by Jesse Galef
Over the weekend, I saw the very disappointing movie Boondock Saints II. Where I found the first film original, clever, and fun to watch, the sequel was sadly lacking. But I’m not a movie critic; my focus is the glorification of vigilante justice present in our culture.
“And shepherds we shall be, for Thee, my Lord, for Thee.Power hath descended forth from Thy hand, that our feet may swiftly carry out Thy command. So we shall flow a river forth to Thee, and teeming with souls shall it ever be.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
I’m a big believer in the rule of law, so it was difficult for me to see the protagonists as heroes. Two admittedly cool Irish Catholics experience a religious vision and decide to take justice into their own hands, slaughtering “bad guys”. The killing is surrounded by religious imagery and symbolism, from the prayer the brothers say before assassinating their victim to the rosaries they wear.
They generally target mobsters, but at one point they make a spur-of-the-moment decision to shoot two other men in an adult entertainment parlor. How is this behavior to glorify?
It is arrogant to assume that you know all the facts. It is borderline psychotic to assume that you have the authority and judgment to administer lethal justice yourself. The brothers were clearly partly motivated by religion, but there are countless similar stories without it playing a part.
Other Questionable Heroes
Come! Break the law for us!The same line of thinking applies to other cultural heroes glorified in our society. In Batman Begins, it’s a mitigating factor that the people of Gotham City have no power in their government. Mobsters have bought the justice system and will never be investigated. But Bruce Wayne commits assault, destroys property, invades people’s privacy, and generally breaks laws to help send the mobsters to jail. No, he never killed anyone, but he still took the law into his own hands. Should he serve as a role model?
What’s worse is that the police force regularly calls for Bruce Wayne’s involvement in the stories because he can disregard the laws they swore to follow. The police need search warrants, arrest warrants, and need to be careful of excessive violence. Not so for Bruce Wayne. Instead of respecting those rights, the police outsource their lawbreaking.
A source of problems is that the audience has the special position of “knowing” that the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. Anything the good guys do must be good by definition! When these ideas seep into the cultural consciousness, it perverts the careful, nuanced approach we’ve developed.
For example: we now have people in America believing that extreme executive power should be legal in the war on terror because they watch it work on 24. I remember a particular 2006 episode of the Bill Maher show in which The Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore said that he supported a bill because it created “Jack Bauer justice… This guy knows how to interrogate people!” He was serious. Bill interjected with “You do realize it’s a TV show?” and Barney Frank did a great job refuting the argument (watch the exchange at OneGoodMove.org). He was willing to grant the President extreme power because he saw it work out well in a fictional TV show.
Rule of law should be promoted, not dismissed in our cultural myths. As much as I love Batman, extralegal vigilante crime-fighters should not be among our revered icons. What do you think their place should be in our culture?
(The graphic novel Watchmen does an incredible job exploring these issues from the other side, if you’re interested.)
JonJon: I agree. 
Siberia: That’s a question I always ask myself, though in other contexts, would I still be me if I’d... 
Mark Mukasa: I love the Paine pun. xD Awesome article. 
mikespeir: Amen, and amen. 
nomad: “Which is really unexpected and fascinating, when you think about it.” And don’t forget... 
Jabster: @JonJon That’s not something that is limited to theocratic societies but includes any society in which... 
46 Comments
I suppose that people find kinship with vigilantes because they, in general, don’t trust the law.
The law is slow, the law is morose, the law doesn’t solve things right now, the law doesn’t stop crime, the law doesn’t punish criminals as they should… the law is too soft, the law is made to protect The Man, the law is corrupt, the law is against us, the law is this or that…
Now, I know that isn’t quite like that, but I’ve heard it too often.
Whereas our heroes go out and bravely face the corruption and muck of the law, say “f-k this” and do things their own way. Immediately. With far more rigor than the law ever would. Because criminals deserve to be punished, right? They’re Bad People(tm).
I’d say vigilante justice appeals to people because it’s visceral, it’s based on the innate desire for vengeance. I don’t think people stop and think whether Batman’s actions are right or wrong; they’re just happy to, for awhile, think someone out there is doing things. Someone out will avenge us.
