Word: villian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Delicious. The perfect scene, the perfect villian, the perfect setting for some first-rate Sherlock Holmes sleuthing...
...hearing was going on, that Harvard was lying again, that, essentially, here was another case of the people who were supposed to have the answers not having them. As it turned out, they were wrong--the hearing had been postponed. Harvard, being liberal, doesn't make an easy villian...
...agglomeration of institutions. New York bankers and officials are "desperate," but the people will not be "stampeded" by them. If Ford's attack on the banks is wholly inconsistent with his politics, it is his only recourse within the rules of this game; he has to use a villian, however implausible, to separate the people from the problem...
...something less two dimensional than the flip side of a coin. For this day and age, Vidal's attempt constitutes a rehabilitation of Burr. No one tries to write Parson Weems-type historical fiction anymore: larger-than-life heroes like Washington are no longer very appealing. To turn a villian into a hero of today's world-historical audience, the modern technique involves showing the basic humanity of the culprit while simultaneously debunking the old heroes. So Vidal's Burr endlessly derides Jefferson for his hypocritical dishonesty, Washington for his sanctimonious self-righteousness, Hamilton for his arrogant aristocratic-leanings...
...what of the villian, AP&L? A spokesman for the utility shrugged off the statement that the plant is "the largest single source of pollution in the world." "By the time this plant is built," he said, "that statement will no longer be true." The sad thing is, he will probably be right...