Don’t Be Weird: Heroes, Villains, and the Reinforcement of Class Distinctions in Modern Blockbusters

If you want to make a popular blockbuster, it better be about the right kind of person – and the right kind of person isn’t a loser.

A decade ago, my writing partner and I were invited to pitch on a big studio film. We’d somehow managed to write a script everyone in town liked, and now we had the chance to maybe get a well-paying job.

The project in question was based on a concept from an up-and-coming director. The studio executive showed us a short film meant as a proof of concept for the movie’s visual style. Without revealing too much, it was a riff on the “haunted house” trope: mysterious old house, and inside is… boop. Not ghosts. Not Narnia. Something that had never been tried before.

“We’ve had a lot of people pitch on this,” the executive said in a tired manner, “and they’ve all been basically the same thing. We don’t just want a bunch of kids finding this place … even if one of the kids is troubled.”

I will always remember the way he said troubled. It indicated exactly what story everyone else had been pitching, something we’ve all seen many times before.

Beware the Weirdo

“I’m sorry, Felix, but no one wants to sit next to fucking Oliver.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause he’s a scholarship boy who buys his clothes from Oxfam.”

– Saltburn, 19:30

Saltburn (2023) centers on Oliver (Barry Keoghan), a student at Oxford. Oliver is “awkward,”1 doesn’t come from money like the other kids, and takes his studies so seriously his tutor calls him “mad.”2 He’s an outcast, not invited to parties, cursed to hang out with Michael (Ewan Mitchell), who calls them “Norman No-mates.”3 Oliver may be unpopular, but at least he’s not as off-putting as Michael.

Saltburn

Oliver befriends Felix (Jacob Elordi), a wealthy boy who’s “impossible not to love.”4 Felix feels sorry for Oliver and invites him to stay with his family for the summer. Oliver eventually drinks Felix’s bathwater to slurp his ejaculate, gets exposed as a fraud who lied to Felix to gain his friendship, and fucks Felix’s grave.

That’s weird. Oliver is weird.

The film concludes with Oliver revealed as a sociopath who enacted a calculated plan to murder Felix’s family and gain control of their home. Kyle Smith dubbed it “a knockout final act” and “a terrific ending.”5 Peter Travers called the film “a hilariously homicidal takedown on one-percenters.”6 Richard Roeper said it was “a greatly entertaining journey through the dark side of class consciousness.”7

But let’s look at the story from the point of view of Oliver and Felix’s classmates. They shunned Oliver because he was weird. He turned out to be a psychotic killer. If Felix hadn’t pitied Oliver, he’d still be alive. If anything, the other students were right to shun Oliver. Staying as far from the weird kid as possible was a smart move.

That same year saw the release of Eileen, with a title character only slightly less weird than Oliver. We meet Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) as she shoves snow down her pants while watching couples in cars. She also touches herself at work, where she’s largely ignored by her colleagues.

Later, Eileen suggests murdering a woman and blaming it on her father, more concerned with her plans for New Year’s than the morality of killing. She eventually commits this murder and walks away with a smile on her face. Eileen is an unrepentant killer just like Oliver. The coworkers who ignored her were right to do so – had they gotten close to Eileen, they might have been killed as well.

These films show weirdos are not to be trusted. If a person is friendless, they are likely a killer. This trope is nothing new.

The Talented Mr. Ripley: lonely guy makes rich friend, kills him. Foxcatcher: weird guy, killer. Psycho: lonely guy, killer. The King of Comedy: weirdo kidnaps his hero at gunpoint. Misery: lonely woman likes book, murderer. Nightcrawler: creepy weirdo kills. He Was a Quiet Man: outcast brings gun to work intent on mass shooting. One Hour Photo: creepy man is creepy. Chapter 27: Jared Leto is fat eww gross.

You can see what frustrated the executive we met with. He’d heard the same thing over and over to the point of exhaustion: Group of friends stumbles upon supernatural thing, gets trapped there, discovers it was their weird classmate who trapped them there so he could do weird stuff to them.

TV is full of this trope. Poker Face S1E2 features a creepy loner who kills the charming winner across the street. In Emerald City, Vincent D’Onofrio plays a loser who becomes a villainous version of the Wizard of Oz. Sherlock S4E3 introduces Sherlock’s sister Eurus (Sian Brooke), a psychopathic killer. We learn Eurus was evil even as a child, showing there is no hope for crazy weirdos – they are, were, and will be dangerous.

Literature has a fine tradition of weirdos. Agatha Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock features a character who gives people “the creeps”8 and lo and behold turns out to be the murderer. Carson McCullers’s Reflections in a Golden Eye is about an “unsociable”9 virgin with “no friends”10 who makes people “uneasy”11 and – you guessed it – is a murderer. What is Richard III about if not a weirdo who ruins the lives of everyone around him? If someone is physically deformed and weirds you out, don’t let them near your family.

