Why We Love Villains

It’s not a stretch to see the appeal of escapism in our cynical, social media age. Even if it means escaping for an hour or two with a genuine reprobate.

We’re told we are in the midst of a new golden age in television. It’s never been better, and many great actors are flocking to the smaller screen.

They can say and do things we can only fantasize about.

Add in the economy, distrust in our institutions and a bit of cultural weariness, maybe that’s why the bad guy is the new protagonist. Let your cat randomly dance on your remote control and you’ll hit a critically acclaimed TV show with a bad guy or bad woman as the lead. Or, at the very least, an absurdly flawed protagonist who won’t ever don a white hat.

Matt Zoller Seitz, editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com and television critic at New York Magazine and Vulture.com, said the antihero isn’t a fluke, or just a matter of the tastes of elite media culture ignoring the ratings.

“They can say and do things we can only fantasize about,” Seitz said of these flawed souls. “Even when they pay a terrible price, at least they were free for a while.”

Ultimately, that’s what keeps audiences watching. That’s how a science teacher turned meth lord can keep audiences riveted for years on “Breaking Bad.” At the beginning of the series, you were oddly rooting for him; by the end, not so much. But there was always the curiosity to see if justice finally caught up with him.

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And it’s not just a niche market. “Empire,” which stars Terrence Howard as a womanizing, dirt bag record mogul, is a smash for Fox.

While the overall trend is new, antiheroes have led series for years. An early example was J.R. Ewing on “Dallas,” who Seitz said started off as the show’s villain but soon became the main character. The trend didn’t hit its crescendo until “The Sopranos” debuted on HBO, featuring a mob family as the central figures.

Whether the shows last and become part of the zeitgeist, like “The Sopranos” or “Breaking Bad,” depends on the writing and character development.

Shows like that can last the long haul if it’s beyond people doing mean things to nice people.

“The key is telling a story that’s beyond, ‘what horrible thing will this person do next?’” Seitz said. “Shows like that can last the long haul if it’s beyond people doing mean things to nice people.”

What does watching these mean people say about the greater culture? Are we in a period of social rot? Seitz said that isn’t the case, in fact he sees the antihero development as healthy and not unlike past trends in film.

“It can suffer from overkill like any other trend,” Seitz said. “TV is roughly at the same place in its development with scripted stories as film was in the ’60s and ’70s, where there was a proliferation of character who were charismatic, but not necessarily nice people. ‘The Hustler’ and all those characters played by Paul Newman, the Corleone family, most of Jack Nicholson’s characters and Joe Gideon in ‘All That Jazz.’”

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Movies changed dramatically in the 1980s. “Star Wars” brought forth the return of the serial hero, along with Indiana Jones. Black-and-white hat characters returned in various action flicks. But with technology changing so fast, Seitz said even the immediate future is unpredictable.

“I have no idea where TV goes from here,” Seitz said. “If you would have told me Netflix, Amazon and Hulu would be major players alongside the major networks — that we’d be speaking of shows like ‘Bojack Horseman’ and ‘Transparent’ with reverence — I would have thought you were smoking one of those funny jazz cigarettes.”