Villains

I N T R O D U C T I ON
Press Communiqué:
OPENING SURINAME BLUE BLOOD IS BLACK BLOOD MUSEUM

EGMOND CODFRIED (Paramaribo, 1959), writer and publicist, is the inventor of the Blue Blood is Black Blood Theory (2005) that states that Europe between 1100 and 1848, was dominated by an elite, which was described as brown and black of complexion. He exhibits his collection of reproductions from often-unknown historical portraits that makes this museum the only one that concerns itself with the true looks of historical personages. Prince William I of Orange (1533-1518) was described as ‘More brown then white,’ and ‘brown of complexion and the beard.’ (Beresteyn, 1933: 1) Some of them, like William I of Orange, his father-in-law Maurice of Saxony, and Jane Austen (1775-1817) had, next to brown or black skin, also (strong) classical African facial traits: thick prognastic lips, and/or broad noses and frizzled hair; which once stood for pure noble blood: Blue blood. They were the descendents of the Blue Men, the black and brown original Europeans who came 45.000 years ago from Africa (Grimaldi Man). And part of which, between 1100-1200; declared themselves a nobility, and thus true Europeans. Intermarriage to remain black of complexion, and a noble lifestyle were both required. They self-styled as protectors against the Normans, civilised and christianised the white Europeans, who had only 6000 years earlier arrived from Central Asia, and who now became the Serfs which the nobility exploited. Typical for this lordship was the cruel way protest was dealt with, with executions by quartering, breaking of limps and disembowelling, and by throwing the intestines in the fire while still attached to the body. But the cruelest punishment must have been the public, live flaying. Therefore there existed a European trade in human skins till 1848, and these skins were industrially worked into bookbindings, clothing and even shoes for the elite. Church doors were lined with human skin, which fact shows that the exploitation of whites was regarded as the will of god. Theirs was a cast-society with the whites as outcasts. This information illustrates better why there was a need for a Declaration of The Rights of Man (1760), because the white Serfs asked their noble masters to be accepted as human beings. Then the Enlightened, Black high bourgeoisie ‘scientist,’ the intellectual elite, invented human races and placed the whites, the majority of the population, for strategic purposes; at the top of the evolutionary ladder, and the Moor all the way below, just above the great Apes. The Moor (Othello, Mr. Elton, Black Madonna’s, and the heraldic little Moors) symbolized nobility and Black Superiority. With this, they showed their true feelings for the high nobility with their ideas about Black Superiority.  The French Revolution (179-1794) initiated a change and brought the middling classes, the capitalist elite to power, but little changed for the poor working class people. Because of restorations like those by Napoleon, it took till the final revolutions of 1848, that the white Europeans were emancipated and the nobility lost it ‘privileges.’ Jane Austen was described as ‘brunette of complexion,’ and ‘a brown, not a pink colour’ and she made all her novel personages light brown, brown, very brown and black of complexion. She wrote against the change of status of the Black Elite. The Surinamese Governors and slave masters were members of this coloured or noble aristocracy. After 1848 history became revisionist, thus painted white. They created a fake, whitened history by using whitened, fashionable and propagandist portraits that were commissioned by the brown and black complexioned elite; who sometimes in real life painted themselves white or bleached their skins. The merit of the Blue Blood theory is deconstructing revisionism in history and deconstruction of Racism against Blacks, which was caused by the cruel, but civilising and christianising, oppression. Whites fear and hate Blacks because Blacks once ruled them. Racism is a liberation ideology. All unscientific theories about race and skull measuring etc. were invented to declare these Historical Blacks to be whites and thus hide Black Supremacy rule. This new museum, in a staircase of his home, with the blessing of Vestia Den Haag Zuid Oost, and only accessible by appointment; welcomes everybody, for which reason the entrance fee is only euro 1. The public can see portraits of Black Rulers and their Black Queens. There are reproductions of portraits of nobles and slave masters, which were never before shown publicly and are hidden in family- or scientific collections because of Black looks. There will be postcards and books for sale. This museum in The Hague will lead to the finding of a Suriname Museum of Black History in Suriname in 2013. bluebloodisblackblood.blogspot.com

Information. Egmond Codfried / 06427799
The Hague, 15 June 2012.

