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The Antihero—the Culture War’s Formidable Weapon

By Vinay Kolhatkar

October 27, 2019

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There’s a culture war going on in the West. On one side of the battle is the American can-do spirit …

There’s a culture war going on in the West.

On one side of the battle is the American can-do spirit—the view that humans are a product of a self-made soul, that they can rise above their circumstances. The other side is a neo-Marxist perspective that is grim, dark, and fatalistic—our births determine us, not because of biology, but because society is unfair. Society must be fixed.

One battleground of this culture war is found in cinema. And home-theater screen narratives. The winner is not decided on the hallowed red carpet of the Academy that bestows Oscars to tell the people what’s valuable, but by popularity and profits. And the culture war fought on screen took a nasty turn this October, by showing how Aristotelian logic and execution excellence can be used to advocate the dark side, instead of just condemning the heroic as infantile amusement.

The Impeccable Logic of Aristotle

The dramatic plot, said Aristotle, must consist of a connected series of events, such that one thing follows another as a necessary consequence. Secondly, the plot must consist of a self-contained series, such that the first thing (the beginning) is not a consequence; it’s what screenwriters call “life as is” or “life before the inciting incident,” the middle consists of conflict arising from the consequences of the inciting incident/s, and the last event (the end) must bring the narrative to a definite end—the resolution of the conflict. There cannot be a further necessary consequence arising from the last event, otherwise we have an unfinished narrative; i.e., we do not have closure, which incidentally works well for the end of a TV series season, for the epic hasn’t ended yet. This doesn’t mean that a plot’s linear, logical structure must necessarily lead to a linear timeline in the storytelling, albeit you may find some filmmakers often playing around with the timeline as a gimmick—sometimes they do not have an interesting enough story to tell, so they must awe their audience by confusing them.

In many a screenwriting school, Aristotle is liberally quoted and held up as a sage. Yet, the practice of filmmaking bends to the culture of its times.

In many a screenwriting school, Aristotle is liberally quoted and held up as a sage. Yet, the practice of filmmaking bends to the culture of its times, and we live in a culture that neo-Marxist philosophies have sought to dominate since the ’60s.

Philosopher Ayn Rand detected this trend. In The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature, Rand redefined Romanticism as “a category of art based on the recognition of the principle that man possesses the faculty of volition, and Naturalism, as the category that denies it.” Romanticism showcases purposeful action by which men and women try to shape the world around them as against being shaped by it. Naturalism, on the other hand, focusses on making art uninspiring. Naturalism attempts to show the run-of-the-mill life, the average rather than “as it could be at its best.” Mostly, though, it’s a slice-of-dark-life. Not rags to riches, not a journey from the abyss to virtue, but just “that’s the way things are with some people.”

Higher-level Romanticism, which Rand called “Romantic Realism,” reflecting a courageous protagonist of this earth in moral conflict, virtually disappeared from the landscape. Plots simplistic in their morality (but at times complex in the plot’s inventiveness) continued—such as murder mysteries, or superheroes not of this earth battling inter-galactic evils (Rand termed this lower-level Romanticism). Meanwhile, the literati lauded narrative absurdities with the highest awards. To them, a “thriller” automatically meant “not literary” as if the two could not co-exist.

Most film critics belong to the “dark world” view. For sixty consecutive years (1952-2012), the critics exalted an investigation of a dead newspaper baron’s life (Citizen Kane, 1941) as the greatest film of all time, because it implied that productive achievement will bring forth misery.

For more on this, see “Do Film Critics Understand Film?”

The Trend Worsens

By the 21st century, it had long become commonplace to elevate a filmmaker’s disdain for classic narrative structure to being a mark of genius. One objective was to make the masses feel like simpletons if they “didn’t get it.”

But in 2017, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk took the film medium to a whole new low of postmodern nothingness. Nolan didn’t just throw out an anti-war, no right or wrong, slice-of-life story, he dispensed with the very concept of story. Audiences need a protagonist, a person who lifts off the screen, who feels real, and makes us feel for him. Dunkirk dispensed with the very idea of a “character.” Viewers never get to know anyone. Even main characters have no names. Even a “slice of life” story must at least strive for authenticity, and characters who affect our mirroring neurons.

