Villains: Much More Than Nihilism in Society? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Villains are the characters whose evil motives or actions are vital in the plot of a movie, novel, or a play. In most cases, such figures are only perceived as representing nihilistic traits in society. However, there is much more that such characters symbolize in their world. Nevertheless, any work of art is developed in a way that it becomes a mirror in society. As such, the motives and actions of villains resonate with those of some people in the real world. The purpose of such characters is hence to make social commentary on the evil reasons that exist in society and how people end up in such practices. In this analysis, the villain adopted for review is Black Mask from Batman. The central aspect will be to show that Black Mask symbolizes real child abuse. To effectively achieve this, the background information about this actor will be analyzed.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Summary

The real name of the black mask is Roman, who was a son from a wealthy family. His father was among the most successful industrialist. However, the bringing up of Roman was not as expected. He experienced a lot of child abuse and neglect. Though his parents were wealthy, they cared very little about their son wellbeing. There is enough evidence in this TV series that they just cared about their social status. This can be witnessed right from the time Roman was being born. For example, immediately after he was born, his parents covered him up so that their friends could not see him ignoring the impact that such an act would cause to an infant. The other incident is when a rabid raccoon attacked him. Still, instead of becoming more concern about how he could be treated, the first thing they could do was to give him a stun warning about telling anybody about the incident (Escalante). They would do all this not for the wellbeing of their son but to protect their social status.

When he was a grown-up boy, his parents also forced him to do things outside his will. They would frequently drag him into parties where they would meet other people in the same social class. However, the worst thing is that they would force him to form a friendship with other children from wealthy families in Gotham such as Wayne's (Escalante).

After graduating from high school, Roman was placed in a high rank in his prosperous Janus Cosmetics, which was his father's company. However, it is when he was here that he fell in love with a model named Circle, who was a working class. Nevertheless, his parents could not entertain such a relationship between their son and a girl below their social level. As such, they demanded that they break their relationship. This made Roman feel that his parents had pushed him too much to the extent that he had to react. He reacted by torching his family mansion, where the parents burnt to death (Escalante).

With the parents dead, Roman took over the control of the Janus Cosmetic. However, he lacked sufficient skills to operate the company. Various acts can prove that he was not competent in learning such a business. For example, he ruined the company by accepting to fund a failed line of make-up. This made him desperate, and hence he considered pouring his money in a waterproof makeup, which he instantly allowed to be released to the public even before it was sufficiently tested and proved to be safe for human consumption. It caused a lot of mischiefs where most of the women who applied it were left disfigured. This incident impacted his life greatly because, in addition to losing a lot of money and defaming his company, Circle, who was now engaged to him, announced in front of all the staff that their engagement was no more due to this incident (Escalante). Janus Cosmetic was then sold to Bruce Wayne, and a new board of directors was selected.

Losing everything was the turning point of Roman life from a wealthy person to the most notorious criminal. He was unable to admit that he had ruined his life himself. Instead, he turned his hatred to Bruce Wayne. He declared war on him, and he curved a mask with the ebony from his father's coffin. From this time, he started initiating his revenge by killing Wayne's employees while still planning on how to murder Bruce. This mask is ironically permanently burnt in his face to ensure that he covers all traces of his former identity. It was from this point that he ended becoming one of the cruelest and ruthless crime lords in Gotham City. He became the commander of the army of henchmen or the false face society (Escalante).

Roman sadistic nature grew where he committed numerous crimes such as driving her sister insane, painstaking brother-in-law to Cat-woman murder, and destroying the Gotham East End Community center. He was also the undisputed leader of Gotham City underworld, whose aim was to destroy Gotham before he was killed by the Cat-woman (Escalante).

Summarizing the character of the black mask, his origin was from a wealthy family who grew under very unfavorable conditions. Due to the cover permanently burnt on her face, he had a fears appearance that portrayed his sadistic nature. He believed that Bruce Wayne ruined his life, and hence he wanted revenge. His hobby was antagonizing Cat-woman and Batman, torturing his enemies sadistically and collecting masks. His ability and strength included having energy manipulation, which was emanating from lantern ring, ability to hypnotize mind-control using mask, and hand to hand combat skills (Escalante).

Black Mask as a Symbol of Child Abuse

In his world, the Black mask represents the aspect of child abuse in society. According to child abuse act, it is defined as any behavior or lack of that may be detrimental to the well-being of a child. A broad set of practices are covered in this definition, which may include sexual abuse, emotional, physical, and child neglect. In the case of Roman, the experience he had as a child shows a lot of child neglect. For example, the fact that their social status only concerned his parents in expense to his well-being shows that they neglected him, which is a form of abuse. The other type of abuse that he was exposed to is emotional. He was never allowed to select people who he could feel comfortable with since his parents would force him to make friends with an only specified category of people concerning their social status. Besides, he was frequently dragged to parties which he was not happy with. Generally, his interaction with friends was limited to the only high social class which threatened his connection with friends he would feel comfortable with. The fact that his parents even forced him to break up with Circle against his will just because she was from the working class, which infuriated him to the extent of killing them, show long-buried fury out of being denied his right to be emotionally happy with friends of his choice.

The person he became after losing everything was contributed by the child abuse he had experienced. According to Debowska et al. (100), criminals are never born; instead, they are made. This means that people are born innocent, and they are natured to become criminals by the type of environment they are brought up in. A study that was conducted by Schimmenti (344) aimed at determining the predictors of a person becoming a criminal. The participants were those people who have been incarcerated due to severe crimes where their development background was traced to childhood. This study concluded that 80% of all the participants had experienced a particular form of child abuse in their tender age. The finding from the above research was also supported by another study by (Allely et al., 288) which aimed at analyzing the psychology of a serial killer. Similarly, this study also concluded that child abuse shapes the mind of a serial killer. To support this finding, the killing pattern of different serial killers was analyzed. It was found that most serial killers target only a defined group of people whom they may feel violated their rights as a child. For example, a child who was always neglected by his/her babysitter may only target individuals with that responsibility whenever he feels that they are not taking their responsibility as expected.

In the case of the Black Mask, the people he targeted may also show the type of people he had a grudge with. He always targeted Bruce Wayne not because he was the one who had caused his sufferings but because he perceived him as a representation of his parents, whoever neglected him just because of their concern about social status (Escalante). Anyone who seems to act as his parent due to social class would become his target with no reasonable cause.

Child abuse has become a common phenomenon in the United States. Various acts have been put in place to protect children from such acts. However, a lack of a proper mechanism to recognize such action had been a significant problem. The character of the black mask is an excellent example of how child abuse is occurring silently in the society even in the people from high social class. As it may, the outcome of such behaviors is detrimental not only to a child but also to the society since child abuse has been proved to be a predictor of criminal actions. Combating child abuse is hence, vital as it can help in reducing the crime rate in the society.

Works Cited

Allely, Clare S., et al. "Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers." Aggression and Violent Behavior, vol. 19, no. 3, 2014, pp. 288-301.

Debowska, Agata, et al. "What do we know about child abuse and neglect patterns of co-occurrence? A systematic review of profiling studies and recommendations for future research." Child Abuse & Neglect, vol. 70, 2017, pp. 100-111.

Escalante, Michael. "Year of the Villain: Black Mask #1 Review." Batman News, 23 Aug. 2019, batman-news.com/2019/08/23/year-of-the-villain-black-mask-1-review/.

Schimmenti, Adriano, et al. "Abuse in childhood and psychopathic traits in a sample of violent offenders." Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, vol. 7, no. 4, 2015, pp. 340-347.