Ridicule and Contempt for Minions

This chapter presents minions as part of a typology of primary characters including heroes, villains, victims, and minions. Character work tends to portray the weakness of victims—paradigmatically women and children—as the lack of physical power, whereas the weakness of minions lies more in their ineptitude and in an overexcitability that undermines effective action. Inept characters cannot be too threatening and thus need not be punished or repressed too thoroughly. They will go away, self-destruct, or see the error of their ways with little outside intervention. It is hard to blame them. Villains are the real threat. Portraying one’s opponents as ineffectual is a way to discourage their potential backers and to undermine their own confidence, but it also may relax and demobilize one’s own team.

Contempt · Psychoanalysis · Algebraic and Geometric Analysis · Psychology · Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics · Social Psychology

• Humour in jihadi rhetoric

  Open Access•Weeda Mehran, Megan Byrne et al.•Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism…•2022

  Add to list