"I want to make art.
And I want to make trouble." Today we’ve moved beyond
The Age of the Antihero to center someone even worse:
The Sympathetic Villain. "Playing fair is a joke
invented by rich people to keep the rest of us poor." The antihero story typically
makes us wonder where its murky or mixed hero
will end up on the good-versus-evil spectrum. We’ve also discussed the
Antihero 2.0 narrative, which doesn’t expect its
character to improve and encourages more distance
and moral judgment. "I’m not gonna change." But a story that empathizes
with a straight-up villain asks us to identify with a person
we know clearly is wrong, without offering any
excuses or ambiguities. "I thought it was
gonna bother me, but it really hasn’t."
Increasingly, we’re seeing stories
with a villain-protagonist, who might not be contrasted
with any likable, featured hero. The story might try
to get us on side by making the villain a victim "He did this to me
so he would be king." or a lesser evil who faces off
against someone worse. "Who are you?" "A dangerous man." "It says that on
your business card?" "You should be
scared right now." Or they might face off
against a hero, but be what’s called
an anti-villain, the flipside of the antihero:
a villain with heroic tendencies. "It's about two billion people
all over the world who looks like us. But their lives
are a lot harder." A story about a
Sympathetic Villain is a bold experiment,
but it might not always work -- especially if it goes
to such extremes to make them sympathetic
that they’re no longer really a villain
or if it mixes up their villainy
with weird social cues that lead to the story
sending a confused message "Does it sting more
because I’m a woman?" Yet at its best, the
sympathetic villain story is a means for articulating
a fascinating critique of society and its mores.
It can make us see ourselves in the villain --
and the villainy in ourselves. "If anything in
this life is certain, if history has
taught us anything, it’s that you
can kill anyone." If you're new here,
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On the Netflix Film Club YouTube channel. We’ve come up with
a set of criteria for when the Sympathetic Villain
story works best, and when it doesn’t. Number one: Actually let
them BE a villain. [Strained]: "You broke my
f[BLEEP]ing legs!" "Oh boo hoo!" [Judgmental stares] "What?!" If the writing can’t decide
whether this person is a villain
or an antihero or a victim,
it can end up muddying the waters and making us wonder
why this story exists. But while preserving
this villainy, the writing should also: Number two: Make us
empathize or understand. "The rich and the powerful,
they do whatever they want. Guys like us? You and me?
They don’t care about us." That doesn’t require making
the character likable -- and it’s often best if it’s
clear that they’re wrong -- but we do need to
participate in why they make the choices they do. "He took and took from me
until I no longer existed. That's murder." Finally, this type
of story should: Number three: Use this
person’s villainy to articulate a
clear theme or message. The whole point of putting
a spotlight on a more complex or compelling villain
is to reveal something incisive about the darkness
in human existence and society. "Look, now, y'all gonna have
to come up off some serious f[BLEEP]in' dough
for this, all right? I will make sure you're
properly compensated." So the story needs to
be intentional about what philosophy its villain
and the characters they’re pitted against represent. "We're going to fight
capitalism with socialism."
There are several different ways
that stories convince us to side with the villains --
with different emotional results.
One increasingly popular approach
is to make them the protagonist. "They say, if you wanna
tell a story right, you gotta start
at the beginning." In recent years, a number of
villain-protagonist narratives have given us an
origin story for or centered a known
villain character who was previously more
two-dimensionally evil. "From the very beginning
I realized I saw the world differently than everyone else.
That didn’t sit well with some people." We can see an early example
of this trend in the 2003 musical Wicked,
based on the 1995 novel, which considers if the
ultimate cardboard villain -- whose actual name is
“The Wicked Witch of the West” -- might have a different
point of view about what happened in The Wizard of Oz. "Who killed my sister?" The sympathetic-villain
protagonist gets a chance to tell their
side of the story. "It was Maleficent's love
which broke that very same curse. But that detail was somehow
mysteriously forgotten." Some of the most influential
streaming hits of the 2010s -- like House of Cards,
Game of Thrones and Succession -- all hooked audiences
on the drama of centering enjoyably bad villains
who never pretended to be otherwise. "I choose violence." To be sympathetic,
the villain doesn't have to be a person
we like in real life. Cambridge Dictionary defines
a character being sympathetic as "described or shown
in such a way that you are able to understand
the character's feelings, with the result
that you like them." "She pretended to love me.
