The Antihero in American Television

Vaage, Margrethe Bruun

doi:10.4324/9781315715162

Cited by 43 publications

(23 citation statements)

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“…The moral flaws of female protagonists are often not as severe. For example, as Margrethe Bruun Vaage notes, the few morally flawed female protagonists in popular TV are not allowed to be as transgressive as their male counterparts: their transgressions are not as grievous, their family life is not affected by their misdeeds, and their moral flaws are presented in a comedic and endearing tone (Vaage , 171–180). Morally flawed female characters are often presented as engaging in immoral actions mainly as means to achieve other (moral) aims; for example, survivors of violence are portrayed as looking for justice.…”

Section: Resisting Rough Heroinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice: What Rough Heroines Tell Us about Imaginative Resistance

Clavel-Vázquez

2018

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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This article examines the asymmetry between our engagement with male characters in fictional narratives who transgress moral norms and female characters who do the same. I claim that rough heroines present a new puzzling instance of resistance phenomena that cannot be accounted for by even the most recent accounts of imaginative resistance that incorporate considerations of narrative context, such as genre and narrative artistry. I sketch a solution that points to the violation of gender norms and the challenge to power dynamics as the source of resistance. I argue that rough heroines reveal an important element of narrative engagement that has been largely overlooked in the literature: appreciators’ interpretive horizons.

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Section: Resisting Rough Heroinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice: What Rough Heroines Tell Us about Imaginative Resistance

Clavel-Vázquez

2018

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

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“…The moral psychology of those stories on the screen, then, is a central issue" (2018:2). In fact, for many authors, the "central issue" deals with the peculiarities of antiheroism in fiction television (see Martin, 2013;Lotz, 2014;Vaage, 2016;García, 2016;Bernardelli, 2016;Hagelin & Silverman, 2017;Buonanno, 2017). In our case, the hypothesis is that the moral psychology of Breaking Bad-the dialogue that is established between the main character of the text and the spectator in moral terms-is strongly conditioned by the emotional involvement of the viewer and is cultivated over many years.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Sympathy and the “Lucifer Effect”. Evil and Redemption in Breaking Bad

García-Martínez¹,

Castrillo²,

Echart³

2019

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Introduction. This article analyzes the dramatic and cognitive mechanisms that activate viewers' emotional identification with antihero protagonists of serial fiction, taking Breaking Bad as a case study. Methods. The analysis of the mechanisms that enable identification is based on cognitive media theory (Carroll; Plantinga; Smith), and is reinforced through media psychology, applied through a close reading of the last season of the series. Theoretical framework. The notion of "structure of sympathy" (Smith) is used to identify four dramatic strategies that modulate the spectatorial moral judgment against the antihero, while the concept of the "expanded narrative" is used to explain the familiarity established with the protagonist. Discussion. In its fifth season, the story destroys the viewer's moral sympathy for the character, but rebuilds it in the last episodes of the series through the aforementioned four dramatic strategies. Conclusion. The concept of moral sympathy is proposed as a synthesis of narrative familiarity and moral modulation of the ethical perspective.

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“…Still, the "unasserted" or "believed-not-to-be-real" status of fictional events may allow for a distanced mode of engagement whereby audiences can minimize or overlook the immorality of certain agents or actions. Some theorists see this as at least a partial explanation for why we tend to enjoy morally ambiguous protagonists, or antiheroes, despite their moral deficits (e.g., Smith 1999;Vaage 2014Vaage , 2016. This is one possible exception to the correspondence account.…”

Section: Moral Psychology and The Structures Of Antipathymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Structure of Antipathy

Kjeldgaard‐Christiansen

2019

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Many narrative films feature villains, major characters that audiences are meant to condemn. This article investigates the cognitive-affective underpinnings of audience antipathy in order to shed light on how filmic villainy is constructed. To that end, the article introduces an analytical framework at the intersection of cognitive film theory and moral psychology. The framework analyzes villainy into three categories: guilty intentionality, consequential action, and causal responsibility.

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The Antihero in American Television

Cited by 43 publications

References 0 publications

Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice: What Rough Heroines Tell Us about Imaginative Resistance

Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice: What Rough Heroines Tell Us about Imaginative Resistance

Moral Sympathy and the “Lucifer Effect”. Evil and Redemption in Breaking Bad

A Structure of Antipathy

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