6 ms·

You can see a similar simplification between good and bad in popular movies, like all the superhero movies. It's always the good versus the bad, and the bad ca

You can see a similar simplification between good and bad in popular movies, like all the superhero movies. It's always the good versus the bad, and the bad can't be helped, they must be punished or -better yet - destroyed.

CompelTechnic 8y ago
I feel like more recent kid-targeted movies have had a lot more moral nuance than the classics and fairy tales do. There are often sympathetic antagonists, flawed heroes, etc.
- awat 8y ago
  I’d have to agree with this. The first charector that comes to mind for me is Magneto I think he reacts how a lot of people would even though that makes him an antagonist. I had a history teacher use him vs Professor X in Jr. High as a way to better convey the nuance of opposition styles.
aurbano 8y ago
I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids) where at some point through the movie we get to see things from the "bad guy"'s point of view and discover that it actually makes sense, leaving the viewer undecided on whether they support the good or the bad guy. It would be interesting to see children struggle with the moral dilemma, is there any movie like this already that I'm not realising?
- nyxtom 8y ago
  Some of the greatest villains are built on this concept of deep sympathy with the character. At least I think so.
- derivagral 8y ago
  Despicable Me & Megamind remind me of that.
- Sacho 8y ago
  There's probably many movies like this, but I'm not a movie buff so I can't give an example right off the bat. I know of the video game Quantum Break, which included short live-action episodes between gameplay chapters from the villain's POV. They served to explain the villains' actions and humanize them.
- amelius 8y ago
  Any movie where the bad guy's motive is not "greed", probably.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    No Country for Old Men, Death Proof, Cape Fear, Dead Calm...
- aleeds 8y ago
  Both Captain America: Civil War and Infinity War are like that. I remember hearing shouting matches as I left Civil War about who was right, who was on the side of good. And Infinity War leaves a lot of people with a sense that maybe Thanos wasn't so bad.
  - mirceal 8y ago
    Yeah. Thanos had a vision and executed on it. Depending on who tells the story one could easily see him as the hero.
    - Jach 8y ago
      Even if you agree with him that population control is needed, I don't see how you wouldn't criticize him harshly on his method both on the technical grounds of being ineffective and on various moral grounds. His comic-book motivation of trying to impress a certain lady is much more relateable for the particular action he took.
      - phaedrus 8y ago
        I saw a fan theory suggested on Reddit that it would make more sense if population control was also a means to an end for Thanos, and that Thanos's ultimate reason for doing what he does was to stave off the arrival of Galactus.
        Jach 8y ago
        Still makes no sense -- universal replacement rate is probably > 2, almost certainly now with so many deaths + resources freed up, the overall population will be back to its pre-snap number in a few solar years tops (ed: ok maybe longer, on earth it took ~200 years for Europeans to recover from the plague, but that's just earth and just Europeans). Would have been better to target fertility rates, or kill more females than males and more asexually reproducing sentients than non.
        8y ago
- dfxm12 8y ago
  This is why I hope Marvel somehow gets the rights to DR. DOOM and adapts Triumph and Torment for the big screen. Most comic book villains lack any redeeming quality (largely on purpose, to remove any chance for empathy and justify the heroes' wanton destruction), but DOOM is refreshingly multi-dimensional for a villain.
  - michaelscott 8y ago
    Magneto has always been that type of character for me. Considering his back story and how you happen to view the world yourself, you can very easily see him as being the good guy against the hateful and prejudiced humans (and Xavier as being too pacifist and unable to enact any "real" change).
- letsgetphysITal 8y ago
  The Watchmen did this well. Spoliers Spoliers Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers Ozymandias did unify the world, after all.
  - michaelscott 8y ago
    I always found the ending to that personally unsettling, because I actually agreed with him and he does end up accomplishing a greater good. It's great because it divides the present heroes as well, with Rorschach the absolutist morality on one side, Dr Manhattan as the complete pragmatist on the other, and everyone else somewhere in between.
- iamben 8y ago
  TV (albeit adult TV) is much better at this. Many of the most popular shows feature antiheroes/flawed characters. You know what they're doing is bad/wrong and yet you're rooting for them anyway. Ironically I'm not sure it makes a difference. I think in a kind of perverse voyeuristic way people like to live through them, but stay safe in the knowledge that they "could never do that". Like the kind of excitement you got from being around the naughty kid at school, without actually risking getting in trouble.
- sykh 8y ago
  The TV series “The Wire” does this in an extraordinary way.
- lossolo 8y ago
  "Watchmen" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/
  - pvaldes 8y ago
    Watchmen for children... hem, probably not.
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  Every once in a while there is a episode of Criminal Minds that does this. Well sort of. Like I don't think anybody could ever get behind what the "bad" guy is doing, but you can at last understand and then feel sorry for the "bad" guy. This is also one of the few shows where they try not to kill the bad guy every time.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > This is also one of the few shows where they try not to kill the bad guy every time. That's actually fairly common in TV shows. Police procedurals, for one example, where they try to kill the bad guy every time are kind of exceptional.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