All I ever wanted from Beck was to be seen,
really seen and accepted." And to an extent,
just the act of making a villain the protagonist,
at the center of a story structure,
is enough to make you connect to them. But a second technique
a number of these stories use to elicit greater feeling is to:
Make them a victim. A victimized-villain
story banks on the fact that we often feel for
people who’ve been hurt. "The world took everything
away from me! Everything I ever loved!" And today’s victimized-villain plots
often channel a broader pattern of how our society
cruelly mistreats people of a certain class,
race or gender, to trigger our sense
of injustice. "Nick Dunne took my pride
and my dignity and my hope and my money." "They don’t give a s[BLEEP]t
about people like you, Arthur." In Black Panther,
Erik Killmonger’s quarrel with the movie’s hero
is rooted in justified outrage over the unfairness of
having lost his father as well as having grown up
as a black man in a racist society. "These items aren't for sale." "How do you think your
ancestors got these? You think they paid a fair price,
or did they take it, like how they took
everything else?"
Killmonger is perhaps
one of our time’s best examples of the antivillain,
who operates in the same space as a traditional villain
against a hero-protagonist, "BURN IT ALL!" but whom the movie makes us
feel for and understand. "So ain't all people
your people?" In their mind,
the victimized-villain feels their morally
unscrupulous behavior is justified because of
what they’ve been through. [Subtitled Ape-speech]:
"For years I was a prisoner in their lab.
They cut me, tortured me."
It’s also true that a lot
of people who do bad things have been victims of
traumas or abuse. And ultimately
these stories emphasize that villainy is a cycle,
often perpetuated from the top down. Still, if the “victim track”
goes too far in fully humanizing characters
or blaming their behavior on external causes,
it risks making the sympathetic villain
not a villain at all. "No truer love." Sometimes stories are
more interesting and coherent if they don’t overjustify
or mitigate this character’s evil, but really own the badness. "The reason we loved
all these villains when we were kids
was because they were bad, not in spite of it." Thus, rather than softening
their villain’s edges, some of the most effective
sympathetic villain stories use a third technique. They: “Trick” us into villainy.
Here the villain-protagonist starts out as appealing, charismatic or heroic
in order to get us on side, and the story cons us
into continuing to root for the villain
even as they become more and more overtly evil. Perhaps the best example of this
would be Michael Corleone in The Godfather. He’s presented to us
as an idealist -- the decorated soldier
who’s not like his mafia family. "That’s my family, Kay,
it’s not me." When he does eventually turn,
it’s under pressure to defend his family. As the trilogy goes on
and Michael becomes a ruthless, cold-blooded boss,
he alienates, hurts, and even murders members
of that very family. "Only don't tell me
that you're innocent. Because it insults
my intelligence, and it makes me
very angry." Yet we retain
that romantic image of him as the tragic hero,
forced down this path by a world that’s immoral. "We was all proud of you,
being the hero ‘n all, your father too." Most masterfully,
the story gets us to root for his evil choices themselves,
as we're made to feel that people who betray
or wrong him deserve punishment for not living up
to his sense of honor. "I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.
You broke my heart!" So it's not that we like him
in spite of his villainy; we like that he unlocks
a villainy in us that might feel quite good. "I don’t feel I have to
wipe everybody out, Tom. Just my enemies." You can also make a case
that some of the characters who defined the age
of the TV antihero took us in with this
same trickery technique, and were actually
sympathetic villains in antihero clothing. "I am not in danger, Skylar,
I am the danger." Like Michael, Tony Soprano
starts out feeling like a slightly more optimistic
spin on the mafioso -- he loves his family,
and despite the nature of his business,
he seems to conduct it in a semi-decent way:
he looks out for the other guys in his crew,
seems to make rational and fair decisions, "Fifteen grand is too much." "I'll talk to Uncle Junior
personally, and maybe I can get it to around 10." and strikes both
his coworkers and us as strong leadership material. "More is lost by indecision
than wrong decision." These facts let us justify
how much we might like or enjoy watching Tony
even while we watch him do blatantly horrible things. But over time, he leads everyone
in his life to misery, if not death. And his therapist Dr. Melfi
concludes that he’s a sociopath. "Apparently the talking cure
actually helps them become better criminals." So the gradual yet shocking
reveal of that show is that we (like Melfi)
have been suckered into making excuses for the fact
that he was a straight-up villain all along.
