TRANSFORMATION OF THE VILLAIN IN HOLLYWOOD

Year 2018, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 429 - 449, 29.12.2018

Şükrü Sim

Abstract

All
kinds of films, from animation to comedy, live on conflict: the conflict
between the good and the bad, the old and the new, or between other elements
enhances humorous aspects in a comedy whereas the tension in a thriller. Film
scenario would neither flow without the element of conflict nor can audience
expectation be kept alive. For this reason, villains are required in films as
much as heroes. “Villain”, existing since the birth of film, has constantly
been in a struggle with the hero. In this fight, sometimes the hero and
sometimes the villain seem to be winning. “Villains” are also based on a broad
scale; some villains are like that by birth, some become villains due to the
conditions, some like being bad, and some just cannot inhibit their instincts.
No matter which type, in classical Hollywood narrative cinema – and in Turkish
cinema that copied its basic structure from the former – the villain is
condemned to lose. However, the weight of the villain in the film has been
changing as an increasing trend since the 1960s; sometimes the characters
selected as villains are pictured as the protagonists of the film and sometimes
they defeat the good and win. Two reasons are pointed out for this increasing
trend: the first one is the moderation regarding censorship laws and the second
is the transformation in the expectation of the audience. The answer sought by
this study is to the question of which one of these two reasons affect the
other to what extent.

In
the study, the transformation of censorship laws since the birth of film is
being analyzed specifically within Hollywood, which uses state of the art
technology in film production industry, has a leading role in influencing the
development of world cinema in addition to having by far the greatest number of
audience on a global scale, and also this important transformation observed in
villains is being examined. As an example to this transformation, for both its
outstanding revenue and the shocking eccentricity of the villain portrait it
draws, The Dark Knight (2008) will be
discussed and interpreted in detailed analysis within the framework of the subject.

Keywords

villain, hollywood, film, character, representation

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