Styled Like A Villain

As a kid, I was bullied for not being blond. In an act of rebellion, I dyed my hair black. It wasn't until after that that people started calling me emo. At the time, even my teacher, (who also dyed her hair black), said ‘Emilie, Halloween was over weeks ago.’ Causing the room to break into a fit of giggles. This perpetuated the idea that teasing me about my goth-ness, my ‘emo'-ness was hilarious.

The problem, of course, wasn’t those terms. By themselves they’re just personal identifiers that can help a person express their style. The problem was they weren’t true to how I saw myself. Cynical, dark-humored, depressed, a person who looked better with dark hair than light hair, sure, but emo, goth. They alluded to a style I wasn’t trying to emulate.

Trust me, those styles are cool but they take a lot more effort than I was putting into my look. I didn’t wear makeup, I wore a simple black t-shirt, maybe featuring some media I was fond of, and usually, jeans or leggings. Human experience is chaotic, eventually other people applying the term goth to me so frequently influenced the style choices I made, so eventually, yes sometimes I did dress quite gothic. I have a secret though, I wear black cause I’m fat.

Light colours make me feel bigger. Bigger is something society says you shouldn’t want to be, which is a conversation for another time. Basically, a lot of internalized fatphobia makes me avoid light colours. That’s why I wear black, I personally think it looks best on me.

All of that is a long winded way to say, two very common words were used against me growing up, goth and emo. Those words were used as insults and I want to examine that for a minute. Because let me be clear: There is nothing wrong with labeling yourself goth or emo.

In media, it is not uncommon for villains to dress a certain way. Until quite recently television and movie bully’s were fat, black dressing punks despite the fact that in reality bully’s can take all different forms. In fact, my being a person who dresses in dark clothing was one of the sources of ridicule for me, and I know being overweight is one for others. So how did that stereotype start?

One: Villains that are bigger are a bigger threat. Back in the days of the school yard bully who wanted to take your lunch money, a character who towered over your protagonist was more intimidating.

Two: Writers love symbolism. Putting your characters in black clothing if their evil helps a reader understand. A lot of writers' decision making is tied to getting information across to the audience.

Three: Similarly to writer’s loving symbolism, Humans like allusions. Writers like alluding to previous art and audiences love recognizing inspirations in media. Because lots of bad people from media in the past have worn black, a writer might decide to put their character in that colour as a reference to other works.

On its own, this isn’t a problem. It is okay to stereotype in fiction, to use your audience knowledge as a basis and not spell everything out for them. Allusion and symbolism are literary devices for a reason, they work. The problem is that while I, and many others can separate what we see in media and real life, some people can’t.

I once had a kid believe wholeheartedly I was a drug-selling thug who was likely to beat him up because I dressed in dark colours. Laughable considering how straight-edge a teenager I was, how much of a pacifist I am, but to him, by dressing in black I was telling him I was a bad person.

So is it the responsibility of the writer to examine those stereotypes when applied in their writing? Is it better for us to stop alluding to those stereotypes? It certainly has started. More modern media features beautiful bullies than in the past. That stereotype of a fat angry kid doesn’t get used, and when it is, you often see that character deconstructed in a way that explains them to the audience better.

But that’s not the only time we use the ‘bad’ symbols to allude to evil. Think of the Bad Boy. He wears a black leather jacket, he listens to rock music, punk music, he might have dyed his hair, and he’s an asshole. He’s violent, he is selfish and falling in love with him will only get you hurt.

Only… I’ve met punks. I’ve met goths, and rockers and sometimes they’re angry, but one thing almost all of them have in common is they’re outcasts. They understand what it feels like to be othered and for the most part, they don’t hurt other people. In fact, the anarchists, the punks, these are the people standing up against hurting people. Bad apples exist but portraying all ‘bad boys’ in that one fashion style perpetuates the idea that people who dress in black are evil.

TL;DR: having your villain be a goth isn’t inherently harmful but the lack of other representations of evil have literally warped the minds of humanity and made it more likely to get bullied for dressing in black than you would be if the media showed villainy in all its colour palettes.