Comedies do it too, though in a less violent form. The central conflict of the Hangover movies is that a group of cool guys are forced to hang out with a weirdo, who is the cause of all their problems. The Cable Guy, Observe and Report, Ted, Due Date, Planes, Trains and Automobiles – we could spend all day recounting films that extract laughs from the pain of attracting the attention of a weird, annoying loser.12 But at least the characters in these movies aren’t killers.

The Hangover

I remember a friend telling me she’d seen 2006’s The King, in which a pastor’s illegitimate son (Gael García Bernal) tries to insert himself into the family’s life. Was it good? She made a face.

“Gael just gets weird.”

I saw it, and she was right. There’s no more to it – he just gets weird. The son’s behavior becomes increasingly hard to explain until he kills the pastor’s family. The lesson? Don’t let your weird son back in your life.

Down in the Valley is about a bored girl (Evan Rachel Wood) who starts a relationship with a stranger (Edward Norton) who pretends to be a cowboy, a decidedly weird thing to do. Her father (David Morse) tells her to stay away from this weirdo. She doesn’t, and eventually the weird cowboy shoots her. Why does he do that? Because he’s crazy.

Crazy is a big part of this. Weird people do weird things because they are crazy, and eventually they go so crazy they kill someone. The lesson is that crazy people are dangerous and should be feared. But we’ve evolved past terms like “crazy.” Now they’re “mentally ill.”

Joker and the Convenience of Movie Mental Illness

“What do you get when you cross a mentally-ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I’ll tell you what you get: you get what you fucking deserve.”

–Joker, 1:44:45

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is mentally ill – he’s even described that way in the Netflix synopsis. We meet him in therapy as he reveals suicidal ideation and tells us he was “locked up” in a hospital.13

Joker

Arthur’s mental illness isn’t limited to suicidal thoughts or depression – he’s weird, a loud man laughing on the bus who may have “a brain injury or certain neurological conditions,” a conveniently vague description.14

His boss admonishes him for being a “freak,” saying his coworkers “don’t feel comfortable” around him because “people think you’re weird.”15 Arthur connects being outcast to his mental illness, writing in his journal, “the worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”16

Arthur’s mother Penny (Frances Conroy) is also mentally ill. Other characters describe her as “a sick woman”17 and “crazy.”18

It was a relief to finally hear that word: “crazy.” It dropped the veil. They can say “mentally ill” all they want, but we know what they mean. Arthur is crazy. Big, loud, movie crazy. And like in so many films, rather than a specific mental illness, he’s just sort of generally crazy.

As Arthur gets crazier, we learn the woman we thought was his girlfriend is actually terrified of him, and all their interactions were imaginary. Finding out things we saw didn’t actually happen is a classic movie reveal. A Beautiful Mind, Black Swan, Fight Club, Secret Window, The Machinist – even Family Guy19 has done it. The logic doesn’t need to be explained – this person is crazy (sorry, “mentally ill”), and therefore they imagine things that aren’t real and are liable to do anything because who knows what’s going on in that crazy ol’ head of theirs.

Top: Joker. Bottom: Fight Club

Some years back, a production company that had optioned one of our scripts hired someone else to rewrite it. In Hollywood, getting rewritten is often a good thing – it means the company is spending money on the project, which means they intend to make it. In this case, the writer was a name you’d recognize and was being paid a considerable fee.

Again obscuring the details, the main character in this script was a father. In this writer’s draft, he was a single dad who’d raised his kids alone. Late in the film, he gave a big speech where he told his kids the truth about their mom: she hadn’t died in an accident but had gone crazy.

Stressing he came from a blue-collar background where they simply didn’t know about things like depression or bipolar in those days, he describes Mom’s freakouts, how she became increasingly frightening until one day she committed suicide. He assures the kids they’re nothing like their mom, as evidenced by how they’ve gotten accepted to Ivy League schools (a classic Hollywood marker of great parenting seen in films like The Tomorrow War). It’s a good thing dangerous generally-crazy Mom wasn’t around to screw everything up.

We were crushed, maybe the only time I’ve ever earnestly said the word “mansplaining.” No one else had a problem with it: they wanted to keep using this draft after the other writer departed. The script wasn’t produced, and I’m happy about that. There are enough movies about dangerous crazy people.

Mental Illness and Violence: What We’re So Afraid Of

“A madman is a very dangerous thing, my friend.”

– Poirot, S4E1, 5:40

Why is Joker about mental illness? Why isn’t it about gun control? Arthur uses a gun given to him by a coworker to carry out several of his murders. The movie could easily focus on guns, but instead follows the conservative playbook to draw a line from mental illness to murder.