For more on how emotional outcomes are triggered, and why they need to be set in motion and varied during a narrative, see “Toward an Integrated Theory of Fictional Narrative,” Reason Papers Vol. 39, no.1, pp 143-52.

2019—“Marvel is Not Cinema” Say Hollywood Auteurs

Since the ’90s, despite the best efforts of critics bestowing plotless narratives with trophies, journalists bemoaning “toxic masculinity,” and academics hyperventilating about “hypermasculinity,” superheroes on the silver screen refused to die off.

Indeed, with Iron Man (2008), and the rise of special-effects technology, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was launched as a specialized media franchise centered on producing superhero films based on characters that appear in Marvel Comics. The franchise is commercially successful and has expanded into Marvel Television.

By October 2019, the gods of cinema (the auteur directors) had begun to feel threatened. Martin Scorsese issued the first volley on October 14 (igniting a war of words within Hollywood):

“The value of a film that is like a theme park film, for example, the Marvel pictures, where the theaters become amusement parks. That’s a different experience. It’s not cinema. It’s something else.”

What’s an “auteur” director anyway? Isn’t the screenwriter the author of the screenplay? Yes, but, depending on the leverage that studios, producers, or directors possess, they can have a great deal of influence on how a script is written or amended.

An American film critic, Andrew Sarris, invented this definition of an auteur: “A filmmaker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film [a] personal and unique stamp.” Sarris then added: “Over a group of films a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style which serve as his signature.”

It means that some fans and critics see some auteurs as “superior” artists, because their personal stamp consists of making a narrative incoherent.

What this actually means is that, due to prior commercial success, the star power of the directors is strong enough to get what they want. It means that some fans and critics see some auteurs as “superior” artists, because their personal stamp consists of making a narrative incoherent. There are various lists of who is and isn’t an auteur. IMDb provides one here that is neither too long nor too short—we have the usual suspects—Hitchcock, Allen, Scorsese, Lynch, Nolan, Tarantino, and other recognizable names.

Auteurs Coppola and Ken Loach joined auteur Scorsese in calling Marvel movies “not cinema,” “despicable,” and “boring.” Loach added they are “commodities like hamburgers designed only to make a profit for corporations.” There it was—the “artist’s” disdain for the public that made them rich and famous in the first place.

Scorsese even asked theater owners to stop showing the superhero blockbusters. He added: “A narrative film can be one long take for three hours, you know? It doesn’t have to be a conventional beginning, middle, and end.” Really?

Quite the opposite of Aristotle. “Auteur” Martin Scorsese has yet to imbibe what a good narrative structure is.

Joker (2019)

Yet the kerfuffle was redundant. Because, on October 4, 2019, Joker had its worldwide release. I saw it on October 24. Unlike the auteurs, director Todd Phillips didn’t whine. He reimagined the genre, inventing a deep character study of a DC comic-book icon. And now the game has changed dramatically.

The setting is Gotham city, 1981. Times are bad. The city is infested with super rats. Arthur Fleck (Joachim Phoenix) is a clown-for-hire by day and an unfunny stand-up comedian by night. He gets picked on. Mocked. Beaten. Kicked, literally and metaphorically. He requires seven different medications, and they all stop when social services suffer a cutback. A clown dies. And a vengeful, bitter crusader is born. Is his life finally about to turn when a famous TV host, Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), invites him to be a guest on his show?

Arthur Fleck: What do you get? …

Murray Franklin: I don’t think so.

Arthur Fleck: When you cross …

Murray Franklin: I think we’re done here now, thank you.

Arthur Fleck: a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash?

But Fleck’s life continues to unravel systematically. The 122-minute narrative is Aristotelian in its dramatic logic as a barrage of negative events batter Fleck, and he succumbs. Ubiquitous themes of alienation, solitude, and frustration tug at our mirror neurons. They invite us to empathize with Fleck, whom we first get to know well—a lesson in basic storytelling that Nolan ignored when he made Dunkirk.

