Know what I want more of in my fiction? “Nice Guy” villains. “Incel” villains. Villains who exhibit the most toxic aspects of current masculinity and culture and are shamed for it.

Like Tighten from Megamind.

I know it’s years old but this movie is still the best, especially because of the characterization of their villain. He receives a dozen soft no’s from Roxanne (the Lois Lane archetype), it’s suggested he’s been getting them for years, and he still pursues her even to the point of endangering her life. When he finally understands that her “no” is final, he throws a superpowered shit fit and tries to kill her and her actual love interest (Megamind) and televises it in a ploy to get sympathy (”a reminder of the night she ferociously ripped out my heart”). He has no concept of boundaries or consent, and it is shown for the vile behavior that it is.

And the thing is? I can’t remember another villain like him? Not anywhere. You could make an argument that Snape is a Nice Guy, but the narrative doesn’t criticize the behavior. To the contrary, his eternal love obsession with Lily is praised. Every character who comes even close to Tighten, ends up praised by the end. And I’m sick of it.

Get on Megamind’s level, screenwriters.

Megamind is a great movie and I will defend it to the high heavens.

This would have been a perfect post if the OP hadn’t decided to shoehorn in their hatred of Snape.

Yeah, their claim that the narrative doesn’t criticise the behavior of being an entitled sexist jerk is somewhat true, the assumption that Severus is the “nice guy” when in fact the narrative can’t criticize a behavior that Severus did not show in the canon books or the films. And Severus is never shown acting like a “nice guy”. The closest character to a “nice guy”, entitled jerk James, isn’t criticized by the narrative for his behaviour. He gets the girl in the end and it’s true love blah blah. James is better because Lily loved him and she wouldn’t have loved a bad guy etc. etc. etc. His asking her out at an inappropriate time and then persisting in his pursuit until she finally started dating him while he concealed the aspects of his personality that she objected to is narratively presented as a positive thing. So like most everything on Tumblr this post is partially right and partially made up bollocks to get outraged over. Cool argument but wrong target.

ok ok ok ok ok ok can I just have a quick lil moment of your time?

This shit.

So Hunchback is far and away my favorite movie from Disney’s Renaissance, and it always makes me so happy that yes, people seem to appreciate it, people seem to love it, but I’mma go into exactly WHY it’s my favorite, and WHY I think it’s so crucial, and WHY I think it should be required viewing for young boys specifically.

We all know that a huge bulk of the media we’ve grown up with consistently has that one frustrating message:  Being the hero means you’ll get the girl.  Many boys let this mentality bleed into reality.  We have “nice guys,” who feel that their niceness entitles them to romance, when obviously that discredits a female’s personal choice.  We all get this, we all know this, and a lot of us get that it’s a toxic message.

So check out our hero.

He’s an incredibly good person who isn’t conventionally attractive.

Check out our lady.

Super good person, conventionally attractive.

The movie so deliberately builds up Quasi’s hopes.  There’s a whole fucking song about it.

But Esmeralda, who is her own person with her own motivations and preferences, chooses another man, who is also good and also attractive.

A lot of people criticize this aspect of the movie, the fact that Quasi doesn’t get the girl BECAUSE of his appearance.  But my argument?  This is the best damn message a movie could ever send.

Because when things get dicey, when Esmeralda’s life in in danger, when Quasi would be putting his own life on the line, he knows that romance is no longer within the realm of possibility.  He knows he won’t be “getting the girl.”  He knows this, and he allows himself a moment of bitterness, he risks falling prey to the “nice guy” trope, and he almost succumbs.

“She already has her knight in shining armor, and it’s not me.”

BUT THEN HE DOES THE RIGHT THING.

He has NO ulterior motive for saving her life.  NO ulterior motive for opposing the man who raised him.  And he doesn’t know that he’ll get any reward, he knows he could straight up get killed for his actions, and yet he still acts.

And there’s no bitterness. There’s still so, so much love between him and Esmeralda, pure awesome platonic love, and love between him and Phoebus, and just fucking love all around, it’s amazing.

I’ve heard so many people express distaste at Quasi not ending up with Esmerelda.  Like he was cheated out of some kind of reward.  But have they watched the ending?

Does that look like a man cheated of his reward?  Does he look like he “lost” to Phoebus?  No dude, that’s a man who has everything he ever wanted, and that’s also a man who didn’t “get the girl.”

If that’s not an essential message for young boys to hear, I don’t know what is.

So true!!

And still posts like this always remind me how much Disney changed all these characters...