6 'Nice' Characters That Really Were Giant Dirtbags

By:
6 'Nice' Characters That Really Were Giant Dirtbags

In recent years, a lot of public figures have been called out or even gotten into legal trouble for sexual harassment or assault. This is why Woody Allen movies are as popular as heat rash and used record stores are minotaur-riddled mazes of unwanted Bill Cosby albums. But what about our major fictional characters? Why should they evade accountability? In retrospect, some of them are absolute scumbos. Think about how ...

Tony Stark Would Never Have Survived MeToo

We're all sad that Tony Stark is dead and stuck in some kind of nightmarish purgatory full of talking animals. But maybe it's for the best that this happened before any public reckoning over his past behavior. Remember how his private plane has a retractable stripper pole? Did he pay his flight attendants strip for his amusement, or did he hire strippers to be his flight crew? Is there a good answer to this question?

Paramount Pictures
Also, where the hell does that pole retract to? Planes don't have 9 feet of clearance chilling below the floor.

Of course, this was all before he became Iron Man. But even after his near-death experience, Tony has some cringey encounters with women. Like Pepper, to whom he says things a CEO should 100% never say to his assistant.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Cut the flying sci-fi suit, and this movie becomes a corporate training video on workplace harassment.

OK, but that doesn't count, because they later fall in love and get married. But then in Iron Man 2, when he meets Black Widow, who is undercover as a Stark employee, he gawks at her for an uncomfortable length of time.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures

He insists that she should be his assistant, purely because he wants to have sex with her. He literally met her a minute and a half earlier.

Paramount Pictures

Then he starts Googling lingerie photos of her while she's still in the room. Putting a cap on it, he then tells Pepper "I want one."

Paramount Pictures
Which, yeah, pretty standard billionaire thing to say, but still a bit below-board in what we're looking for in a superhero.

Of course, Tony continued to grow and mature as the films progressed, but we're sure lucky Thanos didn't ultimately win while Iron Man's dumb ass was tangled up in multiple lawsuits worthy of 24-hour TMZ coverage.

Related: 5 Horrifying Movie Characters People Idolize For Some Reason

Related: 5 Real Survival Adventures That Deserve Their Own Movies

Apparently, If It Wasn't For His Wheelchair, Professor X Would Have Hit On His Students

It turns out Professor Charles Xavier may not be the world's most trustworthy educator. Not just because he uses his school to secretly recruit minors into a radical group of militants, but also because he has a history of creeping on his students. We're all used to the Jean Grey / Wolverine / Cyclops love triangle, but in the beginning, Professor X also wanted to hook up with Jean, who he's been entrusted to instruct. When Grey first becomes Xavier's student way back in X-Men #1, he introduces her to the rest of the gang, and is weirdly cool with them ogling and even straight-up groping her.

Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Groped by anotherdoctorate-holding educator, specifically. Somebody at Marvel was none too fond of their college teachers.

In the third issue, Professor X's inner monologue reveals that he's in love with Jean, but he can "never tell her." Because he's a grown-ass man and she's a teenager? Because she's his student? Nope! He doesn't want to make a move because he's "confined" to a wheelchair.

Marvel Comics
"You know I can read minds too, right?"

Dewey From School Of Rock Should Have Gone To Jail

We all love School Of Rock, the story of how Dewey Finn (Jack Black) cons his way into teaching at a private school and introduces his students to the power of rock and roll -- and identity theft. It's since become a Nickelodeon TV show and a Broadway musical. Mind you, this is a movie about an adult who commits fraud and is left alone with a bunch of children.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
"Let's focus less on the falsified background check and more on nailing 'War Pigs.'"

If that wasn't bad enough, he secretly smuggles the kids out of school to audition for a battle of the bands. At one point he loses track of one of the kids, who is literally in the back of a stranger's van.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Of course, if they don't wind up gambling in the back of a stranger's van, how are they going to learn critical life lessons, like "Never stand on a soft 17"?

Luckily, it belongs to a band and not a murderer. And in the end, after Dewey's caught, he becomes a music teacher for real, despite all this creepy behavior. That's like if Bonnie & Clyde ended with the couple being given jobs as bank managers. Also, shouldn't he be in jail? He committed multiple crimes, right? Hell, when the police come for him, it cuts to him running down the hall.

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
At best that's resisting arrest. At worst he probably had to assault a cop in order to escape.

