Play Dirty, Live Well

The aim of a storyteller is to draw you into his story so that each character becomes a real person or, at least, a believable person. Some storytellers do this so well that you may find yourself having a visceral reaction to the choices & actions or a character, and the consequences of those things affect you in a real way. The storytelling is not restricted to the writer of a story; it is the art of an actor to give a human identity - a soul, a believable life - to the character.

How do they decide what characters they want to bring to life? Is it dangerous to play a corrupt, bad, or just plain evil person? Can an actor go too far, get too involved in imitating the life driven by immorality? Is there subjective value - that is, is it good for the individual actor - in playing a bad guy?

I am inclined to say yes, there is subjective value in the portrayal of a villainous character for an actor. This is a theory, based off of what I have learned from a gentleman in the industry, Mr. Ben McKenzie, watching him portray men with complicated stories, most of whom seem to be sliding down the slippery slope of immorality. To my mind, he could have two motivations for this: the first is that he could simply take delight in tormenting me with his sad, wounded, tragical facial expressions. The other is that he thinks it's contributing a good to the world, thereby benefiting himself and me (and the other millions of viewers who tuned in to The O.C., SouthLAnd, and now Gotham). I like to think of myself as a reasonable person, so I have to believe that he does this for the latter reason; no reasonable person would shape their entire career and life just to torment someone that they've never met. Nor is Mr. McKenzie a mere reasonable person - he's pretty gosh darn bright. So he must have smart reasons, which I am trying to guess and convey... or I am just projecting my own rationale on the good monsieur. Either way, here's the stuff:

An actor's craft, as above stated, is to bring a writer's character to life and to tell the writer's story through that character. One would like to think that an actor puts a bit of himself into a role, especially when portraying a hero. We'd like to think that the courage, justice, mercy, etc., of a hero are brought to life because of the virtue of an actor.

We like to think that, but it simply cannot be true. Sure, some actors are truly good people who play truly good characters, but the majority are just as morally flawed and challenged as a man you meet in the cereal aisle at the grocery store. As an audience member, however, mixing up reality and fiction concerning the man behind the mask of acting is not terribly dangerous. If we believe Chris Evans is truly as wonderful as Captain America (yes, I like Capt America. He's the best), that will likely lead us down the path of cultivating our own virtue, imitating him. As the viewer, what matters is the story. Who we believe an actor to be is not really important.

Along the same lines, one might think that an actor who portrays such virtue would also learn to cultivate virtue in his own life... but I don't think that's a necessary conclusion. I hadn't thought about it until I noticed with what determination Mr. McKenzie pursues a career full of good-boy-gone-bad characters. He also seems to be pursuing the normal life of a stand-up guy. So what is a good man doing portraying such morally conflicted characters? I think it's a way in which he keeps his moral compass straight. It could for him a subjectively beneficial decision.

Since Gotham is the currently airing show, let's take a look at Mr. McKenzie's Jim Gordon.

Here's what we know about Jim in the pilot episode: war veteran, boyscout-like hero, new detective, fiance to one Barbara Kean.

Here's what we know about Jim now, five episodes later: still a war veteran, has heroic tendencies, but a liar, secretive, not-so-fresh-and-new detective. Oh, also no longer affianced to Barbara.

Jim's character arc in the five hours of television we have seen thus far is, to put it bluntly, on a bleak trajectory. Jim is facing an impossible task: saving Gotham. It is a city corrupted from the bottom to the top, every conspiracy wrapped in another conspiracy, danger in every alley, help from bribed prostitutes, but not from police, and an ever darker whirlpool of lies, manipulation, and threats. Every villain is a vigilante who is fighting for justice outside of the justice system that is riddled with injustice.

What is a cop supposed to do with that?

