Criticism Concepts Part 5: Actors and the Stage of Humanity

 

[Part 3 of my Screened Narrative series.  For parts 1 and 2 dealing with the screenplay and director, respectively, click here and here]

Previously, we looked at the pivotal role played by the director in creating a movie or television series. As maestro of the production set, directors weave their clamorous charges through peaks and valleys to lift the still images and stock archetypes of the screenplay into the dynamic, organic flow of narrative time which defines both the silver and small screens. But every choir contains its star soloist, and while directors hold the ultimate reins no matter who else joins them, the only other set piece in the grand film chessboard to match or surpass them in audience recognition is the acting crew. Moviegoers are enamored with “stars,” those lucky few whose performances on screen elevates them to a form of immortality envied by even the great Taoist sages.

But what makes a good actor or actress? Or, more specifically, what qualities should actors possess to best bring the characters of the screenplay and in the director’s vision to life? Acting is the most mercurial and elusive element of the film team, and so cannot be spied through a single one-size-fits-all filter. Only when we step back and see the full panoramic spectrum of the craft can we truly appreciate those who stand on the other side of the curtain rise.

Contributor 3: The Actors

Many are under the misconception that because they have seen so many movies they understand acting. Developing an eye for performance is difficult and requires hard work, diligent study, and possibly acting classes, and even some acting to fully understand the craft. - Jeremiah Comey

The quote above highlights the inherent difficulty of pegging down the meat and potatoes of this most slippery of performance crafts. As the most visible element of the cinema creation process, actors draw our eye and move the narrative along. Characters are the vehicles within a story; whether as avatars, inserts, or objects of voyeuristic glee, few stories stand in the absence of characters. Naturally, you’d expect this to place actors at the very nexus of on-set importance, right? 

 Well, yes and no.

A lot depends on what approach you take on the matter. Actors, especially strong leads, evoke intensely personal and psychological responses from an audience that even the most artistically manipulative directors and cinematographers can barely elicit. This means that opinions on acting vary based on audience connection, star charisma, and the various methods and schools which buttress the profession. Due to this inherent complexity, the usual straightforward and linear-logical approach I tend to take with this series will fall short. 

Instead, I’ll take a look at the ways through which both the audience and filmmakers view acting and connect to actors based on the role and expectations placed on them. To form a complete picture of what acting means to the business of screened entertainment, I’ve split its function in the production into three parts, each corresponding to a different aspect of acting's je ne sais quoi: the actor as extension of the director’s will, represented by the film or television extra; the actor as character conjurer, best typified by the professional thespian; and lastly, the actor as mirror of the audience’s social and psychological expectations, reflected in the charisma and persona of the movie star. 

Living Props

What can be said about extras and amateur non-professionals in a production? They seem inconsequential, usually have little to no speaking roles, and are as nameless and forgettable as a stone in an English poppy field. They’re hardly what comes to mind when you think “actor,” and yet no film or tv studio set would be complete without them. Extras, in fact, form the foundation stone of the acting pyramid through one simple fact: they remind us that actors persist at the behest of the director.

Recall that while directors and screenwriters share a shaky equality in the production process, everyone else on the set dances to the tune of the one literally calling the shots. To embrace acting at its bare bones means to look at what the director demands from it. For one, actors create a sense of place; they are, in this strictly utilitarian sense, extensions of the director’s command of location and space. As a corollary, these additional faces in the crowd also add a sense realism to a scene. These are two vital pieces of the creative process that rarely get mentioned in a script beyond a minor footnote, and yet can change the tone and color of a film sequence. A restaurant with only two people at any time but the witching hour looks and feels unnatural, and unless that’s what the filmmaker’s going for, the audience will tell that something’s “off,” even if they can’t put it into words. As extras, as actors, these anonymous groups add a much needed depth and volume.  

Besides film extras and their underappreciated value, the non-professional performer exists as another category of the “actor-as-director’s-prop” enterprise. They differ from extras in their ability to command the camera’s attention for a while, or even have speaking lines. They add another value to the screen: authenticity. Authenticity is no mere synonym for realism; there’s a subtle difference, particularly when an audience’s reaction enters the equation. Authenticity speaks of what appears to be genuine, based on expectation or experience, while realism handles the brunt facts of a scene (or the world at large).  

Take After Life, a 1998 Japanese film by Hirokazu Kore-eda. As a humanistic supernatural drama whose central theme involves how the memories we make in this life affect what we experience in the hereafter, Kore-eda peppers his film with live interviews of people’s fondest memories. Are the testimonies from these performers “realistic” in the way discussed above? Who can say how realistic a past-life review is “supposed” to be. The key thing is that these interviews lend an authentic feel to the subject matter; the amateur performers move, laugh, break down, and emote in ways which ring true to the audience. Put another way, the difference between realism and authenticity can be chalked up to our level of scrutiny. We take reality for granted, and only notice it when something tilts our view sideways — like watching actors stroll into a downtown London subway during the evening rush hour and seeing only 3 people waiting for the next train. Meanwhile, authenticity demands that what we’re seeing on the screen lines up with how we’d expect it to go in real life - which, ironically, sometimes forces a director to break realism in order to preserve what the audience holds as “authentic.” So while being an extra demands no greater investment from the actor than what you’d expect from a fake tree on a school play set, the amateur actor has the altogether harder task of being natural — not ACTING, but being. Even if they’re fulfilling a role outlined in the screenplay, the director didn’t bring them on board to play a part. Above all else, they need to be authentic, as moviegoers are unusually adept at detecting artifice in a performance.