I suppose it’s also why young girls don’t see that a virgin bloodsucking bipolar immortal dude breaking into your room while you sleep isn’t romantic but creepy as hell. The promise of True Love overwhelms the inherent creepiness of it?
OK, it’s too early. Back to bed, Sib.
[/rant]
Back in the good old days most vigilantes came from the poorest strata of society, and many of them shared with the poor what they robbed from the rich (for which good deed people often hid them and provided them food etc.).
This sympathy is also the little man’s, who would rather league with vigilantes than those who have more than him, and thus are immoral and evil.
Really?
I don’t know about that, but it’s an interesting thought: vigilantes are always incorruptible. They act on their morals for the good of the people and nothing short of death or maiming can stop them…
At least here in good old Europe. :) Robin Hood for example?
Here in Eastern Europe even the folklore heroes are seen a bit less in a pink light, they are admittedly robbers, murderers adulterers :D, but there’s always the “but (they saved this girl from X village from the corrupt judges nasty claws/they gave money to this old woman, who reminded them of their own old mothers etc.) ” part.
They’re rather grim fairy-tales.
Ah yes, I thought you meant like… for real.
Fairy tales are usually grim, though. Or Grimm ;p
By folklore heroes I meant real people.Many highwaymen are still remembered positively nowadays for their good deeds.
… then I’ll have to ask again, really?
I know Robin Hood and such, but I know of no case of a real person (other than rumors) remembered as such.
Many Hungarian highwaymen, such as Sobri Jóska, Rózsa Sándor or Zöld Marci are such persons.
Until the middle of the XIX. century the picture of highwaymen was mostly negative, but as Eric Hobsbawm writes, this changed, for these men often became leaders or at least symbols of political movements against social injustice.
Ahh. Well, I never heard of any of them, so now I know!
Ned Kelly.
Yeah, vigilantism is a tough thing. As was mentioned, in films it’s easy: the bad guy is always the bad guy. Sure we’d all like to see the Teflon-coated bastard taken down, but the law cant’ do it (I just listened to an interview with Jake Adelstein about the Yakuza.).
Where it gets sketchy, however, is when the view of good/bad itself becomes sketchy. There are people I consider bad whom others would see as heroes and vice-versa.
The murderer of Dr. George Tiller most certainly thought he was a vigilante ridding the world of an vile criminal…
Indeed. And I’m sure that many of the 9/11 hijackers saw themselves as valiant crusaders opposing an evil empire. This is why discourse and the rule of law always have to be the first options.
Also, extra points for mentioning Watchmen.
Batman isn’t held up as a role model, and that’s kind of the point. As a moviegoer, you expect an easy distinction between good and evil characters, but Batman is presented as a little bit of both. He is dark character with an unlikeable personality, but he ultimately does good things. He’s not really supposed to be the good guy.
Movies glorify lots of things that any normal and/or moral person might abhor and they also glorify often boring situations.
The point of entertainment is to….entertain.
I think a more important point is that many illogical and/or unintelligent people are unable to separate fiction from reality.
The role of Batman is not to be an image of justice and power. An image of what we can achieve as humans like Superman or WonderWoman. Batman is Pain, he is punishment, a response of if you commit these acts I will beat the crap out of you, in the hopes that the beating will give you pause next time. He is a detective to find out the truth, so they can be punished, he is pain. The pain of his youth inflicted on those that caused similar pain. This is crappy way to describe it, but this story but read this story it might help you understand my view on batman.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5297394/1/Superpower_Corrupts
MY PARENTS ARE DEAD!
… and I can breathe in space….
….. I’m Batman.
references:
http://www.pvponline.com/my-parents-are-dead/
http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20050131.html
http://shortpacked.com/d/20050218.html
in the case of the McManus brothers, Batman, Jack Bauer or any other vigilante we observe in popular fiction, we should recognize these characters and their endeavours as fantasy and treat them as such.
if someone supports a bill because they saw extreme behaviour prevail on 24, it’s not the piece of fiction that needs to be reigned in; it’s that individual’s grasp on reality.
i thought we were all taught the difference between real and pretend in grade school. hmm.
