I’m going to begin with a brief summary of a movie that was released about ten years ago, maybe more. It was the second M. Knight Shyamalan film, back when everything he directed didn’t draw scorn from every armchair Roger Ebert. If you don’t want the spoilers, I respect that, and you shouldn’t read any further, but since the film has been out for a long time, and no one really takes his work seriously anymore, I’ll chance it anyway. The film ‘Unbreakable’ starred Bruce Willis, who discovered that he was virtually indestructable unless he was in water, where he was susceptible to drowning like everyone else. He is courted by a comic book enthusiast played by Samuel L. Jackson, who believes that Willis’ character is the hero that comics have been portraying based on real life. Jackson’s character is eccentric, to be sure, and is the extreme opposite of Willis: he has a rare bone disease that makes him susceptible to bone fractures very easily. The movie proceeds at a medium tempo as Willis comes to terms with his powers and begins to use them for good. Rah-rah, the hero is born.
Then comes the shocking twist, for which Shyalaman has built his reputation, for better or worse. Jackson’s character has engineered several large-scale disasters, causing hundreds of innocent people to die, in his search for someone who is ‘unbreakable’. Therefore, Jackson is the villain, or Willis’ nemesis. He has all the trademarks--obsession, eccentricity, passion, and a seeming lack of empathy. He has a history, above-average hardships which left him emotionally scarred, and as a result, his adult character had been molded from these childhood traumas. He became the archetypal ‘villain’. There are flashbacks to when the young ‘Mr. Glass’, as he refers to himself, attempted a ride at a carnival, only to suffer from serious bone fractures from the rough, jerky twists and turns. You can’t help but feel sorry for him. That’s human nature. When the worst comes out of someone, we all want to know why it got that far. What caused Mr. Glass to kill all those people? As Hollywood as this movie is, I really appreciated it for what it was trying to say. Perhaps there wasn’t an Oscar-worthy story, and the action wasn’t pulsating throughout like a summer blockbuster. But the message was a good one, and more relevant than one might think.
I’ve been thinking lately about the characters I like in movies and stories. Those who know me well know that I am a life-long Star Wars enthusiast. People frequently ask me which characters are my favourites. I often reply that Boba Fett, the enigmatic bounty hunter who successfully captures Han Solo, is my immediate favourite. In fact, the bounty hunter characters who appear on screen but rarely, if ever spoke are my favourites over all. I would then have to say Darth Vader would rank next, the primary antagonist of the series. And I’m not alone. Vader ranks consistently high in fan polls, and a prominent movie site even ranked Vader as one of the most popular villains of all time, in any genre or age. He is a very compelling figure. His costume is now iconic; his characteristics, such as his heavy breathing, are now engrained in pop culture. He is viewed as merciless throughout Episodes 4 and 5, yet his character became even more compelling in Episode 6, when he was out-eviled by his own boss, the Emperor, and we got to catch a glimpse into his own humanity. We learned that he was once a good person, who through a series of as-of-then unrevealed hardships, was twisted into the villain so widely recognized and applauded. For even the most hardened villains, there had to be a period of innocence, when they were innately good, before the seeds of evil germinated and flourished. By revealing that Vader was Luke’s father (‘Vader’ is a Danish word for ‘father’, I once read somewhere), George Lucas had shown that before the monster there was a human being. Someone with redeeming qualities, who once loved, and was loved. Before something went terribly wrong.
Of course, the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars films flushed out, for better or worse, Darth Vader’s backstory. He was once a child, raised in hardship, and was separated from his mother to live with guardians who for all intents and purposes shaped him to be a logical, unemotional person who would live only to be a Jedi, philosophical people who used the magic-like Force for meditation and the protection of others. I can’t help but think of the parallels between the Jedi of the Star Wars universe and Catholic Priests. We all know what happened to some of the priests. Ideally, denying your sexuality in the service of good is a noble concept, but for some individuals, all it provided was a perfect storm for a descent into villainous behaviour. Before sexual abuse scandals in the church were revealed to the public, priests often accepted these crimes as collateral damage--unfortunate, but sometimes it just happened. The abusers themselves often talked themselves into accepting that it wasn’t even wrong. They were, after all, messengers of God. Real villains always believe that what they do is not wrong. You couldn’t convince Hitler that his idea was a bad one. As Obi-Wan once said to Luke, from ‘a certain point of view’.
Story villains are necessary for several reasons. For a truly great hero to even exist, there must be an equal adversary for him to vanquish. Optimus Prime has Megatron. Sherlock Holmes has Moriarty. Batman has the Joker. Even prime time soap operas have supervillains. It is old as history itself. People recognize that the potential for good and evil exists in all of us. Religion flushed it out into an elaborate tale of God versus the Devil. There would be no need for a benevolent deity to oversee us if there weren’t any real danger. The Devil himself has even received the back story treatment. John Milton wrote extensively about the origins of Satan in ‘Paradise Lost’. Turns out he was a handsome young man, a son of God himself, who became disgruntled and started a rebellion. Which of course he was foolish to do, because we all know that God is invincible. So he gathered his friends, took his toys and left, setting up on Earth where he actually had a chance for success. What could God do? Only send his next son to save the otherwise helpless humans from the corrupting influence of evil incarnate. Seriously, if you want great action and adventure, read The Bible and Paradise Lost. It’s the stuff of legend, literally, and also literally the basis for virtually every hero tale ever written.
