Sweet Comic-Villain Jesus It's Loki: Modern Adoration of the Antihero

Alright, so if there is a proper scientific term for this, I'm unaware of it. I'm very unwilling to call it fangirling, (because I am a sane, logical human and am not prone to random squeals and giggles and weeping,) but that is probably the term that my pop-culture indulgence most closely aligns to.

Women loving the bad boy is more than a bit of a cliche in varied sorts of media, but the incarnations of the Byronic hero has shifted from a niche market to a popular mainstream attraction. What was once the thing of a cult phenomenon for little goth girls like me (see Labyrinth's Jareth, portrayed by rock star David Bowie, or Anne Rice's Lestat) is now a mainstream figure of attraction, from The Vampire Diaries Damon Salvatore to True Blood's Eric Northman to Thor and The Avengers Loki, to (begrudgingly) Christian Grey from the 50 Shades of Grey erotica series; the list goes on and on. Edward from  Twilight does not count because Twilight should not be referenced for anything.

Tom Hiddleston portraying Loki, Norse God of Mischief in The Avengers 2012 film

But why is it that we females (and many a silent male) find these caricatures so wildly alluring? Breaking it down, each of these antiheroes share common traits; beautiful often in an effeminate way, intelligent, charismatic, intensely flawed, sensitive, and powerful, both in their influence on the affected world and sexually. Being in love with the not-quite-100%-villain is easy because they all are reflections of ourselves made larger than life. They are easy to identify with because their flaws are often the focal point of the problem within their story's plot. They are able to walk the fault line between good and evil, masculine and feminine, because of their power, wit, and charisma. They pose a problem for typical male heroes because they are the crazy smart underdog with power equal to that of the good guy and limitless moral apathy. They often say and do what everyone is thinking or wishing they could say, in a way where their actions carry weight and have repercussions that leave fanbases screaming at their televisions and polarized. Their consistency in acting this way, in maintaining such larger than life power and charisma is, in a way, indicative of stability, even if the character himself is not so stable.

What woman does not want those traits and that ability, both in herself and in a partner?

Jareth, portrayed by David Bowie in 1984's Labyrinth

Damon Salvatore of The Vampire Diaries

 The role of antihero and the growing adoration of the characters that embody that role is the declaration of a need to be subversive while remaining eloquent and classy. The antihero gets away with doing bad deeds not because of loud explosions or brawn but because he is smart, devious, and pretty enough to be deceiving.

It is not too much of a stretch then, to link the antihero to the blackface minstrelsy we have been discussing in our American Pop-Culture class, because minstrelsy was immensely popular due to the need for the average white person to indulge and walk on/imitate what was considered the literal wild side, the side that represented forbidden or taboo topics (sex, moral ambiguity, sex, alcohol, intrusive thoughts, impure thoughts, blasphemous thoughts, etc.) that were inexcusably forbidden from polite conversation . Antiheroes are another form of that same spirit behind minstrelsy, an outlet and embodiment of what we wish we were, what we want to say and do, and what we want from a partnership. They are an outlet to our darker side and in your face larger than life, so we don't have to be; the fictitious scapegoat.

It is an added bonus that they are completely politically correct, and for the most part, inoffensive. Team Byron all the way.