  You should watch The Wire, which is exactly what you describe. In fact, everyone should watch it, as it is one of the best shows ever made (despite the wonky final season).
- cmiles74 8y ago
  "Star Butterfly vs. The Forces of Evil" has several episodes like this: the first half will be from one character's point of view and the second half from the opposing side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_vs._the_Forces_of_Evil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_vs._the_Forces_of_Evil
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids) where at some point through the movie we get to see things from the "bad guy"'s point of view and discover that it actually makes sense Lots of movies with bad guys and good guys do that, but mostly just without... > leaving the viewer undecided on whether they support the good or the bad guy. (Or, if they do that for a while, they resolve it, for most viewers, by the end.) In fact, any movie with a well defined “good guy” and “bad guy” does so specifically because it either doesn't do that or resolved it before the end. Otherwise you have at best a winner and a loser. OTOH, lots of movies that aren't action movies are driven by character conflict where there isn't a well-defined bad guy and good guy, and where the protagonist is differentiated from other characters by focus and arc, not by superior virtue, and where it's quite possible to disagree on whether the protagonist or someone with which they had a conflict was more right, because “good guy defeats threat of bad guy” isn't the story model.
- 13years 8y ago
  The modern Battlestar Galactica series was excellent in this regard. Although, target audience is not children. Started with a black and white view of good vs bad, but started pulling that apart as by mid way through there was no appropriate label for any side. You began to question what was good and what was bad and why.
  - jjaredsimpson 8y ago
    I dunno. I think the Cylons are clearly bad. Genocide, pursuit, enslavement. Sure they have a grievance. But the response was quite disproportionate. If you restrict the scope to just human interaction on ships then you retrieve the good-bad spectrum. A caste system, a military dictatorship, black markets, etc.
    - dpark 8y ago
      Battlestar Gallactica had mostly clear good/evil lines. What they didn’t do is paint all humans as good and all Cylons as evil. There were good Cylons and evil humans throughout along with plenty on each side who were not clearly good or evil but some mix.
- furgooswft13 8y ago
  Not movies but... Avatar: The Last Airbender the cartoon tv show is a perfect example of this. For kids and adults alike. Also Star Trek DS9 did an excellent job of getting into the villains heads, spending time with them and showing their perspectives and motives.
  - LambdaComplex 8y ago
    > Star Trek DS9 And even the "good guys" did some questionable stuff, e.g. in In the Pale Moonlight. But that's my favorite Trek episode ever out of all the shows, so I'm not complaining
  - nickspacek 8y ago
    I completely missed Avatar: TLA when I was younger (it was a bit after my time) but have been watching it now as an adult and love this about it. My kids also got really into the conflicted nature of the "bad guys". They did a great job delving into the moral conflicts on both sides.
- funkjunky 8y ago
  I don't know why so many people here are suggesting "The Wire", unless they don't understand what the concept of a child is. For incredible kids TV shows that emphasize empathy for "the bad guys", demonstrate the flaws and weaknesses of the "the good guys", and does so in a way that encourages personal growth, integrity, and compassion over moral nihilism as a response, then you can't do better than * Steven universe * Avatar: the last Airbender
  - grzm 8y ago
    > "I don't know why so many people here are suggesting "The Wire", unless they don't understand what the concept of a child is." Your parent isn't making the "for kids" a requirement, which explains many of the suggestions here, including "The Wire". > *"I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids)" Kids is also relative: you need to take the kids themselves into account to know what may be appropriate for them.
  - caf 8y ago
    The sequel to Avatar, the Legend of Korra also continues in the same vein, with more of a flawed hero and some villains whose motivations are very relatable.
  - danShumway 8y ago
    > and does so in a way that encourages personal growth, integrity, and compassion over moral nihilism as a response I appreciate you including that. When media does trend towards "reality is complicated" very often it feels like to me its ending with the lesson 'everybody hurts everyone so just get used to it and stop classifying anything as wrong or right.'
- modzu 8y ago
  King of New York (1990) is a good one https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099939/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099939/
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  >I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids) where at some point through the movie we get to see things from the "bad guy"'s point of view... Has society gotten so corrupt that we can't see that almost all the "good guys" are total villains compared to the moral and ethical norms from even as recent as 30 years ago?
  - dpark 8y ago
    Apparently, because I don’t know what you’re talking about. 30 years ago we were celebrating a vigilante who threw a criminal off a building in revenge for the death of his parents. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film)
    - RobertRoberts 8y ago
