Of heroes and villains

How are heroes made? Does heroism come as an inborn gift from time of birth? Is it something one inculcate growing up? Or is it something that is sheerly manufactured and with continuous assault on the senses, forcing people to accept? You might’ve got the drift behind this post with the last question. 

If you tell the same lie enough number of times, people will believe it. Bigger the lie, the better. This is a quote from Dark knight, the second movie of the Batman trilogy by Christopher Nolan. If at all there was one movie, where the villain made absolute sense and scaringly true, that was the one. Ironically, the actor who played that role, breathed his last after such a monumental performance. May be it was fate or destiny that he never lived to act on any other movie and sully the ever lasting image, he burnt on the minds of every movie watcher, who wasn’t just thrilled by his performance, but were actually rooting for him. Of course, as a thumb rule good always triumphs evil and vast majority will always want this rule to remain true. But such was the performance and the dialogues (the dialogue writer deserves a permanent place in the eternal hall of fame of quotable quotes) that, people hardly remembered what Batman did to save that city, but the destruction and chaos caused by Joker, the villain, remains the talking point, several years after the movie release. The dark side never looked so enticing and charming (if that is the right word) as portrayed by the joker. In fact, he may be the proverbial snake that lured the first couple to try the poisonous apple in his previous birth. Such is the control wielded by him that, chaos/anarchy would’ve fast replaced the so called social order, which were torn to tatters by the absolute philosophy of joker. Boringly and luckily, Batman prevails in the end and restores the original order, making the life monotonous as before. But how much ever he might’ve tried, the lasting impact of Joker, leads to several other villains creep up from the dark hole of evil, keeping Batman busy.

I’ve seen a remote parallel in real life on Rajini. It may be blasphemy and considered sacrilege by many a people to equate the evergreen superstar with the most famous villain on screen, ever. But the parallels that I try to note are, how I’ve witnessed his growth from my childhood days to present and how his fame grew to became what he is today. As a kid, I was rarely allowed to watch movies, leave alone go to theaters. I knew of a couple of kids,who grew up on a household that was 360 degree different from mine, where they watched every new release on theaters along with their mom. For their dad had taken a vow not to watch new movies in theater after the death of his matinee idol MGR. They were fans of Rajini especially and used to keep his hairstyle. Note that, during my school days, keeping a centre partitioned hair style was considered as rouge-ish by teachers and such kids were seen as “poriki” pasanga. It may sound crude to use that term now, but fact of the matter was, just like the “pullingo" hairstyle nowadays, the center partitioned ones were equally, if not more, criticized. The way rajini dressed on screen and all his mannerisms were possibly picked by these kids as a way of rebelling against their parents and society, would be a mature way of looking at it now. But the continuous brain washing that doing rajini style was the “cool” thing then and the more it irked your parents and relatives, the more fanatical it became. Cut to couple of decades later, where there are more than a bunch of clones who compete with the actor by not just mimicking his style, but his stories as well. The same crowd of kids, who grew up watching Rajini and his style, start to tease and mock at those generation who do the same and possibly more fanatical idol worship of the clone actors. When Rajini dilly dallied with politics, the erstwhile fanatical kid, starts addressing him as “thalaiva” and anoints him as not just their leader, but of everyone else as well. Friends and kin who refused to budge to their sudden change were criticized and even ostracized. When he backtracked from politics, a major portion of the group gets disillusioned, seeing their dreams of making a real time “Mudhalvan” story of their hero shattered and starts to move away from the matinee idol, blaming him for misleading them. The person was same but The viewpoint of his fairweather fans changed. The clone group, meanwhile, has spawned many other vicious versions, that question the very sense of the society’s fabric across all levels. The pullingo hairstyle has even found backing in the society under the same rebel clause!! The role, media played in creating the hysteria around all this is a different topic altogether. There is still an ending that is awaited, where another hero (batman) is awaited who can claim all the disparate groups and unite them under a single faction, which would bring this loop to a logical conclusion.

Like the proverbial “what came first- egg or chicken” there is always a debate as to which influences what – whether it’s the society or the movies. Irrespective of the result, if at all any, to quote another famous one from the  Dark knight movie - You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.