Why do we love, admire and connect with the 'Baddies'?

‘God! Am absolutely in love with the professor!’ - was the over-excited comment by one of my acquaintances after watching the much hyped series Money Heist. A rebel with a cause is always appreciated even if they turn into villains — harmless villains though! Actually, they are appreciated and also hero-worshipped. And why not? If someone is willing to sacrifice all they have, if they want to do something which is good for their own self or for the society but just can’t do that through a righteous, so-called  ethical way just because of the circumstances they are in, their social or economic condition as many of the masses, then why not? 

Usually these ‘baddies’ have a very focused plan about what they want to do, how they want to execute it in person and when to exactly blow the minds of millions through their astonishing mind bombs. 

Nowadays we all are obsessed with the numerous web shows which stream online, they definitely get a wide scope, an absolute ‘Over The Top’ platform and they are viewed by millions.  Many web series have a gripping plot of ‘baddies’ which are actually our ‘goodies’ our actual heroes or our heroines. Because of the wide platform our ‘pro-antagonists’ (Protagonist + Antagonist = Pro-Antagonist) are actually admired and loved by the masses. Their agenda is appreciated. We also forget while watching that we actually are supporting a baddie instead of the so called goodies who usually are cops, politicians, intelligence, detectives, journalists, etc. who use more cunning and brutal ways then our pro-antagonists to combat them. Our baddies bring out the best worst they can in them and make themselves a ‘good soul’ in our minds - the  minds of their viewers. 

When we speak of such goodie-baddies or pro-antagonists, what reminds us is the numerous shows like the Spanish blockbuster series ‘Money Heist’ — red jumpsuits, Dali masks, Madrid, 984 million euros, gold bricks, the lyrics of ‘Bella Ciao’, resistance,  Professor and his mostly gorgeous and handsome gang of hero-robbers named after cities. The series is a master piece, no doubt! We instantly get connected while watching the show to the Professor and the robbers and keep on manifesting till the very end that they should complete their mission and safely escape. We feel relieved after their mission gets successful but we also cry when we see Berlin sacrificing his life for his gang and getting shot by the cops, we cry when Nairobi gets brutally killed, we cry when Tokyo heroically dies and bursts into bits and pieces due to a grenade blast. We all feel the numbness because we really feel them, we admire and love them — our ‘pro-antagonists’. 

We sometimes think that how come we like these people who are actually robbers? Surely this thought would have passed through your mind after binge-watching this series. How come? We just get connected to the hardships of ‘our’ people in red jumpsuits, we feel what must have the little Sergio, the Professor gone through when he saw his dad shot brutally by the cops in front of his eyes, we get shocked when we get to know the unethical printing of money which has always been going in the mints all over the world — in the real world, not just the series, but in a concealed, hidden manner for years and we eventually conclude and agree with our pro-antagonist that printing money ourselves is not something which is unethical or a crime. 

This baddie chain keeps on continuing in the web world through ‘Peaky Blinders’ - the British drama series of gangsters set during the world war l or the newly released American series ‘Inventing Anna’ — the story of a 25 something, fake German heiress who astonished the high class of New York City with her smart little brain but could not succeed eventually. 

Anna’s story is really flabbergasting because it is not just a plot made up for a series but is based on an actual incident happened in the New York City in the USA around 2017.  The story of a middle class Russian girl immigrated to Germany as a teen, dropping out from college, then out of no where going to NYC, faking her identity, faking her accent, faking her background, faking her status, faking her bank balances, faking her lifestyle and faking of being a German heiress with only two original things — her clever brain and unmatchable confidence! Basically, she was doing — ‘Fake it until you make it’! But the actual thing which is portrayed very well in the series is the problems faced by immigrants and especially by the children of immigrants just like Anna in schools, colleges and in general the society. The original people of any country do not accept immigrants wholeheartedly and mock them wherever possible, sometimes humiliating them. The People and especially children have a great impact of this behaviour and get affected the most. They are unable to forget their background and thus are unable to start afresh. They find it very difficult to finally belong somewhere or to be from somewhere. They feel inferior. This similar situation is very well narrated by Ken Liu in his short story ‘The Paper Menagerie’. These small things build up through the years and eventually erupt in a very disgusting manner and in this way innumerable ‘Annas’ are 'Invented' who live in their dreamland - a world which they create and belong or also even rule in their self-built dreamy empire themselves.

But again while watching the series we also start hoping the best for Anna just like Vivian and Todd forgetting what not unethical, deceitful, immoral things she did to build her so called ADF foundation. But eventually she gets a very long whole 12 year sentence which isn’t ever given to the monarches of several heinous crimes like murders, assaults, rapes and what not!

But still the question remains —why do we love, admire and connect with these baddies? Do we connect with them only because they portray our own repressed, condensed, innate desires or wishes which we know that cannot happen in real life due to innumerable powerful ‘goodies’ and ‘our’ reasons which are only known to us?

But if this hooting, appreciating, loving and admiring these good souled web baddies goes on, then surely very soon one day some real life pro-antagonist, more confident, smart and a bit harmful then our baddies will blow off the minds of millions with their vicious plans. The new question which arises after all this is - Why people feel the need to go against the law, the system and choose a wrong, unethical way to do something which is really right and absolutely fair? 

WHY?