Good Gone Bad: The Rise of the Anti-Hero

The Rise of the Anti-Hero in Movies and TV

So, what do Tony Soprano, Walter White, and Boyd Crowder all have in common? Well, they're all objectively bad guys, yet their shows make us root for them. And let's be honest, none of them are as cool as Hans Gruber.

You're amazing. You figured this all out already. Hey everyone, Keith Foskey here. And today we're going to be diving into the evolution of good guys and bad guys in movies and TV shows. In this video, I want to explore how the portrayal of heroes and villains has changed over my lifetime.

Back in the day, it seemed like we had a clear-cut understanding of who the heroes were and who the villains were. Now, those lines are as blurry as Johnny's eyes must have been after he lost the All-Valley Under -18 Karate Championship by receiving an illegal kick to the face.

If you follow me here or on social media, you might remember the recent article I wrote entitled, When the Villain Becomes the Hero, Why Modern Movies Lie About Sin. Well, in that article, I compared today's protagonists with those of the past, pointing out how there's often an attempt today to make the bad guy the hero, and how these characters' actions are justified through elaborate backstories that create sympathy for their misbehavior.

Justification, Sympathy, and the Problem of Excusing Sin

I want to read you a short excerpt from the conclusion of my article. The Bible says that we are justified by only one thing, faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. The man's greatest desire has always been to justify himself another way.

He's constantly looking for something he can use as an excuse before Almighty God, and the greatest excuse is that it's not really our fault. We're the product of a bad environment, an abusive father, or a really mean landlord.

I'm looking at you, Mr. Furley. How can God judge us when our sin really isn't our fault? After I published the article, I received a lot of great feedback, and I want to thank you all so much for that.

The Grinch as an Example of a Villain Rewritten as a Victim

One friend, Larry Cusick, reminded me of a perfect example of what I was trying to say. The Grinch. The Grinch hated Christmas. In the original cartoon, the Grinch was bad just because he was bad. There was really no reason.

He was just a Grinch. But in the Jim Carrey version, two major changes were added. First, the Grinch had a painful backstory that justified much of his bad behavior. And second, the Who's in Whoville were portrayed as awful.

Seriously, they were the villains. The mayor was a bully, the father was obsessed with materialism, and the mother was ate up with covetousness. When the movie ends, even though the Grinch apologizes, you almost feel like it's the Who's who really need to be sorry.

I genuinely believe that if the Three Amigos were remade today, it would probably include an entire subplot excusing Awapo for wanting to plunder the village of Santa Poco because he was probably raised by an abusive Santa Pocan nun or something.

It couldn't just be that he was a bad guy. For some reason, we just can't accept that someone might simply be a bad person. We have to assume they've been abused, mistreated, or bullied. They have to have a reason.

Better yet, they have to be given an excuse. Now, some might argue that adding layers of nuances to characters is necessary for character development, especially in feature-length films, and that's true.

But that brings me to my next point. Many of the comments on the article that I wrote point out that just because a villain is given a backstory doesn't automatically mean they're being justified. And I agree.

A compelling backstory can increase interest in a character, and I don't have a problem with that. I'm simply observing that in many ways, we have begun to portray the villain as the hero, or at least as the protagonist, the one who we're rooting for.

Dexter, The Shield, and the Appeal of the Anti-Hero

Consider the show Dexter, a television show which literally made a serial killer the protagonist. Yes, they tried to make him sympathetic by establishing that he was only willing to kill bad people, but all the while, he was a bad person himself.

And a better example might be Vic Mackey from The Shield, played by Michael Chiklis. He was a cop who was involved in murder, theft, and all manner of corruption. And yet, he was the hero. More specifically, he was one of many that would eventually be commonly called the anti-hero, which is defined as a central character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage, and morality.

Hear that? A hero that lacks morality. Ultimately, he's the bad guy. But he's a bad guy that you're supposed to root for. And boy, did we root for him. Michael Chiklis would go on to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and his character, Vic Mackey, is considered one of television's most groundbreaking anti-heroes.

And this leads to my point. My suspicion, and the reason for the article, is that we've reached a point where we no longer call evil evil. Instead, we seek to justify it. And even at times, portray it as heroic.

Why Anti-Heroes Reflect Our Own Need for Justification

Why is this? Well, a possibility, as I say in the article, is that in the grand scheme of redemption, we are the villains. We're the ones who've done evil. We're the ones who deserve justice. So perhaps the fascination with the anti-hero is really just recognition that we and they are one and the same.

Again, I want to quote from my article. We honor the sinful man because he is us. We want to make excuses for him because if they're effective, then we can excuse ourselves as well. We don't want to condemn the evil man because in doing so, we would be condemning our very own souls.

We see ourselves as villains because we are the villains in the drama of redemption. And we don't want the villain to be brought to justice or even redeemed. We want him to be right. Or maybe I'm thinking harder about these characters than the people who actually write them.

It's not like they would actually make the devil into a protagonist, right? Listen, I want to hear your thoughts. Do you think there's anything to my theory? Do you think my observation that movies and TV have been increasingly glorifying anti-heroes has any spiritual significance?

Please leave your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for watching. And as always, stay tuned for more discussions. And if you like this video, hit the thumbs up button. If you didn't like it, hit the thumbs down button twice.

And until next time, stay blessed and keep striving for superior theology.