Wikipedia defines the term antihero as, ‘’a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.’’ The character type of an antihero is one that defies the traditional role of a hero, often displaying many of the darker aspects of human nature, such as greed, rage and lust. The appeal of the antihero is that they feed into our darker impulses, tapping into the primal aspect of the human psyche, lurking beneath society's clean exterior. The antihero is not a modern invention, although has risen to popularity fairly recently, uses of the character type range back to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which centers around the tortured soul of Macbeth as a war rages in his heart, whether to continue serving his rightful King, or to give in to his greed and yearning for power, seizing the crown through a knife in the dark. Macbeth is, to say the least, a conflicted man, struggling to keep his sanity after giving in to his inner demons, expressing his guilt and remorse after the murder of his King, valiantly fighting his inevitable descent into madness.
The standard protagonist in entertainment is a hero through and through, sympathetic, righteous, fighting all obstacles on a quest to right the world's wrongs. The hero could be a cop, a soldier, a hobbit taking his ring to Mount Doom, a knight on a quest to save a princess, but in a world characterized as black and white, the antihero is steeped in a moral shade of gray, sometimes doing bad things for good reasons or good things for bad reasons, the antihero is never truly good or evil, but somewhere in the middle. These figures have become popular in entertainment, as they present a more nuanced view of society, walking the lines of morality and are more interesting because of it. As much as many are content watching Captain America and Superman heroically fight against the forces of evil, others yearn to see a darker, more complex side of humanity with characters that are not painted as either a just hero or evil villain, but as a combination of the two.
Perhaps the best embodiment of that philosophy is the protagonist of the show Breaking Bad, Walter White. Walt begins the show as a high school chemistry teacher and car wash employee, dealing with a overbearing wife, a humiliating job, and a son with cerebral palsy. Walt works hard at his jobs, and does his best to be a good father and husband to his family. Then he learns he has terminal lung cancer. Just like that, Walt’s life is over, he will most likely die, and even if he doesn't, the treatment promises to bankrupt his family, his decades of hard work being for naught. Facing imminent death, as well as the prospect of his family living in squalor because of him, Walt decides to do something about it. Using his intrinsic knowledge of chemistry, Walter White teams up with one of his former students to cook and sell meth, in order to make enough money to keep his family financially afloat long after his death. From the beginning, Walt is established as a tragic figure, a man who has followed all the rules, working hard and raising a family, all for his life to come crashing down around him. As an act of rebellion against society, the establishment he has always worked for, and life itself, Walt decides to break the rules.The show dares the viewer to ask themselves, what would they do in Walt’s situation, faced with the prospect of death and bankruptcy for their family, would the viewer elect simply to submit, or would they rebel? Would they do something society has deemed as bad, in this case selling harmful drugs, in order to protect those closest to them? These questions are what makes the antihero so fascinating, there is no clear cut answer, there is no good versus evil, an ordinary man doing bad things for a good underlying reason.
Another example is the antihero that kicked off the golden age of television, Tony Soprano. Tony is the De facto Boss of the DiMeo crime family in New Jersey. A gangster, racist, extortionist, cheat and murderer, Soprano would at first glance appear better suited as a villain, but as the show progresses, the audience is given an insight into the man, seeing his vulnerabilities and humanity that he tries so hard to mask. When Soprano begins suffering panic attacks, he sees a psychiatrist, and the audience learns about the man behind the brutish exterior, a man suffering from a multitude of psychological ailments. Despite Soprano’s variety of flaws, audiences see him as not a two dimensional villain, but a fleshed out character in his own right.
Movies have also made use of the antihero archetype, from Inspector Callahan in Dirty Harry, to Martin Scorsese's portrayal of corrupt wall street stockbroker Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street, cinema demonstrates that the protagonists of great stories don't have to be heroes, or even decent people. Henry Hill, the protagonist of mob classic Goodfellas, is a member of the Italian mafia, and partakes in everything from theft to murder, and yet his rags to riches story is undeniably appealing, especially from an American perspective. Jordan Belfort is a terrible human being, making millions off of robbing the hopeful, and relishing his ill gotten wealth without a second thought for the millions suffering because of his greed, and yet, due to his entrancing charisma, as well as his personal narration speaking directly to the viewer, the audience roots for him. Another prominent example is cold blooded drug kingpin Tony Montana, from the film Scarface. A coked-out psychopath, Montana is by all accounts a sadistic monster, and yet he has just enough redeemable qualities to endure himself to the audience. The antihero is intrinsically appealing as they provide a way for the audience to live out cathartic fantasies that they themselves would never do. From a certain perspective, the stories can even be inspiring. Henry Hill begins as the unloved child of Italian Immigrants, the only companionship he received was from the mafia. Tony Montana began as less than nobody, a homeless, broke Cuban entering America with nothing but ambition, and worked his way up to the top, building his cocaine empire from scratch, and in a twisted sense living the American dream more than most Americans ever will.
Now more than ever, antiheroes are in demand, whether it be the mobsters of Goodfellas, the corrupt cops of The Shield, the gun running bikers of Sons of Anarchy, the Birmingham gangsters of Peaky Blinders, or the meth cooks of Breaking Bad, audiences can't seem to get enough of these morally ambiguous individuals. Be it their charisma, charm, wits, vulnerability, or just the audience’s need to escape the mundane normalcy of life by living vicariously through these characters, the antihero has become a staple of modern entertainment, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