#GoodGordon, as I've taken to hashtagging this character, started out with a black and white system of morality. One might argue, but I don't think prove, that his morality was almost scrupulously strict. Slowly, but surely, and oh-so-reminiscent of the infamous #BadBen Sherman, Jim is muddying his white paint by dipping his brush into the black. It is all in an effort to preserve any goodness left in the city of Gotham, but to continue with the paint analogy, his whole world is being tinged darker and darker shades of grey. There are questions that Jim now has to answer and decisions he must make. And from the consternation of his forehead wrinkle, I don't think he's happy about it. (Mr. McKenzie really does have the best facial expressions.)

That clearly delineated separation of right from wrong has been obscured for #GoodGordon. He is already caught between a rock and hard place and a Penguin and a Falcone and a Fish and a Maroney and a sour-puss partner and it's only going to get worse.

So, you ask, why would this be a good thing for Ben McKenzie? I'll tell you.

For a man with faith in an all-good, all-loving God, the moral life is tough. He can do pretty well most of the time, but he will always stop doing well and do pretty gosh darn terribly at various points. What a man of faith has, even from the lowness and darkness of sin where he finds himself, is an objective standard of goodness to strive for. He recognizes that this objective goodness is not set by his own being, never tarnished by his own failures, but is a Being that is Good. The faithful man's goal, Who is an inimitable Good, never wavers, never changes, never lessens in goodness, but always invites us to approach Him.

For those who don't have a God in whom they can trust and believe, the moral life can be a pretty lonely road. A man without religion or faith in a higher, overseeing, beneficent Being who created us, saved us, and loves us, will be challenged to keep his moral compass pointing in any direction with consistency. Without an objective standard, outside of oneself, one's morality may shift and change drastically throughout one's life. A man without faith in God would not seek out and depend on a Being who is Good. For this man, his morality is self-determined (though we know any goodness and righteousness in that self-determination is simply an unrecognized & abundant gift from God).

So when you are responsible for the steadiness of your own moral compass, what do you do? How can you help yourself be a better person, especially when you live and work in Hollywood land where you pretend to be someone other than yourself for a living?

The simplest solution, but one that I've come to realize is not risk-free: play the good guy. By accepting roles in which you imitate virtuous actions, you could potentially learn the habits of virtue. You would imitate a man who is challenged and possibly tempted to immorality, but he overcomes the difficulty and goodness triumphs over all!

But here's the risk: our human capacity for pride.

If you play a good man, a "perfect man", would you not be tempted to think of yourself as that man? If he closely resembles who you want to be, could you not easily slip into a mindset of complacency? If I were to be portray the heroine in a story who exhibited compassion, intelligence, and strength, I would be sorely tempted to start attributing that compassion, intelligence, and strength to my real person. Think about it: if you saw something as desirable, saw "yourself" doing the desirable thing, you would conclude that you did that desirable thing, in fact. You brought those qualities to the character because you have those qualities in your own character. You could paint your own person to be quite the heroine, of whom the fictional character is only an imitation. Instead of growing in virtue through imitating virtue, you could very well find yourself growing in the vice of pride... for good qualities you don't even really have. Subjectively, playing clean could lead to living dirty.

So what happens if you elect to play the bad guy? By simple solution logic, one would suppose that by imitating evil actions, one could easily become evil. But I don't think that's a high-risk game. Let me illustrate with a metaphor involving Ben McKenzie and paint. 

A good man, but morally flawed and challenged as all men are, Ben McKenzie portrays Jim Gordon, who starts his journey as a morally upright Jim Gordon.

1. Ben McKenzie uses white paint to portray the character of Jim Gordon.

2.  Ben McKenzie starts painting his Jim with mostly white paint, but deliberately adds some black, that is easily recognized as black, which muddles the character's glossy white sheen with the drabness of grey. It is deliberate, careful, and small step off the road of squeaky clean morality. 

3. Ben McKenzie incrementally increases the amount of black used in his portrait of Jim, adding shadows and obscuring details, leading to a generally darker moral landscape. Again, it is careful, thoughtful, and very deliberate.

