Villains. Often times, the best part of a
movie. Can’t live with them, can’t feed ‘em to a pack of rabid hyenas. Usually.
Villains are the people we love to hate or fear, with the occasional modicum of empathy. But something has been happening with villains
lately. If you’ve found yourself nodding along to the logic of a diabolical plot, or
feeling more empathetic than usual towards a film’s antagonist, you’re not alone. Today’s villains, from Killmonger in Black
Panther to Screenslaver in The Incredibles 2 have become weirdly relatable, each equipped
with their own cogent critiques of the world. "People will trade quality for ease every
time." Villainy is and has always been a reflection
of value systems and fears of the time. So how did we get from this to this, and what
does it say about our past, and our world today? We’ll find out in this Wisecrack
Edition on the Cinematic History of Villainy. And
a warning, there’s a ton of spoilers here, for movies old and new. To understand how we got here, we have to
explore multiple eras and see how film villains embody the spirit and anxieties of the times.
Now, a quick disclaimer, none of these trends are absolute. Villains can break the mold,
or jump back into the past for inspiration, but what we’re discussing here are noticeable
trends among some of the most enduring films of each era. We’re going to start our journey
from the simple mustache-twirling villain to the complex, philosophizing radical by
looking at the 1950s and the early 1960s, the height of the war that wasn’t hot. In the post-World War II, party-in-the-suburbs
era of American history, describing our world seemed pretty simple. We were the heroes who
saved the world from the evil Nazis and were now tasked with staving off the also evil
U.S.S.R. It was very black and white, and so were our villains. Well yeah, literally,
but also metaphorically. Movie screens were full of bad Russian people, bad Asian people,
and very bad aliens. What do all of these naughty dudes have in
common? They’re the “other” - an inherent, inexplicable evil that’s stoked on destroying
America and our apple pie values. Sometimes that “Other” took the form of an amorphous
red-for-commie Blob ]or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Other times, the “other”
was an alien hatched in a pod and designed to look exactly like you, as in The Invasion
of the Body Snatchers — "Where do they come from?" — which some critics say represented
the fear of Communist brainwashing and infiltration. Also in the 50s, the movie industry went way
back to basics, producing a number of biblical sagas with running times of four hours or
more. These expensive epics proved massively popular, with three ranking in the top ten
highest-grossing films of the decade. Perhaps this was partially because they so perfectly
embodied Cold War propaganda, which depicted a face-off between God-fearing Americans and
the godless communists. Ben Hur showed an aristocratic Jew being persecuted by an evil
Roman commander, while Quo Vadis pits new Christian converts against the evil Emperor
Nero and his Roman empire, and The Ten Commandments depicts good ol’ Moses staring down the
Egyptian emperor Ramses. These films all portrayed the noble “Judeo-Christian” taking on
a cruel, powerful despot of a non-monotheistic religion. These villains were representatives
of larger groups of bad people who wanted to cancel baseball and tupperware parties. Even when villains weren’t explicitly foreign
or pagan, they were just anti-American, Communist double agents as seen in a flurry of Cold
War propaganda films. Later, spy mania of the 1960s would also reflect Cold War anxiety,
with James Bond facing off against various agents of SMERSH, the imaginary Russian intelligence
agency. What all of these movies had in common was
an us vs. them mentality, with no-good Commies portrayed as pure and simply evil. One-dimensional
foreign/communist/alien/blob villains took a back seat in the late 60s and 70s
as we saw a definitive shift in the portrayal of villains. It was fitting for a time of
major social turbulence and soul-searching, as the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam made
visible some of the not-so-perfect aspects of America like racism and war. This period also saw a startling drop in public
trust of government a phenomenon that changed movie villains dramatically as outrage over
the war met outrage about Nixon’s tapes. Notably, 1970s movies shined a light on the
corrupt social systems that Americans were increasingly disillusioned with. Evil politicians
and public officials loomed large. Popular political thriller All the President’s Men
brought the Watergate scandal to the big screen in 1976. Fictional accounts also touched on institutional
corruption, like in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, which depicts a crooked mayor who cares more
about tourism revenue than keeping people from becoming shark bait. Further depictions
of the evil and mighty came in Chinatown, in which the sinister billionaire rejects
audience’s judgements of him by claiming that his evil acts were brought about by his
environment. “Most people never face the fact that in the right place, at the right
time, they’re capable of anything.” The suggestion is that circumstances of power
make the villain, rather than any innate nature. Corrupt cop films were another popular way
of portraying the power struggles taking place. Serpico, based on a true story, depicts a
world in which police corruption is an assumed fact. "You fire without looking? You fire
without a warning, without a fucking brain in your head?" In this world, bribes and brutality
are the coffee and donuts of police work, so much so that Al Pacino’s Serpico is distrusted