Game of Thrones followed this trickery path in an extreme way by turning
its inspirational heroine Daenerys Targaryen
into a villain in the final season --
but many fans found her shift too sudden and drastic. "Children, little children,
burned!" "I tried to make peace
with Cersei. She used their innocence
as a weapon against me." So that reaction shows
that it’s important to include viewers in the
character’s transformation, letting us understand
and participate in why the character’s villainy
gets expressed. And this leads to
our fourth technique: Give us an ideological
or mission-driven Sympathetic Villain
who’s motivated by a beautiful-sounding idea. "May her arrow signify
the end of tyranny and the beginning
of a new era." This villain probably thinks
they’re a good guy, "Your planet was on
the brink of collapse." or at least,
they started out that way. "I will answer injustice
with justice.” But ultimately, the takeaway
is usually that pursuing an abstract greater good
isn’t worth it, if you have to act
like a villain to succeed. "You created a world
without murder... And all you had to do
was kill someone to do it."
Stories about the
sympathetic villain are a warning --
setting out with good intentions isn’t enough,
and it’s easier than you think to end up on the wrong side. A key reason the villain
exists in the story is to challenge the hero
philosophically -- to express a mindset
or counterargument that the hero must
confront and defeat. "There is no good and evil,
there is only power, and those too weak
to seek it." So making your villain compelling
is a powerful way to make their counterargument stronger "Greed, for lack of
a better word, is good.” -- forcing us to
really consider this ideological challenge
so that the hero’s ultimate moral victory
means more. "As much as I wanted
to be Gordon Gekko, I'll always be Bud Fox." At its best, the
sympathetic villain story can be deeply effective
at articulating a wider critique of society. From The Godfather
to Goodfellas to The Sopranos, sympathetic mafia villains
yield a scathing critique of the American dream,
and how it uses the romance of family
as a smokescreen for a ruthless,
selfish capitalism. "It’s not personal, Sonny,
it’s strictly business." "It’s business, we’re soldiers,
we follow codes -- " "Does that justify
everything that you do?" On the other hand,
it’s easy for the message of a sympathetic villain
story to get messy, especially if it’s unclear
which character -- and which philosophy --
we’re meant to root for. Some stories try to
solve for this by pitting the
sympathetic-villain-protagonist against an even worse villain. "For all your noise and bluster,
you're just a silly little girl with no one around
to protect her." Other stories make the
villain’s case stronger by cutting down the hero figure. Billions introduces its central
shady hedge fund manager Bobby Axelrod as a
rags-to-riches underdog, "I carried your grandfather's
bag quite a few times. Your bag too, Chad,
in the summer after middle school." while his supposed
“good guy” antagonist, US Attorney Chuck Rhoades,
is portrayed as a child of privilege
who’s just as unscrupulous and determined to win
by any means necessary. "I am willing to stare
into the abyss beyond conventional morality
and do what needs to be done." But making the villain too likable
(or the hero too unlikable) can obscure what the
intended takeaway should be. "What have I done wrong?
Really? Except make money. Succeed. All these rules
and regulations -- arbitrary." Director Akira Kurosawa
wrote that in his film Drunken Angel, the
"innate and powerful personal qualities" of the actor playing
the villain, Toshiro Mifune, were actually a problem because "the theme of the film
became somewhat indistinct." [Subtitled Japanese]: “He acts tough
and swaggers around, but in his heart I know
he’s unbearably lonely." Arguably, Black Panther
risked falling into this trap with charismatic villain
Erik Killmonger -- since a number of viewers
left thinking he was right, though in that case it
seems intentional that Killmonger’s world view
is not written off. "When black folks
started revolutions, they never had
the firepower... or the resources to
fight their oppressors. Where was Wakanda?"
