M.A.V.

From deep within the Stumptown Coffee Roasters on SW 3rd:

In a place where the apparent sole basis for esteeming the worth of others is Style of Dress--and not just any old Style of Dress but a very particular Style of Dress, a Style of Dress that itself values eccentricity as an End In Itself--the stage is set for the fashion equivalent of the nuclear arms scenario known as M.A.D., or, Mutually Assured Destruction, which I’m going to call “M.A.V.,” or, “Mutually Assured Vacuity,” where everyone is at risk of having nothing but vacuous relations with everybody else. Scary a** sh*t, I know.

So, here’s my question: How does one get out of a M.A.V. scenario? Assume that you’re the fashion-equivalent of some relatively podunk--at least in terms of nuclear armature--country, like France, and that the Russkies and the Amis--the coolest/most fashionable kids--have started launching their nukes...

 

One can not fire, i.e., dress like the unintentional geek and/or dud. This tends to be yours trulys tried and, er...

The second option: one can fire ones own nukes, launch a couple at England or Germany, i.e., do ones damndest to not dress like the rest of them (and therefore wind up looking like the rest of them because you’ve failed to understand the trappings of the form/content distinction). Honestly, I feel the worst for the people that take this course because it’s F*CKING M.A.V. PEOPLE and there’s just no stopping once you start...

 

Sweet Jesus.

The third option is, what, launch a nuke at the fashion equivalent of some relatively nuclearly hapless country, like the Netherlands or Brazil. No African countries because that wouldn’t be fair. Same goes for Canada. But what does this response to M.A.V. actually look like? I’m not sure...

Billy Zane?

 

Jimmy Fallon?

 

Britney Spears?

  

Anyways, my point is/was just that I’m not sure what the third option actually looks like, in action. Maybe B-Spears was actually onto something? Probably not.

The fourth option is to just fold-up shop and drop-off the World (fashion) Stage entirely, i.e., find a different coffee shop for a hangout spot, one that’s filled with less fashionable people. But the problem with the fourth option is that, well, some of the girls present at places like the Stumptown on SW 3rd are just too damn cute...

 

P.S. Yours Truly recently purchased some jeans that are, uh, periwinkle in color... Sh*t.

Hey, Can You Turn Down the Music?

A few weeks ago, I was at Barista, a swanky little coffee shop down in the Pearl District and straight out of Portlandia, i.e., staffed by a bunch of young retirees (men and women with big glasses and tats and attitudes and graduate degrees in areas as short-term economically disadvantageous as my own), serving like 46 kinds of exotic espresso, impractically small, etc. So, I’m sitting, sipping my Big Mutha’ Trucker Americano (it had a name like that, I swear), and listening to a bunch of Super-Cool for White Kids Music. In this case, the SCWKM (prounounced “Squi’cum”) happened to be a bunch of early 90s hip-pop playing just loud enough for everyone to hear and recognize and be able to proceed to reflect upon for the purpose of appreciating the super-coolness of its promulgators; it was not, however, playing obnoxiously or offensively loud (one should never offend others, now should one...).

The music--Biggie, Warren G, etc.--wasn’t bad or annoying or anything like that, but then I’m super-cool, too, like Straight Out’a Portland!, in fact, sort of, so... But even if it was bad or annoying or something like that, there’s no way I would’ve asked the Barista staffers to turn it down. Hell, they could’ve been blaring old Ska and I wouldn’t have asked them to turn it down. Why? Would I be too embarrassed to reveal my lack of coolness to people as cool as the Barista staffers? I sure hope not. No, for me, and this is my honest-to-goodness answer, I do not understand myself to have much of a say in the kind of music that Barista plays or doesn’t play, as in, if I don’t like it, tough-toodles for me, it’s up to them, I can go elsewhere, it’s their coffee shop, they have the Power, etc. Maybe I could argue with them that Biggie actually kind’a sucks (sorry, all you Biggie lovers out there) and that their SCWKM is just that (“Squi’cum”), but I’d have to argue and win these points if I actually wanted the music to change...

Early last Wednesday morning, no later than 7:15, working at my own coffee shop, we were listening to Corporate Unapproved soul music--James Brown, Sam Cooke.

