[For this year’s
installment
of my
annual Halloween series,
I’ll focus on 21st century pop culture villains. Share your favorite
villains, new or classic, in comments!]
On why the
iconic villain has endured so successfully, and what’s new about the latest
version.
Since his first
appearance, as a complicated, compelling combination of villain and sidekick in
Thomas
Harris’s bestselling suspense thriller Red
Dragon (1981), refined forensic
psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter has become one of
American culture’s most enduring and popular villainous presences. As of 2015
Lecter has appeared in three additional
Harris novels, five successful films (portrayed by three different actors, Brian Cox, Gaspard Ulliel, and,
most famously and in three of those films, Anthony Hopkins), and
one acclaimed
and controversial TV show (on which more momentarily). The first Hopkins
film, The Silence of the Lambs
(1991), remains the last film to sweep the four major Academy Awards (Film,
Director, Actor, and Actress). And in 2003, the American Film Institute chose
Hopkins’ version of the character as the #1 movie villain of all
time, cementing Hannibal’s status as a truly unique and iconic American bad guy.
There would be
various ways to analyze the reasons behind Hannibal’s enduring popularity, but
I would boil it down (perhaps not the best metaphor for a Hannibal post!) to
the two contradictions I highlighted in the prior sentence’s opening paragraph.
In virtually every version and adaptation of Hannibal’s story, he serves as
both antagonist and confidant to the protagonist, offering vital help at
crucial moments yet presenting an unmistakable threat at all times; I don’t
know of any other pop culture villain who straddles that line nearly as clearly
or effectively. And Hannibal’s own personality is just as seemingly
contradictory, comprised in equal measure of the refined, elitist intellectual
who prefers the finest wines and even finer art and the depraved serial killer
who destroys his victims in the most barbaric and horrific ways possible. That
particular duality isn’t as unique to Hannibal (there’s a reason why Jack the
Ripper has often been known by the
nickname Gentleman Jack, and Ted Bundy’s charisma
and charm were well documented), but, as played by Hopkins in particular,
Hannibal offers perhaps the most successful representation of an elegant
murderer in our pop culture.
As portrayed by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen
in the NBC TV show Hannibal
(currently airing its third season, with the
status of its fourth very much up in the air as of this writing), Hannibal
retains those enduring qualities: Mikkelsen’s Hannibal is very much a refined
gentleman along with, y’know, the other side (depicted
on the show with a level of graphic violence beyond any in the prior
adaptations); and across the seasons he alternately teams up with and threatens
Hugh Dancy’s FBI agent
Will Graham. Yet as the show has evolved (SPOILER alert for the later
seasons in particular), it has taken these characters to a new place,
suggesting more and more overtly that Graham has the potential to become
Lecter. Hannibal has always required his protagonist partners to tap into their
darker sides, but I would argue that never before has a version of the
character suggested that one of those protagonists (or anyone else, even other
serial killers) could ever be truly like him. Whether that suggestion lessens
Hannibal’s unique qualities or amplifies his horrific ones (or both) is just
another intriguing question about this enduring, iconic villain.
Next villain
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other villains you’d highlight?
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