What's Evil, Anyways?

            If you haven’t seen Darren Aronofsky’s latest, Black Swan, you should probably stop reading right now because that’s what I’m going to be discussing in the following and at least consider going to see it, that is, if you like really intense/poetic films and have the stomach for the sound of finger nails getting clipped.

Assuming I’ve weeded out those of you that have yet to (or never intend to) see Black Swan, I can proceed to the reason why I’m writing. It’s the following question: Do you consider the ballet director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel)--same guy who played the Merovingian in last two Matrix movies, right?

Wait, no, wrong...



That’s more like it--do you consider Thomas, the ballet director, evil? OK, so ignore the above picture of Cassel in trying to answer this question for yourself. Think back to the movie. Think back to everything the ballet director says (e.g., “Go home and masturbate”) and does (e.g., his groping Nina and French kissing her, which French kissing is itself at least to the Second Power of French kissing because Thomas/Cassel is himself French, right? Right!). Think about all the horrible sh*t that happens to Beth Macintire (Winona Ryder).



No, think about all the horrible sh*t that happens to her in Black Swan (hospital, face-stabbing). Think about all the horrible sh*t that happens to Nina (Natalie Portman).



No, think about all the horrible sh*t that happens to her after that haircut in V for Vendetta.



No, her being Padme for G-Luc was before V. Think of all the horrible sh*t that happens to her in Black Swan (e.g., her psychotic-break with reality in which she thinks she actually got Lily/Mila Kunis to go down on her, or her following through on Thomas’s “Go home and masturbate” imperative only to discover, mid rub-n-rub, that her mother is asleep in the same room).

OK, so, in light of what befalls both Beth and Nina, is Thomas evil? Well what do we mean beevil? How about: selfish--

--and not only selfish, but also willing to sacrifice/harm others for the purpose of pursuing selfish ends.

While there are surely other definitions of evil, such as the one often found in the novels of Cormac McCarthy (i.e., a willingness to sacrifice others without any thought of gain, personal or otherwise), the above definition seems like the one that most people are comfortable with. According to this definition of evil--selfish and willing to sacrifice others towards selfish ends--it should seem like Thomas, the ballet director, is clearly evil: he is more than willing to sacrifice others (Nina, Beth) in pursuit of his own desires (having his lusts satiated, making his production of Swan Lake a good one). So he’s evil, right? Sure, unless we ask the following question: What is it that Nina wants for herself?

So ask yourself: What does Nina want for herself? Does she want to spend the rest of her life as a technically proficient ballet dancer who is only capable of roles that require such proficiency? Does she want to be an adult female, a woman, who lives in an all pink bedroom filled with stuffed animals, and with her psycho-mother of all people? A life-long virgin? Or... Or does she want to be the black swan, and all that entails/requires?

There are two ways to answer these questions. The first is from the point of personal speculation/interpretation. The second is from the point of view of the film itself. Any answers from the former will be contingent on whether or not you think Nina was living the “good life” prior to her taking on the role of the black swan in earnest, i.e., your answer will be a matter of personal, subjective taste. To answer from the perspective of the film itself, however, is slightly more complicated and depends by and large on what you make of all the early “encounters” between Nina and her dark doppelganger. Before you answer that question for yourself, ask: Why did Darren Aronofsky include those early encounters in the film? What’s his motivation? How you answer this question will determine how you answer all the others, and largely hangs on whether or not you think D.A. is the sort of director who attempts to communicate concrete messages through his films or just some Wanker whose just as likely to throw us Red-Herrings--

 

--as he is to give us meaningful plot points--
--and I give D.A. the benefit of the doubt on this one, which means that the early encounters between Nina and her dark doppelganger are supposed to tell us something. But what? How about this: Nina is/was already on her way to becoming the black swan, such that it must be said that a part of her wants to undergo the transformation that the film chronicles. If you have another possible interpretation as to why it is that D.A. showed us all the early encounters between Nina and her dark doppelganger, I’m all ears. Assuming this as our answer means we can proceed, for the time being, to answer the other questions we asked above.

So, what does Nina want for herself? From the perspective of the film itself, part of her must be said to want, or at least to will (or, perhaps, be in the process of willing) to become the black swan. From the perspective of this part of herself, anything/anyone that helps her along its/her path must be seen as “good,” right? Or, at least helpful. Anything that doesn’t help must be seen as “bad,” or unhelpful. So, from the perspective of that part of Nina that is already willing to become the black swan, Thomas the ballet director cannot be seen to be evil. But what about according to the definition of evil developed above (selfish and willing to sacrifice others towards selfish ends)? No, for even if he is manipulating Nina towards his own ends (her becoming the black swan so that his production of Swan Lake is actually a good one), his ends aren’t actually at odds with hers and so cannot be said to be wholly selfish, right? She wants to become the black swan and he wants her to become the black swan, ergo, he cannot be said to be evil according to the definition developed above.