“Can you turn down the music?” asks a man, a white man, an older man, a large man, a man of the ex- collegiate middle linebacker variety--big broad forehead and shoulders and jaw--and curly white hair, a customer, “Jimmy.”

  

Yeah, that’s about right.

“Sure,” I reply with a protracted “uuuuuuuurrrrr.”

“Thanks,” says Jimmy before he lumbers back over to the little granite table he’s sharing with his wife and his friend, and before I make my way to the back of the coffee shop, and not to turn down the Corporate Unapproved soul music we’d been listening to since 5:30, -ish, but, rather, to turn it off and turn on the Corporate Approved classical loop that I/everyone else has been listening to non-stop for at least the last year and a half.

Even though nobody else requested the music change and even though Jimmy did not actually ask me to change the music (he merely asked me to turn it down), I did not hesitate to do so. Immediately after having had done so, I asked myself, Why the hell did I just do that? Well, in part because I suspected that Jimmy was not the sort of guy who really liked soul music, in part because we aren’t supposed to play non-C.A. music while the shop’s open, in part because my shift-lead asked me to do so, in part because Jimmy is kind’a scary, and in part because of what I understand to be the nature of the relationship between me, my employers and our customers, like Jimmy.

What’s the nature of said relationship? I’ll be blunt: customers like Jimmy have The Power, or, at least, my employers and myself give it to them in that we do our very darn-damndest to give all the Jimmys of the world what they want, when they want it. Why do we do this? So that, presumably, all the Jimmys of the world will stay our customers. What’s the ideology that undergirds such a relationship? That if we don’t give all the Jimmys of the world what they want, when they want it, they won’t be our customers; that giving them what they want makes them happy. Beneath both of these ideologies is the one that claims that getting what we want makes us happy and loyal and all that jazz, too. But is getting what we want really what makes us happy?

I don’t know about you, but what I want changes pretty regularly. When I was 26 (i.e., now), I wanted, more than anything, to finish my second novel and rewrite my first and get both published by the end of the calender year... When I was 25, I wanted to prove to myself that I could stick with a romantic relationship... When I was 24, wanted to get the hell out of O-H-I-O... 23, to get my PhD in philosophy, preferably from Depaul... 22, gulp, move to O-H-I-O... 18,  KJO and a BMW M3... 16, Fortress Maximus, the biggest Transformer ever...

 

13, braces off... 10, Shawn Kemp’s Kamikaze basketball shoes... 8, be a professional basketball player... 5, Fortress Maximus, again... My point is that what I’ve wanted in my own life has changed pretty regularly. Sure, occasionally it’s stayed the same for a few months here, a few years there, but then it has changed again, perhaps back to something from before, perhaps to something new--just like that. And then, whenever I’ve gotten what I wanted, was I ever truly happy? For a spell, sure, but usually all too brief.

If we were to ask Spinoza why our desires change so gosh-darn much, he’d tell us it’s a function of the fact that we stand in pretty passive relationship to them--i.e., our desires move us, not the other way around. We do have, of course, the ability to reflect on and address--Spinoza calls it taking an “active” relationship w.r.t.--our desires and so can abstain, sublimate or substitute our desires with a certain degree of plasticity--

 

(I just made a pretty complicated Catholic priest joke, for your information...LAUGH!)--but that’s beside the point. What’s my point? That we don’t necessarily have control over what we want. In conjunction with this and the fact that it changes pretty regularly, getting what we want doesn’t necessarily make us happy and doesn’t necessarily make desire go away. Such is the nature of desire, says everyone from the Ancient Greeks to Buddha. Why else would the advertising industry be a multi-baggillion dollar one?

Part of my reason for thinking that getting what we want doesn’t necessarily make us happy is that what we want is constantly changing, not up to us, and never quite satisfying once we get it. Another part of my reason is slightly more complicated and less common-sensical and has to do with what I understand to be the importance of having a sense of self that isn’t “total” if we’re going to be happy. What do I mean by this? Well, for example, back in Spinoza’s time (1632-77), a great many people believed that everything on earth was put here by God for humanity to use in any way it saw fit, and not only everything on earth but everything in the whole universe, the center of which was earth. Spinoza considered this perspective incredibly vain and stupid and set about proving--as in used the method of geometric proof--said vanity and stupidity with his Ethics.

