Glorifying Criminals In Movies And Shows And Their Effect On Youth

WESTERN MOVIES AND THEIR VILLAINS 

by Sajan Kesari

The glorification of criminals on popular TV shows and movies can have a darker and more significant effect on society than people anticipate.  

Publicising violent crime and the romanisation of on-screen criminals, can not only play a negative role over the influence of peoples moral perceptions, but it also has the niche ability to create a unique type of real life criminal, one who is not so unique in their ways, known as the copycat.  

Real life tragedies are often used as inspiration for box office hits, as we see the phrase ‘based on real events’, appear before the film starts as some kind of disclosure that what we are about to watch is something far more realistic than what a writer conjured up. 

Movies and TV shows depicting violent criminal behaviour have often become a muse for influenced viewers.  

The influential power of movies and tv shows on audiences is widely underrated, as people can become influenced and shape their ideals around a particular character and their actions. The viewer can perceive a warped sense of reality and model their behaviour on the character, leading to incidents like copycat crime.   

We’ve all heard of shows like Breaking Bad, Netflix’s successful stalker drama, You and Dexter, but it’s not just these popular shows that are glamourising the criminal lifestyle. Cult classic films like Fight Club, The Dark Knight, American Psycho and Twilight have also triggered copycat criminals amongst their viewers. Some of these films and shows are not only famous for their acclaim but also for their huge influence on audiences. 

American Psycho won over public popularity on its examination of the rise of materialism in the western world and its provocative leading character Patrick Bateman. But what the director didn’t anticipate was the immensely influential power of Bateman. In 2004, a young man named Michael Hernandez stabbed his middle-school classmate to death and admitted that he modelled his behaviour after the on-screen murderer Patrick Bateman.  

Christopher Nolan’s most acclaimed and profitable film The Dark Knight and its widely glorified character, Heath Ledgers Joker, inspired an incident that occurred in 2009, when a young girl in the U.S assaulted a high school teacher. The girl returned from the bathroom with the Joker’s trademark smile carved into her face and then ran at her high school teacher with the razor blade in her hand.  

The cultural romanization of characters like Joe from Netflix’s You and Heath Ledger’s Joker goes far beyond the realm of Hollywood, glorifying these characters can enable the decision to overlook their behaviour and in a sense, accept it.

THE PROBLEM

by dipin yadav

Look at every ‘Best Movies’ list and you’re bound to find among them titles like ‘The Godfather’, ‘Scarface’ or ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. It’s not only about the great actors in them, people love this sort of movie and, let’s be honest about it, most of the time the audience sides with the bad guys. Is this good or bad? Is this a sign there’s something wrong with Australian or global society or is it just an innocent form of entertainment?

Escape from reality

One explanation for our fascination with criminals on the silver screen is that such movies allow viewers to escape from their mundane and often bland existence. Women are attracted to the bad-boy sort of hero, while men secretly dream of being like them. Maybe not killing people or committing the actual robberies, but at least the other part – having super fast cars, huge mansions and being surrounded by beautiful women.

The vast majority of movie-goers are nice law-abiding citizens, but for a couple of hours they can be the bad guys. Or dream about it.

Rebellion against the system

Another reason audiences are entranced by ruthless gangsters in movies is that most people feel they’re not in control of their lives. Maybe they don’t dwell on it consciously, but they feel it on a subconscious level. To make things even worse, people know that living an honest life and having an honest job doesn’t really pay. A lot of people struggle to make ends meet and, actually, one of the reasons they go to such movies is to forget about bills and mortgages or how are they going to pay for a new car they badly need. Many work hard but see themselves always drowning in debt and they wish they could change that.

In fact, I remember watching a movie where the police was chasing the bad guy (Amitabh Bachchan in this case). Even as the audiences watched the action unfold — transfixed! — I realised that they were not rooting for the police…in fact, they were rooting for the bad guy, who would be so lucky so as to outsmart the chasing cops. Thus, when impressionable people watch these movies, they may be tempted to test fate…and walk over to the dark side…simply in order to feel larger-than-life…without realising that crime in the real world is neither glamorous or glorious.

BOLLYWOOD AND ITS EFFECTS

BY SHRESTH KUMAR

Once upon a time, we lived in simpler times when it was almost a given that all movies would subscribe to the concept of “Satyamev Jayate”. Audiences flocked to cinema theatres…certain…that they would be witnessing a magnum opus where the protagonist (aka the “hero” or the “good guy”) would beat the s**t out of the antagonist (aka the “villain” or the “bad guy”)…i.e. ‘Good’ would always triumph over ‘Evil’. Hence, irrespective of how badly the odds were staked against the hero, the hero would always win…the villain would always lose…and the hero and heroine would go on to live happily ever after. In short, the narrative of the yesteryear movies was simple: Good trumped Evil!

Things today, however, are not so simple. For the movies no longer adheres to this basic principle…and the result — you’re left with movies that glorify the antagonist…the gangsters…the dons…and the villains. In other words, the formula of Bollywood has undergone a strange transformation, where the antagonist has now turned into our protagonists…and the cine-goers are expected to feel “for” them instead of “against” them.

There is, however, a flip side to this that we all seem to be missing…When you glorify gangsters, dons or bad guys on the silver screen, you do not just glamourise or glorify these criminals…you actually glamourise and glorify their crimes. The result: you end up brainwashing impressionable young minds – and sadly! – not for the better…for they start believing in the premise — “Crime as Art”.