If you’re not convinced by the above argument, develop another definition of evil, or try and make a case as to why/how it is that Nina doesn’t want to become the black swan such that the actions/behaviours of Thomas can be seen as evil according to the above definition. I myself, for one, didn’t think of Thomas as evil. Nasty, icky, slimy, sure. But bad? Evil? Less this:

 

And more this:

 

Yeah, icky. Not evil, just icky.

The Madding Crowd says What? Huh?

So, it's the day before New Year's Eve and I'm inquiring into a regular's New Year's Eve plans and he tells me, "Not much. Probably just doing something low-key. How about you? Going out with the madding crowd?"

And I'm like, "Huh?

And he leans in, assuming it must be the acoustics, "The madding crowd..."

            And I shake my head in ignorance.

And he says, "The madding crowd, I think it's somewhere in Shakespeare... You know, the tumultuous masses partying, getting all f*ck'd up..."

And I just shake my head at the same time that one of my coworkers is like, "Come on, you don't know what the madding crowd is?!?"

And I'm like, "Sorry, no..."

And the customer says, not without a hint of self-deprecation, "It must be my boarding school education finally paying off," as he nods his head in thanks for the cappuccino I just made him, before walking away.

Meanwhile, my coworker continues shaking her head, "Don't you have a masters degree?"

And I'm like, kind'a pissy, "Yeah, in philosophy." She continues to shake her head and I'm reminded of the time my friend Megan nearly had a heart attack when I told her I didn't know the history of Nero (all I knew about the subject then/now was that there was a Nero's Pizza in the first Home Alone movie), and I told her that I didn't expect her to know how Heidegger's project does/does not overcome metaphysics, so why should she expect me to share her highly specialized knowledge!

                 
                 

            I tell my head-shaking coworker as much, which didn't exactly make me feel any better about my ignorance.

But then I think, while making somebody else's drink: Hmm, the customer who knew what the madding crowd is went to boarding school on the East Coast, and my coworker who knew what the madding crowd is went to college on the East Coat. So I threw that out there to my head-shaking coworker, along with an "It's probably an example of regional knowledge" argument, which also didn't exactly make me feel any better about my ignorance.

 
                          

BUT THEN, I think, while making somebody else's drink: Hmm, the customer went to boarding school and my coworker went to private Catholic school in Portland before going to fricking Yale. So I speculate: Maybe my ignorance is not so much a straight-up education thing as an education plus class thing (I mean, shit, not only do I have a masters degree, but I've taken a handful of college-level Shakespeare courses, went to a pretty great public high-school, and have seen Woody Allen's a Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy a few dozen times), which is to say that perhaps my ignorance is a function of the fact that my parents never graduated from college, II attended public school my whole life, love watching/playing football and basketball and baseball, summer blockbusters, videogames and cartoons and beer and getting sh*t-faced (on occasions, like New Year's), which is to suggest that perhaps I am a part of the very madding crowd in question; while their knowledge is a function of...

               
                        

            So I threw the above out there to my head-shaking coworker as part/parcel to an "It's probably an example of class-based knowledge" argument, along with the barb that her and the customer that raised the issue grew up members of the class that designates others the madding crowd, which was why they knew what it meant while I didn't. I then told her that I'd bet some serious cash-money that if we went around and asked people whether or not they knew what the "madding crowd" was, that of those that said "Yes" we would find a STRONG correlation between that admission and whether or not they also went to private school as a youngster. Needless to say, my coworker didn't like this argument very much (she got flustered and was NOTICEABLY nicer for the rest of the day). I felt considerably better about my ignorance after making this last argument, and, in the aftermath, found out that the reference primarily refers to a novel by the English writer Thomas Hardy and a poem by English poet Thomas Gray. Shakespeare my ass!

 

                                 

           One funny thing for yours truly to consider in all the above, however, is that the customer that asked me the initial question ("Are you going out with the madding crowd tonight?") must have assumed, on some level, that I would know what he meant; this, coupled with my coworker's incredulous response to my ignorance ("Come on?!?"), perhaps means that I carry myself as if I designated others as the madding crowd... Don't know quite how to feel about this possibility.