Arthur says he’s “not supposed to have a gun,”20 presumably because he’s been institutionalized, bolstering the view that gun control can’t work because killers can just illegally acquire firearms.

To learn the truth about his mom, Arthur visits a stereotypical mental hospital, complete with a screaming man and jittery patients talking to themselves. Like in 12 Monkeys, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Batman Begins, Don’t Say a Word, or The Silence of the Lambs, it’s a run-down, bleak, disgusting place. Mental hospitals in films are worse than prisons, because you’re surrounded by the mentally ill, and who knows what they might do.

Joker

An asylum employee tells Arthur “some are just crazy, pose dangers to themselves and others.”21 That’s a classic movie-crazy phrase: danger to themselves and others.22 We fear the mentally ill and how their weird behavior might lead to violence if they don’t “get help” (our euphemism for locking them up).

After learning the truth about his mother’s “delusional psychosis and narcissistic personality disorder” that led to “extremely bizarre behavior” and “physical abuse,” Arthur goes full-on bonkers: he kills his mother, rehearses shooting himself, and stabs a coworker to death. When his hero Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro) calls him “crazy,” Arthur gives his big monologue and shoots him.

A mentally ill man obtains a gun illegally and goes on a killing spree. As every conservative pundit would like you to believe, gun control doesn’t work and what we really have is a mental health crisis. These people should be locked away so they can’t harm the rest of us.

Joker shows the “crazy = dangerous” trope hasn’t gone away with society’s greater acknowledgment of mental illness. Arthur is lonely and mentally ill, and therefore dangerous and violent – an idea we accept no matter how untrue it may be.

The Silence of the Lambs, Midsommar, Split, Identity, The Sixth Sense, Shutter Island, Silver Linings Playbook, and plenty more films show the mentally ill as bound to flip out in scary ways. Those who try to help them are often the victims of their crazy freakouts.

The Sixth Sense

Veterans with PTSD are classic dangerous movie characters, the most notable belonging to the one film we can’t avoid mentioning when talking about Joker: Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, the ultimate weird loner movie.

Travis Bickle (De Niro) frightens/harasses a woman and rehearses a murder fantasy before a mirror. He eventually kills several people in order to manifest his delusion. Though it’s never explicit, there’s a vague sense his Vietnam experience contributed to his mental state. The only thing scarier than “one of those violent creeps”23 is a “desperately sick”24 veteran with PTSD.

But is that accurate? Are veterans with PTSD more likely to be violent than the population at large? Are the mentally ill more likely to commit violent crimes than other groups, or are we unfairly painting them as dangerous?

It’s difficult to assess violence statistics among the mentally ill because (1) there is no standard definition for “violence,” and (2) most studies include substance abuse disorders. While it may be common to list substance abuse disorders among mental illnesses, that’s not really the type of person moviegoers are afraid of. Same goes for crime statistics – films don’t just portray the mentally ill as prone to arrest but as killers.

But, as noted in Psychiatric Times, there is US data attributing “3% to 5% of violence in the US to mental disorders. Hence, if all violence in the US that is due to mental disorders could be eliminated, 95% to 97% of violent behavior would remain.”25

When attempting to adjust for the inclusion of substance abuse disorders, something strange happens. According to a study in World Psychiatry, “the prevalence of violence among those with a major mental disorder who did not abuse substances was indistinguishable from their non-substance abusing neighbourhood controls.”26

Regarding veterans and PTSD, there isn’t as much data as one would like and a lack of consensus on whether veterans (and specifically those with PTSD) pose a greater risk for violence or mass shootings, or even if they are more likely to be incarcerated.

But according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, “in one study of Veterans who served post-9/11, PTSD when examined on its own was associated with an increased risk of violence. However, when alcohol misuse was statistically controlled, PTSD was no longer associated with an increased risk of violence.”27

Mental illness cannot be used as a predictor of violence because there are many risk factors that contribute to violent behavior. Mental illness is only one risk factor, and another, substance abuse, could be a much stronger indicator. It may be that what’s going on in your head is less of a factor than what you put into it.

And yet the stereotype persists. When Americans were asked to rate groups as “very or somewhat likely of doing something violent to others” as part of one study, “the probability of violence was universally overestimated.”28 People believe the mentally ill are likely to hurt them.

When lonely people are portrayed as mentally ill and therefore dangerous, it reinforces a sense of societal justice, that these people are alone because they should be. While reading reviews of Taxi Driver, I was struck by this line from Pauline Kael: “Anyone who goes to the movie houses that loners frequent knows that they identify with the perpetrators of crimes, even the most horrible crimes.”29

Just going to a movie by yourself is enough to get you labeled criminally sick and inclined toward violence (a strange accusation coming from a film critic, a profession where attending movies alone is a job requirement). Should someone be feared just because they don’t fit in?

