The Games are Good

Though it does me no favours, I've always felt positive about my inability to see the world in black and white. The Vancouver Olympics have come at an appalling cost, they've seen a shady purging of the homeless from the city's downtown, and the province is going to be paying for it until Whistler's beach front.

But I'm glad they're happening.

If you're from that black and white world, you support one of the following views:

1) The Olympic Games are a peaceful gathering of athletes from nations around the world to glorify sport, human accomplishment and peaceful competition.

2) The Olympic Games are an overpriced dog and pony show that've lost any of their original merits to the corporate whoring we see in 2010.

Boring grey me, I agree with both, but when push comes to luge I'm coming down on #1's side.

COST. Yeah, they're expensive, and when you think about the funds allocated to the Games that could've been put to other uses, that's where the first dissenters speak up. Funny that you never hear about protests outside the Academy Awards, which will cost more in a single night than any non-ceremony night's going to cost at these Games. How about the gargantuan cash-suck that is the Superbowl? I mean, not one of these athletes--'cept maybe a first place Canadian in the luge--is walking away from the Olympics a millionaire. The male hockey players compete in a league that sees them play eighty-two times inside of about eight months at a cost of sometimes several millions per player per season. And these young kids with four years of training are the villains?

THE ATHLETES. Every one of us has a skill set, a place to employ it, and once in a while--hopefully--a chance to be praised for it. These young sports spend most of their lives training and competing for a chance to gain international praise one day in a two-week event. Movie stars, country singers, friggin' Paris Hilton, a couple of juvenile delinquents at a C-train station all steal headlines with a decidedly lesser (or altogether lacking) talent collection. Olympic competitors train, fundraise, train, study, train, compete, and train for one chance to showcase themselves to the world. Many are just kids, most have dayjobs, and few are going to spend more than a decade in competition--that's two Olympics at best.

CAMARADERIE. In the majority of the events, the competitors are a big family--they spend most of the years leading up to a Games together. Most sports featured in an Olympics--especially the Winter incarnation--can't get decent viewership (or even airtime) for any tournament other than the big O. They're each other's biggest fans. Yeah, they all want that gold, but before that they just love what they do, and they show their support for anyone doing well at it. Watch the end of someone's run, the first to throw that athlete a high-five are the people he's just beaten.

PRIDE. My wife can't ski--bum knee. And yet, tonight she watched the women's moguls event on the edge of her seat, her emotional wave cresting when Canadian Kristi Richards fell, gathered herself up, and then took ridiculous air in a what-the-hell gesture aimed at pleasing the hometown crowd. Last night, when a crew of Canuck celebrities handed the Olympic flag to a group of mounties, who inadvertently punned themselves by putting' flag to pole, Joelle confessed she was near tears at how the sight did her patriotic heart good--all the while ignoring my anti-Anne Murray mutterings. It may be only one aspect of what I love about this country, but it's an important aspect. When you high-five some dude in a bar because you just watched a countryman mount the podium to hear your national anthem, when that one moment has made you agree with the dude's drunken declaration that "Canada fuggin' ROCKS, man!", well, what the hell's wrong with that? In a world of cynics and critics, it's good to feel good about something.

That in mind: THE EVENT. What's so wrong with spectacle, when it's a positive thing, when it's for the young who've spent years basically doing what every motivational poster in every classroom has always told them to do? Yup, it's expensive to put on, but some of us need a show once in a while, and I'll take this one over an over-hyped football game that's really just about nigh-pornographic Budweiser commercials or watching a movie star with a Grade 9 education miss-pronounce "myriad" in a rambling, narcissistic mess of an acceptance speech. There's a lot of crap in this weary world. Haiti's bleeding, we're at war, the ice caps are melting; dammit, if we put on a show that's supposed to bring out the best in a certain group of people, forgive me if I want to give myself over to something that makes me feel positive for a change.

HAYLEY. The small town of Shaunavon, Saskatchewan swells with parental joy each time Hayley Wickenheiser takes the ice. She's a queen in that town, and has been since the early 1990s. That woman creates pride, camaraderie and events everywhere she goes. She gives that little town--and hundreds of clone burghs across this country--something to join in a cheer over. When Hayley spoke the athlete's oath at the opening ceremonies, I took a mental tally of her accomplishments; substantial for just over thirty years of life. She started as a girl in a boy's sport, hearing that there was nowhere this game could take her. Instead she took it to unimagined heights, even when she had to act as Atlas more than once for the game she's made matter to the world. Got a six year old wondering how one person can matter? Cite Hayley.

