Throughout its history, Hollywood has created unforgettable characters
which exist somewhere in between good and evil.
One of the most common character types which falls in this gray area is...
"- Where is my daughter!"
- The anti-hero. A character who doesn't always do the right thing
but who the audience is drawn to.
This is "What is an Anti-Hero".
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Anti-heroes can get pretty violent
so consider this a graphic content warning.
We'll be spoiling the following movies.
Now, let's jump in.
An anti-hero is the main character
in a story who lacks the conventional principles that we associate with a 'hero'.
This might mean a lack of courage,
a cynicism for the world around them,
or a weak moral compass.
The term anti-hero predates film by more than a century
used by philosophers like Denis Diderot as early as 1714.
In film, however, the anti-hero became immensely popular after World War II
when returning soldiers struggled with reintegrating to their normal lives.
"- People lose teeth talking like that.
You want to hang around, you'll be polite."
- Nowhere was the anti-hero more prevalent
in the noir genre which proliferated the 40s and 50s.
Noirs often followed grizzled detectives
who rebuked traditional heroics
instead operating in a moral gray area
reflecting the pessimistic (inaudible) in American society after the World War.
"- Yes, I killed him.
I killed him for money.
And for a woman."
- Today, anti-heroes are everywhere.
Populating some of the most iconic films
and TV series of the past few decades.
"- It's all good man."
Anti-heroes are sometimes categorized as villain protagonists and vice versa.
A villain protagonist's actions are usually more evil than an antihero's.
Therefore, it's a blurry line
and the distinction depends on a viewer's own moral code.
So, what do you think?
Are these antiheroes or villain protagonists?
Because antiheroes are so common they come in many shapes and sizes.
Let's take a look at the anti-hero spectrum.
"- Hi.
I'm Shellie's new boyfriend and I'm out of my mind."
- The different forms of anti-hero are defined by two elements
understanding and approval.
Screenwriting scholar John Truby explains, '
If you show the audience why the character chooses to do what they do
then the audience understands the cause of the action
without necessarily approving of the action itself'.
For a character to be an anti-hero,
the audience understands why they're doing what they're doing
but don't have to think it's the right thing to do.
"- I'm on my f*cking last bite, okay!?"
- Where a character falls on the anti-hero spectrum
is largely dependent on how much the audience approves of their actions.
"- Jesus Christ! Can you maybe keep it together for just 10 minutes?"
Robin Hood, for example, falls on the most approving end of the spectrum.
We understand why he's stealing from the rich and giving to the poor
but we also have a certain level of approval of his actions.
"- Praise the Lord and pass the tax rebate!"
- Some may argue that even though he's breaking the law,
he's doing the right thing.
This means Robin Hood is just barely an anti-hero.
"- Everybody this way!"
- Breaking the rules - Yes.
But doing so in a way that would garner most people's approval.
Fleabag meanwhile falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
She's selfish,
judgmental, and impulsive.
So for much of the series, we don't approve of her actions
even though some of them may be relatable.
"- Time to throw the net out."
We understand why Fleabag is the way she is however
when we see the emotional distance she has from her family.
"- You close with your family?
- We get on with it.
- Do you talk? - God, no."
- Aileen from "Monster" is in the least approving side of the anti-hero spectrum.
She is a serial killer.
So the audience doesn't approve of her actions at all.
The audience has sympathy for her however because we see she was a victim of abuse.
We don't condone her actions but we know why she's doing what she's doing.
So Aileen ends up with high understanding but low approval.
Sometimes a character can shift on the antihero spectrum as their story progresses.
Perhaps, the most famous example of this is in "Breaking Bad".
"- I am the one who knocks."
- Walter White begins as a highly sympathetic anti-hero.
He's selling drugs to pay for his cancer treatment.
"- Maybe you and I could partner up."
- But as the series continues, we approve of White's actions less and less.
Since he eventually becomes a ruthless drug kingpin.
But we understand why he's doing what he's doing.
He's garnering more respect than he ever did as a high school science teacher.
"- Say my name.
- Heisenberg.
- You're godd*mn right."
