Anti-Heroism in Cinema: Why be good when you can be interesting?
Why do we like the appearance of psychopaths, criminals, outlaws, and even just pure “Shitty” people in films? And no, that is not an open question, that we don’t know the answer to, we have some great theories about why things are the way they are today. In this article, we will get into the details of what makes a bad person, a badass in films, and we will explain the first-ever “Anti-hero” films, as a try to describe the evolution of cinema in this context. For the sake of simplicity, I will only take a fraction of the film history and talk about “The American History”, while villans and anti-heroes have their apparent appearances in European and Russian films, but we will get to those and why they grew in later articles.
Girls Like Bad Boys
We will begin our search with this sentence, why do girls actually like bad boys? And be careful, “Like”, does not mean love here, and it does not mean all girls wish to marry bad boys, We are only talking about a weird feeling that occurs within us as humans. Now Linguistically speaking, this sentence has a problem with the construction. Let us break it before diving cinematically. We have two nouns “Girls”, and “Boys”, We also have the adjective “Bad”, and the Verb “to Like”. “I like Bad Things”, is really a sentence that does not make any sense, it is incomplete, or out of context. Why would I like bad things? Yet it is familiar. the Verb “to Like” here changed the negative meaning of the word “Bad” into a different meaning. “Bad” turned into a specification, an exclusion, and “To like” out-ruled the “Bad” aspect of a boy and turned it into a “Mainstream” adj. So it is possible Linguistically to make a bad behavior “Desired”, or wanted. But that does not mean anything right? I mean, We are not always the language we speak, We are more than that of course. Right?
Well, Let’s talk about the theory of why bad people are sometimes “Sexy on-screen”. Films change our perspective of people, you don’t view psychopaths from the danger zone, you view them from a higher zone, a zone where they are not beside you, a zone where you control them, meaning you can shut off your screen whenever you like and the psycho is gone. Most importantly, a film needs to show you “psychopaths” with their “Motivation”, and “Goals”, a film has to give you an idea about what is happening within the psychopath, and that is simply because we need to maintain “Causality”, and a causal structure here tells us that a killer, must have a reason to kill, so films show this “Reason”, sometimes as “Symbols”, other times as “A Line of Narration”. That showing of a motive, however, tricks us, viewers, into thinking that the psychopath is being “Honest”, by exploring the thoughts of the psycho on-screen, psychos share with us a portion of their minds. And here we arrive at “Sexy”. Honesty in this context, is not the good old, don’t lie, but a more complex one, Honesty here is about the “boundaries-less” person, who is not afraid of society, not afraid of higher systems, who is honestly sometimes viewed as a “Rebel” like our good old, “Joker” film. This type of misleading honesty is showing like a type of good trait, The bad doesn’t care about systematics, law, justice, they’re just out there to achieve their motives. And that is exactly why we just love people who do not care, they are just so “Cool” we say, and the word “Cool” is an adjective, not to describe personalities but temperature, people are “cool”, when they are determined on their motives, and focused on them, that doesn’t mean they cannot be hot-headed, no, they are just Cool when it comes to their goals. And that kind of determination, with not looking at the negative results that could come from those achievements, with those people being honest with their intentions, and not afraid to show their “Dark Sides” is what attracts us to them. Another thing that totally attracts us to those “Bad People”, is when they do “A Good Thing” for once, Sometimes those bad people do “A good deed”, maybe help a person in need, or sacrifice some of the time they have for their goals, in order to save someone, that Type of behavior is attractive to us, because it gives us at least, the illusion that deep inside those bad people are, we just love insecurities. Now we are ready to specifically talk about Cinema, and from Cinema we can derive some very interesting facts about the human mind and how it works.
Anti-Heroism and The American History
Was the idea of “Badass” always there on our minds? Well, yes of course, but it was just like any “Sexual Fetch” the mind has, “suppressed”, and BTW suppressing things is not always a bad thing, if you have thoughts of perversion or action of anti-society, like murder, rape, etc… that you are hiding from the world, please keep suppressing them, don’t be honest with yourself about them, see a psychiatrist, and we thank you a lot. Let’s talk about how all of this became official, how and why we started showing bad people in cinema as heroes? And like I mentioned above we will take American Modern History as an example. American Cinema in the 1930s-1950 changed the aspects of cinema forever, it introduced the idea of “The Western film”, and America started introducing the idea of “Inner Conflicts” in American films, for example, a hero that starts having bad thoughts, or bad behaviors, and then the film, revolves around the hero trying to fix those thoughts and behaviors, in order to resolve the ultimate “Outer Conflicts”, and while Conflicts, in general, are a huge cinematic subject, we will have to step aside from them in this article, our main goal, for now, is just “Inner Conflicts”.
