Who is the Good Guy?

 

I’m struggling with film and television today.  I watch a lot but in the vein of award nominations and there is an interesting trend.  It’s not new.  The anti-hero.  Dexter, Mad Men, Succession, Ozark.  In comedies you have Schitt’s Creek, Dead to Me, etc.  In films there is Power of the Dog, the 50^th anniversary of the Godfather, Nightmare Alley.  They all have one thing in common … the characters aren’t very “worthy.”  They range from greedy SOBs to downright murderous fiends.  Call me old (okay, I am, a little …) but I miss the time when there was a character in a tale who you could root for, identify with.  That seems to be less and less the case with storytelling these days.  It’s … bleak.  It’s a pretty cynical view of the world.  What causes this, I wonder?  Reality TV, where we laugh at the exploits of rich people who are awful human beings?  We make ourselves feel better by looking down at others, right?  Is it that we are living in a troubled democracy where we are a country torn in two, each side feeling superiority over the other?  We see only the dark these days, right? 

Television, for me, was always about escapism.  Finding balance and humor.  I watched Hogan’s Heroes growing up – it took one of the saddest episodes of our history and found the light.  It was daring and disrespectful, but it humanized a small part of the war I think.  The battles, which were always successful thanks to Hogan and his crew, were real.  There was Adam-12 and Emergency, where good guys do good things (although, in watching some of the repeats I’ve heard a sexism I didn’t recognize at the time).  There was the ridiculousness and open laughs in Batman and The Monkeys and Laugh-in.  And, a few years later I discovered Sci-fi, the ultimate escape.  Star Trek and Star Wars and Superman.  They were all the same story, kind-of.  Good people fighting bad people to find love or save the planet or both.  Most of the time good triumphed over evil and the bad people retreated, and all things came back to the way they were supposed to be. 

Film and TV began to change, slowly, becoming more ambiguous in the 1980s.  Or maybe there had been ambiguity I hadn’t noticed before.  Certainly, Miami Vice drew some inspiration from Serpico and The Sopranos was paying a major homage to Godfather.  Barney Miller was a little angry and depressed, Cagney and Lacey faced impossible odds.  Silk Stalkings was fun if you didn’t take it (or any Stephen J. Cannell production) too seriously.  But the innocence was fading.  By the 90s the word “p***s” could be said on television, thanks to a promiscuous President.  The gritty nature of Broadway’s theatre, complete with expletive-filled plays by the likes of David Mamet, were blending into the world of film.  The century turned and 9/11 changed it all.  The most innocent of stories took on an edge.  Battlestar Galactica was remade as a grim, dark allegory for the modern age.  We went to war in the Middle East on questionable grounds and the American political rift began to deepen. 

Who were the good guys, we asked?  Are we the bad guys, some of us asked?  Cable showed up with its lack of censorship, and, desperate for ratings women’s lives were both explored and exploited.  But there were still characters we cheered on (Buffy and Xena, go, go, go!)  Drug use and violence were now shown, viscerally, which came as a bit of a shock to those of us who watched Columbo explore the cleanest of murder scenes … blood rarely came into play as he hunted the guilty.  Hospital dramas now edit in actual surgery footage.  Dead bodies are now seen with every excruciating element of the insect life which inhabit the departed.  And so where is my escapism? 

Maybe all this explains the rise of the superhero film.  The need for clear good guys (although Marvel managed to muddle that a good bit in the Avengers films).  We need people to cheer on.  Grand tales which transport us.  Stories which make us laugh and cry and connect.  So much of today’s offerings leave me cold.  Yes, we as humans are so very (very) flawed.  But is that all that Hollywood wants to show us? 

Maybe they could focus more on how we rise up and do good.  Even if it is only on a spaceship on a planet millions of miles from Earth.  I’m watching Wonder Woman right now, for the 1000^th time.  There is a reason the film is so popular, in addition to yes, being a great film.  Listen to what she says at the end, talking about the human race to Ares:  “They are everything you say they are, but they are so much more.”  “It’s not about what they deserve, it’s about what you believe.  And I believe in love.”  That’s storytelling, folks.