For the research paper, I chose to look at
evil and its presence and impact on pop culture. My view on the topic is that society is
becoming more and more interested in villains and antiheroes. It seems like they feel like they relate to
them more. I want to look further into
why society thinks like this and whether or not popular culture caused the
shift or society’s interested did.
My research question is: Why does society enjoy villains and
anti-heroes in shows and movies? Has
popular culture impacted ideals or has society impacted popular culture and created
a new era of villains? It relates to
popular culture because of television series and movies such as Dexter and Maleficent that follow the story line of someone who is not like
the rest. These are popular mediums in
our society making them apart of popular culture. It also relates with the question of whether
or not society changed popular culture or vice versa.
So far I know that there has been an
increase in these shows. This idea has
been a part of society for a while stemming from mythology and historical
events such as the celebration of The Boston Tea Party (Donnelly Pg. 17). Another things related to my subject that I noted
in an article is the idea of seeing people at their worst in reality television
series, something that became very popular (Turnau Pg.1). I have read in other articles that we feel a
connection to flawed heroes and villains.
I need to find those other articles, they will help me make a strong
essay.
Right now my answer to the research
question I posed would be that our society feels pressured and finds the anti-hero
or villain interesting because it is something we could never act out in our
life and are easier to relate to than the perfect, charismatic, and good
looking heroes that are out there.
DONNELLY, ASHLEY M. "The New American
Hero: Dexter, Serial Killer For The Masses." Journal
Of Popular Culture 45.1 (2012): 15-26.Academic
Search Premier. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.
Turnau
T. Inflecting the World: Popular Culture and the Perception of Evil. Journal Of
Popular Culture [serial on the Internet]. (2004, Nov), [cited April 16, 2015];
38(2): 384-396. Available from: SocINDEX with Full Text.
I’d suggest looking into the hero persona and how everyone wants to be the hero. Giving heroes flaws gives the character a more realistic feel to the character, in the same way having a villain crack jokes or have twisted sense of humor makes them more loveable to the audience. And the love of heroes and villains is nothing new sense every story has them. If you’re referring to superheroes then it’s a trend sense superheroes are always loved and will always come back, right now we’re just in the spike of the trend.
ReplyDeleteIs there a possibility that the first shows centering around a villain were used to cause shock? Differentiate the show from the good guy hero shows? Was it a clever plot trick to make what would have been a single show into a serial program?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, there is an increase of shows where the main character is a villain, the public identifies with them. Will this affect very young people's sense of right and wrong?
Does the focus on and popularity of villians mean that the audience is becoming more villainous, or that the villains are becoming more relatable? When examining Dexter and Maleficent, keep in mind that these villains are shown as very human and with a full range of feelings to relate to. A good contrast would be the writings of Hunter S. Thompson; although he was a real person and not fictional, his reports and books document that "something we could never act out in our own life" stuff. I would say that Hunter was an anti-hero of the non-fiction kind and he was one of the first to explode with popularity.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of whether we society has changed popular culture or has popular culture changed society? Then, your idea of narrowing it down to the villain aspect. I see your point of how it can seem to be more relatable to a villain versus the perfect hero. For your research you can take a look of these two perspectives in a psychological way. You can even research what certain characteristics make people feel more comfortable with one another. Does people relating to these certain types of rule make them evil? You can possible connect this to how some people can be uncivilized because of popular culture making it seem like it isn't such a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteWriting classes often look at character archetypes, one of them being anti-hero, so there would be one place to look. Another would be Star Wars Han Solo. The franchise is famous enough and old enough where there is bound to be some character disection of Han and his popularity. Han also acts as a way to show that love for anti-heroes isn't something new to our culture.
ReplyDeleteAnother two examples of our love for villains and anti-heroes are Victor Frankenstein and his monster. The classification on each is subjective however, because you could argue the monster and Victor are either villains or anti-heroes.
I think it would be interesting to talk about the shift in being interested in heroes to villains. Maybe people got tired of the heroes always being focused on & wanted the main focus to start being on the villains.
ReplyDeleteHeroes use to be look upon as savers but became more repetitive through out the years because heroes would always win. It's interesting to focus on villains for once I do say. Would you choose to be a hero or villain?
DeleteI agree with your answer to your research question. I think there is some kind of satisfaction from watching something that you can't personally do, the show Dexter being an extreme example. I also think that it's something we're just used to seeing, maybe because of the real life horrors we're used to living through, like the execution videos from other countries. But also from the way media slowly pushed the limits until we just got to this point.
ReplyDelete