The Consummate Professional 

Extras and non-pro performers lay the bare foundation for what directors expect from their actors — the ability to extend their vision of space, realism, and authenticity. So far, we haven’t touched on what should be an actor’s most important job: bringing characters to life. And herein lies the domain of the professional thespian. They are the bread and butter of the entertainment industry, the working Joes and Janes who’ll likely never win an Oscar or an Emmy, but without whom neither parades of ostentatious pomp would exist. And yet even here, they still live or die by the words of the director. Though actors do have direct access to the characters as embedded in the screenplay, much of that has been subject to modification by the director, and so their role remains bound to whatever the big man or woman with the megaphone demands of them.

This relationship differs from the dynamics of the theater world. There, actors almost have the rule of the roost in how they interpret characters in the script, and exercise a level of artistic control out of reach for all but the most renowned film actors. This all falls back to the tight grip film and screen directors have on time and space within their medium. Plays and other live-action performers operate on real-time, which presents the perfect frame for actors to shine. But for the screen, everything operates on film time -- which remains under lock and key with the director. Directors cut, edit, and snip time into sequences as the narrative demands, and can thereby stretch or shrink an actor’s presence beyond his or her control. Directors mold every external aspect of how audiences see the actors; through close ups, editing, and angles, the control of a character’s presentation that stage actors utilize so effectively through presence and projection gets neutered by a wide angle shot or an unflattering close-up. While extras and non-professional players stand out explicitly as instruments of the director’s will, even experienced thespians earning a steady paycheck aren’t far from that label themselves.

That said, directors demand a bit more from their front liners than just to stand and “be real.”  The most critical trait of the role actor is expressiveness. Since the camera can zoom in and hold the actor’s entire face or frame in view, a talented director has within his or her power the means to construct emotional and engaging scenes just from disjointed stills of the actors alone. But little can compensate for an unphotogenic face or a stiff carriage. It isn’t all looks, of course; convincing gestures, appropriate body language, and the outward manifestation of inner turmoil all combine to elevate one actor’s depth of expression above another. But above all else, directors demand the ability to offer up crucial impressions or moods from their actors at the right time. Even in live studio shows or sketch comedy series, the closest most screen actors get to the creative control seen in theaters, the film crew - through camera long shots and close ups, as well as the timed use of cut-aways - controls more of what we see of the on-screen players than we realize.

If an actor’s expressiveness holds the pass leading to their place in a director’s vision, then what of those much-vaunted acting methodologies? They have their role, even outside of the star vehicles to be discussed below. But once we establish that the director’s control of film time and space places performers almost totally in his or her hands, we recognize that an actor’s abilities do not exist in a vacuum. It doesn’t help that there are as many ways of analyzing acting methods as there are both actors and scholars of acting combined. In general, actors sparkle and shine when they embody the emotions demanded of a scene. This runs deeper than just expressiveness. No matter how the director uses them, good actors can’t just “act” their emotions; they need to feel them, embody them, and use them to carry the scene. The deliberate decision ahead of time to evoke an emotion leads only to mechanical mimicry, and even if the actor can’t tell the difference, the camera and especially the audience will.

Much of acting, therefore, is built on expressing naturalistic reactions within a scene, and recognizing its subtext. That oft-stated cliche of good acting being reacting has a germ of truth, since reacting to a scene shows engagement and competent actors project their emotions through timely (and sometimes unexpected) reactions. This really hammers in the wedge between filmed and theater acting. Though reactions also matter to stage thespians, the camera holds the power to capture an actor’s face and body posture in a way that can’t be replicated in a live action production. Likewise, the primacy of the camera and actors’ reactions thrusts a scene’s subtext to the forefront. On stage, bereft of the benefits of a closeup, everything must be conveyed through dialogue and posture. But the camera’s all-seeing eye misses not one inch of a facial tic, not a single roll of the eyes. Whatever your lines, as an actor, both the director and the audience scrutinize your performance for the unspoken gestures which lift the full meaning of the lines above the page.

So with all of that said, what, exactly, makes a “good actor?”

 Good acting is being and feeling completely in the “now” of the film reality in which you participate, and then effectively and convincingly communicating this to the audience.