This paper explores the ritual function of horror movie villains from multiple perspectives within ritual studies, with particular emphasis on the functionalist branch and Roy Rappaport’s definition that ritual is “the per- formance of more or less invariant sequences of formal acts and utterances not entirely encoded by performers.” 1 First, the paper considers the ways in which horror movie villains are hybrid collective representations in the sense of French sociologist Emile Durkheim and uncanny metaphors mobilised through media as described by Steven Schneider. Second, a Neo-functionalist analysis of ritual defines the reinforcement of binary categories as a fundamental aspect of rituals. We can elaborate the notion of the ritual binary to then demonstrate the multiple ways in which the horror movie villain transgresses these to fulfill his or her ritual role. Third, the paper elaborates six specific ways in which horror movie villains transgress social binaries, such as those of gender, the space of the body, and life and death. The function of horror villains as transgressors gives them a critical, ritual role in horror movies from a functionalist ritual perspective: to reconstitute binaries. Fourth, according to Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle it is the job of media to perform ritual re-presentation of the original blood sacrifice of soldiers who died for the nation, a blood sacrifice that replenishes the Durkheimian totem of the US flag. Horror villains could be perceived as one such media re-presentation. This section builds further evidence for horror villains as both collective representations and ritual transgressors. The paper concludes with a comparison of the fates of anti-heroes in two films from the new ultra-violent genre of horror with two recent Academy Award-winning films to understand how the villain as construction for ritualised punishment may be changing

This article argues that the sciences of mind can inform analyses of narrative characters, including their motives, appearances, and other traits. In particular, it explores the
popcultural villain through the lenses of evolutionary and social psychology. Evolutionary psychology supplies a basic blueprint for impactful villains: they are selfish, exploitative, and sadistic. They contravene the prosocial ethos of society. Social psychology embeds this blueprint in the interactions of characters by offering mechanisms through which cruel behavior may be realized. The main mechanisms behind moral disengagement are empathic deficits, pseudospeciation, and Baumeister’s notion of a ‘myth of pure evil’: an attributive stance whereby humans consider injurious actions the products of evil essences in others. Finally, disgust may contribute to a character’s perceived evil nature through dehumanization, likely compounded by a cognitive conflation of disgust toward potential contaminants and moral disgust toward social transgressions. Following the theoretical discussion, the article offers 5 predictions as to the universal makeup of popcultural villains. All predictions are complemented with illustrative vignettes on popcultural villains that embody the principles proposed.

In current academic discourse, many scholars focus on villains on a case-to-case basis without taking into great consideration the general underlying dynamics common to the character type. This paper presents a condensed version of two previous projects (see Schäfer 2011; Schäfer 2012), proposing an analytical framework for villain studies based on nine character studies by employing narratological tools for conventional character analysis and general approaches to evil in media, and further introducing the concept of ‘complexity’ in terms of speculative interactions with the audience inspired by reader-response theory. This leads to the articulation of four broad ‘villain categories’ through which many villains and their popularity can be better understood: the emerging villain, the core villain, the philosophical/critical villain, and the repellent villain.

Diese Masterarbeit behandelt die Faszination rund um das Thema Schurkerei im Film und Theater. Anhand von Faktoren wie Identifikation, Emotionalität und Empathie/Sympathie sowie der Analyse der Schurkenfiguren in den Filmen „Thor“, „The Avengers“ und „Suicide Squad“ und in den Werken „Betrayal“ von Harold Pinter und „Macbeth“ und „Othello“ von William Shakespeare zeigt sie auf, was den Begriff der Faszination für den Schurken in (fiktiven) Geschichten ausmacht und welchen Einfluss dies auf das Publikum und seinen Alltag nimmt.

In this paper I present Don Rosa‟s depiction on Duckburg‟s major villains: The Beagle Boys, Magica DeSpell and Flintheart Glomgold. What is their main goal in life? How they‟ve become villains in the Duck universe and what made them enemies of Scrooge McDuck? The Beagle Boys are a bunch of old time robbers, who want easy money. They are “lovable goofs”, who would never want to hurt Scrooge; they just want to rob his fortune.  Magica the Spell is an Italian sorceress, who lives on the mountainside of the volcano Vesuvius in Sicily. She relies on magical tools to get what she wants. Her main goal in life is to steal Scrooge‟s first dime. She needs it for an ancient spell: by melting the dime in a specific way she would have the touch of Midas. Flintheart Glomgold lives in the Valley of Limpopo in South Africa. He‟s got all of his fortune by stealing, cheating and by other dishonest means. Flintheart doesn‟t want anything from Scrooge, he just wishes Scrooge would suffer and die in the most painful way. The Triumvirate of Evil consists of different types of villains. They all have different goals, yet they share the same enemy.

This chapter argues that in neo-Victorianism-and in 21 st-century culture more widely-a narratological model of the villain as an archetype fulfilling a particular story-function, no longer suffices. Instead, villains often cross over from their allotted narratives and acquire a different narrative function in someone else's story, refusing to 'stay put' or 'know their place' in time and space. The chapter proposes a model of villainy that is performative, and conveyed through distance, that is, an asymmetry of narrative detail when compared to the hero or anti-hero. Contemporary novelists, film-makers, comic book authors and illustrators, and television writers repeatedly evoke and reinvent the nineteenth-century villain. This reveals important connections between the Victorian age's serial fiction, adaptations and melodramas, and developments in the production and consumption of media today.

