There’s also the former MLB pitcher who was named, and this is 100% true, Randy Johnson.
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I always thought he should play on the same team as Rusty Kuntz…
Don’t forget Johnny Dickshot.
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At school there was a lad called Andrew Mycock… his dad was called Patrick!
Can I just say I totally approve of the puerile direction this discussion is taking!!!
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Lucky old Pat!
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And J.J. Putz.
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Or '60s ballplayer Dick Long.
Or former NASCAR driver Dick Trickle.
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I know a guy called Harry Mycock
He worked for a company in a team of people where the other names were Strokes, Pullen, Cox and Hiscox.
If the men had married the women and had wanted to keep their names, the double-barrelled names would have been:-
Mrs Pullen-Mycock
Mrs Strokes-Cox
Mrs Strokes-Hiscox
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You’re such a cunning linguist, James!
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Let’s not forget the famous linebacker for the Chicago Bears, Dick Butkus (pronounced butt-kiss).
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First: sorry for this being much more than a bit of a ramble, but odd_jobbies’ post inspired a converging of some ideas I have been thinking about a lot lately (inspired in part by THE IRISHMAN; Akira Kurosawa films; THE GODFATHER PART III; and other films). I also know I am dealing in broad strokes–hopefully I will be able to work my way toward better understanding.
But after examination comes…what? Once it has been determined that behaviors A, B, & C are detrimental, how many more depictions of them do we need or want? By the way–I think the issue is larger than Bond films, though they are affected by it.
Starting with the post-WWII films noirs and psychological Westerns, we had the anguished male hero who morphed into the alienated male anti-hero of the late 1960’s/1970’s. Then there is the Reagan-era hero, soon replaced by the doubting male protagonist in search of redemption. In all manifestations, the male is central as either savior or one in need of saving (sometimes both).
It seems to me that for a long time films have been chronicling the “detrimental qualities” of men, and the practice has become fatiguing. I do not think cinema can become any better at these chronicles–what is produced now are small refinements of earlier iterations. Television has gotten into the act as well with BREAKING BAD; THE SOPRANOS; MAD MEN.
odd_jobbies asks “Who wants a 2D hero who ticks all the ‘right on’ boxes and says all the correct things?” I am not sure I want that, but it does offer an alternative to the same array of detrimental qualities served up again in different combinations in film after film and television show after television show. MooreBond may not be deep/dark, but I find his St. George quality refreshing–he distinguishes between right and wrong (within the ethical parameters of the film) and acts accordingly. MR may be on the cartoonish side, but I find it more enjoyable that than the anguish of CR. Eventually anguish is set aside in a person’s life–not to do so is akin to repeating second grade perpetually.
To get back to odd_jobbies: “Who wants a 2D hero who ticks all the ‘right on’ boxes and says all the correct things?” What is the appeal of a character who says the incorrect things and ticks the wrong boxes? Are the detrimental attributes the missing third dimension? (and if they are, does their resolution bring back 2D?) Is the character getting to do things the viewer cannot do in real life? Doesn’t transgressive/rebellious/shock-the-elder behavior grow stale after a while?
Full disclosure: I may feel this way because of my blind spot of being gay, i.e., from a young age I was understood/seen as being a transgressive/rebellious elder-shocker without even trying to be so. The fact of my existence put me in this category. So for me, heroes were characters who navigated such situations and established spaces for themselves. For example, I enjoyed Bette Davis performances not because I was a gay man channeling femininity, but rather a gay man who enjoyed how in so many films she carved out a space in which her characters could exist and, sometimes, thrive. Her strategies were more interesting to me than her psychology. Same for my love for Joseph L. Mankiewicz movies and their emphasis on character autonomy.
But to move beyond redemption stories is to bring about what odd_jobbies predicts: “prelude to his/her/its own extinction.” So in a culture that has by-and-large turned away from its Christian roots, the concept of the falleness/brokenness of human beings re-emerges in the repetitive telling of stories about detrimental qualities which somehow are never quite put behind one–the spiritual has become the psychological/sociological. (It is interesting in this context to watch THE HIDDEN LIFE by Terrence Malick and read the reviews)
Part of what I liked about THE IRISHMAN was the Prospero-like abjuration on Scorsese’s part of ambiguity. Modernist ambiguity was always part of Scorsese’s aesthetic, and he certainly gave viewers plenty of ambiguous endings centered on men: Henry Hill, Sam Rothstein, Howard Hughes, Newland Archer. But THE IRISHMAN backs away from the ambiguous: the rot is total and irredeemable (I was reminded of the approach of THE GODFATHER PART III). Does THE IRISHMAN bring to a close a particular type of gangster story?
Bond may be “humanely corrupted,” but where does/should the stress lie? Modernism would say on the character’s flaws, with some attention paid to the corrupting system. With modernity, first we had the postulation of the psychological self and then its theatricalization (which helped the bourgeoisie feel they were more than their money or social status). But I still come back to the same question: how long before we run out of interesting flaws to depict? Or put another way: how long before flaws are just not interesting anymore?