You need to be expressive, but you can’t ape feelings; you need to show emotion, but without the nasty stain of premeditation. To be a good actor, one must take the film’s gestalt as your reality, and act as if your feelings in a scene carry as much meaning as they do in your real life — because, in that moment and time, they do. Films do not “capture reality”; they forge one, and actors must fit as comfortably into that “reality” as if it were the real world. This truth, at the very least, provides a way forward to successful acting in any medium.

A Star is Born

If acting involves the authentic inhabitation and communication of a film’s reality, what extra push propels the everyday worker to the heights of stardom? The movie stars peppered in the bank rolls of Hollywood, Bollywood, Nollywood and other cinema constellations are without a doubt the first thing that pops into our minds when we think “actors.” In reality, they are a distinct minority, and we should avoid judging the fortunes and talents of a lucky few against the everyday realities of the working actor and actress. But that only begs the question: what, exactly, does it take to become a “star,” and how do they differ from the rank and file actors?

 First, a caveat: for simplicity’s sake, I focus specifically on Hollywood’s star system. The American film industry is the oldest, most well-known, and generally most lucrative in the world, and so dominates most discussions of the entertainment industry even as international competitors continue to rise the world over. Therefore some details of the star system as discussed here may not reflect worldwide; Bollywood, Nollywood, and China’s burgeoning film industry, I imagine, each have their own approaches to the luminaries of their respective businesses. 

One key element about movie stars is that they are as much a product of the public as they are of their particular talents and skills. Stars take the mantle described in the last section — convincingly inhabiting a film reality and getting it across to the audience — and somehow use it to burrow into the filmgoers’ imaginations. Exactly how that happens, particularly why one star hopeful makes the climb while another following the same formula stumbles in the dirt, only Rota Fortuna and the Movie Gods know for sure. Fame can’t be forced, and while studios spend considerable time trying to “stoke” their audience’s appetites, the manufactured fame vehicle offers no greater guarantee of success than a Joe Nobody just starting his acting career with little or no support.  

However, we still have grounds for taking a stab at the commonalities of fame, if not its genesis. About the one thing that unites members of this flickering, fragile club is their reliance on personifying archetypes to capture the audience. Most actors align with a particular “groove” as they develop a corpus, and audiences as well as producers take notice. Though any actor may fall into type after making a film or two, stars usually combine this with exceptional talent (or even just a “look”) and/or fortuitous cultural timing to elevate themselves in the public consciousness. John Wayne’s tough-guy Western avatar, or the breezy, libertine charm of Mae West, may seem to lie within the nebulous domain of talent, but their fame drew just as much from their respective cultural statics — either the longing for an idealized Western masculinity among Cold War fears, or the taboo thrill of satisfying the erotic pulse in a young, liberalizing medium.

By capitalizing on the reigning zeitgeist, competent and/or charismatic actors achieve a status in the public eye beyond their personal gifts. This cements the actor’s persona to their audience. Persona is not personality; an actor’s real personality may differ sharply from their on-screen persona. This persona may be meticulously cultivated, as with the myriad of great genre specialists, especially comedians; or it may develop spontaneously, or even be thrust upon an unsuspecting actor by a studio desperate to extend the life of a series of serendipitous successes. If taken too far, an actor’s persona could easily lead to that dreaded prison of typecasting, fame’s blinder where today’s meteoric success leads to tomorrow's obsolescence. 

But what, exactly, does stardom change compared to the actor types discussed above? In one word, everything. Stardom shifts the dynamic of power on the set ever-so-slightly away from the director’s hands. Stars bring with them a whirlwind of informal power to a movie, fueled by an alliance between movie producers and the adoration of an enamored audience. Stars may snatch a share of the director’s coveted control over film time, demanding adjustments to camera shots, close-ups, and other snippets of movie reality that can make or break a film. Particularly prominent stars can even shape the evolution of a script's characters, while screenwriters often feel compelled to mold characters in the likeness of a particular star’s luminous persona. These acts have the interesting side effect of creating as close to an actual power split between the director and the film’s main lead or leads as possible. Though a film star’s “power” remains informal and fuzzy around the edges, even the most dictatorial directors stay alert to the many ways their movies can unravel if they flub on cooperating with a star who was “born” for the role.

Conclusion

The variable nature of acting forbids any simple list of how to recognize acting. So instead, look out for the key cores of each type of actor, and what they bring to a film:

1. For our extras and non-professionals: A sense of realism and authenticity reign here. Extras add to a film by how little they actually stand out, drafting a believable scenery through their inconspicuous presence, while amateur actors should get the audience to see a particular scene or scenes as authentic to their understanding of the world - even if it doesn’t line up with “actual” reality.

2. The professional actor has arguably the hardest job on the set after the director — being the primary and deeply personal vehicle through which the film or series expresses its own unique reality. They accomplish this primarily through the range of their reactions and emotions, and while virtuosity with dialogue can push a talented thespian to the precipice to greatness, it counts less with the silver or small screens than in the theater world. Instead, good acting must embody a scene’s emotional truths — a vague and fickle objective dependent upon the right looks, the right lines, and the right sentiments and reactions in order to cement the work's constructed reality and sweep the audience along through momentum. Those who master this difficult and highly intuitive skill may, with a good bit of luck and the right environment, ascend to stardom, where the goal now includes getting moviegoers to respond to and approve of an actor’s signature persona. 

