It takes a villain

I WEAR THE BLACK HAT

By Chuck Klosterman

200 pages, Scribner Books

Chuck Klosterman can no longer hate Coldplay. One of his more amusing rants, in days gone by, was about the song Yellow, and how all singer Chris Martin had to do was observe that stars were, in fact, yellow to project a sense of “fake love,” and how unfair that was to people struggling in real relationships. “How am I going to compete with that sh*t? That sleepy-eyed bozo isn’t even making sense. He’s just pouring fabricated emotions over four gloomy guitar chords.”

But no more. Coldplay — along with Blur, the Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, R.E.M. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers — are off his hate list. He’s older now, and can no longer generate enough genuine enthusiasm to hate Coldplay. Because, even though he realizes he should hate the Eagles and Coldplay on a philosophical level, he can’t deny that he no longer hates their music. “Once you realize you can’t control how you feel, it’s impossible to believe any of your own opinions.”

Which is a pity. Because Klosterman operates best when he has a proper villain to bash. But in I Wear the Black Hat, the music critic turned social commentator turned novelist strives to let go of his hate. In a series of essays, he examines why some people are considered evil, and why some even choose to be that way. He’s also considering the question of whether he, himself, tries to be a villain. He’s like the Malcolm Gladwell of pop culture, delving into historical case studies, though his main areas of concern are music, sports, politics, himself, and why we view people as good or bad.

The term he favors is “villain.” The image that comes to mind is the black-hatted, moustache-twirling guy in a cape who ties a woman to the railroad tracks. It’s someone who knows how to do the right thing, but just prefers being bad. Someone like Nicolas Cage, maybe. Or someone who, in Chuck’s formulation, “knows the most, but cares the least.” This, surely, is what the documentary Inside Job was all about: people who manipulated funds on Wall Street, took all the money, watched thousands lose their homes and fortunes and the economy tank, and created their own golden parachutes to escape the law. They knew the most, but didn’t care at all. They were truly evil.

But Klosterman doesn’t go there, possibly because he doesn’t think the Wall Street plunderers were truly evil, or possibly because he doesn’t want to bore young, easily bored readers with financial data. Instead, he prefers to focus on Purple Rain. In the movie Purple Rain, we’re supposed to see Morris Day, Prince’s rival, as a villain: he steals Prince’s girl (Appolonia) and messes up his career. Yet Day has a lot of style and confidence. And that goes a long way toward forgiving someone’s trespasses.

Another loveable villain was D.W. Cooper, an engaging hijacker from the early ‘70s who parachuted out of a commercial plane with $200,000 in stolen cash, yet is somehow “universally beloved.” Possibly because he was never found, so an urban myth arose about Cooper’s daring exploits and escape. Klosterman points out the idea of a “beloved” hijacker could never happen after 9/11, and it’s true.

But does being charming, rakish, confident and attractive really make us excuse evil?

This is apparently Klosterman’s central thesis. Someone like Bill Clinton was largely forgiven by the American public over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Yet arguably, among the characters in the scandal, he was the one who “knew the most, but cared the least.” He was the president, knew right from wrong, and was more experienced than his young intern. Yet he chose to receive sexual favors, cut off the affair unceremoniously, and then lie about it. So in Chuck’s estimation, that makes him the villain. Yet he is still widely beloved.

It’s a weird phenomenon, but it does happen. Others are not so lucky. O.J. Simpson had everything going for him, including a great career and personal attractiveness. Yet not even killing his wife and her lover (as Klosterman firmly believes O.J. did) was the thing that forever consigned him to the “villain” category; it was writing about it in a memoir titled If I Did It. By reminding the public of the trial and controversy, by trying to talk his way out of it, he came off as self-absorbed and callous. Exhibiting hubris, in Klosterman’s view, seems to be more heinous in the realm of public opinion than decapitating two innocent people.

I don’t know if I agree. The author is dealing with some very intangible material here: charisma and appeal, and how much that weighs in public opinion. Part of Klosterman’s job is to assess and “speak” for the general public, the zeitgeist. This is what columnists and pop culture vultures try to do. It’s easy to disagree with Klosterman on several matters, but he’s definitely raising some of the right questions.

Each chapter serves up a dichotomy, sometimes a trichotomy. We are invited to compare Batman with Bernhard Goetz, the New Yorker who shot three African-American youths point blank because they asked him for money on a subway ride. Who was more evil? Well, since Batman is a fictional character, that’s a no-brainer. Though Goetz was at first praised for his vigilantism, his tendency to give interviews made him seem like a dangerous whacko. And this made him less likable, and therefore more of a villain.

I’m not sure how this logic holds up. By this way of thinking, Hitler would not be considered a villain because people did apparently find him charismatic (at least for a while). By Klosterman’s logic, if he had been a boring speaker, or had bad breath, he would be considered more evil. It’s a dangerous trend of thought to follow.

I Wear the Black Hat rambles wherever it likes, and this is usually entertaining. If it were a college thesis, it would never pass a committee; but as pop culture navel-gazing, it’s pretty readable stuff.

How can you fault a writer who shifts from Compton rap pioneers N.W.A. to LA Raiders coach Al Davis without missing a beat? The problem with N.W.A. is they were consciously portraying themselves as villains. It couldn’t hold up. “Everything they attempted had to possess criminal undertones, because that was central to their image,” Chuck writes. “I can only assume that they spent hours trying to deduce villainous ways to microwave popcorn (and if they succeeded, there would absolutely be a song about it, assumedly titled ’Pop Goes the Corn Killa’ or ‘45 Seconds to Bitch Snack’).”

The list of subjects here is tantalizing — Lars von Trier, Perez Hilton, Sarah Palin, Aleister Crowley, Sharon Stone, Walter White. Klosterman makes little distinction between fictional characters and real people: they all pass before our eyes for judgment, or at least Chuck’s eyes, and are consigned to the “naughty” or “nice” pile based on our perceptions.

Ultimately, it’s a simplistic view of things (i.e. morality). Perhaps because Klosterman is, as he describes himself, “strange looking,” he tends to notice a basic inequality in the way judgment is handed out to the not strange looking. In other words, those who are attractive, who possess verve and confidence, and (very importantly) act a little humble can get away with quite a lot, can get away with BJs in the Oval Office and even, as he believes, double homicide.

Yet there’s another dimension to this that perhaps Klosterman overlooks, one voiced by the character of Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley: “No one thinks they’re a bad person.” It explains so much. It explains the Marcoses, and the people who shoot schoolchildren or set off bombs during the Boston Marathon. It explains the blind spots that allow people to do what they do — not choosing evil consciously, but basically evading their own worst judgment of themselves. So, in the real world, it’s up to us to do the judging. To decide right from wrong, without the filters of pop culture consciousness.