The pontianak is widely recognised as the most dreaded supernatural being in Malay folklore and mythology. Often described as a fearsome mythical creature with vampire-like qualities, she is said to have fangs, possesses ghost-like traits and can only be subdued using a sharp object which is usually a nail struck to the back of her neck. She is also recognised through her high-pitched shrieks, long flowing hair and a fondness for the blood of children. Despite possessing such fearsome and horrifying characteristics, the pontianak peculiarly remains popular among Malaysians as the horror film genre has always been popular among Malaysian and Asian audiences due to its deep roots in religious and superstitious beliefs. Many Asian nations have shared cultural, historical and social characteristics. Cross cultural influences across borders are common in shaping each other's culture and a number of Malaysian horror films have been influenced by the Noh and Kabuki-influenced 'shunen' (revenge) and 'kaidan' (ghost mystery) stories. While the horror film is in fact a commercial venture, the genre is also filled with socio-cultural and political contestations. As such, these narratives reflect certain socio-cultural and political anxieties of given moments within the location of the film's production. This paper therefore examines the pan-Asian cultural influences in the current wave of Malaysian horror. As the pontianak is also always female, this paper then examines how the employment of female monstrosity articulate male fears around female empowerment and suggests a broader challenge to a sense of normality, cultural and religious beliefs.

In 1991, Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs introduced the character to the big screen and turned him into a worldwide phenomenon. In 2013, Bryan Fuller revived the franchise with a completely new perspective, bringing Hannibal Lecter into the spotlight once again. Since then Mads Mikkelsen’s performance as Hannibal has fascinated and captivated the audience, as he successfully carries Hopkins’ legacy forward. Although Hannibal Lecter is a cannibal serial killer, the audience does not seem to care about this fact in the show; IMDB reviews show that the majority of the audience likes him no matter what he does. He manipulates, cheats, kills and eats people, yet somehow he still manages to earn respect, and perhaps even admiration from the audience. Due to the exploration of certain concepts such as the antihero and postmodern villains in modern stories, the line between good and evil has become blurrier than ever. Citing these concepts and linking them with Hannibal will be the first step of this study. Secondly, analyzing the promos, the scenes, and the dialogues will provide some evidence about the true nature of Hannibal in the show. Within the scope of this study the main questions to be asked will be “Is he really a villainous character as he is considered to be?” and “If Hannibal Lecter is such a villainous character, why does the audience like him?”. Finally, the reasons why the audience likes him will be determined and revealed.

Keywords: Hannibal Lecter, Serial Killer, Antiheroes, Cannibal, Villain

This extended essay for the IB program evaluates the extent in which we can perceive Lord Voldemort as the misunderstood tragic hero of the Harry Potter series, rather than as the villainous archetype he is famously portrayed to be. To accomplish this, I at first establish the cultural particularity of Western morals the book is based in through analysis of its historical and axiological origins to introduce the lack of absoluteness and complexity when depicting Lord Voldemort as ‘bad guy’, as well as to introduce the underlining presence of Ancient Greek thought in the series.
This further helps establish the second argument that presents classic Aristotelian tragedy, as seen in Greek plays, in order to demonstrate the numerous resemblances Voldemort possesses with many of these iconic fallen heroes. Such supports the justification that he is further misunderstood when the reader does not realize such. This is notably done by recurrently running parallels between him and Lucifer from Paradise Lost.
Finally, with the help of scholarly articles analyzing and criticizing stereotypes found in popular literary media, I further evaluate the dynamic between the hero, Harry Potter, and the villain, Lord Voldemort, in order to demonstrate the manner relationships such as these reinforce the reader’s perception of villainy in Voldemort, while overlooking key factors that illustrate the depth of the character and tragedy of his actions.
Through the use of these three arguments, and the wide range of different moral and cultural perspectives analyzed while investigating the subject, I am able to come to the conclusion that Lord Voldemort is undoubtedly a fallen hero who is mistaken for a villain, adding to the tragedy of his striking character.

In reference to their meaning for a society’s collective memory, heroes, martyrs, victims and villains are of the same kind: they are figures of boundary work. In the modes of each society’s boundary construction they fulfil similar functions. Their stories and their labelling as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ help to establish certain moral codes and construct the symbolic boundaries that structure society, categorize objects, people and practices, and define its cosmology. Additionally, as constructions, these figures compete on a narrative level. Hence, regarding the modes of boundary construction, in this article I follow Pierre Bourdieu on a meta level and “think relationally” by proposing the term of the imaginary field of the heroic. I argue that these figures of boundary work are certainly not capable of acting and competing as social agents, but they are constructed as such by their society. In this way, the emerging imaginary field of the heroic reflects the state of real-life power relations and thus defines the structure of the field of power. Hence, in the article “The Imaginary Field of the Heroic” I shall outline the theoretical reflections that lead me to propose the idea of the imaginary field of the heroic.

