Why we love antiheroes and where The Joker rates in movie’s best of all time
It is a sign of the political times that anti-heroes and villains are ruling the big screen
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Evil is the new black as a darker breed of antiheroes and even outright villains are the hottest things in movies. The old days of the square-jawed hero with the white hat are long gone but seeing villains such as Venom given their own franchise and now The Joker open his own film to rave reviews, has taken it to a new level.
Recently we have even seen the apparent shift of the heroic Rey from good to evil (thanks to shots of her holding a red lightsaber) in trailers for Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
So why are we so attracted to darkness?
The rise of the antihero, a flawed character who does bad things for a good cause, can be traced back to the mid 20th century and movies such as Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, says senior lecturer in cultural studies Anthony Lambert from Macquarie University.
That 1969 movie featured characters who were criminals and led on to many Clint Eastwood films in the 1970s, as well as The Godfather.
“We have been educated to enjoy complex characters,” he says. “We accept darkness as much as light.” Dr Lambert says Australians have always been happier to embrace the antihero.
“Australian films differ to Hollywood,” he says. “Villains prevail and we don’t always resolve moral dilemmas. We kind of enjoy the darkness.”
That is perfectly encapsulated in Heath Ledger’s The Joker, who embraced “extreme darkness” he says. Even Batman, The Joker’s traditional nemesis, has gone even darker than before and further away from the stereotypical comic book hero.
Dr Lambert sees the step beyond the antihero into pure villain territory as a sign of the
political times. “In terms of world politics, we’ve got many of those dilemmas,” he says. “Take (US President Donald) Trump and what he says against what he does. One trumps the other so to speak. To his supporters, the moral issues are set aside and he’s forgiven the flaws because the greater good — or at least the cause of nationalism — is being served.”
While we can look forward to more antiheroes and indeed unravelling whether Rey or Kylo Ren will become the final hero of Star Wars, here are our top 10 antiheroes of all time:
VENOM
Venom 2018
Back in Spider-Man 3, Venom was a despised villain played by Topher Grace who added little to the movie. But Sony dumped his backstory as a symbiote with many of Spider-Man’s powers and instead went the full alien and had it bond with Tom Hardy. The movie was smashed by the critics but the public voted with their wallets. It has a 29 per cent approval on Rotten Tomatoes but 80 per cent of the audience loved it. And he’s not a nice dude. Biting people’s heads off is not your usual hero behaviour but we loved it so much that a sequel will be out next year.
HARLEY QUINN
Suicide Squad 2016
Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn might be bad but she was also the best thing about the appalling Suicide Squad. She’s a former prison psychiatrist driven insane by The Joker and now obsessed with that villain. Unpredictable, ultra-violent and fond of hitting people with baseball bats and a showground hammer, Quinn is not your typical heroine. But she’s going to get her own movie next year, called Birds Of Prey because, apparently, we like that
sort of thing.
SEVERUS SNAPE
Harry Potter franchise 1997-2007
He was perhaps the most unlikely hero of Harry Potter. For much of the first book, we thought he was in league with Voldemort. Later on, he delighted in tormenting Harry. The “lessons” in which he tries to teach Harry how to shield his mind from Voldemort are particularly nasty. And yet he sacrifices himself for Harry. Alan Rickman was a brilliant choice for the nasty Snape but the character goes far beyond that. The stage play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child sees Snape receive wild applause simply by walking on to the stage. He is an antihero with a touch of magic.
RIDDICK
Riddick trilogy 2000-13
A criminal and murderer with the uncanny ability to see in the dark. It seems to be a fairly thin premise but it has enabled Vin Diesel to turn his antihero into a trilogy and, potentially, a fourth movie. Interestingly, when they tried to make Riddick into more of a hero in 2004’s Chronicles Of Riddick, it didn’t work. So they went back to him killing people and standing by while aliens kill others in Riddick and it worked better. Seems we’re keener on unpredictable killers.
THE JOKER
Batman TV and movies 1960s-now
When it comes to famous villains, they don’t get much more recognisable than The Joker. We first got to know Cesar Romero’s version in the biff-pow 1960s Batman TV series, before Jack Nicholson took him much darker in 1989’s Batman and then Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight, just before his untimely death. Now Joaquin Phoenix has his own Joker movie that explores the origin of the villain and somehow makes him the star.
CLINT EASTWOOD
Dirty Harry/William Munny/Walt Kowalski/The Man With No Name 1960s-now
Nobody does antiheroes better than Clint Eastwood. The man has made a career out of flawed characters that you wouldn’t like to have as a friend — but you certainly don’t want as an enemy. Pick a character flaw and at least one of them has probably got it. Racism, anger management issues, wanton violence, murder, willingness to sacrifice friends — they have it all. But thanks to Eastwood, we love them for it.
JACK SPARROW
Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise 2003-17
Usually drunk, always scandalous and completely untrustworthy. And those are his good points. Johnny Depp took an impression of Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards and turned it into a billion-dollar franchise. Captain Jack Sparrow was a disgraceful human being but a brilliant pirate and fans responded to him, rather than to Orlando Bloom’s more conventional hero in Will Turner. We love Jack but a sixth movie is unlikely given Depp’s plunging popularity due to domestic violence allegations and a series of unflattering stories about him. It seems there are some things we won’t tolerate, not even in an antihero.
HANNIBAL LECTER
Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon 1991-2002
Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is a vicious genius who enjoys killing people and eating them. Normally that’s not a basis for a hero but he’s such an intriguing character that, somehow, it works. While he was the star turn in Silence Of The Lambs, he took it even further in 2001’s Hannibal. There, he actually ended up with the girl in Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), the gutsy FBI agent from Lambs. And he wins her over by having them both dine on the brains of her former boss (Ray Liotta). Not really in the best of taste ...
LEON
LEON: THE PROFESSIONAL 1994
AGAIN, a callous hitman is not usually hero material but Leon (Jean Reno) finds himself looking after a 12-year-old girl (Natalie Portman) whose parents were killed by a corrupt cop. An American version would probably have her change him into a good man. But, being French, this one has him teach her how to kill people. It’s not what a good guy would do but it works.
MICHAEL CORLEON
The Godfather trilogy 1972-90
The son of a mob boss who is happy to cheat, lie, torture and kill is not your usual hero. But Michael (Al Pacino) was the star of three Godfather movies, of which two are judged to be some of the best films ever made. Of course it helps that his opponents are equally unpleasant — be they corrupt cops, murderous Mafiosi or assorted gang members. But he’s still the definition of an unlikely hero.
Originally published as Why we love antiheroes and where The Joker rates in movie’s best of all time
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