While evil may not be the best word to use, I couldn’t come up with anything better.
In any case, I had a former co-worker who rooted for Dexter in the Dexter series. I guess since he had some sort of “moral code”, it was OK to murder people. Of course, Dexter knew that it was wrong…why else would he take such pains to dispose of the people he killed?? If you ask me, consciousness of guilt right there.
I could never root for Dexter…I’ve also posted on other boards that I under no circumstances could I root for Phillip and Elizabeth in The Americans. I hope they eventually die, or get caught and rot in prison. Sorry, I don’t deem people trying to destroy my country sympathetic.
I have a grandson. When he was small he wanted to watch Dora the Explorer. I always rooted for the villainous Swiper, because the show was so. mindnumbingly. boring. every. time.
He disposed of the bodies because he didn’t want to go to jail. After all, he wasn’t an idiot
In a way, Dexter - at least in the first couple of seasons, before the show started to suck - was the most moral character on TV. He hurt only the guilty, despite his terrible compulsion to kill, because it was the right thing to do. Think about it: other characters are good because of inherent character traits like compassion, empathy, belief, honor or guilt. Dexter had none of these advantages. Instead, he was as good a person as he could possibly be because he made a clear-eyed decision to be good. What could be more moral than that?
I can’t name any examples, but I have a vague recollection of a style of sports movie where a ragtag underdog team matches up against an evil opponent. The opponent is typically dressed in black and is extremely disciplined and practicing all the time.
We’re supposed to root for the underdog but it often seemed to me that the “evil” team deserved the win, by just being more talented and working harder. It was especially galling when the lazy team won after some dumb luck.
In the Tom & Jerry cartoons, I usually root for Tom.
In the roadrunner cartoons, I usually root for the coyote.
For many years, I wished that Disney would make a cute-baby-animal movie where the cute baby animal was a carnivore. Then they made The Lion King, and went to great lengths to avoid the implications of leonine nutritional requirements.
Many people rooted for Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), as well as Walter White (Breaking Bad) and Boyd Crowder (Justified). They were Villain Protagonists, or Co-Protagonists in the case of Boyd Crowder.
I’ll admit that there were times, esp. in earlier seasons when I was rooting for these guys; typically, though, they’d cross “the line” and do something despicably irredeemable, which, afterwards, I wanted them to go down.
In the end Walter White and Boyd Crowder “owned” their villainy; Tony never gave up on his delusion that he was “a good guy,” I think.
I agree with the OP about The Americans. I am on record saying I’d be happy if they died in a fire. And I could piss on the ashes.
But then there’s the ambiguous middle ground. I love watching The Godfather, but I hate everyone in it. I hate then glorification of mobsters in America.
I root for Team Leverage, but then they are (mostly) bad people doing good. Same as Michael Westen.
I think we get a vicarious thrill out of identifying with the bad guy, especially when he’s doing something that we *wish *we had the balls to pull off, but we know we don’t. That’s my theory of the appeal of a Gregory House type character.
I hear that the Joffrey Baratheon Fan Club meetings are pretty sparsely populated.
In Mike Redneck’s Walpurgiis 3, the theme of “relative evil” is explored such that it is nearly impossible to feel positive towards any of the limited cast of characters in the book without feeling positive towards someone who is ultimately pretty heinously evil. I’ve always wanted to option the movie rights to this book; Mike, if you read this send me a PM.
I root for the anti-mutant humans in the X men movies. A lot of the mutants are serial killers, major criminals and wannabe dictators. I’m all for registering mutants, and creating weapons that take away their mutant powers if they threaten law and order.
It reminds me of stories I’ve read where serious gang members complain about being ‘harassed’ by the cops. They aren’t harassing you, you are a major criminal and they are doing their job.
I’ve heard that in an interview about Psycho Hitchcock said that the scene of the car sinking in the swamp was when audiences switched allegiances. Up until then, Marion Crane was the protagonist, but when the car took that little pause on its way to the bottom, and the audience half-panicked along with Norman Bates, the almost palpable relief when the car disappeared put the audience on Norman’s side.
It’s one of my favorite nostalgic childhood movies, but The Karate Kid falls victim to this cliche IMO. It made little sense that Daniel was able to win the tournament - not just beat the main “bad guy”, Johnny, mind you, but win individual matches against all of the Cobra Kai students. The Cobra Kai students actually trained by methodically practicing karate techniques and sparring with each other. Daniel trained by waxing cars and painting a fence. Yeah yeah, he was subconsciously learning the fighting moves by repeating these chores, it was all part of Miyagi’s ingenious teaching technique, it’s very heartwarming, I get it. It’s still absurd.
I’ll still always watch that movie when it’s on TV. “All the feels”, I think is what the kids are saying these days.