On the other hand you have the example of Kurosawa: the modernist master who openly embraced the Japanese aesthetic tradition of didactic art (a tradition disparaged by modernism out of the understandable fear of green-lighting the production of fascist art [among other reasons]). Take for example THE BAD SLEEP WELL or HIGH AND LOW: plenty of corruption, but lighter on the psychology. The characters are psychologically believable, but the focus is not on the flaws, but on taking actions to overcome them.
Apologies again for the disjointedness, and thanks to odd_jobbies for his inspiration.
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Another former baseball player: Randy Bush
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Thank you for this marvelous post, MrKiddWint.
I agree absolutely - it is time that protagonists should stop being celebrated for being flawed and instead start finding ways to overcome it. One might argue that some of the anti-heroes of the last two decades actually fight their flaws (Bruce Wayne, Bond, Walter White) - and maybe it is rather a large part of the audience who chooses to celebrate the dark instincts because it makes them feel more equal and less inclined to work at themselves to transcend this. Because, as we all know, it is hard work to not give in to those impulses.
But maybe that is why heroes - and Bond certainly is designed as the good guy despite his bad boy qualities - should again be depicted with more redeeming behavior and attitudes. After all, society right now is at a point which will decide how our future is shaped. Do we want to stay put and be encouraged by all the hatemongering, the snark, the cynicism and the fatalistic idea of “why change, it all goes to hell anyway, so let’s not even be ashamed for our actions if political leads obviously enjoy their despicable bullying and even get rewarded for it”? Or do we want to make a stand and stop those attitudes because it is the right thing to do, the social thing to do, in order to repair the threads necessary for human interaction to succeed?
In a way, the character of Superman is kind of a litmus test for society. If people ridicule him as a “boyscout” and instead consider the “Joker” as a role model we´re all in big trouble.
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The problem with that arguement is it falls into the typical critic response of how people and art need to fit into neat little categories, regardless of individual differences, the small things that make all the difference. The examples I’d point to;
Sherlock in relation to Elementary (Modern day Sherlock Holmes where the question of why they’d develop a drug addiction is raised)
The Dark Knight Trilogy in relation to Snyder’s Batman (A relatively darker take of Batman that asks what sort of person would do this)
Same plots, same psychological questions, but VERY different results because of what they do with those questions.
I don’t have time to discuss it fully now (two kids to get to school) but I have more than single sentence sound bites, I promise 
On a connected note; you should read Happy by Derren Brown, there is much discussion on the move from spiritual reasoning to psychological reasoning being given as the go-to for moral superiority. It keeps coming down to the human need to present order on a universe that is, with the best will in the world, a series of accidents.
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I worry for society when A psychotic villain can be put in the same sentence as “role model” without you being laughed out of the room.
Off topic for this conversation, and VERY off topic for the thread, but I’ve long thought the emotional arc (I hate myself for that, but couldn’t think of a better way of describing it) is that of an adopted child, where, rather than wanting to know their past, he seeks out being accepted as one of the family now. Man of Steel almost plays with this concept, but for the most part, it has never been explored. Despite what I’ve seen written, I don’t think Superman is difficult to find a story for, so much as people have been asking the wrong questions.
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Yeah Superman has very little of Krypton in him, he’s always known he was different but deep down he just wants to be accepted and live up to the potential he sees for humanity to be good and give hope to the hopeless - It’s an adopted child story, an immigrant story, a story about anyone who’s ever been seen as some kind of other, and wants to find somewhere to belong - but of course people have stories they try to twist him into that doesn’t necessarily work, mainly due to following film fashion or in Snyder’s case Randian influence that has no business being anywhere near Superman
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To me Superman means also to accept the responsibility that comes with his abilities (‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ as that other blue-red superhero franchise once put it). Krypton may be the place of his ancestors - but it simply is no longer. And if it was, Superman would just be an ordinary Kryptonian there.*
Superman may feel at times a longing to be ‘ordinary’, to hide from his responsibility - Fortress of Solitude anybody? The best example he’s feeling the weight of his ‘otherness’ even in the naïve spirit of the early stories - but he’s always greater than this longing. Nor does he succumb to the temptation to simply set the flying monkeys loose, grab the planet and act as god-like benevolent ruler (‘for their own best’); an idea that would attract most humans in his place.
Superman is the example of power harnessed by humanitarian values, compassion, responsibility, justice.
*Of course not. His parents, judging by the little evidence I’ve read when I was a kid, already possessed the characters of heroes, wanting to work for a greater good and gave that quality to their son. Clark was risen by the Kents in the best spirits of American values, a sense of justice, of social responsibility, to help the weak and those in need. But he’s also inherited the personality of his parents, who must have been outstanding even among fellow Kryptonians.
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Except for Snyder Kent who, of course, had parents who told him to be selfish and that he didn’t owe anyone a damn thing
Didn’t watch that. Bit like M urging Bond to defect and broker a deal for the old man in Moscow, no?
Basically Man Of Steel has two (vastly opposing pieces of advice) from Jor-El and Jonathan Kent.
“Show off your powers to inspire humanity” - Jor-El
“Hide your powers so as to have a normal life, even if that means not saving people” - Jonathan Kent
Clark, accordingly, shows off his powers to let many innocent people die.