Reader here, and I have a question… What is it about the bad guys, that we love so much?
Over the weekend, I found myself going down a YouTube rabbit hole, watching highlights, scenes and compilations from one of the greatest TV shows of all-time, “The Sopranos.”
Throughout its six-season run, we were introduced to Tony Soprano and a cast of memorable charters, from his wife Carmella and kids Meadow and A.J., to his mafia associates Paulie Walnuts, Christopher Moltisanti and Silvio Dante, to Tony’s therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi.
Then you get into the other players, like Uncle Junior, Tony’s Mom Livia, and the rogue’s gallery from rival crime families, the FBI agents trying to get Tony, and many other characters, who popped in and out throughout the series’ run.
Now, when you really sit down and think about it, as much as many of us have our favourite characters, there really aren’t what you’d call true good guys and bad guys. The characters live in shades of grey, and really, the protagonists are just as much antagonists in many ways.
Few of the characters don’t do something horrible at some point in the story, and we as viewers find ourselves often as fascinated as we are horrified!
But that’s not much different from the way horror movie icons like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers and Leatherface do vile, horrible things to their unlucky victims, yet we low-key find ourselves cheering them on, with these silver screen villains becoming pop culture icons!
Even iconic villains like DarthVader and the shark from “Jaws” have legions of fans!
Perhaps we cheer on the baddies, because there’s that little bit of a villain in all of us, that little devil on our shoulders, that could steer us in the wrong direction, and we watch these characters on the screen do and get away with things we would never even fathom or actually do!
Maybe we subscribe to the theory of Dark Helmet…
But at least those are FICTIONAL VILLAINS and we KNOW they’re the bad guys.
That still doesn’t explain the fascination we have for true crime and war documentaries. Looking at all the streaming services, there seem to be way more docs that focus more on the evildoers, and less on the people who catch them or take them down.
And I’m just as guilty of watching those, too, mostly out of a morbid curiosity to see how these awful things happen again and again.
The important thing is to remember that in fiction, the line between good and bad is more easily blurred, but in real life, it’s more important to keep the line clear between good and evil, and stay on the right side!
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