Loving the Bad Guys

I just finished watching "Four Brothers" for about the 19th time. I love this movie mainly because I have a private love affair with Andre Benjamin and a budding romance with Tyrese Gibson but tonight, oh tonight, I sat staring at the screen at Chiwetel Ejiofor who played hustler Victor Sweet.

I'm enthralled during the scene when Victor's peoples are eating in the restaurant, the big old dark-skinneded dude, Evan, is sitting in Victor's chair and Victor walks over like some fat cat and goes on his spiel about hiring in-town killers vs. out of town killers and that big dude picks up his fork and eats from his plate - stoopid. Victor catches the dude and orders him to eat his food off of the floor and when Evan's woman protests, he orders the both of them to eat. OH! In a low guttural voice he says: "Lap that ish up good."

And also when the councilman comes to his home and Victor orders him to sit at the children's table, how humiliating. Then he tells one of his workers that he's send him on some out of town work so he can teach his woman some tricks, oh the shame.

Now I sit on my couch, slouched down low, biting my bottom lip. Chiwetel usually plays the corny dude. I've seen him in American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Talk to Me with Don Cheadle but in Four Brothers his character is charming, sexy even, like Nino Brown in New Jack City, like Alonzo Harris in Training Day, Tony Montana in Scarface. Even though these men are so, so bad - they are arrogant, killers, thieves, disrespectful to women, we love these movie bad guys anyway.

But that's exactly why these characters appeal to us and win us over. They exude extreme confidence and complete disregard for societal constraints. What woman does not want a take charge man? What man doesn't want these same qualities himself?

And as sexy as these characters are, when we imagine having that type of man in our lives, we always say the same thing, "he's not going to disrespect me"... and that's because we think we've got the power and know-how to change his evil ways. Women love nice guys, the ones who treat us with respect and actually want relationships but at times they pale in comparison.

I've had my share of bad guys and I can't say that I miss them much but I do occasionally sit and sigh at the memories. One such memory is from high school. I was dating this really nice guy, Sherwyn is his name and he was as in love with me as high school boys can be. He brought me stuffed animals and designer clothes - he had a part-time job. He picked me up and walked me to all of my classes, just so sweet. But my heart laid with this Queens Cat who played games, toyed with my heart and ran in and out of my life. One day as I sat outside leaning up against my boyfriend in front of the school, here comes Queens Cat who walks up to me and tongue kisses me right in front of Sherwyn. My eyes are closed, I'm clutching my chest and trying to get my breath back. With a sorta kinda smirk I get it together and I apologize to my boyfriend and you know what he said to me? "It's all right". What kind of man says "it's all right" after his girlfriend is mixing saliva with some other dude, right in his space, because you know that there is no way that a tongue kiss can take place without 2 participating parties...

Me and Sherwyn broke up. Me and Queens Cat eventually drifted apart and stopped playing the good girl/bad guy games. Now that I think about it, before me and Queens Cat distanced ourselves, we actually became an item, I want to believe exclusively, and I thought to myself then that I had won such a wonderful prize except that QC wasn't much of a prize at all and for once I was the one to walk away from him. Leaving him questioning me with a little less ego and cockiness.