040 - Of Good & Evil

[captain_slinky]

Why is it that when a Man is the villain, they come up with all sorts of crazy details for his back-story that make him a sympathetic, identifiable and even slightly righteous person? Magneto comes from a concentration camp and wants to ensure that his people are never subjected to that kind of horror again. Lex Luthor is a standard American Business Man who doesn't like the idea of a secretive all-powerful alien being praised as a God. The Joker was just a failing stand-up comedian who got tricked into committing crime and had an accident that made his mind snap. They're all sympathetic and leave the reader thinking "Wow, yeah... y'know, he has a point there".

But when a WOMAN is the villain, it's simply because "Mmmmmm Evil Feels *So Gooooooood*"? *IF* they have a motivation beyond that, they're crazy and/or they want revenge, usually for romance-fueled reasons. This makes me SO ANGRY!

Comments

[aurora77]

That is all too common. Often, the woman is the seductress who can't resist evil and enjoys it. Like Eve and the forbidden fruit. I have watched a couple of SyFy shows that had decent women villains. But those shows had lots of great women characters already. And, as it turns out, they had a lot of women actually working behind the scenes. Go fig.

I want actual well-rounded characters. Is it really so much to ask?!? C'mon, Hollywood.