Anti-Hero

Steve West | October 7, 2010
I recently encountered a list of filmdom's greatest anti-heroes. I made my own choices before I looked at the list and saw most of them on the list but not my own choice for the #1 slot - the insane, morally bankrupt Alex.

Tony Peters | October 7, 2010
while I like singing in the rain I have to go with Leon

Steve West | October 7, 2010
My second choice. He's almost a true hero with his heroic suicide but sadly he was a murderer after all.

Tony Peters | October 7, 2010
yeah but routing for him helped all of us feel better about our impure thoughts for Ms Portman

Steve West | October 7, 2010
One of the things that make him a hero is that in taking care of her she asks him to be her lover and he thankfully refuses. What a great guy. And then he teaches her how to kill people.

Ryan Dunn | October 7, 2010
Where's The Dude?!?!?!?!

Steve West | October 7, 2010
Forgot to have "Other" as an option. Sorry!

Jon Berry | October 25, 2010
Hahahah the Dude isn't an anti-hero. He just isn't a hero... or anything really. He just is.

Ryan Dunn | October 25, 2010
Jon Berry you ignorant slut. The Dude is the ultimate anti-hero. He just is...a drunk, stoned, not so smart, fashion depraved, broke ass, unemployed sausage with questionable choices in friends.

The Dude would get his ass whooped by anyone on this list(I voted for D-Fens because he's the least badass).

Jon Berry | October 25, 2010
I guess calling him a hero by any use of the term is a stretch. I suppose depending on your definition of anti-hero he could be up there, and he certainly is quite the opposite of traditional heroic values, but still. I guess the list reflects in my mind more of the anti-hero, but technically you are right.

D-Fens is awesome, though.

Scott Hardie | November 6, 2010
I submit Michael Corleone as a write-in, although I'm fond of Henry Hill and Tony Soprano too.

Kelly's been watching the modern Doctor Who series, which has a lot of things that the other long-running sci-fi institution Star Trek lacks, primarily vitality and verisimilitude; who would have expected the BBC production to be the less stiff and stagy of the two? But Trek at least accomplishes moral ambiguity, especially on DS9. The Doctor always offers the villain the option of surrender before cruelly destroying it, and thus the show acts like he's a paragon of virtue, as if 1) that would qualify him or 2) it should matter. The show is blind to shades of gray. This is all a long way of saying that I'm drawn to moral complexity and storylines that challenge the heroes to compromise their values or pay a price; I specifically plot Gothic Earth that way. Give me a good Sisko and Garak episode any day.

Jon Berry | November 6, 2010
I'll just say, BBC can be pretty ballsy. BBC productions, having different sensibilities, usually end up with pretty aggressive and strong works coming out.

Amy Austin | November 7, 2010
Jon: Agreed.

Scott: I have to disagree on your assessment of Doctor Who. Yes, he is often presented as unimpeachably morally superior, but just because it isn't there *every* episode does not mean that there is no moral complexity/ambiguity or compromise of values offered by DW storylines. If you are a faithful viewer of each and every episode -- something that I do believe is more conducive to the full enjoyment and understanding of the show, because I think the character development *is* on par with DS9 (easily the most complex Trek series and, I agree, the most interesting and non-formulaic) -- then you will see this much more readily.

Part of the whole DW mythos is that he is the last of his kind... a Time Lord, the most powerful species in the Universe, with a near-immortal lifespan and time/space cognizance that supersedes all others'. It's only natural that this would result in an omnipotent "hero" with a bit of a God complex... something that, in and of itself, is an internalized moral dilemma that he faces each and every time he offers the option of surrender to the "villain" -- after all, it is only his own sense of the value of all life that prevents him from just doing it outright to begin with. The fact that this "destruction" is sometimes cruel sets him up even more so as an Old Testament-like God figure (a God that bears more resemblance to how man with omnipotence would act than to any real "God" of Creation); in fact, the series is very often allegorical (see also "The Satan Pit")... not just depicting "a paragon of virtue" as you put it. I am certain that I can list numerous examples for you, but one episode that immediately springs to mind is "The Waters of Mars" (add'l wikilink), which does introduce a very gray/dark side of the Doctor, acting (a bit revelationally) as the last of a very powerful race without governance or constraint and even breaking the essential laws of his own kind by interfering with fixed point historical events in time. The Doctor is quite vividly portrayed as a God figure, a Satanic figure and a Christ figure, all within the same episode... and, really, this is an ongoing character arc that is, yes, applied to a bit a of a series template -- but it is far from being black and white, imho.



That said... *love* D-Fens... and if we're including anti-heroes from cable/television, then please let's not overlook the riotously anti-heroic Kenny Powers of Eastbound & Down -- my write-in fave.

Scott Hardie | November 7, 2010
I'm sure you're right, Amy. I'm watching scenes here and there over Kelly's shoulder, not the whole series. I know there's a complicated arc to the plot that connects disparate episodes, so there must be more to the morality as well. And that's not even considering Torchwood.

Steve West | November 7, 2010
I loved the HBO series Deadwood. Al Swearengen would get my write-in vote.

Amy Austin | November 7, 2010
And that's not even considering Torchwood.

I almost wrote that very sentence, but I didn't want to complicate the discussion even further. ;-p