(More on why Hayley matters: www.cbc.ca/olympics/vancouvernow/2010/02/what-a-great-friend.html)

I am often accused of possessing innocent naivete. I'm actually kinda proud of it, but I'm not ignorant to the criticisms these Games have received. I do believe they matter. An event like this can bring out something good, something pure, in our nation after earthquakes and wars and politicians giving themselves three-month holidays. For two weeks, amateur athletes can shine and the world will cheer and the only guns being fired over it will be at the starting lines.

Let's try to keep in mind that the eighteen year old kid who's using his ability didn't remove the homeless, whore us out to RBC and Coke or spend six billion on this thing.

Neil Young and a minor Roald Dahl Character Can Tell You All You Need to Know About Writing

I just finished my sixth draft of a book I’ve been working on. That’s a lot for me, especially considering that the sixth draft was a re-write, an exhausting endeavour.

I’m not bragging, frankly it’s not that impressive. Some of the greatest writers in history wrote dozens of drafts. Then there’s the tweaking which many could spend their lives doing. Touching up a phrase here, conjugating a verb there. Add an adjective, delete an adverb—because they’re evil—move a word to the end of a sentence, then to the middle, then back, then delete it altogether. If you aren’t working on a deadline, and you understand that writing is organic, something that won’t be set in stone—until someone else sets it in press—you can play with words forever. But this is just polish—there are only two stages that matter in the life of a piece of writing, and the rest’s just icing.

You need to write like Neil Young records albums—quickly, viscerally, and frequently. Yes, those are all adverbs. Have I mentioned I’m a hypocrite, too?

Young’s mantra is: “If you think, you stink.” Some of the studio musicians he’s worked with have been shocked to learn that what they thought was a rehearsal is the take Young puts on the album. Young believes that there’s this groove, a pure form of music that can only be attained when it’s done by feel. Jamming away at a song is when he says it’s the most honest. He might take it and lay some overdubs on it—yuh-huh, he edits it—but the core of the song remains that first idea.

Step one is to write the damn thing. You can have a million good ideas but until you’ve got one on paper, written all the way to its conclusion, you’re no more a writer than the people who annoy Margaret Atwood at parties.

Writers write. They don’t say they do it, they do it.

Your idea might not be what you thought it was going to be when you start writing, and that might be when you first feel the urge to quit.

“It’s not such a good idea after all.”

WRONG! Ignore that urge, urges are stupid, you’re no monkey. Of course your idea isn’t the same once you’ve started writing it—you’ve taken the mess of images and concepts from the ether in your noggin and you’ve tried to express them in little black characters on the product of pulped tree. It’s not a logical process.

Don’t think about that, keep going. If you get the damn thing done then you’ve passed the first test. You’re a writer now because you’ve got something writ.

Whenever I get an idea, the first thing I decide is how to end it. You get yourself an ending, you’ve got something to write to, junior. You can drop in little bits of foreshadowing here and there, you know characters’ motivations—to dust of a cliché: it writes itself.

Think of it as going for a drive. You can get in your car with no place in mind—might be kind of fun. But after you drive around, stop at the 7-11, pick up a paper, you eventually run out of ideas, give up and go home. If you’re driving with a destination, you always have that in mind. It’s a journey now. Oh sure, you might go on side-trips, but that just adds to the tale.

Step two is my favourite. This is where the piece goes from writing to a “work.” I refer to it as the Mike Teavee Stage.

You remember Mike Teavee, either from the Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or from the Gene Wilder film where Charlie is substituted for Willie Wonka in the title. God help you if your reference point is that Burton/Depp crap stew.

Anyway, what happens to good ol’ Mike? Well, he wants to be the first boy on television, actually living therem so he uses Willie’s machine to zap himself through the air in a million little pieces, appearing in 3D version on the set on the other side of the room. Unfortunately, he’s stuck that way forever.

Okay, it’s a tragic story meant to lecture you on watching too much boob tube, but from our perspective it’s crucial in understanding what that first real edit does to a draft. This edit can only be done to a concluded draft—the term “finished draft” is given by a publisher, not a writer. You take that junk you’ve poured out like Crazy Horse on cocaine and then you edit the hell outta it, ending up with a tight, succinct piece of work, 1/8 the original size. Or so.

“Murder your darlings.”

Any work you do after this point can be fabulous, but it’s all just polish. These two stages are writing, and the Mike Teavee stage is as—I’d argue more—important as the initial composition.

Draft, edit, re-write, re-draft, re-do to your heart's content . . . but it’s those first two steps that bring a story to life.

The Ironic Knight

Inspired by a lesson I taught my students regarding theme. I bet them that you could write on any work from Shakespeare to--they had to name the movie. At least it was one I liked.