4. Ben McKenzie takes gobs and gobs of black paint and liberally pours it onto his portrait of Jim, making it a sad, sad puddle of black, wet, and depressing paint. Sob, sob, sob.

5. Ben McKenzie is, at last, granted a show that runs long enough to follow the character in to the pit of despair and back out to the world of sunshine, goodness, and hope. Please, television executives, don't leave Jim where you left #BadBen: hanging out in the world of dark, dirty, and seemingly hopeless immorality.

Assuming that Mr. McKenzie starts out this journey as Jim Gordon with his own personal moral compass steadily pointing toward goodness and truth, but not immovably righteous, he may safely proceed to portray this dark path. As Gotham's story unfolds, Mr. McKenzie may deliberately and knowingly twist and turn his Gordon in to the world of moral ambiguity and compromise. Through this intentional destruction of Jim Gordon's black & white morality, he could very well be subjectively benefiting his own soul. With every bad decision and compromise Jim makes, we have an example of the path we shouldn't choose... and can thereby more clearly see the path we should choose. If done correctly and intelligently (which I fully trust him to do), Mr. McKenzie is in no danger of losing his own morality alongside Jim, but rather, by an accurate portrayal of human failure, might actually strengthen his own personal virtue. That sounds subjectively beneficial.

By drawing detailed portraits of good guys who have gone wrong, Mr. McKenzie is drawing himself a map of morality. Each character has good intentions, but always finds a way to begin sliding down the slippery slope into immorality or, sometimes, amorality. But what one can know with certainty is that he is an artist, drawing a picture so unlike himself that he can never confuse his own identity with that of his subject.

A good guy is sketching his path, and possibly a path for others to follow, by highlighting the darkness. He is aligning his moral compass by exploring immorality through characters in his storytelling. His craft of acting could be construed as an extreme version of learning from others' mistakes.

It's a bold move, not risk-free, but I think it will work for Ben McKenzie. I believe that he is smart enough to do this the right way and that he might even be smart enough to help others by this unconventional method. Like Aristotle, he is exploring the world in which we live, where:

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"It is nevertheless hard sometimes to determine what should be chosen at what cost, and what should be endured for what gain; and harder still to stand by our decisions."

I know...

A lot of words, a lot of thoughts that I'm imagining to belong to a person I have never met, nor am ever likely to meet. But it's the only sense I can make of his decisions as a good man (and I have it on very good authority that he is, in fact, a good man).

A lot of words, a lot of thoughts in which my smarter friends might find hundreds of illogical and fallacious assumptions and conclusions. I apologize if I (inadvertently) uttered falsehoods and injured your intelligence. Just learn from my mistakes if, in fact, I have made a mistake. :)

This Post Brought To You By SouthLAnd

 I say this post is brought to you by SouthLAnd. That isn't true in the monetary sense. If SouthLAnd had any money left, it would probably still be on the air. It might need a network, too, but there are no problems money can't fix in the industry. Or some shanking. Or some shagging. But I digress.

It's brought to you by SouthLAnd because of the massive influence that SouthLAnd has had on my life, directly and indirectly.

The first SouthLAnd episode I saw was the one that ended with Cooper in an alley getting his neck bitten out. Ew. Not terribly attractive.

Left to my own devices, I never, ever would've watched that show again.

The things we do for love, though, are incredible.

You see, my mother loves SouthLAnd. Like yelling out how many hours and/or minutes were left until the next episode aired. She has a SouthLAnd shrine set up. (Not really... but sorta. Kinda.) So although I wouldn't have let SouthLAnd affect my life, I let it affect my life through my mother's life. I sat for hours, hunched over her iPad screen, watching old episodes that she had purchased on iTunes.

I came to love Ben Sherman.

Then I developed a fierce desire to slap him. Maybe shake him. Holy cow, that guy had issues. It's like Nietzsche got into his head and made a happy home there. Bad Ben. Bad Ben.

