Understanding the Anti-Hero - a monologue on Natural Born Killers (try to stay awake now....)

Have you seen Bonnie and Clyde? Have you seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Have you read Euripides' Bacchae? Have you seen Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?

Bizarrely, all these works have one thing in common - transgressive individuals who perform acts which the audience cannot get away with, who become more unpleasant, or less likeable (more real) until they are either figures of horror, or they are punished.

Because this is how they work. Pay attention...

An audience uses a text to perform actions that they don't get the chance to perform in everyday life. They do this through FANTASY. The crassest examples of these types of narrative are the Hero dramas (Arnie/Stallone films etc) and the romantic comedy.

Several types of drama exploit the fact that there are desires that are not altogether pleasant - killing people who annoy you, shagging people randomly, stealing etc etc etc.

The works I have listed are of this type. In Bonnie and Clyde, the excitement and romance of breaking out of society's conventions are manifested through robbery. The audience gets off on their rebellious streak. In the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dr Frank N Furter starts off as glamourous and exciting, until he becomes obsessed and goes over the top. Dionysus in the Bacchae begins as a potent but reasonable god, and ends as an unreasonable and capricious taskmaster. Etc etc etc.

Through the narrative, the audience gets to explore their desires, carefully disconnect themselves from the hero when things go wrong, and get to watch them get punished for living out OUR vicarious fantasies.

Natural Born Killers begins as a film exactly of this type. In the first section, the two killers kill loads of people in an exciting fashion. We are not allowed to see any of the blood, all the people they kill basically deserve it (or look unpleasant enough that the film's narrative suggests they deserve it) and anyway - they're in love.

But then things go wrong. They kill the wrong people, we see the horror and the blood, their relationship goes wrong. The audience has had its fill of violence and sex and now wants its onscreen counterparts punished for their crimes.

So they get sent to prison. Hurrah.

Except NBK doesn't end there. Unlike all the other films, it takes things one stage further. It demands that the audience start to identify with these characters again. It allows them to escape, it shows you their violence. It doesn't punish them.

We, the audience, are expected to experience the full horror of the actions of our rebellious heroes without any filtering, without any moral sense of superiority.

And that exposes how these other films work. It takes them apart and takes their plots one stage further - exposing what an audience has invested in the violence and punishment of screen anti-heroes. And for that it should be celebrated.


[This is an edited version of one chapter of my uncompleted doctoral thesis - it makes more sense when complete]