obvious. This is the Y shape that I see when I look down at myself. 
And this is the reverse Y shape that I see when I look at myself in a mirror. I am not quite this fat. The width at the top is due to perspective (in the previous image)!
When I look down at myself, I see something branching out toward the top of my visual field. When I look in the mirror toward my legs, I see my legs branching out at the bottom of my visual field. Hence it seems to me that my view of myself in the mirror is reversed in the up-down axis as well as the right left axis. Having said that, I do not feel myself to be up-down reversed in a mirror. But then again, I do not feel myself to be right left reversed in a mirror either (perhaps because of my inability to tell left from right). Anyway, it seems to me that mirrors reverse me at least in the updown direction too.
Then when Takno says that letters are really reversed in the mirror I also have a problem. What does Takano mean by a letter? if you think of a letter on a page, then yes, letters in a mirror do seem reversed. But I have a three year old son that plays with plastic letter shapes. It seems to me that if you put plastic letter shapes in front of a mirror then they are not reversed at all. This is because one sees the rear of the plastic letters. An interesting thing about letters is that the usually, apart from the three year old's letter toys, usually only exist on planar surfaces of an opaque page. In order to make normal, written on a page, letters appear in a mirror, one has to turn the opaque surface around to point at the mirror. In turning the opaque surface around, one is reversing the letters. If on the other hand you write the letters on a piece of glass, or on the mirror itself then the letters are not reversed. A mirror is usually a piece of glass in front of a thin film of reflective surface (the "tain" of the mirror). If you write on a mirror, the letters are not reversed. If you write on a page and then turn the page around then the letters are going to appear reversed because you have turned them around.
Perhaps this is what Takano means by the assertion that the mystery of the mirror is different when applied to letters and ourselves. Perhaps he is right.
All the same, it seems to me that the reason why we feel mirror letters are reversed is for the same reason that we feel our bodies are reversed: that we are positing a guy in the mirror.
That is as about as far as I have got in my observations.
