16 Toxic, Selfish, And Controversial Movie Characters Who Should NOT Be Glorified

We recently wrote a post where people shared the “toxic” TV characters who shouldn’t be glorified. In these past Reddit threads by u/TourSignificant1335 and u/Itsmetuan, people called out ~movie~ characters who are also problematic, and it gets heated. Here’s what they had to say:

Note: Some responses were also from the BuzzFeed Community from this post. 

🚨 Some spoilers ahead! 🚨1.Allie from The Notebook — “Allie is just as toxic as Noah. She hit him and screamed at him violently. If he did that, people would very much call it out.” New Line Cinema / Courtesy Everett Collection2.Daniel Hillard, aka Mrs. Doubtfire, from Mrs. Doubtfire — “As memorable as Robin Williams’ performance is, if you think about the story with even an ounce of depth, his character is basically a nightmare stalker ex.”

—johnmichaelw

“That movie came out when I was little, and everyone loved it, but it’s so cringe and steeped in discomfort to me. I’ve never watched more than, like, 15-minute pieces of it. It’s just too much. I don’t know what it is; it’s so awkward.”

—shalewark

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection3.Tony Montana from Scarface — “He isn’t a hero. He betrayed everybody close to him in his life. His best friend, sister, and wife all came second to power, greed, and materialism. If anything, the ending is illustrating how meaningless his pursuit of the American Dream was because he traded or lost everything that mattered.”

“He was miserable even after he accomplished all of his goals, and he used his friends like pawns. Never even shed a tear for Angel; his life was happily traded just to get his foot in the door. I love the movie, but find it funny that anybody can see Tony Montana as admirable. He is very driven to make his American Dream a reality, but the movie is trying to illustrate that it’s what kills him and his loved ones.”

—u/CitizenPain00

Universal / Courtesy Everett Collection4.Sophie Sheridan from Mamma Mia! — “What kind of prick invites her mother’s ex-lovers to her mother’s hotel on the eve of her wedding — without telling her — to try and force a situation where her real father will be revealed?”

“Then she bails on the whole wedding anyway to go traveling around the world. If I was a wedding guest having forked out thousands to get there for a non-wedding, I’d be livid.”

—u/GreyFoxNinjaFan

Universal / Courtesy Everett Collection5.Christian Gray from Fifty Shades of Grey — “He was publicized as the ‘ultimate kinky boyfriend,’ the best of the best, but he’s just an abusive jerk.”

“I really can’t understand people who can’t see how terrible he is, and I am not talking about kink — just the abuse and the non-consensual stuff he did to her. If he wasn’t rich and beautiful, that story would be a crime one.”

—voldy

Focus Features / Courtesy Everett Collection6.Tyler Durden from Fight Club — “He’s a misogynistic, controlling, manipulative sociopath.”

—u/scaryboilednoodles

“I must have read Fight Club 20 times in high school and idolized him. Led to some bad and reckless decisions because I wanted to be like him. Now I’m 27 and understand Tyler Durden wasn’t an antihero; he was literally just selfish and power-hungry, and I cringe when I think about how I used to act.”

—Anonymous

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection7.Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite — “He’s hilarious and accurate to somebody each of us knows, but he definitely is a bad person. A loser, mostly. Living in the past, trying to make money by manipulating emotions, etc.”8.Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars — “The dark side does change you mentally in a way that the movies don’t really get into, like how in Rebels, he doesn’t even try to spare Ahsoka, despite being her master and having a great relationship. But even so, in that scene, he still hasn’t embraced the dark side yet. You can clearly see that his eyes aren’t Sith yellow like Maul’s or Sidious’s, meaning he really has no excuse for doing what he did.”

“If I remember, he actually killed the kids specifically to get closer to the dark side, so yeah…pretty messed up.”

—u/AndyAndrewAnderson

20th Century Fox / Courtesy Everett Collection9.The Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera — “As I get older, I get more and more creeped out by his character but also the fact that Christine thought of him as a father and knew him since she was a child, and he thinks of her…like that.” Warner Bros. / Courtesy Everett Collection10.Maui from Moana — “He straight-up doomed the world for selfish reasons and attempted to murder a child on several occasions.” Walt Disney Co. / Courtesy Everett Collection11.Scott Pilgrim from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World…

Universal / Courtesy Everett Collection

12….and Peter Quill from the Marvel Cinematic Universe — “Both Scott and Peter are meant to be a dissection of the typical male hero archetype. But both are written so audiences can identify with them in a negative way. To see the flaws in the mindsets of these archetypes that the media tends to be pushed as being cool. But it in fact makes them big ol’ jerks, to put it mildly. And in both of their stories, characters call them out on it.”

“In the Scott Pilgrim book, he nearly ruins all his relationships with his friends and most of them don’t want anything to do with him by the time it hits book four. Peter is constantly being called out for being a horny idiot who immaturely views the world through movies and TV shows from his childhood and feels like he just ‘deserves’ to save the world, get the girl, etc. Both of these people are challenged, called out, and grow to be better people by the end of their stories, but a lot of people tend to miss the part about them being challenged. They don’t see the problems they have as problems. And it’s so annoying when the point is so obvious that is goes over their heads.”

—u/kaject

Jessica Miglio / Marvel / Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection13.Dumbledore from Harry Potter — “He manipulated and used people, even literal children, especially poor Harry. Left him in an abusive home for the ‘greater good,’ and even after that, he didn’t tell the kid what the hell was happening in his life.”

“He knew how Snape treated the students yet never took any action because he was useful to him. I’m just still mad about it 😂.”

—u/anxiousbiscorpio

“I always hated Dumbledore. He never trusted anyone, kept information from people so no one ever knew enough, and conditioned Harry not to trust others. They probably could have had so much help from the Order had Harry been able to ask for it, but Dumbledore was like, ‘Nope, three teens are where we need to put all our eggs. Good luck…'”

—mslm90

Warner Bros / Courtesy Everett Collection14.Westley from The Princess Bride — “It just hit me the other day that Westley is a mass murderer. He posed as the Dread Pirate Roberts for years, taking over from the last one, and knowing that the pirate never left anyone alive, must have killed everyone his ship raided — until handing it over to Inigo at the end of the movie.” Courtesy Everett Collection15.Ferris Bueller from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — “He’s a slimy, manipulative liar and con artist. Probably went on to work at Enron. He is a perfect symbol of everything that went wrong with America.”

—u/mranster

“I watched that damn film every time we had a substitute teacher who didn’t have a lesson plan. I hate Ferris Bueller. Everyone excuses him but he’s awful.”

—u/Mabel_Waddles_BFF

“I think that film is another of those polarising ones. When you’re young, you love Ferris. When you’re older, you side with the sister and principal.”

—u/Onion_Heart

Paramount / Courtesy Everett CollectionAnd finally..16.Kylo Ren from Star Wars — “I can’t stand such awful abusive characters who commit atrocious crimes but it all gets brushed off because they had a ‘hard life,’ and then decided they loved a woman in the end as if that redeems them.”

“And don’t get me started on how she has to lessen herself to get to a point of ‘loving’ him.”

—u/sarahbekett

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Lucasfilm / Courtesy Everett CollectionWho are some other movie characters who shouldn’t be glorified? Let us know in the comments below!

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.