Many of us, present company included, often think/feel that we’re the center of everything. This thought/sentiment is not entirely our faults. For one, we’re constantly told that we’re the center of the universe and that our wants and desires are paramount. Those people that work in that multi-baggillion dollar industry, advertising, tell us this all day, everyday. For another, we experience ourselves as being at the literal center of everything: our worlds extend out from us, us being at point “0.” For yet another, we’re regularly treated like we’re the center of the universe, e.g., when we ask that music be turned down at some coffee shop and somebody actually turns it down without any resistance. DAMN IT!!!

When we’re regularly told that, experience, and are treated like we’re the center of the universe, that our personal wants and desires are paramount, our sense of self becomes what I earlier called “total,” i.e. we start to believe that everything that exists outside of us is actually there for us. Why is this bad? Or, why doesn’t this make us happy? How about this, and this is my honest to goodness best answer: it’s boring. Not that it’s a lie, mind you, or untrue, but that it’s boring, boring, boring. Don’t believe me? Think of an old-school patriarchal marriage in which the man says “Honey, I want Such and Such for dinner,” and the woman goes and makes Such and Such for dinner, or in which the man says, “Honey, give me a b.j.,” and the woman gives him a b.j., etc. Such a dynamic was, for a time, thought of and/or promoted as the ideal for relationships between men and women (and still is in some places), and while it might sound nice to some of you to have a relationship with somebody where all you have say “I want X” and get it, I’ll tell you this: friction and resistance and negotiation and play and strife and obstacles, these are the things that make our lives colorful and fun and meaningful. And hard, sure. But meaningful. And life without friction, resistance, negotiation, play, strife and obstacles, especially between people, isn’t quite worth living. Call me crazy, but I like having to fight for my b.j.s.

As consumers, do we not presently find ourselves in a situation similar to that of the old-school patriarchal marriage, where we’ve come to believe that the ideal relationship between us anyone whom we pay for anything is just to get what we want? That this is what will make us happy? And does it? Does it make us happy? Sure, sort of. I will only answer for myself and my side of this relationship, but... I’m not happy giving customers like Jimmy the coffee-shop equivalent of a b.j. when he asks for it, and even though he thinks he’s happy getting his coffee-shop equivalent b.j. from a hot-young stud like yours truly, I don’t think he is, not really.

So... The next time somebody like Jimmy asks me to turn down the music at my coffee shop--C.A. classical loop or non-C.A. soul--I’m going to ask them at least two questions: first, Why? Second, Do you want me to just turn the music down or do you also want me to change it to something else? I’ll ask them these questions and any others that pop into my head not merely to be a bother or a smart-ass or de-totalize their sense of self, but to add a little friction and color and meaning to our relationship. To hopefully make us both a little happier, long term. What will probably happen after our Q and A? No clue. Probably a formal complaint against yours truly, filed through corporate, that I’ll have to explain later to my boss and my boss’s boss. If this is what winds up happening, I’ll just refer my boss and my boss's boss here and tell them that I don’t think that giving/getting b.j.s on demand ultimately makes anyone happier.

Arendt and the Perplexities of Sex

I had this thought a few days ago while taking a showing: sex is significant like human rights are inalienable. Bear with me.

Recently, a girl and I who’d been “getting to know each other better,” i.e. dating, stopped getting to know each other better over a difference in our respective valuations of sex. Basically, she valued it and I didn’t. Or, she thought of it as QUITE SIGNIFICANT and I thought of it as the physical/emotional equivalent of meeting somebody’s parents, i.e. important, but not one of those thresholds beyond which there is no turning back (which is how she thought of it, in a nut shell). So we stopped getting to know each other better and decided to just be friends. I think it’s going to be for the best.

What does the above story have to do with human rights? Well, do you think that we’re all born with inalienable rights, rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the freedom to buy whatever we damn-well please, and that nobody can take these rights away from us? Are you the sort of person who gets seriously pissed when you think about China’s (or America’s) human rights violations? If you are, then you share something in common with those thinkers of the late eighteenth century--Thomas Paine, J.S. Mill, the writers of the U.S. “Declaration of Independence” and the French “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen”--who came up with the idea of inalienable human rights.

