Obsolete Who do you root for? Good vs Evil in media?

[dig]

I say it depends on the media, like in Goodfellas I'm rooting for the Mafia, not the police, but in most other films it's definitely the good guys.

 

[ocelotlrama jaguar]

There are some movies where I don't root for anyone. Stuff like The Godfather, Goodfellas, Sopranos, and anything else mafia-related have some pretty vile people as the protagonists, but the good guy cops aren't exactly sympathetic, either. But hey, they're still interesting and I still watch them. I enjoy seeing what happens, but I don't necessarily "root" for anyone in particular. There is just too much gray area for me to do that. Kids movies tend to be more black and white-ish, so I tend to root for those who are the good guys in kids films.

However, there is one movie that stands out to me where I did root for the antagonists, and that was Jurassic Park II. Spoilers because I'm going to explain why.

Spoiler

The hunter, Roland, and his team were the only people I sympathized with throughout this dreck. Them, and the one guy who got eaten by the T-Rex when he tried to save his own team's lives. I couldn't stand Ian Malcolm in this movie, and his girlfriend was even worse! The worst of the bunch was the earth hugger Vince Vaughn character just because he came across as a huge hypocrite to me. They endangered so many people with their "heroism," when in reality, if they had just let things go the way Roland and his team had according to plan, I doubt the many lives that were lost in the film would have happened. Then again, it is just a movie and you need lots of violence in a movie about T-Rexes and Velociraptors, but they had things all backwards when they made the good guys come across as the real villains.

 

[CrackFox]

Depends. I don't necessarily cheer for the good guys just because they are good. Often the good guys are the blander characters.

 

[zakisrage]

Good because I'm such a loser.

 

[progressforth]

I'm for the bad guys. They are usually more interesting, some are pretty deep characters.
There are times where I want the protagonists too win though.

 

[Jimmy 3 People 0]

I don't root for good or evil; I root for the protagonist. Because... well, that's kinda who you're supposed to root for. And yes, villain protagonists are a thing.

 

[Osprey]

It really depends on how everyone's characterized and what the situation is. If I'm playing a game like Skyrim and I decide to do the "evil" thing (murder, theft, betrayal, consorting with daedra, littering...), I think that counts as "rooting" for evil, since as the player, it's my goal to not get karmic comeuppance in the form of defeat. And sometimes in other media, the protagonist is either just bland or plain insufferable, which caused me to like the villain way more. (And in some cases, made me really wish that the villain could have won.)

Of course, when the villain is just concentrated scumbaggery, it's hard to not hate them. Kids' media tends to have a lot of these, and even if they have some interesting or likable qualities, in the end, most people enjoy watching those villains getting what's coming to them.

 

[King Robert]

I would say "depends", but I'm usually on the heroes' side.

 

[Almonds]

Depends, but if the evil is badass I'd root for the bad guys. No matter how many times I rewatch Death Note, I always root for Light Yagami

 

[King Robert]

Course, it does rather irritate me when people say that the villains' actions are justified, no matter how violent or over the moral event horizon they've gone...*cough fans of Viridi from Kid Icarus Uprising cough cough*

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I think this is a silly question. Since everybody is referring to Mafia films, I'll follow along; in those movies where the Mafia are the protagonists, that automatically makes them the "good guys". Every story like this depends on the audience's willingness to sympathize with the protagonists, and once you have sympathy, you are a "good guy". When the story fails to make the audience sympathize with the protagonist, what you get is an unlikable protagonist, which contrary to the assurances of every pretentious ego-stroking auteur grinning at their own cleverness when they say "oh, but that's the point", a story whose protagonist is unlikable will always fail.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

I'm for the bad guys. They are usually more interesting, some are pretty deep characters.
There are times where I want the protagonists too win though.

In children's shows especially, the good guys are usually boring, so I find myself often rooting for the villains.