Think of a children’s movie or two. Maybe a Disney or Pixar movie first comes to mind; or maybe a movie with “real” actors. Who are the good guys in this movie? Who are the bad? This should be easy to answer given a basic knowledge of the movie. Now who are the “good guys and bad guys” in life? Not as easy to answer. Of course, comparing fictional stereotypes to real people does not make all that much sense. Most people can obviously tell the difference between watching a movie and events happening in life. The distinction is clear. Yet children are different. They can still distinguish from the fictional and reality, but are more exposed to and influenced by the portrayals movies can impose. Therefore this essay will examine the nature of …show more content…
Not everyone that goes to the cinema wants to have complex moral dilemmas in every movie they see. With a good and bad side, it is easy to sit back and relax. It is simple, traditional, and fun. Sometimes this is just a result of bad directing and one dimensional characters. According to Brandi Reissenweber, one-dimensional characters are seen only when “one side of their personality comes through.” For this context, a one-dimensional villain would have no redeeming qualities to contrast is evilness. Similarly, a hero would have no flaws and would be the absolute image of good. As Omer Bartov mentions in his “Anti-Hero as Hero” article, “absolute goodness may remain so totally divorced from reality.” But even one dimensional characters are not the full problem. A character could be an elaborate and complex character yet still be portrayed by the director as someone who is evil and always will …show more content…
In this series, Jake the dog and Finn the human go on numerous amounts of adventures. Finn may not be evil, but he is realistically portrayed as a normal human. He has his own faults, most notably the fact that he often acts like a jerk, especially to the series’ main villain, the Ice King. While the Ice King’s decisions are certainly questionable, he has innocent intentions as whole. Finn, however, is clearly a jerk to the Ice King. As misled as the Ice King is, he is never unreasonably mean. Yet Finn still harasses and hurts the Ice King. The Ice King is indeed a sad character; the Adventure Time Wikia page describes him as “merely a nuisance” and “misunderstood.” The Ice King even “expresses a continual zeal to spend time with anyone who will tolerate his company.” He closely reflects the stereotype of the “innocent but disliked” character, both in life and in fiction. Yet the Ice King is one of the, if not the, most disliked characters in the series. Finn essentially gains the protection of having the title of a “good guy” and being the protagonist in order to do and say whatever he wants to the Ice King. No matter what Finn does or says, he will always be seen as the good guy, be it his actions reflect that idea or not. While his mistreatment of the Ice King is most probably a play on irony by the creators, it is unlikely this comes across to
Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, as well as, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature, Princess Mononoke, deal with the prevalent theme of good verses evil. On the surface, both stories seem like typical hero verses villain tales, but once their plots are more closely analyzed it is evident that there is not a bold line between the two extremes. Both pieces explore the idea of evil being in the eye of the beholder and being interpreted completely differently from contrasting perspectives.
Everyone remembers the nasty villains that terrorize the happy people in fairy tales. Indeed, many of these fairy tales are defined by their clearly defined good and bad archetypes, using clichéd physical stereotypes. What is noteworthy is that these fairy tales are predominately either old themselves or based on stories of antiquity. Modern stories and epics do not offer these clear definitions; they force the reader to continually redefine the definitions of morality to the hero that is not fully good and the villain that is not so despicable. From Dante’s Inferno, through the winding mental visions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, spiraling through the labyrinth in Kafka’s The Trial, and culminating in Joyce’s abstract realization of morality in “The Dead,” authors grapple with this development. In the literary progression to the modern world, the increasing abstraction of evil from its classic archetype to a foreign, supernatural entity without bounds or cure is strongly suggestive of the pugnacious assault on individualism in the face of literature’s dualistic, thematically oligopolistic heritage.
The first animated movie produced by Pixar, a famous space ranger named Buzz Light-year said, “To infinity and beyond!” and that is exactly where Pixar has taken the animation industry. The success of Pixar is duly noted worldwide and they remain a leader in the animation industry. The company reeled in more than 100 awards and nominations for their work on animated films, commercials, and technical contributions to the animation industry. The trials and triumphs of this company have earned it its spot as one of the leading animation companies in the entertainment industry today. With all this success it is hard to think it was almost over before it ever began. Pixar’s history of trials and triumphs starts with a group of men and their ideas that would revolutionize the entertainment industry.
As a society we value and admire heroes who represent the idealized version of ourselves whom we stride every day to become. This is why they are sometimes scrutinized, unless they are an anti-hero, of course. The anti-hero is also admired by some even if he utilizes unlawful methods to achieve his goal, because he represents the good in a corrupt world. But this is not always the case as it is seen in some Noir stories. In Noir stories, the anti-hero is supposed to be a modern knight. Transgressing society's corrupt rules in order to reaffirm for its male audience the need to act justly do rightly; however, the anti-hero through this false nobility and sexism reinforces the social problems that plague contemporary society.
As a kid I always loved going to the movies and seeing Spiderman, Batman, or Superman kicking the bad guys’ butts’ on the big screen. It seems movies these days always have the same overarching theme though good vs. evil. Even those super girly princess movies have aspects of good and evil. Take The Little Mermaid, for example, there is the protagonist, Ariel, and the antagonist, Ursula, and just like in all of the other movies, the good guy always wins. Although, the theme of good vs. evil is not only found in movies; it can also be found in history, literature, and day-to-day lives. Though the battle between good and evil manifests itself in many types of literary work, good always triumphs evil.
