# TV Or Movie Characters Who Are Written To Be Virtuous But Are Really Jerks--Or Vice Versa **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 13, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556 "2017-08-13T17:21:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/21 "2017-08-14T02:45:57Z")
Harpo Marx’s character in Marx Brothers films. Are we really suppose to like a guy, no matter how funny, who chases women around who clearly do not want to be with him? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/22 "2017-08-14T03:29:35Z")
How about Elliot Stabler on _Law & Order: SVU_? I know he was supposed to be the crusading cop/concerned father type, but how many innocent people did he insult or assault in the interrogation room? I don’t know if they ever really wrote an exit for him. I thought he should be suspended and brought up on charges. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/23 "2017-08-14T04:21:58Z")
> [@golffan1963](#): > > Where does one begin? The character was clearly written to be filled with self-righteous virtue Underlined the oxymoron. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/24 "2017-08-14T05:09:40Z")
Albus Dumbledore is kind of the poster child for this. He’s supposed to be this kindly, vaguely dotty old headmaster who only has Harry’s best interests at heart, but we gradually realize he’s a Machiavellian sociopath who’s fattening Harry up for slaughter in the name of destroying Voldemort. The ultimate “end justifies the means” kind of guy. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/25 "2017-08-14T05:15:10Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > James Bond is creepy. He’s supposed to be a hero, and I suppose I’m glad he’s out there saving the world…but he’s mean-spirited and sexually aggressive. Some of his seductions have looked a lot like rapes. In _Dr. No_, he is ambushed by No’s right hand man who is waiting for him in his room. He counts the shots, and when he knows he is out of bullets he gets the drop on him. _Then he just shoots a defenseless man._ Even granted that he is pissed off that the guy tried to kill him, he still should take him prisoner so he can be interrogated for information about No. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/26 "2017-08-14T06:12:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In _Dr. No_, he is ambushed by No’s right hand man who is waiting for him in his room. He counts the shots, and when he knows he is out of bullets he gets the drop on him. _Then he just shoots a defenseless man._ Even granted that he is pissed off that the guy tried to kill him, he still should take him prisoner so he can be interrogated for information about No. That’s the whole “license to kill” thing, isn’t it? Bond had already tried to question two of Dr. No’s henchmen and one of them took cyanide rather than answer. When the guy comes in and shoots the bed, Bond gets him to talk by letting him think he’ll be able to get to his gun. After he does, and finds it’s empty, it’s doubtful that he’d say anything more. So, yeah, kinda jerkish on Bond’s part, but not entirely unjustified. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/27 "2017-08-14T06:19:22Z")
> [@Tinker\_Grey](#): > > Like Captain Janeway. Or Jean-Luc Picard. He showed what a pontificating dick he really was when he ordered Riker to let a child he could have saved die. ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/28 "2017-08-14T10:35:46Z")
I am probably taking a light hearted comedy far too seriously but I usually found **Will Smith** ’s **Fresh Prince of Bel Air** to be an insincere, fake, tedious, arrogant, bullying ingrate. Yeah he occassionaly did something good or virtuous or mildly intelligent. Then it was back to mindless unpleasantness. TCMF-2L ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/29 "2017-08-14T12:26:11Z")
> [@TCMF-2L](#): > > I am probably taking a light hearted comedy far too seriously but I usually found **Will Smith** ’s **Fresh Prince of Bel Air** to be an insincere, fake, tedious, arrogant, bullying ingrate. Yeah he occassionaly did something good or virtuous or mildly intelligent. Then it was back to mindless unpleasantness. > > TCMF-2L Along those lines, almost all the American teen ensemble shows of the 80s and 90s (Saved by the Bell, California Dreaming etc.) basically showed a bunch of jerks trampling over others but anybody who got in their way was always the storyline “bad guy”. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/30 "2017-08-14T13:16:27Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > In _Dr. No_, he is ambushed by No’s right hand man who is waiting for him in his room. He counts the shots, and when he knows he is out of bullets he gets the drop on him. _Then he just shoots a defenseless man._ Defenseless? Was he some kind of pencil-necked geek who was obviously incapable of injuring Bond in hand-to-hand combat? The guy had just been trying to kill him. It’s not like the fight ended and Bond went back later to shoot him in cold blood (not that he’d have a problem with that if he thought the mission called for it, admittedly). ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/31 "2017-08-14T13:24:27Z")
It amazes me that Jim Parsons can portray Sheldon Cooper as the jerk that he is and yet still make him loveable. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/32 "2017-08-14T13:42:19Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > James Bond is creepy. He’s supposed to be a hero, and I suppose I’m glad he’s out there saving the world…but he’s mean-spirited and sexually aggressive. Some of his seductions have looked a lot like rapes. There’s quite a backlash against Bond these days. I’ve seen a lot of places condemning him (certainly my wife Pepper Mill is no fan, and my daughter MilliCal can’t understand her otherwise enlightened Dad’s love for the Neanderthal). Alan Moore put Bond down in no uncertain terms in the introduction he wrote to Frank Miller’s collected **The Dark Knight Returns**. He then went on to make him a petty and ludicrous villain in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel **The Black Dossier** (the third in the series). In it, Bond falls for the incredibly transparent ploy of Mina calling herself “Lotta Quim” (an obvious parody of “Pussy Galore”), gets his teeth bashed in with a brick-enhanced handbag, and tries to use a shooting pen gizmo that doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/33 "2017-08-14T13:42:38Z")
