"McBain to base: under attack by commie Nazis. They won't stop me from delivering these UNICEF pennies. Go pennys; help the puny children who need you!" - McBain, The Simpsons S09E23.
Movie villains get a lot of shit considering some of them don't even want to take over the world. Goons get killed, and underlings get slapped around by superhero and superhuman alike. It doesn't matter if the star is Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, or any of the other Expendables. In order to rationalize, moralize, or maybe just normalize the extreme violence bad guys have to be bred from a certain crop. A henchman has to have a funny accent, kick a puppy, or be really really creepy. Otherwise the hero might not look so heroic. The safe way to ensure this is to make badies Nazis, Soviets, or terrorists. Pick one, plop them in your setting, and viola you got thousands of evil underlings with no one lining up to cry for. So what's the problem? Heroes get to be heroes, and badies get to die without offending anyone's sensibilities. This is how Hollywood works, dammit! To be fair, or at least a little less completely biased, movie makers are changing up their game.
Guillermo Del Toro's Hellboy confronted the issue straight on, and it was decided Ron Perlman would face off not just against Nazis, or communists, but ancient Russian Nazis collaborating with Soviets! That's right we have ourselves a tale of two Russias. The main villain, aside from numerous bumpers-in-the-night, is the fabled Rasputin. He's immortal, menacing, and what's this? Bald! So much for historical accuracy!
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| "Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen... Russia's greatest love machine" - Rasputin | by Boney.M |
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Apparently, an occult womanizer known for spending miraculous time with little boys was not enough. After being killed several times, unsuccessfully, Grigori Rasputin was horribly unemployed. The Russian Tsardom had been abolished, and in order to get back at his communist ousters he looked towards Germany. Hitler, always in need of secret portals to hell, found Ras quite to his liking. Together they summoned baby Hellboy, devised an evil plan, and would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for that meddling John Hurt. Cut forward 2 hours and Rasputin is in need of a new ally. He contacts, and utilizes for his needs, none other than an ambiguously soviet Russian! That's right folks, the pervert Nazi is now a commie! All of America's foes have assembled into ol' Grigori.
These random allegiances serve no other purpose than to force us to accept Rasputin as evil. His motives are unclear. He has no real character development besides being truly fucking creepy. Amazingly, and I have to give Del Toro credit, the audience ends up hating him none the less. We can forget that the movie has cannon fodder in place of villains, because, well, he is evil.
Hellboy has to kill him, that's it. He serves a singular purpose and he does it well. Similarly, in Del Toro's new show The Strain vampires serve as villains because we are told they are evil. Their motives are muddied and seem to stem from blood lust. How anyone can possibly benefit from ending the world, especially vampires who need human blood to survive, remains unclear. Ah, but that is what villains do.
I guess what it comes down to is simple: making villains is hard work. Instead of devoting creative resources to making them unique it is easier to build upon already established threats. Viewers already know nazis, commies, and vampires are bad. Some combination of these titles makes a serviceable villain. They do what they need to do, and more time can be spent with the good guys. Maybe The Strain's vampires truly will be different and compelling. But, I don't know if that answers the greater issue.
Cinematic "badies" too often are carbon copies of each other with different titles. We blindly root against them, spit in their faces, and cheer loudly as the heroes triumph over them. Maybe it is just a fact to accept. Maybe henchmen and goons can stay as they are, and compelling motives can be left to anti-heroes. I hope not. Unfortunately, I think I'll have to see more unique foes before I start to believe otherwise.Labels: Guillermo Del Toro, Hellboy, Musings, Television, The Strain, Vampires, Villainy