      Yes, there has been and always will be anti-heroes. The difference is that instead of that being the exception, it's now the rule.
      - dpark 8y ago
        I don’t agree that everyone is an anti hero now, but regardless the complexity is a sign of the medium maturing.
  - elboru 8y ago
    Would you mind sharing an example?
    - RobertRoberts 8y ago
      A-Team, GI-Joe, Rocky, heck, even Terminator 2 (the machine) from the early 90s tried really hard not to kill people. Go back further, and the good guy "sacrificed" himself or his own interests for the benefit of others. Edit: Rocky isn't a great example, but leaving it in because at least it was inspiring to try and rise above his place in life honestly.
- KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
  Read an article on this recently: https://www.animefeminist.com/feature-how-princess-tutu-shatters-the-rival-trope/ https://www.animefeminist.com/feature-how-princess-tutu-shat...
- kaybe 8y ago
  In this vein, I can recommend this review of 7 Samurai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSRxp-dJ-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSRxp-dJ-Q
- krisroadruck 8y ago
  If you have Youtube Red, there is a show they just did called Cobra Kai where they look at the Karate kids nemesis 30 years later. In one episode the guy is recounting some event to one of his students from the opposite perspective as we were fed in the original movie and it fills this idea you describe above really nicely. Check it out if you get a chance.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dudul 8y ago
  There are plenty of examples. This is one of the reasons why I actually like the X-Men movies a lot (at least the 1st ones), while I hate most superhero movies. I find the character of Magneto, with his backstory and his relationship with Xavier really interesting.
- wiseleo 8y ago
  Not a movie, but there is an anime about that. It's called Magica Madoca. It completely flips the roles by the end.
- jpindar 8y ago
  Not a movie, and certainly not for kids, but that's part of the appeal of Game of Thrones.
- oldcynic 8y ago
  V for Vendetta springs to mind, depending on how young the kids are. Although it's too clear early on that it's the regime that's bad not our bad guy hero. Grendel, Grendel, Grendel[0] Superb children's animation from the 80s. Though you might be very hard pressed to find it. A retelling of Beowulf from the monster's point of view whilst paying homage to Monty Python. He's big, bad, misunderstood and ultimately dies when our human hero Beowulf ambushes him. Never full of Disney shmaltz and cute, deep enough to give you plenty of talking points. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082478/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082478/
- RHSeeger 8y ago
  There's a quote that they use frequently in Marvel: Agents of Shield... everyone is a good guy in their own story. Even the people they are trying to stop, much of the time, are viewing the world in a way that makes their (sometimes horrific) actions seem the right thing to do.
- smileysteve 8y ago
  After reading through this thread; I think of Shrek The big scary Ogre comes to the rescue instead of Prince Charming. Something about government plans for land and evil fairy God mothers. --- And then there is Frozen, A Girl is taught to conceal, not feel, and turns the whole place into an icicle and is in many ways considered the wicked person.
rgrieselhuber 8y ago
Expand this out further and it's clear that manufactured dialectics are a very useful tool in controlling large amount of the population.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
For millennia, traditional myths and stories have been going against the just-world fallacy [1] Painting a good VS bad worldview has been heavily used for mass propaganda and it became very effective starting from WW2 due to television and movies. [1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-falla... Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0v_JqxFmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0v_JqxFmQ
qwerty456127 8y ago
There are some that show the villain background, musings and/or rehabilitation. There also are some that show a hero becoming a villain. In fact many movies show and emphasize the reality is far from black-and-white. Unfortunately many people still don't get it and keep judging the characters just as good or bad.
V-2 8y ago
Only that's not the case at all. Popular cinema and TV are bursting at the seams with antiheroes. From Clockwork Orange through Hannibal Lecter to Sopranos, Dexter, Breaking Bad...
- Can_Not 8y ago
  For some people's tastes, it's not the same thing. Those are about making bad guys relatable and struggle against the good guys. OP more likely meant if neither side of the conflict were good or bad.
Jach 8y ago
It didn't always seem to be this way though: https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-battles-between-good-and-evil https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-batt... And it's not necessarily just because of the shape of post-WW2 society either: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/03/beware-covert-war-morality-tales.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/03/beware-covert-war-mora...
ljm 8y ago
It sometimes goes well beyond that too, where the ‘bad guy’ isn’t human enough to deserve any kind of compassion and so becomes an object for any kind of abuse or revenge the ‘good guys’ care to throw at them, and not all of this is just in the realm of TV fantasy because it’s clearly catering to a certain audience mindset. - torture is okay if someone is a suspect - jokes about being raped in prison - all of the shitty treatment suspects get in police procedurals and detective shows, at the hands of the ‘heroes’ Even if they turn out to be innocent, it’s still like they’re guilty of not being innocent enough which justifies the abuse, while the apparent good guys are celebrated for being utterly sociopathic.

