The Likable Sociopath Trope, Explained

people fake a lot of human interactions but i feel like i faked them all and i faked them very well sociopaths break the rules and they don't feel guilty about it they also lack empathy and feel no remorse for the harm they cause jonathan doesn't know how to suffer after his sister was killed he never even said he was sorry they're difficult and even dangerous people to know and yet sometimes they're incredibly fun to watch a census taker once tried to test me i ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti although their specific pathologies may vary wildly between different extremes they usually share some common traits such as they have a very high opinion of themselves and an equally low opinion of others which marks them as different and even special can i take a picture of you from my instagram no no of course not don't be pathetic they're typically a moral but they're also capable of highlighting the paradoxes and contradictions in our own ethics i think if you went high enough you'd probably find we work for the same people this enables them to justify even their most monstrous actions we're both loyal civil servants we work hard to keep the city clean you cut people up into little pieces sociopaths get bored easily so they seek danger and thrills staying alive so boring isn't it it's just staying they're exciting behaving in a way that we might envy they're also charming imbued with charisma or a sense of humor that allows them to be expert manipulators chaos is great chaos is what killed the dinosaurs darling in the real world most of these sociopaths would probably make us run for our lives so why do we so often end up empathizing with them and even rooting for them on screen i don't get why you're daring me to be someone i don't want to be the nagging shrew the controlling [ __ ] here's our take on the various guises of the likable sociopath from charismatic killers to dangerous femme fatales to evil geniuses and why we often end up feeling for characters who would feel nothing for us if you're new here be sure to subscribe and hit the bell to be notified about all of our new videos this video is brought to you by mubi a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe it's like your own personal film festival streaming anytime anywhere why do we fall in love with some killers and why do others only strike fear into our hearts when the world was introduced to use joe goldberg so many viewers proclaimed their crushes on him that actor pen badgely had to remind them that joe is a cold-blooded murderer everything i do i do to protect you back it's likely that far fewer people would declare their love for american psychos patrick bateman though he's arguably just as handsome well-dressed charming and dangerous i think if you stay something bad will happen i think i might hurt you one of the reasons we're more likely to be drawn to joe goldberg over patrick bateman lies in the murky distinctions between sociopaths and psychopaths both sociopathy and psychopathy are part of the spectrum of antisocial personality disorder and the lines between them can be a bit blurry this is especially true when it comes to fictional characters who often display characteristics of both should i need those sheets listen i cannot understand you crazy you're a fool still there are some variances that tend to make all the difference between a killer we're terrified of and one we find terribly charming you haven't read it i know i know i'm worried it's not gonna live up to the hype i can safely say it is that good most importantly it's believed that psychopaths don't have a conscience whereas sociopaths do seem to know right from wrong regardless of whether they follow through on it joe goldberg at least in his own head is driven by the desire to be seen as good and lovable he also shows occasional flashes of empathy and even remorse burning hell she should hate me but as long as she's safe is this what fatherhood feels like but patrick bateman has no such hang-ups he's an unfeeling monster of pure narcissistic rage i have all the characteristics of a human being flesh blood skin hair but not a single clear identifiable emotion except for greed and disgust other cinematic psychopaths like no country for old men's anton shiger have a similar disconnect they show no emotion and offer no glimpses of humanity which gives us nothing to relate to how'd you find that there is evidence to suggest that the psychopaths brain is fundamentally different they are guided by internal forces beyond their control psychologists even say that psychopaths were born while sociopaths are made usually as a result of childhood trauma this too changes how we feel about them on screen learning about the abuse and neglect that joe suffered at an early age affects how we judge his own abusive behavior as an adult i'm trying to teach you a code to live by so that you don't end up like your father and when i fail you lock me in a similar thing happens on the sopranos tony soprano is objectively a criminal with demonstrable sociopathic tendencies you know what i'm thinking seriously i'm thinking i'd like to take a break and smash your face in a [ __ ] hamburger he lies and steals with impunity he hurts