Silver-Screen Scumbags: Damnation Doesn't Deter

[Al Qədic]

I've been thinking about this more as I've come to enjoy crime dramas, true crime fiction, and so on. In these sorts of shows and movies, there's often at least one antagonist who, through some combination of tropes--from a tragic past, to a mental illness cocktail, general loathsomeness, etc.--outshines even the most wonderful of protagonists or side characters, because they're just so hate-able. Now, I could waffle about the misrepresentation of mental illness, the way television and technology makes us more comfortable with gruesome imagery, or how true crime ramps up the scare chord and creep factor dials to 11 to the point where the source material event is totally different from the on-screen proceedings and the entire point of the show is lost in the muck, but instead I want to waffle about a fact that I've come to realize that really disturbs me more than poor writing or lazy character work.

No matter how many terrible people we put on TV screens, they won't stop the ones in the real world.

Obviously, this goes without saying, and I know that my rambling here is hardly a breakthrough in looking at humanity in hindsight. But since reading things like Carrie, and watching the original Twin Peaks and Hulu's The Act, I can't help but feel like us funny meat people are grossly, comically missing the point of the sacks of shit and hellspawn we like to watch terrorize, and eventually crumble, on our funny glowing boxes. The entire point, I find, of characters like Margaret White, Leo Johnson, and Dee Dee Blanchard (at least, as portrayed by Patricia Arquette), is that they are such terrible people that any person looking at them with half an iota of intelligence will go "well shit, glad I don't act like that fucker". Frankly, I feel like that muttered statement between shocked gasps and munched popcorn is a big part of the draw of the crime genre itself; it's a safe way to look at the worst people imaginable, real or fake, and be comforted by the fact that "I'm not like them".

But what happens when people look at these characters and think "Well, we're actually pretty similar"? Watching Leo Johnson in Twin Peaks get paralyzed for being a sexist, wife-beating prick doesn't stop Joe Blow in Washington from taking out his belt and beating his girlfriend. No amount of Margaret Whites has made abusive conservative christian mothers stop hitting, berating, or diddling their kids. Similarly, stealing, lying, child-abuser characters never stopped Dee Dee Blanchard from doing just that to her daughter in real life, and no matter how vile she is as a character in The Act, there will continue to be more people like her doing much of the same out in the real world. I want to know why Leos don't unmake Leos. Why do scumbags sending their kids off to gay conversion therapy camps not change their ways when they see Carrie White being locked in a closet? TV murderers don't make real murderers feel bad; at least, I haven't heard any stories about "Florida Man renounces his cultish ways after watching The Path."

And what disturbs me most about all this is that, being optimistic about human empathy, it really should work! We're a bunch of dumb monkeys, but we can recognize the awfulness of these characters so easily. The rapists of the world make disparaging comments towards the rapists of hollywood cinema, yet they won't have an "oh shit" moment and change their ways. Damnation just doesn't deter. I'm lucky enough to where this is only a hypothetical, but if my autism were more severe and if my mother was a worse person overall, I'm positive that no number of "bad mom" or "ableist prick" characters in media would deter her from doing and saying terrible things to me. And that's harrowing.

So, what gives?

[Fujikoma]

I like this post. Also, if you want some interesting villains, try reading "Worm", where the villain gang are the protagonists. One of them is particularly horrible but, spoilers.

Yeah, Hollywood does not make for a good means of shaming evildoers into submission. Some of them even love the screen time. It would be interesting if TV could fix anything at all, but I don't think that's the purpose. What it does is make things a lot more complicated. Say you're just, trying to get by, coping with everyday stigma from a condition, and suddenly, some jerkwad decides to put out a show where the bad guy, just happens to have some professed traits in common with you... this makes socializing horribly difficult, as many people have a tv and watched this, so it does NOTHING to reduce your villain potential, which was almost zero, what it does is cut off avenues for meaningful interaction, and thereby increase your villain potential, because you eventually reach a point where there's little else you can do, and you have no choice but to act.

[Zenpatista]

I think part of the problem lies in our ability to tolerate our own hypocrisy. I think we can look at a villain, even one getting their just desserts, and say to ourselves, "Yeah, I may have done something similar but my circumstances were different." Plus, a lot of the villains on TV get away with it for a season or two. I see some true crime shows and it's like they're drawing out the story in order to make it fill time. Sometimes they seem to show things from the point of view of the convicted criminal. Maybe the TV producer's motivation is to get people to realize how close we all are to committing crimes. Maybe they're trying to get their show to have more drama. On the other hand, at least for my wife's favorite, "Dateline", I sometimes get the sense there's a definite "moral fable" quality to the story telling.

