Many people consider evil depicted as the 'bad guy' in a movie. The antagonist is generally portrayed as power hungry, relentless and a bit off in the head. Oh, and they must laugh maniacally. Muhahahaha! Always gives the bad guy away. Yes, and they wear black and have bad goatees.
Some shows have gone to making the bad guy laughable and dumb, creating a mixture of comic relief and plot tension. Team Rocket, the trolls from The Tenth Kingdom, the hyenas in The Lion King are all amusing, but they tend to be the henchmen of a worse bad guy. Occasionally, these henchmen have a change of heart and turn on their masters, like Kronk in The Emperor's New Groove.
And now, the dressed in white, good guys have been sullied. A lovely new mix to plots in movies is when the protagonist, main character, is also the antagonist to someone they deem as the bad guy. If you think about it, all of the main characters in the Oceans (insert number) movies are bad guys. They aren't forced to steal because a bad guy has taken a family member hostage. No, they choose to steal and do so repeatedly. Whether the person they steal from is a bad guy in his own right or not, really isn't the point.
So, we have bad guys becoming good guys and then good guys turning into bad guys, what message does that subliminally send? It's all good? It's all bad? If you follow your heart, you'll alway head in the right direction, for you?
Seriously? How can a good guy be good if all the moral perimeters have been removed from our society? If there is no right or wrong, only what's best for you, what determines what's best for you? Some innate sense of being good? At what point is the 'best for me' determined by my own selfish desire instead of our idealistic belief that we are good people who just want to love those around us?
"Well, I've always considered myself a good person." What makes you good, your actions, your words? Or do you just feel that you are good in your heart? Wow, sounds like a pile of Disney feel-good nonsense to me.
Let me submit to you another possibility. I'm not a good person. I'm selfish and judgmental. I'm greedy and lazy. I'm hateful, especially when I'm driving, and I'm opinionated. Whether or not you have witnessed the above mentioned faults, they are present in me and sometimes quite dominant. Does that make me a bad guy or a good guy?
Wait, you say, I've met you and you aren't all that bad. True, I am quite amazing, but there is bad a stuff in me, so how can I be a good person? Is there some magical balance of good and bad and, depending on your actions, tips one way or the other? Yin and yang, balance, wax on wax off . . . . .
I'll simple end with this and leave you to draw you own conclusion.
"15 What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. 16 So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. 17 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! 18 I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. 19 I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. 20 My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. 21 It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. 22 I truly delight in God's commands, 23 but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. 24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? 25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different." Romans 7