notes from Hell...

Talk about a guilty conscience; what is with our culture, anyway? It seems that the new archetype with which we all identify is the thoroughly, but well-intentioned damned. Constantine, Hellboy, Blade and other such contemporary heroes brought to us via the hollywood charnel house exemplify this new ethic, after which we can style and thereby assuage our collective psyche in this age of Iraq, of willing blindness to decency and virtue (anyone listening, red-states?), of Enron and the hundreds of identical corporations, elbow-deep in the cookie jar who have yet to be caught...

The appeal of this character is undeniable -- his sins are unforgivable; for him there can be no redemption, so any behavior is acceptable. Yet, black as it may seem, this character's heart still beats the occasional humane chord -- when the chips are down, we can count on him to do the right thing, in the good old American way (and not incidentally, win that heretofore impossible redemption in the third act).

The man in the white hat is dead... look in the mirror and say hello (again) to that oh-so appealing man in black.