Who’s Gonna Be The Bad Guy?

As far as it goes, I believe in the basic principle of political correctness; namely, that one's ethnic, religious, or sexual heritage should not make him or her the butt of jokes or unfair treatment by governments or society. But does this mean we can't have any villains?

Let me explain: a commentator on the Fox Business Network recently aired a clip from The Muppets, the new movie featuring the classic puppets created by the late Jim Henson. He then went on to accuse the film of inspirring childrern to take up class warefare when they became adults. His reasoning? the movie's bad guy was a rich person, specifically an oil company owner!

Now, I'm not a movie expert, by any means. But the tradition of rich person as movie villain goes back at least as far as some of the classic films of Charlie Chaplin. I'd be willing to bet it was a part of plots in books, plays and other entertainments well before that.

Okay, it's unfair to cast rich people as the bad people in popular culture. I'll go along, if that's what everyone really wants. But, if not the wealthy as villains, then who?

(Reuters.com)