I knew Ben was troubled. But I had no idea how troubled until Sunday.

There's a scene where Sammy (I want to marry him) Bryant and Ben Sherman are discussing coffee. Ben wants Intelligentsia coffee. Sammy ridicules him for wanting the super expensive, hipster coffee. He refuses to go to Silver Lake to get that coffee.

Wellllllll, we were in Silver Lake on Sunday. Guess what was a mile from the restaurant where we had dinner? Yep. Intelligentsia coffee. Being SouthLAnd fans, we had to go. It was a moral imperative.

In my stupidity, I had assumed that Sammy was exaggerating. I mean, really - Starbucks sells five dollar cups of coffee. And it's pretty much the opposite of hipster. It's just Starbucks.

After fighting with a parking space (not for a parking space, but with a parking space) for five minutes, we got ourselves into the coffee place.

Let me set the scene. It's this enormously tall building. The ceiling isn't even in your peripheral when you walk in. The menu is in a little plastic stand thing. No chalkboard, no signs. Just an 8.5x11 paper. There's coffee. All expensive.

All around the room are people with MacBook Pros. Every. Single. Person. No PCs, no MacBook Airs or just normal MacBooks in sight. All shiny, silver, 13" MacBook Pros. It was like some kind of cult or something. Or like an Apple store.  That sounds less judgmental.

Mum and I ordered Americanos. I don't know why she ordered hers, but I ordered mine because it seemed like it would be a little bigger; you know, more caffeine bang for my buck. There was normal brew coffee, but it was all confusingly named. I was afraid I'd mispronounce it and look silly. I am no hipster.

When I got my coffee, I was shocked. So shocked, in fact, that I uttered my first f-word. I'm not proud of this. But I was like "what the....?????"

It's so tiny.

WHERE IS MY COFFEE???

That cup is so small, the word "Intelligentsia," which is printed around the circumference, doesn't fit. It gets cut off.

I was so distressed and upset that when I got back into the car, I opened the door right into my forehead. I have a bruised eyebrow now.

To clarify, I wasn't simply upset over the size of my coffee. It was small, yes. Tiny, even. But I was upset with myself for having judged Sammy for judging Ben. I was also sad for Ben. Because no sane, healthy person would voluntarily purchase this coffee.

And I have no flipping idea why Brooke would've dated him. If I was taken out for a coffee date to this place, I'd be like "uh, can I have three?", "Is this the appetizer coffee?", or "GOODBYE."

It made me feel bad for poor Ben Sherman. He needs some serious help. Good thing he's fictional.

I'm sorry, Sammy. I need to marry you. Too bad you're fictional.

A Finale SouthLAnd Post

Whether last night's episode was the season finale or the series finale will be unknown until June. What we do know is that last night's episode was aptly named. It was, indeed, a reckoning.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.' " While Nietzsche was arguably insane, he was a believer in what he saw (unlike Kant, who turned things inside-out and upside-down).

[explanatory philosophical note: Nietzsche believed all things came from the senses. There is no truth, there is no good and evil in things. Those are merely labels that we apply to things. He also recognized that applying those labels is what drives the human experience and that the "herd" (all of us non-enlightened philosophers) cannot function without them. Thus, some of his aphorisms have nuggets of truth about them. His insanity came from his assertion that there was no absolute good or evil or truth at all. Then things went badly.]

In episode 510, we see every character in the grip of the consequences of their actions. Every character has reached the "end of the line"; the place that each character has been left at the end of the episode is where they have been going for five seasons.

The Good Consequences:

Lydia: tough, independent woman. When introduced, she accepted help from no one. She "knew best," and had her life under control. Through a series of choices and circumstances, things slowly escaped her control. She lost her ability to trust in and depend on her partners. She was eventually alone; she deliberately shut out her professional partner and suffered the loss of her mother. By being left truly alone, she learned that real independence does not mean isolation. By having someone depend on her - her baby boy - she learned (slowly) to depend on others. She learned real strength and gained real peace by allowing herself to forgive others and trust them. At the end of the finale, we see her finally reconciled and ready to trust the person who betrayed her worst in the series. High-five, Lydia!

