Thriller - The Anti-Hero

The anti-hero is normally a complex and misunderstood character. Often he/she is a character who refuses to conform to the traditional values of a hero. However, the anti-hero often follows a strict moral code, which they strive to uphold, in spite of their flaws. The anti-hero’s flaws help the target audience to better relate to him/her and mean that the movie increases in popularity.

Anti-heroes have been around for many years, films such as ‘On the water front’ (1954) and ‘Rebel without a cause’ (1950) have used anti-heroes to make their target audience better relate to the anti-hero and portray the character as someone to aspire to.

 Now a days anti-heroes are found all over the media, from TV shows such as ‘Dexter’, ‘heroes’ and ‘True Blood’ all the way up too big budget Hollywood blockbusters such as ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Batman the Dark Knight’ and ‘Taken’. Many Anti-heroes come from comic books, were readers can get a far deeper insight into the characters letting them connect on a personal level, most comic book readers want to know as much as they can about a hero, their past, why they do what they do and what they are likely to do next, this is great when it comes to advertising a movie because Anti-heroes have a huge fan base with some websites dedicated solely to the fictional characters.