Posted by
GeorgeBruno on Thursday, January 22, 2009 2:12:21 PM
I love watching TV.
I was a big fan of The Soprano's.
Huge fan of Brotherhood.
Really enjoy Dexter.
True Blood was different and fun.
And most recently is The Wire.
Normally, I am a Travel Channel, Food, HGTV, Sci-Fi, History, and National Geographic channel guy.
But I end up getting hooked on the former shows.
Now when I step back and look at those shows, I noticed something.
There's not one truly righteous character in those shows. They're all monsters, mobsters, thieves, con men, serial killers, manipulators, freaks, druggies, alcoholics, and shady characters. Everyone is the take or taking somebody, everyone is in someone's back pocket (kind of like our judicial system), Everyone has got something on someone.
Nevertheless, I enjoy the shows.
But the observation is that all the characters are bad people. Even the ones I like...are bad people. People I wouldnt want my kids associating with.
So what I do in my mind is rationalize which one is the best...or the least bad. The lesser evil.
I was watching The Wire today. Second season. And my "favorite" charactor, McNulty, is getting served divorce papers by his estranged wife. I felt really bad for him.....but in the past episodes he was the biggest skirt chaser, briber, scumbag, and one of the most dishonest cops in the cast of characters....and he was the nicest one in the bunch.
In The Soprano's, I really liked Vito. Vito ended up dying a really humiliating terrible death. I felt bad for his character. But for several seasons, Vito had probably whacked more people than anyone else.
There seems to be a new formula in TV and movie entertainment. There used to be a clear "good guy" and "bad guy" and a good versus evil concept in all scripts. The template has been trashed and the new one is bad vs. bad....or the bad vs. the least bad...the lesser of two evils.
I just made this observation today: Even the heroes are bad guys.
It's not good vs. bad....it's bad vs. really bad.
It's not that the lines are blurred.
It's that the roles are totally flip-flopped. Good is bad. Bad is good.
I find myself rootin' for the bad guy...or at least the least scumbagiest of the scumbags.
Have you noticed that too?