The real color of the heroes and villains

What makes a man o a woman became a hero or a villain? Is it some specific physical feature? A special kind of temperament or personality, maybe charisma? Is it a certain style of walking, speaking or relating with people? Or is it a particular life story behind them that can always explain the way they behave? Probably, all of the aforementioned aspects should be taken into account if the purest hero and the evilest villain are going to be created by an artist. Nevertheless, the complete idea of these two essential characters for almost any movie in the world should be completed with the image that will define each part, symbolizing the good and evil in the movie. And probably, one of the most important factors of this entire image that defines each side of the antagonism between what represents the good things and the bad things are COLORS.

Thanks to the movie writers, every day we are able to see different kinds of movies: animated, action, comedy, western, documentary, thriller, horror, science fiction, musical, romance, among other types and genres. All of them offer to the audience original scripts, with different characters, stories and scenarios. However, even when the first impression is that all these movies available in the market have nothing in common most of the time, it is possible to find at least one coincident aspect that makes all of them comparable: each of them has its own heroes and villains, of course, represented in a completely different ways.

It is especially interesting the way that the hero and the villain are depicted in the movie “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. This movie represents a fantasy world of wizards, based in a deep and meaningful plot in many ways. The analyzed scene for this movie is performed in the headmistress’ office at Hogwarts, where the young wizard, Harry Potter, is going to be punished by this evil woman. In a very calm mood, she gives him a paper and a very particular feather to write down as many times as possible “I am not supposed to lie”. While writing, Potter starts feeling pain, because he is actually writing with his own blood.

In this movie, the undisputed hero, Harry Potter, is wearing black during this scene, while the villain is in pink, as well as her office, decorated in a kitschy and romantic style. In this case, the good is represented in black, while the evil is represented in pink and nice kitties all around her. According to the meaning of the colors in Argentina, Harry Potter´s analyzed scene is presented, let´s say, in a less orthodox way, compared to other movies. In fact, it could be possible to say that if we try to see the same scene without sound, without the dialogue, the Argentinean idiosyncrasy could understand a complete different situation from the same scene, or even the opposite one: the kind lady in pink, a color related with love in my culture, who likes innocent kitties and have a very polite way of behavior, could be seen as the hero, while Harry Potter, the boy in black tunic, with a angry look in his eyes, could be interpreted as the villain.

Heroes and villains can be represented in different ways depending not only on the particular culture, but also on the individual background of the person who gives them life. But what is out of discussion is that heroes and villains are essential components of any movie, and the visual impact generated by the antagonism caused by the colors chosen to represent good and evil, are fundamental for a better construction of this characters.