At first it is seen as a story about man and the evils he can do, yet
Some of you might be asking what stereotyping is. According to dictionary.com stereotyping is “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group” (dictionary 1). Stereotyping gives certain people false expectations. These expectations create anger between groups and even though Disney does not take blame for this they are part of t...
They are characters that the audience can empathize with because a single human is born with nothing but as they walk life they will be neither purely evil nor good but a mix of both. These characters are timeless for if you want to label them as purely evil or purely good it’s impossible because they aren’t. These characters touch upon issues that society are conflicted about and allow the audience to work out these issues for their self throughout the story or play letting us decided the truth within these stories. Like how Mary Shelley had force the reader to see within the heart of the creature and the society viewpoint for us to decide for their self who we thought were the real monsters within the story of Frankenstein. These characters are also seen as more realistic because even if they are the most pure characters the audience may had read about with the purest intentions they may still fallen to their darkness in the end showing that the world isn’t filled with demons or angels that like humans these characters can feel, they can wary and fall to their temptation, that they can still hope, get hurt, cry, feel guilt, depression, happiness, and paranoia. Because like in reality the audiences are living in a morally ambiguous world where most of the world 's solutions to their problem aren’t clear and may be difficulties in choosing what the right thing to do. This makes the story more engaging, realist, and makes it easier
In “The Thematic Paradigm,” Robert Ray explains how there are two vastly different heroes: the outlaw hero and the official hero. The official hero has common values and traditional beliefs. The outlaw hero has a clear view of right and wrong but unlike the official hero, works above the law. Ray explains how the role of an outlaw hero has many traits. The morals of these heroes can be compared clearly. Films that contain official heroes and outlaw heroes are effective because they promise viewer’s strength, power, intelligence, and authority whether you are above the law or below it.
Can the theme of good and evil actually be pure good and pure evil, or simply just a mystery? The short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” by Flannery O’ Connor, is a rather grim and fateful story. The story is a tough, yet amazing story about a family’s unfortunate series of events on their journey to Florida. A man known as The Misfit was found escaped from the nearest prison. What could possible go wrong with an escaped convict on the loose? That’s one question the family hoped not have asked. The battle between good and evil rages on, but the question is whether the characters of good and evil are truly what they appear or simply just a blur.
one which he “peddles” to the viewers (Anderson & Meyer, 1988). Character exaggeration is often utilized as a means of overstating the value of a given message. In the film Kingdom of Heaven (2005), for instance, the character of Balian is portrayed as a “perfect knight” and Guy, as the “perfect villain.” Historically speaking though, Balian was never a perfect knight, let alone a guy who was profoundly valiant, virtuous, and prudent. Note that this theory assumes that the viewer sees the actor as being independent from the subject/object he represents, and that the actions of the actor are autonomous in the sense that they are independent of the prevailing social or cultural order.
The Lego Movie is an animated film written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. This movie is about an ordinary Lego mini-figure named Emmet, who is mistaken for an extraordinary master builder and expected to save the world. Everything changes when Emmet finds the Piece of Resistance which makes him the chosen one called “The Special.” Lord Business who is also the President plans to use the Kragle to freeze the universe perfectly in place so that the individual actions and machinations of society no longer go against his plan. Emmet teams up with his teammates to take down Lord Business plan and to save the world. At the end of the movie, Emmet convinces Lord Business that he does not have to be the bad guy and he could also
The widely popular film Shrek, produced and distributed by DreamWorks in 2001, grossed a total of $484,409,218 in worldwide sales (Box Office Mojo). The success of the film has led DreamWorks to create several shorts, companion films, and sequels. From its memorable characters to its whimsical, edgy humor, Shrek was an amazing, highly successful animation that would pave the way for DreamWorks to make billions off the franchise. Shrek’s success can be attributed to three main factors: the range of ages it appeals to, its creative use of intertextuality, and its ability to cover a wide range of the fairy tale functions proposed by Vladimir Propp.
The primary goal of The Walt Disney Company is to become one of the world’s leading producers and providers of not only entertainment, but also information (The Walt Disney Company, 2014). The company aims to achieve this by utilizing its immense brand portfolio so as to differentiate services, content, and consumer products. While this is the overall goal, there exist other innate milestones that essentially touch on socially responsible business in enhancing sustainability. They include, but are not limited to; zero net greenhouse gas emissions, whereby the company aims to have reduced net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2020; zero waste, whereby Walt Disney hopes to achieve a 60% reduction in waste from
For a time, the main characters in a story, poem, or narrative were easily classified as either being a hero or a villain. A hero would be easy to identify by the traits he'd possess, such as bravery, honesty, selflessness, trustworthiness, courage, leadership, and more. The villain would be easy to identify as well, possessing traits such as maliciousness, deceitfulness, immorality, dark, wishing harm upon others, and more. But what if the character lacked the natural heroic qualities but wasn't a villain either? What if the person displayed personality flaws that would traditionally be associated with a villain, but has heroic intentions? These questions were finally answered with the emergence of the anti-hero in literature.