Jul
27
We Don’t Need Another Anti-Hero
Filed Under Movies
The term “anti-hero” annoys me sometimes. You want to know what an anti-hero is? A villain. But we live in a such a cynical time, where there’s apparently no room for conventional heroes. Mainstream audiences want some sort of complexity…but not really, hence the popularity of so-called anti-heroes. “The Dark Knight” is pwning every box office record known to man right now. The movie’s seemingly a celebration of anti-heroism, but not in the form of the titular character. No, the anti-hero in that film is Harvey Dent. We could play a game of semantics and state that the Joker is also and anti-hero, but let’s just call him the villain of the film and be done with it.
So what is an anti-hero, anyway? I’m glad you asked.
I’ll take back my earlier assertion that an anti-hero is simply the big bad, but only to some extent, which I will explain in a moment. “The Dark Knight” is as good an example as any to explore heroes, anti-heroes and villains, since the movie has one of each. Batman is the hero of the film, the Joker the villain and Harvey Dent the anti-hero. Why isn’t Batman also considered an anti-hero? I mean, he acts outside of the law, right? True. But Batman, like all heroes, is serving a cause that’s greater than himself — the pursuit of justice. Were Bruce Wayne to become a policeman or a lawyer or a politician, he would be resigning himself to some institution that can be corrupted. In the guise of Batman, he’s above all of that. Yes, he blows up private property and manages to invade the privacy of every Gothamite, but it’s all in the service of a greater good, bringing about justice.
We all know what a villain is, so let’s just skip over the Joker and get to the meat of this blog — how to define an anti-hero.
At the beginning of “The Dark Knight,” the new D.A. Harvey Dent is described as a “white knight.” He’s not intimidated by attempts on his life by the mob, nor does his lament Batman’s efforts in busting criminals’ heads. What matters to him is cleaning up Gotham and deepening his relationship with an on-the-rebound Rachel Dawes. Like Batman, he’s incorruptible and relentless in his pursuit of justice. He’s your typical flawless do-gooder. (*Spoilers Ahead*) Then he gets half his face burned off in a warehouse explosion and loses the love of his life in a similar blast. (*End Spoilers*) His world, not to mention his concept of justice, is shattered. He’s no longer interested in the pursuit of justice, but revenge. Revenge is not about serving a great good; it’s about serving oneself. Harvey Dent has gone from being a hero at the top of the film to being anti-hero by film’s end.
And that’s why I chafe when every protag is branded an anti-hero for whatever reason. More often than not, they’re the very definition of your standard hero. Folks might suggest that the reason so-and-so is an anti-hero is because he’s reluctant. A “reluctant hero” is a redundancy. Do you want to know what a hero does once he receives his Call to Adventure?” He says, “Hell no!” The first step of the hero’s journey is the Refusal of the Call. Remember all the hemming-and-hawing Luke Skywalker did when Obi-Wan Kenobi asked him to come to Alderaan with him? All heroes start out reluctant. If they dove right in, it’d make them less interesting — and less relatable — as characters.
So who do I consider to be an anti-hero? Well, Snake Plissken in John Carpenter’s “John Carpenter’s Escape from New York” (yes, I wrote John Carpenter’s name twice as a gag) is a pretty good example. He’s about as self-serving as one can get. It isn’t until tiny explosive charges are embedded in his carotid arteries that he becomes all that interested in getting the President out of the maximum security prison that Manhattan Island has become. His heroic actions are secondary to his own best interests. Once he’s saved el presidente, he even sabotages the commander-in-chief’s peacekeeping efforts, proving that he serves no cause but his own.
See, an anti-hero isn’t just someone who is unlikely. He’s someone who is only slightly less bad than the villain. He has a code of ethics, but they apply only to what he stands to gain from going on the journey. He’s compelled by a cause rooted in personal interest (revenge, enrichment, self-preservation, clearing his name, a way out of the life he’s chosen, etc.), not anything more than that. This doesn’t diminish anti-heroes as characters, being in it for number one. They can act heroically and unheroically in equal measure. Their unpredictability is their appeal.
Now I like anti-heroes…when they’re actually anti-heroes. I hate it when they’re mislabeled. Hollywood’s clearly not interested in creating a demarcation around how an anti-hero is defined. A dude wears black, and boom, there’s your anti-hero. But he’s still just your average good guy in ungood guy drag. I’m anti that.
-Brad Lohan
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