The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a Movie-Type Evil super lord.

Waning, extreme parody of point of essay coming up!

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One Career I have considered is becoming a Movie-Type super lord and taking over the world in a flurry of evil laughing and people in silver jumpsuits. This career has been an option to me since I was a small child growing up in the lonely German/Russian/ insert appropriate aggressor to the American markets here, and used to hold my dolls hostage and once took of the school by paying a few of the younger children off to help me and placed the teacher in an overly - elaborate - but - easily - escapable situation while asking the community for 'one million dollars.' Apart from the fact that no one in the village actually understood English, and there was barely one million pence in the village between us, let alone anyone who had American Dollars or could reach the buro de exchange before sunset, this plan might have worked if Arnold Swazenegger/ Harrison Ford/ Insert rough-cut-wise- cracking hero here, hadn't turned up and given me a good beating. But since that moment, it has always been a dream of mine to be a super villain.

Super Villains are cool, whatever you may say. Most of them aren't pretty, but no one's exactly going to tell them that are they? They often wear really good costumes, and have the lasted laser weapons. Even in fantasy they always have some evil weapon that can destroy all, that if often an allegory for something like nuclear power or communism. The costumes are often black and shiny, or are robes that make the wearer sweep in the room. Failing that, they at least get a decent designer to do their clothes. Very rarely do you see super villains wearing a mud coated old jumper that had been knitted for them by their grandmother and ripped jeans. They set a standard in dress. Only heroes turn up wearing something that looked like they had been through a hedge backwards and then went to sleep in a pigsty. The Evil Super Lord will only come out of their room when they have been watched, shaved and have their costume ironed and pressed (unless it's a ruffle style shirt, where they make sure that it IS ruffled, or someone gets fired, literally.) And when they send the Hero or the Hero's partner out to die, they never do anything that will mess up their costume. This style and standard is an example to us all.

Evil Super Lords also get the best houses. I myself have always wanted to live in a hollowed out Volcano, or failing that, in a three million dollar condo in the middle of a forest with many rare and beautiful animals. They also don't skimp with the furnishings. They rarely buy their furniture from Ikea, opting for a more seventies look, which is rather retro at the moment. Have you ever seen An Evil Super Lord with some ugly china dog on their mantle piece? No, because they have taste. They have leather couched and sofas, and occasionally opt for a more metallic look, hence the silver jumpsuits. There have been only a few mistakes, like building a Lair under the Antarctic (not only pointlessly illegal, but very, very cold.) and in the abandoned warehouse district (the police always go there first if there's any trouble).

Evil Super Lords also are able to obtain good help. They don't have sidekicks that quip about how they look after a battle, usually having a cat instead that can be used both for revealing plot points and details to their secret plot to. In how many movies have you seen this scene..

Henchman: Mr (insert appropriate name here), I can no longer work at you biological weapons plant because I feel that I'm wasting my talent here. I would rather go work at the labs at GoodGuys corp.

Evil Super Lord: Okay, have your last wage packet and I hope you find what you want at GoodGuys corp., even though they are my deadly enemy.

Scenes like this don't happen! The evil lord is more likely to whip out the gun that the very henchman worked on, and kill him with it. They get loyal help, and they usually don't desert him until the end of the movie because it is poetically right for that to happen. The Evil Super lord, if he is shrew, doesn't ever have to actually move again. He can get other people, or create a machine to breath for him, like Darth Vader in Star Wars did. Even Davros, the inventor of the Daleks didn't need to do anything. He was blind, wheelchair bound and green, but he was probably Doctor Who's most feared enemy, except perhaps the cyborgs, but they weren't all that good at acting had had less impressive weapons.

But there are some disadvantages. For one thing, very few Evil Super Lords have a full set of appendages, and often are very ugly. Although being Evil is an ugly game, for some of them there is no excuse. Davros falls under this category again as he frightens both small children, and fully grown adults with his grotesque appearance, even though the budget for Doctor Who was tiny to say the least. Many of them have missing arms or hands, for example, Darth Vader, and often have facial scars, like Dr Evil from Austin Powers. Admittedly, many hero's also have these scars, like Gabriel from D101 and Harry Potter, but they can carry these off with a certain grace. Personally, I have no inclination to throw myself off a cliff and cause permanent damage to my body just to gain Evil Super Lord status. I am also unwilling to shave my head so I end up having to give it a good polish every day like many a Super Lord.

Another disadvantage is that the post is institutionally racist. If you are not a White aristocratic male, then your chances are not good of being a super villain. If you are a woman, for example, the only way you can become a Super Villain is by killing off the White aristocratic male Evil Super Villain, usually after a sexual encounter with him, and take over the business. It is also les likely if you come from an ethnic minority, but the chances are heightened if you are disabled strangely.

A great disadvantage is the stupid accent you need to be a super villain. They often have such strong accents that no one can understand what they're asking for, or what there ingenious plans are. The accent usually borders on the ridiculous, making it impossible for anyone to take them seriously, especially if it is a squeaky voice or extremely low. It is because of their accents that they don't often get the good lines, for example, James Bond often has infamous lines while not many of the Villains do. The script often doesn't do anything to help the poor Villain as he tries to do his role seriously.

But overall, the worse thing about being an evil Super Lord is that they rarely win against the hero, even if the hero has the IQ of your average mashed turnip. It is horrible when someone who only got the job because they could spell their own name best out of three beats you, hands down, with the brain the size of a planet. This phenomena can be blamed on poetic justice, which doesn't believe that the likelihood of a mentally deficient quadruped is likely to be killed if say, a firing squad of about two hundred men shoot at him, yet he will kill all of them off with his Kung-fu skills. It believes that 'good' will triumph over 'evil', although who the 'good' and the 'evil' are in modern cinema is starting to get very confused. It is the capitalists, or the communists? It is very hard to tell.

But in conclusion, I shall continue to build nuclear weapons out of cardboard cereal packets and sticky back plastic. I shall become a Super Villain with my own army of half-human robots that will take over the world for no particular reason. You never know, a paper flamethrower might be useful if faced with an angry hero with a speech impediment.....