ARTICLE
Taking Down The Villain: Reflections on Story Morality
The harm of black and white thinking in story telling.
The other day I was watching OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes, an animated series that aired in Cartoon Network. Besides its hilarious facial expressions, great voice acting and quirky animation style, one of my favorite things about the series is that it does a great job at satirizing animated shows from the ‘90s and early 2000s.
A particularly funny episode they did is a parody of Captain Planet. What started as a hilarious amalgam of ‘90s cheesiness and oversimplification, ended in a rather dark note—accurately representing the deadly mix of severity and inaction of our global climate crisis.
Captain Planet’s simplistic take on global warming perfectly encapsulates a topic that’s been brewing in my mind for a while: the tendency we have as storytellers to divide our characters into Good vs. Bad.
Although I did not grow up while the show was airing, I would watch Captain Planet reruns on Boomerang every now and then. It had the typical episodic structure of the era, wherein there was a Big Bad, the heroes would show up to save the day and the episode would end wrapped up in a pretty bow. This show in particular—as it had a pedagogical element to it—would always take a moment to educate the audience about what they could do to help our planet in the last minute or so.
In an interview for Grist, one of Captain Planet’s producers (Barbara Pyle) addresses the reasoning for this moral simplicity:
Pyle didn’t want kids to see their family members as evil, ecologically speaking. “That’s one of the reasons we made the bad guys and their plans so ridiculous,” she explained, “We tried to point the finger at behaviors rather than industries. […] It would be horrible for some child to see their family member as a Captain Planet villain.
This black and white thinking is so ingrained. “X person is affiliated with Y, therefore they are evil.” To view people as Good or Bad is a very naive way of thinking. Many times, we do so to save ourselves from a state of uncomfortableness, much like Pyle was saving kids from an awkward conversation.
There is comfort in dividing things in convenient categories.
When the narrative is so clearly split in two— like one sees in many children’s fairytales for instance—the audience may feel some satisfaction. They might point at the certifiably Bad individual, and say “I’m not like that monster. I’m a Good person.”
In these narratives, the act of evil-doing is framed as a result of a person who loves doing evil things. They make a choice to be these completely vile people. But in reality, it seldom plays out that way.
Let me give a real-world—much more common—example of so-called “evil-doing”: Katy just bought a very cute shirt from a fast-fashion brand. She raves to her friends about how cheap it was, maybe even recommending it to others. Katy is well aware of the sweatshops that make it possible for her Western fingers to get ahold of said product with zero effort. She is conflicted. However, she supports it anyways. It is a good price, and she doesn’t want others spending a lot of cash on something they could get at a much more affordable price elsewhere. She doesn’t have the luxury of dropping double or triple digits on an article of clothing, so these products are what she can afford.
Is she an evil person?
Well, she is actively supporting an unethical practice. Much like the cardboard villains in shows, she is knowingly doing these things. You— the reader—probably relate to her, as you’ve probably supported such businesses too. I have, as well. However, that doesn’t make her evil. If such a concept even exists in real life.
So, sure, let’s say Katy is not evil—and definitely does not see herself as Bad— however, she is doing something questionable. She is in a grey area, you can’t really locate her in one easy category.
These black and white stories can do a lot of harm. They make the audience less likely to reflect on their actions in a productive way. Katy can say “Well, I’m not like that villain.” but she probably has more in common with them than she thinks.
The average person is altering between Good and Bad all the time. We constantly make decisions we are conflicted by. The comforting idea that there is a certifiably Evil individual we will never be is just that: an idea. A type of fantasy so we can feel good and comfortable about our choices.
On the other hand, morally grey stories challenge these thoughts. With these stories, some might feel uncomfortable with not knowing who we are “supposed” to root for.
We might deeply relate to these villains, and find ourselves reflecting on our personal philosophies, rather than just point a finger at their wrongdoings to separate ourselves from them.
OK K.O. parodies these simplistic displays of villainy frequently; they had a character appropriately named “Shadowy Figure”, a stereotypically evil-looking dark figure.
Morally grey stories make us much more reflective and understanding, rather than be so quick to pass judgement. These stories are messy, weird and confusing. Beautiful because of their lack of clarity. As much as we wish we could just put everything in a neat pile, it seldom—if ever—works out that way.
Thank you for reading!
I was thinking of some old fairytales and this came to mind. The comfort they tend to bring lies in their simplicity–if only life was that clear! When we are overwhelmed, frustrated or angry, we can gravitate towards very clear-cut thinking. It can be comforting to believe things are so black and white at times, but we are a varying shades of grey. What are your thoughts on this?
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