CompelTechnic 8y ago

I feel like more recent kid-targeted movies have had a lot more moral nuance than the classics and fairy tales do. There are often sympathetic antagonists, flawed heroes, etc.

awat 8y ago
I’d have to agree with this. The first charector that comes to mind for me is Magneto I think he reacts how a lot of people would even though that makes him an antagonist. I had a history teacher use him vs Professor X in Jr. High as a way to better convey the nuance of opposition styles.

aurbano 8y ago

I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids) where at some point through the movie we get to see things from the "bad guy"'s point of view and discover that it actually makes sense, leaving the viewer undecided on whether they support the good or the bad guy. It would be interesting to see children struggle with the moral dilemma, is there any movie like this already that I'm not realising?

nyxtom 8y ago
Some of the greatest villains are built on this concept of deep sympathy with the character. At least I think so.
derivagral 8y ago
Despicable Me & Megamind remind me of that.
Sacho 8y ago
There's probably many movies like this, but I'm not a movie buff so I can't give an example right off the bat. I know of the video game Quantum Break, which included short live-action episodes between gameplay chapters from the villain's POV. They served to explain the villains' actions and humanize them.
amelius 8y ago
Any movie where the bad guy's motive is not "greed", probably.
- icebraining 8y ago
  No Country for Old Men, Death Proof, Cape Fear, Dead Calm...
aleeds 8y ago
Both Captain America: Civil War and Infinity War are like that. I remember hearing shouting matches as I left Civil War about who was right, who was on the side of good. And Infinity War leaves a lot of people with a sense that maybe Thanos wasn't so bad.
- mirceal 8y ago
  Yeah. Thanos had a vision and executed on it. Depending on who tells the story one could easily see him as the hero.
  - Jach 8y ago
    Even if you agree with him that population control is needed, I don't see how you wouldn't criticize him harshly on his method both on the technical grounds of being ineffective and on various moral grounds. His comic-book motivation of trying to impress a certain lady is much more relateable for the particular action he took.
    - phaedrus 8y ago
      I saw a fan theory suggested on Reddit that it would make more sense if population control was also a means to an end for Thanos, and that Thanos's ultimate reason for doing what he does was to stave off the arrival of Galactus.
      - Jach 8y ago
        Still makes no sense -- universal replacement rate is probably > 2, almost certainly now with so many deaths + resources freed up, the overall population will be back to its pre-snap number in a few solar years tops (ed: ok maybe longer, on earth it took ~200 years for Europeans to recover from the plague, but that's just earth and just Europeans). Would have been better to target fertility rates, or kill more females than males and more asexually reproducing sentients than non.
        8y ago
dfxm12 8y ago
This is why I hope Marvel somehow gets the rights to DR. DOOM and adapts Triumph and Torment for the big screen. Most comic book villains lack any redeeming quality (largely on purpose, to remove any chance for empathy and justify the heroes' wanton destruction), but DOOM is refreshingly multi-dimensional for a villain.
- michaelscott 8y ago
  Magneto has always been that type of character for me. Considering his back story and how you happen to view the world yourself, you can very easily see him as being the good guy against the hateful and prejudiced humans (and Xavier as being too pacifist and unable to enact any "real" change).
letsgetphysITal 8y ago
The Watchmen did this well. Spoliers Spoliers Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers Ozymandias did unify the world, after all.
- michaelscott 8y ago
  I always found the ending to that personally unsettling, because I actually agreed with him and he does end up accomplishing a greater good. It's great because it divides the present heroes as well, with Rorschach the absolutist morality on one side, Dr Manhattan as the complete pragmatist on the other, and everyone else somewhere in between.
iamben 8y ago
TV (albeit adult TV) is much better at this. Many of the most popular shows feature antiheroes/flawed characters. You know what they're doing is bad/wrong and yet you're rooting for them anyway. Ironically I'm not sure it makes a difference. I think in a kind of perverse voyeuristic way people like to live through them, but stay safe in the knowledge that they "could never do that". Like the kind of excitement you got from being around the naughty kid at school, without actually risking getting in trouble.
sykh 8y ago
The TV series “The Wire” does this in an extraordinary way.
lossolo 8y ago
