Tag Archives: satire

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Why We Love Caricatured Villains

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember any of it,” said the dastardly dictator M. Bison.

“You don’t remember?!” blurted the heroic Chun-Li, having just told him the story of how he killed her father.

“For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me…it was Tuesday.”

As a friend once said, that is the perfect troll response.

In case you didn’t know, the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme Street Fighter is one of my favorite bad movies. Ming-Na Wen is well-cast as Chun-Li; it’s funny intentionally and unintentionally; and while his accent is way too thick, Van Damme at least fights well as Guile.

But the biggest reason I love this flick is Raul Julia’s M. Bison. It takes an exceptional actor to make a speech about the “Pax Bisonica” and do it with such conviction. He actually researched real dictators like Mussolini to give what could’ve been a one-dimensional, cartoonish Bond villain a bit more depth and sophistication. He also had the charisma to chew the scenery and make it entertaining. (It’s sad that he died shortly after the movie was released).

Have you ever noticed that audiences tend to love over-the-top villains more than over-the-top heroes? Emperor Palpatine from the Star Wars films. Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Batman. Dr. Doom in Roger Corman’s unreleased Fantastic Four movie. Heck, even my own Marcus the Morally-Dubious from Ninjas and Talking Trees. But if you try to google “over-the-top heroes,” you’ll be hard-pressed to find examples (though they do exist).

Why is this?

I believe it goes back to something that has been said by several famous Christian thinkers:

“The devil…that proud spirit…cannot endure to be mocked.”
-St. Thomas More

“The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”
-Martin Luther

“Above all else, the devil cannot stand to be mocked.”
-C.S. Lewis

The last one is my favorite because it comes from The Screwtape Letters, an epistolary novel written by Lewis. It’s a satire where an elder demon, the titular Screwtape, writes letters to his nephew Wormwood on how to secure the damnation of the human he’s been assigned. It is laugh-out-loud funny at points. (My favorite part is where Screwtape gets so angry, he stops writing and his letter is completed by another demon, who says that Screwtape transformed into a giant insect in his rage).

While M. Bison and these other over-the-top villains are hardly the Prince of Darkness, they’re certainly caricatures of evil. Some aren’t necessarily meant to be taken seriously, but it’s clear that their actions are evil. These exaggerations make their evil more palpable, and when used as satire, they make the audience ponder the nature and meaning of evil. Lewis does this with Screwtape.

However, these characters are still absurd parodies. The audience can laugh at their grandiose plans, flamboyant gestures, and ridiculous fashion senses. This is because we can’t laugh at real-life evil. Paradoxically, as Screwtape illustrates, by laughing at the Devil, humanity robs him of some of his power. This, in turn, can be extended to these villains. Since, as Christian theology says, the Devil is the source of all evil, these villains are his “children,” his “little devils.” By laughing at them, the audience is laughing at the Devil. It’s yet another thing that illustrates my personal belief that deep within every human soul they remember Eden and the tragedy of losing it. God said in Genesis 3:15a, “…I will put enmity between you and the woman [Eve], and between your offspring and hers.” Buried though it may be under a sinful nature, this enmity toward the Devil is inside all of humanity. The love of caricatured villains is a manifestation of this, and since I believe one can’t believe in the existence of the Devil without believing in the existence of God, I could almost make the argument that the ironic love of Raul Julia’s M. Bison disproves atheism.

Who are your favorite over-the-top villains? How do they serve the same function as The Screwtape Letters? Or, how do you disagree with my notion?

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Attacking the Idol

I’ve seen many internet trolls in my time. Often I’ve defended someone from internet trolls. Admittedly on rare occasions I’ve been a troll. However, this week I’ve become a troll magnet, especially on YouTube.

Since my YouTube show is titled, “But I Digress…,” any video I post that is either unrelated or only tangentially-related to the usual things I cover on the show (writing, creativity, reviews), I call them “Digressions” (admittedly, the titles were inspired by the podcast “Derailed Trains of Thought” hosted by my friends Nick Hayden and Timothy Deal who have tangential episodes called “Side Tracks.”) Since it was Valentine’s Day, I decided to post two videos: one where I go on an exaggerated angry rant about why I hate Fifty Shades of Grey and the other my annual (bad) karaoke of a love song.

The former was intended to be satirical. I meant everything I said in the video—that I objected to Fifty Shades as a writer and (Christian) moralist—but the rage was exaggerated; it was acting. I was channeling internet personalities like Angry Joe and the Angry Video Game Nerd. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say I was trying to be Mark Levin. Now, I’m willing to admit that I may have not executed the video well and/or that the joke was lost on people. It was the first time I’ve tried something like this. Most people on YouTube don’t know who I am, so as far as they might know I’m always crazy like that. But the majority of the comments I got were from trolls. If I had to summarize everything they said, it’d be thus (except with lots of spelling errors and some profanity): “You’re an angry Aspie faggot virgin idiot with an imaginary girlfriend who won’t put out.” I’ve rarely run into such a potent concentration of human cruelty. As of the date of this blog, I’ve de-listed the video. I may re-list it later, but even then the comments will be disabled so the trolls can’t have any more “fun.”

I made a response video, and while I thought it was clever, most articles I’ve since read on dealing with trolls have said doing such things is usually a bad idea. It will be the one and only time I “feed” trolls.

“Don’t feed the trolls,” however, isn’t the biggest lesson I learned this past week.

First, satire, like sarcasm, has difficulty surviving on the internet. It’s not the most ideal environment for it since much of the nuance and context that make it work is lost. Although, satire by definition is “a genre in…which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government or society itself, into improvement” (Wikipedia). It’s the one form of humor that simultaneously dulls its barbs and sharpens them. It both entertains and holds a mirror up to the audience so they can examine their ideas and perceptions. Some will get the joke; some won’t. Some will get it and lash out (as happened in the tragic Charlie Hebdo shooting last month).

Which brings me to the second, more important lesson: when one takes an unpopular moral stand, backlash should be expected. To paraphrase my pastor when I talked with him about this, “You attacked their idol, and they will defend it at all costs.” Fifty Shades of Grey has sold over 100 million copies (typing that almost makes me want to vomit), and the movie grossed a record-breaking $85 million domestically (though it has since plummeted). 😉 This means I’m challenging a huge fanbase who, for whatever reason, love this crap. I find most erotica like this to be literary pornography, which is addictive. Criticizing it is like taking cocaine from a junkie: expect a fight. I’m sure many of the trolls were fans of this trash (or simply porn addicts). Like religious zealots, they attack anyone who seeks to destroy their idols—in this case pornography—with an incredible fervor. They had to strike back because I said something that was threatening to them. But many of them cared nothing for E.L. James’ books. These trolls simply smelled blood in the water and swarmed me in a feeding frenzy. They’re opportunists who scour the internet looking for someone to take pot shots at because they find sadistic enjoyment in it. They’re the most dangerous kind of trolls. There’s no defeating them.

But I’d argue that these consequences are worth it. As a Christian, I expect persecution (heck, sometimes it comes from fellow Christians). It stems from being different and/or having a dissenting opinion. I would rather be the target of trolls because I took a moral stand than because I—gasp!—enjoy Michael Bay’s Transformers movies (though I do have my issues with them). That, I think, is key. While bullying is wrong regardless of its motivation, there is honor in suffering for a good reason.