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VILLAINOUS_MASK

                                          May 28, 2008
  One of the driving
  forces of pulp fiction                    Beginning with some
  is cowardice about                        material quoted from
  facing your own demons.                   BLAZING


                 ATTRACTION-REPULSION


 A small example: in a
 Shadow story ("The
 Golden Master", I
 think) a woman is                A common device: white-washing
 hypnotized by the bad            the salacious material by
 guys and goes prancing           attaching it to villains that
 about in a revealing             are slated to come to bad ends.
 oriental outfit.

 But this slutty
 behavior is Not Her
 Fault: this is an            [ O'Donnell fills ] the story with
 alter-ego imposed            pages and pages of the villains
 from without.                twisting their mustaches.  They're
                              typically vile sadists with some
 Oh, how terrible.            sort of sexual kinks that O'Donnell
                              revels in as he reviles them.



                                                      VILLAINY



       And then nearly every
       story is based on a
       contrived siruation           ROMANCE
       where extreme behavior
       is justified.


               "Is there this kind of
                ugly anger in a man that
                waits for this kind of
                virtuous excuse?"

                     -- Meyer, in John D. MacDonald's
                        "Pale Gray for Guilt" (1968)



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