Being a long-time Plymptoons fan, I went to see Bill Plympton’s ‘Idiots and Angels’ last night at the Metro. This place has a history of showing stuff capable of penetrating my desensitized shell (see: ‘I Vitelloni,’ ‘Ivan the Terrible,’ etc), and y’all, for the first time in years I cried at a movie. Bawled, in fact. I was still snuffling and snorting on the train and a little old lady asked me if I were all right. Woke up this morning with both eyes puffed to slits.

Because… because, you know what, I don’t know.

(To sum up the film in a couple of inadequate sentences: a bad man, not the worst man ever, but a notably bad man, a vicious, alcoholic, arbitrarily violent criminal, the type to hump your wife or punt a kitten across the street because he finds it funny to see others in pain, is suddenly cursed with wings and discovers what it means to be compelled to do good against his will. Plus also a lot of self-mutilation, bullets, blood, grenades, fantasy, crazy doctors, and fat-fendered cars.)

So what I want to know now is the nature of goodness.

I want to know why the antithesis of good is not evil but actually apathy. Why is that? Why are we paralyzed by the prospect of actually doing something in the name of combating evil? Why is this paralysis universal, rather than a vanishingly rare trait?

I want to know whether you can truly restrain someone from obeying and revelling in their base nature, especially given that you cannot – no, cannot - hate someone for their own good. And given the existence of the cliche ‘kill them with kindness.’ And whether self-restraint is an option.

And I want to know whether you should, even if you can.

I want to know why even the prospect of being a good person causes some people to suffer. I saw this video in CNN entitled something like ‘Why Teens Fight.’ And before I even watched it I said, “Uh, because they’re stupid?” But listen, it’s more like, these are kids whose base natures are king. Or not even king. These are kids whose base natures are oxygen, and to try to make them mitigate these violent urges is like holding their heads underwater. It’s what you are. It’s what you are, and how can you change what you are even if it’s good? It’s like lead into gold.

And if an external influence like wings comes along and coerces you against your will to change for the better, forces you to change, with the promise of pain (and then a big bucket of actual pain), is it worth it? If you come to a happy ending by nightmarish means, do you deserve the happy ending? Or should it be taken from you, and should you be forced to do it over again the ‘right’ way?

I’m thinking of ‘The Black Rider,’ remember that play? The besotted (but totally inappropriate) young man deals with the devil for magic bullets to impress his true love’s father and thereby secure marriage rights. You ask: does he deserve his true love if he had to resort to that? And, well, there are a lot of answers.
- “If she wasn’t living in a patriarchal society where her father has to sell her as if she’s property, this wouldn’t be happening!”
- “He should have shown some judgement! Being in love isn’t an excuse.”
- “Of course he doesn’t deserve her! He was so underhanded. Why would you want to marry someone like that?”
- “Well maybe she’s kind of a crappy human being too, since she didn’t stand up for herself and declare her spousal preference.”
- “Well maybe they deserve each other then.”
- “And maybe that horribly tragic ending is deserved too.”

But then you have to look at that last one a little more closely. If they’re both crappy and they deserve each other, do we then extrapolate that to say ‘good’ people only deserve good and ‘bad’ people only deserve bad? If so, then why bother trying to turn bad people into good people? That would be good for them. So they don’t deserve it.

I want to know if I am a monster for wanting a bad person to act contrary to his nature. I want to know if someone’s nature can change. Outside, naturally, of The Grinch. And I want to know why I of all people cried at the ending of ‘Idiots and Angels,’ apart from the shock, and I am not easily shocked to tears.

It seems to me that everyone now wants to think they’re a lost soul. Because it’s hip and trendy to be lost. Wacky! Creative! As if you were on a wild Kerouacky trip to find it, daddy-o, when in fact it’s a lot more boring and no one really has a soul to lose any more. So what are we searching for?

Bah, I’m all mixed up now. Maybe I’ll just write a book about it.

Because really, after watching this, there seems to be no reason to live.

1. Slap

Slap Upside the Head has once again been nominated for the Canadian Blog Awards! Thus it is once again my unparalleled honour to pimp it on Meticulous Vandalism. Go vote!

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This is not only a good way to help the brilliantly talented and very deserving author, but also a fine collection of innaresting Canadian blogs that you might not otherwise run across.

2. Chop

So my work had a free movie night yesterday and I roped some idiots friends into seeing the unusually horrible ‘Ninja Assassin.’ (Sidenote: after I went to the link I have to admit I was shocked. 6.9 stars, IMDB? Seriously? Seriously?)

My review is essentially as follows:

Good idea: Casting a wildly hot guy as the major ninja assassin.
Bad idea: Casting a South Korean pop star as the major ninja assassin. When it gets out, people will be unable to take him seriously.

Good idea: Hiring Ilan Eshkeri to do the soundtrack (Stardust, Layer Cake)
Bad idea: Forgetting to actually ask him to write music rather than a random assortment of chords in a minor key.

Good idea: Teaching the moviegoing public how to defeat ninja assassins… just in case.
Bad idea: Teaching them that you can defeat them by tasering them, hitting them with a BMW, or firing a rocket directly into their chests. The moviegoing public will be chopped into bitty pieces before succeeding at any of these defense mechanisms.

Good idea: Not cluttering up an action movie with too much plot.
Bad idea: Not cluttering up an action movie with any plot at all.

Good idea: Going on free movie night.
Bad idea: Paying money to see this movie.

(On the other hand, one of my carpool boys was dragged into ‘New Moon’ by his wife, and the next day he stopped by my office and was like, “Dude, you were right. That was not only the worst movie ever, but like the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” Bwahahahaha! No pity.)