because he’s not willing to accept bribes. Corrupt cops were mainstays on the big screen,
popping up in The Godfather, White Lightning,The French Connection and The Conversation. Institutions,
it seems, had lost their presumption of goodwill. As a result, we started seeing villains who
embody the very broken systems people were angry about. Take Nurse Ratched from One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, who turned a benevolent profession into one that turns vivid individuals
into drugged-up, dependent ghosts of themselves. In a similarly bleak depiction of institutionalization,
East from Alcatraz renders prisoners sympathetic heroes struggling against the efforts of an
evil warden. Something similar can be seen in Cool Hand Luke. In both cases, the person tasked with imposing
law, order or societal norms is recast as the villain. The 1970s further muddied the
waters by blurring the line between hero and villain until the distinctions became all
but meaningless. These characters are are depicted as conflicted, heavily-flawed protagonists
with questionable, even hideous morals. Even when they weren’t particularly powerful,
bad guys in the 70s were depicted as conflicted individuals struggling to navigate the lines
between good and bad, or alternately villains of circumstance. You could argue that Walter White of Breaking
Bad starts as an anti-hero - a cancer-stricken chemistry teacher who starts dealing meth
to help provide for his family - but eventually after say, the 5th ruthless murder, morphs
into a villain protagonist. In Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film, Taxi Driver,
Travis Bickle is one such heroic villain, or villainous hero, depending on your perspective
swinging on the pendulum of violently bad to violently good-ish as he goes from plotting
to gun down a presidential candidate to plotting to rescue a 12-year-old prostitute. In the previous year’s Dog Day Afternoon,
novice crook and hero/villain Sonny Wortzik botches a bank robbery and spontaneously takes
all the workers hostage. However, we soon learn the reason for Sonny’s dalliance with
crime: He needed the money to help his wife Leon, get sexual reassignment surgery. "Right
away, Sonny wanted to get me the money for the operation." We find out that Sonny is
a quality dude who pays his parents rent and doesn’t typically go around holding up banks.
Not your villain of the past. Meanwhile, one particularly popular series,
Star Wars, stands out as markedly simplistic in this era of more complex villains. It might
seem to counter our theory, as it presents a pretty basic, black and white paradigm of
good vs. evil, even if goes against the grain later on with Ewoks reminiscent of the Viet
Cong. The 1980s backpedaled hard on the anti villain
by revelling in more cartoonish villains who directly embodied the biggest threats of the
time. Effectively, it ushered back in an “us vs.
them” paradigm by tapping into fears surrounding the War on Drugs. Unsurprisingly, villains
of the time wanted a piece of that sweet sweet drug money in films like Scarface, To Live
& Die in L.A., Beverly Hills Cop and Raw Deal. This depiction of evil drug lords could be
seen as a ying-yang response to the less-than-savory cops of the 70s films. Take Tango & Cash,
which depicted two roguish cops who are treated as irrepressible protagonists, despite engaging
in some of the exact same violence Serpico condemned. However, they’re portrayed as
the best cops in the city because their unconventional tactics have cost local drug lord and rat-kissing
villain Yves Perret oodles of money. Then, said kingpin, as if schooled in the bad-cop
films of the 70s, gets them falsely incriminated for murder. The film ultimately comes down
hard on the side of cops and a “by any means necessary” model of policing. “I’ve
been a policeman for 12 years and I think it’s the best organization in the country." At the same time, the decade saw the resurgence
of Cold War anxieties, with some historians even referring to the eras the Cold War II.
As President Ronald Reagan increased military spending and ended arms control, Americans
rediscovered their fear of nuclear war. At the same time,“evil Russians” had their
moment in the sun with films like Rocky IV, which remained the highest-grossing sports
flick until 2009. It’s also been accused of being pure anti-Soviet propaganda because
of its villain, Soviet boxer Ivan Drago, who was decidedly not a charmer. “I must break
you.” The film Red Heat really won the villain jackpot
in its depiction of Soviet drug lord, Viktor Rostavili, who, in a trifecta of evil, also
murdered the protagonist’s partner. But arguably the clearest example of 1980s Cold
War villains came with 1984’s Red Dawn, which imagined Soviet forces invading America
and worse, taking photos in our national parks. The film’s director, John Milius, explicitly
saw the film as a warning to Americans to take seriously the threat of a Soviet invasion
via Central America. And if this seems a scare-monger for you, consider that Milius was the direct
inspiration for this guy: "Smokey my friend, you are entering a world of pain." Despite some return to “the other as the
enemy”, there are hints of the 70s skepticism towards institutions in the 1980s - when villains
are not pure caricatures from a Nancy Reagan fever dream, we see them continue exploiting
corrupt institutions for personal gain. Gordon “Greed is Good” Gecko, for instance, uses
the corrupt financial industry to fulfill his own gold-plated desires. Meanwhile, Die
Hard’s Hans Gruber emerges as one of the decade’s most enduring villains when he
and his cronies seize a high-rise building and take hostages during a Christmas party.
