Sympathy with Villains On-screen: Why Do We Feel That?

If you are a cinema fan and movie addict, you must have seen the popular Joker movie, performed by Joaquin Phoenix and widely admired by the audience who excessively loved the villain Joker despite his mischievous and brutal actions.

Is it normal to be attracted to an evil person? Is the audience's love for villains just a coincidence? Here are the reasons why the audience sympathizes and loves cinema villains.

Cruel Childhood and Painful Memories

Filmmakers always try to show the tragic side of the evil hero's life, including his suffering from poverty, bullying, orphanhood, assault, or other cruel occurrences that justify their actions and brutality and push them to take revenge.

In the highlight of Joker movie, we recall how Arthur suffered constant bullying and assault for no reason, which eventually leads to revenge and murder with absolute brutality.

Psychological Condition

If we delve into the history of cinema, we will find that the evil hero often suffers from a mental illness that makes him unable to control his harmful actions, and for this the audience begins to sympathize intensely with him, justifying what they see as the villain is not responsible for his actions and cannot be held accountable or blamed.

Joaquin introduced Involuntary Emotional Expression Disorder, i.e. the syndrome of occasional uncontrollable laughter, hysterical crying, or both, which made the audience sympathizes with him noticeably.

Two Hearts? Good & Evil

Filmmakers are keen to show the good side of the evil hero with very simple actions and short scenes that do not exceed seconds so that the audience does not hate him and feels that the villain is a good person genuinely but was forced to do harmful actions to revenge.

We all remember the scene of Arthur kissing his short stature colleague to assure him and then kindly helping him open the doorknob where our feelings mixed and we started to realize the kindness of Arthur’s heart.

Strong Personality

Who does not like to have a strong personality capable of surmounting all odds? The evil hero in movies often has a very strong personality that makes us easily attracted to him out of an inner self-desire to have the same strength and power.

We can never forget the coldness that overtook Arthur when he killed the bullies on the subway and sat on the bench with cool nerves, where you most probably felt that he was right and wished for the same strength to defeat your enemies.

A Good Sense of Humor

Of course, the audience will not continue to love the dark and mischievous character all the time, that is why filmmakers usually create a humorous villain so that the audience does not get bored and continue to admire the evil hero.

Arthur's satirical character set a milestone in the world of black comedy, which made the audience laugh and wonder throughout the movie.