Dark desires: The surprising reasons we love TV and movie sociopaths

Before Netflix released House of Cards, the show's creative team had an argument.

Some lobbied to cut the opening scene. You can't introduce your protagonist as he kills a dog, they said. Half your viewers will switch off.

Lead writer Beau Willimon fought back. Second-guessing an audience guarantees boring TV, he insisted. Besides, Willimon wanted them to squirm as Frank Underwood unflinchingly strangles a pet, then turns on the sympathy for the neighbours.

Director David Fincher backed him – and viewership crashed within two minutes.

House of Cards, the comic book? Don't laugh, it could happen.

"You'll hear time and time again in the television world about likeability," Willimon told The Huffington Post, "and I say, 'F--k likeability'. I do not give a shit whether my viewers like my characters. I do give a shit whether they're attracted to them."

Willimon considered his gruesome introduction a test. Could audiences handle a drama that telegraphs the dark psyche of its protagonist?

For many, the answer was yes. We became House of Cards evangelists, giving it a global following and 33 Primetime Emmy nominations. Arguably, it became Netflix's most important program; its success sparking other series led by deeply flawed characters (Narcos, Orange is the New Black, Bloodline).

Think of any show under the "golden age of TV" umbrella. Chances are, Willimon would praise its protagonists as both "unlikeable" and "attractive". Walter White on Breaking Bad is a violent drug kingpin, for example. Don Draper on Mad Men is a surly fraud. Tony Soprano is a sociopathic mobster.

We don't just enjoy watching sociopaths on screen – we identify with them.Credit: Simon Schluter

Murderers and con artists fill the fictional prisons of Wentworth and Orange is the New Black. Even comic book films have come a long way since Christopher Reeve's clean cut portrayal of Superman in 1978 (such as Suicide Squad, starring a gang of supervillains).

None of these characters would rate highly in a focus group. They're malevolent, sadistic, Machiavellian. We're sickened by their worst deeds.

Emmy-award winning Orange Is the New Black articulates the experiences of women – deemed as "villains" – who are often oppressed and ignored.

Yet we can identify with them, too. Root for them. Take gleeful enjoyment in their power plays or vigilante justice.

American scholar and theologian Adam Kotsko explores our fascination with screen villains in Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television.

Everyday awkwardness helps explain our attraction to screen villains unencumbered by inelegance. Claire Underwood in House of Cards is one example.

If only I didn't give a f--k about anyone or anything, we think – then I would be powerful and free

Adam Kotsko

"[These shows] provide a fantasy of having a certain type of agency and control over your life," Kotsko tells Spectrum. "Increasingly in society, people feel like they don't have that control.

"Breaking Bad does this the most literally. He [White] gets cancer and he can't afford to treat it. It becomes a real liberatory moment when he finally decides, 'Screw society, I'm going to take what's mine'."

Margot Robbie as the latest incarnation of Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad.

As White re-invents himself – from doomed schmuck to meth lord – we find ourselves empathising with him. This doesn't mean we endorse his crimes. But we do understand the conditions that encouraged them.

We, too, are angry at the ravages of economic rationalism. Or we're resentful at being laid off, or stuck in the ranks of the working poor, or unable to afford an operation. We despair at being told this is all for the sake of "efficiency". That if we just endure even more cuts, "trickle-down economics" will finally save us. ("Even if it works as advertised," Kotsko notes, "it's still only going to produce a trickle.")

Acclaimed Australian prison drama Wentworth reflects the experiences of women often brutalised, then ignored.

We grasp our own powerlessness; we know the system is stacked against us. Watching White step outside that system and seize control, therefore, offers a sweet escapism. Even more so to viewers in the United States, Kotsko explains, where health insurance can be a matter of life and death: "We don't really compare ourselves with other countries, so that's what makes Breaking Bad plausible. Instead of going out and campaigning for Bernie Sanders, Walter White starts cooking meth."

While some on the left do agitate for economic reform, Kotsko is disheartened by our resort to televisual self-medication. "It just shows the deeply hopeless nature of society; that the only way people can imagine freedom and control is by defying our morality and laws."

Glenn Close, who has built a career playing villains, opposite Rose Byrne in the TV series Damages.

But sometimes, our attraction to these dark characters has a simpler origin: awkwardness.

Most of us wouldn't dream of cutting in line at the shops, for instance. Yet there is no standard punishment for offenders. Confusingly, our society also discourages unnecessary confrontation. "Calling out" a perpetrator can seem petty, even aggressive.

James Gandolfini as mob boss Tony Soprano in the TV show The Sopranos.Credit: AP

When someone does jumps a queue, we seethe (or make a spectacle of ourselves). How liberating, therefore, to be unencumbered by garden-variety awkwardness. To be Claire Underwood, eloquently eviscerating a foe without breaking a sweat. Or Tony Soprano, making grown men whimper and plead.

As Kotsko writes: "If only I didn't give a f--k about anyone or anything, we think – then I would be powerful and free. I would be the one with millions of dollars, the powerful and prestigious job, more sexual opportunities than I know what to do with ... it even comes to seem that only such people can get ahead."

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) tries to resist what seems like a 'preordained' life of crime in The Godfather.

Of course, we know how tormented these souls are; we don't really want their charm if it comes at such a high cost. But that's the beauty of fantasy: we can dream of power without consequence.