and even kills anyone who gets in his way and like most sociopaths he's hot-headed and prone to fits of rage twisted [ __ ] that's my mother we're talking about some [ __ ] up in attica stab you in the shower yet we feel compassion for tony anyway and not just because we see his relatable everyday life as a family man we can see that he's a product of an unusually harsh environment one that never gave him a chance to be anyone else what kind of person can i be where his own mother wants him dead while they may be amoral or even immoral likable sociopaths also tend to operate by a code some moral compass they use to justify their actions in a way that can sometimes seem persuasive you got morals all of a sudden i don't remorse but i do got rules on you joe goldberg sees himself as a protector of the women in his life and he only targets people he believes could harm them or who are otherwise deserving of retribution this puts joe into the subtrope of the moral sociopath characters who usually find themselves pitted against villains who are more obviously reprehensible i only kill certain kinds of people like travis the avenging serial killer dexter morgan typifies this archetype he's driven by a compulsion to kill from an early age and he's learned to control it only choosing victims who have somehow hurt others you're a mean one mr shrink create their drug addiction pull them off and fill their adult heads with noble thoughts of suicide although dexter claims to be devoid of feeling like a true psychopath the clear disdain he feels toward criminals suggests he has some sense of decency took her last breath from her right over there you remember and he shows a devotion to his family and friends which makes him a homicidal anti-hero we can cheer for hannibal lecter operates by a similar code he's a cold-blooded killer yet he also clearly feels a selective empathy for some people in the silence of the lambs hannibal shows a genuine interest in and even kindness towards fbi agent clary starling unlike the way a true psychopath would behave you're very frank there is i think it would be quite something to know you in private life above all lecter believes in treating others with respect and he can't abide anyone who doesn't do the same whenever feasible one should always try to eat the root there's something appealing even darkly admirable about the sociopaths black and white sense of morality and in the lack of guilt they feel about holding others to it that dude causes more bad than good then it's like a you know a piece of malfunctioning machinery this partly explains our fascination with the joker a character who is by definition a super villain a murderer and by all appearances completely psychotic you're crazy i'm not no i'm not yet across his many portrayals we've also been shown the trauma that made him the way he is i don't want anything from you maybe a little bit of warmth maybe a hug dad how much is a little bit of indecency in 2019's joker he's not only a victim of childhood abuse he's an underdog contrasted against bruce wayne's inordinate wealth and a gotham city that's sharply divided by class we can understand his nihilism as a twisted form of morality relative to a world that's gone crazy itself you see they're morals they're code it's a bad joke dropped at the first sign of trouble as critic byron lafayette argues many people look at the joker and see the unbridled chaos of the id and this is attractive to them upset the established order and everything becomes chaos ultimately there is something cathartic about the sociopath because they reject all the rules and mores that we're forced to live by historically sociopathic women have not been portrayed as especially sympathetic on screen many of our classic femme fatales display sociopathic traits particularly in their use of manipulation to ensnare men feel good chiefly your eyes i think in that throb you get in your voice when you say things like be generous mr spade while there is something alluring about them the femme fatale also reinforces the idea that women who embrace their power and sexuality are inherently duplicitous dangerous and deadly this is not the right street why did you turn here what are you doing that for there is something wrong with them in other words and ultimately they're deserving of their inevitably dark fate goodbye baby with the more modern femme fatale her sociopathic tendencies take on an added element of liberation she rejects patriarchal rules which makes her a kind of anti-hero as well i love to girl i was pretending to be cool girl men always use that don't they as their defining compliment amy dunn in gone girl has been described as a new kind of femme fatale a reaction to a new kind of patriarchy one that is evasive shifty slimly manipulative and it requires a different sort of resistance and if i get everything right the world will hate nick according to psychiatrist andrew pearce amy clearly falls under the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder what with her deceitfulness impulsivity and disregard for others it looks like i've tied amy to my bed and raped her me and then guess what they find headboards on my bed one on each side the tires you wouldn't wear i do know your wife but amy