Culture

The “Movie Villain VS Real Villain” Meme Will Make You Rethink Your Most-Hated Characters

Never go full TERF.

by Michelle Rennex  10 July 2020
movie villain jk rowling

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Every few months the argument pops up online that Andy’s boyfriend, Nate, from The Devils Wears Prada is the movie’s true villain. Not Miranda Priestly.

Despite the script painting Andy’s boss out to be the antagonist of the film, upon further reflection you can see that it’s actually her boyfriend — who’s actively trying to hold her back from success — that is the absolute worst.

Nate was essentially a giant man baby, who got upset whenever Andy would try and focus on progressing in her career. He was never supportive of Andy, insulted her when she told him she landed a fashion mag job, and chucked a full-on hissy fit when Andy couldn’t attend his birthday as she had a work emergency.

Meanwhile, while Miranda was scary and intimidating at first, it’s clear that she just wanted Andy to progress and succeed in her career. However, all of Nate’s constant guilt-tripping worked on Andy, who ended up quitting the job she worked so hard for to rekindle her romance with her dropkick boyfriend. True villain behaviour.

The same argument has circulated online for a while about Sharpay from High School Musical being unfairly painted as the villain throughout the films. But surely anyone who had trained their entire life in musical theatre would be hurt by some random girl and disinterested jock, with no experience or passion, stealing all of your parts.

Well, this discourse around movie “villains”, who weren’t so villainous after all, has inspired a whole new meme. The “movie villain vs the actual villain” meme has picked up traction over the last week, with people sharing all their favourite movie and tv show antagonist who deserve justice.

Going further, people even used the opportunity to highlight the real, and often unseen, villains who have been overlooked by most. For example, as people debate whether Red or Adelaide from Us are the villain of the film, it’s forgotten that the government were ultimately responsible for most of the unfortunate events that occurred.

Similarly, it’s not Breaking Bad’s Walter White or his wife who are the evil ones, but rather the unjust costs of health insurance in the US. This is also the case for Mean Girls, where the villains are neither Regina or Janice, but Coach Carr and his affinity for sleeping with students.

But while some had a more literal take with characters on screen, the “movie villain vs the actual villain” meme snowballed into calling out the true injustices of the world — like J.K Rowling going full TERF, Jennifer’s Body getting an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score despite being a great film, and in a full circle moment, everyone always bringing up the Nate vs Miranda debate when the topic of movie villains come up.