golffan1963: > [@](#): > > Or how about the episode where Hawkeye doesn’t approve of a commander’s battle tactics, so he decides to take matters into his own hands, and literally drugs the guy so he can take out his appendix. Yeah, so what if it’s a gross violation of every medical ethics rule in the book…but hey, Hawkeye disapproves, so it’s OK…ethics be damned. In that episode, Hawkeye is very much not portrayed as being in the right. BJ objects to what Hawkeye does, and, IIRC, the episode ends with both of them being disgusted at what Hawkeye did and in the end it served no purpose because the commander was simply replaced by another, similar commander. What bugs me about the “good guys” in MASH (and conversely, the cartoonishly imbecilic portrayal of Frank Burns and random “regular army” folks) is that there seems to be no one capable of articulating why American soldiers were fighting in Korea. Really, the Korean War (from the perspective of the West’s involvement) was very easily explained, and I’m sure that anyone questioning it at the time could have been quite easily convinced it was just and necessary. But the producers had a Vietnam-era anti-war agenda to push, and darned if historical facts were going to get in the way. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/34 "2017-08-14T14:16:58Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > In that episode, Hawkeye is very much not portrayed as being in the right. BJ objects to what Hawkeye does, and, IIRC, the episode ends with both of them being disgusted at what Hawkeye did and in the end it served no purpose because the commander was simply replaced by another, similar commander. This was a later episode. He did the same thing in the first or second season, and neither he nor Trapper ever questioned his ethics or the legality of surgical mutilation. It was done more or less for yucks. The officer was in this case a West Pointer colonel played by (!) Leslie Nielsen. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/35 "2017-08-14T14:19:59Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Defenseless? Was he some kind of pencil-necked geek who was obviously incapable of injuring Bond in hand-to-hand combat? Basically, yes. Evil and murderous, but not really physically threatening. And he was down on his hands and knees when Bond shot him repeatedly in the back. Have you seen the movie? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/36 "2017-08-14T14:22:45Z")
I thought Paladin from _Have Gun Will Travel_ was a dick when I first watched the program. Upon watching them as an adult, I think that at the very least he is a rude smart ass. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/37 "2017-08-14T14:24:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Alan Moore put Bond down in no uncertain terms in the introduction he wrote to Frank Miller’s collected **The Dark Knight Returns**. He then went on to make him a petty and ludicrous villain in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel **The Black Dossier** (the third in the series). In it, Bond falls for the incredibly transparent ploy of Mina calling herself “Lotta Quim” (an obvious parody of “Pussy Galore”), gets his teeth bashed in with a brick-enhanced handbag, and tries to use a shooting pen gizmo that doesn’t work. Actually, Bond regularly fucks up in one way or another, at least in the books I’ve read. He blows his cover, screws the wrong women, gets beaten up and tortured, and barely escapes other dangerous situations by the skin of his teeth. He’s far less a superman than he’s shown as in the movies. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/38 "2017-08-14T14:37:07Z")
> [@golffan1963](#): > > Second, Major Charles Emerson Winchester III. On the surface, pompous, arrogant, filled with conceit. Yet when you get to know him, you see he has redeeming factors. Stands up for his sister who stutters, convinces a musician who lost a hand to continue his piano playing career…if only he hadn’t pulled that scrip scam and also drugged Radar’s mouse ahead of the big race. I was not too long ago reading TV Tropes about MASH, comparing book, movie, and TV series tropes, and in the Trivia section found some interesting info on MAJ Winchester. In defense of Charles’ early-installment “evil” shenanigans, a lot of his misbehavior/jerkishness was due to the fact that a lot of early script ideas/material for MAJ Winchester were actually left over remnants intended for Larry Linville/MAJ Burns, and it was just dumped on David Ogden Stiers/MAJ Winchester. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/39 "2017-08-14T14:40:31Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Actually, Bond regularly fucks up in one way or another, at least in the books I’ve read. He blows his cover, screws the wrong women, gets beaten up and tortured, and barely escapes other dangerous situations by the skin of his teeth. He’s far less a superman than he’s shown as in the movies. That’s a whole separate issue. Fleming’s Bond is definitely someone who relies on his luck, as he does in his gambling. My point was that Moore makes him out to be a Dick, and a particularly incompetent and ridiculous Dick at that. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2017, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556/40 "2017-08-14T14:41:20Z")
> [@Mr\_Shine](#): > > Along those lines, almost all the American teen ensemble shows of the 80s and 90s (Saved by the Bell, California Dreaming etc.) basically showed a bunch of jerks trampling over others but anybody who got in their way was always the storyline “bad guy”. Disney has been or still is making a bunch of these shows for their network. The teen heroes are always snappy and getting one over on the adults, who are all clueless and overbearing. A few years ago my sister-in-law stopped letting her two daughters watch these shows because they were emulating these characters. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-or-movie-characters-who-are-written-to-be-virtuous-but-are-really-jerks-or-vice-versa/793556.md?page=3)