Villains we Love to Hate: Why we love toxic people

I don’t know about you, but when I watch The Last Dragon and Black Panther, I am not rooting for Leroy or Tchalla. I am rooting for Sho Nuff, and Eric Stevens, also known as Kill Monger.  

Yes, I have to admit, I do have a propensity to like bad boys, but I am not on team evil for that reason. I just believed that the bad boys have more of an emotional resonance. To put it another way, the bad boys are just more relatable. I get it. Tchalla was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, while Kill Monger was abandoned, and forced to work for everything that he had.  Sho Nuff had been fighting every mofo in Harlem to be the champ. While Leroy was locked away meditating in lotus position. The bad boys are angry, mean, and vengeful. Most importantly, they play a pivotal role in the story telling. The bad boys are the antagonists and use their anger to push the protagonist to accomplish a certain goal. In real life, it’s the bad boys who push us beyond our limits and help us to learn important lessons about ourselves.  

Negativity has gotten a bad name over the years. So much so that we have very little tolerance for it.  

We are quick to cut somebody off because we perceive them as negative. In truth, negative energy is just a part of our nature. In fact, good cannot exist without the bad.  Secondly, we need to understand that we are attracting these negative people into our lives for a reason. In most cases, these annoying, obnoxious people are in our lives to teach us a lesson about ourselves. Yet, most people want to live their lives monk style, and wonder why they are stuck. This was the case for old Leroy Green. He was a wannabe Kung Fu master. He swore off women, and even friends, to dedicate his life to martial arts. Yet, when his master tells him that he has completed his lessons, Leroy is lost.  He sets off on a journey, searching for the master who can help him get to that final level. Once Leroy reaches this level, a sublime glow will cascade over his entire body. However, if this power falls into the wrong hands, all hell can break lose. So, to make a long story short, Bruce Leroy goes out looking for a fake master, not realizing that that life is pushing him to that higher level.  

He needs to win the respect of his little brother Richie. He needs to open his heart and learn not be shy around women.  

He needs to learn how to use his abilities to stop people like Eddie Arkadian from bullying people in showbiz. He needs to learn how to let people in, so that they can help him. And most importantly, he needs to defeat his primary nemesis, Sho Nuff, the shogun of Harlem. Once he masters all of these lessons, he then ascends to the highest level, and thus proceeds to whip the Sho Gun’s butt. The irony of all this is that Leroy would never have been able to master his craft, without Sho Nuff. He was there, pushing him beyond his limits. You can say that the Show Gun of Harlem was a necessary evil, to help Leroy learn important lessons about himself. However, the show gun of Harlem isn’t the only villain that I like to root for.  

Eric Stevens, also known as Kill Monger from Black Panther, is another bad boy that I would love to hate. Only, I don’t hate him. In fact, I had a grave disliking for the Wakanda people who killed his father, and left a little boy alone to fend for himself. Abandonment is a wound that seemingly never heals. In fact, it tends to fester into hatred, anger, and resentment. The people of Wakanda were living high on the hog. Meanwhile, the whole world was falling apart around them. Kill Monger represented the oppressed, the poor and downtrodden people all over the world. Kill Monger wanted to help people not only defend themselves, but to overthrow corrupt governments and puppet political leaders. Afterall, that’s how power works right? Nature favors the brave and in the famous words of Kill Monger there are only the conquers and the conquered. Yet, T Challa understood that Kill Monger’s intentions weren’t good. He was angry. And whenever there is anger there is also a great deal of pain. If T Challa was ever going to be a conqueror. He would be just as vicious and mean as all the conquerors before him. And that seems to be the primary difference between the good guy and the bad guy. The good guy has some level of self-awareness. He understands his flaws and his weaknesses. The bad guy, however, tends to have a super inflated ego. The ego makes them a worthy contender. Yet, they can’t sit back and examine their own behaviors, to figure out what went right or wrong. Furthermore, the bad guy seems to have a chip on his shoulder. He succumbs to his own flaws and seems to deflate when someone suddenly gains the upper hand. And instead of looking inward, he starts to allow all his anger, hatred, and ego to try and regain control of an external environment. An environment that he doesn’t have much power over. Yes, it’s true, the villains in most movies are great show men. Yet, they simply don’t have the self-awareness to be heroes.  

So, if we have a villain in our life, or a proverbial bad guy who is spewing out all kinds of nonsense. We have to ask ourselves, what lesson is this person trying to teach me about myself? Afterall, relationships, and virtually all encounters mirror your own inner flaws and frustrations. And we tend to react in a negative manner.  Much like our favorite villains, we try to control it, instead of soul searching and learning important lessons about ourselves.   

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