Why are vice-presidents often bad guys in movies?

Cafe Society
1

Films like 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, RED, My Fellow Americans etc. Is it more politically correct to have the vice-president be the bad guy instead of the president? Are movies where the president is the bad guy seen as criticism on the current president in office?

Or is vice-presidency a more rich environment for intrigue? A vice-president is often scheming to achieve the ultimate power, to become president. A president already is the president, and thus any plot has to be more complex than just becoming president.

2

I’d guess you pretty much summed it up.

There’s a baddie vice president in JFK too!

3

Well, really, what else does a Veep have to do with his (her) time other than hatch nefarious plots?

4

It makes for better drama.

5

Try out pick-up lines like “Hey, babe. Ever had sex with the second most powerful man in the world?”

6

“Watch out, baby, Daddy’ll break your heart like a tie vote in the Senate.”

“Awww, baby, don’t you know leggy blondes are MY vice?”

“Let’s go back to my place and go down . . . in history.”

“Feeling up for a little late night caucusing?”

“Why don’t you come with me back to Observatory Circle and let me observe your navel?”

7

The Veep was a good gal in Air Force One.

8

They just seem to fit the stereotype of the guy behind the scenes lurking in the shadows. Fits into people’s preconceptions about vice presidents “hey, what do those guys do anyways?” If you don’t know what they’re up to then obviously they’re up to no good.

9

The VP wasn’t bad in Red. He was a red herring.

10

We don’t have evil viziers in the US. The VP is the nearest equivalent. Really, all Cheney needed was a smirking parrot sidekick.

11

And in*** Dave***, the Veep (Ben Kingsley) is a much better guy than the President Kevin Kline is impersonating.

12

This. See also MacBeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet. Someone looking to knock off the head guy to move up a notch is an old, old story.

13

Don’t forget the Ronny Cox/Dick Cheney-esque vice-president from the headlice episode of “South Park.”

14

He slaughtered an entire village, that’s pretty evil.

15

In Dave, the VP was actually the good guy and the prez was rotten, until Kevin Kline started playing the prez. In fact, I remember wondering why VP Nance ever agreed to be the jerk’s running mate in the first place.

Yeah, I know, it’s a sappy comedy, but I got a kick out of it.

16


Yeah, but that was a long time ago. He wasn’t evil as VP - he was just a stooge of Richard Dreyfuss. That’s why I said he was a red herring. We were led to believe that he put the kill order out on everyone who’d witnessed his massacre, but he was just a chump who was being groomed to be the next President and do everything Dreyfuss told him to do, and Dreyfuss was the one cleaning up his past.

17

Most VP’s spend their time being sent to state funerals in some third world country, or meeting with lowly representatives of said countries to discuss mundane subjects. Other than that, they sit around and wait for the President to die before anything really interesting happens.

Also, most people could take a pretty good stab at naming the last 15 Presidents or so, but I doubt many could tell you the names of even 4 of the last 15 Vice Presidents, if that.

It is kind of sad that the so-called second most important person in the US is often the most invisible person in DC. However, this does make them good fodder for any evil plot thought up by a script writer.

18

I think part of it is also that if you have the actual president being evil then you risk pissing off half your audience because they start in a “hey, that’s clearly supposed to be Bush! No, it’s clearly supposed to be Clinton!”. Whereas, who cares if the actor you pick to play the veep vaguely does or does not resemble Biden?

19

Also, the public doesnt get to pick the vice president, the president does. We dont vote for them, who knows what they could be like!

Therefore, a theoretically good president could have some cackling moustache twirling running mate up to no good behind the scenes.

20

Nailed it. The trusted right-hand man secretly scheming to knock the good and wise ruler off and take his place on the throne is an old, old story.