Jasen Buch on the appeal of movie villains.
I’m finding it difficult to explain why I like villains in books, movies, and TV shows. Maybe I am trying to do it in such a way that doesn’t reveal that I may have my own heart of darkness, or get a vicarious thrill from watching the villains commit their evil deeds. I’ve tried to justify my position of liking the villains as a purely artistic thing rather than it being anything deeper and more personal, but I can’t do it. All I know is that I prefer the bad guys regardless of whether I’m reading, writing, or watching.
An example would be the character of Shane from The Walking Dead. In the comic book, Shane is in love with Rick’s wife, Lori, and his words speak loudly and clearly that he is clearly conflicted and that this is all going to come to a head with Rick and one of them will end up dead. I loathed Shane in the comic book, but I loved his character because it was so believable in that situation. In the TV show, however, every possible action was taken to ensure that the audience would hate Shane. They provided flashbacks for the express purpose of showing him kill a relatively innocent man. I hated the character itself because it crossed too many lines and tried to hard too be hated.
Good horror, suspense, and thriller movies allow us to escape into a world where we can test our morality and mortality without doing ourselves or anyone else harm. The media reports stories of violence and death every day, and although it’s splashed all over newspapers, TV, and the internet, we are not supposed to think about it in any depth.
Fear is a necessary emotion in our lives.
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How can we not, though? What is going through a person’s mind who is committing these heinous acts, or what goes through a person’s mind as he/she is in a position faced with his/her own mortality? These are the questions that have entered my mind when writing stories. It’s not that I am twisted and evil, it’s that I have allowed my imagination to run amok with reckless abandon.
Horror movies allow us to be scared, but they also allow us to gain a glimpse into the dark side of our own minds. Alfred Hitchcock started it and ran with it when he created villains that were not supernatural beings, but ordinary people who could be our friends, neighbors, or family members. It gave people at that time a real scare because they were now, not only reading about real-life horror stories in the newspaper, but watching them play out on the big screen.
There’s nothing wrong with liking the villain characters in horror movies. They’re necessary to the story and can give us insight into ourselves and our own dark sides. While we’re expected to avoid exploring this aspect of our personalities, it’s nearly impossible to do so because of the media exposure. It’s good to be scared; it’s a necessary emotion in our lives. It is, however, also necessary to make the distinction between reality and fantasy. Go ahead, get scared.
photo wolfgangfoto/flickr
Too often, fictitious heroes are so bland. They are the straight men. Fictitious villians often seem to have more depth. I wouldn’t say that is true in real life, but for some reason it seems much easier to take shortcuts when writing about a hero than a villian.
I don’t think you’re alone in liking the villains. If a villain is an interesting character or likeable, they’ll actually become a hero in subsequent movies. I’m going from memory, but Captain Barbosa from Pirates of the Carabean, the Korean team from Best of the Best, Slimer from Ghostbusters, the Puppets from Puppetmaster, Xena the Warrior Princess. I’m sure you could come up with more. One thing though was during the Devil’s Rejects they were captured by a rogue police officer and were being tortured. I know that I was supposed to want the bad guys to escape, but could… Read more »
Batman villains hardly stand for order. The Joker, the Scarecrow, Green Goblin and Hobgoblin all seem out to destroy Gotham City for no other reason than the thrill of destroying Gotham City. I could be wrong since I have not read the comic books.
Yes, you are right. I was getting sloppy in my writing, it was 1 a.m. local time when I wrote it. I should have said SOME villains, which then are the one I would like to see win. Villains that are out to DESTROY order are the ones I am happy to see vanquished in the end.
I always thought that the author who was the best in making us desperately wish for the villain to be defeated was J.R.R. Tolkien. He did a really fine job there.
The Joker is about way more than “the thrill of destroying Gotham City.” In his own way, the Joker exists to upset the lazy, complacent, conformist thinking that led to the corruption of Gotham City. In that sense, he is like Bruce Wayne. Only Bruce Wayne blames the criminals and villains and wants to preserve Gotham and what he sees as “innocent lives” at all costs, whereas the Joker doesn’t believe there are any innocent lives. He explained his philosophy quite clearly in The Dark Knight. It’s not about money, it’s about sending a message. He’s like a dog chasing… Read more »
Well some of them aren’t about order but some actually are.
Joker, Two Face, Penguin, Poison Ivy, Black Mask, Ra’s al Gul, and Hugo Strange want to impose their own brand of order. In their own way the order they impose would work just fine if all the goody goody heroes would quit trying to stop them. (Although in my opinion Poison Ivy is probably the most dangerous of them all.)
I find myself rooting for the evil side in many Science Fiction and Action works (books and movies) like Star Wars and James Bond, and I believe I know the reason: It is that the villains always stand for ORDER. They have the organisation, they have a plan, they have dashing uniforms, they have equipment. The heros often enough quarrel and fight and have inept sidekicks and revel in insubordination. They are pure anarchy. If they have a plan it fails and they are taken prisoner (Oh what would I give for a movie where the hero does NOT get… Read more »