SMACKDOWN BY THE LORD MAGE OF GOOD: Christopher Badeaux gets on my case (he’s in bold, I’m in plain text): You’re sorta wrong. I mean that with all due respect.

Specifically, you’re wrong about Star Wars, although I have to admit, the “prequels” are killing me. You’ve had a university education, so I don’t need to throw all of the Joseph Campbell stuff at you, and anyway, I’ve always found that the weakest reason to enjoy the

Star Wars films.

First, they’re some of the most Christian/conservative pop culture out there – there is an absolute Good, there is an absolute Evil, they’re in conflict, Evil isn’t misunderstood, it just bombs at midnight, and, most importantly, there’s always the potential for

redemption. Redemption only comes with a massive sacrifice; it doesn’t appear just because Vader feels like it. Obi-Wan’s obfuscation (“everything is true, from a certain point of view”) brings the hero to the edge of disaster. The moral certitudes are worth

fighting for. And so on, without dangling prepositions.

Second, the acting may bite sometimes, the script could use the odd chainsaw, and so on, but even so, people watched those movies, and still watch them. There’s a primal attraction (I know, Campbell territory here, bear with me) in identifying with the

Everyman who becomes the Superman – and those films catalyze it, and make you feel for the characters, to the point where you feel like you know them personally. A more visceral reason than the first, I grant you, but still worth thinking about.

Next: You’re really, really wrong about Braveheart.

If the point of art is to inspire – and Auden’s depression and postmodernism notwithstanding, I say it is – Braveheart is art, and powerful art at that. It has the power to make Marines cry (yes, I’ve seen it happen) in the scene where Wallace’s wife is murdered at the stake. It has the sheer force to grab an audience and make them want revenge, and to revel in justice done.

Yes, the film’s Wallace was hardly perfect, and it kinda irked me that he played around with Sophie Marceau (mostly because it wasn’t I who was playing with Ms. Marceau). But, first, for pathos, full-throated adrenaline, antique honor, truth, bravery, and all around throat-choking passion (of every sort), that movie can’t be beat (and if it can, it’s only by Excalibur or maybe Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). Second, the “silly, nasty screaming-queen caricature of the prince” has, in fact, some basis in history. Eddie II and his

absolutely flaming displays were tolerated by the nobles until they, and his policies, became an excess. It’s not that he wasn’t, in fact, a member of the Mustache Parade; that’s not historically really up for grabs. Let’s be honest: It was pretty well understood,

especially in light of how much of a dropoff from his father he was (the scene where Longshanks berates his son for letting things fall apart while he, Ed I, is off securing French holdings, has a lot of historical foreshadowing going for it), that he was the drum major for the Parade, and he was letting it affect his rule. And his wife made no bones about why she ran off to France with their (and the paternity is up for debate here) son, Eddie Trois. So the film played it up a bit; the historical nuggets at work are more historical boulders, really. (Most of the foregoing remains open to a mea culpa if my English history isn’t as good as I think it is.) If your problem is the Eddie II was portrayed as a stereotype, I’d argue, at least from what I remember, that his reign was the realization of that stereotype.

My reply: Thanks–here’s my take. First, I’ll partly concede the Edward II stuff (I need to re-watch Derek Jarman’s weird take on the Marlowe play about him–I recall DJ’s movie as being startlingly good), but it was presented in such a frat-boy manner that it just

seemed like an opportunity to laugh at the silly faggot. But you’re right, it is based on history. And I also defer to your judgment on the moral character of Star Wars–I’ve got no beef with its “message,” just w/presentation.

In general, I think our disagreements may boil down to one word: sentiment. I find both Star Wars and Braveheart sentimental to the point of nausea–emotionally manipulative, brutal (Braveheart, not SW–there’s an excellent George Orwell essay, maybe “England Your England,” that links sentimentality and brutality in a way that I think is 100% appropriate for modern-day America), and cheap.

It’s totally possible, of course, that millions of Americans are right and I’m wrong, for the reasons you state. For the moment though, all I can say is that 20 years is not long enough for me to take the “its popularity shows that it appeals to something vital in our natures!” line.

His reply: Two small points:

First, in all honesty (and some humility) Edward II’s presentation never struck me as “laugh at the silly faggot,” because, well, geek that I am, I never liked him in the first place (as a king, he was a heck of a letdown from ol’ Da’; more importantly, the girl I’d been seeing for a little while, a while before the movie came out, once said something nice about him – nuff said). As a rule of thumb, if he’s an English King named Edward, I didn’t like him. Same goes for half of the Henrys. (Interesting side note: Is it ok to laugh at Nathan Lane’s presentation in The Bird Cage, but not this?) I, um, didn’t laugh at him, until the very end, and that was because he was having

comeuppance. Now that you mention it, though, I’m a little ashamed, for not seeing it at the very least (and for laughing, a little).

Second, I never bought into Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, for a whole host of, well, reasons, so take this with a grain of salt: I don’t see what’s so terribly wrong with sentiment. Should art – high or low – only inspire the animus, not the anima? Should you never have your feelings brutally attacked by film or literature, but instead live in a comfortable insulation of pure reason? If I’m going overboard –

and I may very well be – let me tone it back a bit and ask: How much is too much sentiment? How much is enough? Does it depend on the situation? Does art lose its value once it invokes too much sentiment?

(To that, all I can say is that I was using a more rough-and-ready definition of sentiment–less Kant, more Hallmark–which may clear things up. Or not….)