It’s not quite as easy as blaming the individuals for their grasp on reality (although it’s certainly part of the problem.)
Our normative values are shaped by culture – who society promotes as good, who they criticize. It’s rare for someone to be as open and blatant as Stephen Moore was; it’s usually more subtle and gradual. But I’m under the impression that cultural stories do have a pervasive effect on our views, so we should stop and think about what influence they’re having when we think about promoting them or not.
PS – totally bummed to hear that Saints 2 sucks. i loved the original.
Dark Knight Returns does a good job of exploring the darker side of Batman that is ignored or glossed over in other portrayals (and makes him a more compelling, if somewhat less admirable, character in the process).
I have to say, I really appreciated that aspect of the most recent movie. I couldn’t have put it better myself – he was a fascinating and compelling character.
Anyone interested in either of the Boondock Saints movies owes it to themselves to watch the documentary Overnight, about the man who made the films, and whose hubris brought him and everyone around him down into a swirling vortex of shit.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390336/
Anime “Death note” examines exactly that. The problem is, if you start to judge criminals, who’s left to judge your judgment?
I always feel that people who think Batman is a hero are somewhat missing the point. Supes is a hero. WW is a hero.
Batman is the demon in the night trying to scare you into obeying the law. He’s the devil incarnate, he’s what Xians were aiming for when they desinged Satan – if you sin, HE’LL GET YOU.
But: in what way is Batman any more a vigilante than Superman? Superman intervenes in matters for which we have civil services – he puts fires out, intervenes in distasters. Superman stops crime without a badge. He habitually works outside the law, using banned technology and he is constantly breaking into LuthorCorp’s buildings for the purpose of looking for evidence of a crime. (It’s not his fault he never finds anything that will stick!) Heck, in more than a few instances, he has unilaterally acted in a way we would consider unacceptable by a government – removing all the nuclear weapons on the planet? Granting aliens amnesty on a planet he isn’t a natural born citizen of instead of requiring they face judicial proceedures…
But the Batman beats up a few mobsters and he’s the bad guy?
Batman is no less a vigilante than Superman; Supes is just cleaner.
The fact remains that even a “dark” character plays the subconscious strings this well because he’s supposedly doing good (I like the comparison to Satan: and how many christians believe sinners going to Hell is a good thing?) and feeding the vengeful wrath aspect of human mind. People like seeing evildoers being handsomely beaten. I know I do.
But if Batman existed, I’d send him to jail as a crazy psycho. Much like Edward from Twilight.
Thats what alway pisses Bats off: “He could break the planet in half without breaking a sweat, he’s a literal alien with a history they can’t comprehend but he shows up and says please and they’re falling over themsleves to help him.”
Yeah, Supes is pretty eerie when you think about it. Can’t even arrest or deport him, though; he’s pretty hard to stop. Like the Biblical god, really. Very creepy and dangerous and still the good guy…
Oh and sorry for breaking the thread format; I was replying from the iPhone, and the mobile version of Wordpress doesn’t come with reply links…
For you Sister Sarah fans out there, you might want to check this on out: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2009/11/11/sarah-palin-wonder-woman-mad-magazine/
Batman comics always showed that flaw in vigilantism. Both movies expressed it well, also. In Batman Begins Lieutenant Gordon talks about escalation and warns batman that vigilantism breeds criminal escalation. In The Dark Knight Bruce Wayne finds the flaws in his vigilantism and tries to correct it by having someone do it the right way without a mask and in broad daylight. He fails to have Harvey Dent and now is in the position of taking the burden of it’s failures for the city. In the comics he actually successfully make the city of Gotham take responsibility of cleaning up the city and only intrudes when they’re “Super Bad Guys” because it is a comic book. That’s the reason he loathes Metropolis due to they just have Superman “fix” their problems. I would counter that the Batman comics do a better job of explaining this dilemma then Watchman ever could. Personally Watchmen is way overrated when it comes to the “realism” it tries to present in the comic book world. The Batman comics has that realism in spades.
