Since its rediscovery during the
Italian Renaissance, Aristotle’s Poetics
has been an essential text for dramatists and critics. In it, Aristotle lays out his theory of
tragedy and dramatic structure. He gives
us terms still in common usage among any would-be David Mamet scribbling
through Playwrighting 101 such as katharsis and mimesis. He is the first to write about the importance
of having a beginning, middle, and end. However,
in the twenty-three hundred years since Aristotle put stylus to papyrus much
has changed. Narrative has evolved and
while much of the Poetics still
applies, it can not be regarded as any more infallible than a Kitty Kelly
biography. Aristotle’s theories have
been ignored and rebelled against. The
result was sometimes brilliant, and sometimes barbaric. For today’s advanced
consumers of narrative and the writers who write for them it is worth
considering how much of Aristotle still applies today. Our lens for this examination will be
Aristotle’s exhortation that the true poet will depict a hero of good character
and Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.
Dr. Horrible is a musical
tragicomedy about Dr. Horrible, a less than perfect mad scientist and applicant
to the Evil League of Evil. Dr. Horrible
needs to pull off a big heist to impress the chairman of the ELE , Bad Horse, the Thoroughbred of Sin, but he’s
foiled at every turn by his nemesis Captain Hammer. He’s also crushing hard on Penny, an advocate
for the homeless who goes to the same laundromat as Dr. Horrible. Dr. Horrible sings about how he’s planning on
giving Australia
to her when he finally conquers the world and Bad Horse’s missives are always
sung by a three-part Western chorus.
Despite all the jokes and songs, Dr.
Horrible fits into Aristotle’s vision of tragedy and can be turned around to
gauge the utility of Aristotle this late in history.
Dr. Horrible slides into Aristotle’s
theory of tragedy as easily as a bikini model into a swimming pool filled with
vaseline. Aristotle defines tragedy as
“a representation of an action which is serious, complete, and of a certain
magnitude… and through the arousal of pity and fear effecting the katharsis of such emotions.”[1] On this last point Aristotle goes on to add
that because tragedy represents “events which are fearful and pitiful, this can
best be achieved when things occur contrary to expectation yet still on account
of one another.”[2]
By
dissecting the plot of Dr. Horrible we
can see how its plot conforms to Aristotle’s vision. Dr. Horrible needs to murder someone to
clinch his position in the Evil League of Evil, and decides on Captain Hammer,
Horrible’s much despised heroic nemesis.
In addition to foiling Horrible at every turn, Hammer has recently taken
up with Horrible’s secret flame, Penny.
At the unveiling of a statue honoring Captain Hammer for his recent
homeless advocacy, Dr. Horrible shoots Hammer with his Freeze Ray, paralyzing
him and giving Dr. Horrible a chance to terrify the assembled guests in song. He fails to see his longed-for Penny hiding
in the back of the room. Unfortunately,
the Freeze Ray powers down before Horrible can blast Captain Hammer into
sashimi with his Death Ray. Captain
Hammer knocks Dr. Horrible to the ground and takes his Death Ray away from
him. Captain Hammer points the Death Ray
at Dr. Horrible’s head and pulls the trigger, but the weapon backfires and
explodes, leaving Captain Hammer on the ground whinnying in agony and Penny
wheezing her last with shards of Horrible’s own Death Ray protruding from her
vital organs. Having defeated his enemy
and committed a murder, Dr. Horrible is welcomed into the ELE with open hooves though he finds no joy in his
success coming as it does on the slaughter of his beloved.
Dr. Horrible’s ending occurs contrary to expectation but on
account of previous events, exactly as Aristotle would recommend, and katharsis
is the result. Since Dr. Horrible is the
protagonist and protagonists more often than not come out on top, the viewer
expects that Dr. Horrible will somehow end up with Penny, but probably not defeat
Captain Hammer and gain entry to the Evil League of Evil. The viewer hopes that Horrible will somehow
transmogrify into a hero and be worthy of Penny’s love. Instead the opposite occurs, but not due to
randomness. The ending precedes perfectly from what came before it, yet
produced a surprising result, as Aristotle said the skillful writer should do.
One crucial piece
of character that guarantees a tragic ending is that Dr. Horrible is about as
successful at being a mad scientist as BP is at plugging oil wells. Throughout the story, Dr. Horrible’s
inventions are depicted going awry. His
matter transporter can take gold out of Fort Knox, yet when the gold arrives in
his lab there’s nothing left of the gold but soupy carbon. “The atoms shift during transport,” Dr.
Horrible explains. In its first
incarnation his Freeze Ray takes a few seconds to warm up, giving Captain Hammer
time to throw a car at Horrible’s head.
No one is surprised that his Freeze Ray only paralyzes Captain Hammer
long enough for Dr. Horrible to sing a song, or that his Death Ray
explodes. If Dr. Horrible really does
have a PhD in Horribleness, he must have got it at night school.
Dr. Horrible’s
incompetence leads the viewer to believe his plan to defeat Captain Hammer will
fail, yet the outcome of these events is exactly contrary to expectation, as
Aristotle recommends. Because the poorly
constructed Death Ray backfires, Captain Hammer is defeated and innocent
bystander Penny is murdered. We are left
to watch Dr. Horrible comfort his beloved as she dies, her last whispered words
“Captain Hammer will save us,” echoing in his ears. This loss leaves the audience feeling the
fear and pity that define katharsis and put Dr.
Horrible in the camp of tragedy.
Dr. Horrible arrives at this tragic
conclusion despite violating numerous Aristotelean rules on the way. One of the most important rules Aristotle
lays down for tragedy is that “wicked men should not be shown passing from
affliction to prosperity, for this is the most untragic of all possible cases
and is entirely defective (it is neither moving nor pitiful nor fearful.)”[3] Dr.
