TRANSFORMATION OF THE VILLAIN IN HOLLYWOOD

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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