{"id":385,"date":"2021-10-08T18:22:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T22:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/?p=385"},"modified":"2024-03-12T23:09:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T03:09:05","slug":"movie-villains-theyre-just-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/movie-villains-theyre-just-like-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Villains \u2013 They&#8217;re Just Like Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.studyfinds.org\/we-prefer-fictional-villains-who-remind-us-of-ourselves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent study<\/a> finds that when viewers shares traits with villains like Darth Vader, Lex Luthor or Mr. Burns, they tend to find them likeable. They are simply more relatable to us.<\/p>\n<p>The research suggests that stories and fictional worlds can offer a \u2018safe haven\u2019 for comparison to a villainous character that reminds us of ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen people feel protected by the veil of fiction, they may show greater interest in learning about dark and sinister characters who resemble them.\u201d,\u00a0says Rebecca Krause, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University and lead author on the paper \u201cCan Bad Be Good? The Attraction of a Darker Self\u201d, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologicalscience.org\/news\/releases\/fictional-villains-allure.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople want to see themselves in a positive light,\u201d noted Krause. \u201cFinding similarities between oneself and a bad person can be uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, Krause and her co-author Derek Rucker found that putting a bad person in a fictional context removes that uneasiness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen you are no longer uncomfortable with the comparison, there seems to be something alluring and enticing about having similarities with a villain,\u201d explained Rucker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you find yourself more dazzled by the evil than the hero characters in movies and shows? You&#8217;re not alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,21],"tags":[178,179,177,180,171,172,181],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-tv","tag-darth-vader","tag-lex-luthor","tag-movie-villains","tag-mr-burns","tag-research","tag-science","tag-study","post_format-post-format-aside","odd"],"custom_fields":{"youtube_id":"","featured_image":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/dv-villain-study-scaled.jpg","featured_image_text":"A popular movie villain, Darth Vader. Photo: Tommy van Kessel \/ Unsplash","blurb":"Movie Villains","title":"They&#039;re Just Like Us","excerpt":"Do you find yourself more dazzled by the evil than the hero characters in movies and shows? You're not alone.","content":"A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.studyfinds.org\/we-prefer-fictional-villains-who-remind-us-of-ourselves\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent study<\/a> finds that when viewers shares traits with villains like Darth Vader, Lex Luthor or Mr. Burns, they tend to find them likeable. They are simply more relatable to us.\r\n\r\nThe research suggests that stories and fictional worlds can offer a \u2018safe haven\u2019 for comparison to a villainous character that reminds us of ourselves.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen people feel protected by the veil of fiction, they may show greater interest in learning about dark and sinister characters who resemble them.\u201d,\u00a0says Rebecca Krause, a PhD candidate at Northwestern University and lead author on the paper \u201cCan Bad Be Good? The Attraction of a Darker Self\u201d, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologicalscience.org\/news\/releases\/fictional-villains-allure.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">press release<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\u201cPeople want to see themselves in a positive light,\u201d noted Krause. \u201cFinding similarities between oneself and a bad person can be uncomfortable.\u201d\r\n\r\nHowever, Krause and her co-author Derek Rucker found that putting a bad person in a fictional context removes that uneasiness.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen you are no longer uncomfortable with the comparison, there seems to be something alluring and enticing about having similarities with a villain,\u201d explained Rucker."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmanic.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}