The Dark Knight walks this line due to the charisma of Heath Ledger’s Joker,
but the movie takes pains to disprove
the Joker’s philosophy that only social norms
hold us back from doing evil. "This city just showed you
that it's full of people ready to believe in good." 2019’s Joker gives
the same character’s mindset more validity by
making him the protagonist and casting a damning light
on Bruce Wayne’s unfair privilege. "You have a problem
with Thomas Wayne?" "Yes I do." Yet by reframing this story
so drastically that the hero is held in contempt
and the villain has good reasons,
does the film risk implicitly endorsing
the villain’s actions? "What do you get -- " "I don't think so -- " "...when you cross-- " "I think we're done with -- " " ...a mentally ill loner -- " "That's it -- " [Yelling]: "With a society
that abandons him, and treats him like trash?!" "You get what you
fucking deserve!" Since the villain’s philosophy
is such a key part of why they exist,
when a story centers or emphasizes a villain,
it’s especially important to be attentive to how
they relate to wider cultural cues. “The US army circulated
an internal memo based on an FBI warning
citing potential incel violence at an unnamed theatre
during opening weekend.” I Care A Lot incorporates
feminist rhetoric and a gay love story
into its portrait of heartless “guardian”
Marla Grayson, who preys on elders
to make money. "You're my guardian robber!" -- but this arguably ends up
making the film feel both misogynistic
and homophobic. After first priming us
to expect a moral about America’s healthcare and
legal systems, "I’m helping you feed
the money monster, but I hardly see any
of the gold for myself. Gimme a taste." it confusingly sets up
her fight with Peter Dinklage’s inept Russian mafia boss
as vaguely feminist. "You can't convince a woman
to do what you want, then you call her a bitch
and threaten to kill her." And it then further
confuses its message by giving us reasons
to sympathize with the various angry men
who attack her, "Hey, bitch!" since she’s preyed
on their mothers. "She has a loving son
to take care of her. I just don't understand
how the court can entrust my mother to this stranger." By contrast, Gone Girl’s
use of an angry woman villain-protagonist (also played by Rosamund Pike) works because the
movie’s central theme is how men stoke female rage. "He became someone
I did not agree to marry. And found himself a newer,
younger, bouncier cool girl." Like I Care a Lot,
The One risks sending a weird message
about gender politics as it also stars an
evil "girl boss" villain-protagonist
who gets attacked by and hurts disgruntled men
while spouting feminist rhetoric. "You want power and success." "Yeah. I'm supposed to
apologize for that. Men never do." But like Gone Girl,
it does a better job of using its villain’s behavior
to express a clear theme: CEO Rebecca sells a
fairytale of romance of finding your perfect
chemical match, but she falters because
she doesn’t know the real meaning of love. "You didn't care about him.
You just thought of yourself, you always do." While it’s helpful to put us
in the villain’s place and include us in their feelings,
the Sympathetic Villain Story is often best served
by avoiding any mixed messages that this person
might be “right” or someone we’d
want to emulate. This line in The One, "You think you’re a bad person
but you’re not" is intentionally followed
by a flashback confirming that, nope, she definitely
is a bad person. (and if we had any doubt,
the season ends playing a cover of
“Friend of the Devil”). [Singing] "A friend of the Devil
is a friend of mine." Throughout cinema,
some of the most successful stories
with villain-protagonists work because they don’t
bother to make this person traditionally likable. "I like to dissect girls.
Did you know I'm utterly insane?" Whereas Joker’s Arthur Fleck
is positioned like an underdog to root for,
one of the film’s inspirations, Taxi Driver, takes pains
to make us uncomfortable with protagonist Travis Bickle’s
repulsive views. "They should clean up
this city here because this city here
is like an open sewer, you know,
it’s full of filth and scum." Films like American Psycho
and A Clockwork Orange use somewhat terrifying
villain-protagonists to put an idea under a lens. "I have all the characteristics
of a human being but not a single, clear,
identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust." The age of the antihero
was grounded in a desire to understand what
creates these people. Yet this new age of
the sympathetic villain is more about understanding
the structures that enable bad people. And there’s actually
optimism in this trend. It shows we’re willing
to look honestly at villains onscreen and off --
to hold ourselves and our society accountable,
instead of making antiheroic excuses. The Sympathetic Villain story
makes us identify with a devil in order to confront
the demons within -- and just might offer us
a useful exorcism. "My pain is constant and sharp
and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain
to be inflicted on others." This is The Take:
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