I've decided to vote Republican in the next election. For one reason that has nothing to do with policy (foreign or domestic) or any issues. Well, sort of. I'm voting Republican because, deep down, and I suspect many people feel this way, I want to see what happens if the villains win.
It's a sad truth that the villain rarely gets anywhere in fiction. Audiences won't stand for it (see below: we consider ourselves the good guys), and it doesn't sell so well. Watchmen was an awesome thing among comics, but it took a long time for it to be adapted to the big screen (and even then we had to have an anti-government, pro-rich folks boner so big it rivals Dr. Manhattan's). Even in V for Vendetta, a movie about a terrorist, we needed to have him be the good guy for it to sell. Moral ambiguity upsets our stomachs.
But the same is not true in real life. We re-write history to paint ourselves in a good light, but current events let you assign hero and villain roles as you wish. Each political party considers themselves the good guys, or Batman, to our troubled nation. I, however, see them thusly:
Republicans: Joker
Democrats: Stupid safecracker who shot one guy, then couldn't figure out that maybe the Joker would kill him too, despite having just fucking shot a guy on his team!
And while I love Batman, I, like most of us, paid my ten bucks to sit in the theater and watch the Joker blow shit up for two hours. The problem is that Joker loses, while the Republicans have demonstrated an ability to engage in base and vile villainy, and still pull out a win. So, when a villain in real life can win, and you've never seen that (not really) in fiction, the temptation becomes too much, and you must vote for them. Just imagine if one of those groups of people on the ferries had blown the other group up; or if Batman hadn't figured out the Joker's plan to switch doctors and clowns, or if Harvey Dent had killed Jim Gordon. It would be terrible, and awesome, to watch. And if I can't see it in the movies or books, I'll settle for real life.
It's a sad truth that the villain rarely gets anywhere in fiction. Audiences won't stand for it (see below: we consider ourselves the good guys), and it doesn't sell so well. Watchmen was an awesome thing among comics, but it took a long time for it to be adapted to the big screen (and even then we had to have an anti-government, pro-rich folks boner so big it rivals Dr. Manhattan's). Even in V for Vendetta, a movie about a terrorist, we needed to have him be the good guy for it to sell. Moral ambiguity upsets our stomachs.
But the same is not true in real life. We re-write history to paint ourselves in a good light, but current events let you assign hero and villain roles as you wish. Each political party considers themselves the good guys, or Batman, to our troubled nation. I, however, see them thusly:
Republicans: Joker
Democrats: Stupid safecracker who shot one guy, then couldn't figure out that maybe the Joker would kill him too, despite having just fucking shot a guy on his team!
And while I love Batman, I, like most of us, paid my ten bucks to sit in the theater and watch the Joker blow shit up for two hours. The problem is that Joker loses, while the Republicans have demonstrated an ability to engage in base and vile villainy, and still pull out a win. So, when a villain in real life can win, and you've never seen that (not really) in fiction, the temptation becomes too much, and you must vote for them. Just imagine if one of those groups of people on the ferries had blown the other group up; or if Batman hadn't figured out the Joker's plan to switch doctors and clowns, or if Harvey Dent had killed Jim Gordon. It would be terrible, and awesome, to watch. And if I can't see it in the movies or books, I'll settle for real life.
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