Once Cast, What Remains

My wife and I saw Doubt last weekend (don’t worry, no spoilers here). We rented it on our Vudu box. I loved it and gave it 4.5/5 stars. She, while enjoying it, didn’t rate it as highly. The problem in her mind was that there was no concrete resolution to the central conflict of the story. To that sort of sentiment I was left dumbfounded. What do you say to someone who was expecting a black-and-white answer in a story called Doubt?

When it comes to issues of religion, particularly those surrounding the Catholic faith, the two of us are often on opposing sides. She, ever the ardent defender, and I, always willing to give voice to the flaws of the church, have an on-going agreement to disagree. It angers her, my ever-ready willingness to look at the bad, but I can do this because I am a relative new-comer to the Catholic faith, having jumped from the Protestant side of the fence years ago.

While the Catholic church has suffered inordinately over the centuries, many of the ills visited upon the faithful were both self-inflicted and deserved. Most prominently as of the past decade or so, is the issue of child sexual abuse. The guilty deserve to suffer publicly and privately for those acts perpetrated upon the innocent. We both believe that, strongly.

Where we part ways however, is in my willingness (she would call it eagerness, perhaps correctly) to acknowledge and speak of those travesties without the slightest pangs of shame or pain. As a lover of her faith,  she is among those collaterally damaged by the sins of these rogue priests. So, while she doesn’t bury her head in the sand vis-a-vis sexual scandals, she is not one to willingly speak of them openly. On the other hand, I am one who looks at any new priest (or even seasoned ones, for that matter) with an eye of distrust.

And doubt.

Doubt. It raises questions to which the answer is ever suspect. It is a weapon with which even the greatest of men can be brought down. A weapon that can be wielded with great success in the hands of the uncaring, unflinching, and self-righteous among us.

And once cast, what remains?

Invisible Boys, Invisible Girls

An exchange between the Cowardly Lion, Brrr, and a character he encounters along the path that leads to his unknown destiny, gives rise to one of the most powerful lines spoken (or written) in the book, A Lion Among Men. (Unknown in the sense that Gregory Maguire is incapable of making decisions that wrap up and shut down his characters’ plot lines.)

The line:

Better to be hated than invisible.

I stopped the recording and replayed it. Again. Then again.

I know this sentiment. I lived my life hearing those words whispered in my ear. Maybe this is why I put up with Maguire in these books, because in spite of the fact that significant events occur only during a Jackal Moon, there appears to exist a kinship. I’m speculating here, but I refuse to believe that any author who writes those words has not also lived them at one time or another.

When a life lived in the shadows on the periphery of the “in-crowd” becomes unbearable, hated (as an adjective) becomes an attractive alternative. You nourish and cultivate an innate understanding that no one can open you up as deeply as you have yourself. Invisible cuts make us feel alive, but anonymity is unbearable.

Maguire’s lion, in pursuit of the act that will label him courageous in the eyes of a crowd that sees him as they want to see him, reminds me of another…

She is a “Basket-Case” as labels go, with dark hair, dark eyes, and dark clothes that force her into the shadows. We assume she’s comfortable there because she bears the mask faithfully and dutifully. A tribe she calls Self. Yet the mask she wears to shield herself, also begs to be seen, judged, and shunned without a single word exchanged in the deal.

Happiness is… hating first.

He is a “Jock” as labels go, with blond hair, blue eyes, and a persona that requires his participation. Contrary to social mores, however, he wanders off the reservation and enters her shadowy space. Though we’re never made privy to why — perhaps curiosity borne of a sense of boredom, teenage rebellion, sexual attraction, whatever — doing so allows him to momentarily cast off the mold into which he’s been poured by family and friends. Peer pressure says, “you might be the one” who can look into this Medusa’s eyes and turn away unscathed.

And he does. He looks at her. He sees her.

She flinches, the pain exquisite. Then looks back at him.

And we gaze upon genuine, first contact between two unwitting representatives of alien worlds,  as one enters the orbit of the other. Then he asks her about her home life,

What about you? Is it that bad? What did they do to you?

Through tears in her eyes, she answers.

They ignore me.

Collision. He nods. He gets her. Like the lion openly acknowledging a truism many of us have already committed to heart.

Better to be hated than invisible.

Invisible boys, invisible girls, lions, tigers and bears, blink into view and a breakfast club brings them together. A post-modernist social experiment, where they spin in consigned circles and conform mindlessly to rules written for their caste.

And when no one is looking, they become visible.

Frost/Nixon: Conflation of Ideas and Ideals

Over the weekend I saw FROST/NIXON. 122 glorious minutes of the heyday that was the Nixon years. Tragically cut short by his resignation and impending impeachment, who knows what the world might have been if not for the likes of David Frost (among many of his ilk) who contributed to Nixon’s demise.

For many, the only regret was that he was caught in the act of plumbing the depths of the proverbial cookie jar. If he had succeeded in his noble goal of destroying the Democrats, the world might be a better place. One in which we could all share a Coke and teach the world to sing…

What was so fascinating about the movie, was the interchange between President Richard Nixon and David Frost. If you choose to accept the basic premise of the movie, and in so doing are able to set aside any pretense of verisimilitude, Mr. Nixon saw himself as a man who was above the fray in which the plebs were mired. He thought of himself as the man fulfilling a role ordained and mandated by God himself — that of Savior to a people who could not save themselves from themselves.

To that end, he was a warrior in every sense of the word. Unapologetic and staid, fierce in his convictions and willing to fall on his sword to move his agenda forward. And the truly sad part is that these very qualities, so admired and demanded by us of our heroes, were the very traits responsible for his downfall. This becomes apparent throughout the tapings of the Nixon Interviews made famous by Frost.

Like a cat toying with a cornered mouse, the joy of the kill is never the kill itself, but the anticipation, the act of measuring oneself against his opponent. President Nixon reveled in that sort of gamesmanship, and it’s what made him the force that he was on the international scene. The man who gracefully accepted having his presidency stolen from him by Kennedy became the man who swallowed defeat and grew stronger for having done so.

Yet, like so many of our great men, he was his own worst enemy. With convictions too defining and his sense of self too “of the manor born,” his belief that his actions were both moral and necessary corrupted him to the point that because he was the president, by definition, he could do no wrong. This conflation of ideas and ideals brought the man to his knees.

In the end, however, what made The Man, was his eventual willingness to accept defeat and admit to it.

Indeed, to survive it.