Today’s Villains
And their reflection on society
An antihero is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities". In the past, an antihero was somebody who was a hero who lacked a traditional heroic attitude. For example, in the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke was the hero, a person who always did good by people and had good intentions. The antihero in his story was Han Solo, a man who did good but was not perfectly positive all the time, and towed the line between both sides. In today’s cinema, we have went from heroes, antiheroes and villains, to a spectrum which is often confusing. In this piece, I will attempt to explain why.
Antiheroes are at an all time high
It seems that characters are now more likely to be explored deeper in the modern age. An example is Darth Vader. In the original Star Wars trilogy, we did not know much about him, we just knew he was the villain and was the main antagonist of the heroes. Whilst some redemption was made in the final film of that set of 3, we regarded him as the villain of the story. George Lucas and his prequel trilogy attempted to delve into why he became evil, and again try to make the character appear tragic.
Another good example is the Joker. When he was originally envisioned, he was just a villain, with no backstory or purpose to his evil. Now, with the Joaquin Phoenix portrayal, he is an anti-hero, somebody who has been trodden on by society to breaking point, so there is a method to his madness (literally).
It is actually pretty significant that I’m talking about comic book characters. When you think of rogues and “bad guys", we tend to talk about the medium of comic books as our first port of call. Every hero is only as impactful as their villain, with characters like Spiderman and Batman being perfect demonstrations of heroes who have a wide range of antagonists to battle. In these universes, only a few of these villains would be classed as antiheroes or misunderstood, such as Red Hood or Black Cat. However, with the rise of the comic book movie, more and more villains from these collections are justified and fleshed out, which isn’t a negative, but an interesting development.
Most of the time, modern cinema demonstrates the characters are on a spectrum of intentions. Some dynamics are hero and villain, but oftentimes it is clear that both parties involved are right in their own way, and their ideologies differ. In many ways, it is similar to most debates of the 21st century, in the fact that in most circumstances, both sides of an argument have validity in some capacity.
Maybe it is due to the 21st century’s better understanding of a human’s psyche
The trend in modern film is to create movies based on villains. However, because a film’s main character needs to be the victim of their own story, many try to rationalize evil characters by giving them a sad upbringing or a reason why they are bad. Referring back to the Joker, it may be that we rationalise these characters more in modern times due to us having a better understanding of why broken people may be broken.
We understand more about the brain now than we did 30 or 40 years ago. Everything is not black and white, a person is not inherently evil and a person is not all good, despite the best intentions. We are malleable to our environments, factors can affect your mentality and behaviour from a young age. In the past, people would be deemed “satan spawn" or born to do bad, but through psychology and studying the human condition, we know now for the most part this is not the case. This is now reflected in cinema, by the rise of different relationships between the traditional protagonist and antagonist.
Is there a future for the irredeemable antagonist in cinema?
The trend of Hollywood at present, or in particular Disney, is to present these older characters who many would deem evil to the core, and show a tragic backstory or some form of event which made them the way they are. Maleficient and Cruella are but two examples, although in film this is becoming a growing issue. Whilst it is good to give your villains motivation other than “destroying the world” or “controlling the universe”, having every villain with a sad past means it is no longer unique, and it is tiring. Yes, it is more realistic, but some people just have nefarious intentions, and turning every villain good or balancing between both sides creates a lack of tension for an audience.
That is not to say that the straight forward villain archetype is leaving the cinema screens behind, as it has been proven that a film involving the main character as a villain can work, even without a twist. My personal choice is Nightcrawler, with Jake Gyllenhall’s lead being a straight up dark-hearted individual, who uses people and is genuinely apathetic to suffering. The tone is a lot darker, but it is so much more distinct that other films of that genre. Even in television, Money Heist’s Gandia is just a traditional antagonist, with no moral compass or reasoning, somebody who just craves violence and pain.
I do hope we do see some more interesting takes on the traditional good vs evil debate — I just hope that we can find a way to break this one size fits all mould of modern film.
