It's intriguing; the idea that a person is completely evil. Surely, they must've had a trigger or intricate back story to "make them evil". They must also have good in them somewhere, right? No one could really be totally evil, because, as we know, evil is usually created, not born. Therefore, a part of us always wants to cheer for the anti-hero, not the evil antics that they do, but the belief that at a crucial moment, the anti-hero will find their goodness and make everything right. This always makes for great fiction and superhero movies, but applying to reality is a far more dangerous game.
In simpler times, everyone cheered for the hero. The hero, usually male, usually handsome, lived by a code of conduct and ethics whereby their goal was to serve humanity and make the world a better place. Superman, Spiderman, Batman, most of the tv dads prior to the 1990s, they were all the good guys who saved people or took care of the people around them. There was no such thing as the "anti-hero", they were simply known as the "villain".
Villains didn't care about society, in fact, they sought to destroy it. Villains wanted to unpend the order of things, their goal was chaos, and they did it with an unabashed selfishness where if hundreds, even thousands perished, they just didn't care. The villain's solitary goal was self-service, above all. No one cheered for Lex Luthor, the Joker, the Green Goblin or the criminal in the tv cop drama. Good guys were good, bad guys were bad, and we knew where society stood.
Then came the 1990s. The 1990s saw unprecidented change in our society. GenX was touted as the first generation that would not do better than their parents economically, educationally, and would not be given the reigns of political power. GenX would live under the yoke of the Baby Boomers, until such time that their aging Boomer parents would have to be taken care of, which GenX was expected to do, while at the same time, raising their own children. With this turn of culture, GenX began to question everything from why women and minorities were still second-class citizens and underrepresented to why heros were lauded despite maintaining a status quo for an unequidable society.
There was a lot of cynacism about the future, and who would control it, which laid the perfect foundation for the rise of the anti-hero. From characters like "Stone Cold" Steve Austin who beat up supposed heros in World Wrestling Entertainment to the bumbling Homer Simpson who was good-hearted, but also a terrible father and husband to politicians like Pres. Bill Clinton who appointed women to positions of power usually after he was busted for a sex scandal and Newt Gingrich who orchestrated the toxic, "the other political party is the enemy" strategy that our country has suffered dearly for, these "anti-heroes" with their extreme fundamental flaws turned cultural norms on their heads and became the people we started cheering for.
Anti-heros seemed so much more complex than the boring hero. Anti-heros allowed you to question norms, they allowed you to delve into their fascinating backstory, which creators of media were all too eager to provide and monetize. Anti-heros would surely show us another path, whereby the societal status quo, which in the '90s and through the early '00s, was causing inequality, war, and economic hardship, would be re-invented into something better.
What we could not have known at that time was that anti-heros were the villains, and bad guys are bad guys for a reason. Fast forward to today: community service is at an all-time low, adolescent male idolize criminals (as in men actually convicted of terrible fellonies), adolescent girls and young women have zero trust in societial institutions such as marriage and family (why would they when lately everytime they go on their socials, a young man spams them with "Your Body, Our Choice"), and this myth of the anti-hero has now permeated into real world politics.
What our society is going to learn very hard and fast over the next few years is that the anti-hero isn't going to save them. The anti-hero isn't going to usher in that better, more equitable world where everyone can thrive, but they also will not maintain the safe and secure societal status quo, because the anti-hero is a villain, and no matter how much time you try to spend unpacking their backstory or searching for that kernal of goodness hoping that it comes out at a crucial moment to save us all, the villian will focus on the only thing they care about; themselves. They will achieve their solitary, self-serving goals no matter who they have to sacrifice, and it will be up to the rest of us who recognize the villains we have elevated, to call them out, protect our communities, and be the heros.