Acting is undoubtedly the most recognizable cog in the production line machine. It is also the most protean and difficult to peg down; so much of the craft is intuitive, and I lay no claim to any authority on how acting “should” be in any given work. But by recognizing the different actor categories and where they fit into the director’s grand vision, we may better judge how these essential players bring the script to life.

Reflections on a most vexing political genie

 Funny how things come in cycles.

Another year, another (largely) happy birthday.  With all the little horrors screaming out from the great void this year, I’ve been blessed with good friends, good family, and even more reasons to not take them for granted.  But there’s one sore thumb that I wished had stayed the hell out of my sights this time.

Because once again, on an election result taking form within close proximity of my birthday, I find myself royally pissed off.

Not because “my party” didn’t win; while I have my political leanings like anyone else, my personal politics are complex, as I’d expect to be the case for most thinking people, and so I hold no permanent shelter under either “big tents” in this system.  Rather, what pisses me off is that for the second time, I am forced to cast my ballot not on the basis of careful policy consideration, analysis of long-term plans, or even which wedge issue is least likely to make me vomit in disgust at the intellectual aridity in America’s political culture.

No, my ballot was just a contribution towards squashing a nascent autocratic regime.  And that, pisses me off.

It’s not like I’m surprised, mind you.  Great as this country is and has been at times, you can’t throw a stone anywhere in its history without hitting some tragedy or miscarriage of justice somewhere - particularly if you’re poor, and especially if you’re black or brown.  But democracies require one thing above all else in order to exist.  It’s not wealth, it’s not the military.  It’s trust.  People have to trust their ability to have differences of opinion without casting each other to the metaphorical Gehenna.  Likewise, they must trust the institutions which ensure that their voices are heard and that power can be transferred peacefully and equanimously when the time comes.  There may be winners and losers in every election, but as long as the losers trust that there’s a chance to be heard in the next go around, the system will endure in the face of even the most bitter contests.

And this trust is extremely fragile, as history, discrimination, corruption, and a host of despotic “failed” democracies the world over can attest. There are many Matryoshka layers you’d need to unpeel to discover how, in any particular instance, trust erodes and a democracy falls, though a conflict of needs and grievances within a diverse population and the government’s failure to respond thereof are the usual suspects.  But there’s typically one signpost waiting at the end of the road: a charismatic strongman who claims to have all the cures for what ails.  

The democratic experiment is always at war with its opposite - not the Commies, the Facists, or any other specific group, but the authoritarian genie lurking to screw everything over by granting the corrupted wishes of a people who feel wronged.  Now, I have nothing against liberals or conservatives at all, and I freely engage anyone on a host of topics in brisk, lively debate.  I’ve learned a long time ago how to disagree with the idea, but respect the person.

But authoritarianism, coupled with malicious “Othering,” is a malignancy.  It’s a tumor in the body politic, in our shared ethics, in our hearts and minds.  It creeps in, throws open the gates to incivility and impunity, stokes illiberalism by appeal to fear, anger, and pride, and finally turns its wrath to both the institutions designed to check its gluttony, and any group unfortunate enough to be on the ass-end of a majority-minority divide - all presided over by a malignant narcissist who’d think nothing of a few thousand deaths in service to his or her delusions of grandeur.  

Most of you would probably stand bemused and shaking your heads if this concerned some distant drama in a banana republic half-way around the world. But it doesn’t.  It’s happening right in our backyard, and that disgusts me on a profound level.  Because right now there are thousands of people out there - driven by the unsubstantiated hearsay of one unhinged madman who thinks he’s bigger than the office he holds - who are clamoring for a chance to overturn an election result that by every objective measure arrived through one of the fairest and most transparent electoral procedures in recent history.  Call a spade a spade, and call a coup and coup.  And if that doesn’t bother you, whatever side of the fence you’re on, then you’re taking for granted something you understand jack-squat about.

I try not to wade into hot water topics on social media, to protect both my private life and my sanity.  At best, it’s like a game of “Where’s Waldo?” but with logical fallacies embedded in walls of text; at worst, it’s like teaching pigs how to sing. And frankly, most of the trigger issues at play are so small on the grand scale of the life and death of civilizations that you can stack a tower of pennies from here to the moon with the inverse amount of shits I usually have to give. But this is different, so I’m not going to take a limp “both-sides-ism” here.  This isn’t left vs. right, pro-choice vs. pro-life, or boxers vs. briefs.  It’s a democratic system, however flawed and uneven, vs. an authoritarian lurch which if history is any judge, has frightening consequences for the future stability of this country.  And everyone has a dog in this fight, even if you don’t realize it.