Sammy: loveable man with a strong sense of duty. Sammy is arguably one of the unluckiest guys you'll ever meet on television. He lost his partner, divorced his absolutely nut-case of a wife, was betrayed by his partner, and someone broke in to his house. All sorts of really unfortunate circumstances occurred and Sammy did almost nothing to incur them. He wasn't perfect, no. But he was a sincere, good-hearted guy. Pretty much everything he did was out of a sincere desire to help people. He always believed the best of people, especially his partner. (Bad Ben.) So many things happened to Sammy that were just... unfair. They were "through no fault of his own" occurrences. But he persevered and, in the end, got his just reward. He realized that while he should help people, he doesn't have to help everyone. He only has to help those that he can. And that's ok. And his baby boy? Adorable.
I want to marry you, Sammy!

The Bad Consequences:

Ben: wide-eyed, do-gooder, Robin Hood rookie turned into nihilistic, self-centered, corrupt cop. He had unrealistic expectations of his power and influence as a cop when he came into the job. When he realized that the badge came with limitations, he stretched the rules. We see him making little stretches at first, which are easy excuse because they're so little. He was the arbiter of justice, the one who decided what was good and what was evil. In the footsteps of Nietzsche, he disregarded the moral code and wrote his own. The stretches became bigger. It's hard to believe that this guy who joined the force to do good could have gone so very wrong. In his last scene, we see a heated exchange between Ben and Sammy. Sammy yells at him, "This has always been about you!" Ben feels entitled to whatever he wants out of some misguided sense of sovereignty.  Where Sammy may stretch rules mildly in an attempt to help & protect others, Ben always does it to boost his career/save his own skin and this increases his sense of entitlement. It works so well for him. We see him climb the ladder of success, being praised from every side. Then it all comes crashing down. We see him lying on the ground, defeated by the consequences of his actions.
Ben, you need therapy. After I give you a good beating.

Cooper: oh, Cooper. I feel nothing but pity for you. From Ben's FTO to the victim of a vicious kidnapping. Cooper's storyline is the downward spiral of despair. Drugs, rehab, and a tough front to hide pain. We see him shine (with the girl trapped under the bus), but his bright moments are always overshadowed by something dark and scary. We see more of Cooper's struggle than we see of any other character's struggle. He fights, but he just keeps getting beaten down. At that last moment, we see him despair. Surrounded by LAPD officers, shouting at him to drop the gun and put his hands in the air, he stands, defiantly clutching the pistol. They shoot him. But he knew they would. He's a cop. He knows the rules. Unlike Sammy, who gets dirt kicked in his face repeatedly, but resolutely struggles through, Cooper loses hope. Maybe that's because Sammy has a child to "live for" and Coop sees himself alone and broken. Cooper seems to have given up on happiness, on life. He's tried, he's suffered, and he's at the end of his rope. We've seen him desperately gripping that rope, but constantly sliding down it. He gave up. The consequences of actions - not those he has done, but those inflicted upon him - have gripped him to the point where he can no longer fight them.
I wish I could hug you, Cooper.

Dark and Unresolved

It has been claimed that last night's episode would not be a fitting ending to the series, but I strongly disagree. Yes, it was dark and unresolved. Characters were left without their lives being tied up in neat little bows. But since when has SouthLAnd tied anything up in neat little bows? This show - all five seasons - have been about the unresolved, nitty-gritty aspects of life. If they were to take each character and give them a "happily ever after," it would be nice, but it would be incongruous with the rest of the show. No character has had complete and total resolution in any part of their lives for five seasons. Why should it end differently? Each character has been left at the "end of their line." They have all reached their destination.

Watch SouthLAnd!

This show is seriously good.