He operates under the guise of being a terrorist exacting revenge on an evil corporation. "Due
to the Nakatomi Corporation’s legacy of greed around the globe... they're about to
be taught a lesson in the real use of power." Interestingly enough, his moral high ground
crumbles when it’s revealed that, just like Gordon Gekko, he’s really only after cold
hard cash. "So that's is what this is about, Hans? A fucking robbery? Why'd you have to
nuke the whole building, Hans?" "Well, when you steal $600, you can just disappear. When
you steal 600 million, they will find you, unless they think you're already dead." In the 90s, American cinema swapped out the
reds for homegrown terrorist to fit" a decade in which domestic terrorism and “going postal”
dominated headlines. Fittingly, in cinema, it was an era of disgruntled middle class
dudes and “bombers next door,” a prime-time for complex anti-villains who are fighting
small, localized battles by radical means. Take the villain from Speed, Howard Payne
as portrayed by Dennis Hopper. This former bomb squad-officer turned-extortionist turned
psychopathic terrorist is partially motivated by a sweet 3.7 million dollars, but he also
expresses a sense of superiority. "You still don’t get it, do you Jack, huh? The beauty
of it. A bomb is made to explode. That’s its meaning its purpose." That’s... bananas. But it’s a hint of philosophy, of motivation
beyond cold hard cash. Howard’s a hint more complicated than say Gruber in that he genuinely
(it seems) desires “meaning” and “purpose.” He just goes about getting them in the worst
way possible. Same goes for Kevin Spacey’s supremely sadistic John Doe in the 1995 film
Se7en, who sees himself as “chosen” warrior in the crusade against everyday sin. “We
see a deadly sin on every street corner and we tolerate it because it's common. Well not
anymore. I’m setting the example.” By the end of the decade, Arlington Road became
the pinnacle of the domestic terror genre, whose villain mans the grill at the block
party as he carries out plans for his militant group’s latest deadly bombing. He claims
to be pursuing a lofty noble goal: "I'm a messenger, Michael. I'm a messenger! There's
millions of us, waiting to take up arms… ready to spread the word." But within his
critique of government is also an indictment of the supposed niceties of Clinton-era prosperity.
"Are you happy in your godless, suburban life?" Trouble in suburbia also abounded in American
Beauty, which depicted the enemy as Lester’s neighbor, the homophobic, Nazi-memorabilia-hoarding
Frank Fitts, who kills Lester after he rebuffs his romantic advancements. In both cases,
the villains feel victimized by the system or circumstance, and seek justice on their
own icky terms. Sometimes these villains even have genuinely noble causes, as they rail
against the systems that have wronged them. Take 1995’s The Rock, in which Ed Harris’s
General Hummel, a disgraced USMC brigadier general, who holds the entire city of San
Francisco hostage, — “Fifteen vx gas rockets at the heart of San Fran. You’ve got 17
hours to deliver the money.” — demanding that the families of slain Marines be compensated
for their deaths. Here, we come to an interesting question of
whether noble ends justify violent means. In this way, the film acts as a prelude to
the very questions being explored by current-day villains, though usually on a much wider-scale.