I think Watchmen really nailed it better than any other comic book film because every character has their own values and their own visions of how to save the world. And they all think they’re right. And ultimately, the characters all face an impossible moral dilemma for which there is no right answer and for which either choice they make compromises their moral authority while we must accept that the villain of the story’s crime, as gruesome as it is, arguably saves the world. It’s hard to argue with the villain’s results. It forces one to ask, can the ends ever justify the means, and if so, at what point does that become an acceptable or necessary evil? And that just scratches the surface. I’m also particularly proud of The Comedian’s line that it takes a room full of morons to think the world’s problems are small enough for them to solve.
Batman and Superman are very interesting to examine as well. While Batman has that moral ambiguity to a point (though at the end of the day I think we are clearly meant to look up to him), Superman retains that Golden Age romanticism of a hero that is the proverbial boyscout. We still see Superman as this uncorruptable guy who can do no wrong. He helps little old ladies cross the street. He instructs kids to stay in stay and stay away from drugs. He’s like a motivational speaker promoting wholesome values. But at the same time, we’d be almost powerless to stop him if he weren’t so benign. And though we’ve come to expect Superman to have the good character to turn himself in if he were responsible for serious harm because that’s the way he’s written, there isn’t something unsettling about anyone wielding that much power no matter how moral they appear to be.
But ultimately, I still find positive moral lessons in these comic books. Superman’s character is a great model to strive for, as is Batman’s unwillingness to employ lethal force against his opponents. And while Superman represents a seemingly impossible moral ideal to live up to, Spiderman represents a hero that looks more like us, guided mostly by a simple sense of personal responsibility and recognizing the responsibility we have for each other in society.
Er, oops… fixed formatting:
Oh, I totally and strongly disagree. I love the book, hated the movie. They got lots and lots of little details right, amazingly right, and in that sense it’s accurate, but the movie missed the mark in broad ways. In the movie, they’re cool. In the book, they’re not.
The biggest one is that the masked crusaders are superheroes. They have super speed, super strength, impossible toys, cool-looking costumes… in the book, they are not even anti-heroes, just pathetic people in silly masks who beat up other people. The only one of them (Dr. Manhattan aside) who is even remotely heroic turns out to be a villain. They suck and they fail.
A case in point is the (attempted) rape scene. In the book, a large man who attacks a small woman, one punch breaks three of her ribs. In the movie, a superhero attacks another superhero, they do super karate chops and kicks back and forth a while and he wins. It’s nice that she fights back and all, but the message is totally different. In the book, he is a rapist and a bully. In the movie, he is just a rapist.
(if a mod wants to fix my tags above and delete this comment, please do)
Another example, microcosm, is that at the beginning of the book, Rorschach shoots his grappling gun (that Dan made for him, plausible) up the side of Comedian’s building, and then climbs up to his balcony. In the movie, Rorschach shoots the gun and it pulls him up, like Batman. There is stuff like this throughout.
In the book, no one (except Dr. Manhattan again, who has nothing in common with any of the other characters) has powers of any kind.
Wait…wait…wait. Hold on a second. You’re saying Adrian doesn’t catch a bullet in the book? And I seem to remember a giant Lovecraftian psychic squid in the book. None of them do have actual powers other than Manhattan. And they all manage to do their share of serious combat in the books too. The only additional fight that seems added to me was Blake’s battle in the beginning, which was an effective way to start the film. Everything else was on the page. Also, they were “cool” in the book too. Rorschach’s a beloved character, as is The Comedian. And Dan is never real “cool.” I’d also argue that the debatable “coolness” of the characters (which I think was always there to begin with) adds rather than subtracts to the overall message. We’re culturally brought up to view superheroes as cool (except Aquaman). Having them seem cool on the surface only further magnifies the great divide between our expectations of what superheroes are and the underlying reality of what kind of people would choose that life.
1) Adrian is almost superhuman, other people (Dan) don’t believe it’s possible.
2) The “psychic squid” is a man-made horror, not a supernatural creature.
3) They totally have powers. Mainly super speed and super strength.
4) Yes, Dan and Laurie fight off a small gang of thugs. They are good at fighting and probably have been in more fights than their attackers. Totally plausible.
5) They were not cool in the book. Rorschach is good case study: he is a dick; he is totally batshit insane; he is delusional (”spotless gloves” that obviously aren’t spotless, etc); he is barely sympathetic at all, pretty much only because he is ruthless.
