Classic Hollywood Anti-Hero

[Carlisle Blues]

The term "anti-hero" may seem oxymoronic or nonsensical: You're either a hero or you're not. But what do we do about those characters we root for -- and feel guilty about it? They're unconventional heroes, ones who have the courage of their convictions. An anti-hero is usually thought of as a bad guy pitted (super-imposed) against those that are even worse bad guys than he is and so by comparison (or default) he comes out looking like a good guy.

Do you have any Hollywood heroes that exhibit those principals??

 

[Diamondback]

In some ways, The Shadow, The Punisher and 007 all qualify. Even Indy at times... and the various Terminators (T2 T800, T3 T850, T4 man/machine-hybrid Marcus Wright) are definitely not characters to root for outside of facing their various specified opponents (T1000, T-X, Skynet itself).

One could even make a case that Patton as depicted by George C. Scott belongs on the list... returning fire against German medium/heavy bombers with only a pistol ain't exactly the action of someone playing with a full deck, y'know?

 

[John in Covina]

Cary Grant often played a guy that was out to rub the establishment the wrong way everytime.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

James Dean. A malcontent pitted against hypocrites and thugs.



.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Thelma and Louise

Lt. Ellen Ripley of Alien

The moral complexity of the anti-hero causes us to question the limits of our own moral integrity. Our willingness to extend ourselves beyond comfortable boundaries to see life from a point of view that is perhaps more similar to our own in many ways than the classic hero who is beyond reproach. By delving into the anti-hero we delve into our own insecurities and hopes that with all of our personal flaws and shortcomings we too will be able to rise above our challenges and end victoriously.

 

[Edward]

I've always regarded Gatsby as something of an anti-hero - his tragedy being that in order to try to attract Daisy away from Tom (which is pretty ungentlemanly to begin with! ) he comes closer to turning into Tom than presenting a genuine alternative.

Rick Blaine is something of an anti-hero in my book too.


ditto most, if not all, of Tarrantino's protagonists.

Givwe me a good anti-hero over some conventional hero dullard any day!

 

[K.D. Lightner]

A good majority of Clint Eastwood films, from his "man with no name" westerns, through the Dirty Harry films, right up to the Unforgiven.

I loved those spaghetti westerns.

karol

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Charles Bronson
In my view he played the anti-hero in many of his films...."Death Wish" was just one....
HD

 

[Drew B]

i love a good anti-hero... trumps a hero-hero anytime!

Cheers,
Drew.

 

[HadleyH]

I like anti-heroes even better than heroes!

I have many favorites. This is one of them!

Robert de Niro Taxi Driver 1976

 

[railroad detect]

Ant Hero

Got to be Mitchum. The Greatest of them ALL.

 

[hailey greenhat]

Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest

I've never wanted a villain to win more

 

[Carlisle Blues]

James Bond: a man who had only a grudging respect for authority, an obsession with high stakes gambling and exotic travel, and an even more fervent passion for the seemingly endless array of sexually aggressive women who surrounded him.

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

The hollywood antihero has its roots in history.

Australia's Ned Kelly qualifies as does America's Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger and those hero/villains who became, like Kelly and James before them, the voice of the common folk striking out against big business and corrupt officialdom.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

The hollywood antihero has its roots in history.

Australia's Ned Kelly qualifies as does America's Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger and those hero/villains who became, like Kelly and James before them, the voice of the common folk striking out against big business and corrupt officialdom.

Perhaps, but, it seems they always had their own personal agenda or peccadilloes which motivated them as does the Hollywood anti-hero

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

Perhaps, but, it seems they always had their own personal agenda or peccadilloes which motivated them as does the Hollywood anti-hero

Of course they did! The fact that they ended up being cheered by the common folk was entirely accidental.

Hollywood, of course, played up this phenomenon when each, in turn, became the subject of movies. "The Kelly Gang" as I have mentioned elsewhere, was the first full length feature film ever made anywhere in the world. So, the antihero was there at the beginning of movie-making.

 

[Carlisle Blues]

Of course they did! The fact that they ended up being cheered by the common folk was entirely accidental.

Hollywood, of course, played up this phenomenon when each, in turn, became the subject of movies. "The Kelly Gang" as I have mentioned elsewhere, was the first full length feature film ever made anywhere in the world. So, the antihero was there at the beginning of movie-making.

Why was Kelly an anti-hero? It appears he was no more than a common, albeit legendary, bushranger. Was there something heroic involved??

As I understand it the distinction is as follows:

This is a villain

This is an anti-hero

Two different characters entirely different

 

[MsStabby]

Max Cady. A dispicable person, a known pedophile, and a rapist. And yet under the laws of the land he deserved an enthusiastic advocate, which he did not receive.

 

[John in Covina]

Billy Jack and also the guy that is the driver in the movie "The Vanishing Point" both were anti-heros in a way, man!

 

[Ephraim Tutt]

"

Why was Kelly an anti-hero? It appears he was no more than a common, albeit legendary, bushranger. Was there something heroic involved??

As I understand it the distinction is as follows..."


***********
No need to explain the distinction.

Kelly is the quintessential antihero for the reason you have articulated. To some he was nothing but a common crim, and yet he has become this mythical underclass hero to many in this country. It is this split persona that characterises the antihero. Movie depictions have encouraged the latter, more noble, perception, but even in his lifetime the Irish settlers seem to have looked to Kelly to settle a few scores with the police and the law on behalf of their community.

His famous last stand at Glenrowan during which he strode out of the mist into a hail of gunfire wearing his suit of armour - was, to Ned's mind, not just a hijacking of a local pub. It was an uprising against corrupt police by an army of Irish supporters with the armoured Ned Kelly at their head.

Of course, the rebel army didn't turn up and Ned was left to take on the thin blue line with only his three gang members, who, by the time of Ned's outflanking manoevre in the mist, were probably already dead.

To the Irish settlers and the rural poor, Ned remained a hero. To the establishment, he was always merely a crim. The same can be said of your Jesse James and Dillinger for similar economic, though less political, reasons.

Banjo Paterson's 'Jolly Swagman' in Waltzing Matilda was a sheep thief who committed suicide by drowing himself in the billabong rather than face arrest by the approaching police. His defiance of the law and of authority is held up as heroic in that song in which he came to represent Everyman in the struggle against economic injustice. Though he was merely a common thief if that's all you want to see. That's the essence of the antihero - the multifaceted bad guy with noble intent...at least some of the time.

Maybe it's an Aussie thing to see rebellion against the Establishment as a heroic thing. Maybe that's why Waltzing Matilda - a song about a suicidal sheep thief - has become Australia's national song, second only to the much more boring national anthem at state and national events.