Movies couldn’t not be changed by an event as pivotal as 9/11 and the subsequent War
on Terror. With the 2000s, came a new shift in movie
villains, as America confronted an existential threat to its sense of safety and power in
the world. Fittingly, the first two installments of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy
captured the popular imagination in this decade. In 2005’s “Batman Begins,” we see the
dangerous metropolis under attack by international terrorist group “The League of Shadows,”
and its leader, Raz Al Ghul who in a remarkably-on-the-nose metaphor, wants to blow up Gotham’s tallest
skyscraper. Arguably the decade's most salient villain
came, of course, with Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight. The Joker
manifests as “the spirit of terrorism," the embodiment “of anarchy and chaos of
a particularly destructive and nihilistic nature,” as critic Douglas Kellner writes
in his book Cinema Wars. “The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.” In case the comparison between the Joker and
real world terrorism wasn’t clear enough, Kellner notes that the film is bursting with
9/11 iconography. Nolan’s film also gave us one of two coin-flipping evil-doers with
the character of Harvey Dent alias Two-Face. A representation of how confrontation with
the Joker’s evils can corrupt even the noblest person, Two-Face goes about “deciding people’s
fates through a plunge into a completely meaningless existence of pure contingency and nihilism. Meanwhile, the Coen Brothers’ Anton Chigurh
from No Country For Old Men also uses a coin to decide the fate of his victims. He doesn’t
kill out of greed, self-defense or some kind of practical goal, leading one character to
comment. “He is a peculiar man. Might even say he has principles, principles that transcend
money or drugs.” Indeed, Chigurh is quite simply an active
nihilist who believes that, if all morality is contrived, a coin flip is as good a way
as any to decide who lives or dies. But you don’t need a coin to affirm the random or
meaningless nature of our lives or deaths. Take Martin Scorsese's 2006 film, The Departed,
which featured the inimitable Jack Nicholson as chief gangster Frank Costello. From merciless
killing — "She fell funny." — to his refusal to subscribe to any rules. "I don’t
want my society to shape me, I want to shape my society." Frank actions seem shaped by
the belief that life is meaningless. "How’s your mother?" "She’s on her way out." "We
all are, act accordingly.” Frank, who we later find out was an FBI informant, sees
life as one long struggle during which any actions that sustain you for just one more
day are entirely excusable. Of course, plenty of other villain archetypes
punctuated the 2000s. But if the 2000s were a time when the villainous creed was no creed
at all, we’ve come a long way since then. Today, our villains are the product of an
increasingly divided America bracing itself for impact. With trust in government, media
and religious faith at all all-time low, villains reflect America’s innate skepticism towards
systems, any systems, all the systems! Villains simply embody solutions that are way too radical
and usually mind-bogglingly violent. The polar opposite of a 1950s villain, who
represented an evildoer infiltrating an inherently good system in hopes of corrupting it, today’s
villains increasingly face objectively evil systems which they want to change for the
better. The only thing that makes these characters villains rather than starry-eyed heroes is
their means of carrying out that change, the classic caveat of “you’d be really
cool if you weren’t trying to kill half of the world." For instance, Black Panther’s Killmonger,
played by Michael B. Jordan, has an entirely legitimate critique of how the world treats
its black citizens and Wakanda’s passivity as they suffer. In fact, Killmonger would
argue that the real villains of the film are Wakandans who sit on a stockpile of vibranium
while pretending to be a helpless Third World country. Where Killmonger’s perspective
gets debatably tricky is in the means - he wants to ship Wakandan weapons all over the
world and instigate a militant uprising. "The world's gonna start over, and this time, we're
on top. The sun will never set on the Wakandan empire." Though T’Challa defeats him and stops the
scheme, he does go to the UN to admit Wakanda’s real capacities, and even establishes a Wakandian
outreach center in Oakland, suggesting an end to Wakanda’s isolationism. So Killmonger’s
radicalism actually brought about a less radical, but positive change in policy. Then, there’s Mission Impossible 6’s new
utilitarian villain, August Walker/John Lark, who wants to destroy ⅓ of the world in the
hopes that the other ⅔ would come together in the wake of the attacks. Or as he says:
“There cannot be peace without, first, a great suffering and the greater the suffering,
the greater the peace.” Or Infinity War’s Thanos, who wants to kill half the world to
solve resource scarcities that plague the universe. Or The Incredibles 2’s villain
Screenslaver, who uses hypnotic screens to mind-control her minions. Her personal beef
with the system? That the endless repackaging of life into consumable media has made us
all lazy passive observers, and that superheroes are an integral part of the equation keeping
us docile and meek. Her plan to change the system: mind control superheroes, cause a
huge accident and ruin superhero’s public approval ratings so people will learn that
they have to protect themselves. What all these villains share: A majorly out-there
plan that appeals to our country’s growing fears that the world is screwed beyond repair,
and the only way to fix it is to tear it down. In this brave new world of villainy, we’re
able to empathize with the villain’s critique of the system, and their desire to change
it. In this “through the looking glass” reinterpretation of villainy, the heroes are
almost inevitably cast as slightly-flawed protectors of a status quo that nobody’s
really happy with. In the grand scheme of things, contemporary
villains seem to be a weird mirror image of 50’s villains, who want to corrupt good
institutions – Killmonger-types want to affect good change in corrupt institutions
- they just go about it in very bad ways. At the same time, our contemporary villains
seem to have merged the complexity and sometimes, apparent innocence of 90s villains while broadening
the social critiques of the 70s, and standing in opposition to the nihilism of the 2000s.
They do believe that there is a cause worth fighting for, and if they drafted different
blueprints for creating social change, they might just resurface as… complex heroes.
So what do you think? Are today’s villains more interesting than
past evildoers? And what do you think will come next for Hollywood bad guys? Let us know
in the comments and as always, peace!
In Summary:
Villains and Antagonists will often reflect the societal feelings of the time they were created in. But with that there can be exceptions (i.e. Star Wars arriving in an era of bleak antiheroes). But this is often a subconscious choice on the creators part, as they are just as influences by current events as the rest of us.