BAD VS. EVIL
A
huge myth in popular culture not only in American popular culture, but in pop
culture all through time is the bad/evil myth. People always tend to root for
the good guy in the movie, show, story or whatever else they may be viewing or
reading. It seems that every summer a good vs. evil movie appears as a major
box office competitor. Currently, 4 of the top 5 grossing movies in the US box office
are good vs. evil myths ("Imdb charts: Top," 2013). Growing up in
America, it is nearly impossible to avoid Disney movies and heroes are an
integral part to so many Disney movies. All of the publicity and toys typically
surround the Disney princesses, but for every princess there is a prince
charming that everyone roots to save her. This may be part of the reason that
American popular cultures feature bad vs. evil concepts so often. Two
inescapable and truly legendary artifacts of the bad vs. evil myth of American
popular culture are “Die Hard” and “Dark Knight”.
“Die Hard” is based around the hero, Lieutenant John
McClane, officer of the NYPD, who tries to save his wife Holly Gennaro and
several others, after they are taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber
during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles (Imdb: Die Hard,
2013). The movie is a classic good vs. evil movie, with one hero taking on
twelve bad guys in a skyscraper. “Die Hard” is also a representation of popular
American culture because the bad guy is a German terrorist, playing back to the
anti-German sentiment of WWII. The audience is also convinced to root for not
only the good guy, John McClane, but also the little guy, John McClane, as FBI
agents step into the movie and attempt to take over negotiations with the
terrorist group. At that point it is John McClane that plays the voice of
reason against the larger FBI group that is also a more brash and hasty group.
The popular culture reference doesn’t quite stop there, however. Just to
finzlize the association of John McClane as the good guy with the audience,
that officer outside of the Nakatomi Plaza that John is communicating with
refers to John as Roy Rogers, who played a classic, good-guy cowboy on American
television.
Another instant classic artifact of the American popular
culture bad vs. evil myth is the movie “Dark Knight”. In this movie, the
superhero Batman, who has appeared in a vast number of films, a long-running
television show, cartoon series and comic books, partners with police
commissioner Gordon and DEA Harvey Dent to take down the Gotham mob ("Imdb:
Dark knight," 2013). Simultaneously, the Joker is unleashed on Gotham,
after the mob decides that Batman is an unbeatable force and contracts the
Joker to terminate Batman. The representation of Batman in American popular
culture is obvious with the previously stated popularity in the culture since
Batman’s first appearance in 1939. Superheroes have been a huge part of the
American myth of good vs. evil. One cannot walk through the toy section of any
department store without seeing superhero action figures. Joker’s
representation of evil as the villain may be less obvious, aside from the fact
that he is trying to kill the esteemed Batman. In one man’s opinion, the
Joker’s appeal to the modern American audience as villainous and pure evil
because he represents chaos and unpredictability. We live in society where
everything is planned and organizers are never any further away than a cell phone
in your pocket, but there is no way to control the Joker. Chaotic attacks such
as the Sandy Hook or Aurora, CO shootings have a significant devastating effect
on people because of unpredictability of the attacks, which is exactly what a
villain such as the Joker brings to the movie “Dark Knight”.
REFERENCES
Imdb:
Dark knight. (2013). Retrieved from
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4
Imdb
charts: Top movies. (2013). Retrieved from
http://www.imdb.com/chart/?ref_=nb_mv_4_cht
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