Villain

A villain is a bad person, especially in fiction. Villains are the fictional characters, or perhaps fictionalized characters, in drama and melodrama who do evil deliberately and work against the hero. As such, villains are an almost inevitable plot device, and more than the heroes, the villains are the crucial elements upon which plots turn. Female villains are sometimes called villainesses.

Stereotypes

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There are many villain stereotypes. A caricature of a common cliché villain can be seen at the right of this page. In the era before sound in motion pictures villains had to appear very "visually" sinister, and thus many villain stereotypes were born. The Rocky and Bullwinkle characters Boris Badenov, Natasha Fatale, and Snidely Whiplash, as well as the Hanna-Barbera character Dick Dastardly, are well known parodies of this kind of character archetype.

Related Topics:
Stereotype - Motion pictures - Rocky and Bullwinkle - Boris Badenov - Natasha Fatale - Snidely Whiplash - Hanna-Barbera - Dick Dastardly

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These stereotypes include black clothing (often quite formal - capes, top hats, etc), facial hair, sharp features, and a perpetually "angry" facial expression. Other non-visual villainous stereotypes include a habit of "evil laughter," a snooty or smarmy voice, and a haughty overconfidence that leads to the unnecessary explanation of one's sinister plans. This exposition, of course, is a fairly transparent plot device. There is an opposing stereotype of the beautiful villain who looks like a hero, but his/her personality and attitudes betray a diabolical nature. This especially came well known after World War II when the Holocaust was exposed which led to the popular villain who reflects the Nazi blond and blue eyed ideal, but that beauty hides an arrogant sense of his/her superiority and foul ambitions to make his/her "inferiors" suffer. The blond, blue-eyed villain has in recent time been extrapolated into a strange stereotype, the Evil Albino - a villain who displays several physical traits usually associated with albinism (eg. pale skin, platinum blonde hair, blue or red eyes) despite not necessarily being supposed to suffer from that particular condition.

Related Topics:
Evil laughter - Unnecessary explanation - Plot device - World War II - Holocaust - Nazi - Evil Albino - Albinism

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In opera and musical theater, the villain/villainess is played usually by a baritone/mezzo-soprano.

Related Topics:
Opera - Musical theater - Baritone - Mezzo-soprano

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