- Now, that we know the different forms they can take
let's look at how to write an anti-hero.
"- What do you think you are for Christ's sake? Crazy or something?"
- As we've made clear, establishing understanding is crucial when writing an anti-hero.
But how does a writer show an audience why an
anti-hero is behaving the way that they are?
"- He thinks I'm some stupid thing! He does!
Well, I didn't ask to get made!"
- One of the most tried and true techniques to build
understanding for a character is through backstory.
What happened to them in the past that made them this way.
"- Someday I'm gonna make great machines that fly.
And me and my friends are gonna go flying together
into the forever and beautiful sky."
- In "Watchmen", we are introduced to Rorschach as a brutal vigilante anti-hero.
He is cold and unforgiving showing no mercy as he kills criminals.
His actions are explained later when he is interrogated
revealing the hardships he experienced growing up.
And a pivotal moment from his past where he was a witness to a gruesome crime.
"- I confess.
I kidnapped her. I killed her.
Arrest me."
- The experience hardened him and led him to believe some criminals can't be redeemed.
"- Take me in. Don't! No!
- Men get arrested.
Dogs get put down."
- With this backstory, we may still not approve of Rorschach's actions
but we understand the circumstances which drove him to have the outlook that he does.
"- None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you.
- All right, that's it!
You're locked in here with me."
- Internal monologue is another way to understand a character's actions.
"- I went over everything that was said.
What should have been said.
What could have been said differently.
What could have been said better."
- This is a favorite technique of anti-hero maestro Paul Schrader
who writes characters disillusion with society
and explains their actions through voiceover.
"- In the last year I'd come to believe in such things as
spirits leaving the body and not wanting to be put back."
In "Taxi Driver", we follow Travis Bickle
and we slowly learn of his mindset through his increasingly dark narration.
"- Someday a real rain'll come and wash all this scum off the streets."
- His voiceover shows us two sides of him.
A lonely man looking for human connection.
"- All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go."
- And a bitter obsessive headed towards a mental break.
The idea has been growing my brain for some time.
So by the time Bickle turns violent, we understand how he got to this point.
"- Suck on this."
- Building understanding also means giving depth to your anti-heroes' motivations.
In "Chronicle", Andrew's actions are rooted in
his difficult home life and struggles at school.
So we understand why he uses his newfound ability to finally have agency over his life.
"- Hey, Wayne.
But this power slowly corrupts him.
"- See this one here.
This one I got really clean because I did this little like
lasso thing around the root, you know."
- While his motivations are complex, by the end of the film he is a true anti-hero.
"- Co-pay on that is $750.83.
- Well, I don't have all that."
- Andrew's trajectory is a great example of a common anti-hero character arc.
"- I'm an apex predator."
- Starting as a moral person
slowly getting worse as the film goes on.
This type of art can also create compelling internal conflict.
Your anti-hero may not want to do what they're doing
but they feel like they have no other option.
"- Go on this quest for me and I'll give you your swamp back."
- In "Trainspotting", Renton continuously tries
to get clean so that he can pursue a normal life.
But again and again, he's unable to.
"- No more. I'm finished with that sh*te.
- It's up to you.
I'm going do it right this time. Gonna get it sort it out. Get off it for good.
- I sure have heard that one before."
- Renton, therefore, is a reluctant anti-hero.
And this push and pull acts as the fundamental conflict of the film.
An audience's opinion of an anti-hero is also affected by a film's tone.
"- May I have a glass of water, please?"
- In "Kill Bill", the audience understands why the bride is on a murderous rampage.
She was left for dead
but the amount of people she kills strains this justification.
Quentin Tarantino keeps us on her side through tone
making the violence campy and cartoonish.
The Bride's actions, therefore, aren't too horrific.
Contrast this with Robert Eggers's "Northman"
which also follows a character exacting revenge.
But the tone of this film is much darker.
Each time Amleth commits an act of violence,
he seems to lose more of his humanity.
By the end of the film, the audience may be less sure
they want him to achieve his goal.
While Amleth and The Bride have similar motivations
the tone of their respective films make us feel differently about their actions.