So, I Guess People can't try to get Laid at the Family Christmas Party...

Every year, for the last four or five years (I forget), my family has thrown a Christmas party. One of the things that makes our family Christmas party so Oh-My-Gosh-My-Golly special is that all who desire to attend must come dressed in their pajamas. That’s right, PAJAMAS; and no, not negligees, nighties, or any other form of sultry number; strictly PJs (i.e., whatever you would sleep in were you not the sort of person to sleep in the nude, and preferably something festive).

 

Sure, every year a handful of people toe the line of Good Taste with their jammies (most of the full grown women seem to be unable to resist the temptation to show a lil’ cleavage), and one or two people cross it (e.g., Tyler Jost and what I imagine to be his great, great grandmother’s evening gown).

           

The family Christmas party, albeit a pajama party, has never really been about sexiness, sex appeal, or trying to have sex; no, it’s always been about friends and family getting together to eat and drink and dance, and to do so in the kind of garments that people are usually too embarrassed to socialize in; and it’s also always been a pure, unadulterated (no pun intended, would be adulterers), blast. Which is why what happened this past year generated such a Big Stink.

            Now, in all past iterations of the party, the age demographics have been roughly as follows: 5% in the 55+ age range, 60% in the 40-55, 5% in the 30-40, 10% in the 18-30, and 20% in the 18 and Under range; in the 40-55 range, most everyone was married (my parents and their friends), and in the 18-30 range, most everyone was straight and male (my brother and our friends), and in the 18 and Under range, most everyone was 18 and Under; thus the worst thing that anyone ever really had to worry about, in terms of possible sexual relations (barring The Worst, i.e., someone in the 18+ fooling around with someone in the 18 and Under), was somebody’s mom copping a mostly innocent feel on somebody’s buddy. 
 

            

 This past year, however, the demographics shifted, and somewhat seismically, with the 18-30 range doubling and becoming about 60% straight female (in the 18-21 range), 40% straight male in the 24-27 range. I’m sure you can see where this is heading:

And that’s exactly where it headed, sort of...

So, there was no hot, steamy, Provocative, possibly procreative fornicating that took place at the family Christmas party this past year. Nope. What there was, however, was Critical Consensus amongst almost everybody present that one of my good friends (who shall remain nameless: Don’t worry, I still love you madly-deeply) seemed as if he might  have been be trying to get laid with one of my sister’s good friends (who shall also remain nameless: Don’t worry, I don’t hold what happened between you and my friend against you in the slightest, and understand d*mn-well that the only reason you showed any interest in my friend--sorry friendo--was because I was Spoken-For, which warms the cockles of my heart, or is it the fruit of my loins? I forget...).

So what happened between my friend in the 24-27 age range and my sister’s friend in the 18-21 range? What caused the Big Stink? I guess there was some “grinding” on the dance-floor that was, like all grinding, suggestive of the desire to Do the Dirty. That’s it. That’s all. Why did this generate such a Big Stink? Because it indicated that the family Christmas party was at something of crossroads, on the verge of something resembling an Identity Crisis:

                                  

Was it going to continue to be about what it had always been about (friends and family getting together to eat and drink and dance, and to do so in the kind of garments that people are usually too embarrassed to socialize in)? Or was it going to become about people dressing up in pajamas and trying to get laid? Now, perhaps you’re one of those people who asks: Can’t it be both? To which I respond: Have you ever been to a singles’ bar? What is it that makes a singles’ bar different from and less comfortable than your standard-issue pub? The undercurrent of desire, desire that can be acted upon at any moment (“Hey, wanna get outta here?”), which adds a Certain-Something to every single interaction, a layer that makes them about something other than people just shooting-the-shit, getting to know each other, telling good and/or (mostly) bad jokes, and making connections (some meaningful, some not). I don’t know about the rest of you, but I like having social-spaces in which my interactions with others are basically Sexual-Agenda Lite. (This is probably why I like talking with old people so much: I feel no desire, and they don’t think they can successfully act on theirs!)

            
            Here’s what my father said the day after this past year’s family Christmas party:

“We just can’t have people trying to get laid at the family Christmas party.”

To which I responded, “I agree, but the rule’s never been in place before... It hasn’t been necessary...”

He went on, “Doesn’t mean that people can’t meet people and develop relationships...”

“And get laid on a later date?” We all need a little hope for the future, don't we?

“Exactly...”

“Just not at the family Christmas party...”

“Just not at the family Christmas party.”

So, I guess people can’t try to get laid at the family Christmas party.