Sympathy for the devil...

[billc]

In the on going debate about mass shootings it came to me that one thing that you didn't have in the past, when kids brought guns to school to hunt or participate in shooting clubs, is a culture that sympathizes with television and movie characters who in reality are out right evil...

The characters in these shows are for all intents and purposes evil, or horrible people...and are portrayed in a sympathetic light...

Homeland (American version)
Sopranos
Sons of Anarchy
Scarface
Breaking Bad
Horrible Bosses
Shameless (American version )


Can't think of others right now, but there are other shows where secondary characters are also put in a sympathetic light...I watched an episode of a British show called Luther, about a detective, and a woman who murdered her parents is shown as being friendly with the main character and is even being considered for her own show.

These shows want you to sympathize with characters that are in reality evil. Take Sons of Anarchy...have you ever read about actual biker gangs and what they really do? How about the Sopranos and the violence of organized crime...? Homeland and the sympathetic portrayel of a suicide bomber?

In the old days, the bad guys were bad guys, and not deserving of sympathy. They lost in the end and were punished...today...they are made the heroes. At the barber shop I go to they have a poster up of movie and real life organized crime figures...as if violent criminals are worthy of a poster.

I remember the Brady Bunch episode where the character Peter Brady was idolizing jesse james ( the real life bank robber ). The episode ended when the parents introduced him to an old man whose father was gunned down by Jesse James, showing that james was evil, not interesting.

I know most of the posters here are adults, but kids are getting a steady dose of this attitude and it isn't helping much.

 

[arnisador]

Dexter, Mad Men...the anti-hero is risen.

 

[billc]

With Dexter there is a difference, he only kills murderers and never actually killed an innocent. At least I can't remember him killing an innocent.

 

[Big Don]

The Shield...

 

[Jaeimseu]

In many ways these characters are more realistic. In the real world things are rarely as black and white as "good guys" and "bad guys." With all of the gun control talk these days, look at the founding fathers of the USA. We tend to think of those men as "good guys," and in many ways they were, yet some of the things they did would be considered evil. All of us are flawed, and if put in the right (or wrong) situation could become one of the "bad guys."

 

[oftheherd1]

In many ways these characters are more realistic. In the real world things are rarely as black and white as "good guys" and "bad guys." With all of the gun control talk these days, look at the founding fathers of the USA. We tend to think of those men as "good guys," and in many ways they were, yet some of the things they did would be considered evil. All of us are flawed, and if put in the right (or wrong) situation could become one of the "bad guys."

No, none of us are perfect. However, does that mean we should not have heroes that seem to be so? Who do we want to hold up as models? The person who has unmovable high standards, or someone who like the rest of us, has feet of clay? It isn't the reality that most of us have our foibles, but rather that 'heroes' shouldn't have.

I have to agree with billc on this one.

 

[celtic_crippler]

As people commonly fall short of their goals, do you want the measureing stick to be mediocrity? Or in this case, a "hero" who is less than ethical?

 

[Tgace]

http://hollywoodconservative.blogspot.com/2004/08/underdog-defending-moral-relativism.html

The other day I was sitting in a development meeting when a studio executive (a fresh-faced kid, just moments out of college) tried to educate me on what makes a good story. It was, needless to say, enlightening.

“The script skews too heavily towards the antagonist,” I told him.

“Antagonist?” he asked, seemingly confused.

“The bad guy.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t really see him as the bad guy. He’s just, y’know – “

“A killer,” I interjected, “he murders innocent people. I think that qualifies him for the ‘bad guy’ label.”

“You’re thinking too old school. This guy is just, y’know, a victim.”

“A victim?”

“Of society. Yeah,” he said, leaning back behind his huge desk. The kid now looked AND sounded like a teenager. He continued, “You see, I mean, yea, he kills, and does that robbery thing—“

“And slit the throat of his own mother” I reminded him.

“But, think of what he’s gone through. He was adopted. He was raised in like Detroit, y’know, real poor. Always harassed by the cops…”

“For stealing.”

“And his girl cheated on him. So he’s like a victim. I actually think the detective should be the bad guy. Or Antigone.”

“Antagonist,” I corrected. “Antigone is a character in a classic…”

“Whatever. Point is, the cop is like this rich dude from the ‘burbs. He’s all Mr. All-American. He hasn’t had to struggle for ****. Plus, they BOTH have guns. So it’s like, really, who’s the bad guy here?”

I was amazed. Did I really just hear this? Then he summed it all up.

“Look, audiences want to see the little guy, the victim, get his due. Something we can all relate to. We all love to root for the little guy. The underdog.” He kicked his heels up onto the desk and eagerly awaited my reaction.

Then, a smile crept across my face. It all made sense. Not the movie. It’s a hopeless piece of ****. What made sense all of a sudden was the Liberal mindset.

In today’s world, issues are no longer a matter of right and wrong. Good verses bad. That’s too “simplistic.” There is no black and white. Only shades of grey. “Moral relativism” they call it. Today, it’s all about the victim. Or more accurately, the perceived victim: THE UNDERDOG.


...

This is the "media software" we keep on feeding into our brains......

