7
WHO'S THE BAD GUY?
Inject a Potent Antagonistic Force
My 11- and 13-year-old sons are my unofficial focus group on big studio movies. When I take them to the theater, I not only watch the movie, I watch them experiencing it too. When they get restless, I whisper to them: “Why are you bored?” And their answer is always the same: “There's no bad guy,” followed by: “Can we leave?”
Antagonists can take many forms—and are not always personified:
•In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the antagonist is time.
•In Contagion, the antagonist is the epidemic.
•In Jaws, the antagonist is, of course, the shark.
•In The Perfect Storm, it's the hurricane.
•In Juno, the main antagonist is the unborn baby.
•In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the antagonist is the ...
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