Movies are not entirely to blame for the stereotype of the dangerous crazy person. Politicians use mental illness as a distraction from gun control discussions in the wake of every mass shooting. But it’s a chicken-or-egg situation: movies portray crazy people as killers, we accept that narrative, therefore it gets put in more movies, we internalize it, and so on. It takes an active effort to avoid the easy out of the crazy weird loner.

What makes Joker different from other films with crazy weirdos is that the filmmakers were working backward – they took a popular character and tried to explain how someone could end up as that person. Who Arthur ultimately becomes is meant to be juxtaposed with who he is not – his nemesis, Batman, cool rich hero.

Why Are Supervillains Such Total Losers?

“Edward Nygma. You hired me personally, just like I tell everyone. We’ve never actually met, but your name was on the hiring slip. I have it.”

– Batman Forever, 14:00

We first meet crazy-haired Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) as his boss tries to usher Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer) away from him. Edward, who has magazine covers of Bruce hanging on his office wall, calls Bruce “my idol” and tells him he’s “intelligent” and “charming.” He says they’re “two of a kind,” laughable because Edward is such a loser.

Edward keeps touching Bruce, turning menacingly creepy the moment Bruce turns him down. “I’ll make you understand,” he memorably growls. He kills his boss and becomes a supervillain, only to get the crap beat out of him by Batman. Edward ends the film in Arkham Asylum, cackling like a lunatic.

Many of Batman’s foes end up institutionalized,30 while others aren’t just mentally unstable but physically deformed.31 None of them resembles Bruce Wayne, a wealthy, attractive, fit, generous, intelligent man, the type women throw themselves at.32

Wonder Woman 1984 features Barbara (Kristen Wiig), a clumsy (drops her briefcase!), shabbily dressed (can’t walk in heels!), unattractive (guys don’t talk to her!), pathetic (coworkers don’t even know who she is!) museum employee desperate for the friendship of Diana (Gal Gadot), who is clever, beautiful, athletic, poised, well-dressed, rich (big apartment with a nice view) and of course a superhero referred to as a “savior.”33 Diana is at least nice, the only person willing to talk to Barbara, who says she’s “never been popular” because “people think I’m weird.”34

Wonder Woman 1984

Barbara makes a wish “to be like Diana: strong, sexy, cool, special.”35 After being granted powers, she becomes a villain, getting revenge on the world that mistreated her. A loser like Barbara can’t be trusted with power – only someone who’s always had it like Diana can.

Chronicle introduces Andrew (Dane DeHaan), a bullied high school “nerd”36 whose behavior is more than once described as “a little weird.”37 He’s contrasted with Steve (Michael B. Jordan), a popular athlete who’s nice to everyone, even Andrew.

When they gain telekinetic powers, Andrew uncaringly uses them to hurt others, while Steve risks himself to save a drowning man. After an embarrassing sexual encounter where a girl calls him a “weirdo,”38 Andrew dismembers a spider (harming animals can be an indicator of abuse in the home, though its accuracy as a predictor of future violent behavior is suspect). Andrew’s father beats him and calls him a “loser” and an “embarrassment.”39 When Steve tries to comfort and protect him, Andrew kills Steve, later saying he “lost control.”40

Chronicle

The bullied boy can’t be trusted with power, but the cool, attractive, popular kid? He uses his power right because he’s all-around good at heart. Their social status is proven correct: the kid with no friends was someone to be avoided, while Steve deserved his popularity. The world organizes people properly. In the end, Andrew is killed because he’s too far gone and can’t be saved. His cousin has no choice but to murder him, stating plainly, “I did what I had to do.”41

Thanks to his abusive alcoholic dad, Andrew has a traumatic childhood, just like Arthur in Joker, Eileen in Eileen, and Norman Bates in Psycho. This is the myth of the “schizophrenogenic mother,”42 a debunked theory that says the personality of a parent (usually the mother) causes mental illness (particularly schizophrenia). If abused or neglected kids automatically grow up to be psychopaths, should we just lock them all up? After all, they’re getting in the way of the pretty popular kids who are bound to become heroes.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 has Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), a disheveled dweeb with a limp who’s desperate for the attention of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Disgusted by his admiration, Tony mocks him and blows him off in humiliating fashion. Killian becomes a murderous villain, proving Tony was right to steer clear of him. Killian dies in the end, denied any chance at redemption, whereas Tony was given so much redemption he ended his ten-film journey as a Christ-like figure.

In Morbius, Michael (Jared Leto) and Milo (Matt Smith) suffer from a rare blood disease. While trying to find a cure, they turn into vampires who feed on the living. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) searches for a way to regrow an amputated limb, and in the process turns into a horrifying lizard-beast.