Horrible does exactly what Aristotle says a writer should not do but still succeeds as a tragedy. Aristotle goes on to state that the most
important aim of the tragedian in composing characters is “that the characters
be good.”[4] And it is worth considering Mr. Aristotle’s
point here.
Anne Frank was a
good girl murdered. The world did not treat
with her in justice, and we are all moved to pity. We reflect on how much less entitled to life
we are than Anne Frank, and feel fear knowing that it is only by happy accident
that we are alive and she is dead. I
myself am a 35 year-old sinner willing to confess myself less deserving of my
years than Anne Frank, yet I have them and she does not. This Anne Frank effect heightens katharsis,
and is the reason that Aristotle recommends that tragic characters be
good. Their goodness, like Job’s,
reminds us that their fate is not punishment, and that the greatest of evils
may befall the best of us.
Dr. Horrible is
funny. Witty. The kind of guy you’d like to play ping-pong
with at a keg party. But Dr. Horrible is
not good. He is an evil wanna-be. He looks up to villains, and despite his
charm and humor, Dr. Horrible’s politics can at best be described as fascist. “The world is so messed up and I just want to
rule it,” Dr. Horrible muses in one blog entry.
Later he tells us that his “wish is [our] command.” All of this grandiose talk is tempered by the
occasional talk of “social change” but the audience is never let in on what
this means. Is Dr. Horrible’s vision of
social change more Harry Reed or Joe Stalin?
At his best, Dr. Horrible is a vandal.
At his worst, he is a megalomaniacal traitor bent on world domination. Yet we are not left disgusted or morally
outraged by the passage of Dr. Horrible from rooming with a henchman named
Moist to being a member in good standing of the Evil League of Evil. Instead, we feel pity for the loss of his lady
love.
Dr. Horrible succeeds as a tragedy
despite the evil of its protagonist.
Why? Audiences have changed. For two millennia since Aristotle wrote,
artists and writers have been using the Anne Frank effect to heighten katharsis
and improve on their works. Righteous heroes
have been “more sinned against than sinning”[5]
for so long that we are all sick to death of them. Hamlet would have been a good king had he but
lived. Reverend Dimmesdale dies after
his confession. The rise of the
anti-hero in the 20th century is like downing a shot of white
lightning after centuries of having no beverage more thrilling than hot
milk. Audiences are willing to endure
the amorality of these new protagonists because of the arresting novelty they
offer.
Another
explanation of this shift in attitudes was hinted at by Mr. Aristotle
himself. In addition to good, characters
must “be appropriate. For it is possible to have a woman manly in
character, but it is not appropriate for a woman to be so manly or clever.”[6] Let us leave aside how Aristotle’s draconian
gender politics and focus on the artistic content of the statement. He is telling writers not to tax the
suspension of disbelief by creating improbable characters. Aristotle’s example is that women shouldn’t
be too smart or too strong, because who could believe that? A less troubling
example to prove the same point would be a character who is both a baby and a
genius. Such a character would be appropriate in a comedy, but in a tragedy it
would simply remind the audience that what they are seeing is false. Disbelief
would be taxed to the shatter point.
The modern
audience and Aristotle differ in opinion on the content of the human heart,
specifically concerning the possibility of goodness. We have all “supped full with horrors” for
the past hundred years. In school we are
taught the litany of atrocities that fill the last century. Knowing that men will kill children at the
behest of a superior, knowing that serial killers endeavor to feel closer to
their fellows by murdering and eating them, knowing that our government would
let cancer go untreated in the name of science, we can no longer believe in the
perfect goodness of a character. A
lily-white hero seems so improbable as to be inappropriate for a modern
audience.
The popularity of
Batman and sunset of Superman are here called to mind. The past twenty years have given us six
Batman films grossing a total of over $2.5 billion over the last twenty years.
Batman is dark, gritty, human and inhabits a world of impossible choices with
imperfect results. People see in Gotham City a reflection of our own world. The first Superman film of the 21st
century failed to even to spawn a sequel. The second, Man of Steel was successful, but to give the sequel to that film
extra juice, rumors are flying that Batman will be included. Superman seems impossibly good, so good that
with every virtuous act he reminds the audience of his own artificiality. Where was Superman on 9/11?
Troglodyte Batman
is a hero we are all comfortable with.
Deeply flawed, permanently damaged, feeling every blow that a villain
lands on him, and despite all his imperfections and the harshness of the world,
the Caped Crusader eeks out some small benefits for society. But Batman cannot be in two places at once,
and because of that people die. Aristotle
recommends a writer write a tragic hero who is as inappropriate today as
Superman. A tragic hero like Dr.
Horrible is one we are all willing to believe in. Perhaps we get the heroes we deserve.
Aristotle’s Poetics was written hundreds of years
before the birth of Christ. The gulf of
time between its creation and application by a writer this late in history cannot
be ignored. People have changed. Slavery, the basis of the ancient Athenian
economy, has all but disappeared from the world. Women, considered unworthy by the ancient
Greeks of any role in society, are now rulers of nations. As modern democracies ignore these specifics
of the Greek political model, so should the artist carefully consider the
exhortations of Aristotle. Yes, a story
should have a beginning, middle, and end, but audiences have also seen stories
with a three act structure so often the beats of the arc have become
predictable. Aristotle’s theory is an
excellent framework, but the judicious writer will be cautious in the slavish
application of Aristotle because audiences have different expectations than
their ancient Greek counterparts did. Aristotle could not have imagined the
world as it is, so the artist must be thoughtful in applying his guidelines.
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