Creating Villains People Love To Hate Summary

In Lee Masterson’s, “Creating Villains People Love to Hate”, she illustrates how villains who lack proper motive and composure lead readers to push away from any emotional interest from the plot itself. By explaining her argument on how every villain should be portrayed and illustrated, through a general and broad sense, readers are properly able to understand why certain villains may not contribute fully to a plot through her appeal to logos. However, in their articles, Fischoff and Freeman both tackle their arguments of “Heroes and Villains” from different angles and perspectives. Fischoff illustrates a similar relationship of villains directly through a cinematic aspect by the impact it has had on the film industry. In addition, Freeman’s

odd approach on the “Heroes and Villain” argument takes onto approach an unusual kind of hero, the working class and how they have changed New York for the better. While both Freeman and Fischoff have solid arguments of “Heroes and Villains”, Masterson’s appeal to a larger audience through her broad synthesis lets readers truly apply their own knowledge and input on her subject.
Masterson puts properly that as a writer, “Your job here is to make your villain credible, logical, and believable, but not likable” (Masterson 715). Seems simple enough. The fact that Masterson illustrates is that many writers attempt to formulate a villain with likable and unique characteristics that overlook their ultimate purpose. This reason is why many readers may relate to this issue and see how certain villains, even with the most robust attributes, may fail to be good at being bad. Masterson simply puts that although villains should be bad, they shouldn’t be bad being a main. She says that villains should be “real, three-dimension people” (Masterson 715). This lets readers connect closer towards the protagonist as it clearly defines how the antagonist is a real threat. She allows readers themselves to think of actual successful villains, whether real or fiction; to be thought of as having complex personalities. Putting this in a general spectrum lets readers understand why they would lose interest towards a villain who lacks purpose; thus leading readers to believe that that story is just another hero/villain story. So Masterson focuses on the two main effects of this issue: Readers slowly lose emotion towards a villain’s impact on the hero and they also push away from any depth within a story. By illustrating these two reasons, Masterson creates a formula of why a villain can let any story fail. She puts her reasons in a comprehensive and broad spectrum for readers to apply to any dull villain. That’s what makes her argument easier to follow.
Unlike Masterson, Fischoff gives examples of villainy in accordance to films and movies where villains either fail or succeed as characters. Through this, he illustrates concrete relatable examples to some readers. However, not all readers have seen or understood the movies that Fischoff uses in his argument. Albeit it adds credibility to his examples as a writer, it loses reliability as it draws conclusions too quickly about reader’s familiarity with his examples. He precedes one paragraph with, “Where would The Maltese Falcon have been without the Sydney Greenstreets, the Peter Lorres, even the Elisha Cook Jrs.?” (Fischoff 707) Fischoff assumes that his readers are to understand the characters and their relationships by its underlying outside references. I personally didn’t watch half of the movies that Fischoff uses in his argument and that makes it even harder to follow his argument as a reader. Yet he continues to lean heavily on his references. Masterson keeps her synthesis short and concise with her points. Masterson even uses words such as “villains” and “bad guys” in her examples so that readers themselves can think of villains who fail as characters. Readers are put in a more coherent perception as opposed to Fischoff’s cinematic examples. His argument is credible, but unlike Masterson’s, it lacks synthesis and explanation through his narrow examples that set apart Masterson’s evaluative formulaic envision of the villain conflict.
Freeman, though, takes on a different approach to heroes through the working class.

He makes the appeal that “not all heroes wear capes” and how the most overlooked group of people make up the most fundamental part of society. His approach works out in the sense where he says how the working class has contributed, as he references their efforts in past historical events that point out their success as “heroes” from World War II from the 70’s to the aftermath of September 11th. By saying this, he illustrates how they have always been hiding in the shadows in their cubicles creating the effort to make New York, and subsequently America, a better place for society. While his argument seems credible for the most part based on its historical context, it becomes incoherent leading away from the “heroes” aspect. It indistinctively becomes more of an informative article on the rebuilding and economics of New York. Freeman says after the events of 9/11, “Already, political and business leaders have called for appointing a rebuilding authority, empowered to circumvent zoning and environmental regulations and normal controls over public spending” (733). He clearly pushes away from the working class and more towards the call to action for government. Small disjointed tangents away from the fact that the working class as heroes makes his argument ultimately fail. He leads more into the business, economic, and social structure than the actual heroes themselves. His argument on the working class in New York gets off topic frequently connecting one somewhat linear explanation of the working class bettering New York

City.
All three arguments have a solid argument presented making good points on the topic of “Heroes and Villains” Fischoff makes well thought out points of villains who were forgotten in cinema with the reason being that villains are villains because they were made to be. They should have the motive and justification to trump their hero. He made it relatable to certain audiences, which is good, but not to the masses of readers. Although, Freeman exposes that of the working class in New York City and where unity comes from entirety. He describes their efforts on building the social and economic structure of New York and that not every hero wears a cape. But he also fails to stay on topic and coherent with the actual working class as opposed to how they helped New York City. Masterson presents the superior argument as it advocates for villains to have meaningful motives and complex attitudes, just as the hero would have, and just as we humans have as well. She even says how, “Your villain is no different” (Masterson 715). And she does this through her simple, yet powerful dictate to make your villain, “credible, logical, and believable, but not likable” (715). She makes it easy, broad, and coherent for her audience to the masses to comprehend, thus making her argument the clearest and most straightforward out of the cluster.