The theme of Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight is purportedly “escalation.” This follows in line with the use of thematic storytelling set out in the previous film, Batman Begins. This 2005 film rejuvenated the Batman franchise by never straying from its central concept of fear. In The Dark Knight, the introduction of the pure and noble character Harvey Dent, who shows at once how Batman inspires people and how bad things can become when that inspiration fails, is a symbol of this escalation. The Batman watches the reactions to his actions, and his attempts to inspire the good inspire the bad to become a “better class of criminal.” The Joker, present in every scene, whether it is physically or as a lingering threat, is the personification of the bad becoming worse. But in Batman and the Joker, and in all the supporting characters, it is irony that truly defines The Dark Knight.

As the film begins, Batman is still in the early stages of his career, still working on being a symbol of hope. He has seen his actions start to have an effect. Criminals are far more concerned for their safety and Lieutenant Gordon of the Major Crimes Unit has “malfunctioning equipment” to alert the populace when Batman is on the job. The spectre can be conjured. But, he doesn’t always inspire in the manner he would prefer. Batman is a fascist. He uses control, he has stepped outside the law—it is corrupt and his symbolism gives him a purity—to battle crime using whatever strong-arm methods he likes. He now has a host of imitators, couch-potatoes in hockey pads using shotguns, whose guerrilla attacks on the underworld he abhors. He apprehends them as readily as he does the criminals. Batman would have people rise up to follow him, but not with his same style of vigilantism. He wants to be the symbol outside the law that would have the people of Gotham adhere to the law. He seeks complete control of his world and lashes out violently when he loses his control.

Harvey Dent is the perfect follower of Batman’s ideal: the hero who operates within legal boundaries. As a result, he shows signs early on of being something more than Batman could ever hope to be. He is not a symbol, he is open. He also plays a fatally risky game because, unlike the Batman, Harvey is unable to hide behind a mask when threatened, or when those he cherishes are threatened. This is his eventual breaking point.

The Joker receives considerable focus in the film. The plot is driven by his actions—he dictates each new turn. At the end of Batman Begins, escalation is first alluded to as his methodology—leaving a Joker playing card at the scene of a crime—is introduced. James Gordon tells Batman that when the cops start using bullet-proof vests, the criminals get armour-piercing rounds; when a superhero shows up, super villains are bound to as well. Early in The Dark Knight, the police, Batman and the mob give Joker no more credit as a threat than they would any other small time hood. By the climax of the film, he has the entire population of Gotham City cowering in fear of his madness. Composer Hans Zimmer has given the character a musical cue, simple and frightening: whenever the Joker is about to strike, a single note begins to rise, like the buzzing of a fly that makes a sane man crazy, reaching its crescendo as the Joker strikes. The chaos that the Joker brings shows just how bad things can get, how much worse things have become since Batman first appeared in Gotham.

The Joker is also the greatest source of irony in the film. Besides being a clown that kills, he interacts with the other characters pleasantly, conversationally, at all times above the trivialities of life and death he brings to all who encounter him. He is amiable, only showing true rancour a few times, such as when he films the false Batman, telling the imposter to “Look at me!” before the Joker murders him. Most of the time, he thinks everything is just there for his own entertainment. He is an “agent of chaos,” he tells us, and in this chaos we find his only consistency. At first he is a greedy robber—killing off his co-conspirators in a sadistic elimination game—then he wants to kill the Batman. He later reneges on both, lighting his half of the mob’s money on fire—while still piled with their half—and he tells Batman he never wanted to kill the Caped Crusader. All he wants to do is “introduce a little anarchy.” His varied origin confessions and his constantly-shifting motivations convince the audience that seeking to understand the Joker, to place him in a stereotypical “Hollywood bad-guy” role, is like Batman’s attempts to control Gotham: it is trying to carry water in your hands.

The pinnacle of irony is when Batman finally thinks he’s defeated the Joker at the end of the film. He knocks the villain from a building and the Joker howls with glee as he plunges to his death. Batman uses his grappling line to rescue a man of whom the world would be much better off free. The catch of being Batman with a rule of never killing his foes means that he must be plagued by those foes over and over again. He and the Joker have their last tet-a-tet of the film, and Batman learns once again that he has lost control; he has been robbed of his victory, he has failed to wrestle control of his city, its crown, from this opponent. For this film is a tragedy, not a typical Hollywood superhero film. In the 1989 film Batman, a much campier version by 2008 standards—just as it was much darker than the 1966 film—the Joker is set to escape when the Batman, not plagued by morals in this incarnation, fires his line and affixes it to the Joker’s leg, tying him to a gargoyle. The Joker falls howling to his death. In The Dark Knight the Joker is saved by the very device that killed him in Batman.

Let us consider these two Jokers for a moment. Both threaten the city with claims of doing good, in a manner of speaking, for it. Heath Ledger’s Joker says “This city deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m going to give it to them.” Each uses the airwaves to send his message, to involve the public in the feud with Batman. And both have their origins in a reaction, of sorts, to Batman. Batman, in trying to do good, has created his own arch-foe, a disease that eats at the city he has intended to save. He suffers for this, and in The Dark Knight he is not the only victim the Joker claims, body and soul.