One of the reasons we have a weakness for villains is that we empathize with them. We can’t help but see the young, innocent Anakin Skywalker in every bad guy. Originally, Vader was purely evil. Without him, the Rebel heroes wouldn’t have had anything to fight for. He was cold and ruthless. As people began to like him more and more, subconsciously we began to wonder why he became so evil. And to fill the demand, that story was told, only this time, the pure evil was diverted to another character, the Emperor, who then became the face of pure evil. A novel was recently published explaining the Emperor’s early life, and now the pure evil has shifted back another generation to his corruptor. And so on, and so on. There must be a ‘year zero’ for evil. The Devil has been suggested to be that very thing. And even he has a back story now. Where does it end? Or begin?
Our fascination with villains doesn’t end with fiction. Real life villains have been studied, scrutinized, and even worshipped throughout history. We like being scared. No one remembers the heroes in Friday The 13th or Halloween. They remember Freddy Krueger and Jason. Everyone knows who the famous serial killers are. They commited unthinkable crimes, and few would dispute that, yet they provide fascinating tales passed down, and often emulated in pop culture. I faithfully watched Law and Order, as well as all the spinoffs, for years, and their tales were often ‘ripped from the headlines’. Sometimes we cheer against the villains, like the OJ Simpsons or the Casey Anthonys of the world, but we can’t ignore the fact that we are the audience, and we are being entertained. We have to know how it’s going to end. We want a happy ending, but often the end is not so happy. We’re willing to take the chance. We follow the news as they sensationalize high-profile crimes. It makes you wonder why some crimes are higher profile than others. Who sifts through the countless murders, abductions, and rapes to decide which ones people want to follow? It’s as if every story is literally a book on a shelf, and the ones with the prettiest covers are the ones taken down and passed around.
This week, the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine has a photo of one of the bombing suspects from the Boston Marathon bombings. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a curious villain. His ethnicity is from somewhere else, so thankfully he isn’t one of ‘us’. His name is spelled strangely; if his name was Bob Jones, he would be a little less interesting. He is a muslim, so right away the villain factor is that much stronger. And now he’s on the front cover of one of pop culture’s most prominent publications. This issue has naturally created quite the controversy. The argument against his picture being on the cover is a valid one: the cover of Rolling Stone is traditionally reserved for artists who have ‘made it’ into the lexicon of pop history. They are the best, or at very least most popular. By publishing Tsarnaev’s photo, he has joined the ranks of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, and any of the more modern celebrities. The photo’s resemblance to Jim Morrison was pointed out. Many claim that putting his handsome photo on the cover of such an iconic magazine as this could be interpreted as a validation for what he has done, because he has now been elevated to celebrity status. I get that.
Most people who are upset with the photo have pointed out that he actually looks good. He has tousled hair and a doe-eyed innocence. I’m not sure what people were expecting. They apparently don’t have any photos of him in a lab coat or striking an evil grimace. I always found it interesting that during the endless trial of the serial killer Robert Pickton, they always published that same photo where he was unkempt and almost snarling. You never saw his high school yearbook photo.
Defenders of the Rolling Stone story and cover point out that historically, Rolling Stone, as well as many other periodicals, have published photos of other nefarious villains, such as Hitler, Stalin, and even Charles Manson. In regards to Hitler, enough time has passed that he has been portrayed in movies as a story villain, so there is less to worry about when watching his stories for entertainment. Historical villains are often applauded for their efforts, like Ghengis Kahn, Vlad the Impaler, and Napoleon. Of course, whether or not they are villains depends on your point of view. There are millions of people who would argue that Osama bin Laden and his followers are not villains, and one day there may well be a society where he is immortalized in statues for his beliefs. It hurts to think about it. No one should ever idolize a murderer, and all of these villains, including Tsarnaev, are undeserving of praise.
The problem is, we want to know about villains. We need to know why they did what they did so we can stop them and others like them from hurting people. We need to understand them. Most of us simply don’t. In Boston, innocent people were killed at a public event. Two young men commited the crime for reasons unknown. As the story unfolded, we learned that they had a family, that they were corrupted somewhere along the way into believing what they did was right, but most alarming of all that they were human beings. Rolling Stone has always reported news, and political figures have traditionally appeared on the cover. The story on the inside is meant to flush out some of that prequel history, to provide context. Why should we be so surprised? Rolling Stone did not elevate Tsarnaev to celebrity status. He was already there.
