Bad Guys

I don't know about you, but there are a lot of evil men in literature these days. Whether a neglectful husband or a hopeless romantic werewolf, men aren't just antagonists, they're straight-up evil. To be fair, all this might be a rebuttal for early Disney's lack of motherly figures in the animated flicks. But why are all the male characters evil these days? Join me in a quest to find an answer that might not exist.

Maybe the ladies hate us for real this time.

In 2012 men battle alongside women and many other support groups to ensure equal rights. This is cool. However, sometimes people see the enemy as the male - or all males. Which could lead to an association with books with male antagonists apposing a female protagonist. As a matter of fact, count the books on the shelf of a bookstore. The female protagonist is the in thing. 

On the other hand, the abovementioned theory holds a masculine slant. So to avoid playing Devil's Advocate, let's look at some statistics. 

Compared to previous statistics from Vidaweb, there are a lot more women finding exposure as writers today, but males still dominate the authorship and promotion of a book. All across the board, magazines and major media outlets are interviewing and reviewing more male authors. What's strange is that women make up most of the readership above all. There's almost as many women as men writing today. The reason why the numbers don't reflect such a thing, in theory, is because what women are reading and writing are not of the same nature as the magazines. For instance, you won't find dark romances in The New Yorker. 


Romance novels, especially as young adult fiction, dominate the entire publishing industry. There are more being published every day. They flood bookshelves as booksellers and wash up on our local convenience stores. To be fair, though, men write a lot of romance novels too. 

Truth is, I don't know.

I think the real reason might be a little more Freudian  though. Perhaps we trust women in a motherly sense, whereas most people can relate to battling other male figures. Or it could be writers are using female protagonists to appease to dominating female audience. 

See, I'm not here to spit fire. I'm simply here wondering why. It could be a matter of history.

We've been exposed to many evil men in history. The names we tend to remember are those like John Dillinger, Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy, and so on. Granted, there are plenty of bad ladies out there, but the bad guy is much more prominent. Maybe this is all due to the fact that there are more men in most countries than women.

I'll probably revisit this topic later on. For now, I leave you to answer the question: Why are there so many bad guys in literature? Are we really that evil?

You Might Also Enjoy:

Benefits of Irrational Thought
No-Injury Policy
Ain't Life a Pitch?