So to this cycle’s winners, of whatever political persuasion, I say: congrats, but don’t get conceited.  And don’t bank on American Exceptionalism to fish you out next time, either.  Democracy “may have prevailed,” but mostly because our would-be autocrat lacked the competence to metastasize that authoritarian tumor into Stage IV totalitarianism.  The next strongman in waiting may hone these lessons and find a better way.  And don’t be so naive as to think that this nation is somehow inoculated against it.  The deep divisions of class and race along with our tendency to lash out at the perennial Other makes us ripe for that kind of slide.  Ask socialists during McCarthyism, or poor people and immigrants during the 20th century eugenics movement, or people of color at any time in our history.  Democide is more common in societies adjusting to instability while transitioning into a new political order. So be vigilant and prepare to both improve and fight for our institutions when necessary, for if we do somehow start slumping down that path, it’ll probably look less like Singapore and a lot more like Turkey.

To those who are still coping with this result: you’re hurt.  You’re scared and angry.  You feel that your country’s drifting out of your fingers, that you’re losing out in the process, and that others are unfairly getting ahead.  You want a stronger economy and more “law and order” to feel safe.  I get it.   I’ll invalidate your arguments, but I’d never be able to invalidate your feelings.  And I accept that.  There are many separate groups in this country composed of millions who feel or have felt exactly the same way as you, and that's okay.  But let’s forget about the trappings of politics or ideology, of supposed economic incentives and the ambiguous dog whistle of “shared worldviews” for but a second.  If you can’t see a future past your own grievances, then understand that the current road you’re marching down, in this fractious nation, only has four possible outcomes at the very end: assimilation, segregation, suppression, or genocide.  That’s it.  There’s no work around, no “No, if…” or “Yes, but…”  Those are your options.  History and current events are both pretty clear on that.  And if you’re well on board with it, then just scrub “freedom” out of your lexicon right now.  Because to you, it’s a fetish, an idol; it’s like wrapping a rosary around your steering wheel and expecting to walk off a head-on collision with a train.  You don’t know the meaning of the word, and it won't protect you when the genie decides that your wishes are up and it's time to collect its due.

This is usually the part in these things that you’d offer some grand hope or plan to get people talking and turn this ship around.  But I’m not such a rosy person.  Before compassion and before dialogue, healing and reconciliation demand that we first agree on a shared reality - that when we’re talking about the same thing, we’re actually talking about the same damn thing.  But humans are narrative creatures; we live and breathe by the stories we tell each other and ourselves.  And if that story is self-serving and forms a buttress for our fragile egos, it will blind us to facts, reasoning, empathy, or anything else which can foster dialogue.  And these stories have led us to attacking an institution on the flimsiest of pretenses, and in the process, throwing the whole democratic enterprise for a spin.  Make no mistake, “freedom” and “rights” aren’t on the menu here.  It’s fear and power.  But in the unlikely event that bluster and legal manipulation carry this election, it will set a terrible precedent.  The fact that our elected officials are so spineless that they would rather enable a tin-pot tyrant’s final tantrum and do serious harm to our institutions than publicly legitimize a clean election victory and alienate their increasingly authoritarian base has some potential dictator out there licking their lips.

 I have a hard time seeing a solution out of this, but for the good of the nation, one needs to surface.  The authoritarian genie, once let out of the lamp, won’t so easily be stuffed back inside.

February Releases

February Releases

This February, with Valentine's Day right around the corner and a slew of films are coming out to spread a little movie magic love.  Probably the top three queries for this month's box office potentials are: can the acting talents of Jim Carrey offset the unnervingly creepy 3d design of Sonic the Hedgehog? Can director Tom McCarthy bottle what made the Diary of a Wimpy Kid flicks so successful as he brings Timmy Failure, another juvenile diary series darling, to life on the big screen under Disney's sanitizing eye? And lastly, can Harley Quinn and her Birds of Prey flock together with enough star power to wipe the taste of Suicide Squad out of everybody's mouths?  Stay tuned, and we'll find out.

Other big releases this month include an adaptation of Jack London's classic tale starring one of the original badass dogs in literature and the millionth latest remake of Jane Austin's quintessential fine wine, Emma.

In video game land, though Moon Studio's Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the sequel to their gorgeous and award-winning 2015 masterpiece Ori and the Blind Forest, has been punted from its original February 11th release date down to early March, One Punch Man fans should rejoice at that One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows will finally claw its way out of development hell to see the light of day towards the end of the month.

For more dish on the latest in entertainment releases, check out the candy platter below.

Movies

https://www.movieinsider.com/movies/february/2020?view=list 

Games

http://www.ign.com/games/upcoming?time=1m 

Books 
http://www.bookreporter.com/coming-soon 

Music 

https://uproxx.com/music/new-albums-coming-out-this-month-february-2020/

Television

https://www.tvguide.com/coming-soon/

See you at the movies!