And if you watch it, Ben McKenzie (of "The OC" fame) says he will be your boyfriend. (Don't worry, girls, I don't want him. We're idealogically incompatible. He's incredibly smart, but we hold entirely different views on everything that is important. As far as I'm concerned, he's all yours :))

Something perhaps less exciting, but more practical, is that Michael Cudlitz will remodel your kitchen if you tune in.

C'mon, folks. Let's rally 'round for Southland!

Reading Between the Lines

Mum asked me awhile ago to write a "philosophical" post about the television show "Southland" on TNT. She watched the entirety of it while I was at school, but was so enthralled by it that she asked me to watch all of the episodes again with her. She was right: it is enthralling. It's about LAPD officers, working some of the toughest cases in the worst parts of that city. But it certainly isn't the gritty violence that brings me back to watch yet another episode. It's the morality written in to almost every character's story arc.

As with most cop shows, there are about fifty main characters. Fine, I exaggerate, but not by much. Each person has his or her own personal story arc. The most notable and interesting to me are Sammy, who has a boat load of personal life problems, struggling to cope with the death of his previous partner on the job, trying desperately to save his new partner Ben from doing stupid things, and Ben, who seems to be desperately and actively trying to ruin his own life by ignoring Sammy and doing those stupid things.

Now, I'm hesitant to make assertions here, in part because I'm sure there are many diverse opinions on what screenwriters in Hollywood are really doing with their stories. Some believe that they are actively promoting sex, alcohol, and drugs to corrupt the world's youth into a relativistic, loose, indulgent society. Watching Southland, though, that doesn't seem to ring true.

Take Ben. We first see him at the beginning of Season One, fresh out of the academy, first day in the patrol car. He's young, he's eager, and he seems pretty... nice. His story arc promises to be the typical "growth" story arc. Y'know, young guy, grows up under the watchful care of his senior partner, does good for the city of Los Angeles. Maybe has some hard knocks, loses a few battles, makes mistakes, but overall, he succeeds in becoming a stellar police officer.

Not so much.

His story arc doesn't really do the growth thing. It does the growth, but in a kinda lopsided way. He gets more confident, he wants to do good... but things get dark. Ben gets angry. There's an interesting parallel developed in the seasons, though, and this is where I'm reading between the lines (whether accurately or not is for you to decide). The more angry Ben gets, the more of a "skirt chaser" he becomes. At the beginning of Season Four, you see Ben in bed with not one, but two women. Wooooaaaah there, fella'. Ben McKenzie, the actor who plays Ben Sherman, said of his character in an interview, "He turns into a bit of a slut."

No kidding.

Now, if Officer Ben Sherman seemed happier the more "conquests" he racked up, I'd be more willing to hop on the wagon of people saying that the writers are promoting this lifestyle. But that isn't what happens. He gets angry. He gets stubborn. He almost gets his partner (Sammy) killed. Sammy sees Ben's increasing anger and tries to calm him down. Tries to get him back on the... less angry side of life.

Why is Ben angry, you ask? In Ben is the struggle of compassion and nobility vs. anger at the injustice he sees. He became a cop to right wrongs and bring the bad guys to justice. What he sees is a situation that he can only hope to contain, but never eradicate. He sees people in pain who don't want to help themselves. His compassion leads him to try and try and try to help people on a personal level. To do this, he has to get personally involved. When he gets personally involved, he cannot help but feel angry at the situation.

What can a man do with all of these emotions? Ben's solution is to party hard and sleep around on his days off. But it's obviously not a real solution. Sammy knows this. Ben probably does too. Sammy tries to reach out and help. Ben ignores him and shuts the (figurative) door in his partner's face.

Who knows what Season Five will do to Officer Ben Sherman. Will he continue on his downward bend of his growth arc, or will he finally start climbing up? To be oh-so-geeky and cliche, will he conquer the forces of evil or succumb to the dark side?

Too bad we won't find out until February...