"Watchmen" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/
- pvaldes 8y ago
  Watchmen for children... hem, probably not.
mbrumlow 8y ago
Every once in a while there is a episode of Criminal Minds that does this. Well sort of. Like I don't think anybody could ever get behind what the "bad" guy is doing, but you can at last understand and then feel sorry for the "bad" guy. This is also one of the few shows where they try not to kill the bad guy every time.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > This is also one of the few shows where they try not to kill the bad guy every time. That's actually fairly common in TV shows. Police procedurals, for one example, where they try to kill the bad guy every time are kind of exceptional.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
FranzFerdiNaN 8y ago
You should watch The Wire, which is exactly what you describe. In fact, everyone should watch it, as it is one of the best shows ever made (despite the wonky final season).
cmiles74 8y ago
"Star Butterfly vs. The Forces of Evil" has several episodes like this: the first half will be from one character's point of view and the second half from the opposing side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_vs._the_Forces_of_Evil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_vs._the_Forces_of_Evil
dragonwriter 8y ago
> I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids) where at some point through the movie we get to see things from the "bad guy"'s point of view and discover that it actually makes sense Lots of movies with bad guys and good guys do that, but mostly just without... > leaving the viewer undecided on whether they support the good or the bad guy. (Or, if they do that for a while, they resolve it, for most viewers, by the end.) In fact, any movie with a well defined “good guy” and “bad guy” does so specifically because it either doesn't do that or resolved it before the end. Otherwise you have at best a winner and a loser. OTOH, lots of movies that aren't action movies are driven by character conflict where there isn't a well-defined bad guy and good guy, and where the protagonist is differentiated from other characters by focus and arc, not by superior virtue, and where it's quite possible to disagree on whether the protagonist or someone with which they had a conflict was more right, because “good guy defeats threat of bad guy” isn't the story model.
13years 8y ago
The modern Battlestar Galactica series was excellent in this regard. Although, target audience is not children. Started with a black and white view of good vs bad, but started pulling that apart as by mid way through there was no appropriate label for any side. You began to question what was good and what was bad and why.
- jjaredsimpson 8y ago
  I dunno. I think the Cylons are clearly bad. Genocide, pursuit, enslavement. Sure they have a grievance. But the response was quite disproportionate. If you restrict the scope to just human interaction on ships then you retrieve the good-bad spectrum. A caste system, a military dictatorship, black markets, etc.
  - dpark 8y ago
    Battlestar Gallactica had mostly clear good/evil lines. What they didn’t do is paint all humans as good and all Cylons as evil. There were good Cylons and evil humans throughout along with plenty on each side who were not clearly good or evil but some mix.
furgooswft13 8y ago
Not movies but... Avatar: The Last Airbender the cartoon tv show is a perfect example of this. For kids and adults alike. Also Star Trek DS9 did an excellent job of getting into the villains heads, spending time with them and showing their perspectives and motives.
- LambdaComplex 8y ago
  > Star Trek DS9 And even the "good guys" did some questionable stuff, e.g. in In the Pale Moonlight. But that's my favorite Trek episode ever out of all the shows, so I'm not complaining
- nickspacek 8y ago
  I completely missed Avatar: TLA when I was younger (it was a bit after my time) but have been watching it now as an adult and love this about it. My kids also got really into the conflicted nature of the "bad guys". They did a great job delving into the moral conflicts on both sides.
funkjunky 8y ago
I don't know why so many people here are suggesting "The Wire", unless they don't understand what the concept of a child is. For incredible kids TV shows that emphasize empathy for "the bad guys", demonstrate the flaws and weaknesses of the "the good guys", and does so in a way that encourages personal growth, integrity, and compassion over moral nihilism as a response, then you can't do better than * Steven universe * Avatar: the last Airbender
- grzm 8y ago
  > "I don't know why so many people here are suggesting "The Wire", unless they don't understand what the concept of a child is." Your parent isn't making the "for kids" a requirement, which explains many of the suggestions here, including "The Wire". > *"I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids)" Kids is also relative: you need to take the kids themselves into account to know what may be appropriate for them.