Heros in Western are still Good People, in spite of their “bad Thoughts”, and their motives are still “Good” in those films, and that has to do with the fact that America itself was at war at that era, and needed to show a propaganda portrait, of the American motive, and the American vision, in spite of the racist subject most of those films discussed, and it is “The War against the natives”. But then, here we arrive the 1960s and 1970s, years into “The Vietnam War”, the assassination of “John F. Kennedy” in the street in 1963, followed by the assassination of “Martin Luther King” in 1968, the rise of the “Civil Rights Movement”, followed by “The Watergate Scandal” and the resignation of “President Nixon”, and the Cold War. Wow, what a rollercoaster of emotional conflicts, civil conflicts, fear, and most importantly “Distrust” that affected the American society, and what a way to observe those traits evolve. Now we arrive at “Anti-Heroism”. You see, Villans were all around the American people, people began to grow distrust with their government, “The Vietnam war” was one of the major conflicts between the American people and their government, and then the constant lies, the destruction of a Gandhi like figure “M.L. King”, and the exploitation of the American people and their minds by Nixon, all of that led to Americans constructing this kind of Anti-Heroism idea, Americans knew that they do not need “A Superman” for their Gotham, but a Batman. Americans deeply started thinking that “The Good” won’t do in taking over “The bad”. they needed “A Bad” to take over “The bad”.
The Rise of Anti-Heroism in American Cinema
Let’s talk about the old superstars for a second here, we know that we cannot in any way, imagine “Humphrey Bogart”, “James Stewart”, “John Fonda”, or even “George Sanders” doing a villain scene, it is just not possible for us to see through this, there was an idolization of those actors and their characters in the “Golden Hollywood Era”. But then came the era after what we discussed in the earlier chapter, and with it, came actors who will then reshape Cinema as a philosophical and psychological tool. In the Era where Western films were starting to get questioned by the audience, moral conflicts like inner beauty, peace, and generosity, are turning into a weird new era where we like people that know what they want, and how to get it, we started liking the idea of a person that has bad moral conflicts, do you wanna know why? Because those people remind us of ourselves, we have moral conflicts, we want to believe we are purely good, but “Serial Killers”, “Psychopaths”, and “Shitty people” do not come by themselves, they are after all a product of our society that we need to accept its presence, they remind us of why Law exists why prison is bad, and why police are necessary. Perhaps one of the major actors of the “Anti-Heroism” that we have to mention is “Jack Nicholson”. As a reference point, let’s put one of the early, and perhaps first works of Nicholson, where his character started evolving into what later will be “The Joker”, or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s nest”, or the extreme character of “The Shining”, this specific role is Bobby Dupea from “Five Easy Pieces” directed by Bob Rafelson in 1970 and is one of the first roles of Nicholson as a true Anti-Hero.
See, American films took a shift in idealizing what a hero is, and that came after the great conflicts that grew in American society. Those conflicts manifested in art, and that is simply the ordinary thing that happens when a social change happens, art reflects on it. But the difference here is that “Anti-Heroism” was not shown in the context of a question, rather, it was shown in the context of a solution. “I prefer you to be shitty, and honest, rather than purely good, but a liar” that is what a slogan from the 1970s would look like. That happens to appear in several films in the early and late 70s, I am also going to discuss one of the first filmmakers that took the notion of anti-heroism into account. Robert Altman was in his 50s when he started introducing the idea of Anti-Heroism in his films, reflecting on the aspect of an honest personality, A good man is not good in all aspects, he is good in the road that serves his goal or meaning.
That was astonishing taking into account what America went through in the 60s and late 50s. Altman’s focus is on “Marginality” he did not believe in the Heroism the people are forcing on their army, for example, stating something along the lines of “What if I don’t want to be a hero!?” Altman’s focus on the marginalized characters although focused less on “Purley Good”, started talking about the people who weren’t for example raised very good, not all rich people are bad, and not all poor people are good. One could argue that his films made us idealize the “Bad People” in our society, maybe even loving to meet a bad person, that fascination with psychopathy for example. But, and here we arrive at how beautifully “The Anit-Heroic” movement gave birth to a basic foundation that nowadays we see as normal. And by the way for those of you who are “Mindhunter” fans out there, do you know when exactly did John E.Douglas known in the series as Holden Ford interviewed the real serial killer, and mass murderer “Ed Kemper”? It was 1983. The Marginality made us focus more on the not so very important parts of society, what if this normal person has a good meaning in life, but cannot afford to make it true. And how can we prevent Mass murderers, psychopaths from doing the horrific things they do, It was an idea of “Studying Evil instead of hating it”. Believe it or not, that was one of the many results of the “Anti-Heroism”. Altman in his films like “M*A*S*H” in 1970 that mocked the spirit of the Vietnam war, by using comedy to cope with the horrors of it. Or the more dynamically surprising example “The Long Goodbye” in 1973, starring the early founders of the Anti-Hero character “Elliott Gould” in this film Gould shocked the audience with a first-time behavior that would come from criminals, taking into account that he was a detective.
