Rooting For the Villains: Television's Acceptance of the Antihero

Rooting for the Villains: Television’s Acceptance of the Antihero

            The idea of the antihero as a lead character has been around for as long as people have crafted stories. There has always been something incredibly interesting to audiences about following the journeys of scoundrels and criminals. From Jay Gatsby to Michael Corleone, audiences have embraced antiheroes in both literature and in Hollywood movies for many years now. Protagonists are usually written as a surrogate for the audience to experience a story through, and some of the most successful break many of our preconceived ideas about what a hero should be. Viewers crave authenticity, and characters are easier to relate to when they have significant, realistic flaws. Characters that are more relatable tend to be easier for us to understand, and when these characters are confronted with impossible situations, we are usually able to better understand their situations. When these elements are put together in an intriguing manner, the end result tends to be compelling television that keeps audiences tuning in week after week.

 For whatever reason, it has taken much longer for this character trope to invade the television screen. There have been plenty of heroes with some flaws, but before the last decade it was almost unheard of for a series’ lead character to be as morally depraved as what we are seeing now. AV Club contributor Noel Murray writes “For the most part, network television still traffics in easily understood good guys and bad guys. The forces of law and order on Law & Order may have their dark moments—just as the characters on Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law and Homicide: Life On The Streets frequently made some questionable choices—but the main characters are primarily meant to be admired.” Most popular shows had been focused on a lead character who would act as a moral compass for the viewers surrounded by other characters who presented obstacles to the protagonist. Recently, however, some very creative minds have created shows centered on characters who seem so real because they are constantly hovering around the line between good and evil. Where characters that are totally good or totally evil can be difficult to empathize with because they feel inauthentic, characters that are morally ambiguous are so fascinating because we perceive them as closer to reality. We can see how far this idea has come through the analysis of the protagonists of three shows which were nominated at this year’s Emmy Awards for Best Drama Series. House of Cards, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad all feature protagonists that are can be pretty evil in their own unique ways.

            Francis Underwood, the shady Congressman in Netflix’s original series House of Cards, embodies almost every characteristic that would typically be found in a story’s antagonist. Francis has almost no redeeming qualities that would usually be found in even the most severely flawed heroes.  The opening episode of the series sets up his character as a ruthless and manipulative man with little care for anyone other than himself. Throughout the series’ first season, Congressman Underwood strays farther and farther away from sanity with each episode until he ultimately becomes complicit in a murder of someone who viewed him as a sort of role model. Elected officials are supposed to be the best of us. They were chosen to make decisions for our best interests. With this considered, seeing a possible presidential candidate portrayed in the way that Francis is on House of Cards makes for compelling television. The decisions that he makes throughout the series make us as viewers question our own values as we try to decide how we would have handled his problems on our own.

            Similarly, AMC’s Mad Men follows the story of a character lacking any of the morality usually found in a protagonist. Don Draper is as unfaithful as any cheater that has ever been portrayed on television. He doesn't just cheat on his various significant others, he makes a habit of leaving his family, including his children, for extended periods of time to hang out with whichever girlfriend he happens to be with this season. His entire identity is a lie, all the way down to his name. Viewers find Don so fascinating because he struggles week in and week out to understand exactly what he is and what he wants, a similar problem faced by many people every day.  

            Walter White, the lead character of Breaking Bad, embodies every characteristic of the antihero. Most of us already know the transformation that Walt has undergone, so I won’t need to spell out exactly how far he has come since the beginning of his journey. At this point in the series, he has been responsible for an immeasurable amount of suffering for those around him. His actions have resulted in the deaths of children, and yet there is still a decent portion of the viewership that hopes for him to escape conviction and be allowed to live out his life.

These characters have all been successful in forcing audiences to call into question their own morality as they sit back and analyze the actions of the characters on the show. Viewers who want their television shows to challenge them to think critically are really experiencing a golden age right now as they have a multitude of shows to choose from that feature characters as dynamic as the viewers watching them.

Murray, Noel. "TV’s Antihero Era Enters Its Second Decade."TV Club. AV Club, 09 Jun 2009. Web. 26 Sep. 2013.