Kotsko says our "cultural fascination" with villainous TV heroes can be traced to HBO. "It's not just a cable network but one you pay a separate subscription to, so people are definitely opting in. They had the freedom to do the kinds of programming that weren't possible elsewhere. They could push the boundaries; it wasn't controversial, it was their selling point."

Many acclaimed dramas from the past decade owe a debt to The Sopranos or Six Feet Under. This is not to suggest television didn't do complexity or flawed protagonists before. NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street, lauded for its bleak realism in the mid-'90s, is just one example.

Network television, however, was constrained by its business model. Sponsors didn't want lead characters who strangled dogs. They favoured a simpler world of good guys versus bad guys; a "plot of the week" structure with a satisfying conclusion.

True, the boom in quality, long-form television was sparked by HBO. But movies gave us permission to find something attractive in villains. That tectonic storytelling shift – giving us unprecedented access to the interior life of Tony Soprano, and everyone after him – was made possible by film.

Think of it as a ledger: good guys on on the left, bad guys on the right.

In the classic studio days of the '50s and '60s, most protagonists sat neatly in the good guy column. Villains belonged on the right; they were antagonists to the heroes, existing to advance the plot.

Cold War thrillers from that era are a good example. American and British characters were glorified though heroic deeds, then humanised through scenes with their families. How often did you see a Soviet tuck his daughter into bed? They were one-dimensional and scary; that was the point.

Then, the counterculture of the 1960s challenged our moral certainty. Now, we were asked to identify with characters who didn't belong squarely on the good guy list: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Bonnie and Clyde, the bikers from Easy Rider.

Michael Corleone from The Godfather was a turning point. As the film progresses, he is drawn into something resembling a "pre-ordained" life of crime – despite his introduction to us as an all-American soldier. He can see it coming, and he resists, but he has no choice. Family comes first.

Again, we don't relate to the experience of being menaced by the mob. What does resonate (and makes us feel for Corleone, despite his terrible deeds) is a broader sense of pressure. We recognise the inescapable fact that we, too, are subject to forces beyond our control. Maybe we feel our lives slipping by, our agency stripped away.

We forgive Corleone many things because he is loyal to his clan. (There is a reason evil cartoon villains live alone, in gloomy castles.) The moment a character has a family – and their interactions involve a hint of normality or compassion – we warm to them. Sometimes to the point of hoping they evade justice.

This might feel unsettling, particularly if we're accustomed to the ethical clarity of old cop shows such as Dragnet. But such stories have value, says Gerard Webster, a Sydney psychoanalyst and forensic psychologist.

"They can be a source of discussion among families and friendship groups," Webster says. "Often, they're examining the dilemmas a show throws up. This can lead to genuinely reflective thinking, which is absolutely the measure of mental of health."

It's no accident Orange is the New Black and Wentworth have found a receptive audience – or that both are set in women's prisons. Each caters to a hunger for the stories of women so often brutalised, oppressed and shoved out of sight. The literal "villains" of society.

"One in three women have been sexually abused," Webster says. "And when people are feeling monstrous about themselves – and they see these 'monsters' portrayed in sometimes very tender ways, shedding light on their humanity – people identify with that."

The rise of social media, Webster adds, makes certain TV shows a safe way of feeling dark emotions in private.

"There's never been a time when we've been more watched and more exposed to each other. There's the exhibitionistic edge to social media but also the constant social referencing; the pressure to conform."

Your boss is bully, for example. He gets his comeuppance and he's suffering. You're not merely pleased that justice has been served; you're savouring his pain. Except sadism is taboo and expressing even a whiff of it on social media could earn you a rebuke (or worse).

Watching someone else do these things on screen, however, can be a release.

"If these characters were real, they would be hated," Webster says. "Yet we sit back and vicariously enjoy the power they're wielding. It's a complete fantasy."

Perhaps it's easier when an antihero's crimes are explained by strange logic. Vigilante serial killer Dexter Morgan, for instance, only targets murderers who have evaded the justice system.

Some actors seem to specialise in compelling villains: Kevin Spacey (Underwood in House of Cards, Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects, John Doe in Seven); and Glenn Close (Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil in Dangerous Liaisons, Patty Hewes in Damages).

A villain can be a protagonist or an antagonist, of course. But a sense of humour more often defines the former, says Dr Terrie Waddell, associate professor of screen arts at La Trobe University.

"Some of the villains on the Swedish-Danish The Bridge are very black and white," Dr Waddell says. "I find them very boring.

"Whereas Frank Underwood is based loosely on Richard III. Richard is a really funny character – some of the lines are hysterically funny – and Spacey has borrowed from that.

"A lot of these villains have a nuanced, grey side and the humour is integral to you liking their character. If someone has a keen sense of humour, there is something self-reflective in that. Whereas humourless people are difficult to relate to."

Often, Underwood is funniest when delivering a bone-dry observation straight to camera. We can't help but like him as he mocks bureaucratic incompetence or corporate group-think.

"In the work situation today, you're very cagey about what you say and do," Waddel says. "Everyone has to operate a certain way for their own survival and mental health. People at my work don't watch [ABC's bureaucracy satire] Utopia because it's too close to the bone.

"To act like the Underwoods act is incredibly risky. But there's also that projection, where we feel, 'Good on you'."

As we grapple with "peak TV" – more quality shows than we could ever watch – Kotsko hopes our screen sociopaths make way for a new type of hero. "It started out as edgy," he says "but now it's almost the default setting. Can you imagine: the most innovative show in the world would be one where a basically good person tries to do his best?"

Twitter: @Michael_Lallo