Walt Disney animated films are considered synonymous with wholesome family entertainment despite the inherent negative messages of gender, age, and power hierarchies behind them. This paper proposes to explore the aspect of
age as intersecting with gender through the villainesses in six of Disney’s popular animated films: Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), The Little Mermaid (1989), Tangled (2010),
and Frozen (2013). How Disney alters the actions of major and minor characters, and the construction of aging
female characters and the key characteristics they exhibit during their fight for eternal youth, beauty, and social and
political power will be analyzed, attempting to show how Disney is not a harmless substitute for a babysitter for
children.

This is the first paper to be published from a research project on how moral characters -- heroes, villians, victims, minions, and clowns -- are used in political rhetoric. They help explain why narratives can move people, but also why visual images are (or are not) effective.

Villains are often perceived as 'cool' these days, and they have held a certain fascination and grip over the audience for quite a while. This is puzzling, considering that more often than not, media texts present us with complex moral issues; how is it possible, then, that villainous characters are often presented and understood as being more interesting than the hero?
The fascination with evil and the villain, not simply reduced to a certain narrative function, has been widely underrepresented in academia. This project first establishes a general framework of character studies and the concept of evil through which villains are defined. On the basis of seven character studies (Michael Corleone, Heathcliff, Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, Lestat, Joker, and Teatime), I then propose three villain categories through which popular villains can be analysed focusing on adaptation studies: the emerging villain, the core villain, and the philosophical villain.

This talk deals with popular anti-heroic archetypes. It differs from previous research, because by exploring narrative structures of anti-heroic fiction, it shows that essential parallels exist in transgressive heroes of both East and West. This is important since in recent decades we register general decline of “moral perfectionism“ (term by Stanley Cavell) in popular fiction at the expense of morally ambiguous, violent, transgressive-but-enjoyable heroes. These characters are often honorable and “culturally permitted” despite their antisocial inclinations, extralegal violence, or motivation by vendetta (e.g. Robin Hood versus Nezumi Kōzō, or Al Pacino in Godfather versus Kitano Takeshi in Brother). Various culture-specific heroic archetypes are analyzed (cowboy, samurai, yakuza, gangster, social bandit) as they appear in popular mainstream narratives. I will further argue that rendering a certain violent/transgressive behavior as enjoyable is realized via three main narrative mechanisms: 1) positioning of the character, and the perspective from which a narrative is developed, 2) motivation of the character (i.e. set of adequate reasons he behaves as he does), and 3) charisma, appearance and aura of the character/actor.  Apart from offering an interdisciplinary methodological framework,  this research represents a significant departure from Friedrich Nietzsche (i.e. the dichotomy of Dionysian versus Apollonian ideal of conduct) in order to illuminate the fascination by heroes that are located beyond the conventional categories of good and evil.

KEYWORDS:
antihero theory, transgressive fiction, narratology, mediating violence, good versus evil, Nietzsche

Romanzo Criminale di Giancarlo De Cataldo è stato il punto di partenza di un percorso transmediale che ha generato nel giro di un decennio una serie di adattamenti cinematografici e televisivi. Il Libanese, protagonista delle varie versioni di Romanzo Criminale, si può considerare un esempio ideale per analizzare la costruzione di personaggi negativi e il relativo coinvolgimento emotivo da parte del fruitore, attraverso le teorie espresse da Bernardelli, Eaton, Smith, Vaage e Garcia.

The purpose of this research was to explore the association between preferences for dark fictional characters, such as villains or morally ambiguous protagonists, and individual differences in related variables, particularly Machiavellianism and imaginative resistance (a reluctance to imaginatively engage with immoral fictions).  Past research suggests that liking for morally ambiguous and evil fictional characters is a function of identification and moral disengagement (e.g., Janicke & Raney, 2017; Sanders & Tsay-Vogel, 2016), but does less to address why some people are more likely to successfully morally disengage and identify with such dark characters.  Here, in a series of three studies, we found a robust association between liking for dark characters, self-reported imaginative resistance, moral purity concerns, and Machiavellianism.  Such results suggest a need to include these constructs in models of fictional engagement.

"The imagination and strength of Shakespeare’s villains stopped short at ten or so cadavers. Because they had no ideology… It is thanks to ideology that it fell to the lot of the twentieth century to experience villainy on a scale of millions”. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s famous quote in Gulag Archipelago opens the way to the post-Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov to explore evil and cruelty in 20th century world history through his famous tetralogy of power, Moloch, Taurus, The Sun and Faust. In this, evil has a face and a name, be it Hitler’s, Lenin’s or Hirohito’s. Like the great Shakespearean villains, Sokurov’s villains are humans stripped off their myth. Unlike Shakespeare, the arrogant hypochondriac Hitler, the bedridden dying Lenin, and the disillusioned Japanese emperor Hirohito are portrayed in grotesgue realism, which lacks any tragic/Shakespearean overtones, so commonly encountered in Hollywood.  Still, Sokurov does not resort to Marx, Engel and Lenin’s favourite Shakespeare and plays like Richard III or Macbeth to complete his tetralogy but to another pre-revolutionary classic of the Western canon and favourite of Pushkin and Dostoevsky, Goethe’s Faust. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss how this choice reveals Sokurov’s skepticism over a century of mass killing and violence that turned Enlightenment’s trust and hope in reason and man into despair, transforming the world’s modern historic course into a chain of cultural traumas. What also emerges is the portrayal of a belated modernist director, who gives music and literature a quasi-religious status and trusts art to be an expression of a whole people and nation, the Russian, creating thus “an artistic enclave within the global warming of an international postmodern public sphere”, as Terry Eagleton puts it.

