When did we start rooting for the bad guy?
Karen Hunter asked the title question on the thumbnail of a 12-minute clip from her podcast (included below) where she described the parallels between the fictional Gotham City villain, the Penguin and the real-life national villain just re-elected to the presidency of the United States. Such a simple question that I don’t have an exact answer to but I do have some thoughts to offer.
The rut that we have fallen into and have remained in for far too long especially in the realm of politics is false equivalencies and uninformed comparisons. Though I don’t believe this sentiment to always be accurate when it comes to our elected officials, the lesser of two evils was once the way we summed up our voting choices. Now we have just decided the degree of evil doesn’t matter.
By the way, I’ve heard several historians say that a common tactic used by wannabe dictators is to make us think that all leaders are equally bad. So when we begin to sum everyone up this way, we should know that we are being played.
To me the lesser of two evils is a fairer approach. It’s speaks to our ability for nuance and the ability to properly weigh information. The truth is, in this life, we operate on a continuum. But sadly it appears as if we seem to have lost our ability to moderate and only relate to extremes. I wish I could pinpoint exactly when this started but I will share some of my long-held observations because this was a trend I began seeing some time ago.
After the 2018 release of Blank Panther, I remember scrolling through my Facebook feed and read a post saying that they kinda wanted to root for Killmonger, the villain. I was struck by that response. At that point I hadn’t seen the film but made a mental note to myself to pay close attention to this character to see if I would feel the same way. When I later saw the film, I did not feel the same way. And I was a bit perplexed as to why that person from my Facebook feed felt that way.
Incidentally with the comics (I don’t really follow them), they are offering these character origin stories. Primarily because they can continue to grow and profit from the franchise. Unfortunately these backstories, in my opinion, lead us to absolving villains of their terror because we can empathize with their trauma. We make the mistake of conflating empathizing with excusing.
Before I dig deeper into real examples, I wanted to mention the TV series, Scandal which premiered in 2012 and ran for seven seasons. I was a bit bothered to what extent an extra-marital affair was deemed acceptable. Sure I could chalk it up to the drama that entertains us, but when I listened to people, there was genuine emotional investment in this relationship. The side-chick was rationalized and celebrated. Not that the side-chick is solely the villain but it was interesting to see the halo effect at play when in ordinary circumstances, no one would find this behavior acceptable.
What’s also interesting is that we find villains more entertaining. They are often given complexity, fascinating personality traits and much more compelling character arcs. They are often the scene-stealers. Even in real life, we seek to be scene-stealers and consider what might be more strait-laced, honorable, and disciplined to be boring. We fail to see that what may be exciting and entertaining can also be chaotic and destabilizing.
Similarly, I’ve heard many actors say they enjoy playing villains because they get to tap into seldom used emotions and expand their acting chops. Again it appears that we, in real life, want to experience the same. The difference is actors do so in a safe space. Whereas there are real life consequences that most of us aren’t ready for when we visit the dark side.
In real life, I’m also noticing a rather disturbing trend of believing that flaws, imperfections, and momentary lapses are interchangeable with criminality, pathological character traits, and a total disregard for others. Chris Rock, after Will Smith did the unthinkable, said that Will was just as bad as the rest of us. Perhaps he meant Will was just as flawed as the rest of us. But I interpreted his statement to mean that the idea of Will as this good guy was a total front. Now I don’t know Will personally to confirm that he is indeed a good guy, but from his body of work and all that he has shared about his personal life, I don’t think his good guy persona is an act. That does not mean I absolve him of what he did. I’ve stated what I think about his actions. But I’m not throwing Will out with the trash.
Yes we as humans are comprised of both good and bad; darkness and light. The side that will prevail is the side that we feed on a regular basis, as I stated in the above comment exchange between me and about villains. To me we are getting a little too cozy with the dark side. We think that a few good deeds or “human” moments makes someone not so bad. Hyper-focusing on the good does not wash away the bad. Unfortunately this isn’t arithmetic where just doing more good cancels out or overrides the bad. It certainly is not basic addition and subtraction. With villains, their bad deeds are exponentially disproportionate to whatever “good” they may do. Again they feed their dark side and essentially starve the rest.
Yet and still, we get cozy like we can handle the risk. We downplay threats and overestimate our ability to mitigate fallout. We make statements like we’d rather deal with the devil we know instead of the devil we don’t know. Forgetting that the devil we know is still the devil that has never strayed from the ultimate goal of taking us out.
The final observation I’d like to share, rather reiterate, because I have spoken about this before. I’m bothered by the tendency to only relate to one another’s humanity based on our flaws and mistakes. You know, to err is human and by contrast doing the right thing is superhuman, unattainable and therefore unrelatable. The villain has become aspirational while the good person is considered passé.
Quoting myself again, calls to be better and go higher are categorically rejected and braggadociously rebuffed. We perpetuate, now more than ever, the idea that there is no upside to doing the right thing, being our better selves or accomplishing the greater good. Our collective immaturity guided by a pervasive scarcity mindset disillusions us to a point that we figure that if we can’t beat them then we ought to join them. Which is all fine and good until we realize we are in over our heads; until we realize the upper-hand that we are so enamored with is the same hand the villain uses to slight us; until we realize the diabolical selfishness we found entertaining isn’t so fun to experience in real life; until we realize we need the good guys we abandoned.
This is an all too familiar cycle not some new phenomenon. What’s new is the idea that the United States of America was impervious to the rise of a dictator. What’s new is that the dominoes fell across the entire not-so formidable board of checks and balances. The open question we are now left with is not when did we start rooting for the bad guy? But how bad will it have to get before we begin to listen to the good guys again and finally course-correct?
Onward to course-correcting and Harmonious Balance, my friends!
Johanna
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I've been thinking about revenge and how it is shown (all media, which is really all there is now) and processed. Is the good guy too good to exact revenge? I am not sure. I think we see so many true crime stories and we realize more and more that revenge is incomplete or never exists, or you know, is messy. Just sharing some thoughts after reading your story.