A Critical Analysis of the Bad Guys

As I have grown older, I have began to look more in depth at the media I consume, whether it be television, movies, video games, or any other sort of medium. One of the things that continues to nag at me is how villains are portrayed in the media. Popular culture dictates that the "bad guys" are souless, heartless creatures with nothing to live for and deserve to be punished for their actions. However, that is not entirely true. Many of these bad guys, especially when it comes to lowly soldiers or henchmen, are simply faceless beings who are expendable for the sake of some violence on screen. The first time I really critically examined this idea was after I watched "Taken" starring Liam Neeson. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Neeson's character goes out of his way to find his kidnapped daughter, killing anything and everything in his path. As I watched this movie, I began to question Neeson's motives. Yes, he is trying to find his daughter, but at the expense of everyone else. These unknown, unnamed "thugs" are killed without question and the audience is forced to accept it. If you look outside of what you seen on the screen, it would be safe to assume that these people could have daughters just like Neeson does, so wouldn't it be almost hypocritical for Neeson to deprive their family members of their fathers, brothers, and husbands? I'm probably looking too much into this, but isn't that the point of this class? Aren't we supposed to look past what we see on the screen and see what kind of impact it has on our lives? The reason I bring this point up stems from the idea of the virtual citizen-soldier and how people are wanting to join the military for all the wrong reasons. Part of the reason for this, I believe, is that normal people do not see the impact that killing one of the "bad guys" has. Sure, there are plenty of people in this world who probably deserve what is coming to them, but is that really the case with everyone? The movies and TV shows we watch along with the video games we play never depict the other side of the coin, the side populated by countless swarms of "the enemy". We see them on our screen as something to hunt, almost for sport, and not as actual human beings. To put it into persepective, my cousin has served in the Army for almost a decade now. After a tour of duty in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, he has seen some very gruesome and disturbing things. As he has told me numerous times before, "war is not like it is on TV". Some of the most traumatizing and painful memories he has had to deal with involve the family members of the "bad guys" walking down the street mourning the loss of their loved ones. Even if they were the enemy, so to speak, they were still people at the end of the day. The point I am trying to make here is that we have become desensitized to the impact our actions have not just on the ones we directly affect, but their lives as well. I would love to see more media that shows you both sides of the story so that when the bad guy is killed, you are torn betwen wanting justice for his actions and the impact that their death will have on the world around them. Maybe then we can actually get people to realize that war is not a game, war is a reality that you may not walk away from.