When I was a small child watching movies, I invariably found myself hoping that the bad guys would win. Whether it be world domination, winning the love of Molly Ringwald or blowing a fastball by Roy Hobbes — I was always hoping that the villains would somehow manage to pull through. This was not a protest directed toward the superficiality and dullness of Hollywood heroes — just the opposite, in fact. In my mind, I could identify more with a hero who loses than one who always got the girl, made the game-winning shot or defeated the aquatic super-soldiers. And, perhaps unconsciously, I was legitimately intrigued by the possibility of a world led by a man who calls a hollowed-out volcano home.
Nowadays, I have self-aware, hipster friends who go to movies and root for the villains, but that wasn't me back in the day. I was five years old — how many kids are self-aware at the age of five, with the possible exception of characters in Wes Anderson movies. Bad guys have always just seemed to have more interesting ideas. Don't get me wrong, I love James Bond and Indiana Jones, but both men have a reactionary that rubbed me the wrong way. Sure, your first reaction would be to stop the murderous Malaysian cult from ripping Kate Capshaw's beating heart from her chest, but immediately condemning such behavior seems to me a bit near-sighted. At the very least, it would have saved the world from having to endure "Black Rain."
I respected the ambition of these villains. While the heroes seemed determined to either maintain the status quo, or make small, inconsequential changes, the grandiose plans of these super-villains intrigued me to no end. I had lived in a world of peace and prosperity — it was OK to be sure, but I found myself wanting something more. To me, living under the reign of megalomaniac in a monochromatic jumpsuit was a small price to pay if we could live in a world where there was no moon, or the streets were overrun by machete-toting proboscis monkeys who wore fedoras and drove huge Cadillacs to work.
As I got older, I began to realize both the moral and logistical problems of my tacit support for cinematic evil of all forms. My transformation was a practical one. As I entered my teens, I found out dates do not go particularly well when, as you're leaving the theater holding your cowering girlfriend, you express your admiration for the ingenuity and tactical organization of the serial-killer or paid assassin who just terrified said girlfriend for the past two hours.
Nowadays, however, the playing field seems to have changed. Suddenly, the bad guy has become the good guy. We've witnessed a rebirth of the art of cheering for the bad guys. Don't believe me? Look at the top two movies of the box office last weekend: "The Departed" and the prequel to the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
Because I have a soul, I have not paid money to see the new "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" film, but just one look at the marketing campaign is illuminating. According to IMDB, the movie stars stone fox and Yale alum Jordana Brewster, but she is nowhere to be seen on the posters or TV ads, which is probably a good thing for Ms. Brewster and her own self-image. The real star of the movie is a hulking man masked in overalls who vaguely resembles Los Angeles Clippers center Chris Kaman. I am inclined to think he may be the perpetrator of the chainsaw massacre so cleverly hinted at in the title of the film, but cannot be entirely sure of this fact. The fact he seems adept at wielding a chainsaw and wears a mask made of human flesh all seem to point to this interpretation.
For years, horror movies have been fairly defined by their monsters, and I suppose this new "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is no exception. But this is the first time I can remember where the pretense of heroism has been totally abandoned, in favor of what I am told amounts to an exposé on the numerous ways to murder stars of failed WB TV shows. Leatherface is the whole show and nothing but the show.
"The Departed" is a more interesting specimen, if only because it's a good movie. The movie has been receiving accolades for Jack Nicholson's performance, which I think could best be described as odd. As dotty old mobster Frank Costello, Nicholson vamps his way through a performance where in almost every scene he's torturing or murdering somebody or another. And the strange thing is, the audience loves it, the same way they love Leatherface. I've actually seen "The Departed" three times in six days, and at every showing I've attended, Nicholson's misdeeds are greeted from something ranging between laughter to thunderous applause. The movie-going public has finally caught up with me and, I have to say, it feels a little hollow.
So, why has it become socially acceptable to cheer for the bad guy? I don't know, maybe we've all become a little jaded. Maybe society has become a little meaner. I don't really believe that, but it seems to be the answer for everything that ever goes wrong, so I figured I might as well throw it out as a reason. What's disturbing to me is that we aren't embracing the real bad guys in pop culture. Costello and Leatherface are cartoons whose behavior is nowhere near as reprehensible as say, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, who still manages to be less popular than his dead, less-talented colleagues Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith. Until we take the former lead singer for Whiskeytown into our hearts and start actively admitting we like Brian De Palma's movies, the rest of the world is still going to view us as that fiercely noble, puritanical island between Canada and Mexico that can't get in touch with our inner jackass, no matter how much we try to pretend we're OK with senseless violence.
Look, we're well on our way into little Ray Gustini's vision of a world where the bad guys get to win. We've sat by as the first-person memoir has become a legitimate literary genre, convinced ourselves that it is acceptable for mid-major college football to be played every night of the week and embraced Dick Cheney as our vice president for more than half-a-decade. Things are going well. Pretty soon, we'll be blocking out the moon and replacing all of our public green space with Smurf Turf. But we're going to need a really ambitious villain to take that next step. God willing, he'll wear a jumpsuit.
Ray Gustini is a sophomore majoring in English and journalism. Want to talk movies with him? E-mail him at [email protected].