[Bruno]

I remember watching Dexter and thinking "Oh, no! He's going to get caught!" then thinking "Wait why am I rooting for him? Somebody really needs to stop this psychopath."

[Fujikoma]

Had the same instincts when it came to Dexter, and the same ambivalence, known plenty of sociopaths who don't, y'know, kill people. granted, they could, and likely, wouldn't feel a damn thing, but, as much as I like the character Dexter, it's not feasible in reality.

EDIT: Though the OP highlights a very legitimate concern.

[Pergamos]

I remember watching Dexter and thinking "Oh, no! He's going to get caught!" then thinking "Wait why am I rooting for him? Somebody really needs to stop this psychopath."

why?  He was very careful to only kill bad people. 

[Bruno]

I remember watching Dexter and thinking "Oh, no! He's going to get caught!" then thinking "Wait why am I rooting for him? Somebody really needs to stop this psychopath."

why?  He was very careful to only kill bad people.

And I totally approved of that, BUT he prevented them from being caught so he could do his weirdo murder ritual, and innocent people got hurt and/or killed because of it.

[Fujikoma]

Howard's right... not my place to call any debate, but he's spot on about Dexter. My personal reaction was, he's a user, he uses everyone around him, he sets up situations where HE REALLY SHOULDN'T but his addiction to murder makes it necessary, sure Dexter was only killing bad guys, and there was a time he tried to be normal and sook forgiveness, but, really? Dexter is fucking horrific, at least he makes a better villain than Freddy or Jason.

[The Johnny]

All media is entertainment, and its a product that gets consumed because it plays out a fantasy for us... and every person has different fantasies, thus, they "like" or "dislike" a particular media product. And each media product has, deliberately or not, a target audience... or even so, the writers, producers and directors have a hand in how charismatic and if were supposed to feel identified or not with any given character, be it a protagonist, antagonist or support characters.

But the last word on if a consumer of the media will feel identified with the character, is of course, determined by the consumer... morals and fantasies are, after all, completely relative and subject dependant.

You cant dismiss the idea that some ultra-con woman that watches Carrie, will feel identified with the mother and that she will think the character did the right thing... probably will not be a huge fan of the movie tho, because the character they "liked" is portrayed as the villain and the story line isnt "appreciative" of her.

And speaking of empathy? I can say that the great majority of humankind is emphatic or at least simulates it well enough because of the social benefits of showing care for others... the problem? that its very selective and its usually dependent on the perception of an outer threat to whichever empathy group you believe you belong in... we vs. them... then theres those almost completely devoid of empathy, extreme narcissists or psychopaths.

Do you really think rapists comment on hollywood rapists while being truthful? Or is it just acting to not light up others radar?

And finally, i think its comforting to think that we havent yet gotten to a point were media has become such well made propaganda that we think and act like it demands us as if it were the modern 10 commandments.

[Fujikoma]

I don't know, Johnny I've met some very solidly grounded sociopaths. It doesn't come down to "us vs. them", nor should it ever, as some random freemason once told me, "No, no, that's where you have it wrong, you see, there is no "them", there is only us." Mind... blown. I know, sounds simple, isn't.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I'm a massive fan of tv and movie "monsters" Dexter, Hannibal Lecter, Ramsay Bolton...

When they're played and written so well that I find myself rooting for them, is when I realise they're not monsters at all, they're just people like me with different wiring or life histories. I don't personally subscribe to the christian notion of objective good and evil. Rather, I feel good and evil are social mores. Fine there's some acts that, in the overwhelming majority of opinions, are condemned so vehemently that they might as well be objective evil but they're not and that's an important distinction to me.

Well constructed villains remind me not to blame satan for everything wrong in the world and also how much in common I actually have with the sinners and the damned. On top of that there's catharsis. Any time I've had that blood boiling moment where I just wanted to kill a motherfucker, I can work it out my system vicariously through Tommy DeVito or Norman Bates.

I'm pretty much always rooting for the bad guy. It's a safe way to explore those unrealised parts of our nature that, fortunately, for the most part, stay dormant. Could be anyone, tho, bump on the head or a really shitty couple of weeks and Martha f'kin Stewart might be standing over a pile of bodies, drenched in blood and stroking her chainsaw.

[The Johnny]

I'm a massive fan of tv and movie "monsters" Dexter, Hannibal Lecter, Ramsay Bolton...

When they're played and written so well that I find myself rooting for them, is when I realise they're not monsters at all, they're just people like me with different wiring or life histories. I don't personally subscribe to the christian notion of objective good and evil. Rather, I feel good and evil are social mores. Fine there's some acts that, in the overwhelming majority of opinions, are condemned so vehemently that they might as well be objective evil but they're not and that's an important distinction to me.