A writer can also keep an audience on an
anti-hero side through charisma and complexity.
Tony Soprano does bad things.
But because he's such a vividly realized character with relatable quirks
audiences kept rooting for him.
As George R.R Martin noted,
'HBO has proven that we will follow for years and years
some pretty reprehensible characters as long as they're fascinating.'
"- Are you kidding me?
Oh, my God. This is awful. I'm not even joking.
- Who made that? - Us.
- You made it? Give me my money back.
- No. - I want my dollar back."
- To write an anti-hero with true staying power,
it's useful to think about their thematic relevance.
What does this character say about our society?
About other people like them?
In "Fight Club", the narrator's anti-hero qualities like cynicism, aimlessness,
and lack of self-worth held a mirror to 90s America.
"- I'd flip through catalogs and wonder
what kind of dining set defines me as a person."
- Consumer culture wasn't leading to happiness.
"- I felt sorry for guys packed into gyms trying to look like
how Calvin Klein or Tommy Hilfiger said they should.
- That what a man looks like?"
- And disaffected men were turning to self-destructive practices to vent their anger.
"- What?
- I want you to hit me as hard as you can."
- As a result, the narrator and his alter ego resonated with audiences
and still do to this day.
Now, let's look at all these techniques in action.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" written by Terrence Winter
boasts an iconic anti-hero, Jordan Belfort.
Belford is consumed with greed
and throughout the film he behaves immorally.
Belford falls on the less approving end of the anti-hero spectrum.
Most of the actions he commits are unjustifiable.
From cheating on his wife
to cheating on assuming clients out of their own money.
At the same time, Winter makes Belford a character the audience can understand.
After showing him on top of the world
Winter shows Belford's backstory.
He comes from a modest background
and had to claw his way up into the wealthy echelon he ends up in.
"- You're not going to work at that place?
- Yeah, but, you know, you start off...
- Jordan, you're gonna be miserable at that place if you go there.
- It's sales. You work your way up, you'll be a general manager.
- You're not gonna be a stock boy. - Why not?
- 'Cause you're a stockbroker."
- Winter also highlights that Belford becomes a product of his environment.
All of the immoral tools that he uses for his own personal gains
were taught to him by Wall Street.
This scene encapsulates this idea.
What the investor center is doing is wrong.
Jordan simply does what they're already doing to a much larger extent.
"- $4,000? That'd be 40,000 shares, John."
- By using setting as a corrupting influence,
Winter can also create a conventional anti-hero character arc.
When Belford first arrives on Wall Street he is riding the bus with his loving wife.
As time goes on he gets worse and worse
further poisoning the culture of high finance.
By the end of the film, he is driving his car into his mansion.
An addict chased by his new wife who hates him.
"- Get the hell out of here."
- Throughout the film, Winter employs voice-over
to give the viewer a look inside Jordan's mind.
His opening lines sum up exactly why he's continuing to run scams.
They made him something out of nothing.
"- I'm a former member of the middle class
raised by two accountants in a tiny apartment
in Bayside Queens.
The year I turned 26 as the head of my own brokerage firm
I made 49 million dollars.
By the end of the film, Jordan Belfort's thematic relevance is abundantly clear.
The movie was released soon after the financial collapse of the great recession.
And the true story of Jordan Belfort is a reflection of the greed
which plagues Wall Street.
"- I gave up everyone.
And in return, I got three years in some hell hole in Nevada I'd never even heard of."
- No amount of money or success is enough for him.
Just as it was never enough for the financial sector at large.
"- Word about us spread throughout Wall Street."
- Terence Winter's expert anti-hero writing
combined with Martin Scorsese's direction
resulted in one of the most scathing satires of the 21st-century.
One which continues to have an impact on us today.
"- I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich."
A good anti-hero is just like any other good character.
Complex,
evolving, and real.
The real world doesn't operate in moral absolutes.
So, why should your protagonist?
"- We just killed my best friend."
- What are some of your favorite anti-heroes?
Let us know below.
"- I can bring you in warm.
Or I can bring you in cold."
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