Most medieval English verse romances provide readers with many examples of stereotypical and individualized representations of female villains. These characters, their motivations and their activities demonstrate to the romance audience how to recognize and survive potential villainy. Despite their fictionalit, romances are full of realistic details, especially in their representation of human relationships. Accordingly, this article on female villainy in medieval English metrical romances is concerned with questions such as, in the Middle Ages, what made a female a villain, how a female villain related to her victim, what were the reasons for and results of her villainy, and how society responded to female villainy. For reference and study, various anonymous and miscellaneous romances have been taken into account, and it is hoped that the article will encourage further research. Among the main points focused on in the article are representations of domestic villains such as mother-in-law, stepmother, mother, daughter, and other villains from outside the victims’ immediate family. In view of the textual sources, villains are grouped as pure villains who are inherently evil, justified villains who have a stated reason to be evil, and good villains who are unintended villains. Grouping villains according to gender and place in society (domestic/stranger) in addition to pure, justified and good villainy, reveals anxieties that relate to different categories of villainy. At the end of each grouping, the fates of villains (divine punishment, physical and psychological punishment, no punishment, possibility of redemption) are studied in terms of poetic and divine justice. Moreover, encounters with the angelic demons and the demonic angels are discussed as didactic experiences.

Most sociological analyses of historical commemoration focus on the techniques by which positive events are recalled; however, just as heroes receive credit in nation building, so do villains. To examine the process of negative commemoration, we describe how Benedict Arnold's "treason" has been commemorated, specifically focusing on two distinct but complementary modes of dealing with troubling historical figures: demonization and nonpersonhood. News ofArnold's attempted treason in 1780 triggered a wave of violent demonstrations in cities throughout the American colonies. Those demonstrations comprised a mass degradation ceremony that rekindled the spirits of war-tired Americans, and transformed the remembered character of the once heroic Arnold into that of a despised turncoat. His case demonstrates that, although there are parallels between positive and negative commemoration, the means for dealing with consensually defined villains differ from thosefor heroes. We conclude with a discussion of the broader social implications of "evil" reputations.

Resumen: Jerónimo Merino, apodado el Cura Merino porque era sacerdote, fue uno de
los líderes guerrilleros más importantes y conocidos de la guerra de la Independencia
(1808-1814). La fama que obtuvo durante la invasión napoleónica de la península ibérica
se la debió Merino no solo a sus capacidades militares, sino también a una presencia
masiva en los periódicos de la época. Al terminar el conflicto, Merino volvió a la vida
eclesiástica. Este artículo analiza la imagen periodística y propagandística de Merino
durante el Trienio Liberal (1820-1823). A lo largo de dicho periodo el cura empuñó
las armas nuevamente, defendiendo los intereses de los absolutistas frente a los de los
liberales, en la que es considerada como la primera guerra civil española contemporánea.
Abstract: Jerónimo Merino, a clergyman dubbed as the “Priest Merino”, was one of
the most important and well-known guerrilla leaders during the Peninsular War (1808-
1814). Merino owed his fame to the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, not
only because of his military prowess, but also due to his widespread presence in the press
of the time. At the end of the conflict, Merino returned to his ecclesiastical life. This
article addresses the journalistic and propaganda perception of Merino during the Liberal
Triennium (1820-1823), a time when the priest took up arms once again, this time to
defend the interests of the absolutist rule against those of the liberals in what has come to
be considered as the first contemporary Spanish civil war.

Visit any American restaurant or shopping mall, and you are likely to run into her: Karen, the contemporary Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Over two hundred years ago, Jane Austen captured the essence of Karen in the overbearing form of Lady Catherine. Like Karen, Lady Catherine is used to getting her way. Her self-seeking hostility and privileged lack of manners mirror modern Karen’s self-righteous habit of seeking the manager at any minor infraction of her perceived rights. In a darker vein, the twenty-first century Karen does not hesitate to call the police when people of color enter what she perceives as her territory. Desperate to be taken seriously, both Karen and Lady Catherine make poor decisions, not pausing to trample over others in their quest for satisfaction.