And Phoenix may make you forget Jack Nicholson’s expansiveness and Heath Ledger’s menace.  Nicholson and Ledger created fascinating Joker personas. Phoenix’s mesmerizing portrayal has the authenticity of a quality that Forest Whitaker once evoked in a portrayal marked in the all-time lists—Whitaker was more “Amin” than the Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin, whom he played in The Last King of Scotland (2006).

Phillips, Phoenix, and the rest of the crew have created an arresting symphony—the dialogue sparkles, the cinematography is outstanding (no CGI), and the musical score nothing short of sublime. Joker may receive several gongs—nominations for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay would be my picks at the Golden Globes, Oscars, Screen Actors Guild, the BAFTAs …

The idea of Fleck as the hero of the neglected underclass given to sudden bouts of violence was so scary that the censors gave this an R rating. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were so worried that they issued warnings about possible mass shootings at the opening weekend and armed cops were asked to stand guard at the premiere. One theater chain banned the wearing of costumes to the showings.

Thankfully, no Joker-inspired mass shootings have come to pass. But the box office has ignited.

Thankfully, no Joker-inspired mass shootings have come to pass. But the box office has ignited. Gross worldwide takings, as of October 22, were predicted to overtake the billion-dollar mark against a $55 million budget—Joker could become the most profitable R-rated movie ever. On the grounds of popularity and profits, 2019’s cultural battle has been decided. The nihilists may even conquer the critics, making it a winner-take-all swoop.
 

The Mythology of a Nation Lies Exposed

Certainly, Fleck makes a poor choice of vocation, clearly picking what he’s not good at, only because “She [his mother] told me I had a purpose: to bring laughter and joy to the world.” The mentally ill deserve our empathy and sympathy, but not an elevation to “role model” status. However, those are rational arguments. When mythology evokes the emotions, critical thinking declines, and the myth has a better chance of affecting our worldview.

It’s arguable that the uniquely American can-do spirit is better fostered in its comic-book legends—Batman, Superman, and Captain America—than in their biblical counterparts.

A mythology is a set of stories, traditions, or beliefs associated with a particular culture, arising naturally or deliberately fostered. It’s arguable that the uniquely American can-do spirit is better fostered in its comic-book legends—Batman, Superman, and Captain America—than in their biblical counterparts. And it would make malice powerful to recreate the myths and shape them such that mythical heroes champion a false narrative. Already, factual history is being revised to the same effect.

We need not worry about the hijab-wearing super girl, or rumors of a black “Jane” Bond (female spies are in fact empowering, and nothing new). Conservatives may be worried by the prospect of a transgender Tarzan or a bisexual Batman—but such remodeling won’t disturb the box office.

Phillips, however, encases the top 1%-oppressor, fixed-pie myth in an iconic villain with an arguably far more humanized origin story (DC comics had the Joker attempt a heist and fall into a vat of chemicals that disfigured his face). The study of depravity in cinema is not untrodden. But Phillips may have inadvertently paved the mythology road for superheroes to carry today’s neo-Marxist themes.

Think of:

  • * Green Arrow as a climate-change warrior (the TV series Arrow, based on DC’s comic-book hero Green Arrow, already had some undertones to that effect).
  • * Tarzan v Hollywood’s perpetual villain—the Big Bad Corporation, and any corporation that does business in Africa’s “pristine wilderness” can only be evil.
  • * A pro-Islam Robin Hood that revolts against the Christian Crusades. Can it happen? Oh, yes. I cringed when I was watching Robin Hood (2018) and heard his legendary chief lieutenant Little John (Islamized in this movie) utter the word “Inshallah.”
  • * The oceans are rising, and the evil fossil-fuel barons have abandoned billions to their fate. Only Superman’s super-breath can blow the waters down. And only he can bring the oil barons to justice.

 

A mythical hero championing false narratives could end up shaping the worldview of children who adore him.

And think of well-made cinema—classical story structure, powerful acting, clever lines, a high technical score, and the mythical hero exhibiting moral courage. Make no mistake, such an “antihero” is a formidable cultural weapon, because it’s actually a mythical hero championing false narratives, who could end up shaping the worldview of children who adore him.

 

Do I look like the kind of clown that can start a movement?

Arthur Fleck, Joker (2019)

Todd Phillips has, even though he may not know it yet.
 

 

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