The Wages of Redemption in My Hero Academia: a Meditation on Endeavor

 

Image courtesy of sugarfarts

 (WARNING: major spoilers ahoy)

The shonen battle series stands out as arguably the most recognizable genre in the wide world of anime.  This family of fist-pumping fictions aimed at boys includes dignitaries such as One Piece and Naruto among its ranks, and has attracted a peripheral demographic which cuts across age, gender, and national lines.  Its success lies partly in a tried and true heroic formula: young heroes/heroines set their goals, meet helpful allies along the way, and move up in the world to accomplish their dreams - usually by punching faces and smashing a few bad eggs along the way.  As a result, shonen fight manga have built up a reputation (both deserving and undeserving) as a shallow repository for competent but plebeian writers. Sure, there’s variation, and the pole of quality can shift from the lowest dregs to something approaching art, but minus a few superficial forays into “darker” topics like death or abuse, the genre usually limits what can and cannot be discussed at any level beyond middle school maturity.

Meet Endeavor

But every so often, one of these peddlers of physical might comes along and provides a rare, in-depth examination of a touchy subject not often looked at in a world stuffed with friendship power-ups and well-defined heroes and villains.  My Hero Academia, one of the most lauded modern shonen today, is one I've discussed before. Kohei Horikoshi’s story of a young boy named Izuku Midoriya who strives to become a hero despite being one of the few born in his world without an superpower, or “Quirk,” has enamored fans the world over with its endearing characters and surprisingly astute deconstructive observations despite keeping an upbeat and optimistic tone.  But there is one character who could be called anything BUT endearing. In this world, where superheroes are such an everyday presence that the public ranks them according to their prowess, few match the power and effectiveness of Enji Todoroki, aka “Endeavor,” the No. 2 ranked hero in the world and father of important main cast member Shouto Todoroki.  As bearer of a powerful flame-based quirk called “Hellfire,” Endeavor has saved hundreds if not thousands of lives over the course of his career. He is also, to put it lightly, a colossal tool to the third degree, rude and dismissive towards everyone, and driven as much by pride and envy of No. 1 hero All Might as by the desire to help the citizens who rely on him.  

But what really fixed Endeavor in the fandom’s eternal ire concerns how he treats his family.  His marriage to Shouto’s mother Rei seemed transactional to begin with, geared towards producing a worthy heir, which after three tries he finally found with Shouto.  His older children, deemed “failures,” lived in isolation from their little brother, neglected by Enji as he focused his attention to “training” (read: kicking the crap out of) his prized achievement.  And just to rain a few rotten cherries atop this unappetizing dessert, Rei sometimes got a face-full herself whenever she tried to protect Shouto. This led to her mental breakdown, culminating in a fit of blind rage which left Shouto scalded and permanently disfigured and landed her in a mental recovery hospital.  And all the while, Endeavor played the part of the pivotal patriarch, blind to the tremendous damage he’s done to his family, devoting his life to one aim: surpassing All Might, one way or another.

Endeavor’s characterization earned him considerable hate, but also a fair number of fans drawn to his cool design, undeniable badassery, and his status as a nominal hero among a top flight of generally clean paragons.  For a good few readers unable to draw the line between “evil” and “asshole,” Endeavor is held up as a great villain himself, to the point that many fans anticipated a showdown between him and other heroes down the line.

Character Growth and Its Discontents 

And then, dimensionality struck.

After All Might expends the last of his power in an epic fight and steps down as the world’s top hero, Endeavor gets kicked upstairs as the new big dog — which, since it was given to him rather than earned, royally pisses him off.  What’s more, years of playing the effective but aloof and vicious anti-hero has — surprise! — left him with an in-universe hatedom to match his fandom; instead of a “Symbol of Peace” like his predecessor, he’s a symbol of division and, in some quarters, scorn.  He comes to realize that all his actions over the past decade or two have amounted to nothing, and with this heightened perspective comes a recognition of the wreckage his hurricane of abuse has left in his own home, and it leaves a bitter taste.

For the fans, it was like: goodbye villainous aspirations, hello redemption arc.  And many of them loathe it.

Horikoshi received considerable backlash for even attempting to conduct a redemption arc with the character, with some fans even issuing veiled death threats over tumblr.  Others already dismissed it as “terrible” or “poorly-written” before it even began in earnest. This vitriol leaves me scratching my head, as it should any rational observer.  As a lover of good (key word here) redemption arcs, I welcome any attempt to have a character change themselves for the better; as a reader and a critic, I’m impressed with Horikoshi’s surprisingly nuanced and sensitive handling of the subject, certainly compared to other shonen anime (looking right at you, Naruto).  And yet despite the skillful way MHA handles this potential land mine, many fans remain bitterly divisive, still shrieking their discontent at even the attempt of letting Endeavor change, or better yet, saying that he doesn’t "deserve" a redemption arc due to the supposed severity of his past actions.