If you are the sort of person who gets pissed when you hear about China’s or America’s human rights violations, then your name is probably not Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a philosopher and political theorist writing during the mid 20th century, was intensely interested in what she labeled the “perplexities” of the rights of man. As a youth, she bore witness to the first World War and its aftermath. Then the second. WWI taught Arendt that stateless people don’t necessarily have inalienable human rights (she was particularly interested in the problems surrounding what we now call refugees). WW2 taught her that citizens, too, don’t necessarily have inalienable human rights (she was herself a German-born Jew who underwent the process of de-naturalization). On the basis of what Arendt witnessed and experienced during the two World Wars, she concluded that human rights are not inalienable, that they can in fact be taken away from us quite easily, and that we actually need a state-body to guarantee them for us if they’re be anything more than empty words. Arendt writes, “The Rights of Man, supposedly inalienable, proved to be unenforceable--even in countries whose constitutions were based upon them--whenever people appeared who were no longer citizens of any sovereign state” (“The Decline of Nation State and the End of the Rights of Man,” The Origins of Totalitarianism, 293).

What does the above have to do with the significance of sex?!? HERE WE COME, FULL CIRCLE!!! Sex without a relationship is like a human rights without a sovereign state: pretty much meaningless. What is the significance of sex outside of a relationship? Sheer desire, acted upon. Nothing more, nothing less. How do I know this? Because I’ve seen it. Because I’ve had it. And ain’t nothing wrong with a little desire, acted upon, but if that’s all there is to your sex, well, you know how that feels the day after: EMPTY, if you’re lucky (and yucky, too, if you’re not). What is the significance of sex within a relationship? Well, I’ll tell you this, it’s one of the richest experiences life has to offer. How do I know this? Ditto.

How does all this relate to my initial story? Well, the girl that I was getting to know believed sex had something like an inalienable significance, whereas I don’t. 

All of the above is/was mostly just a thought which I had, in the shower, a few days ago, and perhaps it can't be anything more significant than that: a few-day-old shower thought.

Dear Sam

Goldfish and turtles get flushed down drains, hamsters get placed outside. Goldfish and turtles come back to us? Sewer-monsters:

 

Hamsters come back? Feral beasts, ala David Foster Wallace’s future in Infinite Jest:
 

 

A few weeks ago, I put my hamster, Sam (originally named Tullis, then named Martin, then named Sam)--named after the Sam in Brazil:

 

and the Sam in Moon:

 

--out to pasture, so to speak, i.e., I took him and his Tupperware palace and set them outside, back behind my apartment. I didn’t exactly feel very good about it at the time, and don’t exactly feel good about it now, but probably not for the reasons you think.

Here’s the story I’ve been telling myself for the past few weeks: Sam’d been fighting frantically all morning, the Day Of, to escape from his Tupperware palace, reaching new levels of what smacked an awful lot like desperation. (At one point, I watched Sam climb to the top of this cardboard cylinder, the highest point in the palace grounds, which I’d never seen him do before, and then fall into the thing--and it’s thick and there’s no way he could’ve gotten out of it if I hadn’t been there.) Sam had also been on what seemed a lot like a death-march (think of that scene in Night by Elie Wiesel, but without any Nazis pointing any guns at anybody) for the previous day and a half, in which Sam not only didn’t appear to ever stop running on his little treadmill, the treadmill which I’d gotten him a few weeks prior, but also seemed to be intentionally trying to concuss himself on the thing (with each revolution, Sam would smack his little head on this little bar that holds his little treadmill in place: SAD!).

Back on the Day Of, I had just gotten done eating breakfast, having had witnessed Sam’s desperate activities while I ate my morning cereal and read my morning fiction, when I finally broke. I told myself, “There’s no way I can watch this sh*t for another two plus years!” I then proceeded to address Sam, “You really want to be free that bad? Fine, let’s go, buddy-boy!” And so I went out back behind my apartment, to my mockery of a yard, to look for a new place to put Sam’s Tupperware palace; a more free place for my buddy, Sam. There, I found the neighbor’s cat, Triton--

 

--who’s apparently capable of peering into my soul and accessing my deepest and darkest thoughts, waiting for me; so, I waited until Triton seemed to have gone away before taking Sam and his Tupperware palace and setting them up outside in such a way that Sam would have access to freedom, food, and a little protection from cats, like Triton.

