The Urge to Act

Birdman and the Politics of Despair

Birdman (2014)

This isn’t what I originally intended to write—I’ll do that another time—but the recent news that the Heritage Foundation will be hosting Viktor Orbán for a meeting on how to cut off aid to Ukraine has unfortunately compelled me to change topics. It is yet another step towards autocracy from the intellectual conservative class in the United States.

Now, this is not the first time Viktor Orbán has been a featured guest of the American Right as some kind of hero of the “anti-woke” crusade. His lionization is often idealized as a sort of Mussoliniesque figure that has turned Hungary into some imagined national conservative paradise.

This is, however, the first time I can recall that an American think tank has brought an autocrat to a secret meeting with GOP congressmen to strategize on how to cut off aid to a democratic country under attack. Even in the most amoral episodes of American foreign policy something like this stands out as rather egregious behavior from a supposedly leading American think tank.

I’ve written before about the pull of autocracy from political parties that face an almost certain long-term structural decline in terms of having a viable electoral path to power. I also don’t think I’ve been particularly unclear about where I see the current long-term trajectory of the current iteration of American conservative politics.

I won’t rehash all of my views on that here except to note that I stand behind my belief that one of the leading indications of a turn to autocratic politics is an overwhelming sense of despair experienced by a political group in the face of what is perceived as an irreversible loss of power. It is sufficient that you get my central view as being contemporary autocratic turns being a sort of visceral recoil from a coming political irrelevance.

You might be asking yourself at this point, “What does any of this have to do with Michael Keaton, long tracking shots, and bisexual lighting?” Well, like I said, this isn’t what I originally intended to write about, but coincidentally I think the central conflict of Michael Keaton’s character (Riggan Thompson) does well to illustrate the psychological impulse at the heart of autocracy.

If you haven’t seen Birdman yet—well you should go watch it—but in case you hate good films, Riggan Thompson is a washed-up superhero putting on a stage play as one last chance to cement his legacy. He is at his core someone who (like most of us) is consumed by the thought of if (and how) anyone will remember us after his death. We all want to have some assurance that what we’ve done will have any significance after our existence ends.

Riggan is primarily attempting to prove something about himself to others with his final play. He’s neurotically obsessed with his image following his death to the extent that his seeming concern is that if he died in a plane crash it would be George Clooney on the front of a newspaper instead of him.

Performing a serious adaption of a Raymond Carver play is his way of attempting to demonstrate his artistic integrity, that he isn’t just a superhero. I can’t say the modern GOP strikes me as pivoting to autocratic politics out of some desire to prove themselves as being sincere artists. However, Riggan’s central obsession—that he will be forgotten after his death—is quite similar to what I think drives would-be autocrats.

The egocentric and insecure Riggan rewrites Raymond Carver to give himself the best lines, domineers his manager, micromanages his daughter, and entertains delusions of returning to the global superstar he once was. It is born of a place where if he was only given enough control, he can assert the proper order and place of how this all should be.

The voice in Riggan’s head (personified as his younger superhero self) roars at him at one point, You save people from their boring, miserable lives…They love blood. They love action. Not this talky, depressing, philosophical bullshit…You'll glimmer on thousands of screens around the globe. Another blockbuster. You are a god…Gravity doesn’t even apply to you.

It would be Riggan’s face on that newspaper instead of George Clooney if only he just listened to that voice screaming at him to do what he knows he should do. It would all just work, and everyone would realize how wrong they were if Riggan just had his way.

It’s the same inner voice of a man like Viktor Orbán or Kevin Roberts that tells them, I know what they want even if they don’t. While I imagine their inner voices are probably a bit less on the nose, it’s the worst form of paternalism that says I will make things be the way they should. No amount of trading one’s principles, or disregarding the will of the people matters when things are made right.

This is really at the core of what goes on when Heritage arranges for an autocrat to strategize in secret with GOP representatives. The people are wrong, and they don’t know what they should be doing. They’ve been allowed to fuck things up long enough, so now we have to ensure things turn out all right. In this case, it’s about more than just Ukraine, but that democracy for decades has destroyed the West itself. It’s more incidental than anything that aid to Ukraine has managed to be the cover for what they want. I suppose in the same way Riggan putting on a Broadway show is a cover for his actual concern for his mortality.

We need to take control and put it back to how it should be. It is the sort of politics that can only emerge when you see the end coming on, a sort of last desperate grab at setting things in order. Heritage planning to restructure the American government with right-wing radicals and Riggan rewriting Raymond Carver is only different in Riggan has much less power than Kevin Roberts.

However, Riggan’s daughter (Sam) does at one point lay out the heart of Riggan’s motivation while screaming at him (and the audience), you're doing this because you're scared to death, like the rest of us, that you don't matter. She as a recovering drug addict (kind of) serves as his foil with a more sanguine approach towards mortality, and our ultimate fate in the world.

As we age and approach our deaths, it is only proper that we accept those who come after us will be different. They have norms and habits that we won’t particularly understand, but there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. She represents the more Shakespearean notion that like good actors we ought to gracefully bow out from the stage when we’ve reached our end.

Political parties when they’re healthy do much the same, they accept that the times change and they adapt alongside the changes. They reflect the people that they serve.

When they don’t? Then start becoming Carl Schmitt, and look for a dictator who can rewrite the course of history and set the script back to what it should have been.