has also been oppressed and controlled all her life forced to happily pretend to be someone else i wax stripped my raw i drank canned beer watching adam sandler movies so her disconnect from the world and her fractured identity feel understandable to us nick dunn took my pride and my dignity and my hope and my money he took and took for me until i no longer existed that's murder killing eve's villanelle presents another new spin on the femme fatale one who's glamorous and sexy but who doesn't use sex to get ahead of [Music] with her multiple identities and her clear lack of remorse villanelle offers another extreme depiction of antisocial personality disorder according to killing eve's psychiatric consultant dr mark freestone villanelle is even a primary psychopath meaning she was born this way do you have any questions are you always like this like what but villanelle is a far richer more empathetic character than that suggests unlike traditional psychopaths she's capable of feeling a genuine connection to eve the intelligence agent who's charged with tracking her down you don't feel anything i feel things when i'm with you and much like gone girls amy villanelle's deceit hinges on an innate understanding of how the world perceives women like her as powerless as the new yorker's emily nussbaum writes the show argues that femininity is itself a sort of sociopathy whose performance if you truly nail it might be the source of ultimate power there is an inherent rebellion to the female sociopath that draws other people to her angelina jolie's lisa in girl interrupted is proud of being a sociopath because it sets her apart we are very rare and we are mostly men lisa thinks she's hot [ __ ] cause she's a social fat lisa's free-spirited nature offers a thrilling counterpoint to the stifling barbarism of both her institution and the story's 1960s setting you think you're free i'm free you don't know what freedom is we naturally gravitate toward these kinds of characters because they challenge stereotypical notions about women as docile or natural caretakers but we also feel for them because they usually seem to want something they've been denied you know the weather reports stuff which you're really good at but let's face facts it's probably not gonna lead to any big network offers villanelle may revel in her glamorous thrilling life as a fashion icon comb assassin but as actress jody comer has pointed out she also envies eve's happy family life saying there's a part of her deep down that craves that human contact like the normality of it what do you want normal stuff nice life cool flat someone to watch movies with amy dunn may have a warped idea of what her own family life should be but at its root is her own basic expectation of respect and happiness the same that's promised to anyone else i do need you to participate though i need you to do your part on screen sociopaths may be monsters but there is usually no denying their genius being unencumbered by rules or other people means they're always one step ahead of everyone else free to follow an intellect that's often so great that they get frustrated with the rest of the world she could be trying to test yes thank you for your input the sociopath's genius can be used for good or evil in sherlock we see both sides of the coin through the titular detective and his nemesis moriarty while moriarty's own antisocial personality has curdled over into full-blown sadism some of sherlock's sociopathic traits are actually the key to his deductive powers you're a bloody psychopath high-functioning sociopath with your number his lack of empathy and his reluctance to form emotional connections give him a kind of tunnel vision which enables sherlock to focus on solving mysteries without distraction there are lives at stake sherlock actual human life just just so i know do you care about that at all well caring about them helps save them nope then i'll continue not to make that mistake sherlock belongs to an archetype that the guardian's ben gazer has described as the unlikable savant typified by hugh laurie's gregory house sociopaths with huge intellects who inspire a combination of fear and respect while treating those around them with derision and disdain so he's young which means he's most likely caused by cancer and you're here because you haven't found it he looked really really hard but despite being curmudgeonly or unpleasant we usually end up liking these unlikable geniuses anyway so your arm only hurts after you lie on top of it all night yeah hmm well have you thought about i don't know not doing that they naturally appeal to the part of us that thinks we're better and smarter than everyone else too anderson don't talk out loud you lower the iq of the whole street in our most famous tv anti-heroes we often see an overlap between sociopathy and narcissistic personality disorder defined as a person's inflated sense of their own importance a deep need for excessive attention and admiration troubled relationships and a lack of empathy for others you just had to blow it up you and your pride and your ego you just had to be the man breaking bad's walter white offers a classic example of npd while the show establishes him as a sympathetic victim of circumstance fighting back