Thoughts on Villainy
Saw Watchmen again last night with Sir Gay, which he enjoyed. Bear and Sir Gay seem to be exceptions among people who have not read WATCHMEN who also enjoyed the film. (I am of two minds: the movie as a film was worse the second time around, but I can’t help loving it anyway because I’m such a fan.) “I’m impressed,” said Sir Gay, “Hollywood doesn’t make movies like this.”
Actually, they do. I think he’s referring to the subversion of “good” and “evil” which doesn’t belong to Hollywood at all, but Alan Moore. It’s very much a blockbuster Hollywood movie; it’s just that the source material is not, although I believe the transformation of Patrick Wilson into Dan Dreiberg was possibly the most impressive factor for both Bear and Sir Gay.
JJ: Dan Dreiberg? He was the pedophile from Hard Candy.
BEAR: Really?JJ: Dan Dreiberg? He was Raoul from The Phantom of the Opera.
SIR GAY: The hot one? Really?
My friend Katranna made a post about superheroes, contemplating the swing in the pendulum from “glorious heroism” in comics to “gritty, realistic, and tortured heroes” (as so very nicely encapsulated in Watchmen‘s opening credits and no I won’t stop gushing about them), which had me thinking about the “antihero vs. the villain.”
I’ve perhaps documented too well my love of villains (Ben from LOST, Roger Chillingworth from THE SCARLET LETTER, Alec Stokes-D’Urberville from TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES, etc.) but I’ve never exactly considered the why of it before. It would be facetious to say that I find Evil appealing, so there must be something else altogether that attracts my interest.
In my comment I touch briefly on the concept of the hero as the champion of the individual. My favourite character in WATCHMEN is Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias who in nearly any other book would be considered an out-and-out villain (he touches on this topic briefly himself). And he is, make no mistake about that, but as with anything else Moore has written, that isn’t necessarily the only aspect of his character. (Spoilers again below the cut.)
