I think I know
which of my own taboos I will break next. Next time I fall in love - or, to be precise, develop a weird villain crush - the object of my affection will probably
be an idealist who likes to explain at length his plans to save the world.
Because, hitherto, I have not been able to see the point of this kind of bloke
at all. Clearly this is a barrier waiting to be broken down.
It is, by now, impossible to find any one common
denominator among all my villain crushes, except that they have been villains.
But there is one thing most of them share: supreme selfishness. If pushed, they
may perform a selfless act for someone they love (think of Soames, for
instance). But sacrificing themselves to a higher cause? Nope - never, and
quite right too. This down-to-earthness is one of the reasons I like villains
so much. They cut through the waffle - or sneer at it and parody it to great effect
- and concentrate on essential things. Like looking after number one.
Of course, there have been exceptions to the rule. Javert
and Bulstrode are both idealists, and Chauvelin's exertions to capture the
Scarlet Pimpernel are, at least at first, powered by his wish to be of service to the Revolution. But in each of these cases, what I've admired has been the
style and personality of these men rather than their beliefs. I don't believe
as fanatically in law and order as Javert (though anarchy certainly holds no
appeal for me, besides not having to work), and I don't think people should be
strong-armed into a grim and unmerciful kind of faith even by a scrumptious
banker like Bulstrode. As for the Reign of Terror, we-ell, I suppose it got of
hand just the teeniest bit. But no one could fault the way these gentlemen go
about their business, with cunning (Chauvelin), powerful efficiency (Bulstrode)
or just bare-faced panache (Javert).
The normal template for an idealist heartthrob in the world
of fiction is nothing like Javert and Co. anyway. One good example, which made
me think of the subject, is a character in the book I'm reading at the moment.
It's called Park Lane and
should be right up my street, as it has as its central characters a maid and
her young mistress in a rich London
household in the 1910s. An upstairs-downstairs perspective; balls; hard-to-find
eligible matches; handsome (if annoyingly blameless) footmen - I ought really
to be wild about it. Somehow, though, I'm not finding it as easy going as I'd
hoped, and this is largely because I can't really warm to the novel's two
heroines. They seem each in their own way very silly girls, and I find it hard
to care when they get into completely self-inflicted trouble. The upstairs
girl, Beatrice, is especially idiotic, more like a fourteen-year-old than a
twenty-one-year-old. Both girls are full of admiration for Michael
Campbell, the maid Grace's brother whom Beatrice encounters when attending a
suffragette rally.
Michael is a texbook idealistic revolutionary, and
describes his ideas of a new world order to anyone who cares to listen. He is
full of glowering resentment towards the upper classes, and far from being put
off by this, upper-class Beatrice thinks his rants are top hole. She even offers
to type his glittering opinions and to find a newspaper publisher who will print
them.
What is wrong with these women? Show me a
self-important numbskull droning on about the people's revolution (while not so
much deigning to wash up his own tea-cup, in most cases) and I'll show you a
flock of women sitting entranced at his feet. Whenever a surly rebel turns up
in a novel - or film or TV production for that matter - you can be sure one of
the female protagonists will be making a bee-line for him. And I don't get it. I
simply do not.
All right, perhaps it's partly, or even mostly, to do with
the fact that the grand ideas that these rebels tend to spout hold no appeal
for me. Also, I am a woman of the 20th century - we were taught to be wary of
Utopias which hinged on the mysterious disappearance of a considerable part of
the populace. The century's hard lessons weren't available to Beatrice, of
course, but still it's hard to sympathise with her starry-eyed acceptance of both
Michael's railings against her own kind and the violent actions planned by the
group of hard-line suffragettes she's joined. There is no excuse for
committing foul deeds in the name of creating a better world. If it demands
such things of you, how good can it be?
And so I throw down my gauntlet to future villains. Make me care for a wild-eyed social reformer who commits his villanies for the good of humanity, and you will truly have achieved something new.