The Question of Why

All of this vexes me by its profound illogic.  The truth is that the world both in and out of shonen manga is no stranger to unlikely redemption stories; many of history’s most renowned saints started their lives as notorious sinners, and there’s no end of manga bad boys (and girls) who turn a new leaf after a series of nefarious crimes.  And while some of these turns fall prey to some seriously sloppy writing, few have inspired quite the visceral reaction (and death threats) as Endeavor. It looks all the more puzzling since Enji’s crimes, taken objectively, look paltry on the grand scale. While some clamor for the redemption of characters like Dabi, a notorious flame-based serial killer who shows no remorse for his actions at all, Endeavor — who to our knowledge has murdered no one, has saved many, and whose gravest crime is non lethal abuse to a handful of people — gets tossed to the fire by a large portion of the fandom.  While my initial reaction may be to call out the hypocrisy of this, further reflection helps place an understanding of these reactions into their proper context — and why despite that, Enji’s redemption arc is a worthy venture to get behind.

Close to Home

One thing consistent with the responses to this development, both for and against, is how many people bring their personal experiences to the fore in any discussion of Endeavor.  This lies at the root of why a hero whose biggest crime amounts to everyday douchebaggery can earn less sympathy than, say, an unreformed mass murderer; few people are unfortunate enough to run into a real life serial killer, but far too many have the specter of an abusive relative lurking in their closets.  This helps create a divide between extreme cruelty and our empathy with its victims. In addition, Endeavor’s victims are more intimately known to us: Shouto, a major character and a prime filter through which we perceive his father; his sister, Fuyumi, who seems most willing to forgive Enji but mostly wants some semblance of a happy family; their brother Natsuo, who hates their father with a passion and is resolved to never forgive him no matter what; and of course, Rei, who despite bearing the brunt of Enji’s abuse along with Shouto which eventually claimed his face and her freedom, looks willing to give forgiveness a try, even if the thought of facing her husband again terrifies her.  All four of these characters are known to us, their motives and concerns made “real” by their narrative focus, unlike the scores of faceless victims behind the story’s real antagonists. Now, there’s a ton of interesting psychology behind this (and frankly, it reveals some scary things about our capacity for empathy) but they all revolve around the fact that the struggles of a small group of known people, in relatable circumstances, will always trump the welfare of a huge swath of strangers, no matter how awful their suffering. The easy disconnect fiction brings to the table doesn’t help the empathy score, either. Now, this is by no means rational, let alone ethical, but it is understandable.

Redemption Is Not What You Think It Is

Furthermore, our punitive outlook when it comes to the riddle of retribution often leaves us confused when faced with an arc like this.  Some fans protest against Enji’s new turn on the grounds that he doesn’t “deserve” redemption, or that it’s too easy an out for his crimes, which is utterly ridiculous.  Redemption — or rehabilitation, if you prefer — is by definition the act of restoring, of making right. Redemption occurs simply when a character realizes “I done f***ed up,” and trudges down the difficult path of atonement.  Fans likely oppose this so fervently because they confuse atonement with forgiveness.  Atonement is an action on the part of the one who has wronged, and in that respect, no one can tell him or her they have no “right” to it; that’s completely their choice.  Forgiveness, on the other hands, rests with those they have wronged — in this case, Enji’s family. The boundary between a mature or immature redemption arc falls on how clearly the writer draws this distinction; having everyone suddenly forgive a character who has done great evil to a good many people breaks realism and leaves attentive fans deeply unsatisfied.  And again, Horikoshi sets himself above the competition in how he handles this most delicate of topics, showing that there is no right or wrong way to forgive one’s abuser. In the latest rung of Enji’s turn to good, his family remains divided, with some willing to forgive, others beyond the point of any forgiveness, and Shouto stuck in the middle, respecting his father’s skills and wanting to let go of his hatred, but justifiably skeptical over whether Enji’s change of heart will stick.  Enji, reading the atmosphere, comes to a very reasonable solution for them all: he will not seek forgiveness, and instead wish only to atone from afar, letting his family heal while he takes himself out of the picture. Such a mature reckoning should be lauded, especially coming from the pen of a “mere” shonen mangaka, and in fact, gets me thinking that if anyone in the medium has shown the attitude which merits forgiveness, it’s Enji.

