Movies and TV: The changing face of good and evil

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20)

Over the past decade or two, there has been a noticeable shift in the way good and evil are portrayed in popular movies and television shows. Storytelling has grown more sophisticated, focusing on realistic characters and offering nuanced reactions to our complex, changing world.

This is a good thing; after all, our stories ought to be creative and truthful, reflecting the truthfulness and creativity of our Maker. The problem arises when evil is celebrated, and villains are seen as the true heroes of the story.

How has this trend taken shape, and is there a hopeful way forward? Like the movies, we can tell that story in three acts, plus an epilogue.

Act One: Black hats and white hats

Long before movies or TV, there was a literary tradition that treated good and evil as sharply defined categories of black and white. Heroes were perfectly good, and villains were irredeemably evil. The protagonist possessed all virtues and no vices, while the antagonist revelled in chaos and mayhem. Stories focused mainly on presenting a moral message, with the characters serving mainly as symbols rather than fully developed individuals.

This approach to storytelling can be found in Mediaeval courtly romances and allegorical tales, Renaissance poetry, Elizabethan drama, and is also well representing in classic films and TV series. In old Westerns, it was common for the good guys to wear white hats while the bad guys wore black hats to clearly show who was who. Nobody had grey hats, at least in a metaphorical sense.

In the early years of television, cop and detective shows were almost entirely plot-driven: solve the crime and bring the criminal to justice. Rarely did these shows delve into the private lives and struggles of their heroes, nor did they explore in depth the inner scars that drove the criminals. Good was good and bad was bad, and it was enough for good to triumph in the end.

Act Two: Psychological realism

The latter half of the 20th century saw a gradual shift away from this traditional model of popular entertainment. As the world grew more complex, creators and audiences were no longer satisfied with formulaic black-and-white tales of good guys versus bad guys. There was a turn toward multilayered narratives that explored social, psychological, and at times controversial themes through more realistic plots and characterization.

Examples of this narrative approach can be seen in the films of the New Hollywood Era of the 1960s to the 1980s, as well as various European film movements such as the French cinéma vérité (truthful cinema) of the 1960s. Beginning in the 1980s, American network TV gradually shifted its focus to character-driven stories featuring long-form narrative arcs, like the chapters in a novel, a style that has come to dominate the prestige programs on streaming platforms.

Compared with the shows and movies of earlier generations, these stories offer more realistic portrayals of people and situations, with depths of nuance and shades of ambiguity. Heroes have character flaws – sometimes serious ones – and villains are portrayed with a degree of compassion. While such stories can be challenging, and even disturbing, they also provide a more honest look at the human condition in a fallen world.

Act Three: Villains as heroes

When telling unflinchingly realistic stories, there’s a danger of stepping over the line from describing evil to revelling in it. This line has been crossed with increasing boldness in the films and TV shows of the 21st century. The rise of the anti-hero over these years has followed a trajectory from broken survivor seeking redemption to nihilistic sociopath spreading pain and chaos.

In such stories, the heroes and villains have swapped roles. Instead of a nuanced look at the villain’s tragic path, his evil is celebrated as humorous and cool. Beyond being flawed, the hero is deconstructed as a fraud and a hypocrite, less sympathetic than the villain, perhaps even to blame for the villain’s villainy. The hero has become the antagonist, while the villain is the true protagonist we’re meant to root for.

Of course, there’s usually more to these types of stories than that. Nevertheless, there’s an observable downward trend from compelling psychological exploration to visceral glorification of evil. In one sense, this pattern is a regression toward a less sophisticated portrayal of good and evil, the primary difference being that good and evil have effectively changed places.

Epilogue: Truth in storytelling

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

Scripture teaches us to focus our hearts and minds on things that are beautiful and excellent. However, excellence and beauty come in an endless variety of shapes. When it comes to telling good and worthwhile stories, it’s not enough to have a good message and be free of difficult content. In fact, that approach can at times produce work that’s superficial and inauthentic.

As image bearers of our creative God, we’re designed to reflect that creativity in all its facets. That means telling the truth in our stories, whether it’s comforting or challenging, happy or sad, pretty or unpleasant. Along with the most wonderful words of comfort and encouragement, the Scriptures also contain honest but disturbing accounts of life in a broken world.

The final few chapters of the book of Judges are a difficult read, clearly intended for mature readers. Along with the rest of the book, these chapters offer a series of truthful, unflinching portraits of one of the darkest eras in biblical history. Yet even so, they never glorify the evil they portray.

All our stories, to one extent or another, reflect some aspect of God’s grand narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. Through those stories, we’re free to explore all the themes and subplots of that narrative, from the lightest to the darkest. To do so truthfully, however, requires challenging the dark and celebrating the light, not the other way around. Instead of embracing nihilism and despair, truth in storytelling will invariably point, even if faintly, toward hope and redemption – the true end of the truest story.