Kötülüğü kimse kolay kolay üzerine almaz. Dışarıdan, istisnai bir şekilde ortaya çıkan kötü muhatabını öfkelendirir, çaresiz hissettirir, son derece haklı hissettirir, alacaklı hissettirir. Kimsenin giymediği bu kötülük giysisi herkesin karşısına bir bedenin içinde çıkar, herkesi bu hayattan bir miktar alacaklı eder. Genellemek sıkıntılı olsa da, eğer dünyayı şekillendiren bir ikilik olduğunu iddia edeceksek bu aslında filmlerde, dizilerde, kitaplarda anlatıldığı gibi iyiler ve kötüler arasında değil; haklı olanlarla, iki tarafı da dinlemek gerekir diyen izleyiciler arasındaki ikiliktir. Ancak popüler anlatıların iyi-kötü karşıtlığı yabana atılamaz. Zira insanlar kötülükle sadece haksızlığa uğrayarak karşılaşmazlar. İyiyle kötünün çatışmasına dayanan popüler anlatılar; kötülüğün karşısında ortaya çıkan kızma, öfkelenme, haksızlık ve çaresizlik duygularını daha düşük doza indirir ve eğlencenin içine yedirir. Bu durumda izleyici koltuğuna yerleşen herkes haklılığın öfkesini değil, iki tarafı da dinlemenin keyfini sürerler. Dolayısıyla karşılaşmada haklılık ve haksızlık konu dışı kalır; iyilik ve kötülüğün ne olduğuna dair düşünmek ve bunlara dair karmaşık hisler beslemek kolaylaşır. Türkiye'de en yaygın televizyon anlatı formu melodramdır. İyi-kötü çatışmasının şekillendirdiği bu anlatılar, televizyon dolayımıyla gündelik hayatın tam ortasına yerleşir. Yeşilçam melodramlarına uzanan, Hollywood'dan, yerli ve yabancı edebiyattan, televizyonun ilk yıllarından itibaren Türkiyeli izleyiciyle buluşmuş olan yabancı pembe dizilerden etkilenen, ancak 90'lardan itibaren yerli televizyonun imkanları içerisinde kendi biçimlerini bulmuş olan bu diziler, iyiyle kötüyü ekrana, izleyiciyi de her iki tarafı izlemekten keyif alan bir konuma yerleştirir. Gündelik telaşların içine yerleşen bu anlatının iyiliği ve kötülüğü nasıl dağıtacağı önemli bir meseledir. Bu yazıda dikkat çekmek istediğim, iyi ve kötünün dağılımının toplumsal cinsiyet normuyla arasındaki girift ilişkidir. Melodram, en temelde bir aşk anlatısıdır. Aşkın dağıttığı iyilik, kadınla erkeğe nasıl farklı ve eşitsiz konumlar biçiyorsa; bunun karşısına konumlanan kötülük de kadınla erkeği farklı ve eşitsiz konumlara yerleştirir. Bu eşitsizlik, popüler kültür çalışmalarında da kendine bir yer bulmuştur. Kadınlarda kötülüğün nasıl kristalize olduğu femme fatale, cadı, manipulatif kadın karakterlere bakarak sıkça ele alınmışsa da 1 ; erkek karakterlerde nasıl şekillendirdiği, erkeği nasıl maceralara sürüklediği, erkeğin bedenini hangi pozisyondan hangi pozisyona taşıdığı ve bu erkeklik üzerinden nasıl bir tartışma döndüğü kavramsallaştırılmamış, kavramsallaştırılmadığı ölçüde de tartışmaya açılmamıştır 2. İki konum arasındaki güç dağılımını sorunsallaştıran feminist tartışmalar da, kötülüğü kendi epistemolojisi içinden tanımlamış, hikâyelerin onayladığı yahut tartışmaya açtığı ve hikâyeyi bir yerden başka bir yere taşıyan erkek kötülüğüne kurmacanın içinden bakarak tartışmayı ihmal etmiştir. Örneğin bir tecavüz olayıyla başlayan Fatmagül'ün Suçu ne dizisinde tecavüz sahnesinin nasıl çekildiğine, tecavüzcülerin güç ilişkileri içindeki konumuna odaklanan bir kamusal tartışma olmuş, ancak tecavüz suçunun etrafında kötülüğün erkeklere nasıl dağıtıldığı,

Many narrative films feature villains, major characters that audiences are meant to condemn. This article investigates the cognitive-affective underpinnings of audience antipathy in order to shed light on how filmic villainy is constructed. To that end, the article introduces an analytical framework at the intersection of cognitive film theory and moral psychology. The framework analyzes villainy into three categories: guilty intentionality, consequential action, and causal responsibility.