- caf 8y ago
  The sequel to Avatar, the Legend of Korra also continues in the same vein, with more of a flawed hero and some villains whose motivations are very relatable.
- danShumway 8y ago
  > and does so in a way that encourages personal growth, integrity, and compassion over moral nihilism as a response I appreciate you including that. When media does trend towards "reality is complicated" very often it feels like to me its ending with the lesson 'everybody hurts everyone so just get used to it and stop classifying anything as wrong or right.'
modzu 8y ago
King of New York (1990) is a good one https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099939/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099939/
RobertRoberts 8y ago
>I would love a popular movie (maybe even one for kids) where at some point through the movie we get to see things from the "bad guy"'s point of view... Has society gotten so corrupt that we can't see that almost all the "good guys" are total villains compared to the moral and ethical norms from even as recent as 30 years ago?
- dpark 8y ago
  Apparently, because I don’t know what you’re talking about. 30 years ago we were celebrating a vigilante who threw a criminal off a building in revenge for the death of his parents. [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_film)
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    Yes, there has been and always will be anti-heroes. The difference is that instead of that being the exception, it's now the rule.
    - dpark 8y ago
      I don’t agree that everyone is an anti hero now, but regardless the complexity is a sign of the medium maturing.
- elboru 8y ago
  Would you mind sharing an example?
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    A-Team, GI-Joe, Rocky, heck, even Terminator 2 (the machine) from the early 90s tried really hard not to kill people. Go back further, and the good guy "sacrificed" himself or his own interests for the benefit of others. Edit: Rocky isn't a great example, but leaving it in because at least it was inspiring to try and rise above his place in life honestly.
KaoruAoiShiho 8y ago
Read an article on this recently: https://www.animefeminist.com/feature-how-princess-tutu-shatters-the-rival-trope/ https://www.animefeminist.com/feature-how-princess-tutu-shat...
kaybe 8y ago
In this vein, I can recommend this review of 7 Samurai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSRxp-dJ-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSRxp-dJ-Q
krisroadruck 8y ago
If you have Youtube Red, there is a show they just did called Cobra Kai where they look at the Karate kids nemesis 30 years later. In one episode the guy is recounting some event to one of his students from the opposite perspective as we were fed in the original movie and it fills this idea you describe above really nicely. Check it out if you get a chance.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dudul 8y ago
There are plenty of examples. This is one of the reasons why I actually like the X-Men movies a lot (at least the 1st ones), while I hate most superhero movies. I find the character of Magneto, with his backstory and his relationship with Xavier really interesting.
wiseleo 8y ago
Not a movie, but there is an anime about that. It's called Magica Madoca. It completely flips the roles by the end.
jpindar 8y ago
Not a movie, and certainly not for kids, but that's part of the appeal of Game of Thrones.
oldcynic 8y ago
V for Vendetta springs to mind, depending on how young the kids are. Although it's too clear early on that it's the regime that's bad not our bad guy hero. Grendel, Grendel, Grendel[0] Superb children's animation from the 80s. Though you might be very hard pressed to find it. A retelling of Beowulf from the monster's point of view whilst paying homage to Monty Python. He's big, bad, misunderstood and ultimately dies when our human hero Beowulf ambushes him. Never full of Disney shmaltz and cute, deep enough to give you plenty of talking points. [0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082478/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082478/
RHSeeger 8y ago
There's a quote that they use frequently in Marvel: Agents of Shield... everyone is a good guy in their own story. Even the people they are trying to stop, much of the time, are viewing the world in a way that makes their (sometimes horrific) actions seem the right thing to do.
smileysteve 8y ago
After reading through this thread; I think of Shrek The big scary Ogre comes to the rescue instead of Prince Charming. Something about government plans for land and evil fairy God mothers. --- And then there is Frozen, A Girl is taught to conceal, not feel, and turns the whole place into an icicle and is in many ways considered the wicked person.