against a cancer diagnosis and striving to support his family it isn't long before we see walter's true monstrous self no store in town sells a plastic bin big enough for a body i suppose you could buy two bins yes legs in one torso and then new york times critic a.o scott argues that walter's evolution from science teacher to criminal kingpin is less a shocking transformation than a series of confirmations jesse you asked me if i was in the meth business or the money business neither i'm in the empire business we can feel aghast at the shady means walter uses to create that empire and the depths to which he sinks in order to maintain it i watched jane die but there is still something compelling about watching walter shrug off the nerdy nebishi facade and unleash the sociopathic badass genius within you're goddamn right alongside walter white and tony soprano mad men's don draper completes the trifecta of tv's most beloved anti-heroes and like those men don shows all the hallmarks of an antisocial personality combined with narcissistic personality disorder i feel bad for you i don't think about you at all don is in the words of therapist dr paul hochmeier concerned with power prestige vanity image and the hedonistic need for lots of sex alcohol cigarettes lots of stuff to feed an insatiable ego in classic npd fashion don has little regard for others feelings and while he's good at charming people into relationships he's terrible at maintaining them you lied to me every day i can't trust you i don't know who you are what's more he is living a lie don draper is just a contrived identity a manipulative idea of a stylish successful man he created to break with his shameful past and all i had to do was be him and i could leave korea be who donald draper you took his name yet he sells us on the myth of don draper as much as he sells it to himself if you don't like what is being said change the conversation don draper appeals to the part of us that believes we can shape our own destinies through cunning and sheer force of will i have a life and it only goes in one direction forward when it comes to world shaping narcissists however all pale in comparison to the biggest evil genius sociopath in the multiverse rick sanchez what people call love is just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed it hits hard morty then it slowly fades rick's nihilism his lack of empathy and his utter remorselessness all stem from his higher understanding of how the universe operates he knows that there is nothing not death nor apocalypse that can't be overcome by his superior intellect because i'm a scientist because i invent transform create and destroy for a living and when i don't like something about the world i change it of course there are things about rick that he can't solve he's definitely depressed occasionally suicidal and very much an alcoholic the fact that you're old the fact that we're all going to die one day the fact that the universe is so big nothing in it matters those facts are who you are he's also alienated from his family and to his own horror he seems to have passed along some of his most malevolent tendencies to his own daughter beth it was just more practical to sequester you before i had to start you know cloning a replacement for every less than polite little boy or gullible animal that might cross your sociopath for all his inventive genius rick is most adept at creating pain idolizing rick or don draper or walter white or any of the other likeable sociopaths on our list means ignoring the fact that they're empty inside and incapable of even contemptuous toward the very idea of change as ben cotera writes in polygon rick is an aspirational character because it gives people an excuse to stay where they are to be alone and to feel superior you have a whole planet sitting around making your power for you that's slavery it's society the likeable sociopath provides a fantasy of setting ourselves apart from other people but it also shows us how miserable that can be life isn't black and white and people aren't either good or evil there are shades of grey in between and that's where the likeable sociopath lives frankenstein yeah the monster is really cool and scary but also not really the monster they show us that there is a potential monster lurking inside everyone and that despite those tendencies they can still be sympathetic charming and even lovable you know good adventure needs a good ending that we're so drawn to these characters highlights the fact that the boundaries separating sociopathy and normality are narrower than we might like to admit their stories allow us to explore what it would be like if we let our own masks slip a little and indulged in a world where there were no rules holding us back i am awake but ultimately what makes the likeable sociopath appealing is that they're not like us they confirm our own humanity even if it's only on a sliding scale your values and decency are present yet shocked that your associations uphold your dreams this is the take what do 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Channel: The Take

Views: 1,091,641

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Id: fPB7zHbtaQk

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 19 2020