Overthinking Hollywood Villains
Note: This post contains unabashed generalisations and simplifications. In the words of a great website, it subjects popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve.
Upon reviewing this summer's blockbuster season, which is now finally drawing to a close as the ramp up to the ''christmas event pictures'' begins, I noticed what could be seen as a tonal shift in the generic plot outline of these films.
Obviously the Hollywood system is geared unashamedly towards profit and nothing makes money more than placing an audience in their comfort zone. Any run of the mill 3/10 sequel that still manages to gross over 300M$ shows that. Audiences like genres, structure and well used semiotics. One of the staples of any such film then is a villain. The villain's story is never very well explored, although he will often be superficially humanised in one way or another. It is enough to know that for some reason he wants to do something bad and evil, and the hero's job is to stop him.
That's all well and good, but unfortunately Hollywood have been a bit stuck for villains lately. For awhile it was always the Germans, then those damn Russian communists. More recently it would be an Englishman, look at Alan ''where are my detonators'' Rickman (edit) in Die Hard or Sean Bean in National Treasure.
It seems the brits stopped being interesting and exotic enough to be worthy foe after awhile though, and so attention turned to asians and arabs. One screenwriter spoke recently in an interview about how Gary Oldman's character in Air Force One was conveniently and unconvincingly a caucasian asian terrorist, making him more acceptable to the western viewer. Meanwhile the producers of The World Is Not Enough got in trouble for casting a north korean, with lawsuits against the studio being filled over their negative portrayal of koreans.
Hollywood's desperation to be as politically correct and respectful as possible in the day of worldwide releases and global profit margins means that they can't insult generic racial stereotypes anymore, and that's what they do best. So recently they've turned to the only group that can safely be scorned without fear of reproach: The corporate, slick black hair guys who have high positions in multinational companies, i.e. themselves.
The pinnacle of this perhaps came in Iron Man where a westernised person was put in charge of the evil terrorist corporation. This goes even further when we learn that ''The Dude'' Jeff Bridges is actually the villain.
Thematically this splits the film's message in one of two directions: The piece is either subtly commenting that the seeds of the modern terrorist problem lies in America's own capitalist system, or it's proclaiming that the arabs can't even run their own terrorist organisation so they need to outsource the job to one of America's biggest cultural icons. Hollywood has unintentionally placed the key philosophical question of the post 9/11 world within the subtext of its summer billboard movie.
These movies are made by giant multinational conglomerate cooperations, the irony of this is so strong it's delicious. Hollywood executive types place themselves as the villain because no one else will let them and it will make them tons of money. Money is also the motive for the terrible actions the movie villain will undertake over the course of the film.
Consider film is the most canonical and influential modern form of art, it's message inevitably permeates into society. The Godfather made the mafia cool, Blood Diamond changed the way a whole lot of people thought about diamonds, and would climate change be such a big issue if it weren't for An Inconvenient Truth?
Hollywood studios are thus openly and unashamedly placing themselves and companies like them as the evil of our society, and are more than happy to do so if it will increase their bottom line. Is there anything more damning about the state of the system and of our willingness to embrace said system? Or is it simply the case that the machinery of capitalism remains oiled with the blood of the workers.
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