Why do Villains appeal more than the Heroes in Movies many times ?

Gabbar Singh (Sholay), Mogambo (Mr. India), Shakal (Shaan), Dr. Deng (Karma), The Joker (The Dark Knight), Darth Vader (Star Wars) are some of the iconic villainous characters from Bollywood and Hollywood

Why do villains, and not the heroes from some movies get etched in our memories forever ?

There are several reasons why some villains overpower our psyche more than the heroes.Let’s get to the basic human psychology behind it. Humans specifically and all animals in general are influenced more by negative stimuli and the basic reason behind it is the sub conscious defence mechanism which gets activated when we sense something which can endanger our lives. Its the sub conscious fear,the threat to our lives which makes negative stimuli/characters more impactful as we pay more attention to them. Its imbibed in our brain since childhood as we grow up to know about things which are harmful for us. Survival is one of the most basic instinct of any animal. We ingrain several defence mechanisms for our survival and one of them is more alertness when we sense anything which appears to be dangerous for our existence.

This mechanism comes into play when we are watching movies too.The sub conscious mind makes us more alert when the negative stimuli are in play,villains for example in the case of movies. This strategy is used by many content creators too and you will always come across titles of videos on youtube or articles on blogs which start with a negative statement. For example,one will easily find videos on YouTube with caption- ’10 Reaons why you should not buy this car’, or an article with caption ’10 things not to do on the First date’. They play to the basic human nature to react to negative stimuli and hence increase the views on videos or clicks on the articles. You will notice that such videos and articles have more views than what the content actually deserves.

Secondly, most of the villainous characters are portrayed as all powerful, law defying , unbound by any rule and a supreme force up to themselves,who do not have to obey any laws,any person, or any other force, sometimes even defying the law of the nature. Power is glamorous,and extreme power appeals more to a human mind. Everyone fantasizes a life free of rules,devoid of wordly fences, a life without limitations where one has to obey none.It does not mean that one wants to become like the villain in real world.But the freedom, the power aspect of villains appeals more to people and hence the villains leave a long lasting impact.

Thirdly, the movie makers try to make the villains larger than life in most cases, so that when the hero defeats the villain,the victory of good over evil looks more grandiose. The fight,the climax becomes more interesting when the fight is between an apparently underdog Hero and the all powerful Villain.

This strategy works most of the times and has been hallmark of many stories starting from the famous folk tale of David and Goliath.

Some villain characters are often attributed with philosophical characteristics which appeal more to people. Most famous illustration of this is the character of The Joker in the movie The Dark Knight,which has some of the best philosophical dialogues which appeal to the common man,the dialogues reflect the chaos and uncertainties in our lives, specially when the character talks about insanity in the world.