In a word: yes.

If I were being (slightly) less shallow I guess I would have to say ‘yes, because . . .’ and since I’m not a shallow person (honest!) that’s what I’m going to do. Oh, and sorry this post is late, by the way.  I was tired. Didn’t prepare. End of.

So, bad guys. Well, these guys have a type. A certain look or feel. It usually involves ripped muscles, leather (usually tight) and/or denim (definitely tight) and sleeveless shirts (ooo, biceps!). But if I’m honest, too much muscle and bulging thighs make me nervous. No Mr Universe for me, thank you very much. But, in general, these are guys that look after themselves in the Hollywood-acceptable version of the word. So they aren’t fat, they generally shave (or just have bare chests). Nice hair (short or long, doesn’t matter, even if I have a preference for long). Good clothes.

How many ‘desireable’ bad guys out there are walking around bin liners or shabby, stinking rags? And even if they are, is this the ‘real world’ version of those things or the ‘Hollywood’ version?

Obtained from www.http://buffy.wikia.com/ under CC-BY-SA license.

Take Spike (and yes, there will be a lot of Buffy parallels . . . I can’t help it, that’s just what I’m watching right now!). Ice-white peroxide hair, all slick and smooth. Black clothes, not form fitting, but certainly not baggy. Big, black leather coat (which has a back story all of it’s own, I recently discovered!). Black nail varnish. *shivers* More guys should wear make up. Or at least nail varnish. Dudes certainly should not be afraid of highlighting certain features with a little bit of slap. We’re expected to, why not them? Anyway . . . he’s a bad guy. Even when he’s trying to be good he’s a bad guy. When he’s forced to be good he doesn’t do a very good job of that either. But you love him anyway. More on that later.

Now… what about a character like Wolverine? He’s not a bad-bad guy. He’s a good-bad guy, but we like him too. Is it the shirts (like I said, mmm, biceps!), or the crazy owl hair flick? The mutton chops? Those bad-ass claws? The amount of nude scenes they somehow get him to do? *drool* I mean, we’re supposed to root for this guy because he’s the hero/star of whatever piece he happens to be in, but would he be as attractive to us if he wasn’t . . . well . . . attractive? More on that later. 😉

Looks is just one of the reasons we’re trained to like bad guys. Next week I’ll be talking about another reason. How they talk. ^_^