Later on the Day Of, I went to check up on Sam and couldn’t find him. And I felt pretty bad, and still do, but not because I’d probably just sacrificed Sam to a cruel death in the claws of nature/Triton. No, not because of what I did, but because of how/why I did it; because my “Sam wants to be free; I can’t possibly make Sam’s situation any better; I can’t watch Sam’s struggle for another two plus years!” may have been an example of what the German critical-theorist Theodor Adorno--

 

--called “the ideological misuse of ones own existence.”

Somewhere in Minima Moralia, Adorno advises us, “To deny oneself the ideological misuse of one’s own existence, and for the rest to conduct oneself in private as modestly, unobtrusively and unpretentiously as is required, no longer by good upbringing, but by the shame of still having air to breathe in hell”. Now, skipping over the possibility that Adorno thinks we’re all living in hell and that the deepest/hottest part of hell is Southern California--

 

--that’s right, So-Cal (Adorno spent some time there during WW 2), what does it mean “to deny oneself the ideological misuse of one’s own existence”? Well, first off, the phrase “ideological misuse” seems to imply that there are right and wrong ways to use ideology, right? Right. But then, what the hell’s ideology?

Back when I initially read Minima Moralia, I had little/no idea what Adorno meant by the word ideology. What I did know was that I thought that what he said sounded scary/cool and probably meant something important, i.e., equally scary/cool. I read Adorno’s History and Freedom lectures this past year. There he clearly defines what he means by ideology as any claim about existence to the effect of “Such and Such is the case” (I can’t find the citation). Why is any such claim ideological? Because it creates a relationship between an idea--Such-and-Such--and a logic--a system of meaning (a network of actions, behaviors, and habits, ala language)--in which, if it’s lived by, the logic continually reinforces the apparent truth of the idea, which, so strengthened, serves to continue to justify the logic, ad infinitum. That’s ideology, in a nut shell.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Take the claim, “We’re all going to die.” It’s got an idea (death) and a logic (it’s inevitable, we’re all gonn’a kick it someday, so...), which, once they’ve been put together, and if they’re actually lived by, will form a couple that perpetually reinforce each other. One example, and there are many, of what it means to actually live this ideology is Keith Richards:

 

Keith Richards probably tells himself/thinks (or probably told himself/thought, when he was younger), “We’re all going to die, so, we might as well do whatever the hell we want, whenever the hell we want to! LONG LIVE Her Majesty, THE QUEEN!!!” (or something like that). Such a claim/thought has got an idea (death) and a logic (it’s inevitable, so, f*ck it!) that, together, serve to reinforce the apparent truth of the idea--K-Rich should’ve died decades ago, and if he had, his idea would’ve been proven true--as well as the sense of the logic--there’s a man who really lived, right? Right...

For Adorno, ideology is any claim about Such-and-Such being the case insofar as any/all such claims create a combination between an idea and a logic that, if actually lived by, will make that idea seem more true, which in turn will serve to reinforce the apparent sense of the logic, which will in turn, ad infinitum. Make sense? If not...

That’s right, sh*t. If you’re having trouble understanding what I mean, here are some more popular examples of ideology, claims like “Life isn’t fair,” “All men are created equal,” “All you need is love,” “That’s just The Game,” “Economy’s in the crapper,” or “It’s important to get an education.” Each such claim, insofar as it is actually lived by (regardless of whether or not you, in particular, actually agree with it), creates a relationship between an idea and a logic that will continually serve to reinforce the apparent truth of both. That’s ideology, in a nut shell.       
         If you don’t yet have a decent hold on what I think Adorno means by ideology, then see the above picture of what may/may not be a human turd (it does look a little oily, though, doesn’t it?). If you do have a decent hold, which is my hope, then what’s the difference between a right and wrong use of ideology? Here’s my best guess, and it’s basically something I don’t have the time/knowledge to support with Adorno’s text itself, and so may be something that I’m totally making up on the spot: The wrong use of ideology, i.e., an ideological misuse of one’s own existence, is any ideology which seeks to efface the role the subject, i.e. the person actually making and/or living by the ideological claim, plays in its apparent truth and sense; the right use of ideology, conversely, is one which does not efface the role we play in creating and reinforcing its truth/sense. For example, if I’m Omar--

 

