The Everyman Myth

I watched The Assassination of Richard Nixon this morning. Probably best mention now that there are spoilers ahead.

For those of you who don't know the film, it is the story of Samuel Byck. Byck was a funny sort of a chap to say the least - he appears to have had some sort of major breakdown and decided he would kill President Richard Nixon. His assassination method was very interesting in this day and age - he decided he would hi-jack a plane and crash it into the White House. The echoes of 9/11 are obvious and perhaps the most unsettling part of the film and of Byck's story. However Byck was (thankfully) nowhere near as capable as the 9/11 hi-jackers and his decision to hi-jack the plane whilst still on the tarmac and by shooting both pilots meant his plan never really went anywhere. He was shot by the police through the airplane door and, critically injured, he turned his gun on himself. He had managed to murder both a policeman and an airline pilot (the other pilot survived) but things could have been far worse.

And so what to make of Byck? A sad loser, probably blighted by mental illness, sure - but he is not really worthy of much sympathy at all. Thousands, if not millions of people, have suffered some setbacks in their lives and have also had to live with mental illness. They have not decided to kill a President, and they have not murdered other people. It is tempting to see Byck as a product of a broken society, forced into his depserate actions because society left him behind. But bollocks to that - the same thing happens to others. The defining moment of Byck's life was his aborted killing spree, not the problems and losses that drove him to that moment.

Which is my problem with the film. Whilst is well directed and certainly very well acted it had an unpleasant undertone of sympathy for Bicke (as it is spelt in the film). The film presents him as someone fighting against the tide of life - left behind by a wife who let's him know that it is finally over through a divorce decree; bullied by his boorish boss (a boorish bully in a sales manager job? *crazy*) and through the government refusing to give him money for his frankly really rather amateurish business plan. The film makes constant references to him being the small man, to him being dis-enfranchised, and the tag line of the film is "The Mad Story of a True Man." We are meant to feel some sympathy for Bicke as he is pushed into becoming the kind of madman who would try to steal an aircraft to kill the President. But for me there is no difference between Bicke and other spree killers or random would be assassins. No matter how terrible or crappy his life was, he still had a choice. And by chosing to kill, he a terrible and wrong choice.

You can watch the film and come away feeling a sympathy for Byck/Bicke as he loses his grip on reality. He is a hard man in the film to truly dislike. But the people really deserving of sympathy in the film and in real life at those who turned up to work one day and ended up being murdered. It is telling that they play next no part in the film, other than being targets for Bicke's rage.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon perpetuates what I would call the everyman theory of spree killing. Like Falling Down before it, it suggests that anyone could snap and kill given the right provocation. That may be the case, but those who do are not typical and there is no causal link between society being a tough and occasionally shitty place to live in and people who explode and do something stupid. The real everyman (and everywoman) is the person who gets on with life. The real everymen in Byck's/Bicke's story were his victims, and it is a shame that Hollywood couldn't celebrate them rather than an unhinged killer.