Who are the Bad Guys?

When watching action movies or playing a video game with its setting in modern times there needs to be a bad guy for our heroes to compete with. An American movie or video game set in the Second World War will have our heroes facing the Nazis and Imperial Japan. Move into the cold war and the arch villain of the hero will be the Soviet Union. Now in post-9-11 America the primary enemies in movies and games are terrorist organizations. But are these movies and games reflective of who are actually are enemies or do they just re enforce that idea.

It is not a question that Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and terrorists organizations were and are enemies to the United States. The Soviet Union and Russians in general have been used in numerous games, movies, and books as the arch enemy of the United States even after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most military video games today use Russia as the counter to the United States. Many might see Russia as the bad guy today, especially with the chaos happening in Ukraine. But entertainment has been using Russia as the villain years before this event. I have personally don't see the United States and Russia going to war, but because of the movies and games I have experienced that take place in our modern world, I can't imagine any other generic bad guy to use.

There is another generic bad guy that is rising, China. If the Russia is used in a game or movie as the villain, the next candidate is China. Tensions between China and the United States have had some strong tensions in the past and in recent times, but act more like competitors then arch enemies. Many are fascinated by China's large army and aggressive attitude toward their neighbors and outside influence from the internet and it makes them easy to paint as the main aggressor staring the United States in a game or movie.

The last main enemy of our nation that many movies or games use are terrorists organizations. The heroes of the story fight these groups all across the globe and try to stop the spread of fear in the world. These groups will be found in some developing nation that most people don't know where they are on the map.

Looking at the generic video game and movie bad guys of one nations entertainment, it is interesting, and you can see what a majority of a population sees as our "enemies" and what they might be in the future.