Manhood Movies: Why do actors like Robert De Niro play so many evil psychopaths?

While going through some old photos recently, I happened upon the image above. I took it at an August 2012 screening at the Museum of the Moving Image. The movie is required viewing for basically any white American male of a certain age (especially one of Italian heritage, from NYC): Taxi Driver.

Widely praised as one of the best films of all time, Taxi Driver is a nightmare glimpse into some common aspects of the modern male psyche — consuming pornography, solving problems with violence, degrading women and girls, engaging in obsessive exercise, indulging a gun fetish, etc. This, I suppose, helped to make it “one of the best films of all time.”

Besides the infamous male hero/antihero, Travis Bickle (played by Robert DeNiro — more about him in a minute) Taxi Driver also features a 12-year-old actress playing a traumatized, prostituted adolescent. 

Fun [sic] fact: Jodie Foster had to undergo a psychological evaluation before being allowed to take the role. 

As I pondered seeing this movie so many years ago and at least once more since its original release, I realized how so much of my male socialization had prepared me to seek out and appreciate such “entertainment” as “one of the best films of all time.”

Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese has a small role in his film. He could’ve played any role he wanted and spoke whatever dialogue he preferred but — perhaps offering a glimpse into his personal mindset vis-a-vis women, race, guns, and violence — here’s what scene Scorsese appears in (warning: it’s brutal):

After you’ve had a chance to wash your entire body in scalding hot water, let’s get back to DeNiro. 

Widely praised as the greatest film actor of his generation, what possesses such a man to choose roles like that of Travis Bickle? If it were a one-time thing, sure, but consider the passion he breathed into roles like Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy, Al Capone in The Untouchables, Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull, Jimmy the Gent in Goodfellas, Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Part II, etc.

From there, if you have the stomach, check him out as the convicted rapist and psychopathic stalker, Max Cady, in the remake of Cape Fear. When he’s not seducing a teenage girl, he’s biting the face off of a woman he’s handcuffed.

De Niro made this film when he had the juice to appear in any movie role he wished. He chose to portray a joyously evil killer — yet again — and went to the extremes of altering his body to appear as realistic as possible.

And let’s not forget when De Niro also played the role of Satan himself in Angel Heart. 

So, again, I wonder: What possesses someone to make choices like this in the public eye? What do these choices do to his psyche? What do they do to us, the pliable consumers (especially the young men)? What does it say about us when we judge many of these films as must-see classics?

And what can we do differently to cultivate a new, more uplifting climate of optimism and awareness?