Walt Disney’s Donald Duck comics offer quite a diverse group of antagonists who share a common goal in their life: to steal something from Scrooge McDuck. The Beagle Boys want his money, Magica DeSpell his number one dime and Flintheart Glomgold wishes Scrooge to lose everything and suffer as much as possible.
But there is also another villain who enjoys only the thrill of theft: he doesn’t need anything from Scrooge since he already has everything. His sole purpose is to be famous by letting everyone think he stole Scrooge’s entire fortune. That villain is called chevalier noir, the Black Knight, a gentleman thief named Arpin Lusène, created by a world-known Disney artist Don Rosa.
Based on Maurice Le Blanc’s famous character Arsène Lupin and borrowed the initial look from Fantômas, Arpin Lusène is indeed a villain like no other. Cunning, intelligent and resourceful character whose sleight-of-hand abilities seem to be supernatural. But it is not until he steals a jar of Omnisolve™, the universal solvent that absorbs everything into itself except diamonds, when he becomes the real Black Knight with supernatural abilities.
This paper aims to study the character of Arpin Lusène, a French bon-vivant, art collector and a gentleman thief who speaks with a funny accent. He’s appeared in three comics: “The Black Knight” (1998), “The Black Knight Glorps Again” (2004) and “Attaaack!” (2000).
As an only character created by Don Rosa and also an only fictional character whose name has been traditionally “twisted”, what makes him different from the other classic Disney villains? What is his function in the narrative as an opposing force? And what special comic(al) elements his Omnisolve™ armour creates into the visual narration?

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo analizar la figura del villano en el cine español entre 1982 y 2015. Se seleccionan las películas más taquilleras de cada década, y se lleva a cabo un análisis textual de estos personajes teniendo en cuenta su evolución, valores, objetivos y relación con el protagonista. Se demostrará que la figura del villano ha experimentado cambios importantes en cada etapa analizada y que estos cambios están influidos por la situación social y cultural del país.

This essay performs a queer reading of the Mordred character—that great archetype of the treacherous villain—from BBC’s Merlin (2008–2012) so as to examine his role in a series that garnered a devoted following among ‘slash fans,’ who homoeroticise male pairings. By charting the various catalysts that set this villain on his path, we are privy to insights into the representations and (queer) metaphors of this popular British series and what these elements have to tell us about this reimagined legendary villain. This reading is supported by analysis of slash fanart (known as ‘slash manips’), which support my reading and delve into typologies that help examine the construction and journey of Mordred as the archetypal villain, as well as his multiple identities of knight and magician, and queer associations of his struggle for self. This reading offers insight into the reimagining of an iconic villain, as well as the various types and queer metaphors the character’s journey in this popular series illuminates.

Since its publication in 1990, Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho has been widely heralded as one of the most reviled and revered works of literature to emerge from the contemporary anglophone canon. Compelling the reader to inhabit the disturbed mindset of Patrick Bateman, the novel’s murderous antihero, American Psycho provides a powerful character study of villainy and psychosis. Whilst many critics such as Freccero (1997), Heyler (2000) and Serpell (2010) have explored the role of evil within Ellis’ novel, earlier critical responses have centred on its graphic depictions of torture, mutilation and sexual violence to brand American Psycho as an ‘evil text’ in and of itself (See: Stiles [1990] and Baxter & Craft [1993]). Analysing these latter claims, this article explores American Psycho’s status as an ‘evil’ literary object and argues that it is through the denial of parodic performativity that Ellis’ novel continues to provoke such extreme responses from its audience. Exploring how American Psycho’s narrative strategy of ‘complicit satire’ intensifies the ambiguity between subversive and normative re-iterations of dominant discourses that haunts performative parody, the article argues that Ellis’ novel exploits this ambiguity to construct a sense of interpretive unease that manifests as ‘textual evil’. In doing so, American Psycho anticipates Butler’s own revision of performative subversion in Bodies that Matter (1993) by violently exposing the limitations of parody-as-critique.

The monster is usually seen as a symbol of absolute otherness. Since ancient times the heroes of the myth have been fighting against monsters to defend civilisation against the inhuman that threats it. Even today modern superheroes carry on this battle.
Yet, as noted by Angelo Brelich in “The Greek Heroes”, distinguishing between monsters and heroes is not as simple as it seems. In “Freaks. Myths and images of the secret ego", Leslie Fiedler describes the monsters as characterised by excess or defects. However, what most characterises the monstrous remains the Double, with creatures that cross the boundaries between the human and animal kingdom, between big and small, between man and divinity, life and death. Excess, dualism, hybrid man-animal: we are describing heroes. The heroes of the myth are themselves similar, if not the same, to the monsters that they fight. What about superheroes?
Even modern superheroes are often inhuman, alien, mutant. Why then do we call them heroes and not monsters? My analysis focuses on the modern superhero: has he monstrous aspects in common with the mythological hero? Is he different from his enemies? What are the differences? If even the superheroes reveal monstrous characteristics, why do we not perceive them as monsters themselves? Does it depend on their relationship with the villains?
Taking as example superheroes and villains like Batman, Joker, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Goblin and Superman and referring, in addition to the two authors already mentioned, also to “Violence and the Sacred" by René Girard, I will show that society needs monsters to sacrifice. However, these monsters sometimes are born inside the society, and maybe they are not so different from us as we would like to think.