That’s four characters who suffer from physical disabilities, and all become monsters. It is the desire to change the things that make them different, to end their perception as being weak and worthless, that brings death and destruction. Their sin is born of wanting to live with dignity.

These stories could be told the other way around, with the villains as those blessed with every advantage and the heroes as the downtrodden using supernatural abilities to achieve justice. But our hero films don’t envision a world in which power is incorrectly allocated – they envision one where everything is as it should be but for a few criminals here and there; a person who doesn’t already have power gaining it is an abomination.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 gives us Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), a balding klutz. “I’m a nobody,” he says to Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield).43 Like how Edward Nygma worships Bruce Wayne, Max idolizes Spider-Man, with walls covered in Spidey posters as he imagines the two of them as friends, something it appears Max doesn’t have.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Despite being an intelligent, hardworking person with heroic aspirations, after Max is given powers, he becomes a murderer,44 showing that if we give power to those forgotten and ignored, it can only cause chaos. Spider-Man and Gwen (Emma Stone) kill Max because it’s not possible for him to be redeemed.

Spider-Man: Far from Home features an entire cavalcade of losers who’ve been made to look stupid by Tony Stark.45 Their leader, Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was fired by Stark for being “unstable,” abuses his newfound power until he is killed by our hero, the Earth made right by being rid of him.

The villains in these films are not just disaffected outcasts. They’re losers. Pathetic, unattractive, weak losers whose presence is a burden on our heroes. These are our movie villains because they’re the people we fear most. We don’t mind watching them die because we abhor them. We hate losers.

So who do we love? Who makes us feel safe? Whose deaths cause us to weep?

All Love to Our Winner Heroes

“I’m not looking for forgiveness, and I’m way past asking permission.”

– Avengers: Infinity War, 55:05

Why do people like Captain America? He’s not nice: he’s rude, humorless, and condescending. He’s not a good soldier: the first thing he does in every movie is question and defy orders. He’s not a good friend: he lies to Tony despite knowing the truth about his parents’ deaths.

Captain America: Civil War

In Captain America: Civil War, the team goes on a mission to Lagos that ends up killing innocent people. When Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) feels bad about her part in this, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) orders her to stop lamenting the nameless [African] people they killed because they had good intentions, and though they attempt to save people, “that doesn’t mean everybody.”46

Steve is asked to sign the Sokovia Accords, an agreement approved by 117 countries stating he will not invade a sovereign nation unless given permission by a UN panel. With complete disrespect for international law or democracy in general, he refuses. He then aids wanted criminal Bucky (Sebastian Stan) but isn’t arrested like a non-special person would be. His friend Tony tells him that if Steve signs the Accords, Bucky will be transferred not to prison but to “an American psych center.”47

The thought of his friend in a mental hospital is too much for Steve to bear, so he breaks even more laws to protect Bucky from the psychiatric counseling he sure seems like he could use. Even though Bucky has murdered people, Steve thinks he has a good excuse, and that’s what’s most important.

The movie’s villain is Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl), whose family was killed during a battle between the Avengers and a robot they created. In the end, Zemo goes to prison (apparently his excuse wasn’t good enough), while Steve breaks his friends out of prison because in his view, he should get to decide who deserves to be incarcerated and who doesn’t.

What. A. Prick. And yet he’s the hero of this movie. Watching the film for the first time, I was sure Steve would be shown to be wrong in the end, but nope: Tony is the one chastised for getting his (lawbreaking) friends sent to a facility for “maniacs.”48 He’s wrong because he supported international law and cared about the people who died. Steve is right: he shouldn’t have to listen to democratically elected world governments.

In Avengers: Endgame, Steve picks up Thor’s hammer, showing he’s “worthy,”49 and according to the filmmakers, he always was. How is this guy admirable? How is THIS our hero, our ideal man, our idol? What is wrong with us?

Thor: royalty, “vain, greedy,”50 selfish jerk; Iron Man: “genius billionaire playboy,”51 selfish jerk; Bruce Banner: genius; Dr. Strange: cocky genius; T’Challa: royalty, super rich; Shuri: royalty, super rich, genius; Captain Marvel; impossibly powerful, jerk; Bucky and Sam: incapable of smiling. Noticing a pattern here?

It’s infected other movies as well. Hobbs & Shaw are grunting assholes, yet women are desperate to make out with them.52 Ethan Hunt of Mission: Impossible is similarly irresistible to women,53 and despite being a bossy egomaniac, whenever he’s out of the room, no one has anything to talk about except how great he is. At least James Bond had a sense of humor – the old Bond, not the snarling one who battles a series of gross ugly men.

