Why We Love Villains

Brut America

The Joker. Darth Vader. Hannibal Lecter. What is it about villains that moves us and how have they evolved in the modern age? Pop culture brand Wisecrack gives their take.

Transcript

00:00Is this a joke to you?

00:05Whether it's the Joker or Killmonger or even Magneto, you sort of have a legitimate criticism

00:11of the system embedded into these villains who might go too far or their means might

00:17be bad, but it makes us sort of feel for them and at times root for them.

00:32So not only do you have traditional villains, but you have the anti-hero, which is if the

00:36villain is the sort of protagonist of the story.

00:39In the latest Joker movie, you have your traditional antagonist as the central character.

00:44Rather than just saying, here's a flawed person who initially died or became the villain,

00:49they are kind of successfully critiquing the system in a way that really is compelling.

01:15Going back at least decades, if not more, you have people worshiping anti-heroes like

01:21Scarface, more recently Walter White.

01:25You have the Punisher.

01:27You have most recently the Joker.

01:29But what changed today is oftentimes our tragic heroes or our villains will be sort of chafing

01:35against an unjust system.

01:37Today's villains like Walter White is being crushed by medical bills and the unfair sort

01:42of medical system in our country.

01:44Most recently with the Joker, he feels alienated, unrecognized, and then there's sort of a social

01:48movement that feels similarly, which I think speaks to like a genuine kind of political

01:54concern in our country.

01:56So I think that is what we can kind of connect with is the way these villains can jar us

02:02out of our maybe complacency.

02:13If our political climate kind of continues to exist as it does, it wouldn't be surprising

02:24to see villains like the Joker raging against the machine.

02:28On both sides of the political spectrum, you have people that are completely frustrated

02:33or have abandoned the system entirely.

02:36So Trump's whole rhetoric was drain the swamp, suggesting that politics is a swamp that must

02:40be drained.

02:41But even on the left with sort of the insurgent politicians like Bernie Sanders, just speaking

02:46to the way that the Democratic Party or the system that is broken, both in the early eighties

02:51and today, you have a general feeling that the system is failing people.

02:56And then once you get to that question, what spawns out of that?

02:59So you know, the Joker suggests, you know, violent revolutionary movements.

03:06But I think it might be asking us to consider what will be born out of this kind of troubled

03:13time.

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