Pynchonesque/Clintonesque? (was Betrayal from above)

[MASCARO at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU]

Hey you desperadoes--happy new ears and all.

Re: davemarc's comment on charismatic rogues, I point you to
an interesting 1985 book by Robert Ray titled
__A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema__ where
he outlines what he calls the "thematic paradigm" of american hero worship.
Basically, and in accord w/ what's been said, Ray points to the polarity
between "official" heroes (George Washington, Jimmy Stewart [hey, who
needs to distinguish between fact and fiction anyway?]) and "oulaw"
heroes like Butch Cassidy or Jesse James or Big Bad Bill (though I personally
don't see anything very heroic about him besides that heroic appetitie).
Ray quotes Erik Erikson: to the effect that the legacy of America leaves us bouncing 
between polarities and apt to embrace simultaneous conflicting "truths."

We like even our good guys to have a touch of the bad about them.  We honor the 
Washingtons and Jimmy Stewarts, but we get a little--moist--when confronted with
that temptingly sweet and risky complexity of the good bad boy.

johnny bad boy
********************************************
davemarc quoting someone named Roiphe:

>"Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  The superb New Encyclopedia of
>the American West (Yale University Press) notes that Cassidy was a rustler
>and robbed trains and banks.  His dashing colleague, the Sundance Kid, was
>also a gunslinging desperado, reportedly even more charismatic--as Ms.
>Roiphe might say--than Cassidy.