Top down:; Hobbs, Shaw, Ethan Hunt

They’re rich. They’re gorgeous. They’re emotionless. They’re mean to people who aren’t as strong or smart or wealthy as them. And the worst opponents we can come up with for them are awkward outsiders whose great sin is lacking the social position of these privileged, muscular, pretty, elite, powerful WINNERS. How horrible it is when some lonely loser wants to be friends with them.

We don’t love them because they’re nice. We love them because they don’t have to be nice. We love them because they win – not just at the end of the movie, but from the very beginning. Start to finish, our heroes are winners.

Life is a competition, and if you lose, you are the bad guy; if you win, you are our hero, deserving of respect and admiration. Where does that leave those of us who didn’t grow up like Kate in Hawkeye, who’s not only rich but has won so many trophies and medals her mom suggests moving some to “make room”?54 (Steve in Chronicle has a similar abundance of awards.) Are there no stories for people who aren’t winners from cradle to grave? Should we all just give up? I feel like it wasn’t always like this.

I remember when the two big shows on Saturday mornings were Spider-Man and X-Men. Spider-Man is the story of a young man filled with regret. Unable to shake the memory of his uncle’s death, he roams the streets looking for people to save, haunted by the one time he failed to step in and lost what mattered most to him. Peter Parker sees himself not as a hero, but as a fraud desperate to atone for his biggest mistake. I think most of us can relate to that feeling. Tom Holland’s Spider-Man doesn’t have a regret eating at him – just super awesome powers and technology and the girl he likes has a crush on him no matter how he behaves.

X-Men is about what it’s like to be different. The mutants didn’t ask to be heroes – they were born with abnormalities that caused them to be singled out, persecuted, hated for something they couldn’t change. But by finding community in one another, they were able to tame not just their mutant powers but their anger at the world, and instead put it toward something more constructive, fighting for their human rights as they protect not only those like them but those who hate them as well. The main conflict in X-Men is between the mutants who believe people can change and those who can’t let go of the anger and fear built through so many years spent being ostracized and hunted. The good guys are the ones who can forgive. That’s a powerful message for any kid who grows up feeling different.

Today’s superheroes have none of that. They don’t forgive; they destroy. The rest of the world doesn’t matter – regular citizens are portrayed as ignorant and ungrateful (how many superhero movies feature clueless protestors?), insignificant compared to the petty squabbles of those so powerful no law can touch them, a group of elites that decides what people deserve and enacts its own brand of justice. They “invade sovereign borders and inflict their will wherever they choose” because they have “unlimited power and no supervision,”55 and anyone who tries to limit them is the enemy. How did we get from a message of hope, community, and forgiveness for outsiders to a right-wing oligarchic fantasy?

These are the most popular films out there, among the most popular ever made. The tactics of big-budget storytelling have been refined to an exact science: flawless winner whose only character defect is being deservedly cocky gets unlimited power and defeats a nebulous evil.

Our love of winners means not only that we expect our heroes to succeed in the end, but that we want them to embody our ideal from the moment they step onto the screen. Obviously they need to be gorgeous and strong, but there’s something else they need to have as well.

Heroes = Winners = Rich

“You want my property? You can’t have it. But I did you a big favor: I’ve successfully privatized world peace.”

– Iron Man 2, 16:40

What is Tony Stark’s opinion on the Trump tax cuts? I think we have a right to know. Hey, kids, sorry the children’s hospital closed – I had to add new rocket boots to my trillion-dollar flying suit. Wheeeeee! I’m glad this selfish billionaire was able to grow emotionally while cities were destroyed and countless people were injured or killed.

Iron Man 2

The murderous movie weirdo is often poor, driven by envy to attack societal betters. But rich Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne, who rub their money in people’s faces?56 They’re good. They’re heroic. They win. They’re “successful.”

In Justice League, Batman solves the Kent family’s financial woes by buying the bank that owns Superman’s childhood home,57 the proper solution to a problem being one man so wealthy he can do anything he wants. Black Panther is the story of two boys: one grew up a prince, and is good; the other grew up poor in Oakland, and is bad.

Having that level of wealth could be seen as something shameful, especially considering Stark, Wayne, and T’Challa inherited their money. Yet at no point is it ever suggested that they should give up their fortunes, that hoarding such wealth is immoral. Instead, the rich make the best use of their money by pioneering technological advances to secure global safety. It’s reminiscent of tech billionaires using their wealth for personal space travel and unrealistic pipe dreams instead of paying higher taxes so the public can decide how best to use the nation’s resources.

We want to believe the world is fair, and that the best of us will be rewarded. That’s why it’s hard for us to accept that a person could be rich and not also be smart and strong and hardworking. America ranks nowhere near the top in terms of social mobility, but we still pride ourselves on being the land of opportunity. Perhaps our high levels of poverty are like the loser villains in our movies, validating the success of winners through juxtaposition.