Well constructed villains remind me not to blame satan for everything wrong in the world and also how much in common I actually have with the sinners and the damned. On top of that there's catharsis. Any time I've had that blood boiling moment where I just wanted to kill a motherfucker, I can work it out my system vicariously through Tommy DeVito or Norman Bates.

I'm pretty much always rooting for the bad guy. It's a safe way to explore those unrealised parts of our nature that, fortunately, for the most part, stay dormant. Could be anyone, tho, bump on the head or a really shitty couple of weeks and Martha f'kin Stewart might be standing over a pile of bodies, drenched in blood and stroking her chainsaw.

And thats the beauty in a movie such as "Monster" (Charlize Theron)... whatever in our relative morality we consider as the worst, we call them "monsters" to dehumanize them because we cant stand the fact that we could empathize with or understand them, its much more easier to just write them off as unhuman... thats the premise of the movie, a person whose entire life was a shit situation and everyone walking all over her one day starts killing people, not because they are an unhuman demon, but because they had no safety nets or support, society left them out in the cold to die, so at one point they snapped and stopped caring as others stopped caring for them...

Then theres the Joker... whats his catchphrase? "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

And as cliche as it might sound, theres some truth to Nietzsches saying "He who fights with monsters, must take care of not becoming one himself".... in the sense that sure, serial killers tend to see their victims not as a fellow human but as objects, but so are we doing the same thing considering them not a fellow human but a "monster"...

Wheter we like it or not were all human, despite all the sick motivations and flawed logic that gets used to do something.

[P3nT4gR4m]

I'm a massive fan of tv and movie "monsters" Dexter, Hannibal Lecter, Ramsay Bolton...

When they're played and written so well that I find myself rooting for them, is when I realise they're not monsters at all, they're just people like me with different wiring or life histories. I don't personally subscribe to the christian notion of objective good and evil. Rather, I feel good and evil are social mores. Fine there's some acts that, in the overwhelming majority of opinions, are condemned so vehemently that they might as well be objective evil but they're not and that's an important distinction to me.

Well constructed villains remind me not to blame satan for everything wrong in the world and also how much in common I actually have with the sinners and the damned. On top of that there's catharsis. Any time I've had that blood boiling moment where I just wanted to kill a motherfucker, I can work it out my system vicariously through Tommy DeVito or Norman Bates.

I'm pretty much always rooting for the bad guy. It's a safe way to explore those unrealised parts of our nature that, fortunately, for the most part, stay dormant. Could be anyone, tho, bump on the head or a really shitty couple of weeks and Martha f'kin Stewart might be standing over a pile of bodies, drenched in blood and stroking her chainsaw.

And thats the beauty in a movie such as "Monster" (Charlize Theron)... whatever in our relative morality we consider as the worst, we call them "monsters" to dehumanize them because we cant stand the fact that we could empathize with or understand them, its much more easier to just write them off as unhuman... thats the premise of the movie, a person whose entire life was a shit situation and everyone walking all over her one day starts killing people, not because they are an unhuman demon, but because they had no safety nets or support, society left them out in the cold to die, so at one point they snapped and stopped caring as others stopped caring for them...

Then theres the Joker... whats his catchphrase? "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

And as cliche as it might sound, theres some truth to Nietzsches saying "He who fights with monsters, must take care of not becoming one himself".... in the sense that sure, serial killers tend to see their victims not as a fellow human but as objects, but so are we doing the same thing considering them not a fellow human but a "monster"...

Wheter we like it or not were all human, despite all the sick motivations and flawed logic that gets used to do something.

Exactly. Of course, with that in mind, I daresay there's at least a few individuals out there so close to the edge that all it might take is identifying with Dexter to push them over into doing something about it. So is glorifying violence a good or a bad thing? Both IMO. Life aint black and white and neither is entertainment.

[Al Qədic]

thats the premise of the movie, a person whose entire life was a shit situation and everyone walking all over her one day starts killing people, not because they are an unhuman demon, but because they had no safety nets or support, society left them out in the cold to die, so at one point they snapped and stopped caring as others stopped caring for them...

Then theres the Joker... whats his catchphrase? "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

And as cliche as it might sound, theres some truth to Nietzsches saying "He who fights with monsters, must take care of not becoming one himself".... in the sense that sure, serial killers tend to see their victims not as a fellow human but as objects, but so are we doing the same thing considering them not a fellow human but a "monster"...

Wheter we like it or not were all human, despite all the sick motivations and flawed logic that gets used to do something.

