New season, new life! In the first part of season 4 of You, available on Netflix, Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) settles in London and becomes Jonathan Moore, a bearded and appreciated professor of literature, who wishes to distance himself from women and his old life. But obviously, his obsessions and his impulses will quickly catch up with him. You adopts the point of view of Joe, a priori the perfect prince charming (he himself believes it), but makes him a very dangerous individual who harasses and kills the women who obsess him. It may seem surprising to be a hit on Netflix in the post-MeToo era. So why do we love Joe Goldberg, despite being one of TV’s greatest fictional psychopaths?
Joe Goldberg is the quintessential antihero. “The question of antiheroes is complicated”, says Gilles Vervisch, professor of philosophy, member of the editorial board of Season. The series review and author ofare you sure you are right ? (Flammarion).
“We like bad guys a lot”
By JR Ewing in dallas to Cersei Lannister in Game Of Thrones via Walter White in breaking Bad, “we like the bad guys a lot”, recalls the expert. When it comes to fiction, the bad guys are generally seen as more complex and interesting than the good guys. “We even tend to get rid of the good guys. We have the Joker without Batman, Maleficent without Snow White, etc. “, laughs Gilles Vervisch, quoting Alfred Hitchcock who estimated that “in the cinema, the more the bad guy is bad, the more the film is successful”.
In this sense, Joe Goldberg is a particularly well-written and interesting character because there is a contrast between his thoughts and his actions. He considers himself a hopeless romantic, but his actions betray selfish, opportunistic, and calculating behavior.
“There may be this cathartic function”
These fictional villains offer viewers the opportunity to transgress. “What is pleasing in art, in fiction, is that you can see and experience things that you cannot experience in reality. There is perhaps this cathartic function,” explains the philosopher. And to illustrate his point: “My favorite series is The Sopranos which allows you to come face to face with gangsters, criminals you will never look like”.
“Joe Goldberg is a seducer”
“Easier, faster, more alluring is the dark side,” Master Yoda said to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back. “If the good is tempting and the evil repellent, it would be too easy”, laughs the philosopher. “Joe Goldberg is a seducer for both women and boys who would like to identify with him”, underlines the philosopher.
On the other hand, if Joe Goldberg is a sociopath, we viewers still think there is good in him. We know that deep down all Joe wants is to love and be loved back. A deeply human desire with which we can identify.
The interpreter of Joe Goldberg, annoyed by the romanticization around his character, recalled on social networks that “he is not really a person who just needs someone who loves him. He is violent. He is delusional. And he’s self-centered. Some women, however, may see this character as a broken person who failed to be loved at some point in their life and feel a deep empathy with him.
“If you looked like a pervert”
If we are so patient with Joe Goldberg, it is also because of his privilege. Penn Badgley also explained that the catchphrase of the series should not be “How far are we willing to go for love”, but “How far are we willing to go to forgive a mean white man? “. And if in addition, he is handsome and well dressed?
In the first episode of season 2, Love realizes that he is following her and chooses to ignore this predation. ” I am sorry… if I seem skeevy (I’m sorry…if I sound suspicious),” Joe says. ” No, I mean you might’ve, if you looked like a skeev… (No, I mean you could have, if you looked like a perv),” Love replies. Aware of this privilege, Joe Goldber therefore uses it to his advantage.
“It allows us to question ourselves”
“To hang on to a series or a film, you have to identify with the character in one way or another”, recalls Gilles Vervisch. Everyone has done or been tempted to research someone online. When Joe starts researching one of the women he’s spotted on the web, you can relate to him. He then takes a step too far, which makes him a stalker.
“Either it’s cathartic, and it allows us to let off steam, which means that basically, we’re no better than him, lists the philosopher. Either it allows us to question ourselves, asking ourselves if, deep down, we are not a bit like him, and there would be a form of moral education in this somewhat caricatured character as a serial killer. »
If we question and condemn his behavior, shrewdly, he can even make us believe that we are better than him. This is probably one of the keys to Joe Goldberg’s portrayal. Where does this complacency with this fictional psychopath come from? “I see in it reflections of our humanity which push us to question ourselves about our own temptation to evil”, concludes the philosopher.