Volume 5, Number 1 (Summer 2015), Fairy Tale Monsters / Monstrous Fairy Tales

This special issue of the Monsters and the Monstrous Journal proposes to discuss the ideas of fairy tale monsters and monstrous fairy tales and explore how fairy tale monsters are defined, (re)created and (re)visioned.

Contemporary popular culture has seen the fairy tale genre expand to include elements of paranormal romance by mixing with more traditional supernatural monsters (eg. vampires, werewolves, etc.), become re-energized with teenaged iterations of classic characters (Monster High, Ever After High), and perseverate as a space of both invention and intervention. ...

It is of immense significance for the ideology of an epic whether its antagonists are depicted as morally reprehensible villains, deserving of defeat and destruction at the hands of the protagonist. Such a depiction tends simultaneously to reflect and construct a worldview based around stark moral polarities whose boundaries justifiably can and indeed positively should be policed by the employment of violent and usually deadly force. Epics where the moral excellence of the protagonist and the moral turpitude of the antagonist are compromised tend to construct and reflect a more complex morality, in which the right and wrong are not absolutes, or at least no one figure or side has a monopoly on them. In a third category, the moral chaos of civil war totally dissolves the distinction between hero and villain.
Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica self-consciously plays with these competing ideologies and their respective types of antagonist. It sets heroic, civilizing Argonauts against monstrous, tyrannical villains in stark moral contrast. Simultaneously, it problematizes this polarity, not to produce the moral complexity of the Iliad or Aeneid, where there is right and wrong on both sides, but to taint his heroes with the villainy of their opponents. This paradox reflects and contributes to the poem’s paradoxical depiction of Jupiter’s Iron-Age Weltplan as civilizing progress and destructive decline. This chapter explores the paradox and its implications, focusing on the themes of tyranny, gigantomachy and civil war, and on the figures of Pelias, Aeetes, Amycus, Laomedon, Perses and Cyzicus.

First published in novel form in 1913, Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu serves as the very definition of a "Yellow Peril" villain, an embodiment of the fears and anxieties directed by Western societies of the turn of the century towards East Asia. The roots of Fu Manchu's iconic nature, as well as the "otherness" he exudes, can be found in the views informed by Orientalism (as defined in 1978 by Edward Said) of the British public concerning what they perceived as the antithetical "Orient" around the time of the villain's conception. Whether Rohmer's Fu Manchu serves to call into question or reinforce these Orientalist views has to be discussed.

Here we will discuss the possibility that God is the villain of John Milton's "Paradise Lost". How would he fit this characterization, how do the decisions of Satan and Eve change in light of God's new status, and how does God reconcile his omnipotence with his seemingly suicidal nature?

In this paper I will argue that the Aristotelean trope of enigma best exemplifies the narrative function of many Fascist characters in post-World War II Italian literature. The fascists present in novels such as Un eroe del nostro tempo by Vasco Pratolini, Il prete bello by Goffredo Parise, La luna e i falò by Cesare Pavese, all appear to be riddled surfaces which thwart the hero’s search for truth and the author’s ethical mission to provide an objective portrait of the past. Sadism, sexual perversion and ambiguity, physical deformation, form the common traits of identities which seem to escape uncomplicated categorization and definition. Fascist villains are the agents of mystery and of the fantastic within the plot, they often disrupt realism’s ambition towards a truthful account of history, as can be seen in Italo Calvino’s Ultimo viene il corvo. In this sense, their models are the heroes and femme fatale of the gothic novel or the tormented sinners of Dostoevsky’s novels. Rhetorically speaking, the fascist character is like an enigma, the trope that Aristotle in his Poetics and Rhetoric defined as closed or hidden simile that provides insight, pleasure and perspicuity to the reader by giving her/him the stimulation of an unusual combination of words and metaphors. 
Figures like the female collaborator, often a prostitute, or the sadomasochist fascist official, have an enigmatic moral and political identity that the main hero struggles to frame and decipher. Thus, antifascist authors and heroes share a similar aesthetic and phenomenological problem when called to remember and describe their political enemy. Far from being an embodiment of absolute evil, the fascist character ends up working as a mirror where the good heroes of the Resistance might unexpectedly recognize their own share of sin, thus compromising the finalization of meaning in a coherent, teleological mythical narrative of national foundation and redemption.

Missiou This paper is about humoristic comic books and the person-against-person conflict they embody, which takes the bipolar form of Good vs. Evil. The focus is to explore and analyze the villainous characters and their role in the Good vs. Evil battle, in the French comic books Astérix, Lucky Luke and Iznogoud. It concerns the antagonist binaries of the Roman conquerors vs. the Gauls, the ambitious vizier vs. the sultan and the bandits The Dalton brothers vs Lucky Luke. Mainly based on narratology and comics ’ theory, this paper seeks to identify the form of the conflict, the villains’ characteristics, the kind of acts they are involved in, their motives and their humoristic dimension. Finally, as their defaults have become memorable and proverbial, instances from the use of their figures in real life will be given, drawing examples from Greek reality.