I think your first point really gets at what chafes my cloaca about characters like this sometimes; assuming they're presented as a flawed hooman bean and not a mustache-twirling evildoer, it is frustrating as all hell to watch them get so entrenched in their own shitty life situations, mental illnesses, and harmful neuroses that they "turn into" the practically inhuman murder-cannibal-psychotic clowns that they're known as. I'm not going to make a case for the walking ham that is The Joker to be "just a widdle misunderstood babu", but seeing the likes of [insert murderer driven by mental illness here] get demonized because they're up shit creek without so much as a raft, I feel bad for the bastards. If Patrick Bateman had decent human beings as coworkers, chances are he wouldn't have moidled them. Doesn't change that he has psychopathy, but it would mean that he didn't ruin his life because of it.

I normally hate the "he who fights monsters becomes monsters" quip, but your recontextualization points back to our aforementioned hypocrisy of wanting to murder the people we watch murder. That was neat.

All of this is making me think more about the premise of a game my friends and I plan on making in the eventual future, where the intended morality as presented by the plot is that "Humans keep making their own problems and blaming each other for it. This leads to a cycle of, in the worst of cases, unbridled murder. So for better or worse, something needs to die; either the people doing the stabby-stabby, or the awful mentalities and situations that drive them to do so, if that's even a viable option in a given scenario." The crux of the gameplay is that your extraterrestrial (because alternate universes are neat, don'cha'know) supervisor is firmly in the "kill the killers" camp, and you, as a squad of highly trained human agents, have to follow his instructions, or make the more difficult, conscious effort to try and reform the less reprehensible murderers, and only off the ones that truly can't and won't be "saved". Is it worth letting a few more innocent victims die in the pursuit of changing people's minds? When does slashing the slashers become a bad thing? No matter what universe or country you're fighting in, you're still dealing with humans living human lives how they see fit. And that realization can make your actions feel like they have just that much more weight to them.

[Pergamos]

thats the premise of the movie, a person whose entire life was a shit situation and everyone walking all over her one day starts killing people, not because they are an unhuman demon, but because they had no safety nets or support, society left them out in the cold to die, so at one point they snapped and stopped caring as others stopped caring for them...

Then theres the Joker... whats his catchphrase? "All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

And as cliche as it might sound, theres some truth to Nietzsches saying "He who fights with monsters, must take care of not becoming one himself".... in the sense that sure, serial killers tend to see their victims not as a fellow human but as objects, but so are we doing the same thing considering them not a fellow human but a "monster"...

Wheter we like it or not were all human, despite all the sick motivations and flawed logic that gets used to do something.

I think your first point really gets at what chafes my cloaca about characters like this sometimes; assuming they're presented as a flawed hooman bean and not a mustache-twirling evildoer, it is frustrating as all hell to watch them get so entrenched in their own shitty life situations, mental illnesses, and harmful neuroses that they "turn into" the practically inhuman murder-cannibal-psychotic clowns that they're known as. I'm not going to make a case for the walking ham that is The Joker to be "just a widdle misunderstood babu", but seeing the likes of [insert murderer driven by mental illness here] get demonized because they're up shit creek without so much as a raft, I feel bad for the bastards. If Patrick Bateman had decent human beings as coworkers, chances are he wouldn't have moidled them. Doesn't change that he has psychopathy, but it would mean that he didn't ruin his life because of it.

I normally hate the "he who fights monsters becomes monsters" quip, but your recontextualization points back to our aforementioned hypocrisy of wanting to murder the people we watch murder. That was neat.

All of this is making me think more about the premise of a game my friends and I plan on making in the eventual future, where the intended morality as presented by the plot is that "Humans keep making their own problems and blaming each other for it. This leads to a cycle of, in the worst of cases, unbridled murder. So for better or worse, something needs to die; either the people doing the stabby-stabby, or the awful mentalities and situations that drive them to do so, if that's even a viable option in a given scenario." The crux of the gameplay is that your extraterrestrial (because alternate universes are neat, don'cha'know) supervisor is firmly in the "kill the killers" camp, and you, as a squad of highly trained human agents, have to follow his instructions, or make the more difficult, conscious effort to try and reform the less reprehensible murderers, and only off the ones that truly can't and won't be "saved". Is it worth letting a few more innocent victims die in the pursuit of changing people's minds? When does slashing the slashers become a bad thing? No matter what universe or country you're fighting in, you're still dealing with humans living human lives how they see fit. And that realization can make your actions feel like they have just that much more weight to them.

That sounds like a great game, but also very difficult to design, I would love to see how it develops.