Of those the Joker murders, no one affects the plot, the protagonist or the principal supporting characters more than Rachel Dawes. When it is revealed that Harvey and Rachel are to be murdered, we fear the worst for Dent, for Batman chooses to save Rachel. But the Joker has anticipated this, and he intentionally sends the hero to the wrong victim. Harvey Dent is Two-Face in the comics, and he has also appeared as a villain in 1995’s Batman Forever, so the audience expects his tragic irony, they know it is imminent. But we are shocked to see Batman burst in on Dent, and appalled to watch Rachel die, quickly and brutally, in a fashion rarely displayed in the superhero genre. Rachel’s death is completely unexpected, and the audience has been duped. Her death ensures the permanency of Batman, and the breaking of Harvey Dent.

Harvey Dent begins as the White Knight to Batman’s Dark Knight. Harvey’s character is established early on as the sort of person Batman has longed to see: a regular citizen who has followed the Batman’s lead and is making a difference. Dent is publicly the Batman’s most vocal supporter, and he causes Bruce Wayne—prior to Rachel’s death—to toy with the idea of giving up his alter-ego now that Gotham has a hero who operates within the confines of the law. Dent is the “best of us” Batman tells Gordon. It’s tempting to view these three characters—Batman, Gordon and Dent—as a sort of unholy trinity. Gordon is the authority figure, the man of the old world, the god that needs remembering. The Batman is the spirit, the symbol seeking to unite Gordon’s people. Dent is the saviour, full of Batman’s spirit, reminding the people of their covenant with Gordon, with law and order; he even sacrifices himself for the cause. But the Dent that rises from the dead, Two-Face, is more defined by Janus than by Jesus. Harvey’s irony is simple: he doesn’t represent balance or equality, he is a victim of chance, and so becomes a prophet of it. His dedication to chance is as chaotic as the anarchy the Joker encourages Harvey to introduce. Harvey was once a pillar of Justice, who stands blindfolded, holding her scales. But his mind is as ravaged as his body, and in him is not the balance of good and evil, of right and wrong, of justice. In him is only chance. It’s also retribution, an eye for an eye. Evil is met with vengeance. Chance is fair, justice is not. Batman, fighting for justice above the law, watches with horror as this pure knight of the law gives himself over to chaos.

The Joker and Two-Face are defined by their scars, which they bear for all to see. Batman hides behind a mask to keep Bruce Wayne safe and to channel a symbolic totem. In The Dark Knight, those who expose their faces are evil, and he who hides his heroic. The Joker spends the first scene of the film in a mask, revealing his true face at the end, to our horror. Here is a man scarier revealed than hidden. He alludes to various possible origins for his facial scars, but we never learn which story is true, if any. Harvey embraces a nickname he was given while working with Internal Affairs: Two-Face. He refuses any medication so that the physical pain he feels runs parallel to his mental anguish; he is balance. As a symbol, Batman functions perfectly. Were Bruce Wayne to expose himself as the Batman—he almost does until thwarted by the truly heroic Harvey—he would be more at risk than the exposed villains. The Joker calls for Batman to remove his mask, to stand as exposed as the clown. Batman mocks the Joker at the end of the film for seeking proof that everyone is as crazy as himself—perhaps the closest thing we get to a motivation for the Joker that resonates. Earlier, Batman had unmasked the Scarecrow, not allowing a villain to remain hidden; interestingly, he leaves the mask on the false Batman sitting next to the Scarecrow. It is the Joker who chooses to unmask the doomed imposter. Gordon, the one other hero to survive the film, hides behind a false death, and wears a mask as they attempt to lure the Joker into a trap. To make himself a hero, Gordon must stand masked beside Batman. Harvey chooses not to unmask Batman, appreciating that he shares two sides with the hero now; this is balance. In the end, it is Batman’s mask that saves Harvey and defeats the Joker’s ultimate plan. Batman can hide Harvey’s crimes behind his own mask, he can take them on, he can be the Dark Knight Gotham needs to rescue it; the rescue comes in hiding the truth.

Escalation is the point that The Dark Knight conveys. It is meant, on certain levels, as a cautionary tale for those who would use their power to make the world suit them. There are repercussions to Batman’s fascism. However, the action hinges on the unpredictable characters, and so it is irony that dominates this film. In The Dark Knight, clowns are evil, masked men are good, servants of justice leave balance to chance, and those who work for the established order must embrace chaos to defeat it. The irony is, “You either die a hero or you see yourself live long enough to become the villain.” To win against one’s foes, one must become them.

Works Cited

Batman Begins. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005.

The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008.