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Post by millring on Sept 7, 2023 17:15:32 GMT -5
Dar and I have been watching Suits. It's a highly stylized courtroom/legal drama/soap.
What I have noticed -- and I understand that it's hardly the first time contemporary fiction has done this -- is that the entire central plot/theme is manipulating the viewer to root for the bad guy.
Oh, I suppose I could give them more credit than that. I suppose its overarching theme is to make the viewer more aware of how much of life lies in the morally squishy grey.
It also, I admit, should cause the thinking man to question how easily institutions are corrupted -- and that not by bad people with evil intent, but rather, by good people with good intentions.
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Post by Cornflake on Sept 7, 2023 21:06:24 GMT -5
“Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.” W. H. Auden.
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Post by Russell Letson on Sept 7, 2023 21:35:02 GMT -5
Richard III is theoretically about the downfall of a bad guy. Who, for most of the play, keeps hoodwinking everybody and also gets all the good lines. Well, other than Queen Margaret's rants--
Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my fortune!
Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider,
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
The time will come when thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse that poisonous bunchback'd toad.
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Post by epaul on Sept 8, 2023 8:43:19 GMT -5
What bad guys? The bad guys that save small shop owners from greedy developers or keep tenants from being thrown out in the street because a landlord sabotaged their apartment by planting lease-breaking bedbugs?
We can't be watching the same show. The results of the young trickster's actions result only in good, and this is by intent (he is an unusual trickster).
Regardless of our reaction to the main characters' fundamental goodness or badness, there is nothing new or contemporary about encouraging the audience to root for "the bad guys". Some of the very first novels in the English language, such "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding, did exactly that in a very "picaresque" fashion.
As did some of the very best, period, such as "The Confessions of Felix Krull", by Thomas Mann, a story of a trickster who by wits was able to float through all levels of society despite being born at the bottom.
There is far more to be said about Felix Krull and the Trickster in literature an Mythology, but I'm on my phone and I am not going to do it. Suffice to say there is nothing new or decadent about the scamp in novel or film or the desire to root for him. And the breaking of boundaries that restrict and limit, even if the result is punishment and chaos, is not only the story of mankind, it is why there is a mankind.
And in the case of "Suits",if you consider the results of the young lawyer's actions rather than how by fate and his innate wits he can to be in the position to enact them, where is the "bad"?
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Post by John B on Sept 8, 2023 11:19:17 GMT -5
And in the case of "Suits",if you consider the results of the young lawyer's actions rather than how by fate and his innate wits he can to be in the position to enact them, where is the "bad"? He's not an attorney. He lied to get his job. He has gotten where he is by lying, cheating and stealing. People put their faith in him under false pretenses. Any legal actions based on his representing himself as an attorney is subject to reversal. You want to be an attorney? Fine. Go to law school, pass the bar and become an attorney. Wanna be a superhero? Get a cape and a good backstory. |
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Post by epaul on Sept 8, 2023 11:53:19 GMT -5
OK, so you don't like Trickster figures and boundary breakers, there is nothing new, or contempery, about their use or appeal. Old as the hills.
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Post by jdd2 on Sept 9, 2023 8:06:20 GMT -5
Several features of the Hays code meant that in the end the good guys would win, and the bad guys would lose. And some good guys, who were supposed to be good guys, could never be portrayed to be bad guys.
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Post by epaul on Sept 9, 2023 8:33:03 GMT -5
I recall when nearly the entire nation was hoodwinked into rooting for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Evil is so sneaky.
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Post by drlj on Sept 9, 2023 8:38:42 GMT -5
I used to be a bad guy but, then, I became a good guy. Being good takes a lot more effort.
It’s a work in progress and never completely accomplished.
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Post by RickW on Sept 9, 2023 10:15:27 GMT -5
We have been watching various English police procedural shows: Shetland, Vera, Line of Duty, Hinterland. One thing I love about English shows over American ones is that they have less of a tendency to have every single character be a hot body. We quite enjoyed Hinterland. Vera was great, 11 or 12 seasons, and she’s a wonderful, odd character. Shetland was amazing — the setting for one is gorgeous, but the acting and writing were superb. (Though, at the rate they’re killing each other off in such a small place, one wonders there’s anyone left.) We’re now watching Line of Duty, and while it’s well done as well, the implication that half the police force in whatever town they’re in is on the take gets a bit much. They also have a penchant for femme fatale antagonists. Sill enjoyable, but a bit over the top for my taste.
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Post by james on Sept 9, 2023 13:42:52 GMT -5
A very different style of legal programme is the hugely enjoyable 'Fisk'. Two series of this short episode, Australian comedy set in Melbourne in a wills and probate law practice. Warm-hearted and a bit off-beat it can, and IMO should, be quickly gulped down.
