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A review by greebytime
I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains by Chuck Klosterman
4.0
I'm a big Chuck Klosterman fan, from SPIN to many of his books on pop culture. He's started writing novels to (in my opinion) mixed success ... so I was glad when I saw that he's releasing a new book of essays. It comes out in July but I was able to get a galley copy, which I eagerly gobbled up over the Memorial Day weekend.
I Wear the Black Hat is an analysis of villains - real and imagined. From Darth Vader to N.W.A. to, of course, Adolf Hitler (his essay is mostly about how he HAS to write about Hitler and knows he can't do it without it becoming a disaster, which is the only part he gets wrong), Klosterman shows us why we as a culture have grown to LOVE the villain, instead of root against him. I wasn't completely convinced - and then, I thought about the recent blog post I had about my favorite shows of all time - and at least half of them feature a main character (or characters) who were seriously flawed, downright evil or just objectively, not good guys. We are fascinated by falls from grace, we root for Tony Soprano, Omar Kelly and Walter White as much as or MORE than we ever rooted for typical protagonists. The "anti-hero" is perhaps the most common role in most movies, TV shows and art these days.
Klosterman also has a not particularly unique insight into the role that good looks play in our culture (after describing his own looks as "weird"), something that is no doubt true and though it is somewhat well-trodden ground, he does add his usual spin on things. I particularly liked his essay about Bill Clinton*, in which he outlines all the players in the Lewinsky scandal and notes that after all of this, Bill Clinton (who, objectively, did some really villainous things) came out not particularly damaged. In fact, his popularity among women is about 66%. (*Figuring out Chuck Klosterman's politics has long been very tough - he's clearly NOT a partisan hack, and leans both ways on certain issues. In todays world, that's worth noting whenever politics get involved.)
I Wear the Black Hat is a return to form for Klosterman, and will be enjoyable for any fan of his, or even a casual fan interested in the subject matter. As Klosterman says, that's pretty much all of us.
I Wear the Black Hat is an analysis of villains - real and imagined. From Darth Vader to N.W.A. to, of course, Adolf Hitler (his essay is mostly about how he HAS to write about Hitler and knows he can't do it without it becoming a disaster, which is the only part he gets wrong), Klosterman shows us why we as a culture have grown to LOVE the villain, instead of root against him. I wasn't completely convinced - and then, I thought about the recent blog post I had about my favorite shows of all time - and at least half of them feature a main character (or characters) who were seriously flawed, downright evil or just objectively, not good guys. We are fascinated by falls from grace, we root for Tony Soprano, Omar Kelly and Walter White as much as or MORE than we ever rooted for typical protagonists. The "anti-hero" is perhaps the most common role in most movies, TV shows and art these days.
Klosterman also has a not particularly unique insight into the role that good looks play in our culture (after describing his own looks as "weird"), something that is no doubt true and though it is somewhat well-trodden ground, he does add his usual spin on things. I particularly liked his essay about Bill Clinton*, in which he outlines all the players in the Lewinsky scandal and notes that after all of this, Bill Clinton (who, objectively, did some really villainous things) came out not particularly damaged. In fact, his popularity among women is about 66%. (*Figuring out Chuck Klosterman's politics has long been very tough - he's clearly NOT a partisan hack, and leans both ways on certain issues. In todays world, that's worth noting whenever politics get involved.)
I Wear the Black Hat is a return to form for Klosterman, and will be enjoyable for any fan of his, or even a casual fan interested in the subject matter. As Klosterman says, that's pretty much all of us.