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November 27, 2008
Movie Watching Tip: The Antihero
The Antihero is not a new phenomena (go read Macbeth) but it has become more prevalent. An Antihero is a heroic character sans heroic qualities. He's the lead of the story and may even have a respectable goal but the man himself is a villain. He's a crook (Danny Ocean in Ocean's 11), a vigilante (Dirty Harry), or even a serial killer (Hannibal). With an antihero set in the center of a story a filmmaker can delve into the darker sides of human nature without being encumbered by common decency connected to normal heroic figures. Today's more nihilistic filmmakers have a tendency to want to explore these spots and use the antihero as a vehicle.

The problem with antiheroes is that they inherently propose bad morality to the audience and ask for us to accept their ill behavior as being acceptable. When watching a movie that is fronted by a criminal or other lowlife, be mindful of what messages the film is selling to you.

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posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 12:00 PM




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1 Comments:

Anonymous pgepps said...

We could describe two subtypes:

1) the penitent antihero, whose badness is recognizable but who is searching for strength/means/grace to contend with his own badness, and is frustrated in this search by the evil done by others, as well as his own failings; his struggle is only "made good" if the strength/means/grace are discovered to defeat both his own *and* others' evil.

2) the "he's our %$#%@#$%er" antihero. He's impenitently evil, but we're glad he's on our side because our goodness couldn't possibly survive in the "real world"; his evil and our good, in improbable and tenuous cooperation, make a homeostasis which is restored by his pounding the @#$%@#$ out of whatever threatens us.

The former has been increasingly prevalent in all manner of stories for the past couple centuries; Rochester in Bronte's _Jane Eyre_ is the classic example, with Byron as his real-life (though mythologized) exemplar. His existence may call into question, but may also serve, a narrative which assumes God's intervening grace--or fictional proxies thereof, whether intentional or otherwise.

The latter, however, is increasingly prominent; and is increasingly used to justify and characterize even characters and stories which, left to themselves, would be the former. In fact, one objection against the rhetoric of Dark Knight would be that it treats Batman--a penitent antihero--as though he were, or should be, a "I'm sure glad he's on our side" antihero.

Punisher is at various times both. I'm not sure _Hannibal_ really makes a hero of any sort of him--protagonist, yes. But he's really something beyond good and evil, beyond heroism, if he's anything at all other than a case study. (I think the book makes it clear we're dealing with an apotheosis seen through our inverted, Nietzschean Last Man lenses, but not because Harris would say so....)

Anyway, that's a lot of analysis. "penitent" shouldn't be taken too strictly; obviously Batman isn't "repenting"--but he does treat his darkness as something which must be justified, in some manner, or else would be evil. By insisting on a code & definition of justice, Batman "finds grace" [?] to turn back from the vengeful wrath that set him on this course.

Cheers,
PGE

December 1, 2008 at 1:13 AM  

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