One of three Aussie series that I've really liked recently. The others being a witty but gritty and sweary Tasmania set lesbian police/murder mystery serial called 'Deadloch'. Great fun. Lastly, 'Colin from Accounts' is a likeable and quite charming Aussie, romantic, (sort of) comedy. Another fun and short binge watch.
Belfast set Line of Duty which reeled its viewers in slowly over a few series became quite a 'water cooler chat' phenomenon here. Like Peaky Blinders, its popularity grew from minor to huge gradually.
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Post by jdd2 on Sept 9, 2023 15:16:11 GMT -5
Caught most seasons of Line of Duty on cable, excellent.
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Post by millring on Sept 10, 2023 6:51:01 GMT -5
I think I might have mentioned in my opening post that making the bad guys into good guys isn't a new thing....checking OP.......yup, I did.
It's just an interesting setup. In the case of Robin Hood it appeared to be very simple -- the government under John was corrupt and oppressive and Robin Hood was addressing the people's suffering the only way he could (because the very government that should have been addressing the suffering was the very entity that was causing it in the first place).
And if that's the model, then the viewer is left concluding that Suits is saying that our legal system is so corrupt that the means by which Mike and Harvey are addressing it and winning are justified by the fact that there are no legal means left.
Beyond that, Mike is a superman. He's the main fiction of the drama. He has a superhuman power and it's that power that comes in and saves the day time after time. It's not a reality based drama. It's a fantasy just like the Marvel/DC universe. (But then, ditto Robin Hood and his archery skills).
Butch and Sundance are winsome, handsome characters outsmarting and outshooting an ugly, stupid, brutal world. A different kind of superman.
Maybe sometimes the reason the theme of making bad guys the sympathetic protagonist is popular and revisited time and again in drama and literature is because we understand our own weaknesses -- that we all make bad and immoral decisions and like to believe in the hope of escaping their consequences. We rationalize why we made those decisions and comfort ourselves by rating our bad deeds on a scale of finding others who have done worse (So, Mike and Harvey are breaking the law.....but the reason they're doing it is because the bad guys are doing it worse).
I'm at season 6 now and I have to admit that there's a very good reason to admit that I'm completely wrong about all the above. It took several seasons to get there, but it's clear now that Mike and Harvey are not getting away with anything, and the theme of the whole series is addressing some pretty deep religious/philosophical issues of repentance, contrition, and living with the consequences of immoral decisions (all this while still dressing quite fashionably and driving great cars and viewing the NY skyline through the glass walls of the 32nd floor).
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Post by John B on Sept 10, 2023 8:17:35 GMT -5
I recall when nearly the entire nation was hoodwinked into rooting for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Evil is so sneaky. Thankfully justice prevailed. That "Raindrops" interlude was CRIMINAL. |
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Post by epaul on Sept 10, 2023 8:46:01 GMT -5
It was the "contemporary" part of "not the first time first time contemporary fiction has done this" that threw me off. I thought you were making a judgment on our contemporary times via a TV show. (and in that context, the "manipulating" part didn't help.)
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Post by epaul on Sept 10, 2023 9:14:29 GMT -5
The more "developed" the society, the greater its need for a punishment to be attached to the trickster's tail.
Prometheous got hammered for stealing fire from the Gods and bringing it to mankind. Ture the Hare (Brer Rabbit's great, great, great grandfather), got off scott free for bringing man the same great gift (even though he burned down a good portion of the forest while doing so).
Early tricksters like Ture and Coyote were celebrated without complication for the gift that makes man man. That changed.
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Post by Cornflake on Sept 10, 2023 9:48:14 GMT -5
"Maybe sometimes the reason the theme of making bad guys the sympathetic protagonist is popular and revisited time and again in drama and literature is because we understand our own weaknesses -- that we all make bad and immoral decisions...."
That far I'm with you, John. After that, I don't think so. I didn't quote Auden just to be literary. We're all bad guys. We're all good guys. We're a mix of both and what others see depends on when they happen to be looking. So I have to see the humanity and goodness in bad guys just as I see the flaws in good guys. The battle between good and evil, if you want to put it that way, is within us.
"We rationalize why we made those decisions and comfort ourselves by rating our bad deeds on a scale of finding others who have done worse (So, Mike and Harvey are breaking the law.....but the reason they're doing it is because the bad guys are doing it worse)."
Not me. I don't think I'm morally superior. I know myself too well. And I think humans in general are better than you're giving them credit for.
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Post by coachdoc on Sept 10, 2023 12:47:03 GMT -5
Several features of the Hays code meant that in the end the good guys would win, and the bad guys would lose. And some good guys, who were supposed to be good guys, could never be portrayed to be bad guys. Hays code? |
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Post by John B on Sept 10, 2023 15:44:08 GMT -5
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Post by billhammond on Sept 10, 2023 15:51:21 GMT -5
Wait, are you posting from your car??? |
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