Almost Famous-- Stillwater Are A Bunch Of Statutory Rapists

Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's acclaimed rock n roll coming-of-age story about a love triangle between a teenager, another teenager, and a grown-ass man. Kate Hudson's groupie character, Penny Lane, is 16. Which makes all the scenes in which she hooks up with Russell Hammond, the lead singer of Stillwater, kind of extremely gross.

DreamWorks Pictures
Gross but normal by the standards of rock star behavior, that is.

Also, she's been hanging around with the band for at least a year, which means she first got together with Russell when she was 15.

DreamWorks Pictures
"That's right, Penny. Lean in and whisper what you know I love to hear ..."
"I am unfamiliar with both state and federal laws on consent."

Almost Famous is a heartwarming story about a teen boy befriending a bunch of statutory rapists. One might defend this as an accurate reflection of the kind of sordid hijinks that happened all the time in the '70s, while America was distracted by Watergate and Burt Reynolds' mustache. But consider that the real-life inspiration for Hudson's character didn't start hanging around with bands until she was 17, which was apparently a little too long in the tooth for Crowe.

Related: 5 Horrific Acts Committed By Lovable Sitcom Characters

Related: There's Going To Be A 'Saint's Row' Movie

The Oscar-Winning Musical Seven Brides For Seven Brothers Is Basically A Horror Movie

You may have never seen or heard of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, but the 1954 musical is a classic. Judging by the name, it sure sounds romantic. At the time, it was actually marketed as "MGM's Love-Making Musical" -- presumably because 1950s America wasn't ready for "MGM's Musical That Totally Fucks."

Loew's Inc.
The plot has aged about as well as its claim to having the gayest color.

But don't let the wholesome exterior fool you. These characters are deeply disturbing, twisted individuals. The story is basically The Hills Have Eyes, but with songs. The movie follows seven brothers who live in the mountains during the 1800s. During a trip into town, they meet some girls they fancy, so these smitten lads decide to ... leave, then return under cover of darkness and abduct them. Seriously, they grab these women, shove sacks over their heads, and throw them screaming onto a sleigh like some kind of human-trafficking Santa.

Then they purposefully cause an avalanche so that none of these women's families can save them.

Loew's Inc.
We keep waiting for this romantic comedy to stop sounding like something ISIS would do.

Geordi La Forge Should Have Been Fired

While the original Star Trek never delved into Scotty's crippling inability to get laid, The Next Generation often found Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge awkwardly alienating the Enterprise's female population.

Paramount Domestic Television
Aw, c'mon LeVar, please don't make us do this, man ...

Adding to Geordi's incel energy is a long-running storyline beginning in the episode "Booby Trap." With the Enterprise in peril, La Forge turns to the holodeck -- not for another cringey beachfront date, but to consult a holographic representation of the designer of the ship's engine, Dr. Leah Brahms. Geordi modifies the program and injects Brahms with a personality. And he's finally able to connect with a woman ... because he'scontrolling her. He eventually realizes it's not real, so he ends the program. But not before totally making out with Dr. Brahms.

Paramount Domestic Television
The fact that the holodeck can simulate any sexual misadventure imaginable makes this more creepy.

The next year, in the episode "Galaxy's Child," the real Dr. Brahms comes to visit. And even though she's kind of a jerk, Geordi still relentlessly hits on her, which seems unprofessional, to say the least. Geordi backs off when he finds out she's married. But then she stumbles upon his holographic facsimile of her and is understandably horrified. She basically accuses Geordi of holo-rape.

Paramount Domestic Television
Paramount Domestic Television

Naturally, Geordi apologizes and asks for forgiv- kidding, he responds by yelling at her. Despite the fact that she feels "violated" by his icky behavior, he somehow acts as though he's the real victim because she was slightly rude to him earlier.

Paramount Domestic Television
Paramount Domestic Television

He claims that the only thing he's "guilty" of is offering her "friendship."

Paramount Domestic Television
Paramount Domestic Television

They end up working together in order to save the Enterprise, and in the end, she does indeed apologize to him. Shouldn't this have culminated with Geordi being dragged into Starfleet's HR department?

Paramount Domestic Television
"Feel free to create a vacant-eyed holo-girlfriend in my image any time."

You (yes, you) should follow JM onTwitter!

For more, check out Why The Friends From Friends Are Terrible People - After Hours:


 

Follow us on Facebook. And we'll follow you everywhere.

Related: 5 Horrifying Things That Should Have Been Illegal Way Sooner

Join the Cracked Movie Club

Expand your movie and TV brain--get the weekly Cracked Movie Club newsletter!

Recommended For Your Pleasure

Forgot Password?