Alex: In the movies, capitalists are almost invariably cast as villains. … Is an environment being despoiled? Look no further than the CEO of some large corporation. … The most grotesque character in the “Star Wars” films represents commerce, Jabba the Hutt, a literal business worm. …
Which changes nothing as it concerns hollywood drama. TGGP below points out that everyday crime is boring. You need the radical, the feared, the limits of what the upstanding powerful could go wrong.
Prof. Hanson,Quant should enter here. How often does a protagonist experience negative control by a teacher, a cop, or a bureacrat as opposed to a CEO?
One interesting thing about the original Rambo ("First Blood") is that the true story which inspired it involved a bunch of hippies being mistreated by police. They are then transformed into a Vietnam veteran who is imagined being mistreated by a society that actually respects him far more than hippies. The interesting thing about the sequel ("Rambo") is that the P.O.W angle of that movie, also associated with Ross Perot and some Chuck Norris flicks, may be more accurate than our government has let on.
One odd thing is how often fictional stories feature businesses having inconvenient people assassinated. You never hear about that happening in the news. As Arthur Conan Doyle and Law & Order discovered, we find actual criminals (and most of their victims) too boring and depressing and prefer to hear about exciting scandals amid high society.
David, CEOs are not legally obligated to be "self-interested". They are obligated to serve the interests of SHAREHOLDERS. As Robin is fond of pointing out, there is a large agency problem there permitting CEOs to do things like stack the board with people who will grant them excessive compensation, and take large risks that destroy the company but still leave them fairly well off.
How much of this is an artifact of being CEO fitting our current definition of success?
Would we still see this bias if we lived in an aristocratic feudal society? Or would Robin be writing about how the nobly-born seem particularly singled out as evil, when really we should be worrying about the nefarious midwife down the street.
One of the most notable things about Yes Minister is that it had a very institutional view of bad behaviour by government. No one on that show was particularly heroic (Sir Humphrey was a Magnificent Bastard, Hacker was a cowardly opportunist who would do or say anything to get favourable media coverage, pretty much everyone else has their own agenda) and one episode directly mocks the proposition that all you need are the right people in charge.
In a sense the villain of Yes Minister is public choice theory (or the phenomena that theory describes).
Re: lack of data, a more objective way would be to go through the top 10 movies at the box office for each year (under the entries "YYYY in film," where YYYY is the year). Code the main villain by type.
You could also make a composite for each year and see if the most popular villain types have changed over time. For example, most of the ones I mentioned are from the '70s and '80s.
The advantage of this method is that top 10 at the box office ensures that these types really appeal to the common person, else they wouldn't have made megabucks.
Not necessarily, but they are certainly different than the mainstream culture on many counts - and this level of difference usually engenders a violent response rather than the passive acquiescence we see from most folks.
There's a long tradition of portraying either priests or nobles as evil, corrupt, inappropriately lustful, or rapacious.
The whole gothic genre comes to mind...
"Castle of Otranto"
"Mask of the Red Death"
I think the common thread we're seeing here is that the powerless are not portrayed as villains. Poor Nietzche can't get a movie made about how the powerless are conspiring to constrain the will of the supermen...
...'course "Atlas Shrugged" is supposed to start production next month.
Jabba the Hut? The author seriously see him as a pure capitalist?
An the ordered commerce of the Republic \ Empire, that is apparently not capitalist enough, is bad?
This is is easily resolved by feet voting. Where would you like to live? Tattoine or Coruscant.??
This tells me more of the critic than George Lucas 's marxian bona-fides.
Which changes nothing as it concerns hollywood drama. TGGP below points out that everyday crime is boring. You need the radical, the feared, the limits of what the upstanding powerful could go wrong.
Prof. Hanson,Quant should enter here. How often does a protagonist experience negative control by a teacher, a cop, or a bureacrat as opposed to a CEO?
One interesting thing about the original Rambo ("First Blood") is that the true story which inspired it involved a bunch of hippies being mistreated by police. They are then transformed into a Vietnam veteran who is imagined being mistreated by a society that actually respects him far more than hippies. The interesting thing about the sequel ("Rambo") is that the P.O.W angle of that movie, also associated with Ross Perot and some Chuck Norris flicks, may be more accurate than our government has let on.
One odd thing is how often fictional stories feature businesses having inconvenient people assassinated. You never hear about that happening in the news. As Arthur Conan Doyle and Law & Order discovered, we find actual criminals (and most of their victims) too boring and depressing and prefer to hear about exciting scandals amid high society.
David, CEOs are not legally obligated to be "self-interested". They are obligated to serve the interests of SHAREHOLDERS. As Robin is fond of pointing out, there is a large agency problem there permitting CEOs to do things like stack the board with people who will grant them excessive compensation, and take large risks that destroy the company but still leave them fairly well off.
How much of this is an artifact of being CEO fitting our current definition of success?
Would we still see this bias if we lived in an aristocratic feudal society? Or would Robin be writing about how the nobly-born seem particularly singled out as evil, when really we should be worrying about the nefarious midwife down the street.
One of the most notable things about Yes Minister is that it had a very institutional view of bad behaviour by government. No one on that show was particularly heroic (Sir Humphrey was a Magnificent Bastard, Hacker was a cowardly opportunist who would do or say anything to get favourable media coverage, pretty much everyone else has their own agenda) and one episode directly mocks the proposition that all you need are the right people in charge.
In a sense the villain of Yes Minister is public choice theory (or the phenomena that theory describes).
That is, the entries at Wikipedia...
Re: lack of data, a more objective way would be to go through the top 10 movies at the box office for each year (under the entries "YYYY in film," where YYYY is the year). Code the main villain by type.
You could also make a composite for each year and see if the most popular villain types have changed over time. For example, most of the ones I mentioned are from the '70s and '80s.
The advantage of this method is that top 10 at the box office ensures that these types really appeal to the common person, else they wouldn't have made megabucks.
One simple explanation is just that psychopaths are known to beoverrepresented in the executive suite:Business Psychopaths
Brutal sergeant, seeking promotion, pushes his soldiers to needless deaths.
Your favorite writer, David Simon, did make a show (Generation Kill) with this villain.
I agree with the idea that we need solid data here and for lack of solid data we could try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
The 100 greatest heroes and villains of all time.
Not necessarily, but they are certainly different than the mainstream culture on many counts - and this level of difference usually engenders a violent response rather than the passive acquiescence we see from most folks.
There's a long tradition of portraying either priests or nobles as evil, corrupt, inappropriately lustful, or rapacious.
The whole gothic genre comes to mind...
"Castle of Otranto"
"Mask of the Red Death"
I think the common thread we're seeing here is that the powerless are not portrayed as villains. Poor Nietzche can't get a movie made about how the powerless are conspiring to constrain the will of the supermen...
...'course "Atlas Shrugged" is supposed to start production next month.
"Brazil" is a beautiful, dark, and hilarious exposition of the evils that come from cover-your-ass clueless bureaucrats run amok.
"Yes, Minister" similarly lambasts the self-serving lies and cover-ups of the British civil service at the expense of the public.
"LA Confidential" follows the film noir tradition of the lone honest cop in a corrupt organization and a degenerate society.
"Apocalypse Now!" and "Dr. Strangelove" both address the dangers of capricious or mad military commanders.
I can't think of any off the top of my head for celebrities or teachers.
Very few people are every directly controlled by CEOs. Far more people encounter direct control by teachers, cops, and bureaucrats.
I think that the movies offer many more portrayals of virtuous police officers than virtuous CEOs.
But then, there are many more police officers than CEOs to buy movie tickets.
There are not that many giant bureaucratic companies to be a CEO of.