The Good, the Bad, and the Not Too Bad.

Co-sponsored by Tufts Film and Media Studies, Tufts Department of Philosophy, Center for Humanities at Tufts, and the Boston Cinema/Media Seminar

The question of why we sometimes feel sympathy and other pro- (or positive) attitudes toward immoral protagonists in films and television shows (Alex in A Clockwork Orange[1971], Michael in The Godfather [1974], Tony in The Sopranos[1999-2007], Nancy in Weeds [2005-2012]) is one that has preoccupied theorists and philosophers of film and television. In this talk, the authors analyze, from a moral point of view, the various types of movie characters. As is well known, the standard opposition between heroes and villains does not apply to many films of the last few decades, and this is why the categories of "antiheroes" and "rough heroes" have been proposed. To these categories, the authors add a new one, that of "crypto-heroes"– that is, villains with whom the audience sympathizes because they are…