rgrieselhuber 8y ago

Expand this out further and it's clear that manufactured dialectics are a very useful tool in controlling large amount of the population.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

For millennia, traditional myths and stories have been going against the just-world fallacy [1] Painting a good VS bad worldview has been heavily used for mass propaganda and it became very effective starting from WW2 due to television and movies. [1] https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-fallacy/ https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/06/07/the-just-world-falla... Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0v_JqxFmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO0v_JqxFmQ

qwerty456127 8y ago

There are some that show the villain background, musings and/or rehabilitation. There also are some that show a hero becoming a villain. In fact many movies show and emphasize the reality is far from black-and-white. Unfortunately many people still don't get it and keep judging the characters just as good or bad.

V-2 8y ago

Only that's not the case at all. Popular cinema and TV are bursting at the seams with antiheroes. From Clockwork Orange through Hannibal Lecter to Sopranos, Dexter, Breaking Bad...

Can_Not 8y ago
For some people's tastes, it's not the same thing. Those are about making bad guys relatable and struggle against the good guys. OP more likely meant if neither side of the conflict were good or bad.

Jach 8y ago

It didn't always seem to be this way though: https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-battles-between-good-and-evil https://aeon.co/essays/why-is-pop-culture-obsessed-with-batt... And it's not necessarily just because of the shape of post-WW2 society either: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/03/beware-covert-war-morality-tales.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/03/beware-covert-war-mora...

ljm 8y ago

It sometimes goes well beyond that too, where the ‘bad guy’ isn’t human enough to deserve any kind of compassion and so becomes an object for any kind of abuse or revenge the ‘good guys’ care to throw at them, and not all of this is just in the realm of TV fantasy because it’s clearly catering to a certain audience mindset. - torture is okay if someone is a suspect - jokes about being raped in prison - all of the shitty treatment suspects get in police procedurals and detective shows, at the hands of the ‘heroes’ Even if they turn out to be innocent, it’s still like they’re guilty of not being innocent enough which justifies the abuse, while the apparent good guys are celebrated for being utterly sociopathic.