The Bakugo Effect

I can’t leave this topic without kicking another fandom powder keg, one that’s only been agitated further by Endeavor’s redemption arc.  Enji at this point often gets compared to another character in MHA — Katsuki Bakugo, the series’s deuteragonist. Bakugo, a volatile, hot-headed punk with a powerful explosion Quirk and a superiority complex, follows a similar narrative trajectory to Enji: both got introduced as arrogant, violent, nominal heroes at best; both abused and tormented main characters (Enji to Shouto, while Bakugo bullied Midoriya for years); and both were hated by a fair portion of the fandom for their demeanor and actions.  And both have since revealed more complex and engaging depths to their characters, and in their owns ways are clawing towards redemption of a sort. The key difference, Endeavor fans keenly point out, is that Enji has actually apologized for his past actions, admitted his wrong doing, and has made a conscious effort to change and repair. Bakugo, though considerably mellowed compared to his introduction and learning to channel his anger constructively, remains a loud, pushy jerk, rude and verbally abusive to everyone, and has yet to acknowledge let alone apologize for his past bullying to Midoriya, which besides physical beatings included effectively telling him to go kill himself — an action which could have legal repercussions in real life.  And yet despite this, while Katsuki remains far from universally loved, he has gained tremendously in popularity since his character development, and gets consistent encouragement from fans for his growth, while these very same fans will dismiss any effort to “humanize” Enji. I’m a bit at a loss to decipher this; the characters are similar in the nature if not extent of their crimes, and Bakugo’s youth, while certainly a factor, gives no excuse.

It could simply be that we don’t have the right perspective to wrap our minds around characters like Enji and Bakugo.  Both prove less controversial in their native land than here in the West, with Endeavor even ranking high in one recent popularity poll for his new leaf.  Regardless, any attempt of a character to change for the better should be welcomed, especially if it leads from a writer with enough skill to treat the topic with respect. Horikoshi reveals redemption for what it is: messy, painful, and decidedly unheroic, but when handled well, speaks to a deep desire in all of us that by setting right what we have wronged, we can change ourselves and the world for the better, even if we never find forgiveness.  I don’t know where this road will lead, but I wish Horikoshi and Enji all the luck they can muster. 

They'll definitely need it.

Book Review: Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Book: Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Author: Sy Montgomery

Publisher Information: New York, NY: Ataria Books

Genre: Nature-Nonfiction

For decades, astronomers the world over have pointed their telescopes to the sky in hopes of picking up a signal from an alien intelligence.  But ask Sy Montgomery, keen-eyed naturalist and documentary scriptwriter, and she’ll tell you that we’ve already discovered alien life right here on Earth — and it comes in a squishy, flexible form familiar to both aquariums and sushi combo platters across the globe.  Cephalopods — octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish — are strange beasts, with three hearts, blue blood, and a closer kinship to clams and slugs than any other animal we’d grace with the term “intelligence.” And yet these mysterious mollusks have lit the typically sober world of animal consciousness research aflame in recent years due to how thoroughly they’ve shaken what we thought we knew about animal intelligence.  Montgomery brings these observations and more to print in her book Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness, an overview of the fascinating science of molluscan minds from the New England Aquarium to the Pacific Northwest.

Though neither a cognitive scientist nor a dedicated marine scientist, Montgomery is a skilled and patient observer of wildlife, as well as a capable writer whose empathy and concern for her subject makes her book an enjoyable read.  Though she falls short of a rigorous explication of the nuts-and-bolts science surrounding these wonderful creatures — a notable omission when compared to other notable popular science books, like Katherine Harmon Courage’s Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea — Montgomery presents what she does cover clearly and accurately.  Biologists are just starting to unravel the befogging mysteries behind these beguiling aliens, and Montgomery illuminates the latest findings while appreciating current limitations.  

But Montgomery isn’t just a sideline cephalopodists; her book pops with a deep seated appreciation for these creatures, and stands out from the rest of its kind not only for drawing out the personalities of several individual octopuses in the aquarium’s care, but also on reflecting how these close encounters changed their handlers, and herself, in profound ways. Montgomery’s narrative unfolds like a novel, spotlighting a varied cast of characters both spined and spineless, and rivals Jane Goodall in the sensitivity with which she treats the latter, a cadre of giant Pacific octopuses. There’s gentle, personable Athena, her first encounter with this world of alien intelligence; aloof, stoic Octavia, the only octopus to run the course of the entire book and whose defrosting proved a particular accomplishment to both her handlers and the author; Kali, playful and endlessly curious, often to her detriment; and lastly, feisty Karma, whose mood fluctuation from joyful to hostile kept all attendees at the aquarium on their toes.  Montgomery reveals much about the lives and behaviors of her subjects, and sprinkles her text with cephalopod facts as well as info on the aquarium’s scientists and other long-term, water loving residents. Few books, even on so magnificent of a creature, have delved into their distinct idiosyncrasies and personalities, and Montgomery manages to tie all of that together in a brisk, engaging narrative flow.

Though not the most extensive or detailed treatment of the cryptic science of octopus neurobiology, Soul of an Octopus deserves all of its accolades for giving these misunderstood animals a dignity and individuality in prose usually reserved for our warm-blooded kin.  Diving into this world as an outsider and encountering these startlingly intelligent yet utterly alien critters, Montgomery emerged from the depths a changed woman, giving serious contemplation to her title as their individual personalities and high intelligence clashed so tragically with their short lives.  Though not ideal for the hard-nosed scientist, this finalist for the National Book Award gives much for anyone curious about the strange, surprising, and mystifying animals we share our planet with.