Playing the Bad Guy Is a Necessary Acting Job

We, the undersigned members of the UVA (United Villains of America), must take exception to the Counterpunch from Ira Zimmerman, chairman of the advocacy committee of the Stuttering Project (Calendar, Oct. 28), applauding ABC for censoring scenes in that network’s presentation of “A Fish Called Wanda.”

The scenes in question were those in which Kevin Kline, the villain, takes time out from grand larceny, attempted murder and various other criminal activities to make fun of Michael Palin’s stuttering character.

We are villains. We are expected to do bad things!

When Richard Widmark pushed the wheelchair-bound old lady down the stairs in “Kiss of Death” and Alan Arkin terrorized the blind Audrey Hepburn in “Wait Until Dark,” they were simply providing examples of negative behavior. In other words, being villains. That’s our job. We’re the bad guys.

If villains are not to be permitted to perform reprehensible acts, popular entertainment will surely be the worse for it. Next, they’ll be telling us we can’t maim, torture, extort or steal--and then we’ll all be in a pretty mess.

Who wants to sit through a two-hour movie with no conflict and no bad guys? Even the Bible would be little more than a book of poetry without adultery, revenge and Armageddon.

The letter from the Stuttering Project, though perhaps well-intentioned, is a slap in the face of a time-honored tradition. All we villains ask is to be allowed to go on providing the world with portraits of what not to be.

Finally, the sort of censorship suggested by the above example only serves to confuse the distinctions between good and evil and undermines the work to which the United Villains is dedicated.

We can think of no better example than “A Fish Called Wanda” itself. With the scenes of Kline tormenting the stuttering Palin excised, Palin’s subsequent revenge with a steamroller seems to be rather an overreaction.

And his stuttering character, which elicited such compassion in the theatrically released version of the film, is turned into nothing more than a sadistic sociopath.

Not that we have anything against sadistic sociopaths--it is the threat to our livelihood that rankles us. In other words . . . if the bad guys can’t be bad, then the good guys will have to be. We say: leave villainy to the professional bad guys. We’re good at it!

Ernst Blofeld

Simon Legree

Fu Manchu

Freddy Krueger

Gargamel

Fagin

Bluto

The Sheriff of Nottingham

Wicked Witch of the West

Prof. Moriarty

Ming the Merciless

The Thing

Dr. No

Iago

Cruella de Ville

Goldfinger

Dracula

Gordon Bressack, recording secretary, United Villains of America