Who and What Decided who the Villain is in Movies?

 I started grappling with this question as Wanda’s Vision unraveled, and the fact that I actually understood Thanos’ point of view. I felt ashamed and worried that I understood Thanos’ point of view. I don’t agree with his methods, but I started to wonder if agreeing with his view made me a bad person, seeing as he is a supervillain and we have been conditioned for the longest time to draw the line at good vs bad. No grey areas.

I’ve had these discussions with a friend and I am surprised that I have always met quite a strong opposition to what I have termed a “bias in favor of the writers’ and producers’ intention”.

The Status Quo

A lot of movie watchers tend to always side with the writers and producers, instead of assessing the situation and deciding on what they think is right and wrong in the real world. This is a discussion I will discuss in my follow-up article on if Wanda is a villain and whether Thanos’ rationale is right or wrong.

The writers of the movies always tells us what to think and I’m tired of it. This became especially clear to me with the new rave of "telling the stories from the point of view of the villains". It felt like my first year in law when I realized there are no absolutes in law. I would read a whole section of law prohibiting something and then get to the subsections that would then list exceptions that seemed to just negate everything I previously read. My legal training changed my attitude to become quite a fence sitter, I would always see things from everyone’s perspective – except in movies, where it was the heroes’ way or no way.

The Goal Post is Shifting

Origin stories awakened my senses to not just going along with what the movie says but to put myself in everybody’s perspective and then assess what I would do in the situation. What is wrong, and what is right?

For the longest time, movie writers told us villains are bad, they want to take over the world, they are power hungry, and we just went along with it and cheered as the heroes killed the villains.

Now the writers are saying, boo hoo!, look at what the villain went through; Cruella watched her mother get killed, The Joker had a sad life and had to battle mental illness, Maleficent was betrayed by her lover, that is why they became bad, they are actually good deep down. Now we are cheering and saying, oh that’s true.

Well, I’m really tired of someone else deciding how I should feel about things. Now I want to objectively assess every movie situation and decide on my own what is right, and wrong and what I would do.

 

So consider these;

How are we not sympathetic towards Squidward when annoying Spongebob and Patrick wouldn't just let him have peace? They drive him into depression all the time!

How is Peter Pan the good guy? Isn't he like kidnapping kids?

I have always found Jerry quite annoying and a troublemaker. Tom is just trying to be a good cat while Jerry actively seeks him out to cause trouble. Not funny.

Why do they always try to make Hades out as the bad guy when Zeus is the questionable one with the raping women and incurring Hera's wrath on them and their offspring?

Jafar is still horrible though, however, why are we excusing an incompetent Sultan with starving children and thieves running amok in Agrabah while his daughter gets Tigers and whatnot?

Gaston while a conceited nuisance was just in love and wondering why the woman he loves loved a beast instead

Although Cinderella's stepmom is still a wicked person and the Joker and Voldermort are still psychopathic criminals with no redeeming qualities, you do see the point I'm trying to make here!

I want you to also consider the question, Is Wanda a Villain? Why? Why Not?