Or “Nashville” in 1975 that exploits the American society and deconstructs it into little pieces, while trying to make sense of it. And maybe the most obvious film of them, that really showed how experimental Altman got, and how true his experiments were, has got to be “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” in 1971 before going into the last section of this long article, I will leave you with a scene from this film, and I assure you that we will have a lot of discussions on this film later on.
The Shift in Anti-Heroism in 2020 “The Joker’s Paradox 2019”
Now we know the good old Anti-Hero films that changed our societies, and how we think of other people and of ourselves, you know Taxi Driver 1976 directed by Martin Scorsese, or Scarface 1983 directed by Brian De Palma, or even the new studios works like Heat 1995 directed by Michael Mann, The Godfather trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the horrors of Hollywood like Silence of the Lambs in 1991 directed by Jonathan Demme that gave birth to Hannibal Lecter, Or even American Psycho 2000 directed by Marry Harron, we know the rebels on this movement, the people who tried to work against the notion of Anti-Heroism by using it, People like “Stanley Kubrick” in “A Clockwork Orange” 1971, or “Francis Ford Coppola” in “Apocalypse Now” 1979. Anti-Heroism has become so embedded in the culture that we now take it for granted. But let’s discuss for a short bit, A not-so-well-made film that is originated from this idea, “The Joker 2019”, I will only talk about the context of the film within our article, as I’ll upload a film analysis soon on our analysis section. Anyhow, The Joker 2019 directed by the great filmmaker Todd Philips, starring Joaquin Phoenix the brilliant actor who mastered Anti-Heroism in films like “The Master” 2012 by Paul Thomas Anderson, or “Walk the line” in 2005 by James Mangold. Now to the problem with the Joker, if we disregard the inconsistencies of the film, as they are not our problem, and talk only about the meaning, the idea, the whole, the film, and what it stands for. The film took a very dangerous, and unacceptable step towards its audience, and it is to “Stupidifie” humans. The joker showed us “Arthur Fleck” the guy that killed, raped, and what will later become, in a very obvious way “The Actual Joker”, in a very odd way, it represented the joker as a product of the unhuman society, which is acceptable for now, but then put the blame on humans themselves for the production of this character, and go even further to let this character lead a “Revolution” like some kind of a “Spiritual Rebel”. What is not acceptable about that, is that you cannot make a film, expecting that you are smarter than the audience watching it, because you are not. Reflecting on the Psychology of the Joker as a kind of “Social Product” is simply like saying “You know Hitler is a product of German Cruelty” which is Absolutely NOT TRUE, Not historically, not psychologically, not even personally.
Hitler is a product of “Psychopathy” and “Narcissism” followed by institutional damage to the person, but the institutional damage is not the reason. Many Poor, unhealthy, uncultured, sometimes violently raised Children don’t grow up to become Hitlers, so you cannot always blame the society around you for what you cause, you are the biggest part of the reason. The problem with the joker film is that it is not a poetic figure that looks like the Joker, it is the Joker, we can literally see that in interactions, laughs, the name of the damn Film! See the paradox in this film is that taking a favorite character by people like “The Insane Joker” and then trying to rationalize it is not always a good idea, sometimes people are not the product of their environment, we know a lot of serial killers who were born in great environments, been great dads, and even worked decent jobs, that does not change the fact of their actions.
The Joker rolled the dice on this idea, and in spite of Phoenix’s great performance and Phillips’s great techniques, it was not an option for the joker to be the new “Taxi Driver”.
Now let’s clear up a few things before we go to the references of this article. If you like Psychopaths in films, I do too, we all do, the sense of freedom they possess is just magical, their dedication, intelligence, and personalities are just attractive, what Altman did is to explore those characters, and try to train them like a wild horse to sever a meaning in his films, rather than making a film about the messiness of their minds, without them having to do with any of it. We also need to clear that Anti-Heroism opened a new ear in filmmaking, the new comedy lines that you see in Marvel movies, the funny bits that you see in films like “Hangover”, the absolutely beautiful examination of humanity that we saw in “Midsommar”, even new debates, new philosophical figures, harsh ideas, and extremes, they all came from Anti-Heroism, it opened the door for us to question the norms, and to ask a different question. Not What is the best thing? but rather What’s the true thing?. So a little bit of anti-Heroism is thought to be charming, funny, attractive, sometimes creative, most artists are visualized that way for example. In the end, it all comes down to cultural evolution, and how society reshapes its beliefs, and foundations, into what suits it. You can say with a loud voice that “Society is an Anti-Hero”.
References:
Research papers:
- Embodying Movies: Embodied Simulation and Film Studies paper by Vittorio Gallese.
- The Phenomenological Movement in Context of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures paper by Shawn Loht
Books:
- The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten book by Julian Baggini.
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat book by Oliver Sacks.
- That’s Not in My American History Book book by Thomas Ayres.
- Contemporary Film Theory book by Antony Easthope.
