Anti-hero's charm

The argument

The argument concerns a shift in how characters are written rather than in how much crime is depicted on screen. There is a new moral paradigm in the writing of characters, one which has seen a rise in the anti-hero kind. Where an earlier convention placed the criminal in opposition to the person the audience was invited to identify with, this one puts the criminal in that position instead. Films and series depict criminals as heroes or antiheroes, and in doing so give them the equipment of a protagonist: interiority, motive, a point of view the story is told from, and difficulties the audience is asked to care about. That equipment is what makes them more relatable. Identification in drama is largely a function of access. A viewer who sees a character's reasoning, understands the pressures on them, and spends hours in their company will come to want things on their behalf, and that wanting operates below the level of any considered judgement about whether the character is admirable. The consequence is a change in how the character's conduct registers. A transgression committed by someone the audience is aligned with is not received as the same act would be if an antagonist committed it; it arrives already framed by the reasons the story has supplied. The sympathy generated by the form may therefore prevent the viewer from condemning the character's flaws and transgressions, and can tip into condoning them. The glamour, on this account, does not come from making crime look exciting. It comes from making the criminal the person the audience is rooting for. Through the anti-hero's charm, proponents argue, films and TV series glamourize crime.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Modern audiences are not swayed by good vs evil schemes anymore because the moral content is not imposed on them as it used to be in earlier centuries. This doesn’t make the society amoral, but more tolerable and free to express their own judgment.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A good story needs a good villain, and sometimes the villain is more interesting than the hero. [Rejecting P2] Liking an anti-hero is not necessarily a reflection of the viewer’s personality nor their moral values.

Further reading

Anti-Hero - Examples and Definition of Anti-Hero Exploring How We Enjoy Antihero Narratives by Daniel M. Shafer & Arthur A. Raney Why Our Obsession With TV Antiheroes Is Destroying Our Souls by Georgi Boorman Anti-Heroes: Is There a Goodness of Purpose? by Brian A. Kinnaird