 

[billc]

Do you guys ever find yourself thinking..."wow, they almost got caught," and feeling relieved when they aren't instead of "these dirt bags really need to get caught cause no matter how you obscure who they are by showing them loving their families, or helping out a neighbor, deep down these are evil people who need to be stopped?" I found that with the Sopranos and had to reorient myself to the second way of thinking. The characters Pauly Walnuts ( the actor was a criminal in real life ) and Silvio were "colorful," and could provoke interest in their antics, but I had to say to myself...yeah, these guys are monsters, what am I doing thinking they're funny...

As adults it isn't too bad a thing, but what about kids who are saturated in this sympathy with these horrible characters?

 

[celtic_crippler]

Do you guys ever find yourself thinking..."wow, they almost got caught," and feeling relieved when they aren't instead of "these dirt bags really need to get caught cause no matter how you obscure who they are by showing them loving their families, or helping out a neighbor, deep down these are evil people who need to be stopped?" I found that with the Sopranos and had to reorient myself to the second way of thinking. The characters Pauly Walnuts ( the actor was a criminal in real life ) and Silvio were "colorful," and could provoke interest in their antics, but I had to say to myself...yeah, these guys are monsters, what am I doing thinking they're funny...

As adults it isn't too bad a thing, but what about kids who are saturated in this sympathy with these horrible characters?

With the rampant lack of parental guidance...

Is it ironic that I'm watching "Idiocracy" right now?

 

[billc]

I love the scene where he is trying to explain that watering crops with a sports drink is a bad idea...great scene...

 

[celtic_crippler]

I love the scene where he is trying to explain that watering crops with a sports drink is a bad idea...great scene...

Water? You mean that stuff in the toilet? ROFL

 

[jezr74]

Yeah, I have to agree in some cases. Although these are generally M rated and above. There is a definite trend in the last few years.

Not sure if I've seem it in the PG or PG13 space though, or cartoons for that matter.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

[billc]

But that's what plants need...

 

[WC_lun]

You act like this is a recent development. It isn't at all. Look at US history and the bad guys looked at as heroes. Heck, one was already mentioned, Jesse James. Then there were the gangsters in the 20's and 30's. This is not knew to modern times. It is a human flaw that we sometimes sympathize and support those that operate outside societal norms otherwise known as the bad boys.

 

[Big Don]

You act like this is a recent development. It isn't at all. Look at US history and the bad guys looked at as heroes. Heck, one was already mentioned, Jesse James. Then there were the gangsters in the 20's and 30's. This is not knew to modern times. It is a human flaw that we sometimes sympathize and support those that operate outside societal norms otherwise known as the bad boys.

...and this is why girls date Aholes...

 

[billc]

The latest show where we are expected to root for evil...

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/0...-couple-pretending-to-be-all-american-family/

Taking place in the years of the Reagan administration, the show depicts the exploits of a husband and wife who seem, at first introduction, a typical young, middle-class suburban couple living in the Washington, D.C., area, with a 13-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old son, to whom they are loving parents.
The couple, Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings, are played by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. Viewers quickly learn that their coupling was a KGB-arranged marriage. Brought together in the Soviet Union by KGB bosses, they are trained in the ways of America, taught perfect English, and then smuggled into the U.S., where the KGB buys them a nice home and establishes a travel agency for them to run as a perfect front. As part of the deal, they are expected, as most Americans are, to have children and raise a family.


Their days are spent running their business and taking their kids to school, while their evenings (and sometimes their days) are spent in such endeavors as kidnapping a KGB defector who has become too prominent on the lecture circuit, and preparing upon orders to spy upon the home of Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, where a top level meeting is to take place at which they hope major American secrets will be revealed. To do this job, the couple has to force Weinberger’s African-American maid to place a bug on a clock in Weinberger’s study, which they accomplish by poisoning her son with a toxic agent for which only they have an antidote.
Ironically, viewers learn that their next-door neighbor is an FBI agent named Stan, played by Noah Emmerich, who is suspicious of everyone, and naturally wonders whether everything is as it seems with his neighborly friends. The Jennings do not know whether he moved there because the Bureau suspects them. To boot, Stan’s area is counter-intelligence and searching for secret Soviet agents operating in the United States.

How do we know that we are supposed to root for the evil people...

 

[Rumy73]

Those characters typify the American fascination with the outlaw, and by extension an anti- authority/government stance that permeates much our society. We are also reflections of the violence in these stories and the countless others that are on TV and the movies. We are enthralled by how an individual can release his rage and exact revenge. Somehow, all these violent portrayals get a pass in our Judeo-Christian society but when it comes time to show sex and sexuality, we get churchy.

 

[drop bear]

IT is a good thing that the lines of good and evil are a bit fuzzy. To be a compassionate society we need to understand that people have reasons for the actions they do.

I read somewhere that to sell genocide to a people you have to convince them first that the other guy is evil. Then killing everybody becomes the right moral choice.

And the irony is it is too much morality that creates that situation.

The easiest example is of course the Nazis and the Jews.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NGNyc_LlJhs

But it is apparently consistent with most societal exterminations.

 

[Buka]

Grew up watching the Three Stooges. Moe was the original devil. Maybe that's why I like all those shows mentioned here.