Back when I was a reporter, on slow news days I’d say to my colleagues, “We need a super-villain.” That would make a great front page, I’d argue. DR. COLOSSUS THREATENS CITY WITH DEATH RAY. Sub-hed: Mayor, City Council Argue Over $1 Million Ransom Demand.
Then 9/11 happened. Now, I’m not one of those asshats who believes 9/11 “changed everything” – to my way of thinking it didn’t change nearly enough – but after that day, the joke didn’t seem that funny anymore. Suddenly, we had a super-villain, and he carried out his fiendish plot, and the good guys were all asleep until it was much Too Late.
Most super-villains and mad scientists seem sort of pathetic by comparison. Delivering their monologues to their helpless adversaries, creating elaborate machines to convert humans into monkeys, and always struggling for respect, even from their own henchmen.
The life of a super-villain must be lonely. Then reality added insult to injury, as a guy in a cave managed to terrify all of America with nothing more than a few planes. He didn’t even have the decency to invent his own death ray.
That’s not to say the Osamas of the world don’t share some characteristics with the super-villains and mad scientists. Their overriding need is to have others conform to their singular vision of how things ought to be. They refuse to accept anyone else’s rules. Like a child, they cannot accommodate themselves to any other desires but their own – but instead of growing up, they turn themselves into engines straining forever to make the world behave.
It’s sad, in a way. But that doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Anyway. That’s what I think of when I hear this song.
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September 13, 2008 at 6:45 pm
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