The myth that hard work, talent, courage, and moral fortitude are rewarded as success (read: money) is alive and well in our culture. Just go to YouTube and see how many interviews with rich actors you find – not interviews about how to become a better actor but advice on what kind of person you should be. The rich don’t just entertain us; they tell us how to live our lives, how to be more like them, because they’re successful. They have more money than us, so we should strive to emulate them.

The characters they play are also celebrities. People ask to take pictures with the Hulk58 and Thor,59 while Hawkeye watches a Broadway musical based on his heroic life.60 Barry Allen in The Flash is a refreshingly socially awkward superhero, but as soon as he puts on his costume, people scream with delight and tell him they love him.61

Top: Avengers: Endgame 37:45. Below: Thor: Ragnarok 14:45

Gone are the days when Batman hid in the shadows or James Bond had to introduce himself to everyone he met. These superstars are beloved wherever they go. The greatest people in the world, “Earth’s mightiest heroes,”62 are rich celebrities. Thereby we know that when we see a rich celebrity, that person must be pretty great.

George Orwell once described the mythologizing of the self-made man, “whose chief pride is to be an even greater boor after he has made his money than before. On analysis his sole virtue turns out to be a talent for making money. We were bidden to admire him because though he might be narrow-minded, sordid, ignorant, grasping, and uncouth, he had ‘grit’, he ‘got on’; in other words, he knew how to make money.”63

Grit, hard work, determination, and all the qualities we glorify (over other qualities like, say, kindness) really just amount to being good at making money. Therefore, if you have money, you must embody good qualities, and if you don’t have money, it’s because of a lack of character.

If Americans truly valued hard work, we’d respect those who work hard for little money more than those who have money they didn’t work for, but it’s the opposite: Americans treat service employees like garbage, yet love the British royal family and the children of famous people because their money validates them.

Do you really think a movie called Crazy Poor Asians would have made $239 million worldwide? And don’t say Parasite because that movie had a rich family in a fancy house, and they were doing fine until those gross poors showed up.

Our love of winners manifests as a love of money. All the “innovators” of Silicon Valley who get treated like prophets and saviors are respected not because they’ve helped anyone but because they make lots of money. We watch the Oscars not out of a desire to see people get long-due credit but out of a love of seeing rich people receive plaudits for their success – we’re bored to tears during the awards that aren’t won by elites. Hell, a pair of millionaires have spent the last few years bragging online about how they can afford to own a soccer team, and everyone acts like it’s cute.

They’re rich. They’re pretty. They’ve won. And since they’ve won, they deserve it, because life is fair and the rich earned their wealth. The only conflict that exists anymore is between winners and those who unfairly judge them because of how much winning they do. If you’re a poor loser, it’s your fault.

A lot has been said about the death of movie comedy. You know why comedies died? Because Hollywood thinks we want to laugh through the struggles of Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, John Cena, Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt, Dwayne Johnson, Jennifer Lawrence, Gal Gadot, and Ana de Armas. I don’t need to watch these gorgeous winners stumble into a pickle and come through because of a clever scheme.

We’re supposed to look at Zac Efron and go, “Gawrsh, this guy just can’t get it together! I hope he grows up and takes life seriously!” He already takes life seriously. Look at his abs. No goof-off looks like that. Anna Kendrick and Scarlett Johansson are not irresponsible partiers; the last thing those two drank was $15 green juice handed to them by their assistants.

To be funny, you have to go against the grain; these people are the grain. They’ve won at a competition most of us don’t want to participate in, and now we’re expected to praise them for feigned insouciance?

Top: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 14:30. Below: Baywatch 26:40

I once worked on a comedy project with Jean-Claude Van Damme. One thing he imparted from the many ups and downs of his career was this: he’s supposed to be the one getting made fun of. The shredded guy should be the butt of the joke. Arnold is funny in Kindergarten Cop not because he’s tossing out insults but because the kids run circles around him. Chris Hemsworth is funny as Thor because he’s an overconfident buffoon. Dave Bautista is funny as Drax because he has no social skills. The muscular titan is the preposterous one, not the voice of reason. Having a dehydrated model spout quips like a clever rascal doesn’t ring true and makes the lead look like a bully.

That’s why most superhero movies aren’t funny, but audiences don’t seem to mind. They sit back and listen to rhythmic patter from heroes who are smarmy jerks, no longer dreaming of becoming heroes themselves. The audience wasn’t born into wealth and privilege, and probably didn’t win trophies as children, so there’s no chance anyone like them could be a hero anyway.

The characters we watch are a good indicator of who we deem important enough to care about. Succession, Mad Men, Billions, The White Lotus, Entourage, Suits, The Crown – the list goes on. There’s no show titled The Real SNAP Recipients of Orange County. We watch rich people because their lives are more important than ours. They’re winners. We’re not.