I could go on and on, but I suspect this is like religion, you already know what’s right: the depictions of the Watchmen characters in the movie are similar to the depictions in the book. I’m telling you, they’re not. You read something into it that isn’t there. The masked adventurers in the book are completely normal human beings.
Rorschach’s a beloved character,
I seem to remember an interview with Moore when the Watchmen series was first being published. Moore said that he’s been getting mail from people who were big fans of Rorschach. IIRC, Moore commented that this made him want to stop writing the series. He’d gone out of his way to make Rorschach unlikable, but here were these people who thought he was so cool because he could hold off the police.
Rorschach has this in spades. In both the book and the movie. For my part, I thought he came off as a complete monomaniacal sociopath in the film, not “cool” in the traditional sense at all. Some of the things he *did* followed the rule of cool, but he isn’t a guy you’d want as a next-door neighbor, it is made abundantly made clear.
Exactly.
Methinks the greatest advantage of Watchmen is that it shows several different perspectives on the vigilantism issue and the reason why people – normal people – would do it.
Also, the only superdude hardly cares (though I think Dr Manhattan could still be better) and the rich playboy villain wins.
How would you view someone like Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Lenin, Ward Churchill, etc, etc? Individuals who are either going outside established law, or advocating its use in certain scenarios? Certainly not to say that these individuals are any more than human, or incorruptible… quite the opposite. The point is the order of law is not black and white, which sounds redundant but is often overlooked.
I’m going to go completely off the superhero angle and talk about the Mentalist (mainly because I just finished the last episode). A couple episodes back there was a vigilante who killed a violent, serial, child rapist who had just gotten out of prison (5 years for like 7 violent rapes or something). The killer was a psychologist who knew the guy’s mindset and he would do it again. The show came down horribly hard on him– vigilantism NOT ok.
This rubbed me the wrong way so much, because in pretty much ever episode Jane breaks the evidentiary chain about 5 times, pretty much destroying evidence, using it so that only his word is what links the crucial piece of evidence to the actual criminal, etc. He takes the law into his hands *all the damn time* and is seen as a great guy for it. I don’t like the inconsistency much more than I don’t like the vigilantism in stuff like Batman.
Either do it all right or set it in a fantasy world. Otherwise it’s just annoying.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that the movie parallels what the IRA needed to do after the war for independence in Ireland. When the leaders had to settle for peace without the 6 Northern counties, they left behind thousands of Catholics. The IRA became the Provisional IRA to protect these Catholic communities from a completely Protestant police force and other loyalists. There was no protection of rights for the Catholic in Northern Ireland with the police. They treated the Catholics like filthy dogs who were immoral and had no rights. If they were brought through the legal system, it was not fairly. Thus, some members of the IRA stayed behind to act as “police” for the Catholic communities. Part of their job included keeping out drugs and such of their community. Even to this day, they take care of their own. Although it’s hard to glorify vigilantes, sometimes they are necessary. The Boondocks Saints (the original) extrapolates that necessity into Southie – another instance where the Irish banded together and were subject to gangs and corruption.
But I can’t comment on Boondocks Saints II as I haven’t seen it. I was too afraid it would ruin the awesomeness of the first one.
I disagree. Batman isn’t presented as a hero not to be questioned at all. In fact in most quality comics the heros are not unquestionable moral heros, the reader in many times thinks this may not be right. In the Dark Knight Batman for example phone tapps all the people in Gotham City in order to find Joker, this is very much against many people’s concept of right to privacy, a theme which has been very controversial in particular in the US the past few years. This is a theme that most people get to be divided i order what they opinion is – is it right to violate everybody’s rights in order to find one bad guy? I cannot agree to Batman’s justification, and I think most people find it hard to agree to aswell. As shown in the movie, Morgan Freeman’s character cannot agree to it either, which shows that Batman’s choice is not something to be mindlesss accepted. If you want a straightforward hero, try Punisher. Modern comics are way more morally complex than your article suggests.
Liked Boondog Saints, though I cannot come over the religious fanatiscm. Oh well, it’s a fun movie anways.