Creating a memorable and thought-provoking evil character in a fictional show/story is a struggle. I finished watching Netflix's “You” a few days ago. The show struggled with its evil—also main—character: Joe Goldberg. Nevertheless, it is nice. I never read the book it's based on, but I'm sure certain things are simplified and left out in the show. The show touches on many things, and one of them is that people who got murdered are considered alive because they are active on social media. Being active on Twitter, Instagram, or other similar social media sites became equivalent to being alive. At this point, technological innovation will always move forward because we humans are naturally curious; the most curious of us are scientists. As we move forward in time, people will, slowly, connect only through creatively created spaces that will not let them interact physically.
Watching “You" made me remember how malleable the meaning of "being alive" has been over time. When it comes to social media, I think we should draw a definite line between being active on social media and alive before anything happens. In addition, one thing that kept pondering in my mind is the show’s similarity to one of the aspects of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. In Netflix's “You,” Joe Goldberg is the Monster and Guinevere Beck/Love is Victor Frankenstein.
In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is a scientist with a god-complex. For a scientist, what is godlier than creating life? Fortunately, Victor creates life after months, probably years, of hard work in his laboratory (Sidenote: Frankenstein is the scientist. The Monster is not given a name). Victor dedicates so much to create life; his health deteriorates that he can barely walk when he finishes satisfying his god-complex. Unfortunately, Victor abandons his own creation, which he calls the Monster, because it is not as he expected it would be. Expectations, whether it is ours or society’s, are bullets that can smash our hard works. Expectations do not kill; it leads to depression and that slowly kills. Luckily, the gun is in our hands, and whether we pull the trigger or no is our choice. Victor shots the gun and lets his expectation smash the fact that he creates life. Expectation makes Victor abandon the “Monster.” On the other hand, the Monster’s expectations that his creator should have taken care of him instead of calling him “wretched” hurts him. So, the Monster goes on doing horrible things, mainly killing Victor's loved ones, to make Victor feel the alone like he does.
As we read, Mary does not make the readers hate the Monster. Hate is a simple feeling. Hate is a lack of questioning, understanding, or wanting to know more, and Mary does not go with it No, she makes the readers question if we should hate the Monster after everything horrible it does. He kills Victor’s little brother and then cunningly through justice kills one of Frankensteins' housekeeper. The killings do not stop there; the Monster kills until Victor is alone. Let’s not forget that everything the Monster does is because Victor abandons him. Yes, the Monster does immoral and “wretched” things, but it is not easy to call him evil. (Sidenote: Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein so well that it is arguable to set apart the protagonist from antagonist. When I am saying evil character, I do not mean antagonist. Matter of fact, I am not intending to use the words antagonist and protagonist here). He is supposed to be the evil character, but there is an argument in our heads, as we read, that he did all that because his Creator leaves him alone. From the POV of the Monster, the reader questions everything. In my opinion, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published 200 years ago, is a novel beyond its time because of the Monster; even though he is nameless, he is everything but forgettable. Mary makes the Monster perfect for the readers, but never so for Victor.
On the other hand, there is the Netflix series "You" that tries to make the evil/main character, Joe, as memorable as the Monster. The series is narrated from the POV of Joe. Every episode is narrated in an epistolary storytelling method; it is as if he is writing a letter to Beck, his love interest, explaining that he does everything for her. From the POV of Joe, it looks like he is doing justice by removing all the problems around him and Beck. Not only that, the characters Joe kills have aspects majority of the viewers would not like.
Joe only killed "bad" people. One of them is Benji, who kills a boy and is never punished for it because he is rich. Benji is a rich white blue eyed dude. His privileges have an effect on us: we stop sympathizing with him. In our heads, if Joe goes to the police and tells them about Benji’s crime, there is a possibility of Benji escaping from justice by sprinkling a little green over his deeds to erase them. We question, for a moment, if killing Benji the right thing.
Joe murders Benji believing that he is justified to kill a killer. For a moment, Benji’s murder makes us feel what Joe feels: satisfaction. Nevertheless, Joe does not kill Benji for justice. He kills Benji to slide in with Beck, and because of that Joe to me is just an evil, selfish, cunning, character. Mary Shelly makes the readers stature when they want to say that the Monster is evil. Joe is just evil. For me, he is not as memorable as the Monster, but he is like the Monster in other ways.
Like the Monster, Joe learned everything he knows from the books; he is a book clerk in New York. Like the Monster, all the harm Joe does is because of someone significant in his life. Benji is one of many on Joe's justice duty for "Love" list. Joe argues that he does everything because of Beck. And let's not forget that Beck is one chapter in Joe's book. There is Candace, Joe’s ex. As Joe argues, she makes him do the bad things as well. Pattern? Joe is arguing that he became a monster because of "Love." The show alludes that Love is Victor Frankenstein and it tries to create its own complex monster, Joe Goldberg. The show is nice. Nevertheless, Joe Goldberg, like many main character from Netflix shows, will probably turn to a meme, which symbolizes a creepy stalker. No one will remember him saying that his actions were complex.
The bottom line is, creating a deeper level of complexity to a character's action on screen and making them memorable is not easy. When it comes to novels, we read the actions of characters and imagining the actions is left to our own imagination. In series and movies, actions of characters are imaginations of other people and probably that is the reason why characters like Joe will never be remembered. In addition, this same reason is why there is no memorable Frankenstein movie to this day.