We used to see lovable loser TV characters like Homer Simpson, Ralph Kramden, Archie Bunker, Fred Sanford, Peter Griffin, Fred Flintstone, Gilligan, the cabbies on Taxi or the barflies on Cheers, the families of Roseanne and Malcolm in the Middle, Al Bundy, Philip J. Fry – even on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, WJM was the laughingstock of the industry. Now we get Ted Lasso, a show about how it’s okay to be unqualified for your job so long as you’re likable because everything works out for those who are deserving.

I miss movies where the hero didn’t have it all together from beginning to end. Han Solo is barely able to stay alive because of all the people who hate him; Carter in Rush Hour is despised and mocked by coworkers; John McClane is estranged from his more successful wife; Fletch is in danger of going to jail for failure to pay alimony (replaced in a new version by scrappy underdog Jon Hamm); Sarah Connor is locked up in a mental hospital and has her son taken away from her; Rocky breaks thumbs for the mob and isn’t even good at it.

Jack Sparrow: drunk; John Anderton in Minority Report: drug addict; Jackie Brown: broke as hell; the Ghostbusters: unemployed; John Winger in Stripes: jobless, evicted, dumped, weak.

Wayne & Garth; Happy Gilmore; the Deltas in Animal House; the kids in The Mighty Ducks, The Sandlot, and The Bad News Bears (who lose the big game, just like the losers in Cool Runnings); Billy Ray in Trading Places; the kids in Breaking Away; Dewey Finn; Uncle Buck; Eddie Valiant.

What do all these characters have in common? They’re broke. They get made fun of. They don’t have many friends. They have few prospects for a successful future. In short, they’re losers. They’d be the villains in our modern blockbusters. Another thing they have in common? These movies are from at least 20 years ago. We used to get Thelma & Louise, about two poor women rebelling against a world where they’ve never had a shot, or 9 to 5, about three overworked employees fed up with being subjugated. Now we get Barbie, a movie focused exclusively on the complaints of attractive rich women who feel it’s unfair that they sometimes face criticism.

Clockwise: 9 to 5 4:00; Thelma & Louise 1:28:30; Jackie Brown 1:00; Barbie 1:13:25

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being told the world belongs to exceptional people, and not because I’m covetous: I simply don’t agree with society’s definition of what makes someone worthwhile, and don’t want to watch yet another movie reinforcing cultural boundaries.

There are plenty of people who present themselves as successful, muscular winners, and none of them wants to help the little guy. I remember being a little guy, and anyone who could make it through all the crap the winners of this world throw at those who don’t measure up and still come out caring on the other side seemed like a hero to me.

But What Can One Fella Do?

We did our best on the pitch about the secret chamber of mystery: three young adults (two boys and a girl) find this portal to . . . a thing. The two who are a couple enjoy it but want to get back to their lives. The third wheel wants to stay there. In fact, he wants this power all for himself, and . . . you get the idea.

Why couldn’t we have made the guy who gets girls the villain and the lonely guy the hero? Like most of the creatives behind the films mentioned in this piece, we were just giving people what we thought they would accept. We had to try to get the job.

We were told our pitch was more creative than anything they’d heard, but we still didn’t get the gig. No one did – the project was shelved, and as far as I know, it was never revived.

I don’t know how we end this ecosystem of picking on the downtrodden, but if I had to do it again, I’d try to write a hero who’s a loser. Who’s poor. Who has no friends. Who’s a little bit weird. And instead of turning out to be the bad guy whose presence is a danger to the beautiful rich, I’d consider that maybe lonely people aren’t the scariest thing in our world, and that we’re taking the easy way out by painting them as crazy and dangerous.

As I wrote this piece, Netflix caused a sensation with Baby Reindeer, about Donny (Richard Gadd), a bartender who politely entertains the attention of Martha (Jessica Gunning), an “utterly mad”64 woman who “needs help,”65 because he “felt sorry for her.”66 That kindness ends up ruining his life when her “madness”67 turns into stalking.

Baby Reindeer

Martha has been described by critics as “overweight,”68 “disheveled, somewhat unhinged,”69 “sad, fat, pitiable,”70 “dumpy and pathetic,”71 “frumpy,”72 “menacing,”73 “deranged,”74 and, of course, “mentally ill.”75

No wonder the alleged real-life basis for Martha has spoken out against the show, specifically the character’s being “fat,”76 making a point to say, “I’m not actually unattractive.”77 Can you blame her? Who would want people to think they’re undesirable, unsuccessful, a loser, a weirdo? According to movies and TV, that’s the worst thing a person can be.

* * *

All images are screenshots from the films discussed.