--from HBO’s The Wire, and I say “It’s all in The Game” or “The Game’s the Game” or “The Game’s being played, and it’s either play or be played,” or some variation thereon, and do not acknowledge and own my own role in perpetuating The Game, then I’m guilty of an ideological misuse of my own existence. If, on the other hand, I’m Omar and I say something like “Yeah, The Game’s The Game... But it most-definitely can’t be played without yours truly...,” then I’m not guilty of the wrong use of ideology. So what’s the difference? Well, when we abuse or misuse ideology, we speak/think/act as if we’re powerless and passive non-agents, and wind up unconsciously reinforcing the apparent truth of situations--ideas and logics in living-motion--that we claim to be able to do nothing about; when we use ideology rightly or properly, we speak/think/act as if we’re powerful and active agents, becoming capable of consciously reinforcing (or not) the apparent truth of situations that we’re knowingly complicit in and about which we think we can do something. This, to me, seems like the difference between the right and wrong uses of ideology. If you have a better/different understanding, please let me know, I’m mostly ears...
   

Let’s see whether or not I was guilty of an improper use of ideology, which was what I suspected and why I felt bad back on the Day Of my putting Sam out to pasture, so to speak. Back on the Day Of, I made a number of claims, thought a number of things, and acted accordingly. First, I told myself that Sam was desperate, wanted to escape, wanted to be free. Second, I told myself that I’d already given him everything he could possibly want, like the treadmill that he was trying to kill himself on and the ball that enabled him to roam around my apartment freely, -ish. Third, I told myself I couldn’t bear to watch Sam be desperate for at least two more years (which is about the average life-span of a hamster).

Let’s start with the first claim: Sam wanted to be free. Does making such a claim turn me into a passive non-agent, setting up a dynamic in which I unconsciously reinforce the apparent truth of the situation? Not necessarily. It’s ideology, sure, but I’d be the first to admit that it’s definitely my perspective on Sam that makes such a claim appear to be true. What about the second, that I’d already given Sam everything he could possibly want? This seems to be the sort of claim that conceals a number of things, things that I could’ve done if I’d wanted to make Sam’s life better, things like getting him a bigger Tupperware palace, getting him more toys, perhaps buying him a companion (supposedly Russian Dwarf hamsters, like Sam, really enjoy company, at least that’s what the gal at the pet store told me...), etc., i.e., things which I actually didn’t want to do. Smells like an ideological misuse of my own existence, perhaps... What about the third claim? That there’s no way I’d be able to stomach Sam’s desperation for the rest of his life. This claim doesn’t seem like the sort of claim that hides my ability to do something about it or that blindly reinforces itself, so...

My misuse of ideology, if it occurred, occurred/occurs within the second claim, where I know damn well that I didn’t do all I could possibly do to make Sam’s life one that he didn’t want to escape from, but where I told myself otherwise, hence why I felt bad. That’s it, that’s why I felt bad, that’s why I feel bad: I was guilty of a misuse of ideology. So, what’s the truth that my misuse of ideology covered over? Like any such abuse, it involved the abdication of my complicity in the situation: Had I wanted to do otherwise, I could have. But I didn’t actually want to do anything more for Sam than I’d already done. Why not? Well, I wasn’t about to give Sam a bigger home in my already cramped apartment, or companions to play with, or any such thing. Sam was and will remain an equal parts cruel and brilliant white-elephant present (thanks for Sam, Tullis) that I tried to make the best of/for, but for which I just couldn’t go past a certain point, which I’d apparently reached on the Day Of...

Now, if you’re reading this and want to reproach me for the actions I took back on the Day Of, reproach me for the following: There is and there will always be a limit to my goodness, a limit which I occasionally try and/or get pushed to move (thanks again, Tullis), but which seems to remain nonetheless. If this last little admission is not an ideological claim, maybe even my own personal ideological claim par excellance, a claim vulnerable to extreme right and wrong uses, I claim which I both do and do not feel bad for making in the past, present and future, I don’t know what is... Again, if you want to reproach me, reproach me for this.

And Sam,
Watching you leave the confines of your Tupperware palace for the first time, watching you explore my back yard for the few moments that I could bear it, knowing full well that you were probably going to be subjected to a cruel death in the claws of Triton/Nature as soon as I left you, well...

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.