I will start off this piece with an apology first. Many
years ago, I had suffered an extremely unpleasant experience at a former
workplace, in particular with regards to an ex-colleague MK. After having endured
there after a year and upon leaving that place, whenever I recounted this past
experience to anyone, I had termed her mindset as that of schadenfreude, aka pleasure derived from my suffering.
Now in retrospect after my latest experience at another workplace, I truly
understood what schadenfreude meant. MK had indeed who
put me through agony but it was not schadenfreude, because now I realised
pleasure at witnessing my suffering was not her ultimate aim. Her ultimate aim
had been that of wanting to see me gone from that workplace and that is not
schadenfreude. She wanted pleasure from having me gone, not having me go
through misery. The suffering she had put me through was merely a tool in
itself. Turns out I’ve been maligning MK’s mindset for the past few years. What
then is schadenfreude? I’d think the best way to illustrate this would be using
two movies, namely Gladiator and Django Unchained. Of course the Hunger Games
trilogy movie is also a very good example to demonstrate this, but I think I’ll
reserve that for future use in exploring other topics instead. Alright, let us
begin with Gladiator.
The plot of Gladiator namely is about General Maximus’
betrayal at the hands of the newly crowned Emperor Commodus, being sold into
slavery and eventually purchased to become a professional gladiator. Due to his
past years of having led countless battles, gladiator fighting is a piece of
cake to him, and he wows the audience so much that he has a superstar following
amongst the Roman public, which once again threatens the Emperor Commodus. Now
we may be tempted to assume that it is Commodus who is the one exacting
schadenfreude on Maximus. However, Commodus has no pleasure in any existence of
Maximus. Having Maximus eradicated from the world would be his greatest
satisfaction. During the finale scene where he tries to take on Maximus
personally in a duel, Commodus does not derive pleasure in killing Maximus
personally as of itself. In fact Commodus is far more concerned with the
perception of those other Roman spectators, proving to them that he is a far
worthier man, such that he is able to vanquish Maximus.
Thus, those deriving
schadenfreude from this entire episode, are actually the Roman spectators, captivated
by Maximus’ gladiator fights. Despite being ardent supporters of Maximus, these
spectators also take pleasure in anticipating Maximus’ battles with yet another
opponent, thus infinitely prolonging Maximus’ misery and suffering so as to
speak. This dynamics is also similar to that of the Hunger Games trilogy,
Katniss Everdeen’s popularity with the Capital viewers, with President Snow
having a more similar role to that of Commodus.
Early on in life, I had always thought of schadenfreude as a “crush
you like a cockcroach” type of mentality to quote “Masters of the Seas”. It is only
later now in life, I realise coackcroach crushing was actually more revenge
based and antagonistic. Schadenfreude is far more subtle, perverted and
dismissive in nature, taking no personal interest in the party’s suffering, as
that is viewed as mere entertainment. Precisely due to this lack of personal
investment in the cause, those people deriving schadenfreude are not concerned
about the concept of time at all. When the sufferer fails to survive, the
people deriving schadenfreude will just “move on to the next show”; when the sufferer is still kicking and living, they will “grab popcorn
and see what happens next”, as the playout is interesting.
In fact, this element of schadenfreude plays an important
role is the entertainment industry, especially when you examine forms like
reality television and certain drama serials. We all dabble in schadenfreude
when we are glued to that popular drama, waiting to see what happens next to
the protagonist, and in fact we would not be too pleased if things
were resolved far too easily for him or her. I suppose this disregard and
lack of empathy is absolutely not of an issue when we are following
entertainment like that of those mentioned above. Afterall, it is the
profession of actors, actresses, scriptwriters, producer and directors, to
ensure that we audiences are enthralled by the ups and downs of these shows.
They are aware, willing participants together with us.
However, when the stage is that life, quoting
Shakespeare’s line from As You Like It, where “All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players”,
this schadenfreude-ish viewership of other players’ anguish gets a
tad too cruel and difficult to stomach, and I’ll now talk about Django
Unchained, a movie is about an escaped black slave Django (Jamie Foxx), who trains under bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz)
to become a supreme marksman, and his search to rescue his wife
Broomhilda. We find out that Broomhilda is serving notorious slave
owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), who has dabbles in the sadistic
hobby of Mandingo fighting, a form of gladiator-ish fighting forced upon black slaves.
Many have praised DiCaprio’s performance of Calvin Candie,
saying how well he portrays the character’s callousness. Indeed Calvin Candie injects
apathy with a very toxic dose of cruelty. There is a particular scene where
Candie views a Mandingo match and its aftermath struck me especially memorable
and greatly demonstrative of schadenfreude. The ease as which Candie
goes up to congratulate the slave who has survived, giving him a gentle
reminder to rest and recover for the next upcoming match, while the bloodied
corpse of the other slave lies beside barely turned cold, is the most
representative example of schadenfreude I can think of. In fact it is ranked in cinematically as one of the most disturbing moments ever. Also to note is Candie's black butler Stephen. He is a grim example of someone who has survived this past evil and come to "naturalise" it, thinking this treatment of other fellow blacks as normal as the tides of the ocean.
In a rather interesting turn, Quentin Tarantino the director
of this movie takes the notion of schadenfreude and turns it upon its head. In
the movie, Django exacts his own form of schadenfreude on the Southern whites and Stephen,
both for himself and also on behalf of all his fellow black compatriots. In
fact the only white man who met an honourable death in the movie was Dr
Schultz, a stark reminder of the respect he bestowed upon the blacks.
And this is where I’d like to conclude. My most recent former
workplace had seemed like a massive intense gladiator ring or Mandingo fighting
ground. There were numerous permutations of matches, with the roles of everyone
changing incessantly, sometimes being that of gladiators and Mandingo slave fighters,
other times Roman spectator and white slave owner. You basically had to ensure
you took on the seat of the Roman spectator cum white slave owner more
frequently through surviving your own gladiator or Mandingo fights. Those who had thrived eventually became very gleeful Roman spectators, Calvin Candies or Stephens. It was an environment steeped in and reeking of the filth and stench of schadenfreude.
A friend thriving in the corporate sector had been giving me
worldly advice then, telling me about mastering the skills of aligning and
realigning, playing the game of allies versus enemies, and even learning to relish spectator watching, all in order to secure my own survival. All this I vehemently
rejected as I felt that it is a perverted cruelty I could not live with. And
indeed I have not survived that place, being as dead in the fight as how Dr
Schultz’s body had been ridden with bullets during his death. Despite all this,
I think Dr Schultz did not regret his decision to treat the blacks respectfully
and this can be seen in how Django took Dr Schultz’s demise. Django’s reverence
for Dr Schultz was more than evident in the scene when he closed Dr Schultz’s
eyes, while not giving a damn about all the other dead bodies of the white men
lying about him. God close my weary eyes now while I rest and proceed on to a
next and hopefully more merciful workplace. I hope this latest Tarantino movie
chapter in my life has come to a close. Amen.
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