In society today, there tends to be an infatuation with the villain of a television show or film. For example, Tate Langdon in American Horror Story, Dexter in the hit series “Dexter,” The Joker in Suicide Squad, Ian Somerhalder in The Vampire Diaries and Katherine Pierce who is also in The Vampire Diaries. There are more villains in shows and films who are romanticized in today's society than heroes.
So the question is: why do people tend to romanticize the psychopath?
No one will ever have a definitive answer to this. I’m sure everyone has a different reason. But in my opinion, people romanticize the psychopath because it appeals to our ID.
Sigmund Freud came up with the structural model of the psyche. Freud believed the personality had more than one aspect. He saw the psyche as something structured into three parts the ID, ego and superego. The ID is the pleasure principle the first stage developed in the psyche according to Freud. It is the dark side of our personality the part of us that wants what we want, when we want it.
The next stage is the ego . “The ego develops in order to mediate between the unrealistic ID and the external real world. It is the decision making component of personality.” And the last stage was the super ego. The superego considers the values and morals of society while making a decision. “The superego’s function is to control the id’s impulses”
It is my personal belief that the reason why we romanticize with the psychopath is because the psychopath resonates and appeals to our ID. Sometimes our ID may feel that we can relate to how the psychopath is feeling and understand why they did what they did.
Sometimes it is because it is so out of the ordinary. Something that is not safe or practical or something that happens every day appeals to the people who are bored with their lives and get a thrill out of seeing this fictional yet entertaining reality of watching a psychopath on television and entering their minds.
Another theory of mine is--well...how could you not?
The villain of a television show or film is usually very attractive, with a very smart brain and usually someone who has been hurt before. People romanticize the villain because they love to hate him or her.
But once you see the villains soft side and weakness or weaknesses it's even harder to hate the villain at all.
A person usually starts to feel as if they connect with the villain.
