Top 10 Classic Hollywood Characters Who Were the Real Villain of the Story

We’re not the first to make the case, but it’s hard to argue with the facts. Willy Wonka may be scary, but he’s not a monster. Grandpa Joe, on the other hand, is a menace. Let’s look at the facts. He lies around all day, filling the Buckets’ tiny house with his tobacco smoke. Then that golden ticket arrives, and suddenly he’s Gene Kelly. It’s also his idea to steal those fizzy lifting drinks, nearly killing both him and his grandson and incurring the chocolatier’s wrath. This may all be a series of fun contradictions not meant to be taken literally and blown completely out of proportion by the Internet. Or maybe that’s what Grandpa Joe partisans want us to think.

This naive and disillusioned suburban son does have our sympathy in the beginning. Even when he begins an affair with the manipulative Mrs. Robinson, you do feel for him as a guy who’s quickly in over his head. But then he decides he’s actually interested in Mrs. Robinson’s daughter, Elaine. That’s only after completely humiliating Elaine to try to kill their relationship before it starts. Once the truth is revealed and Elaine breaks up with him, things take even more of a turn. Ben Braddock’s post-undergraduate malaise may be a giant mood, but his relentless and cruel pursuit of Elaine has a lot of unintended and unfair consequences for her.

Look, calling James Bond a misogynist is like calling the sky blue. It’s just kind of what you expect. That’s to say nothing of the countless people he’s murdered for His Queen and Country. But something about Sean Connery’s incredibly callous approach, particularly in “Goldfinger,” really makes it hard to ignore just how ruthless he is. Not only does he treat the women in the movie like dogs, but he also manages to get two of them killed without batting much of an eye. His heavy-handed seduction of Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore, who attempts to demonstrate her martial arts skills when he won’t take no for an answer, certainly doesn’t help his case. But don’t worry, the music is romantic…

Everyone remembers the eccentric Norma Desmond, a silent film goddess living in the past because she’s afraid of the world outside. Her delusions are tragic and ultimately dangerous. But she’s not living in those delusions alone. The writer protagonist can barely contain his disdain for her in his voiceover narration, but it’s her faithful butler and ex-husband, Max, making sure she stays locked in her delusions forever. He writes the fan mail and protects her from the reality that she’s been forgotten, instead of allowing her to see the truth, or at least helping her get treatment.

Veda Pierce is rotten, but she’s no bad seed. She is the product of a father who was emotionally absent before he was physically absent and a pathologically devoted mother who indulged her every whim. But given Veda’s worst qualities and the amount of times Mildred excuses inexcusable behavior out of maternal love and shame, perhaps she needed a little less devotion and a little more reality. Mildred even attempts to protect Veda when she murders Mildred’s new husband. By making her daughter’s happiness her sole purpose in life, Mildred ultimately robs her of having to develop any sense of maturity, work ethic, or responsibility.

Everyone remembers it as the story of a washed-up actress abusing her sister, who’s disabled. And that is what it is, but the story’s most amazing and complicated wrinkle comes at the very end. When Blanche Hudson makes her confession on the beach, confessing that the accident which paralyzed her was her own fault and not Jane’s, it turns their entire dynamic on its head. The Hudson House became a tomb for the sisters and former actresses that Hollywood left behind. Jane’s mental state deteriorated under the conditions of their existence, but it was a fate that began with Blanche’s initial act of attempted murder. Who knows what might have happened if the truth had been known from the beginning?

The Wizard may just be a faker who enlists a little girl to eliminate his political rival, but it’s Glinda who really lets us down. First, she has to ask if Dorothy’s a good witch or a bad witch, and then a moment later says, with some authority, that only bad witches are ugly. The real kicker is that the so-called “Good Witch of the North” knows the whole time that Dorothy could just click her ruby slippers together to go back home. We get it. There’s a metaphor here for coming of age, facing life head-on, and taking responsibility for our choices. But when you take it literally, considering what Dorothy goes through to get there, it all seems a tad evil.

Much of the menace and villainy of “Rosemary’s Baby” is blamed on the Castevets, the eccentric next door neighbors who turn out to be Satan worshippers. And yes, they’re evil and scary, but Rosemary’s husband Guy is the real threat. He’s not a Satanist, he’s just a morally-corrupt, self-obsessed coward. He spends the movie gaslighting Rosemary to keep her from finding out about his literal deal with the Devil. This even includes justifying attacking her while she slept by saying it was “baby night”. Yeah, because that’s marginally better than telling her you leased her womb to Satan. Honestly, there’s no punishment good enough for him.

Clint Eastwood entered several phrases into the pop culture lexicon with his boastful blustering. His Dirty Harry Callahan was just one of many police antiheroes from the period, whose horrifying methods included violence, racism, sexism, and the violation of basic human rights. Unlike many other movies like it, “Dirty Harry”– along with its four sequels – doesn’t do much to challenge that. Actors Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster notably turned down the role, disliking the beliefs and messaging involved. Indeed, it’s easy to see the dangers of glamorizing such a character. To some, Callahan is a hero for his values of law and order. However, the movie outlines very explicitly the groups of people who aren’t included in his vision, and it paints an unsettling picture.

“Gone With the Wind” is a technical marvel and a sweeping epic. To many, its protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, is the epitome of the fiery southern belle who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Scarlett is not the type to let something like war get in the way of her happiness. While that’s great for her, everyone else has to suffer as a result. Rhett Butler may just be her equal in cruelty and selfishness. He is a brutal husband, with plenty of his own sins to answer for. The movie may look on their lives and times through a romantic lens, but it doesn’t take much to see just how racist, misogynistic, and unjustly vicious they are.

Did we miss your favorite undercover villain from a classic movie? Let us know in the comments.