Heroes and Villains #6

In most stories, the villains’ motive through creating chaos links to the longing for power. And in a lot of these stories they once had this power or gain it throughout the story meeting this goal. That does not mean reign lasts, but the point is they have it at some point. Now as you read those sentences, what visual came to your mind? If you were thinking of a man, well join this unfortunately participated in club. It just so happens to be that most villains in pop culture are men and I believe this has to do with a little thing called power. In society, power seems to be this thing that many people want due to all the responsibility and jurisdiction that comes with it. The people with power make the decisions and there seems to be only one gender capable of doing so: men. With that being said, the reasoning to why there are so little female villains is due to the fact that they are consumed with the want for power and let’s be realistic, the patriarchy has put in great effort to make sure we believe women and power don’t get along.

           There are some female villains though that are quite favourable with the audiences. This is where the likeable trait comes in no matter how much tragedy they may bring. In Queen of the South, Teresa is your typical Latino cartel archetype who has many redeeming qualities when understanding how they were socialized as they grew up through their hardships that give them a reason to go around causing havoc. We see it all the time from El Chapo to Pablo Escobar. We like the outlaw, we root for them in the end to have the better life they always wanted. And we seem to forget about all the tragedy they have also caused. Teresa is a little different though. In the pilot, the show explains how Teresa came to gain all her power and what motivated her into this direction. Well again the  is a man. The female in television really cannot escape the man which ironically creates a greater divide between the two. And this is where I am stuck. Inevitably this showcases how women can never reach the same standards of men through villainous power demonstrating social inequality of class hierarchy in the drug cartel world. But I do enjoy that my female villains have a little more to them. Men are can just be angry and ready to start a war, where I have found women have been given more complex storylines when addressing their rise to crime. Women have not been the oppressors in history, and I am okay with that. Maybe men have just colonized their minds to be susceptible to wanting villainous power. Teresa is another person with a past that has led her to where she is now. We are able to sympathize with her as a villain because we have witnessed what led her to this point in her life. We get to understand the character and I believe once you have an understanding of a villain, the empathy starts to come out and then they become the soft spot in our heart. So maybe our villains are not exactly like some of the evil men of television, but I think that is what makes them so much better. We want those complex characters and we want them more if they are women.