Look at every ‘Best Movies’ list and you’re bound to find among them titles like ‘The Godfather’, ‘Scarface’ or ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. It’s not only about the great actors in them, people love this sort of movie and, let’s be honest about it, most of the time the audience sides with the bad guys. Is this good or bad? Is this a sign there’s something wrong with Australian or global society or is it just an innocent form of entertainment?
Escape from reality
One explanation for our fascination with criminals on the silver screen is that such movies allow viewers to escape from their mundane and often bland existence. Women are attracted to the bad-boy sort of hero, while men secretly dream of being like them. Maybe not killing people or committing the actual robberies, but at least the other part – having super fast cars, huge mansions and being surrounded by beautiful women.
The vast majority of movie-goers are nice law-abiding citizens, but for a couple of hours they can be the bad guys. Or dream about it.
Rebellion against the system
Another reason audiences are entranced by ruthless gangsters in movies is that most people feel they’re not in control of their lives. Maybe they don’t dwell on it consciously, but they feel it on a subconscious level. To make things even worse, people know that living an honest life and having an honest job doesn’t really pay. A lot of people struggle to make ends meet and, actually, one of the reasons they go to such movies is to forget about bills and mortgages or how are they going to pay for a new car they badly need. Many work hard but see themselves always drowning in debt and they wish they could change that.
Would you have a career criminal as a workmate?
Or would you have a gangster as your next door neighbor? God, no, that’s how all who enjoy movies about criminals would reply. We like them on the screen, on TV or in a crime novel, but not in real life. This is the reason people try to find a good neighborhood to raise their children in and avoid going to those parts of the city they know are rife with drug dealers, prostitutes or violent gangs.
At the same time, this is why more and more businesses in Australia are performing thorough background checks on their employees. For example, in Australia if a person is required to have contact with vulnerable people like children, they are required to undergo a working with children check which also takes into consideration their spent convictions.
Obviously, Al Capone isn’t going to apply for a job any time soon, but what about fraudsters, thieves or convicted embezzlers. This sort of people are always looking for new victims so Human Resources need to be vigilant at all times. Over the past few years, companies have been increasingly looking to online agencies that streamline the checking process; for example in Australia, the australian national character check can run background checks on future employees after getting their informed consent. If the job applicant has a criminal record it doesn’t mean that they will be disqualified for the job role however, HR managers will at least have knowledge about it and will be able to make an informed decision before they place such persons with vulnerable people like children or within a position of trust in the workplace.
Criminals are fun only in fiction, not in real life!
