I’ve been thinking quite a bit about villainy the last few weeks.
I think I wrote a post earlier in the year about one of my favorite super hero mythology quotes. It’s from Smallville, which is only a good representation of Superman in that Michael Rosenbaum was a fantastic Lex Luthor.
In one episode, as Lex finally starts to turn dark after years of trying to be a good guy but either accidentally or only consequently doing bad, he utters the following like to Clark’s dad.
“You were right about me all along, Mr. Kent, I AM the villain of the story.”
I always found that moment bittersweet but heartbreaking, because as I’ve noted several times in different places, it’s always seemed obvious to me that when we read Superman stories, Lex Luthor is us. We aren’t the perfect boy scout who is immortal other than some weird green rocks. We aren’t the alien savior of Mankind. We’re the scrappy, somehow-never-quite-good-enough human being. We’re Lex Luthor, corrupted by the fact that no one else can see the danger in an immortal alien who– if he had a change of heart–could rule over us like a god.
Another villain story: I just watched the newest episode of Rick and Morty. In it– spoilers coming– Rick and Morty go through a machine that detoxifies them at an outer-space spa. But the spa treatment takes away what the person consider to be their toxins as opposed to just actual toxins. So for Morty, this means he is now confident and self-assured, can virtually do no wrong. He loses his fears and his lack of confidence. For Rick, he loses his envy and his anger… but with it, he loses his love for Morty. So he has to go and take his “toxic” self back. because without his toxic side he feels compassion generally but has lost his love for the only people he really cares about (since in reality Rick considers those a weakness). So we’re more like flawed Rick, clinging to those we love. We’re the villain there, too.
In the car on the way to work this morning I listened to a Chris Hardwick Talks podcast with Brian Cranston. If you lived under a rock, the dad from Malcolm in The Middle also played a lesser-known character named Walter White. Talking about White, Cranston discussed what it was like to inhabit the character, the exhausting and exciting nature of getting to the core of Heisenberg. Walter White was meek. He found his strength in his life as an expert making meth, then the power seduced him. He enjoyed not being lost in a sea of his fears. And somehow, as an evil bastard, he beat cancer. And he left behind the money and support he wanted to leave for everyone, rescued the people he meant to rescue, then died there in the meth lab, staring at his reflection in the chrome tanks, the master of his own destiny. We identify with Walter White because we all secretly want to find our inner Heisenberg, even if we don’t want to go nearly that far.
We would much rather be the one that knocks, rather be the danger, than the one that answers and is at risk.
This is all to lead me to one of the commonplace definitions of “villain” (look it up in a few dictionaries; this isn’t always the first definition, but it’s usually there):
villain: a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.
So what am I getting at, right? Am I just naming my favorite villains for kicks?
Sort of?
No, what I’m getting at is something I take a run at every chance I get: binary thinking.
One of my favorite things to say to people is also the name of (and a repeating lyric in) a Rage Against the Machine song: know your enemy.
Your enemy, in a binary world, in the stories that we tell ourselves, is the “villain.”
But here’s the secret my life has taught me.
WE are the villains. People like me. People of color. People who think that the way things are is a little messed up. People who stand up to the status quo. We might be considered “heroic” at times, but in the eyes of the power brokers, we’re the bad guys.
I’m not Superman. I’ve never been Superman. I will never be Superman.
But somewhere behind my eyes there’s a Walter White and a Lex Luthor conspiring against the things I find dangerous. Walter fought the world that put him in a box, left him poor and unable to support his family. Lex Luthor fought so Earth wouldn’t fall under the bootheel of a superior creature.
In Moby Dick, who is the hero? Ahab? The Whale?
In Star Wars, is Vader the hero or the villain?
The answers, of course, are outside of the good/evil binary.
And anyone who tells you otherwise is your enemy.